Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - 410: Gold Cup quarterfinal — USMNT v Canada

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

Greg, Watke, Vince and Belz recap that awkward but increasingly entertaining victory in penalties over Canada, go into detail, try to ascertain penalty strategy, discuss once again Callaghan's uncanny resemblance to a college football coach, cover lots of average or below average performances on the field from players who likely remain on the fringes of the NT. The Gold Cup is, as. Greg says, the "Matt Turner Cup." ----Please consider subscribing on Patreon. You get an exclusive episode once a week, plus access to the Discord and live call-in shows, by signing up here for as little as $2 a month: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. B.J. Callahan and the boys beat Canada last night. Thank goodness on penalties after a match that started slow and stayed that way, but then gradually built into a night of excellent entertainment. How are you all? Vince. Waki. Greg. Doing great. I'm loving the Gold Cup format that plays all these games in a way that we get to recap them on the Monday review. That is pretty sweet. That is pretty sweet.

But yeah, yeah, I'm doing, I'm doing great. I'm doing great. You know, I got, I don't think I've mentioned this on here. I got tickets, flights for the Gold Cup final. So, you know, it was a little, a little bit of squeaky bum time. Pins and needles. I mean, at the end of the day, I was going to, I'm going anyway because my best friend lives in Santa Barbara. So we were going to go down to see him, see his wife, everybody.

But, yeah, it would be able to. a lot more enjoyable of a trip if I got to see. I got to see the U.S. and a Gold Cup final also. Are you going to the semifinal on Wednesday, too? No. Or just the final. Okay. Just the final.

Just the final. Waki, how's everything? I'm just so relieved. We didn't lose to Canada. It would have been a dark day reading and listening to John Hardman quotes. The whole week would have been tough now. It's going to be a great week. It's going to be a...

Yes. It wasn't pretty. Nope. and it wasn't that much fun to watch for most of it, but we got her across the line, and it turned out to be a lot of fun to watch in the end stages. It was a great chaotic night of soccer towards the end there. So one thing we have to deal with is,

you know, how do we talk to our friends about this Gold Cup? And before we get into the timeline and the lineups and everything, Dan Elias on the Discord, he asked this, and I think it's worth reading the whole question. He said, wondering if anyone can relate to this. Have some friends who are new but still largely casual fans. I didn't tell them about this tournament. I didn't really want them to watch.

One of them texts our group, our group chat tonight. Who are these dudes? Where are Pulisic and Raina? Another one responds, yeah, these dudes suck. WTF. I tell them that they're mostly third stringers vying for first team minutes. And the response was, oh, I'm going to turn this off then. When do the good players play next?

That's fantastic. Like, now, you got to embrace the, if you're going to, if you're going to watch this, you've got to embrace like the whole lovable band of misfits fighting to save the community center angle that we have going on here. Like, you just have to, you just have to enjoy that these are, that these guys sort of are here because they want a contest and they get to represent the U.S. and try to win a trope against, against all these other teams in country. Is that a little bit harsh? Yes. But, but that's sort of the mentality I'm taken with this group. It's a tough thing to have to explain their friends and family, though. Right.

It requires a huge wind-up. You have to give them a bunch of background. They're not really going to, they have no interest in. They don't really want to take it on board. And you just start getting self-conscious as you're trying to explain it to them. Right. I avoid it. I don't know.

I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but I avoid it. I do the same. I say, you don't, no, you don't have to watch it. Yeah. Actually, don't watch it. Right. As a matter of fact, when, when bro says, oh, I'm going to turn this off then. when did the good players play next?

I'm gonna tell them when the good players play next and then we're just gonna keep it moving. We just gonna keep it moving. Because, yeah, like Waki said, it's just way too much to explain. It'd be different if you could point out the entire 11 and be like, like, if they were all prospects,

then you could kind of explain it. But when you get into Julian Gressel's story and trying to explain that backstory, it's just too much. It's just too much. You know, Bell's, You got some traction off the Pirates of the Pirate of the Caribbean thing, which is your, what was it your dad? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With your dad, which if the person is there down to watch the game with you, then, then yes. But by all means, go ahead and get into your backstory, the explanations, the lower, all of that. But if somebody's already inclined to be like, yo, where's Pooley? where's Gio? Like, I'm not watching these bombs.

Then then don't, just, just leave it alone. Leave it alone. We'll catch it. You know, that reminds me, we, I should plug our Dave Serrakin interview, which we dropped last Friday, I guess. I thought it was a really good conversation. He was, he was very open and kind. And we talked for a long time, me, Greg, and him.

But I was a little surprised he didn't bite on the, my question about the gold cup and whether we should send an A team to it. He was very... What a guy. He was very like, yeah, we should... These guys need a rest. Which surprised me a little bit. Yeah.

Because my friends are still mad that we don't have our A team at the goal club. I got a couple friends in Chattanooga who just can't understand it. And like, no matter what I say, they're like, this is ridiculous. Every other national team brings their A team when they play. I mean, Canada didn't, right? So, no, I mean, it is a lot to explain. I still think, I still want to push back and say, you guys, you got to sell it. You got to just say, have you seen the 2004 motion picture dodgeball?

Because that's what you're watching right here. You just have to. And with the way that the game ended last night, like, you could, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of those antics during that game that felt like they were written in by some actual screenwriters. Right. So, so, so that, that, that's actually a good point. That's actually a good point because, I mean, but, but that requires, like, at least, like, secondary or tertiary, like, football knowledge. You know what I'm saying?

Like, because if, if they are, like, truly casuals just get into this thing, they're not going to understand the art of the shit house. They're not even going to really understand Cockcalfe. Like, maybe they watch the Nation's League. Uh, they, they probably did, but, like, they, they don't understand the fact that, entertaining shenanigans are going to happen and probably even more so as the talent level goes down. You know what I'm saying? We're operating with a pulley system. You know, as a talent goes down, the shit house and the just pure, yeah, I was going to say BS.

But I just said shit house. So the pure bullshit is just going to rise up. And, you know, as Waki said, yesterday on Twitter, like when the assistant referee had to go off in the first minute, we, we, we, we, We should have known that a classic was on the way. It's on. It was on right at that moment. It took a while to really kick into gear. It was inevitable.

Yeah. We had a fight in the tunnel, I think, at halftime. Oh, I thought it was at the end of the game. Well, there's some debate about that. Okay, okay. Well, if it's at halftime, that makes it even better. Shoving and stuff at the end of the first half, so it would make sense for it to carry over. Right. Yeah, they definitely had the thing on the field.

Let's do the lineups. Matt Turner and Goal, American Hero, Brian Reynolds, Miles Robinson, Jalen Neal, and Dewan Jones across the back line. Can't say I disagreed with any of that. Sands at the 6, Bousseo and Mihailovich were the 8th, and then Sendejas, Ferrera, and Gressel across the front line. It was actually Sendejas on the left side and Gressel. on the right side.

Gressel? Anybody surprised that he started the game? I talked about it in our last recap, right? Like, may as well just start Gressel. He'll, he's not going to give you a lot, but he, I feel like he gives you the one thing that he gives you. And he had a couple of, had a couple of those moments where he served a ball up to guys

in dangerous spots, and you're like, that's why he's in there. Yeah. Yeah. I'm for it. Okay. So I was mostly entertained just by watching Julie. and gressel press um well like watching julia gressel on an all-out sprint is uh must see tv like which is another thing you know it's just it's these it's these details in between the in between

the lines you know i'm saying that that the casuals just can't can't quite tease out can't quite tease out um that that you know provide the entertainment but yeah watching julian gressor run you you enjoyed watching him press i enjoyed watching him receive the ball in the pocket and then not be able to do anything with it. Yeah. Like three, four times. Just couldn't turn around fast enough with the ball. Yeah, like I was watching, well, on Twitter, I think it was Rob Eusory that said, like,

that he would enjoy watching Julian Gressel, like, serve up balls or like Tim Way of West, Weston, Balo Pully, whatever, whatever, Gio. And I don't know, like, I would, like, I guess he would have to do it from like the assistant referee spot. Like a like a like a like a You can just be like the designated Uh Crosser like like like all time all time QB or something

Playing backyard football like just just have it anytime you need to cross Just throw your hand up I've been passing out to Julian now He's gonna serve a ball into the box But but yeah that's the only way I can see that happen For sure There are definitely bad training exercises where you do that Or you have like the crossers free in the lane

If you can get the ball out to the crosser they're unopposed and they just get to, everyone like, you get it out to them and everyone then just sort of jogs towards the goal and that crosser just gets to whip it in. Those exercises were very popular when I was a child. Oh yeah, I did that so many times.

I did that pretty much every practice. No, I didn't actually, but it's one of the main ones I remember. I just remember being so, me and my teammates being so bad at it too. Like unopposed crosses into like undefended attackers in the box and I don't know,

we scored maybe like once a practice on those. I love that that was everyone's experience and yet it still didn't register to so many of us that like crossing is just a really bad way to try to score goals. Even if there's no defense, you can't score our goals on these. It's so much less when the box is full of defenders.

There were 42 crosses. 42 crosses served up yesterday. By us or by both teams? No, no, by the United States alone, Canada had 15. There's 42 from us, which, yeah, along with the Greg point, which, you know, Greg, you've been hammering this home for, I mean, a long time now. But, but I guess I'm just wondering when, like, the full tactical, like, revolution is just going to hit the streets. And everybody's, like, you know, crossing is absolutely dead now. It's just dead.

It hasn't happened yet. And it may just never happen. It may just never happen because it's just hard to get the ball in the buck sometimes. I've been seeing that number, the 42 crosses and like, does this make sense with Jesus Ferrer as your striker? But like watching the game in real time, it didn't stand out to me the way it has in other U.S. games, even with the full strength team. Like, it didn't seem like it was like, okay, we've worked it up here. We've hit kind of, we've run out of ideas. DeAndre Edlin's just going to hoof the ball in.

Like, it didn't feel like that in real time. So I was going through at least what Y Scout counts as crosses and they had 29 of them and they didn't have, they don't have the set pieces. a lot of times they'll separate those out. So we took a lot of set pieces that counted as those 42 crosses, I think on, I mean, you're talking about like the ESPN stat, right? Or whatever it was on.

Yes, yes. The graphic. So, uh, the run of play crosses that Y Scout had were not, we're not of that variety of like, we're out of ideas.

We're just going to hit it, loop it into the box. It was a lot of like low crosses because those count as well. So it was a lot of like, feeding guys in with decent combination. Like I was not as down. on the gameplay as I feel like a lot of other people were. But it was a lot of like low crosses,

sort of balls that you're trying to hit through a window into a specific player. You know, there are definitely some that were just kind of looped in, but it didn't, it wasn't like aimless crossing in my estimation of what, of what we were kind of doing once we got to the attack. There are tons of set pieces where we were just, especially at the end, the last 40 minutes of the, you know,

the extra time plus the regulation, where we had Nyazga, Long, Vaska, Jordan Morris. That was where we were like, okay, let's just get into the big boys, which makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I thought, like, Busio himself had maybe four or five crosses that were fizzed across the six from a deep area, which is a little bit of a different category of cross. Canada, Dane St. Clair in Goal, Kamal Miller, Stephen Victoria, and Zach McGraw, McGraw across the backline.

Richie Lurea and Liam Miller. Is it Miller or Millar? I think it's Miller. Miller. Yeah, let's say Miller. As the wingbacks, Ali Ahmed, Jonathan Osorio, Moise Bambido in the midfield, and then Junior Hoyette and Lucas Cavalini, sort of competent journeyman up front for Canada. Yo, well, well, I was going to talk about Zach McGrath, but since she just called

Cavalini, a competent journeyman. Like, I thought that he was, like, a serious player when he scored on us to bury us. What was that? In Canada? The game that, you know, Greg excoriated. The other Greg Burhalter. The other Greg. But he's a bum.

I just want to throw that out there. And also, they mentioned this on the broadcast. Zach McGraw, West Point graduate. West Point graduate. A troop. A troop. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they talked about it. So this, you know, it's a popular thing on Twitter to be like a good.

So go ahead and watch, turn Fox off and turn on 2DNA, which was shout out to McKelley. You know what I'm saying? I definitely want to. They do great work over there, but I can't understand Spanish. I'm sorry, y'all. I can't understand Spanish. And this broadcast actually had a couple good nuggets that, that I'm happy I heard. because I just wouldn't know him otherwise.

But yeah, they talked about how, like, how when they tried to talk to Zach about playing against the U.S., he just, like, kind of shut it down. Like, he couldn't even. He didn't want to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It just seemed like, I don't know. He was, like, like, he loves both countries equally, I guess. And maybe he is feeling like some sort of Benedict Arnold. Or switching sides here, but, you know, it is what it is. They played an early version of soccer at West Point in like the 1860s, 50s time frame. Okay. Is that right?

I'm waiting for any chance to share that fact. It finally arrived. Dane St. Clair sounds like a made-up Canadian name. Yeah. It does. I guess he's an okay keeper, but he's, man, he is a nightmare with the ball at his feet. Yeah, he made some decent sales. made some decent saves though

but also was key recruiter and getting Zach McGraw to Canada. They said they went out to dinner. Dane, Zach, and Eric Williamson all went out to dinner together after Minnesota played Portland and yeah.

The rest is his job. Did your ears perk up a little bit when you heard that Eric Williamson was there? Like what's he doing at this recruitment dinner? Him and Dane St. Clair were teammates at And he and McGraw are teammates in Portland. Yeah, yeah. I got it.

Well, yeah, it's interesting that the most American guy on the field was playing for Canada. West Point grad. Should we do the timeline? Yeah, I think we should. The good acapella singing from the crowd in Cincinnati on the national anthem. I don't know if you guys noticed that, but it's, I think, a level above most venues. And as we mentioned earlier in the first minute, the ref takes a shot to the head on a very eager Kamal Miller clearance, point blank, to the nose maybe. And then we had eight and a half minutes of stoppage.

It did not actually hit him in the face. He got his hand up completely. He blocked it, and then one of his fingers, I think actually maybe his thumb cut his face. Thus the bleeding. On the slow-mo replay of one of the angles, I think it's pretty clear. That's what happened. In the end, I don't know how much we need to break it down. It was neat to see them, everybody do problem solving after that.

Medical people out there, referees, Conca Cat's officials, all just doing their job and it was cool to see that. It was a pretty boring start to the game, though. It seemed to have affected the rhythm. you wonder how much AV experience those referees have to have, like how much training to get those mics and headpieces sort of out? Because I feel like the head referee had to sort of rig it up. He was really kind of leading the way. At one point he had a shirt and there must be something in his shirt

and he's just banging it with his hand. He's putting a patch on to make sure that everyone knows that whoever they get to take the sideline over there is, in fact, a licensed referee. This isn't your youth league where it's just like, You just got to grab somebody who's there to raise the flag. Like, we got to, he's a real ref, everyone. The badge is right here.

Yeah. And I, with everything they had to do, eight minutes isn't a terrible time. It isn't the worst. Maybe he just a little bit, but it wasn't. It wasn't the worst. I mean, if you, if you want to blame somebody, you can blame the, you can blame the assistant ref for kind of milk it in a bit, you know, if you really want to. If you really want to sign blame on the delay, you know what I'm saying?

he was getting his money's worth out of that is his 15 seconds of fame or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. A lot of worried, very serious looks. Yeah. People on telephones.

They did a check-in, like, sometime during the match to the sideline reporter or something, and she's just like, I'm happy to report that their assistant referee is doing great. Yeah. We know. It's like, right. It's good to go. Honestly, we weren't even worried about it. Right.

So, so, yeah, we, we, we got, we got some O'Shea Nation time a little bit before they, I actually brought in like another ref who wasn't the, who, but be, so because O'Shea Nation famously, if you watch Concord Calf matches, which if you're here, you definitely do. You know, he's a center ref. He's the goat. I was really excited to see him. I think so. I'm always happy to see L.SHA Nation.

I'm always happy to see O'Shea Nation. What's his home country? Jamaica. Okay. So they brought him in to deputize as the as the sideline officials. That was going on? Yeah.

He was the fourth official. They had him rotate for a time into the assistant referee. And then there were some questions from Mark Plattenberg, whether he was going to be up to assistant refer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was just going to say that. Clatenberg was way out of his depth there. I'm like, do you not know who O'Shea Nation is? Bro, you know what I'm saying? You think he's not going to be ready to be the sideline ref? That was crazy. It was crazy. But, but, but, so I guess they pulled in, they, they pulled O'Shea,

O'Shea, and somebody else in. Like, apparently the man who did the Jamaican, uh, Guatemalan gave. and so shout out to him for pulling double duty you know I'm saying up and down that touchline patrolling it like a like a young Julian Gressel yeah you'd mean better take care of him because he had to do the second game and then obviously extra time so

I'm assuming they've got good representation so buddy boy who cut his finger cut his own face with his finger he never came back no no he should be in line for some he should be in line for some workers comp that's why on the satellite report I was like he's doing great I was like well can he come back and

can he come back and can he come back and refra? What's going? Yeah. You're just out. I'm at well with myself. Nobody wants to work anymore. Nobody wants to work.

Yeah, man. We've spent longer talking about the delay than the actual delay was, I think, at this point. So I'm at war with myself a little bit on how much of this timeline to actually timeline. But, you know, it's sloppy. It's choppy.

Especially early on, not many ideas for progression of the ball. At least the usual avenues, which was J. Linneal, passing it into the center circle, seemed closed. Any thoughts from you guys? I think that tracks was what I saw. there wasn't a lot of like great combination, not a lot of great choreography in our movement. And just not a lot of like high pressure either from Canada.

So it kind of sets up for that slog of a game where we can sort of pass it around our back. Canada were doing nothing when they had to ball like all game really until until Shackleton came in. Shackleton. So it was, I don't know. I'm not going to learn Canada's names. I refuse to. So it was, it was, it was slow, right? I think, I think you guys, Waki mentioned that,

especially the early part of the game, it was slow going. And everybody, I think everybody comes in for a criticism on the sloppiness part. I mean, Jones kicked it out of bounds a few times. Oosio had plenty of whoopsies. Georgie had some bad giveaways. We'll get into what Jalen Neal's night was like, but lots of giveaways from him throughout the night. I would say the 18th minute is the first kind of interesting moment.

We get the full Bousseo experience, a couple of sloppy sequences, interspersed with some good stuff, and then he wins it back, plays it out to Gressel wide, and then Gressel makes a really good choice to cut it back to him at the top of the box. Buccio takes it first time and drags it way wide of the post. But that's like I think our best chance of the first 20, 30 minutes. he did a nice aggressive carry of the ball to lead into that pass yeah that's right yeah he was uh

he so he was so he was handling business a little bit in midfield uh john luka was as far as you know pitch control and all these all these things we uh we kind of ding him for he was he was he was okay he was okay but yeah i thought i thought he did a lot better at that stuff than i've ever seen him do for the U.S. Yeah, that's probably, that's probably true. You called him Boudio on Twitter. I sure did. I sure did.

I mean, so I guess we can get it to it now, but, but, you know, a, uh, uh, uh, good, uh, so having a good slander name, never hurt anybody. Never hurt anybody. You know what I'm saying? It's part of the beautiful game. It's part of a beautiful game in it. But, uh, yeah, like my main frustration, uh, with him and Georgie, we just need some,

we need some forward drive here. We need some forward drive. We didn't do enough things to affect Canada's shape. I guess that's my main point. We didn't bypass anybody like really with progression with the past, didn't bypass anybody on the carry for the most part. And, you know, like I think Sanjeev on Twitter just called it like a, called this game like a stalemate.

And really through like 45 minutes, there was really no way to dispute that. Like yeah, we had the ball. But like it was very like Canada was very comfy without the ball. We weren't doing too much to threaten them. And for me, like, yes, I put most of it on the 8th, but also, you know, we had Mr. Zendayaas, Zendayaas. Like, I don't really know how to actually say it. It looks a lot funnier when it's spelled out.

You just put ass at the end of Zendahas. But he was trash. And, like, for me, like, I guess it's just a collection of players when it's like, you got Julian Gressel, John Lucubuccio, Georgie Mahalovich, Alex Andehaehaehaehy. and Jesus Ferreira. It's, it's, it, that, that seems to me to be a recipe for your defense, like, for, for, for the opposing defense to be mighty comfy against you. Um, and, and, and finding no way, like, like, there were no AVPs, not, not many.

And if there, and if there was one or something like, like John Luca coming through with, with some grass in front of him with the ball, he's getting hogged down. Um, yeah. That's, that's, that's my main thoughts. Yeah. Y'all can. You all can push back or whatever you want to do. I'm wondering if it couldn't make sense to have if a slander name is better in writing

and when speaking, if you could have two separate ones. But we'd have to come up with a different one. Yeah, right, right. I think you've pretty much described what the team is, and that's a group of players who are scratching and clawing just to be maybe good enough to be role players on the team. Certainly in what the 11 was. maybe we get a little bit more higher ceilings with some of the guys that came on, or at least one of the guys who came on later.

But yeah, that's exactly what it is. These guys are scratching clawing just to maybe be a guy who can come in at the end of a full-strength team game and not screw up. So then when you put 11 of them out there together, that's very much what you see. And I'll be honest again, there were a couple of moments here and there. I was like, oh, that was nice. That was a nice little, nice little sequence between those four players. but even then it was usually not nice enough that it was going to fully spring something.

Right, right. Yeah, I think... Oh, so go ahead. No, you go ahead. No, you go ahead. No, no, you, please. Well, here's the problem. I was kind of stuck on the slander name thing.

We were kind of talking about talking about talking. No, let's go back to the slander name thing. I think Zendaya ass works fine. Zendaya ass. Okay. Like, I was trying to get that J in there. I was trying to get the J in there. The trouble is I'm not actually pronouncing the full name right, which is kind of disrespectful.

I don't want to get that right. Okay. It's a slander name, certainly. But that's what I mean. Fair enough. Nobody was, nobody was, nobody was like comically, whereas Zenday ass would be, I feel like, more appropriate would be like, as if he was just an absolute comedy of errors, like over and over and over. And it's, it's like, it just, nobody was really that. Everyone was sort of just like, okay, that was, that was okay.

we string along a bunch of things that are like okay and then and then nothing comes of it which is sort of what you expect when you're playing another opponent that is baseline competent we got a little bit spoiled when we played those other group stage games we're like we are untouchable but then you add you throw in you know actual pros and it's like we are not untouchable

we are bang average super touchable and somehow somehow you can even like multiply the averageness like the averageness amplifies to be even greater average. Yeah. That's a real math thing. That's real math.

I felt like the wing, I mean, you're blaming the eights, at least to some extent, Vince. I feel like the wingers were pretty bad. I know, I know Gressel, like, bad in the sense that they just, they handcuffed us. We couldn't do anything because we couldn't, they couldn't beat anybody. I know Gressel had that cut back to Buccio, you know, and there were a couple of, couple other nice things that Gressel did in addition to his set pieces, but in the run of play, you know, we got almost no dynamism from wide. And Reynolds was, Reynolds was oddly quiet in the attack, like almost completely invisible. And Duane Jones was, he was a little better than Reynolds

in the attack, but not, not that good. So, I mean, I thought DeWan Jones is much better than Brian Reynolds I mean he did have that gorgeous assist on what should have been the game winner there at the end But um Well Reynolds was a little bit set up was off a little bit in his setup Because when you put Gressel out there then it becomes Less of a straightforward role for Reynolds

Where before he would just sort of get around the outside of Zendahas usually And that's that's what I think Reynolds is suited for And with Gressel there they were like taking turns So sometimes Reynolds would be up in like the half space playing interior and I don't know that that's necessarily his game.

He still at times I thought like looked promising there because again in these weak weaker opponent games and Canada while being professionals

are still like this is the weaker version of them they're not elite sometimes like just the better soccer players will carry the day they just look

you're just like oh that guy's a good soccer player so you can kind of play wherever he gets it he'll just sort of be fine and I thought

there were times Reynolds even in that interior spot looked threatening. So, I don't know, it was, it was, again, I feel like if for almost every player, if you were to do their all actions, all touches comp, that you'd end up being like, oh, they weren't as bad as I thought. It's just, it's just like watching it all happen at once, where you watch everybody

being super average. Like, it builds in your mind and that you end up being really frustrated by it. Yeah, yeah. And, and like, for me, like, it's always, you're watching this, you're watching this tournament with the eye towards the A team, right? And so, you know, you're looking for the Greg Velasquez cheat code. Like, as you just said, really. And it's just, yeah, that, like, that's kind of the scale,

the scale I'm graded on. So while somebody may or may not have been good, or, yeah, good in this match is just like, need more, man, need more, baby. I mean, like, do you want to break into the A team or not? It's... Nobody wanted to. from this roster, from this team, I didn't think.

Yeah, we gotta wait. We gotta wait. There are a few. Yeah, yeah, we'll get to the timeline. There'll be some moments. I'm gonna just mark a really good coming out to punch it from Turner and a good punch at the 23-minute mark. I don't know that we see him do that too often, so that was good.

Can I jump on some Turner stuff here? Yeah. Because while we look really unambunate, ambitious most places on the field. Matt Turner was kind of having a fun time back there with the ball at his feet. Did anyone else kind of pick up on that? Yeah, yeah, he was dealing. I was just kind of watching, like, I'm rewatching the game a little bit out of the side of my eye.

And, like, so I guess the best way to say it is that, you know, like when he does these things, it doesn't stick out anymore. Like, it's become commonplace. Like, ever since he made that carry at the end of England, at the end of England match, I'm like, all right, all right, man. This guy, like, he can do it. He can do it with his feet. And, yeah, as I'm watching again for a third time, it's just, yeah, like, the, it's just simple stuff.

Well, well, actually, after watching Zach Seffin, he doesn't make it look as simple. But Matt is making it, like, he's smashing the ball out to DeWan Jones, just like easy, like on the money. And he was, they were like unnecessary. I mean, they were good. They were better than just playing a simple one out to a centerback. But it's not like the centerback was taken away, so he had to go over to DeWan Jones. It was like, oh, I could hit this ball to Jaylon Neal or I could show everyone that I can fizz it out to DeWan Jones on a dime. And even though, like, people had talked about how Turner's distribution had improved, like, the day he got to Arsenal or, you know, the first window after that.

Like, I don't really think it showed up on the tape that much. But this was just like, clearly he has spent a lot of time now on some of those techniques to hit those balls out to the fullbacks at the, in line. Those was like medium distance, uh, hits. So that was, that was fun again. He didn't even have to when he was just doing it to like show that he could. Right. It's a really big deal.

It's a huge deal. It's a huge deal. Because Zach's stuff I could never quite get it. Like, like, we're talking about that pass specifically out to the, out to the flanks, man, to the right back, left back. I mean, even though we had that one, uh, Costa Rica that sprung the goal that was kind of, that was kind of a hag job, but was saved, uh, by. Jedi.

got who it was. It was Jeddah? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just something Zach never really. Never really had. This is the type of fun nuance that's difficult to explain to friends and family.

So like, other than that, it hasn't been great television so far. Yeah. 25 minute mark, there's a penalty shout for, well, before this, Jaylon Neil had passed it of bounds trying to play it back to Turner. And then the Neal, you know, the indictment against Neal, it's not an indictment, but the dossier against Neal, I guess you'd say, is growing because he has a penalty shout at the 25-minute mark. He does clip Richie La Rea in the box.

I think a more trigger-happy ref could have called a penalty on that easily. And so that's not good. We get a good corner routine in the 27th. minute, Gressel hits it, and I think it's, um, wait, who flicked it on for Ferreira? Does anybody remember? Somebody did. Maybe Mihailovich. And Ferreira tries a left-footed shot. It's actually a really good chance. He takes a touch with his left foot, and he hits it well into the side of the goal that is not covered by Dan St. Clair, but Jonathan Osorio blocks it. And it was, I don't know that I need to say again, but it was very nearly a goal.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a good scrum defense by Canada. Like, they had a lot of bodies diving into that scrum. We got a bad Ferreira giveaway in the 28th minute. I guess the Pirates of the Caribbean thesis is remains unchallenged. Although there was more likely to be a Canadian ship in the Caribbean. The Pirates attack.

I don't know. That's probably not true. I don't. That wasn't even a country. No, it wasn't. But yeah. Your point is well taken. One of returning in Nova Scotia, there's certainly some down there.

Yeah. No, I mean, I don't know why I'm fighting on this. Everyone loves the nickname. We do, in the 30th minute, we get our first, at least from what I could tell, our first sort of progression through the middle of the field, Sanzi Mikhailovich, work it through the center circle. And we win a foul on the right side. Good set piece.

Just punched away by Dan Sinclair. You guys stop me if you want to, please. 33rd minute. Good from Mihailovic and Jones to get into the Man City zone on the left side and Jones gets tackled out for a corner. So, you know, like you were saying, Greg, nobody was that good, nobody was that bad. I think Mahalovich wasn't that good,

but he had some good moments here and there. You know, so. Go ahead. No, not great. You got it. No, I was just going to say that's what everyone's comp is going to show you, is that they, they're like, oh, that was actually kind of cute. That was neat.

And then, and then it'll be a lot of other touches that are, uh, nothing touches or, or, again, everyone also had a couple of sloppy giveaways. Yeah. So, so this, this particular sequence was part of, what's part of my thinking of DeWan Jones being pretty good? Because I feel like the touch he made to get him to the end line there, while he's running at full speed to be able to get, to get his feet right. to make sure that he doesn't

just completely bang that thing out for a goal kick was quite nice, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, he and he and Mihailovich combined a few times, I thought, to some effect. Let's see. Should we skip to the second half now? Well, I have a, yes, I have a

critique of the World Feed game director at the end of the half. We hardly got to see any of the shoving fight that Stu and John were getting very excited about. And they were just so on autopilot and getting out of the half. We were stuck on a slow-mo close-up, and then we didn't get to see it really develop. And there was the second phase we didn't of it, we didn't get either. Apparently they fought in the tunnel or something.

Yeah, there was some kind of scrap down there. Yeah. I don't know. So is it a half time or was it at full-time? The tunnel scrap. I thought it was half time. But I could be wrong. Maybe it was full time between full time and in extra time.

But do they even leave the pitch after? No, that's a good point. You wouldn't be in the tunnel. There's no way to really confirm where this happened. Okay. Yeah. And then one other thing we do need to talk about in the first half was the Miles Robinson's first handling of the ball. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Hold on. So I thought that was in the first half, too, but it's on the timeline here at 50, 50 minutes. Is that because it's 50 minutes, but it's in the first half? Right, Greg. Read the full timeline, buddy. All right. You're going to mark this, are you?

You're going to leave this. Well, that's when Bells was going to jump to the second half, I was like, that was a pretty big deal. We should talk about that one. Yeah, no, it was in the, because we got 10 minutes. We got 10 minutes of stoppage time because of the, because of the, grievous injury to the assistant referee. Yeah, let's talk about Miles handling it. Where is that?

What was the minute on that? 50th minute of the first half. Okay. Yeah. He gets kind of, I mean, Miles gets kind of shoved a little bit or at least boxed out in towards the ball, but he lifts his left arm up in a kind of an awkward. It kind of looks awkward. I don't know. Is it even awkward the way his arm moved?

Bro. Yes. So there is a screenshot. So there is a screenshot of his arm straight out in the ball, in the ball hit in the arm. Like the arm couldn't be more out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it looked like he was like trying to like wave it in front of the guy to distract him.

But really, I mean, I think it was just an instinct to, again, do whatever. Since he couldn't get there with his head, he knew he was like blocked off from that. It was like, what appendage. can I get to the ball and he chose his arm. And again, we saw John O'Brien do this way back in 2002. Should ask Dave about that one. Against Mexico and the knockouts where he just has to put an arm out to try to do whatever he can.

But, you know, when you're doing that in 2002, when they don't even have high-definition cameras and there's no VAR, okay, there's a risk you're taking there. Miles here, you know, knowing what cameras are capable of, this is probably ill-advised. Yeah, Clattenberg thought it was a penalty. Holden thought it was a penalty. And then it was called not a penalty because somebody pushed Busio a few yards away. Yeah, it was an unusual decision by the referee, I think.

It's a weasily. It's a very weasily decision, right? You can weasel out of giving the penalty by finding any contact. Like, you can call holding on any play on a corner kick. So like, oh, what if we just call this instead? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not enough of a handball that you should be.

looking really to any way to give it and he kind of did the opposite, which I'm relieved by. I mean, Herdman will say, Herdman will have some, I want, did Herdman have any comments on it? Or was it so, so many things happened between then and the end of the game that maybe it wasn't top of mind for? My guess is that's the case. I don't know though. I have not. I plan to do a full review of everything John Hurdman said today. We just haven't had time yet. We should also mention that the near own goal we score. a couple minutes before this. Oh, man, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, the Brian Reynolds. Yeah. Neil slips in the 49th minute, gets eliminated up our left side. Hoylett in just acres of space, fires the ball across. It's a three-on-one at this point. Yeah. Three Canadian attackers versus Reynolds.

And I'd say Hoylet kind of squanders the situation a little bit just by firing it across, kind of to nobody. But Reynolds does get his foot in to stop it and touches it just over the goal. running back at his goal mouth. I mean, very nearly an own goal. He reacted as if he had scored an own goal. Yep. There you go.

I don't want to pile on Neil here, but he slipped as a result of kind of lunging out for the ball and whiffing at it. And then they were on through. Yeah. It's definitely one where you could put the name Aaron Long on the jersey, and this would be the only event that would be talked about from the first.

But instead it's just like, oh, yeah, then there was also this. Yeah. Yeah. Greg, I guess I would ask you about the technique here when you're trying to clear this type of ball. Talk about Reynolds or Neil? Reynolds. Reynolds. Okay.

I think the technique was essentially dictated by the ferocity of the cross, right? Like, it's not like you could get your feet and plant this one where you want it so you can clear it with the correct foot. Like the ball was going to hit him wherever his stride was. And so he just has to shape his foot as best he can. And it looked like he was trying to go like outside of the foot. Do I have that right? It looked like that to me, yeah. And again, he has to make a play on it because there's a Canadian right behind him for a tap-in if he doesn't.

So he's just handcuffed and you just have to put your foot on it and then cross your fingers that you're good enough with your technique that you can get it right and that there's enough space for that ball to get over the... I mean, a little bit cleaner technique. Maybe you could put it back out towards the crosser. But I'm not really faulting Reynolds too much here. Like he's in a tough spot. He's got to make a play on a ball that's coming super hot.

And you just, you never know where it's going to, you kind of don't know where it's going to end up. Okay. Sometimes. I mean, the better the player, the more likely it's not going to go directly into your goal. But, yeah. Two things. Neil, you know, Neil had a rough game. But he is 19.

He's only 19 and he's playing centerback. I think all of these things are correctable. mistakes. I still think out of this whole roster, he's as likely as anybody to be a long-term national team contributor still. I agree. Like I agree flat out. And he had, I mean, we didn't go through on the timeline, but he had some real nice

entry passes into the amoeba, which is what you're hoping to get out of a guy if you're going to play him over an Aaron Long where you're not going to get any of those. But it just speaks to that whole calculation that a, manager might take of like, I want to win the game. And so if you put Jalen Neal in there and he has three or four whoopsies that are like the only chances of Canada gets, they aren't because Miles Robinson had his own share of whoopsies. I mean, that's just, you can sort of see what the math is. Is Jalen Neal's potential to make an impact down the road combined with his current ability

worth whatever the risks are to starting somebody else? Right. I want my, I want Neil just keep starting. me too and i would i will say you know even duan jones had some you know trying to build up he would he got some of his passes picked off his foot and they're going the other way a better team punishes that but neels were the neels were by far the worst i would say whoopsies the other thing is i was what i want to say is ferrera we were playing the ball to ferrera in the air a fair amount and we did get some we did get some revenue out of that like he would lay it off for somebody and then we

get going. I mean, we couldn't do much once we got going, but it was a nice way to break lines that was a little different than what we'd been doing in previous games. And it seemed to work all right. I noticed that too, and it was, uh, Ferrer was doing like a really specific thing. It seemed to me where, um, he wouldn't even always go up and like really challenge because he's a tiny person. Um, but he was doing a decent job of just like being like, all right, well, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to like knock full speed into the guy's chest, uh, with my shoulder because I'm so much shorter. Like I'll hit his belly button with my shoulder. and then he would basically just disrupt the header so it would be this soft

instead of like jumping up half-heartedly while the guy you know while the defender can get a full power header 30 yards back up field he would just smash into him a little bit and and then we would just try to clean up the second ball so you know if you're gonna have fairer up there yeah some BJ ball man some physicality in there you know what I'm saying yeah see you got to make the other team feel you should we should we talk about that now should I play the Callahan clip? Oh, no, no, no. No.

Okay. Got to save that, baby. That's for the end. Man, we're going through this timeline. Everyone just wants us to get to that moment in the shootout. Yeah, let's get cooking here. So the half comes, like you said, Waki, anything more to say about the fight? Do we know what the point of it was?

I'm sorry, I interrupted you, so I didn't hear what the question was. Do you know why we were fighting? Oh. Yeah. Leraa. I mean, it's because Canada are a bunch of babies is what it is. Like, we saw it be Canada doing this. They've chosen to decide to be like the babies of the region.

And they're just going to be babies about everything. Yeah, they're big babies. They're big babies. It started with the Fallon, uh, Zentejas. The, uh, wave of shoving. But we didn't get to see much going on in between. Okay. Anything else on that, though?

So the half comes, we make no changes. What would you see? Yeah. So I'm wondering if Canada came out three minutes after us, they mentioned on the broadcast. And I'm wondering if this is because we're getting there out early in a mentality thing or Canada is trying to, because this happened, I think it gets Mexico too.

But the more I thought about it, it might be connected to the BJ mentality. which we'll get to in the penalties. He wants to get out there first. He wants the other team to see you right when they come out of the tunnel. That is what you think it is? Maybe, but I've always been of the mind. You don't want to be standing out there.

No, no. But this is our home field. This is our home field. As BJ talks about, which once again, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. But you know. Okay. He wants to.

he wants to make sure that we're properly postured. Yeah, posture's huge. He wants Canada to come out and see all 11 of our men on the field in their Superman poses. Like, you know, from a steep, like, camera angle looking up at him, which is, I think, is how Canada would experience it. I'm sold on this. Like a little bit of smoke behind him. The lights are kind of dim. Just a real quick on the first half, again, I know since it's zero-zero, and our players aren't very good, there is a lot of consternation in real time as you're watching it.

I still felt like in the first half, we were the team most likely to create our own goal. And that if we conceded, it wasn't going to be because Canada created it. It was going to just be because we had a really bad whoopsie. And I don't know how you fix the whoopsies, right? You can't just be like, well, we'll just not do those. But as far as like the tactics and stuff, I was like, all right, well, this is, I think, I think we're okay to keep running this for another 25 or 30 and see if we can get something. And if not, see what happens as people start to get tired, Canada especially.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know That might be a little defeatist Go ahead So, so I'm So like watching the game I definitely thought That we looked more likely

Yes But, you know Was that I think it was gonna be That we were likely to score With what we were doing And how We were unable to mostly affect Canada's defensive shape

I was just like I don't know Like I don't know Like, I was so happy when K. Cow came on. Like, I've never been so excited to see K. Cal. But as soon as, you know, he started getting in, he started running flat patterns and all that. Like, it was, I was throwing both arms in the air. It was great to see.

But, yeah. We get a decent chance in the 50th minute, another Ferreira. This time Ferreira gets his head on a long ball and flicks it behind him. Alejandro Sende. runs onto it, squares up, leads Gressel. Gressel tries to fire it across, I mean, does fire it across. It pings around, but it falls to Dane-Zan-Clair. And there were some people taking, I'm talking about Sendehas's mist.

Go ahead, go ahead. No, not, not, not, not, not, not-bell's fit. So finish your thought because I think you're going where I'm going. Well, people saying Zendahas missed Georgie run in there somewhere, and I didn't see that. Did you guys? There was a run. I think he missed it It does involve some angles though

So I'm not completely confident Yeah yeah A very good player definitely would have found him I would say I mean a very good player would have attempted it But I think McGraw is right there in a position To intercept that

Because it's a long pass That he's going to have to make And it's going to have to be Like He's not really going to be able to cut McGraw out like across his face with the ball there, I don't think. Yeah, you would be planning. You almost have to go to his left and rifle it through.

It would be a very good pass. Yeah, yeah. If someone had done it. Yeah. Okay. Like a highlight pass. And timing-wise, it's on Zendayaas's right foot when you'd have to hit it. So he has to shift it because it's in Dejas.

He'd have to shift it over to his left foot. And at that point, I think the window's closed. Yeah. I think there's definitely a path there to clip that ball over. And I think that'd be like the right play. I mean, it's still going to be low percentage, but it's the right low percentage play to give you a chance at a very high percentage goal. But yes, with his right foot, it's like a zero percentage.

And so for me, my issue with that sequence is just like, it's just another instance to me where it's like, Alex, you don't, you don't collected the ball. you're looking and and I feel like if you're not going to play the pass then then then just go at somebody man just go at somebody with a little with a little aggression

make him commit do something man like I don't know he receives the ball turns around and kind of chills and waits for Julian to get there which is cool which is cool but that's like the default attacking action

like that's something we can get like easily I don't know, just see if you can do somebody or something. Right. It's sort of the role player, right? It's like he's waiting for someone else to do something instead of, like, I'll just, I'll just wait for somebody else and I'll get it to them. And it's like, no, at some point, you got to be the, for all of you guys out here,

you've got to try to be the one who does something. And so we'll get into it when Vince's hero comes out of the field. That man. Got to be a thermometer, man. Exactly. Exactly. I clocked a good Jalen Neal pass into the into the Miba in the 56th minute, which releases in San Daz in the pocket. He gets fouled as he dribbles, which, you know, at this point, probably the best to hope for in that scenario.

So I just want to mention that we missed a Miles Robinson pass into the Amoeba. That was very nice. It was in the first half. It skipped like both lines. And I think it caught. I think it was Julian Grissel. I got it. But, you know, like every once in a while, my mom.

just pops up with one of these. He does. Let's see. We get a good combination from Mihailovich, Gressel and Bousio across the top of the box, and Bousseo tries to

want two with Gressel. And gets fouled kind of cynically by Kamal Miller as he's about to get it back in the box. The yellow card for Miller, Bousio hits the wall with the free kick,

probably curving wide of the post anyway. Another bad Neil giveaway. And then K.Cal comes on. were you throwing your hands in the air? Why were you so happy, Vince? Just what we talked about. Just having somebody that's going to take some responsibility. Like, I don't even know if it's Cade consciously taking responsibility or if it's just Cade being Cade, but, you know, whether it's like youthful exuberance, ignorance, whatever.

It's like, I knew that Cade was going to come in this match and he was going to run at somebody. And actually, matter of fact, so I put this in the notes. at the 60 at the at the at the at the 64 oh nine minute mark in the match they they noted that um that that that the combined xg in this match was point 26 wow point 26 over over 64 minutes of of playing time and he and did that count did that count reynolds's shot on turner's goal in the first half because that was high no probably would have been 0.75 at that point. But we're talking about combined. And at that point, I think Canada had had one shot, which is probably pretty speculative.

So if we're talking like 0.26, maybe Canada had 0.06, and maybe we had 0.2 XG. And at the end of the match, we end up with 2.2. And all this coincides with Kade Cowell coming on. And that's my thing. Because I'm seeing on the scuff Discord and everything,

everybody talking about how well John Luca played. And yes, he ended up with like eight shots or something. Something crazy. Like he, I mean, he ended up coming alive. But like, he was playing those other 64 too. He was playing those other 64. And like, like, I just don't know. Like, maybe it's, uh, I'm looking at the actual result instead of the symptoms.

And maybe the symptoms were, uh, Mr. Zendaya's. And just being like absolutely trash. Like, so maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. Um, and, And if that's the case, I'm pretty sure that BJ going forward. Well, I don't know. I don't know if he's going to sit as a day as not.

But hopefully going forward, we see like a proper attacking setup. Like we've gone through this whole gold cup trying to figure out our wingers, right? Hopefully we figured it out. And then if that was the issue that was causing our general lack of attacking, ability in this match then you know so I'll go ahead and get on the the full John Luca train at that point

maybe probably not I'm definitely not on the full of John Luca train like whatever that means but it can be it can be a local to the Gold Cup you can get you can get fully on a train that has a that's destination

is the Gold Cup final it's like one of those trains that is only only runs on Sundays and Saturdays for people to go from like the city park to the old depot for fun. I'd get on a train like that.

Cowell immediately steals it from a guy and drives it the goal, tries to play Dewan in and shorts the pass badly. Kind of a pattern over the second half of the game. This cow will dribble him from the left, but also kind of a pattern that he couldn't quite make anything happen out of it. The battle was.

Once at least, that's similar to pass. Yeah, that's true. Like that negative. The Wanda Ferreira. Yeah, the reverse pass. So we got one of Mr. Vasquez coming up, too. Just keep going out of the timeline, Benz. Yes, sir.

A 68th minute, nice little pass back to Buccio from Milovich after a whipped grassel ball and Buccio dances through a crowd and side foots it after a little bit of a lucky bounce. But just, you know, good stuff from him. Good save by Dan St. Clair. I think it was a cool enough move. that first move that he created the lucky bounce. So it was a lucky bounce of his creation. Yeah, yeah.

So that was real nice. The way he took that pass, that was, that was class. I'll get that John Luka for sure. That was smooth. I mean, there was some lucky bouncing going on in there in spots, certainly. I wish you would have put it away. Just scored. It's close in it.

Yeah. I wouldn't change anything about how the rest of the game went. I'm glad it wanted that. 70th minute, nice turn and run from Cal along the lines of the pattern I just described a few moments ago. He tries to shoot it from 22 yards. Should have slipped in Jesus, but maybe he learned his lesson. Jesus is very respectful with, he also thought he should have been passed, but he just did a very simple swooping with the arm.

Very understated protests there. I think a couple of things. I think we're underselling the turn and run from Cal here. Because again, when we talk about the slog of the, of the, of the, the previous 65 minutes. There's nothing sluggish about this. This is just a very simple turn with somebody right on his hip and just an explosion beyond it. And this game had been lacking explosions.

I think it's fair to say. So this was, you know, if you're talking about what's going to make Vince get his hands up. This is why he had his hands up when Cal came on. And something we talked about in the last recap was Cal might be good enough to do this against grown professional players. Like this is a tool that he has, this ability to just blow by people. from standing still, and we got to see it. And the question is, could he do that from the off,

or is it just played much better in his hands to come in at 60 minutes to be able to do this against tired legs? Because for the next 15 minutes, Canada's legs look gone. And I think a part of that is the Cade Cowell effect. Yeah, but that is the question, right? Whether you should start or be a super sub. On this particular play, like you can freeze it right when Cal is shooting it, and again, it's just a stampede of Blue Jersey.

So the slip to Jesus might be on, but it's tough. And Cowell isn't necessarily the guy that I'd be like, oh, he could definitely hit that finesse pass at full speed through a crowd of bodies to Jesus Ferreira. He also has Julian Gressel moving up the right side, looking for that ball in behind. If he wants to skip Ferrer as a first runner, he has Georgie Mihailovich all by himself. Like the whole crowd is around Cowell. It's almost the messy still frame of five bodies around messy with the ball and everyone else like free. I don't really care that he shot it on this instance, but when they watch the tape,

they'll be like, hey, just know that what your gravity does here is potentially open up some other options. But yeah, I think this was a sign of what was going to come for the next 20 minutes for the U.S. Vasquez comes on for Mihailovich in the 73rd minute. So Jesus moves to midfield.

And Miyazga comes on for Jail and Neil. So just sort of, you know, see things out, I guess. Double Cincinnati. I think BJ is probably been playing. finding this for crowd morale for maybe since the beginning of camp. I don't know when they knew they're in playing Cincinnati. But a strong move. Loved it.

Loved it. Yeah, crowd came on. Crowd came on a little bit when this happened quite a bit. Yeah, absolutely. From, from the, you know, we had some scuffians on the ground, the boots on the ground. And, like, everyone, everyone mentioned that. And, you know, it was noticeable on TV, but yeah. Oh, so also, we have to shout out the Guatemala.

We got a shout out to Guatemalaans the crowd. Great television. They got a great presence on screen. Yeah. It was pretty cool to see them and like they had the Guatemala kits on. Then a lot of them just seem to have flags. A lot of them seem to have American flags that they brought with them too. So, so yeah, man, they were like fully prepared for the double header.

There was at least one American flag with the Guatemalan flag superimposed on it, onto it. Love to see it, man. Beautiful. Beautiful scenes. 74th minute, Cal is just able to get on the end of a floated ball from Miles Robinson. Almost brought it down in front of the keeper, but couldn't quite do it. Almost. But, you know, Cald providing all of the excitement at this point. He was holding off a West Point graduate, you know, had a West Point graduate on his hip as he's

as he's running down the middle of a pitch man. I'm just saying. He's a full-grown man. Yeah. And it's starting to turn into good television at this point. For sure. For sure. This is a turning point.

We're getting the K-Kal-A-Fa-Fa-Kal-Fa-Kal-Fet. Well, Jones, in the 75-minute mark, Jones heads it to cowl in a pocket in front of the centerbacks. Just sort of like a settles an aerial situation that it was unsettled. Cal turns and hits it pretty hard at Vasquez waist high. Vasquez takes a touch and tries with his left foot on the half folly. It's a good sort of adjustment and quick decision by Vasquez there because Cal gave him kind of a difficult ball to deal with and he hits it just wide of the post with that left foot.

So it's a proper striker in it. It's a proper striker. This was like another sign that Canada had just lost their leg. their positional integrity was gone. They're running that 3-5-2, which usually when you're in defense, it's going to be 5 back. In Canada, we're like, no, no, no, we're really just running

three back. So they have this long ball that Duan Jones wins. And even though Dewan Jones is going to win this ball all by himself in space, so you know he has total freedom to hit it forward, Canada did nothing to cover the space like in front of the box. They just leave their three guys there.

And if you, again, pause it when when Cal has a ball at his feet before he hits the entry ball into Vasquez. It's like a five on three for the U.S. if we let it develop. Buzio's coming for free. Duan Jones after the header is coming for free. Like nobody from Canada is really going to be able to track back. So it ends up being kind of a wasted five on three to attempt the shot that we ended up attempting, which is a little more difficult.

When Vosquez hits it, you got Buzio all by himself in the box. So, again, it was just a sign. Canada were losing steam. Herdman needed to have made a change sooner, and he waits a little bit too long, gets away with it. But these were real, like, nervous times for Canada. They were hanging on by a thread.

Yep. Gressel that rare, just noticed that Gressel got caught offside again, and he's that rare player who doesn't make runs, but still has gotten caught offside multiple times in this game. You really were not taken by Gressel in this match. No, I wasn't. Yeah, yeah, he's been quite mid in all of his opportunities in different positions. Even though he had one cross.

No, I was just going to say, yeah, they went cross for the Vasquez goal and Cupcake, but, you know. It didn't help that they were really boosting up his crossing and set piece prowess as the reason he was in the game and then he wasn't having his best night there. Nobody can be perfect at that stuff, but it's just that he's not that great at. you know, most of the other stuff. 78th minute, Canada's wasting time. La Rea is a pro at this, really. This is his sweet spot.

They were just dealing with the surge that had been happening that we were just talking about. Smart play about him. And then they got to do a huddle, and Herdman got a whole team over there. It seemed like he was yelling, we have to hold the ball. We have to hold the ball. He kept saying that. So that was his adjustment I used to think he was a tactical genius

bro, I was just about to say I was just about to say so now that we've beaten Canada a few times like like you know when they show the when they show those camera clips

of him over the lake doesn't hit the same it doesn't hit the same anymore because when I used to see that I used to be like oh he's he's doing something he's doing something you know, the Canada, like Canada is doing that little adaptive shape thing or something.

Like, I don't know. But, yeah. I wonder if you got that order through the, uh, to the earbud. Tell them to, tell them to hold the ball. Canada gets, has a couple subs come on in the 86th minute, uh, including Jacob Schaffelberg, um, who is kind of important later. Uh, and then let's just, just go straight to the goal.

88th minute. It's, uh, Dwan Jones just stepping forward with the ball on the left side and he, he measures it and he plays a gorgeous looping cross from deep with his left foot, his weaker left foot. Um, onto Braina Vasquez's head. Vasquez attacks it and rifles it past Dan Sinclair.

I think Dan Sinclair got a fingertip to it. I mean, I know he did. But, um, it was a really nice ball, nice header. and we're up one zero. It feels like we're going to win in the next five, six minutes there. It's one of the more visually pleasing type of goals as well. It's this classic Brandon Vasquez right here.

Yeah, you can see him kind of measure the run up, throw the hand up, throw the hand up for the go route. You know what I'm saying? I'm open, coach. I'm open. I'm burning this, I'm burning this DB. And yeah, beautiful, beautiful ball from DeWon Jones, which,

speaking of D.Bs, they talked about this on the broadcast. His father, Demetrius Jones, which is just a hell of a cornerback name. Play football at Western Michigan.

And Brinkley with the Broncos. Yeah, and briefly with the Broncos. So, yeah, man. So our best athletes in it, our best athletes.

And it was interesting in that little anecdote. Demetrius has been a football coach all along, you know? Like, he could still be coaching football for all we know. And they asked how Dewan decided to play soccer, and he just didn't force him to do anything.

He just did what he wanted to do. Yeah. Pretty cool. Ideally, this would have been the winning goal. I do. I mean, it would have been kind of nice if we just won the game here. We still have a lot to cover it. Ideally.

So the goal comes for Canada when Robbins, When Robinson gets whistled for a penalty, for his second forearm into the ball situation, VAR calls the video assistant referee calls the ref over, and he decides it's a penalty. It's, I don't know, do you guys have any thoughts about that? So this is a classic BJ ball here. Classic BJ ball, because, you know, he's taught the proper technique to Miles Robinson. When you have offensive linemen coming up to the second level to, to block. like a middle linebacker.

What you're going to do as a middle linebacker? You want to be ready to deliver a blow to the offensive alignment so you can punch, shed, and go make a play. And Miles Robinson was prepared to do that. It was just unfortunate that the ball ended up hitting his arm. But he was prepared to punch, shed, and go make a play. Yeah. It just caught him.

It just caught him unfortunately. But, you know, and we'll get to this a little bit later. but anytime you make a mistake on the football field any football field you know you want to make it hard, fast, and aggressive and you know

so when we're talking about film session here I don't think BJ's going to fault miles too much yeah this was a play of aggression and technique not an obviously intentional handball like the first one I would say but maybe the first one weighed

in the referee's mind when he I decided to whistle it I don't know I would think so yeah this is this is tremendously unlucky for me like

there's nothing here that I'm going to be like oh man Miles should have like he's running into like connect with a guy and a ball in a scrap of player somehow bounces directly up into where his arm's already going

so this is totally different than totally different than his first half one which so on the balance I think Miles got called for the correct number of penalty kicks right Yeah. And he was probably expecting this dude, which I'm pretty sure that that was the guy that's in, I think he's in like MLS Next Pro or something, this Canadian player. But he was probably expecting this dude to control the ball. It just completely bounces up on him. Like he makes no contact. It's no contact with the ball whatsoever. And yeah, it's just, it's just one else thing. Like, yeah, that was not a repeatable.

Like there was just nothing that Canada did there. Just right. Yeah. And Victoria, Stephen Victoria, the centerback, the aging Canadian centerback puts it right down the middle as Turner dives to his right. Turner said after the game, he, he, it crossed his mind that he should just stay in the middle, but he decided to go to his right. And he was very disappointed in that. Anyway, equalize 1-1. So we're going to, well, how did the U.S. react to this?

Well, I just want to note how quickly in the broadcast they did a cutaway to BJ. It's instantaneous after the goal going in. He's just stone-faced and gives it two hard claps. He loves it. He loves it. Like, if you let him tell it, this is what he wanted. This is what he wants to really see the character of these men. He loves to encounter some adversity.

And when he's when he's clapping, that's one of the times he seems most like a football coach. He's got this kind of stubby clap out in front of him leading a little bit. but forward. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so, like, after this, um, like, like, like, after this pen, because, because at this point, you know, uh, once again, it was fully squeaky bump time for me. But, uh, yeah, like, I was, just watched a BJ clap. But, um, I, uh, yeah, I was just thinking to myself. I was like, man, well, like, what if, like, what if Matt Turner just stood there

and caught it? It would have been, that, that would have been great. Um, and, and, and this was, in between, you know, the goal being scored and the actual penalty shootout. But, you know, we'll get to that. But if he had done that, then Canada would just have to sort of present itself in Washington, D.C. for annexation, you know? Right. It's better than he didn't. It's much better than he didn't because I think it's a better story when we get to the shootout of what Turner gets to do mind game-wise.

I think it's better that it transpired this way. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fair, fair. Like, I was just thinking about, you know, his baseball exploits. You know, we saw the man hitting some tanks in a Bush Stadium like a week ago.

So, yeah, if he could hit some tanks and then also just make a perfect, you know, perfect line drive catch on a, on a pin. I mean, a, sign them up. AAA, AA, whatever. Four home runs. He hit four home runs in the row. Maddie Dingers. Maddie Dingers. Yeah.

All right. Regulation ends. And then Aaron Long comes on for Miles Robinson, who was cleared for 90 minutes, not cleared for 120 after his injury in Nations League. Jordan Morris comes on for Julian Gressel. Boy, I mean, let's just quickly talk about Morris. He is just a shell of himself, man. What is going on? He's probably still hurt, to be honest.

Well, I don't. Well, well, I actually not. think about it. I don't know if the sounders would quite allow that, but maybe they would. I don't know. If he says he's all right, maybe they let him go. But yeah, he was doing like none of the running at people like Kate Cowell was doing. Grants. I just don't know. Yeah, the thought like when you're putting Gressel and Reynolds on the right side would be to like have a Jordan Morris type on the left to arrive for any deliveries. And I just, man, Jordan Morris still is not doing anything despite the winger whackamol we're playing here in this tournament.

Certainly nothing to where I was like, well, maybe he can start and then we can bring Cowell on. If you subscribe to the idea that Cowell is going to be much more effective against tired legs coming in off the bench, it still isn't like, well, let's start with Morris. I don't think that's where I'd be. I'd think I'd probably rather start Zendias again. Yeah, I was thinking about, like, there was some point in there where he did something. And I was just like, man, like with each success of performance, Like the whole World Cup fiasco is just getting worse.

Jordan Morris? Are you talking about for Morris? It's, well, well, for everybody, for the discourse. You know what I'm saying? Like the more Jordan Morris continues to play and continues to, Jordan Morris, if you will. The more he continues to look like Jordan Morris, it's really just, it's crazy. Yeah, the argument would be what we brought him on at the end of the Wales game

when we could have brought on Gio Raina. Right, right. And what are we doing, dot GIF? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's just the fact that I would like to get over this. But, you know, with each performance, it just keeps getting brought back up. And it's just, it's tough to get over when he's looking like this against this Canada, this Canada. You know, so.

Yeah. All right. 94th minute. So, you know. four minutes into extra time, a good chance for Canada. Shaffelberg goes at Brian Reynolds and just toasts him. Puts it across for Jason Russell Rowe, who had come on earlier in the, well, I actually don't know when Russell Rowe came on, but he had subbed on.

And Russell Rowe beats Aaron Long to it and then just sears the top of the bar with the first time left-footed attempt on that ball across from Shaffelberg. And it was pretty close to being a goal. Yeah, immediately, like Canada's best work chance of the game. So Shackleton comes in and like, he's like there, he's like the Canadian Cade Cowell over here. Like that was, again, because Reynolds is an athletic defender. Reynolds isn't beating Julian Gressel pace. You know what I mean?

Like it's like, oh, geez. And I know Reynolds has been playing this whole game, but that was eye-opening to see that, to see him, to see the Canadian fella get the edge there. Yeah. Cal gets kind of a weird yellow card at the 96 minute mark when Bruce you get sent sent into the corner by a good Ferreira ball

and then cuts it across. Cal lunges for it and doesn't quite reach it. The centerback, I don't know if it was Vittoria or somebody else, goes down and the ref just comes over and gives Cal a yellow card. I don't think he even touched the guy.

Yep, not really. Not enough to get a yellow card at least. Reynolds gets beaten by Shaffelberg again at the 97 minute mark and I'm noting this because Reynolds this is the first time we've seen Reynolds

tested defensively all tournament and that's the big question about him so yeah you know when we were talking about the Jamaica match and I made the point that like you know

it's not necessarily a given that Brad Reynolds performance would have been better than the Andre Yedlands against Jamaica and And I feel like in this Canada match, we kind of saw that. Like, I don't know.

Like, if you would, so, so would DeAndre Yelan have been better than Brian Reynolds in this match? I don't know. But, but he, his performance was unconvincing enough to leave it up to, leave it up to interpretation a little bit, I think. Yeah, it's the same math for Jalen Neal versus Longer Mioska where you're saying, all right, like, we do want to test him. But we also, we want to win the game. you've got to make a call on, is the test going to cost us the trophy? And how big of a deal is that?

I mean, again, it's not like DeAndre Edlin is guaranteed to shut people down either. But that's the, that's the call that BJ at the moment is getting paid to make with, like, somebody whispering in his ear from up above. Do you guys feel, sorry, do you feel strongly about whether, like, in this next knockout game or in the final, if we get there, whether it's Reynolds or Yedlin? it should probably still be Reynolds it's probably I'd be real

Chris I'd like to keep seeing Reynolds but I don't have strong opinions yeah I want it to be Reynolds but I do have my concerns that it could cost us

a game I definitely want to be Reynolds for it's worth and even if even if you actually think that he's behind Yedlin like again you might just say

well Yedlin they're about the same and Yedlin could easily get toasted in the hundred minute of a game as well. Like, I'd still be, I mean, I'd still be like, it's worth it to get Reynolds the data in these kinds of environments.

Yeah. And I feel like if we put Sandejas over there on the right side with Reynolds, he probably would be more comfortable, and he does give us more in the attack than Yedlin. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Cowell battles in the 98th minute gets on a decent diagonal from Reynolds. to reference what I was just saying, he loses it, gets it back,

loses it, gets it back, loses it, gets it, gets it back, bulls pass two guys and wins a corner. And then we get a very good Buccio ball into the mixer for Miazga to head on frame. No, it was a decent ball, not very good into the mixer for Miazga to head on frame, but it's pretty tame. But Cowell kind of got the crowd back into it

with that sequence because he was really fighting for the fighting for the crest. Yep, yep. This is worth the price of admission. I mean, what he's giving us in, what, at this point, it's like 30, creeping up on like 40 minutes, but yeah. I mean, he's doing something. We talked about this specifically with Morris, too, right?

Because Morris has been backing out of these kinds of situations and just sort of like controlling it and then recirculating. he's like the best thing we've been getting from Morris is recycling possession backwards and with Cal it's like no if you're going to go in there and be a bulldozer like go do some bulldozing and so Cal is definitely not afraid to put his head down and bulldoze a little bit

and if that's your calling card then you got to do it yeah he's uh so I mean he is such a physical specimen I mean good grief so strong it's uh yeah

like like like every time you think maybe he's going to like, I don't know, meet his match. Like, like, as we, I don't know, as we continue, like, because you had the U-20s, right? He's like, oh, he's doing this against the U-20s. You know, gets to the Gold Cup, does some stuff against some, some, you know,

some smaller nations or whatever. Comes in Canada, he's just making, he's making everybody look like little boys. Making everybody look like little boys. So, yeah, it's something to see. There's a, things are really, The television is really getting good in the 103rd minute, I would say, as a wild sequence. We give up some sort of transition joy to Canada.

And then Miyazga makes a really good, strong tackle on Schaffelberg, you know, basically cuts his legs off in our defensive third. And then Ferreira picks it up and pushes it forward, plays Cal into space, going down the left wing. Cal cuts into the spot where he loves to shoot, and his shot is blocked by Vittoria. but this was a good like you know very nearly a goal a perfect

spot for him to shoot just a little unfortunate that Vittoria blocked the shot unfortunate it's not the right word but it could have gone differently and we are we are exhausted at this point Reynolds has caught way upfield to start this sequence and there's no hope of him getting back

Morris Morris seems to be suffering from like sympathy fatigue where he looks super tired even though he just got onto the field. Like, he looks as tired as everyone else. So he doesn't come back and cover. And it ends up being Jesus for error of all people, like sprinting the length of the field.

And it's ironic because I noticed this, you know, because we're going to get to what happens on Canada's goal. But, like, I wasn't surprised to see Jesus come all the way back because, you know, obviously I've watched a lot of Y Scout on Hesus with Dallas. And the dude never stops running.

Like, he's a striker. And Dallas where he's charged with doing a lot of, like, pressing up high. He'll chase down goal. goalkeepers and stuff. And he, you'll watch his Y Scout clips. And most of them are him doing this.

It's not even on ball stuff. But he's doing it throughout the entire game. It'll be the 89th minute. And you'll still get a clip of Jesus Ferreira, sprinting 65 yards, hopelessly, to go make the goalkeeper hit a long ball. And so I was like, oh, well, this isn't surprising that he still has the legs to do this. Again, ironic because of what's about to happen. But, I mean, I was still like, gosh, geez.

This dude's running. He's still got something left. at 103 minutes. Yeah. You know, we forgot to, we forgot to mention, I don't know why this came into my mind, but the, you know, Vasquez scoring that header in front of his home crowd was a pretty big moment.

You know, everybody was, that crowd was chanting for him before he came on, and he comes on and scores a goal. This felt very good in Cincinnati. Anyway, back to the way. Well, if we want to, if we want to take a little bit, a little bit further, you know what I'm saying? just he's showing up

in the big matches in it Mr. Vasquez showing up in the big matches scoring some goals I don't want to look too far into it you know but you're saying he's no pirate of the Caribbean

is that what you're saying there's a great flicked header from Miyazga that we got to mention on a Busio corner that drew a pretty good save from St. Clair. I mean, it was right at St. Clair just above him, but still it was, I think it was on frame. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And then the first half extra time ends, and we get, there's really, I have five moments here. First is 107th minute Abuccio chance. Reynolds just lumps it at Vasquez, and it's kind of like what, Greg was talking about earlier, where Ferreira would just put his shoulder into somebody and force them to not handle it well in the air. That's what happened here. The centerback just sort of went off its head over to the other side of the box where Busio arrives and

just rips a left footage shot at Dancy Clayr. And then at the 108 mark, we get Canada. his goal. Reynolds actually does well to take the ball from Schaffelberg in our half, and then he tries to dribble forward. He gets about 20 yards kind of being harassed by Shaffelberg from behind. Shaffelberg wins it back, and then it's played quickly in behind Reynolds to a player that has Ferreira on his back. Ferreira gets kind of turned, or at least gets eliminated by a one-touch pass, and

then Shaffelberg drives at Matt Miaska. It's 1v1, and he takes a left-footage shot that hits the inside of Miaska's leg and boomer, kind of boomerangs into the net. Bit of a lucky strike, but Shaffelberg had been good since he came on. And it's worth pointing out, so that makes it 2-1 Canada. Everything seems hopeless. It's worth pointing out that even with that wicked deflection on the slow-motion replay, Turner almost got a paw to it, which would have been just an amazing save.

but he didn't to one Canada. And it was the Shaffelberg show really since he'd come on for Canada. And so talking about the Ferrera recovery speed that he'd just shown on that last sequence, I feel like he thought he was there again. Like that when Shaffelberg gets played him behind after we lose it, Ferreira starts chasing him down and I feel like Ferreira thinks he's going to do it again. He's like, all right, I've got this. You know, I still have the legs.

And then very suddenly, Shaffelberg put on his boosters. and that was like it. Ferreira was just like demoralized. It was just like, oh dear, I'm nowhere close to this man. And he didn't, he might have gotten close enough to foul him, which he absolutely should have done. He didn't have a yellow at the time. Like, and even if he did, it's a knockout game in the 107th minute. You've got, you've got to like probably foul the guy. And I think he might have even tried to at the last second.

And he, his angle was so miscalculated that he couldn't even do the thing where you like the elementary school trick of kicking the guy's leg as he runs past you. Yeah. Shackleburg, he's fast. He's a fast fella. I, uh, yeah, apparently. I didn't know who he was. Um, like, like, I, like, I don't think this was the, the first time that the hazers kind of got ran past a little, like, like, like slightly.

Well, well, he got completely ran past it. And, and, in this moment, but there was an earlier, there was an earlier instance, like, once he, once he moved back to midfield where, you know, pitch control. Not ideal in it. So then Christian Roll-Dong comes on for Reynolds, and we go three at the back. And we pretty much go in to just lump it up forward and hope for the best. And guess what? It worked. 114th minute.

A Turner plays a long ball to Miazga, who's kind of hanging out on the left side of the box. Miasga nods it across. Jordan Morris, I must say, he sort of contributed here. He kind of helps the ball along by heading at it. it and it trickles through to Busio who comes in and swipes at it with his left foot. It's a kick save by Dan St. Clair. I know we don't like talking about finishing here. It's still not a very good finish from Busio, you know. But anyway, Dan St. Clair makes a kick save and it bounces off of his teammate and back into the net. I think it was Scott Kennedy. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

Scott. Poor Scott. Did they, I haven't checked. Do they count that as an own goal? Yes. I don't agree with that. I think if you kick it hard enough, you should get credit for a pinballing. But that's another discussion. I mean, usually I agree, but not in this case.

I don't agree. I think this is a clear own goal. I think it needs to stay an own goal, O'Haki, again, sort of for the aesthetic of this match. Like, that's what this match deserved was this own goal in this moment. I would draw my protest.

So ugly. Like I am curious, I didn't see the replays that closely to see if maybe there would have been a VAR shout if we hadn't scored, if it went off somebody's hand. But again, this is a much better way to have had it happen. It all kind of came after a corner, I think, from earlier, and that's why Miazga and Long were up there. But we got the big trees up there and see what happens. And again, Matt Turner flexing a little bit with his distribution. hit that dime into the box. He could start taking our set pieces from around the midfield area.

If we want to go that route. Yeah. Sort of perfect, perfect ending. Yeah. And so my best friend who we're going to see had texted me after Canada scored. And he wasn't watching the game. Like I don't, I don't, I do not know why. But for some reason, he thought the game was over.

like I don't know if he thought it was like a golden goal type situation or what probably and I don't know what was going on but he was like oh no you know what I'm saying game's over uh they lost blah blah blah blah and I and I text them back I was like no it's still got time bro still got time and uh yeah goal came like a minute after I sent that text nice thank you for thank you for your keeping faith because imagine having to do this recap after losing to Canada that should have been it would have been so It would have been a slog. An overtime slog.

Having to watch, I go to a Mexico, Panama, gold cup final or whatever. It might not be. It might be Jamaica Panama. I don't even know if I would have went, to be honest. Like, to the match. Yeah. At that point, I don't know. Yeah.

Okay, let's get to the penalties. I think we kind of nailed the whole entry phase of them. First, Turner. He seems to be disputing the coin flip. I don't know if I've seen this before. that kind of threw a curveball. I don't know what his objection was. I almost don't even really care.

I just like he was doing it. It seemed like Vitoria Canada's captain was like confused about the, about the, how to operate a coin flip or how to proceed through a coin flip for a shootout. And the referee seemed like not agitated, but demonstrative trying to explain it. And what Vitoria's choices were should they win or lose the coin flip. And Turner is like also trying to explain what's happening and what's happening and what. what he want. Anyway, Turner was not satisfied even at the end of it. As a referee, you know, went through it, walked away, satisfied with how it went.

Turner was still very much shaken. Well, you think about how little experience Canada has in knockout round games. Like, when would Victoria ever have to do a coin flip? You know, it's probably his first time. For sure. That's a good point. And so then the camera follows the goalkeepers and referees up towards the goal and we lose sight of what's happening at midfield now, which I think is important.

Yeah, and as Like as with the referees I think Turner's starting to He does a power move Which is kind of Goes with the rest of this Put his arm over The keeper

Becomes it takes the dominant position here Back at midfield We have very smartly Set up our Our team lineup About 10, 15 yards Inside the half Very confidently

Canada has no choice but to match us at that point. And so if you're not watching shootouts before, like everyone who's not taking the shot, you know, the goalkeeper's up all by himself by the goal. Everyone else stands side by side, usually at midfield,

like on the midfield line, outside of the center circle. And so as the camera had followed the referee and the goalkeepers up towards the goal, suddenly you see the referee turnaround, again, looking a little bit annoyed, and he's starting to gesture for the players to,

to like assume their, spots on the actual midfield line and he's getting absolutely no response from the players. It starts with he gives it a hard whistle blow and from that whistle blow the refusal to back up last, the refusal

back up last a minute and 45 seconds of the lines kind of glaring at each other. Actually, we don't see much of our line. I'm kind of imagining them not even caring, just staring state our head because the decision is on Canada. Right. Because they're the one whose taker

is stranded up there. They're between a rock and hard place. Either they're going to have to back up first and be the beta of the kicks, or they keep icing their guy up there. They're going to know when. It's a BJ Callahan Masterclass or Greg Burlter. We don't know whose idea this was. Who knows we've had this, how long we've had this in the tank.

I think it's Maddie Diggers. I think this is Maddie's idea. Victoria, coincidentally, is the first shooter. So Turner had just had this back and forth. And while I said Turner was shaken, honestly, Turner was just more baffled. and I think Vitoria might have been the one who was shaken by the whole coin flip experience. You know, again, maybe his first coin flip. You never know.

It's hard to get the stats on coin flip participation in these matches. So you don't know. But Votoria may have been a little bit shaken up by that. And so now he's standing up there getting iced by again, all our players, I imagine in their Superman poses, hands on hips, chest up, chest out. And this clearly has quite the effect. Yeah, he's stuck up there thinking about that coin flip And he's toast Eventually, Cano does have to

They do it, they back up first A little bit slowly, a little bit of a strange They back up, we go even slower A very, very slow walk back And we don't go all the way to the line either We stop about a yard short of it And a whole rock on there For a beat or two longer before

Before getting back on the line And remember, Victoria is the player who took the penalty in regulation too and hit it down the middle. So he's sitting up there this whole time thinking about what's Matt thinking. You know, how's he going to handle my second penalty of the game? This is just fantastic drama. And again, I get that this is our reserve team and it's hard to sell it. But Lord, like this is just fantastic entertainment. Yo, so once again, back to BJ Callahan, the football coach.

because if you're if you're familiar with uh football extra points where some teams might set up that little swinging gate where you know they come out in that little swinging gate formation like so so so it's basically just to get the team to to line up with them and if they don't line up properly then we're going to go for that two point conversion we're going to throw it we're going to just run that thing in the easy money because you're because you're not lined up we we have you outnumbered uh like like four blockers to your like you're like two people out here. Easy money. Easy money. So, so, so, so that's what BJ, the, BJ got that inspiration from that.

He's like, look, we're going to set up the swinging gate. We're going, we're going to see if they come out here and line up and line up with this baby. Because if not, then we just have a wall of people, uh, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, we just got into our regular extra point formation and I think the wall of people also has some echoes to remember the Titans where they send out their whole team as captains if I have my tackle football movies where they all walk out together for a coin toss. So again, you also have a bit of the coin toss element here.

This is just been BJ's tournament, hasn't it? Yeah. Here's this quote on his thinking. He doesn't get into the strategy part of it. I think he's keeping that close to the vest. He says, we view this as our home field. We wanted to own the field and own the shootout. By us taking an aggressive posture up front,

we want to ensure we're confident and ready to execute. Beautiful. Beautiful. Mentality. I mean, he's in here talking about field position. You know what I'm saying? He's talking about the fact that he wanted. And also, okay, so with this quote, right,

you take this quote and then you think about the fact that Who were our first two penalty takers? Number one, Brandon Vasquez. Number two, K-Cal. This is part, so in his last sentence, right, taking an aggressive posture up front, we wanted to show we were confident and ready to execute. And so who better to lead yourself off the bus, off the theoretical bus? You know, this is a common thing in football if you don't know, where, you know, they say what a certain player looks like the type of guy that leads you off.

the bus, you know, usually your biggest, you know, the guys with the physique, the guys that look good, the guys that are potentially intimidated. So, that's jaw lines. Like, you got to have a jaw line for this. Right. So he throws Brandon Vasquez out there. Okay. So obviously, as we know, Brandon Vasquez sent that thing to Mars.

But to go back to my original point from earlier, if you make a mistake, you want to make it hard, fast and aggressive. And look at that. And look at Brandon Vass because I wouldn't know tame shot. I wouldn't know tame shot. That probably took out of Guatemalan in the stands. Or maybe it didn't because they had the flag up there to catch it. To get in the way.

Or else it would have been something tragic. But yeah, like that whole thing was a statement of intent. That was a warning shot. Like that penalty was not meant to go on the goal. Yeah, it's not above BJ to have said, hey, I don't actually want you to make this. I want you to kick this ball so hard that it sends that message. We've got Matt Turner, so we've got one to play with.

We are pissed off that we had to come back to the halfway line. So, just had to let them know. Had to let them know there. But before Vosquez, we get Vitoria, who's all like a mess at this point, for sure. this is this is again I want to stress this is definitely not just variance working its way and a goalkeeper advantage in his ability this is all psychology so so so so how's he set it up though great vittoria or turner yo so like like so so i'm talking like you know we've done we've done the we've done the the the the pre-pinched shenanigans so as you know we got vittoria

waiting to line up and mad at Turner and goal, like, like, how did you see a play out as far as like, like what Matt did also at that minute to, to, to further frazzle and already frazzled, uh, Stephen Victoria. So Turner, all he has to do here is just stand there and, and sort of like stare into Vittoria's soul because Vittoria's retreating, you know, inside his own head. Like, he's, he is sinking deep into the, into the empty space. And he's not built for it. Yeah, he's not built for it. And so he thinks he's just going to go with the safe thing that worked for him the last time. And Turner's just like, you know, I don't know if Turner was certain that he was going to do that.

But I think what Turner's saying is this will be maximally devastating for Canada if he does go down the middle. And I stay right in the middle of the goal and save this. There is nothing more devastating than that. So I think that's, I think that was his calculus was that if he goes to the side, that's fine, they'll go their goal. But if they do go down the middle and I save this. That's it. It's curtains. And then Vosquez gets a free miss to really, to really hammer it home.

Right. Yes. So now that we've put this in the correct sequence, it all makes perfect sense. It all makes perfect sense. So, you know, you got, so we got Maddie's scripted the whole through the whole first take. Right. They scripted all that. Right.

Scripted it all. So, so you got the, the Maddie Turner thing. I'm a stand here. I'm going to be, I'm going to be confident. And, and also. Um, you know, like, like, I'm a, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to put my body on the line here. I'm going to put my body on the line. I'm going to stand straight up as this, as this projectile ball is coming, coming straight towards me. Uh, we're not doing no flinching. We, we're not, we're not doing none, man. Just pure safe.

So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, is, is, is, is, is a further crack. If the, if the, if the pre-pension an against got us 50% there, uh, we're not 75. And then the brand of Vasquez, warn a shot, 100%. These dudes are done. He gets a few to send the screamer into the stance and we are off where we're soaring. Right. It's impressive that we didn't tip our hand by actually like having our guys physically, visually, celebrate Vosquez's miss. Because they were thinking it. They were like, here we go.

We got them now. Perfectly done. No, but, but, you know, like as we saw Matt Turner with the Superman pose, Hazel Ferrer with the Superman pose is like, yo, we're following we're following the plan set by a fearless leader, BJ. And, you know, and the man that, you know, Brenna Vasquez had to be man enough to sacrifice itself for the team.

And so he gets to be the unsung hero. So he is the one who everybody is, you know, mimicking his celebration because he's the one that made the greatest sacrifice in this whole, And he knows it's bigger than him. Right. He's more than happy to do it. So I don't know if we're going to go kick by kick,

but I actually think the only thing that screwed up our absolute, you know, flawless master plan was Canada's miss at the end, their last miss that sealed it. I don't think that was part of it. I think BJ had it scripted out where Matt Miaska was going to come in and be the fifth shooter and really like seal it. Because, I mean, you can already picture the kind of reaction meosko would pull out to win the game. Like, it wouldn't be like everyone running away.

Like, it would be some kind of, it would be some kind of demonstration of national superiority over our northern neighbors. Yeah, like, like everybody just running to the goal and surrounding Dan St. Clair. He can't even walk away in shame. It's just, that's not, you're going to stay right here, buddy. I like our version of what happened there. It was beautiful to see. And also, it's another thing. Like, like, for, for me, like, I could tell that he put Brandon and Kate up there for intimidation purposes just because you see John Lucas penalty.

And that thing's just pure top bins, like no problem, no worries, no sweat, nothing, nothing. So, so, so, you know, John Luca is the proper, if we're doing this by a penalty acumen. Like, like, he's number one. You know what I'm saying? but because BJ maybe he got caught up a little bit in the emotion and everything in the moment and and you know when you got John Herbman on the sideline it's it's easy to do that it's easy to do that um so yeah he just he just said hey I'm putting about two big hosses up you know one two one two it was nice pin from K by the way nice pin from K turner had a good sprint after his

second save to get the ball oh yeah runs the stance also he kind of picks it up and flings it back in one motion and high-five someone in the stance. All in one motion. Turner's having a blast. Matt Turner loves the gold cup. So if you're ever saying, like, we don't need the gold cup, like, wrong. The gold cup is just the Matt Turner cup at this point.

What do we think, what did you guys make of Ferreira's pose and smile? Where do you all stand on the smile during the Superman pose? Because I feel like Vasquez doesn't usually do that, or does he flash a little bit of a, You see his teeth. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, so, so his smile is like, if he was a villain while doing the Superman pose, Hey, Zeus is more like, you know, if he was a hero while doing the Superman pose and, and specifically in like a, uh, in like a cartoon Superman.

Not, not, not like one of the, one of the, one of the, uh, DC films. You know, yeah, there's nothing gritty. There was nothing gritty about Jesus's, oh, nothing gritty. Just a, just a, just a common superhero. here to save the day in 30 minutes, an episode or whatever, you know. Beautiful to see. Beautiful to see. Also, Bells, if we can get the, can we get that BJ clip?

What did you see from your team, especially when you're down with five minutes left? Yeah, I see them look at each other. In our camp, we talk about responding instead of reacting. So we immediately got ourselves lined up. And everyone was talking about how we're going to go after the goal. get it. And again, these are the moments. These are the high stakes, high impact games that we're looking to play

because they test the character of the group and tonight we showed up. I mean, you talk about a football coach. Yeah. You talk about a football coach. So first of all, the first and probably the most important thing is the fact

that he has this he has this saying just lined up that BJ and his staff and the entire team probably say like conservatively like 30 40 times a day

30 40 times a day in practice pregame speeches walkthroughs everything like guys respond not react respond not react like like if you play well I don't

I would say probably most sports but it's it's biggest in football it's biggest in football where like every every year I play college football we had a different, we had a different slogan. We had a different slogan. One year it was one, O-N-E only now exists.

Another year it was just all in. And yeah, this is something that gets just constantly repeated in the facility, in the weight room, practice field, walk through his video sessions, all that, like to the point of parody. You're wearing it on your shirt, right? It's on your training shirts. Wearing it on the back of your shirts when you go to the weight room, whatever. It also might be plastered up in the weight room.

Plastered up in the locker room. You might hit it as you're walking out the door or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Like, I remember one time it was getting crunch time of a game. And my center, my center, John Smith. Big shout out, John Smith. Yeah, that's my boy. But like something was going on.

It was crunch time of a game. I think we were doing like a two-minute drive to win or whatever. Everybody's kind of tired a little bit. He looks, he looks around both sides of the line, guys, all in, all in. Yeah, you know, it's just one of those mantras. Like, it probably happened, you know, as BJ talked about, as the team gets lined up, lined up. I mean, the fact that he even mentioned lined up. Like, when have you heard of soccer coach ever say?

Never. I mean, that's the most footballer phrase. He all but said, we won the battle in the trenches. Right, right. Like, can I just say that for as big as like Ted Lassow became for the soccer football crossover phenomenon, like there's really nothing about Ted Lassow that screams football coach, tackle football coach. Like, BJ, this is, this is the actual plot of the show.

Is B.J. Calhane coaching the soccer team. Right. Like, like, I have not seen an episode of Ted Lassow, but I've talked about this with MCB on the Discord. And that's also his biggest, his biggest issue is like, he's not football. Like a football coach getting stuck in England and coaching soccer is just not carrying on the way that Ted Lassos is going on. He's just not.

Ted Lassow would, the character would actually be just as out of place coaching a football team as he is coaching his soccer team. BJ would be right at home, right at home in the, in the Big 12. For sure, for sure. Do we know if BJ ever actually did play tackle football? There is zero evidence he did. I'm aware of. It's quite interesting because the whole aesthetic,

the way he talks, the way he delivers the lines, the way he claps, as Waki said. So, so, like, when you're taking this quote of what B.J. just said, and then thinking back to what Wachie said about him clapping, like, that's just some, like, if he gets scored on and the coach still feels good. He's going to clap you to the bench. Like, hey, we're going to make some adjustments.

We're going to get back out there. And got him lined up. And, yeah, I also talked about how much he loved competing after that and how much this experience is going to shape the young men. The character. The character. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Hey, hey, man, that's my coach right there, man. All right. Well, we won. and we play Panama on Wednesday night in the semifinal. It would be an interesting match. And, you know, thanks guys. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.