Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #415: World Cup — USA v Vietnam recap

Episode Date: July 23, 2023

Greg and Belz get into the lineup surprises, the goals, several other decent attempts to play from the U.S., no shots allowed, and some guest expert pronunciation of the Vietnamese players' names. The big test comes Wednesday vs the Netherlands.----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. We got the 3-0 win over Vietnam in our opening match of the World Cup. What did we learn from it? Was it disappointing? Was it disappointing, Greg? Not for me. I know there was a general sense of disappointment about it, and I feel like it's very outcome-driven.

As people who listen to us know that I tend to focus more on chances created when evaluating than actual goals scored. So for me, the chances created column was pretty high. The chances allowed column was as low as it can possibly be. It's a World Cup group stage game. Our Sophia Smith scored two goals and had an assist. It's hard for me to be like that was disappointing as a World Cup experience. Right, right.

You also have a philosophical commitment to treating the World Cup as a party, which I think is healthy. But yeah, it was the XG like four. point seven five to zero about yeah yeah zero shots allowed we did not concede a single shot which again doesn't necessarily say that our defense is airtight throughout for the duration of the tournament but it's as good as you can be in a game so I was fine with it and yeah the chances we created were probably close to a billion I will say I thought you know Vietnam didn't threaten us at all but they're pretty resolute defensively their goalkeeper had a had a good game I think yeah

This wasn't like playing Thailand four years ago. Yeah, I mean, yes and no. Like, we created a ton of chances against Thailand and our finishing was stupid good in that game. Like, we went back and found the model. And the model for Thailand came out as like eight goals expected and we scored 13. And so in this one, you know, we generate five goals worth, roughly five goals worth of expected tallies and we get three. So it's just, you know, on another night, this could have finished eight zero. And what would the takeaway have been then?

that we were disappointing or, or again, is that disappointment just tied to the actual conversion of the chances? And we'll get into it. We'll get into, you know, not every chance is created equal. So even the good chances like,

all right, is this a good chance that's going to translate? And do we care that it translates to a better opponent? Or are we just happy getting the run out, getting the World Cup jitters, if you want to call them that out of the way? And here we go. Because, you know,

you look around and there are some other teams that also had jitters and, Maybe still got their three points or maybe didn't. Yeah. Canada. Yeah, good. Glad to see Canada with the zero zero draw. Let's do the lineups because there were some, I think some surprises here.

Alyssa Neier and goal, no surprise there. But then Emily Fox, Julie Ertz, Naomi Germa and Crystal Dunn across the back line. I thought we pretty much expected it to be Alana Cook. At right centerback instead, it was Julie. What does this mean? And so this is where we can already kind of talk about the big picture of Vietnam as our opening match because it's hard to draw any conclusions because, you know, we can say yes, you can't look past an opponent, but we also knew, essentially, Vietnam could not give us any trouble and we would end up with a, we'd stumble into chances even if we weren't playing well, and we would not lose this game. So you don't know if what you're seeing is Vlato just sort of tinkering or, you're if he's using this game as a means to an end for later in the group stage. You don't know if certain players have jumped other players on the depth chart because of what they're doing here.

Like, does Vlato Koe really think that Ertz is actually a better centerback than Alana Kook? Like, that's not a crazy thing to say, right? Like, we like Alana Cook, but she might not necessarily be better than Julie Ertz's centerback. I feel like this is more just letting Julie ease into things she didn't play in the send-off game against Wales, letting her get some minutes in an extremely low pressure atmosphere. So we can get a look at her. I mean, she was solid, not tasked with much.

She's also a set piece monster, and we probably rightly assumed we were going to get a lot of set pieces. So, yeah, I mean, again, it's interesting and it's curious, and without Vlato really explaining it explicitly, it's hard to know what the rationales are here. Which makes a fun.

in my mind. Keep the Dutch guessing is maybe part of it. Because like why wouldn't she, if the point was to get Ertz, you know, eased back into action, why not just play her at the 6th? And then I guess there's been some, Julie Fowdy who was saying something about perhaps this is the plan to play Ertz at centerback. I mean, it's all speculation, but I'll finish the lineup. Sullivan at the 6, Savannah Demello and Lindsay Horan at the 8.

A little surprising that DeMello got the nod ahead of Ashley Sanchez. I think. Yeah, so I'd heard that she was impressive in like a closed door scrimmage that they had. And obviously she was fine in the sendoff match. And Ashley Sanchez has to this day never cemented her spot as the obvious Rose Lavelle backup. So again, you don't know if de Mello's actually jumped Sanchez or if it's just this game is house money. Let's get a real test of Domello. If you want to call it a real test, if let's get a real test.

if let's get de mello out there let's look at her and see how she handles the moment yeah demello got smacked a couple times in the first 10 minutes i guess so did rodman so she got uh you know brought up to speed pretty quick trinity rodman Alex morgan and sophia smith across the front line uh which i don't think anything really shocking about that no same and i mean we it's it was still always a question who was going to start on the on the wing opposite sophia smith um it was uh notable that sophia Smith played on the left where she's almost always played on the right for the national team. So moving her over to her left so she can cut in on her right foot, it clearly pays off,

as we'll discuss later on. Yep. Okay, let me play. So to do the Vietnam lineup, I've called on my friend Hua Hanson in Minneapolis, and she's a native of Vietnam. She's going to do the lineup for us, just because the names are kind of tricky for me. They're in a 5-4-1. In gold,

Chen Thi Kim-thang. In backline of from right to left, Chen Thie Thu Thou Thou, Lung Thie Thir-Jiami, Chen Thu, Huanthi-Luan. A midfield band of Nguyen Thii Bichthui,

Chern-Thi-Ling, Thai Thi-Ti-Touet, and then a striker, Hing-Yu. Thank you, Hwa. We're going to call Hansen Remindu. modeling her family business, the sponsor of this episode.

Hansen Remodeling in the Twin Cities, a very reasonable, kind people. Thank you, Hua. Let's do some overview stuff before we get to the timeline. Yeah, and the timeline will reinforce this, but, you know, you asked whether this was disappointing. And again, for me and sort of how I evaluate games, it definitely was not, because not only did we create a billion chances. But we very obviously were not, we were not cross-fc. We were not like just getting out there, controlling possession, which we knew we were going to do, and as soon as we could hit a ball under the mixer. Like, that was not what we were doing.

Like, we were trying to play soccer. I know we were kind of doing that at the beginning. So I totally disagree. So I'm excited about the timeline. Like set pieces, yes. When we could get all our Julie Ertz and other hosses up there, we definitely were. But throughout the run of play, like we were very intent on trying to actually play. and we definitely didn't do it super cleanly,

which at this point, that's probably unobtainable. You know, if anyone stayed up later than this to watch Japan, you saw my second favorite team doing exactly what I wish we would do more of in doing it very well. But we were trying.

Like we were trying and we were playing and almost all of like our dead end attacks dead ended on the dribble rather than as a cross. So for me that was like progress, as ridiculous as that sounds. But I thought there was a lot of, for me that's a very positive indicator for how I hope we try to play

in the games coming up. Okay. Yeah, I guess there were a lot of set pieces that maybe colored my judgment, but I thought, well, yeah, let's get into the timeline. Well, anything else from you before we get to the timeline? That's my biggest one. My biggest one was it didn't seem like it was

hopeless crosses, aimless crosses. It got a little bit like that in the second half. But first half, it seemed very much like we were trying to soccer a little bit, like back heels, flicks, dummies, all this stuff that you'd never play in the city, but we were going for it. And I hope we keep trying that even against the Netherlands on Wednesday. Okay, let's get to the timeline. First minute, we quickly get Rodman isolated on the right wing from an Ertz flighted ball

and a flick from Morgan. Robman Meg's a defender, gets swiped on the ankle, and she's down for a while. Kind of scary. Look like she might be seriously hurt. but she was, it turns out she was okay. The interesting thing here, one interesting thing here, is that immediately Megan Rapino was warming up. So she's that first option off the bench, it seems.

In this game, yeah, everything comes with that caveat. In this game, Rapino may have been the first option off the bench. And what does that tell us that she's actually the first option in a different game? I don't know. Delightful flick from Alex Morgan on this play, though. which we didn't get a clean replay of because of the injury. So we were kind of robbed of that. Right.

Not her last flick in this game. No, sir. Right at the end of the right around the three minute mark, Germa floats one into the box. This is off of a set piece. Yep. Yep. So we got our targets up there in the box.

Right. And Horan runs onto it and kind of lets it bounce. You know, as I watched the replay, I'm like, she could have attacked it and just side-footed it in the goal. But she lets it bounce and then kind of lifts it across the six. It sort of spills around and falls to Morgan, and she turns and shoots real quick. She nearly scored here.

The shot was blocked by a defender. Yeah, so one of the things we talk about with Vietnam in the preview was that despite the fact that they play this really low block with all of their players back, they actually are relatively easy to get the ball behind that last line. And so you can pause it here as the ball's getting to Horan, and we have three players between their back line and the goal. Right.

So it sets the tone for like what the golf is here in ability level. And again, like it never felt like it was that the goal was never going to come. So it never, even as it went, you know, kind of the game was going on, I was never getting that like antsy feeling of like, are we going to be able to do this? Haran, who was, I think, quite good in this game at the six-minute mark, got a chance on a done long ball. This one was floated into the box. This one was not off a set piece, Greg. I regret to inform you.

Rodman challenged for it, and then it kind of falls back towards the top of the box. Horan steps in front of somebody, gathers the ball kind of neatly, has a shot with her left foot, and almost five holes the keeper. it's a little bit of a foreshadowing of Smith's goal a few minutes later. Yeah, an important thing here that I want to get to the bottom of is how the nerds track this, how they record this moment, because it's a super high percentage chance. But I believe it's chalked off by a referee calling a foul on Rodman going up to compete for the ball in from Dunn.

So I don't know if it actually ends up being listed as a shot or not. So I'm just wondering if that's factored into the tally of expected goals or not. And that's important. Was it chopped off? Yeah, the free kick. Rodman kind of went in. I mean, it was not anything big, but strikers get called for those sort of challenges. And then the free kick for Vietnam was not taken as a goal kick.

It was taken four or five yards out of the area. All right. So 14th minute comes the goal for the U.S. This starts with a Haran line-breaking pass to Morgan's feet. It's a really, really appealing pass on the ground. to Morgan. Morgan meets it with the in-step of her left foot and flicks it through the legs of the defender on her back, right into the path of Sophia Smith, who's darting in from the left. Smith takes a touch and then slats it through the keeper's legs from about the same spot that

Horan tried to a few minutes earlier. It's a lovely goal. A lovely flick from Alex Morgan. All hail, Alex Morgan. And Sophia Smith, of course. I mean, all three players. Yeah, all three players were excellent on this sequence. This is sort of as good as it gets from the U.S. as far as like choreography. Like we don't have a lot of really well-coordinated movements that seem like it's a pattern that we've hit over and over again in training and then in games over the last couple years. But we can still do it occasionally, right? And this was the one.

So this is just beautiful all around. The disguise from Heran, the vision from Heran. The movement and touch from Alex Morgan is perfect. You know, she's absorbing a challenge into her back. like she's taking contact as she always is when she's playing back to goal. She just has to be the most bruised player

in U.S. history. And then Sophia Smith recognizing it, making the run early, and then no one's going to be able to catch her at that point. So, you know, I'm hoping stuff like this can translate

into the next games if this is a lineup we see. So this is what we need. We need Iran making these passes. We need Morgan doing her thing and then we need Sophia being Sophia. Probably Alex Morgan is the player we've criticized the most relative to her.

And when I say we, I mean like the whole scuff team, not necessarily you individually. But so, you know, we got to dial it back a little bit, maybe. Well, we know she's capable of this. Like, we know she can do this. The question is always, is it getting, are we getting as much from her as we could get from Sophia Smith? And that will remain an open question.

I don't think, basically I don't think any questions get answered in a game against Vietnam. Yeah. We'll get some answers on Wednesday night. Right. What's the next timeline, Emma? You got something here. So we're going to be jumping through this pretty quick. But 25th minute, just something I took note of. It's a simple turnover from Vietnam after one of their throw-in.

So it's our right-side line, their left-side line, right at the edge of the defensive third. So Vietnam were trying to play, which was kind of interesting. Like when they had the ball, they would try to, like, possess for a while and they'd spread out. And inevitably, you know, they'd turn it over pretty quickly in their buildup. but we didn't really have team-wide urgency to, like, hit them in these transition moments through most of the game. So I clock this one where they turn it over, and we've got five players, you know, around the ball. And no one is like, no one pours towards the goal to, like, break and see if we can hit them while they're still spread out. Like, we just play a little two-person game with the whoever took it from the throw-in and then they hit an entry pass into Morgan.

We end up winning a corner. But it was not like a flood of U.S. players like we've seen them do so ruthlessly, even against the best teams. that we play against. So I just thought it was kind of a neat little plot twist in this game that, like, out of all those chances we created, almost none of them came in transition. Like everything was coming from the buildup and the deliberate approach, even if it wasn't always as clean as we wish it were. Yeah, there was a chance late in the game that might have come through transition,

but it was, the broadcast was showing replays of Horan's goal celebration. So we don't know for sure. Yeah, we'll get to that one. It was interesting. Vietnam short goal kick. I'm pretty sure. Pretty sure that's what I've deduced. I wonder if us not pouring forward in transition is just another example of Laco playing 4D chess. He's trying to give the Dutch the sense that we're not going to feast on transition

and then all of a sudden we will. So I have no doubt that we will against the better teams we play against. I feel like, I don't know. I know the U.S. is known for its mentality and being ruthless and, you know, foot on the throat and all that stuff. but I don't know it's just I feel like it's part of just human nature to like know what you're up against and know what you're you know what you're you know what you have to exert to achieve your goal and so it just felt like a subconscious foot off the gas kind of a situation yeah yeah that's that's that sounds like what it was um 28th minute we get a good slip pass from de mello to Morgan into the box and Morgan does well to corral it I think but it does it rises up on her and So she gets a chance that I left-footed half-folly. Flash is just wide of the far post.

Not a half-folly. It's pretty much a full volley, isn't it? Flash is just wide of the far post. Nearly scored here. Maybe could have played it across the six for Rodman. Yeah, there probably is a lane there. I mean, it's a tough technique. No, regardless, because it's a bouncing ball.

Even tougher to see Rodman there because of how much she has to concentrate on settling that ball. So I got no problem with Alex Morgan attempting this shot. I think she has another chance, like just a few minutes later, off of a Sullivan through ball. And so, again, I just want to reiterate how often we are trying to play passes into the box rather than just hitting lofting balls into the box, because this was a great example of it from Demelo, and then moments later from Sullivan.

So Morgan's finding good spots to attack, good timing of runs, against, again, a weak defensive line. But we're doing it. We're trying it. And that, for me, is a huge step forward. Yeah, it's what's what we've been calling for, asking for for a long time. 39th minute penalty shout for Rodman after you beat somebody in the box. Seemed borderline, but then it got, it went to the video review and the ref ultimately awarded a pen.

You know, it seemed like it could have gone either way to me. But what did you think? Clear penalty? I think, yes, I want that to be a clear penalty. Like, I want that to be what VAR is sort of accomplishing. if a defender steps on a player's foot, I don't care if the player exaggerates the fall or not. You can't step on somebody's foot.

You've got to be more careful in the box. And I want defenders to be forced to be more careful to get more free-flowing attacking into the box and not have it be like, oh, but it wasn't grave of enough of a foul to warrant a penalty. Like the reaching in and lunging stuff, I want to discourage defenders from doing that in a big way. So for me, that's what BAR is perfect for.

so I'm glad we got the penalty. Also want to note again in the buildup to the penalty, we feed Emily Fox out wide with time where in another, maybe a week ago, she just hits that ball across the goal, but instead she doesn't take that opportunity, elects to find Trinity Rodman

with the dragging run closer to the N-line, and we sock her a little bit, and then Trinity Rodman ends up drawing a penalty. Mm-hmm. Morgan takes the pen, and as you all know, missed it. I mean, she

hits it soft and near the center of the goal and the keeper also guessed correctly. It's saved back to her and she can't quite get there for the rebound with her right foot. A Vietnamese defender gets there first. So still one zero. I mean, we can diagnose or dissect her choice

here to go kind of, I mean, assume it's a choice to kind of keep it close to the middle. When you're up against the goalkeeper who's five foot five, uh, maybe just, maybe just hit a little closer to the post and assume she can't reach it. Not too worried about it. Like Morgan's probably going to keep taking penalties when Ripino's not on the field.

And if she doesn't, someone else will, and we're probably going to convert them. Yeah. Yep. And then so because of the stoppages for the penalty and because of Rodman's injury and a few other things, a lot of stoppage time. And in the 52nd minute, still in the first half, we get our goal. It's the long ball from Germa into the box as stoppage time wound down. Morgan challenged for it. The keeper comes out and punches it past her out to Sophia Smith. Smith collects it and just kind of, you know, takes a pot shot kind of at the goal through a crowd of bodies.

It passed between Morgan and Julie Ertz. Ertz stuck her leg out to make things more confusing. I initially thought maybe Ertz got a touch to it when I watched it in real time. But she didn't and the ball just bounces through the keeper's legs as she's sort of trying to compensate for the possibility of an Ert's touch. and initially Morgan was called offside on the on the Germa lofted ball but video review cleared that up so it's a goal Sophia Smith two Vietnam zero yeah both of them through the five hole and and again the party's on it's you can call it ugly we've talked about this the goal is always to be capable of scoring brilliant goals but also add the ugly goals too because

you want all of those all those to total up to a trophy so it's off the corner so this is is a set piece that's why urts is up there um worked it short and then uh swing it over to germer to float it in to those back post runners uh i mean there's not much to it right like uh erts is a real fox in the box in these situations she'd been the target on like the majority of the rest of our free kicks she'd had that one header off of her face she kind of missed to hymn earlier so she is active she is a nuisance on any set piece um and she's a nuisance since to the goalkeeper as that ball, lands to Sophia Smith and she attempts her shot.

Like, this is, this is great. This is great to be able to be collecting ugly goals. That's a good sign for a tournament. And it's also just a reflection of how often in the game we were in that position, you know, with players in front of the goalkeeper. You know, there's enough, you're that dominant. Sometimes you're going to have some balls go sneaking through into the net. that half half time comes and then what Greg

so straight away no subs to start the second half but I just wanted to note this because this has been a theme in our friendlies as well we are dangerous off kickoffs we don't take very many because we don't get scored on very often and I hope we continue to average one kickoff per match but we get we reliably get like somebody in a really dangerous position just by going backwards sending you know four verts as soon as we kick it, and then just lofting a ball up to Alex Morgan towards the top of the box,

or Lindsey Horan for a flick-on to those runners. And we actually end up with Sophia Smith with the ball at her feet alone under duress, but she gets a chance to just poke at home and she just misses a wide. But, I mean, that's a stupid, dangerous thing to just get in a throwaway moment. One kickoff a game is perfect.

Let's keep it like that. 50th minute we get a good a good chance this is this starts with fox intercepting a pass at midfield kind of jumping to win it and then playing it to rodman rodman leaves it through her legs for de mello and and then de mello plays rodman into the box rodman skins somebody that just like glides by them as they go to ground and then lifts a ball into the box um heran meets it on the volley with the with their instep and flashes it just wide, but she made good contact, and it was, like, you know, a couple feet wide. Yeah, and I'm willing to call this one of our early transition attempts.

It was a transition from a Vietnam throw deeper in our half this time. Like, they were actually trying to think if they could get an attack going. And we get it and we run. We run with, like, a four-person break the other way. We lose that because Sophia kind of dribbles into a dead end, which, again, was a theme, not just for Sophia Smith, but we did a lot of dribbling into tackles in this match. But Vietnam didn't win it very cleanly.

Emily Fox steps up, gets a nice little dummy situation with Trinity. So Trinity gets the dummy. DeMalo returns it. And then I love this ball from Trinity Rodman to clip it over the near post runners. So Morgan's cutting to the near post hard at the 6. Sophia Smith right behind her is cutting in more like PK depth. And Haran is floating wide, totally unaccounted for. and I love Horan's a decision to first time it.

I feel like people were wondering if she could take a touch there. And with that ball coming out of the air, like she's wide open, but while it's traveling, all those defenders, you know, pivot hard to start trying to close her down and takes them too long to change direction to stop her first time shot.

But they'd get there for any touch that Haran tried to take. So I feel like everything here was done perfectly other than the ball not going a foot closer to the goal. Yeah, it does seem like Haran, she's she's a little bit committed to the aesthetic too. Yes, agreed. Yeah. And this required, I mean, again, this required the movement,

everything that went into this required her to hit this first time for the aesthetic. Yeah. And she nearly, she nearly got it. She hit it well, like I said. 55th minute, DeMello set piece is good, and it's headed for Morgan's head at the back post, but the Vietnamese keeper punches it away. She did pretty well for, I guess she was, they said she was five, five foot five.

She did pretty well commanding the box. I mean, she wasn't commanding, but she did enough, you know, over and over again. And this was a good example. Yeah, and again, it's kind of interesting that this was the game we didn't just fire crosses in nonstop because I also saw Vietnam were the second shortest team in the World Cup. So we definitely had this advantage for height, for size, strength. And so again, I'm glad we didn't elect. to just float balls in,

but if you were going to, this could have been the game to do it. Yeah. I thought DeMello's set pieces were pretty good, too, in general. 63rd minute, Rapino comes on from Alex Morgan and Lavelle comes on for DeMello. And it did feel like Rose,

I mean, everybody's saying it, but it did feel like Rose brought another level of soccering to the team when she came on. We were more flowing. Do you agree with that? I think that's probably fair. again, I was pleased with the way we were trying to soccer the whole game.

But, I mean, Rose is better at it than De Mello and Rose is better at it than Sanchez. So this is what we're hoping for. Yeah. Yeah, she looked really good. She didn't, maybe a little rusty, but nothing to worry about too much, I don't think. Yeah, she'd stress again, first minutes since April, since an April friendly against Ireland for club or country. So that rust probably expected. But yes, all the ideas are good.

And it's great that we have this kind of a moment to let her play without throwing her straight in against the Netherlands. Now, all of Lavelle's ideas were good. I think a lot of Rapino's ideas were good too, but the execution wasn't good from Megan Rapino. We're not going to get too, you know, I'm not going to like drill down on that too much. but she did not look, I didn't think, very good.

Yeah, so I thought our decisions and ideas on the ball were a mixed bag, either kind of okay or bad sometimes. Like she was one of the ones who would just sort of think that she could fire a ball through a non-existent window. But she got herself into some really good scoring chances for what that's worth. Yeah, I mean the two times she tried to hit it first time on goal, I think that was the right choice both times. Yeah.

66 minute, we get a good chance. for Fox. This is one of those where I think, so Robin lifts another ball across and it kind of bounces to Pino. And I think she tries to, she's trying to strike it on goal, but she ends up kind of shanking it

and lifting it across the box. Fox is arriving in the box. I mean, there's a lot of buildup that I sort of skipped here, which maybe you'll get to. But Fox gathers it in the box, cuts a defender, and then Sky's a left-footed shot

from pretty close in. under a significant pressure, but it's a good chance. Yeah, the buildup is good from the back. Ertz was, Ertz and Germer were both pretty willing to try to hit entry balls into feet. The windows were decently sized to hit into. But this is simple from Ertz over to Sullivan, and then Sullivan tries to hit a vertical ball to Lavelle,

who has a nice flick out. And again, you can just see that our, we've set up some nice angles to create this room for Trinity Rodman, which is a great thing to be doing. Rodman does kind of hit a hopeful hopeful cross on this one, but we got her in, we got her free, and I'm okay with that. Yeah, I mean, there's not really anything to this.

We just, I said it in the Discord, like, everything we're going to do in this game will work. Like, no matter what, even when it doesn't work, it's going to work. So when Trinity hits this ball in and we don't win the first one, it's going to fall to a U.S. player because we will cover more ground and we'll be in better positions in Vietnam. And that's how you get, you know, Rapino now open for this rebound

and then Fox open for Rapino's mishit shot and you just rinse and repeat. Yeah. Fox was really good. I mean, everybody, yeah, I guess that's maybe the final story is that everything we're going to try to do in this game works.

Everything works. Everyone's working. 71st minute, Lavelle receives it in the half space and toasts a defender to the end line and then hits a precise ball, a low driven ball across the box for Rapino right across the top of the six. And Rapino meets it on the volley.

Just miss hits it way over. The goal was open. And then it was kind of fun to see Haran laughing at Rapino about it. Rapino was not pleased, obviously, with herself. But Haran, there's a great shot of her smiling at Rapino while she's walking away from this piss. So this is the thing we wonder. and we're going to get to the other subs here in a second,

but you wonder if, you know, Rapino is first person up warming up for Trinity Rodman, one minute into the game, and you wonder if this is sort of a planned swan song for Rapino. Like, it's possible that this is just like the game that Volato feels he can get people in to the World Cup to make sure they get their World Cup cap, and then they might sort of fall back lower on the depth chart.

For me, it still doesn't seem like Rapino is going to be the more effective player at any stage of a game than Lynn Williams or Alyssa Thompson. So, like, you wonder if this is just, like, her minutes. And so that's why it's a little more disappointing if you have your free chance on goal and you don't end up converting. Right. Totally speculating. But, you know, we get into O'Hara and Querta coming on. Like, I'm not sure if that's a real reflection of Flocko's real intentions and depth chart, or if that's just Vietnam affords us this opportunity to get these players in the game.

Yeah, I mean, once we got the third goal, the full backs were about to be replaced. And we should mention, you know, Alyssa Thompson came on for Rodman in the 75th minute, so just shortly after that Rapino miss. And I thought Thompson looked really good, you know, the teenager. She's a good soccer player. but let's get to the goal 77th minute uh ertz floats a ball and not into the box but kind of down the right half space and smith just sprints onto it and overpowers a defender to gather it to the end line and then uh flashes a ball back against the grain to heran who's at the top of the box

this time and that all happened very quickly way faster than it took for me to describe it uh and then and then haran this time she settles it. Instead of taking it first time, she settles it neatly with her in-step and then slots it past two defenders into the right side of the goal. I mean, excellent individual work from Smith and a nice finish from Horan there. I mean, I think Ertz's ball was just kind of lumping it forward more or less. Yeah, yeah, it was. Sophia Smith had no right to actually get to this ball. There's a defender on her hip when Ertz hits it and it's overhit by a lot. and there's a second defender for Vietnam

that has like a 15-yard head start to get there and I think she just very incorrectly assumes that she can shepherd it out of bounds and Sophia Smith is not a player you want to try it against because she is an absolute wrecking ball of a player and while I don't want to draw any conclusions about like was Sophia better than Alex Morgan because we didn't mention when Morgan came off

Sophia goes up and plays striker not Trinidad Rodman so Sophia is now the striker and it's like okay we're going to see what she can do and she obviously what I think she does is she shows you the different ways that she plays striker than Alex Morgan. Because this is Sophia Smith.

Like she is such a bruiser. She's a bulldozer. Morgan is more doing like the hold-up stuff and Sophia will chase and just like she's a battering ram. And so that's what we get here. And so you just see the different styles of players. Again, no way to conclude based on this

who was better because the opponent is pretty weak. but the style contrast is evident here. Yeah, I wish we had gotten to see more of the ball being played into Sophia's feet with her back to goal. I guess there was a little bit of it, but. So, yeah, as you mentioned, 84th minute O'Hara and Huerta come on for Dun and Fox. It seems like they just needed a little bit of rest before the Netherlands. What next? We get a nice sort of a

juxtaposition of what I kind of want to see more of And then what we tend to get with the U.S. That we got way less of it in this game And that was a neat little combination In the buildup And it was just simple stuff from Ertz Hitting a vertical ball on the right half space To Alyssa Thompson

Who has a really neat flick on to Sophia Like a vertical flick almost Sophia pops it up like seven feet in the air And then as it's coming down She backheels it to Alyssa Who spun off from her original flick and Thompson is now racing onto this and you can tell how explosive she is

and how quick she is and Vietnam are like racing to retreat to not let her outrun them and so Thompson just hits the brake, stops on a dime and you see the defenders like skate past and it's all really like exciting and slick. Yeah, this was really nice.

Thompson uses that window to like feed where to out wide like wide open tons of space and then everything has just been clean and effective and exciting. then Huerta promptly blast the cross into the stands. You're like, oh, man, we did the cross after all that. So, I don't know. It's just, I feel like that was a perfect framing of what I think the future of our team is

with what the present of our team is. Yeah. And, you know, Huerta, I mean, usually she's going to hit a good cross there. She didn't even do that. But, I mean, I got qualms. I mean, I think Huerta is a more effective crosser than most, but I still would rather not have anyone. and just being like, oh, time to send it into the mixer.

Right. 85th minute, we're running out of timeline items here, but 85th minute Smith sets up Lavelle on her right foot in the box, and she smashes the crossbar, you know, just like an inch from being a goal. It bounces almost directly down just in front of the goal line. And yeah, Lavelle had been good up to this point. We didn't really get to see what happened in the buildup, but good to see Sophia racking up a little more X-A here.

Yeah, and I think this is saved for what it's worth. Oh, that's right. You're right. It's a great save. I'm part of the goalkeeper union, so I'm always like, nice. Love to see it. Love to see it from a, you know, goalkeeper who's playing in the most competitive game of her life,

coming up with a play like this. So good honor. Yep. And then. We got a great, sorry, we got a great shot of the reaction from the bench, too, with the real fancy future space age camera. Oh, yeah, the portrait mode. Yeah, and then a little bit of confusion.

because everyone thought it went in. I thought it went in in real time. Some kind of a trick of the optics where it looked like the ball bounced across the goal line when it very obviously did not. Yeah. There's a ball from Horan to LaVelle on the back post that LaVelle heads over,

just can't get on top of it. That's the last big chance that I have clocked. Yep, that was our billionth chance. We created one billion. So next is the Netherlands. They seemed to dominate Portugal. pretty comprehensively, but not in an aesthetically pleasing way. Lots of set piece, lots of set piece chances and stuff.

Lots of beersteiner. Is that her name, Beersteiner, dribbinstein? Berenstein? Berenstein. Dribbling at that Portugal backline by herself and then ripping one. Yeah, so if we're talking about opposition, obviously Wednesday is the Netherlands. It's interesting, like the race to win this group. doesn't feel that urgent to me because I think so highly of Japan.

You know, I feel like a lot of people like win the group to delay meeting Spain in the tournament. But I think our quarterfinal opponent is going to be Spain or Japan. And either one of them, I think, is an excellent quarterfinal opponent. So I don't really have a preference there. I feel like those two teams might have a preference of avoiding the U.S. and getting the Netherlands. But really, it's just an incredible for some that I think are the favorites to make it to the quarter on our side of the bracket. So I just, again, can't tell you how excited I am about this World Cup. Yeah.

Japan and Spain both almost as dominant, I mean, almost or more dominant than we were. So Japan allowed zero goals in their win. And Spain allowed one, I mean, sorry, Japan allowed zero shots, zero shots, just like us. And in their win, Japan did allow one corner kick. We allowed zero. So there you go. That's our defensive edge. So we're better.

They'd allow one shot. So we said this on WOSO, but a bit of a shambles for Spain defensively. All right. Anything else? It is kind of a hard game to recap. Because I mean, when we, I feel like when we score a goal, score a game winner or like a go-ahead goal against the Netherlands, it's going to be way more just, like, exciting.

Because even though we are probably, we are the favorites over the Netherlands. that game is very much in doubt, you know, we could lose. We could easily lose on Wednesday. Yep, absolutely. Like for sure. So let's celebrate those goals, those goals we score against them. And the perfect storm, yeah, the perfect storm still does exist of like, if we lose to the Netherlands of finding a way to not beat Portugal. Like if that, you know, it's a 90-minute soccer game.

And even though we are better, we've seen France dominated Jamaica this morning, dominant. And it finished the zero-zero. Like that is always a possible that's a possibility at a certain threshold, right? In Portugal are definitely at that threshold where an off game for us and some bad luck and it can finish zero zero. You know, we can lose a game here. We're not invincible. Yeah. Well, three days to get ready.

And I guess we'll see you. Monday review is going to be happening tomorrow. Last I checked. I'll check with everybody. and then, you know, we'll be recapping the Netherlands game. I think we're going to do it the day after, right, Greg? That's the plan, yeah. And I'm curious.

I also am really curious to hear Vince Antara at some point discussing DeMello. Because, you know, we kind of glossed over at the time I couldn't hit every chance we created. But she had a couple of really good looks in the first half back to back. So, you know, I know I said you can kind of stumble into chances against Vietnam, but DeMello stumbled into some well. You still got to stumble into it. them. All right, well, you know, if you are interested, check us out on Patreon, link in the show notes.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you.