Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #434: USWNT v South Africa recap

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

Greg and Belz break down the 3-0 win over South Africa. Great team goal for the second, a couple set pieces, and quite a lot more of the same from the USWNT after a disappointing World Cup.Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon! You get exclusive episodes on average twice 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. Hey, everybody, we beat South Africa in Cincinnati last night, 3-0, in front of a sold-out crowd at TQL Stadium, or at least an announced sold-out crowd. Lynn Williams got a brace. Trinity Rodman finished a lovely move up the left side for the second goal, the game's crowning moment. Julie Ertz got a good send-off, leaving the field up to zero in the 36th minute, handing off the captain's armband to Haran, fighting back tears job done I guess

right I mean look we won the game if you're able to sort of compartmentalize you know the different events that happened then you know personally I was able to enjoy the first Julie Erd's ceremonial retirement match I assume it'll be the first of many

for Julia Erds right but in another sense like you can't help but just be sort of confused about what this match is supposed to be for a team that has, you know, the Olympic games coming up in nine months. And it's always just kind of like this, right? Because of the schedules for the women's game,

the Olympics always coming right on the heels of the World Cup. You're in this awkward spot where do you really have time to be celebrating what wasn't a particularly celebration-worthy World Cup performance, or should you really get down to the business of figuring out how to fix things, or improve things at least, for your next? next major competition that is just like right around the corner. Yeah, time to get serious family. It was kind of, I thought it was kind of an annoying game. Nothing's really changed. Twyla Kilgore standing over there with a satisfied knowing smile. I don't know what she knows,

but it's something. We got a minimal cameo for Alyssa Thompson. No minutes for Jaden Shaw or Sam coffee. Not a lot of cohesion in the attack or in possession. I mean, we have good players. We dominated the game, but I'm still pretty grumpy. Or Twyla is not allowed to enjoy coaching the U.S. women's national team because of all of the baggage that comes with that World Cup. And again, with the Olympics looming. Like, it's a combination of the two things, right? Like, you're watching it and just going, but yes, Twyla, what are we doing here, though? Is Alyssa, our goal? Keeper next.

We was not doing nothing. We weren't doing anything. We were doing exactly the same thing we did at the World Cup. Twyla saw the World Cup performance and she said, no notes. Let's just do that again. Well, and you wonder, right? Like, what's her instruction? Right?

Like, not to the team, but like, is anyone saying, all right, Twyla, you know, take a look at what happened in the World Cup, give us, execute your plan to fix it? Like, is that what's happening? Or is it very much just like, you're a custodian. play the hits. People are coming out to see the Rupino-erz tears and enjoy yourself.

Yeah, I mean, small victories, at least Ertz played midfield in this game, you know, for the 36 minutes she was out there. And Ertz wasn't the problem at the World Cup, I don't think. I mean, she was pretty good, so. No, no, no, it's just, I'm just very obviously.

I mean, the entire presentation of this match was very obviously, backward looking. Yeah. You know, and that's despite, obviously, introducing a couple of players who, who don't have a lot of world, you know, US women's national team experience,

several. But still, it's, it's, the whole, the whole thing was centered around Julie Earth, you know, like, we built, we, we built the whole starting lineup around getting her those minutes and have a in-game ceremonial substitution to give her her ovation. This was, this was, it was sort of that spectacle.

Which is fine, but why not do some more experimental things out there? And you're right. We'll talk about it, some newcomers, particularly M.A. Vignola and Casey Krueger got pretty decent runouts at fullback. But, okay, let's do the lineup. Alyssa Neer & Goal, it's going to be a very familiar lineup to you if you have been following the team. Elisa Nearing Goal, Emily Fox at Wrightback, Alonah Cook, and Naomi Germa at centerback,

and then Crystal Dunnett left back. Emily Sonnet and Julie Ertz were the sort of double pivot with Lindsay Horan as the 10, and then a front line of Rodman, Morgan, and Lynn Williams. You know, we could have easily seen that lineup at the World Cup. I mean, we didn't see Cook at all in the World Cup, but otherwise that was all those players played a lot at the World Cup. South Africa came out, I think, in a 4-4-2, and here's the lineup. Kailen Swart and goal.

Lebohang Ramalepe at right back, Tisetso Makubela and Bongeca Gamere at centerback, right and left, and then Karabo Flamini at left back. And then the band of four in midfield from right to left was Niccolo Kessane and Coloso Biana, Linda Motlalo and Gabriela Salgado. And the two strikers were Tembacatlana, the racing Louisville attacker, who you've heard about if you ever listen to Woso Wednesday, and Jermaine Seo Posenwe, who plays at Monterrey, in League of Emacki's Femoneal. Yeah.

And if you, I mean, if you haven't been listening to O'SO Wednesday, you should be. And then also, if you watched South Africa in the World Cup, Galana would have stood out to you because she jumps off of the screen what she does in soccer games. A couple of goals in the World Cup and absolutely did everything but score against the Netherlands in their knockout round, even when it was 0-0-101, she was a menace and really had it where you weren't sure how that game was going to end up. And even aside from her, this is not a bad team.

They have some ability to play out of the back, even against the U.S. press, and they pose some minor threats here and there. Our defense is just really good. And I mean, Naomi Germa was once again flawless, I thought, in this game. So we dominated. Yeah, and that's with our second string pairing of centerback, or at least our, you know, without Ertz back there as our nominal World Cup starter. The other South Africa player that I don't think I mentioned during the World Cup,

the connection but Caitlin Swart who it just makes me happy to see her playing she went to an NIA school in Des Moines so she was essential Iowa

she went to AIB which eventually got absorbed by the University of Iowa and lost its soccer program but in the meantime she was there for a couple years and during the off season we would have we had her

we were fortunate enough to have her jump in to our adult league team play goalkeeper seriously? Are you serious? It's amazing that was probably 2015

So it was amazing to see her The coach at AIB was a South African guy And so he had this connection He had this pipeline He got her over there And so yeah So it was really cool to see her in 2019 It was when she made her World Cup debut

She wasn't the starter in 2019 at first But she started I think their last group stage game And then now she's their number one Through the 2020 World Cup where they advanced into the knockout stage So obviously I'm amazing I've got a pretty awesome I mean, a pretty large spot for South Africa.

Hilda Magaya was who played really well for them at the World Cup. She was not in the team last night. So, you know, they had firepower on the in reserve somewhere. Should we go to the timeline? Yeah, let's get right into it. Right at the three-minute mark, we get Naomi Germa ball to Lindsay's head in the channel. She flicks it precisely out to Williams, and Williams is running at a defender, gets her to stab and then dust her onto her left foot ready to hit it across she plays it to morgan showing at

the near post but the defense closes and cuts it out there's going to be a lot of this and um in the game uh you know maybe she maybe lyn could oppress the issue a little bit with all the space that she was in after she left that defender for dead um we don't like uh unless you yeah go ahead just like a drive it hard at the near post force one defender to commit to you and see if any windows open up. Like, you, you hit the early ball if that early ball is an immediate tap-in option where it's like, oh, if I hit this now, Alex Morgan has the tap-in. Otherwise, if you want to pick NITS, it'd be like, yes, drive it in your post,

see if you can get the defense to, in this uncertainty, to have somebody freeze in the wrong spot and then find that tap in. Right. See if something develops as you move towards the goal. Four-minute market. So everybody had a little bit of an oopsie here. I know a lot of people are focused on the Alana Cook oopsie, but there were oopsies across, you know, sometimes they happen.

Fox was under pressure near midfield with her facing her own goal, plays it pretty hot back to Neer, and then Neier doesn't receive it cleanly with her feet, and it rolls in the general direction of the post. Neier pushes it out to Germa, who kicks it out of bounds. Five minute mark, we get an Alana Cook oopsie on a square pass toward Ertz. That's a little behind her in the middle of the field picked off. and South Africa's attempt to attack is pretty harmless.

Ertz gives it away right at the end of the sixth minute trying to play one-touch soccer. Again, a harmless attack. The first, let's see, the first, you know, first pretty decent chance we get is in the seventh minute. We're struggling a bit with South Africa's press in the back, but then we get it out by basically clearing it long. and one of their centerbacks lays it off from Morgan in the center circle. This is at like the 630 mark. Morgan taps it out to Fox, who's streaming forward on the right flank. Fox plays Rodman into the corner, and she works number three.

Now, who was that? That was, she works Gamere, and then plays a good cutback from the end line to Morgan, who's shown at the near post. Her first time attempt is blocked off her foot. Good sneaky little step ahead of the, the centerback at the last moment run from Morgan there, but I don't think she made great contact on the shot. Yeah, and this is where we start to see.

I feel like a lot of what we saw in the World Cup, which was in the World Cup, it wasn't all crossing, right? It was actually kind of left that behind in the prep games. And it was more like of this 1B1 stuff that we just saw, you know, Lynn Williams do from the left, and then we see Trinity do it here. And this is not the worst thing in the world to have Trinity Rodman attacking people on the dribble.

and the other thing that's really reminiscent of the World Cup is the shot we end up creating which is Alex Morgan whose run has brought her beyond the near post so she's just trying to make a pretty difficult like flicked ball with her back to the goal to score and I think that's kind of what our what we saw happen over and over again

in New Zealand was Morgan taking these shots while checking to the ball outside the frame of the goal is a little dreary to contemplate Well, no, I mean I don't mean to say that this is, it's not terrible if you're getting some of these shots. You don't want this to necessarily be your only, your only method of creation. But, I don't know. I mean, like we said, there's nothing particularly revelatory in this game. So a lot of the same from what we've seen.

I noticed at the nine minute, well, a couple of Emily Sonet moments in quick succession at the 730 mark, at the 730 mark and the 8 minute mark to give a week. ways right away. One's an untidy pass trying to find Hatcher Williams in Zone 14, which I appreciate the effort there. And then she gives it away taking a loose touch in traffic, just kind of unnecessarily. I feel like as I'm watching this game, am I just confirming my priors with everything I see? That's what I was going to ask. Do you think any of these stand out if it's not for the post-World cup grumpiness? Or would those normally just be like, Yep, friendly vibes.

Like we're playing a friendly. I guess. It hurts more when you're like, Sam Coffee. Sam, let's just see Sam Coffee. Give her a chance. We're starting to work it from right side to left side at the nine minute mark. And I just noticed that when Fox had the ball and even after she passed it to Sonnet, there's nobody really showing for them in the amoeba.

Horan is deep, sort of deep across the field a bit and pretty much stationary. and Morgan is sort of trying to drag the center back into the box with a with a curving run kind of in front of her. So there, I don't know, I was just a little frustrated by that, that there was nobody showing there. And that's just kind of a lot of times how we play. You know, it's like knocking it around, but then there's no, there's no one arriving to combine. So anyway, Sonnet plays it over to Ertz in kind of a tricky little situation. Ertz shrugs off a defender and then plays. done down the wing

with a nice little pass that splits a couple defenders Dun dusts one defender and then splits her and another defender with an outside of the boot flick over to Williams also sort of beyond the near post Williams settles it with her back to goal

and the thing has it stripped of her as she's trying to turn toward the end line Yeah it was a fun sequence just because that ball that Sonnet played to Ertz early in the sequence was like definitely against Ertz's wishes just pointing somewhere else did not want it to come to her because she was in a tricky spot.

And it is a nice little pass that she puts done in. And then you see the standard U.S. women's shape of, we get that ball out to that wide player. And there's not a single person interested in going to play soccer with Crystal done. It is everybody with in like the middle of the goal frame, hips to the goal, just waiting to see what, what Crystal's going to do out there. Yeah. Okay.

Something nice happens in the 10th minute. A nice combination. Horan does some weaving at midfield with her back to goal and then plays Williams feet near the sideline. Williams is checking back to the ball a little bit. Williams touches it on for Dunn, who's overlapping to her right on the left, on the left sideline. And Dun streams in and hits a firm left-footed cross that gets cut out by the centerback marking Morgan. At least it was a, at least there was some combination in the buildup there. Yeah, this is really like even the building blocks of that choreography we want to see where Haram,

And the ability to hold the ball, of course, we've talked about a lot, is still there. And then as she sort of draw some players to her and hits that vertical ball up to Williams, we get that nice movement from done off of that. So that the next play from Lynn Williams is like a very obvious play where you can see developing from the overhead view. And just getting that at least is like, that's refreshing. Indeed. On the ensuing throw-in, Horan gets it at her feet and lifts it across the box on a bloop,

like just really skies it over to Rodman. Rodman, I mentioned this because it's such a nice play from Rodman. She just ever so deftly touches it with her left in step to play Ertz toward the goal. And Ertz kind of tried to flick it up and then side volley it, which I don't think was a bad technique choice there. But the defender is resolute, blocks a shot with her whole body. But I love the touch from Rodman. Rodman looked really good in this game, I will say.

Yeah, brilliant touch decision and subtlety To create a nice little spot for Ertz And this is where like I think Fowdy was kind of half joking But not really joking about how Ertz was playing a lot higher up than she might normally play With the obvious intention of the team trying to get her a goal Right I think it's the correct play from Rodman regardless I hope that she would make the same play even if it wasn't you know

The Julie Ertz sendoff ceremonial But enjoyed it is the implication there that maybe there's just a there's an immovable hierarchy in the U.S. women's national team that everyone must bow to and and that's why she, Rodman might have made the path. I mean, I think it'd be less explicit than that like or less, uh, um,

the most immovable things often are implicit. Yes, I was going to say, not that I said, it's just understood. But it makes me think of the, the send-off before the World Cup, um,

where it seemed like part of the design of the, match was to get Becky Sauerberun to score a goal. This wasn't the send out to the world clip. Whichever game was where Becky was, we were like trying to get her to score. And it's like, is this how we should be using our time? You understand that the players would want to do something like this for their pals. But you're just like, should we be using 40 minutes of a game? And again, to compartmentalize it is like, yes, because Julia is doing that would make me smile a lot if she scores that goal.

Like, that's fun. But you just, yeah, you just can't get away from that, that, like, nagging disappointment of the actual World Cup outcome. And, like, hey, we need to actually get a little serious here, friends. Let's see. Ertz plays it to Morgan's feet in the 17th minute. Morgan tries to one-touch it to Williams, but Williams is not interested in this, like, this pattern of play.

She's interested, but she's late to sort of realize. it. And this is about at the 16-15 mark. So the defender gets there, she still gets there slightly before the defender, the defender clatters into the back of her as the ball arrives, and it's a free kick. But it's a, in my view, a missed opportunity to just play together, you know, that just doesn't seem to be top of mind for a lot of the team. Yeah. And one of the key pieces of this little move is at the very least, you can see what had developed so many times with the U.S. Once we lost it, especially in the World Cup, we would lose the ball.

And you'd look at the screen and the picture and the map of where all the players are. And you'd be like, man, even if we hadn't actually lost the ball right there, I have no idea what the next thing would have been that we would have been trying to accomplish. Like, it's not obvious with the way. In this one, as Lynn Williams is getting a wreck from behind, like Crystal Dunn is making kind of that similar run we just talked about from a few minutes ago. And she is just wide open, totally unaccounted for it. So it's like, oh man, if they hadn't wrecked her or if Lynn had been expecting that pass just a half beat sooner and had been in a position to not get wrecked, like we had it.

We had them broken down and we were going to be putting Crystal Dunn into space attacking the, you know, almost like the edge of the box. That's good. That's good. So, yeah, so Dunn was, I feel like Dunn was doing a thing. Again, the other thing about New Zealand was we were keeping Dun home a lot more. We were way less aggressive. we edge towards the conservative side of things positionally with those fullbacks.

Yeah. Ertz gets a set peach chance at the near post in the 18th minute can't steer the header on frame. So she's hungry for that goal. 19th minute Cook plays it into Rodman's feet, a slick little layoff across into the middle of the field for Sonnet. Sonnet wastes the move with a pass that's behind Lindsay Horan. It's cut out.

South Africa comes right back at us. Linda Mottlalo drives with it, feeds it out to Katlana, who cuts in on Cook and flashes one through sonnet's legs, but it deflects slightly and is covered comfortably by Alyssa Neyer. A little bit of warning there, though. Yeah, they had a couple of those where Katlana was threatening, and, I mean, someone went beyond warning,

but nothing terribly harmful. We certainly weren't getting shelled or spending a lot of time defending in our bodies. Yeah, far from it. Okay, next thing I want to mention is some good 1V1 defending from Germa against Katlana, which you don't often see Germa get in these situations because she like cleans it up before it even gets to this point. But it's nice to see that even when it gets to this point, she can stand up and shut down somebody, not shut down, but at least prevent someone who's very good from scoring.

It's a ball over the top. Catalan chases it down first, but Germa takes a good angle and, you know, kind of stands her up and shepherds are towards the end line and just gets enough of a foot on the shot to deflect it well wider than your post. So I am very happy with Naomi Germa in all facets. Yes, because if you're South Africa, like this is exactly the situation you're wanting, right? is Kotlana with one defender between her and the goalkeeper. And you absolutely take this situation and take your chances. And Germa is saying, no, thank you. You're not even going to get anything like, I'm going to take away the entire goal.

Not only will you not get past me, but you can't even get a shot through me. That's pretty solid. That's a good moment in a game like this. Yeah. And then we get our goal, our first goal. 32nd minute. there's a corner and Horan takes it. Ertz challenges at the near post.

I don't know if she made any contact, but mostly the ball came off Ramalepe's head and right over to Lynn Williams in front of goal who nods it just far enough over the line before it's volleyed out of the air for it to be called a goal. So goal given, one zero. Yeah, I mean, nothing really to say here, right?

This is a, when you say 30 job done and 30 feels like a good score line, these are the kinds of goals that can, that can, I don't know, I feel like be misleading for how you, how comfortably you feel the game went. Because it's just like, it's a great set piece situation for us. We've got good set piece attackers. And sometimes the ball goes in on set pieces and a lot of times it doesn't. But like, it's one of those where when you say you're not feeling, you're still not feeling great about this performance.

I think that's why, right? Like, okay, well, we've got some corner kick goals, but that doesn't really tell us too much about whether we've really improved because sometimes the ball just goes in on set pieces. Yeah, I don't think Lynn's putting either of these in her scrapbook, these goals, you know. I mean, a goal is a goal. Don't get me wrong. Yes, and we want to be able to score goals on set pieces, of course.

And then we immediately score another one. one is worth celebrating. So it's Sonnet, plays it to Dunn on the sideline just inside our half. Dunn plays it to Ertz. Ertz taps it up to Haran, all quick and tidy and, you know, nice. And then Haran turns and plays... Heron lets Ertz's pass kind of run past her,

and so she's running onto her. And she just one touches a slightly curling ball on the ground with the outside of her right boot to Morgan, who is running in behind the defender. Morgan gets to it. I mean, it's a lovely, I mean, it's not an amazing pass from Horan, but it's just very aesthetically pleasing. And I loved it. But Morgan gets to it,

whips it across with her left foot, and Rodman making a determined run past her mark, meets it in the kill zone, thumps it home, beautiful goal, 2-0. Yeah, and this is a really fun goal because it's kind of a combination of like the lethal counterattack that the U.S. had possessed all leading up to the World Cup,

but also like it wasn't just like we took it from their fullback with the forward and then ran directly at the goal and then squared it for a tap-in. Like those three or four passes that we executed to create the jailbreak were really important. And it was all like seven or eight-yard passes. So it was good, quick thinking, good spacing, good decision-making for the five passes that lead to

Alex Morgan running in space to square to Lynn Williams running in space. And even saying square it, that's selling Morgan's pass here short. That's a solid pass from Alex Morgan to curve it around the defender. It's not like obviously on in the moment. Yeah, she saw that there was a window there and then she put it there and Robin got there. Good run from Rodman. Oh, Rodman.

I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay, 2-0. Robin does a little dance and then Ertz gets subbed off for Andy Sullivan. Quite a career she's had. course, 123 caps, 20 goals, playing mostly as a defensive midfielder, two World Cup trophies. She's going to go down as an all-time great. Yeah, deservedly so.

She rescued us on two separate occasions, I feel like, the 2015 World Cup, again, in that cycle, we were, we had been underwhelming in the back. and I think she was like a it was like a late development that urts became our centerback and and once she was there that was it there was no more discussion and you know we weren't a super night it's crazy to say thinking about that World Cup because we ended up dropping five in the final but we were not a particularly like prolific attacking team and so having Ertz back there being rock steady was huge and then the malaise following that World Cup where we struggled in the Olympics. We were struggling post Olympics. It's not like we just woke up

after the Olympics. Immediately. We were struggling again. And I feel like it was all about to go south until we decided to try Juilliards out as the defensive midfielder. And the moment we did that, it was like a half-time switch against Brazil and

a semi-friendly, one of those semi- official competitions, round-robin type things. That was it. Like we were unplayable for the rest of that cycle. and, you know, finished with another World Cup trophy. So, yeah, so twice it was just like, well, I guess Julia just plugs in and solves it. And then we try to do it again in 2023.

Well, let's just plug Julie back in. Does she play soccer anymore? No. Does that matter? We'll see. It didn't. It's not like it didn't work. Kind of worked, you know?

I mean. That was the comment. Again, Fowdy made that comment, right? Julia Ertz and Naomi Germa's first start together was in the World Cup. and they gave up two total shots on target, right? Unbelievable. And then we get our third goal in the 41st minute. It's another set piece.

This one, a corner taken by Sullivan from the right side. There's actually something really nice in it, which is Heran meeting it and flicking it through her legs as she leaps into the air. Like she totally meant to put it on the backpost with that flick. And very, very deft and delicate with the instep of her right foot. it hits Lynn Williams in the stomach and rolls in as she tries as she reaches out to try to poke it but misses so uh it's a goal three zero this is delightful from her and her ran always will try stuff which is what I

absolutely love about her I mean even that looping cross that we talked about earlier like what was that though I mean that was on purpose right she's like I can I'm just gonna balloon this thing up there and see so it's so fun like trying to see those sort of of gears turning in her mind. And this touch is just outrageous. Pull this off. And again, it's not, it's something that could have definitely happened in New Zealand. It's not like she's playing freer now.

And it's just, you know, in New Zealand, we didn't get this moment. And we did get it in this game. Right. Also, the, when you said Williams isn't going to put these goals on our highlight reel, this goal is absolutely going on Lynn Williams. You think for like her retirement video? Yeah. She was chuckling about it immediately like she reenacted it and just part of her celebration.

Like who just kind of throws her midsection at it. Fair enough. All right. The half comes. I have some notes on that are somewhat critical of Alex Morgan, but we don't need to get into any more of that. She obviously played that great ball for Rodman. A lot of, I don't know, untidiness in the area just above the box, like receiving the ball. Anyway, the half comes.

It's M.A. Vignola on for Crystal D. Dunn, this is an interesting thing because we get to see a new left back, see how she does for the national team. And it's interesting because we don't necessarily have to find another left back, right? Like if we decide that we want to move away from Crystal Dunn as left back, we can stick Emily Fox at left back and find a new right back too, which is sometimes easier. But either way, I'm glad we got 45 minutes. Did you guys call her sister Mary Alice on Wosso Wednesday?

I, maybe Vince did. I mean, he did mention that she went to a Catholic high school in Cincinnati. So I was, I'm glad we got to see it. I feel like it's probably going to be one for the first game jitters archive. Because it seemed like there was some. My first two notes on her are a giveaway in the 47th minute and then another kind of untidiness resulting in the loss of possession in the 40th minute. She seemed, I mean, we can talk about. talking up to jitters, but she was not very good in possession, I think.

That's how I'd put it. Yeah. And for the jitters thing, I feel like what you have to look at is, you know, was the moment that you're actually watching? Like, was she under way more pressure than she used to being under for her club? And it didn't really seem like it, right? So it's like, is she literally not capable of making the decision and executing that past?

That really does seem unlikely. And we, again, we have plenty of experience watching players have these kinds of jitters where they just failed to execute for the national team on their debut, what they routinely execute for their club in conditions that are as or more difficult. So I'm not going to be like, okay, she's definitely not it. But just like before, she was called in late as an injury replacement for O'Hara, right? Yes. And I'm not going to write her off either, but I'm not going to say that she definitely does routinely execute this stuff for her club either.

because I'm not sure that she does. That's fair. But I guess I'm just saying, you know, we weren't losing a ton of sleep when she wasn't on the initial roster, so it's not like if she's not called in for the next camp, it's going to be like, oh, well, they're writing her off. It doesn't just be like,

she's on the fringes. Yeah. Well, Kruger came on and played right back. She can play left back too. It'd be interesting to see her at left back. She had a really, like, a lovely outside of the boot, left-footed pass to Alyssa Thompson late in the game, which I will mention.

I'm talking about Kruger. But anyway, 48th minute, Catalana roasts Sullivan around the corner, slides it across the box, but nobody meets it from South Africa. You know, some stuff happens in this period of the game.

It's nothing really interesting, I don't think. Sanchez comes on for Haran, Hatch comes on for Morgan. Nothing inherently wrong with those substitutions, but it just feels like we're doing the exact same thing we've been doing for the past 18 months. Yeah, I mean, and what it keeps coming down to is like,

are the players the problem, or is it just they weren't set up to succeed? Because both Ashley Hatch and Sanchez are doing very well for their club teams. You know, they're having great seasons. So it's not like we should be done with Ashley Hatch, right? Like, she could be the player who, eat some of the minutes that Alex Morgan stops getting as Alex Morgan ages out.

So it doesn't seem like that's necessarily the wrong thing, but it just does feel like this isn't going to fix it. Not in this window, not with the interim coach doing the interim doing the same things that it seems like we were doing before. So there's going to be a fix.

It's not just like, it's going to take the new coach, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah. I mean, we talked about this on Wednesday, but Crocker has come out and said he wants, you know, made a couple of several points about what he wants from a new coach, one of them being a more intentional possession-based style.

Another one being more youth development of a youth development focus. And, you know, we really got neither of those things, no evidence of those things last night. So I don't know if you guys read into Crocker statements like this, but I believe it was pretty clear that what he was saying is that he's going to poach the entire Japanese coaching staff. Okay. I mean, I would love that. That was my read on it. I was like, oh, that's, I mean, this is as clear as it gets. He's taking the best possession team for the World Cup and then, you know, with all their experience working with youth teams and he's just going to bring them all on board. And that's who we're running with for the next cycle.

There you go. You heard it here first. Whole staff. They're all coming over. Thompson comes on for Rodman and Kruger comes on for Fox. in the 77th minute and then we get mostly injury breaks for the next five minutes. So we didn't get to see a ton of Thompson.

She had a couple moments and here they are. 84th minute, a lovely outside of the boot pass from Kruger, the one I mentioned before, triggers a blazing run from Thompson down to the end line. She gets to the end line, but she cuts it back blind. I watched it in very slow motion.

She did not look across the box once. before she hit the pass and she hits it right to a yellow shirt. Now, this is hard to do. It's hard to pick somebody out when you're running full speed at the end line with the ball. But she misses the trailing run of Sanchez and did not look across the box before she hit the pass. She'll learn also a nice, like I said, a nice ball from Kruger. I liked it. Yeah.

I mean, like you're saying, it is difficult to do, but that is absolutely what you have to do is pick your head up and identify the window to hit it into. for to know where a player even should be occupying. You don't even have to see somebody occupy the window, but you have to know what the window is, and then you trust your teammate to fill it. Right. But you got to look, yeah, she's going to have to look up to see this. Is Casey Grueger going to be the,

on the Olympic roster fellas? I don't know. I mean, people on the Discord are very excited about her, but she is 33 years old. So, you know, she doesn't look like she's slowing down at all. She looks very spry out there. Yeah, that's the issue, right? You don't look like you're going to slow down and then very suddenly you slow down.

And if you're, you know. Happens to all of us. Yeah. And if, again, if your biggest strength is going to be like that defending and then you lose a step defending, then it could hurry. But as we just saw, she's got some passing in that toolbox. She can pull it out. I mean, if I'd seen one pass like that from Vignola, I'd be singing a different tune about Sister Mary Alice, you know. And again, Olympics, they tried to play a little bit of hard ball with the roster sizes in 2021.

So maybe they'll do that again. And Kruger can play both sides. So if you have Kruger and Fox capable of playing both sides of a fullback, that's not nothing. No. 85th minute, we get a nice ball from Cook that finds Thompson on the sideline. She gathers it in some under some duress and then slips it forward for the overlapping Kruger, whose right-footed cross isn't any kind of thing. I think she was aiming for Sanchez,

but it was five yards behind her and scuffed. So I thought, I guess the official word from FBREF is she's both-footed, but it sure looked like she was left-footed on this play. And I mean, that's where she's spending most of her time for Chicago, is a left-back. Yeah. Crew is doing a lot of lumping it in in the late minutes, It's 88th minute lumps one in from wide right.

Hatch challenges. Keeper punches it straight up. I'm just setting you up here, Greg. Straight up. It falls for Lynn Williams. Like, I think it bounces right above her head. And what should she have done here, Greg? Well, when the ball is straight up like that

and there's no power on the ball that you can use the elastic force to complement the power that you're going to put on the ball, then you have to impart more force on it. The only way to do that is rotational velocity, and the only way to make that happen is an overhead kick. Yep. We should get a sound effect for that. I don't know what that sound effect would be.

Yeah, we'll have to put some thought into that. She, instead of attempting the overhead kick, actually does a nice little swivel half folly with her left foot right off the ground, and it goes wide through Hatch's legs. But this one, like, again, I'll be I'll be honest. It is disappointing that she did not attempt the overhead kick here because this isn't even like, it's not like it was a bang, bang thing.

This thing's up there enough where it bounces, like it bounces up. So she has a ton of time to read this off of the ground. You know, you can still frame it where it looks like she might do it. And then it's like she elects not to. It's not that the thought never occurred to her. Like the thought occurred to her in a three zero friendly in the 87 seventh minute and she elects not to and that that I'm going to ding you for that a little bit harder well maybe if maybe she was like it's a three oh three zero friendly I don't want to like

break my neck here um players almost never break their neck on these almost never right fair enough fair enough i i mean ding her ding away Greg um a in the 90th minute Sanchez carries it and slips it out to Vignola running on the left wing. This is a moment where she kind of abstains from a one-touch pass that could be played into Williams' feet in the channel through admittedly a tight window. She takes a touch and then just wax it over the end line, way out of reach for Williams.

We'll just have to repeat first game jitters until she gets a second game. And if she doesn't get a second game for a while, I think we'll be okay with that. But I just want to keep giving you the benefit of the doubt. Okay. And then I've clocked one more Kruger lump into the box from wide right, right into the keeper's hands in the stoppage time.

And the game ended. And now we play in Chicago on Sunday. So yeah, I could say, I can say pretty comfortably that we did not in the past two and half months, solve all the ills of our final third approach play for the U.S. Women's National. Twyla has not accomplished that. Twyla may not think that is an important job to accomplish as well, judging by her smile on the sideline.

Well, again, she gets to run out as the manager of the national team and she wins her first match. She's undefeated as national team manager. Hazzah. Hazzah. All right. Hey, lots of scuffed content to keep track of this week. You know, check the feed. Check the patron feed if you're a patron. If you're not, you know, join us. Link is in the show notes. Thanks, Greg. Have a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you.