Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #444: USWNT v Colombia recap

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

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Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. A zero-zero-zero draw in Utah against Columbia. Zero minutes for Sam Coffee. Zero minutes for Alyssa Thompson. Three minutes off the bench before stoppage time for Jaden Shaw. What two touches on the ball? What could be worse than what we witnessed last night? Well, I mean, Jane Shaw creating zero chances in her three minutes would be worse.

and Jane Shaw creating one chance. That's true. That's true. How you doing, Greg? I'm doing all right. Yeah, it's a not a super exciting start to this window. What will hopefully be the last window of interim coaching for the women's national team this cycle. Yeah.

It's kind of a twilight. It's a time of twilight. Is that a play on? Is that even a joke? Does that even count? That's what I was curious about. I didn't even know if you're going for that. The twilight, the twilight of Twyla's tenure.

I don't know. I'm cutting it all. I'm cutting everything about that. That's the coward's move, but go ahead. So let's do the lineups. Speaking of coward moves. Okay, go ahead. Neyer and goal.

Fox, Cook, German, and Don across the back line. Sullivan, Sonnet, and Horan in the midfield, Rodman, Morgan, and Williams across the front line. We're still trying to win that game against Sweden. Run it back. Yeah, it's not, it's not, again, it doesn't, you don't see the lineup and go, oh, this is going to be fantastic. Even though it's a perfectly competent lineup of women's soccer players. Yeah.

And then for Columbia, Natalia Geraldo and goal, Carolina Arias, Joralin Carabali, Daniela Adias, and Manuela Vanegas across the back. Backline, Daniela Montoya and Lorena Durango in the double pivot. Marcella Restrepo, Lacey Santos, and Linda Kaysedo, across the band of three in the 4-2-3-1. Santos and Kaisado both quite fun to watch. And then Yvonne Chacon as the striker. I don't know that. Go ahead.

Well, I was going to immediately backtrack to our lineup. And just because for a lot of people who listen to us, they may have started listening to us in the glory years of 2018 when the men's team was going through a transition in the administration after a disastrous World Cup cycle, which I think you would call 2023 for the women's team. Standards are much, much higher. So getting knocked out in a round of 16 is sort of considered disastrous. So they started listening to us in the glory year of the Dave Serrican era, the one year of Dave Serrican. And, you know, I think Sanjay made a reference to it when he saw the lineup for last night. Because Dave Serrikin took that disastrous World Cup cycle and that roster and just said, we should just stay really far away from these players for the moment and just bring in some totally new unproven players and just

let them rip. And it was kind of fun for a while and it just feels like this was, this could have been more exciting, more fun to do that. There's a ton of context around this that makes it not quite the same thing, right? So in the men's team in 2018, we had a total necessary changing of the guard moment because of how old that team was. And this current World Cup group for the women in 2023 was much more blended. We had, yes, we have a lot of aging players that we are seeing featuring in the lineup yesterday. But we also had quite a few young players. So you couldn't quite do it as cleanly as you could on the men's side where it's like, we're just going to leave out basically everyone. Pulisick didn't even really want to play in 2018. So we didn't call him in very much. It was like

Kellen Acosta was like the carryover. And for the women, it would be a difficult managing of egos for an interim coach to like drop half of the World Cup roster in response to the disastrous World Cup. But keep the other half because it's like you don't have an easy out to say, well, we just want to give the olds a break. You can't really do that. So I do kind of understand the difficult spot that Twyla is in here. You know, we want Sophia Smith there. We want Naomi Germa there.

We don't want to just be like, no, we're going to give the whole New Zealand crew a break and get some distance from that sort of failure because we need those players there. We need turning to Rodman there. We just would prefer maybe some of the more established, longer serving players, maybe see a little bit less of the actual field. And then the other important piece of context years, where Serraken had essentially five years of lead time to the next important moment for the U.S. men's team,

we are looking at seven months until the Olympics, which is a full speed, full competition on the women's side. Right. But, I mean, couldn't we just leave out people who are still in the NW. SL playoffs. You know, I know I did say I wanted to see coffee, but I mean, let's do something different. Let's try something out in these meaningless games where, you know, there wasn't a, I know we don't, you don't like talking about crowds. There wasn't a great crowd in Sandy, Utah for this one. I guess it was pretty cold and, um, and a week night and everything, but I mean,

we're not, we, we did, we did zero experimentation. Like the only experimentation was the five, the five minutes of cameo that Shaw was on the on the field. Yeah. No, nothing is happening, Greg. Nothing is happening. Nothing is happening. And the,

yeah, I mean, that was my real weak attempt to just say, Twyel was in a tough spot. But it's just almost like that's, that's what she's been installed to do, is just be like, I guess just maintain the,

whatever the inertia was. Don't change the inertia. And we'll get somebody in by December. because the other thing that what we end up with after the World Cup, after the entire cycle, really of Vlato and then the World Cup and then these absolute placeholder lineups and matches that we're playing now, like there is now a question that the next coach and next group of players that the coach brings in will have to answer.

And that is, are the, is the US team still good at something? Like, are we still good? Right. Like, I'm optimistic that we are. A lot of people think, you know, that VlaKos, takes a lot of the blame here for that cycle and that failure. But like we have to figure out if it was really just Laco or if it was that we have fallen behind and that we have good individual players who can do really good things in NWSL. But on the at the level of world

international soccer, they're not good enough anymore. They're not good enough at playing as a soccer team to do what we saw Spain do. Are we good at something? We're I think we're we can answer some we can answer with a couple of things that we are definitely good at pretty good defense I think that's that's that's pretty much the thing right we're Columbia didn't really test us at all on the defensive side and throughout the World Cup we were we gave up so few chances that it that is absolutely an impressive feat but is that our identity now are we just a program that is really tough to play against that is not historically the reputation of the U.S. women's national team to be solely that, you know,

and that's going to be what we will have to prove that that's not the case. And that's going to be the, I'm honestly looking forward to the next cycle because I think we will prove that we are still good at flying up and down the field and creating chances and scoring goals. Yeah, I mean, it sure seems like we have the talent for it. And I thank you for the positive ending to that segment. That's my hope, right? Like I think that's what I'm now sort of framing the next cycle as is we have to prove it.

And we have to we have to prove that we're still good. And I think and hope that we will. Yeah. Okay. You ready for this timeline? And I mean, anyone who's about to listen to this timeline, I just want to, I mean, I'm glad you are listening to our podcast. I just want to ask like, what are you doing here? You already watch.

What are you doing with your life? You watch the game. with my life you know this the context surrounding this game in this group at the moment but but thank you for sticking with this if you do yeah I'll try to keep it as brief as possible on my end right away in the first minute Sullivan gives it away in our half I mean just is what it is it didn't really it doesn't really amount to anything for Columbia but Um, fourth minute, Morgan gives it away on a flick.

Like her, her flick game was not on point in this first half. Like it was, uh, you know, the ideas were there, but the execution and precision were not even close to there. Yeah, the Morgan flicks kind of turned into an entire bit, uh, based on the last like 20 minutes of the Netherlands game from the World Cup where she was doing some solid flicking. And now, now it's hard not to notice every flick she has in like, continue the bit well three yeah three bad flicks in a row and I'm starting to

I'm starting to crash a little bit early in the fifth minute a good ball from sonnet to Morgan sort of from the from wide right into the channel and it's just out of Morgan's reach running into the final third off of the centerback I it seems like maybe she could have gotten to it maybe a slightly faster striker could have gotten to it but it's a nice ball from on it. Yeah, it might be it might be a little bit like a magnifying glass situation to be like could she have got to this one? But I think what I wanted to clock here was that we do have this

available to us, which is Morgan or any of our center forwards sort of off of one center back shoulder. So in other words, like pretty good room to operate here that Sonnet tried to find. Yeah. And we'll get, we'll touch on it more. One minute later. exactly one minute later a nice entry pass from Sullivan to Rodman Rodman plays a one touch pass to Morgan and Morgan is in she's got she's gotten on the wrong side of the center back

and she's like heading at the goal with the ball on her right foot but her first touch is heavy she kind of feels some contact dies and rolls on the ground multiple times like she rolled over two three times I think and there was no pen called. No, and I think it was the roles were just her salvaging the mistouch, you know, the optics of the mistouch because it's a really, it's a bad touch.

And these happen. Again, no one takes every ball perfectly in stride. But the creation right here is very good from the US. Yeah. So this is a really nice touch from Rodman. And like you said, Morgan is in. This is as good as it gets really. And then Morgan squanders it with that touch that is like a way.

from the way she's running. So instead of putting it in her own path to then pass into the goal, she hits it like back to where the defender and goalkeeper are and it's an easy collection for Columbia. And this is the kind of thing I wanted to, you know, we just clocked a minute ago. We can get our centerback leveraged to the wrong side of the, we can get, I'm sorry, our center forward with leverage behind their centerback, behind a single centerback. So it was there all game and Morgan wasn't particularly effective at it.

I, you know, I clock a, Germa trying to hit Haran in the pocket, but the pass is just a little too brisk for Horan. Rodman having a little trouble connecting on the right side. Cook Blass one, a blast a diagonal out of bounds. Then in the 16th minute we get a little magic from Rodman in the corner to sort of Meg Daniela Adias and then whips a good ball into the dangerous area just outside the six. it's met by the other RAS, the right back, and cut out. I mean, this was like sort of the redeeming moment of the entire match

just because it was so fun to see Rodman do this. There is still joy in soccer in a game of soccer, even if overall there's some wet blanket laid over the top of it. This is one of those moments. So if you can't enjoy this, then you really do need to take a break from the national team for a while because it's just fun. Yeah, Rodman, I mean, Rodman did a lot of fun stuff. She was in control.

And it wasn't like an amazing game for her, but there were several moments where she was in control of what she was doing on that right side and effective. I noticed in the 17th minute, Germa ends up one v. 1 with Kaysedo and just clamps her. No problem. I mean, clamps her is maybe a little of an exaggeration, but prevents her from doing anything dangerous. Yeah. And this goes back to what our strength definitely is at the moment, and that is locked down defending, especially from whichever two centerbacks we have on the field. I expected Cicado to be much more of a problem than she was in this game.

It seemed like we got back and helped on her pretty well, pretty vigorously. And she never really blew us open. Yep, defensive organization and execution, basically outstanding for Vlokko's entire tenure. And I'm sort of just lumping this in with Vlocco's tenure. Yeah. Okay. Let's get going here. Good ball over the top from Germa to Morgan.

It's not all that different from the, at least in what ultimately happens from the one from Sonnet, except this one's a ball over the top, over the middle. Morgan just can't quite get to it. Yeah, and again, you could say is she just off of step or is it just slightly overhit? But again, the theme here is it's on. It's on a little bit. It was on, yeah. Williams, Mugs Carabali in the press, plays it over to Haran. Horan, good technique to one, to sort of let it roll across her body and then one touch it

outside of the boot over to Morgan, who has a shot from a really good spot, just hits it well, just right at the keeper. Yeah, and this is a nice, nice one to have on there because this is that moment that tells you maybe what we could be trying to focus on. We stopped focusing on this absolute like hounding defensive pressure upfield that we used to get a lot of revenue from, again, even just leading up to the World Cup, and then we dialed it back significantly for the World Cup itself. And this is one of those things where I'm very curious if whoever comes in as a new coach, will start leaning on this again

as like our primary identity it's because I think we have the I think we got the players to do it I kind of hope not I want us to I want us to possess you know I mean not that you can't do that and possess both but

I mean yeah that's definitely my absolute biggest hope is that we have a coach who can lean into this but also can play out of the out of the back after the block is defeated and we just retrieved the ball in our own defensive third then we have some ideas on how to play,

which we did not really have too much of in this contest or for the last year and a half. Yeah, since forever. Since the glory days of Jill Ellis. So I think the next one is yours, the next item. Yeah, you'd already clocked one Germa entry pass that didn't quite hit. She has another one in the 27th minute where she receives it at sort of at the edge of Columbia's pretty deep set amoeba

and then steps forward between two defenders with the ball at her feet and hits another nice entry pass to Lindsay Fran between the lines in the half space. And this was actually a theme and I do think this is another area that we are strong. I think our centerbacks are strong, not just at defending, but I think they are strong at having the ball at their feet and making a good decision and not just a safe decision. And we see it from Alana Cook. We see it from Germa and then we'll see it even from Miss Sourbrun.

Yeah. God. Yep. Yeah. I mean, Cook slides that little pass out to the, it's not little, actually. It's kind of often a long pass, slides that long pass out to the sideline. Real smooth-like. Yeah, I just noticed right before the half that they show the American Outlaws and it's a, it's a modest group.

of people. The people there have a plenty of energy, but yes, uh, we did not turn out in force for this match. And by we, I don't mean, I'm not putting this on the outlaws. I didn't,

I didn't go to Utah for this match. No, I didn't either. Um, and then, you know, the big, the big incident at the,

right at the end of the half is, uh, Daniela, aides pulls down Williams, sort of on a corner kick. It seemed a little soft to me, but we get the penalty. Yeah,

there was just, there was just a ton of like buildup to this. We took like three or four straight corners. every single one, there was all this like commotion and to do. And it was all kind of a little embarrassing for everyone involved, I feel like. Except maybe for Lynn Williams, who threw all this into the second half on corners two, would literally just like stand, pick a spot, stand. And she was not like pushing back into anything at all.

She would just stand and plan herself. And she is a powerful grown-up human being. Oh, man, is she? For some reason, Columbia just decided that the absolute one thing they did not want is for Lynn Williams to be to stand in that exact spot. So they were just doing all kinds of nonsense. And then around that nonsense because, you know, everyone was all agitated. People were like grabbing and holding and falling.

And yeah, it was just, it was all a little bit much. But it's just a really terrible decision from Columbia to actually have all that like draw all that attention onto it and then still wrap the player up when she's trying to just run away from the goal and not do anything dangerous whatsoever. Yeah, I love the way you describe it. Describe it all, I mean. So then Morgan gets to take the penalty and how poetic. She just slams it off the right post.

The ball comes right back to her. She tries to right foot it in and sends it over the goal. You know, I don't know. I don't really care if she misses a penalty or not. It's not the thing that matters the most. No, but her awareness to take it off the post and try to hit it in was I mean she's got a she's got a dummy that because she can't touch it twice in a row off the post come on Morgan like you take a lot of penalties you should know the rule here oh I didn't know that I didn't know that rule is that true yeah you can't you can't be the same person can't touch the ball twice consecutively on a on a restart huh we don't do dribble in this isn't you right I just feel like a penalty that goes off the post is a little bit of a different situation but no any free kick any free kick penalty direct it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter or anything off the post, you're still the last person to touch it.

Somebody's got to touch it. Okay, okay. So the half comes, Sauerbrun on for Germa, still zero zero. What happens next, Greg? I'm still stuck on that penalty. I'm guessing whoever comes in as the next coach will have that on their mind when they're deciding whether Alex Morgan is still... He's not knowing that rule. He's supposed to be a leader.

A second half. I mean, we have this transition moment, and I'm talking about how we're a good transition team. But also I'm going to talk about a lot of our shortcomings in transition. 48th minute, a really terrible transition moment from Lindsay Horan, who usually thrives in this kind of situation. But was just a little bit off, I felt like all night yesterday. She basically, in this case, misses a huge window to play with Lynn Williams in behind. Proceeds to dribble straight into a challenge and loses it. Williams was like moving from out to in on this.

So it was even more dangerous. It's not like she was going to lead her to the sideline with some space, you know. Like she was going to be playing her into the goal. And as we'll talk about the next item on the timeline, when Lindsay Williams already has a step, it's criminal to pass that up. She doesn't even need a step. If you can just get it to her with space, she can create her own step. So when you already have it, like that's, that defender's never going to catch her up again.

And it's going to be Williams either shooting from a. pretty good tight angle or squaring it to a wide open player in the middle. And we just ignored it. It might be harsh to say ignored it. Like a lot of times, Iran does this. But this is, again, just one of those where you can tell we haven't embraced,

reembraced our transition quality. Yeah. I got to say... If you're in the Discord, you're definitely going to see this highlight on there. Okay. I got to say, I like,

I mean, I know that Williams is, you know, she's good at pressing, definitely good at pressing, really fast, you know, can really catch the ball sweetly when she shoots. But man, I'm getting kind of tired of watching her play. It's, it's so, it's so, she's such a blunt instrument. She doesn't, I don't know, like her first touch is always a little bit iffy and she's not combining that well.

I'm just going to keep playing wait and see because it's hard to dinger for not combining when as a team no one's trying to combine. Like no one's moving to combine. It's the seventh thing on anybody's mind when they're playing around their teammate. First through six being can I get to the six yard box for a cross? So it's just, again, this goes back to what the big question will be for this cycle is. Are we actually good? Is Lynn Williams even better than what we see that she can do? Can she do other things if we put the team in a position to do those things?

Yeah, fair enough. Okay. I mean, she had that ball in the pre-World Cup friendly. I mean, I know it's one time, but she didn't get to play a lot in the World Cup. So doing that one thing is a pretty good thing. Okay. Well, she did something good on the next item, which is she did the right back. just like does her for pace, leaves her for dead,

and then gets to the end line, cuts it back for Morgan. It's a good cutback. Maybe shin high, knee high. Morgan meets it at just above the near post. It's a really good chance. And she just, she gets the shot a little bit wrong. But that is a good chance created by Williams and Morgan in a good spot too. Yeah.

And this was, this was again the case of, Lynn doesn't have to, you don't have to do anything particularly special. to get Lynn Williams in advantage. We saw her do the Dutch, I'm sorry, the Swedish left back over and over and over again in New Zealand. And she just does Columbia here with nothing, with nothing particularly sophisticated, right? Just to absolutely blow past her. And now we have a really good Man City's own moment. And in this, the chance itself reminded me a lot of our New Zealand chances too,

which was Morgan flashing horizontally across the face of the goal, shooting from just about outside the goalposts at the near post. So all our momentum's going towards the sideline. It's really difficult technically. It might be something that can throw off your models if you're thinking that we're creating really, really good chances versus like the kind of tap-ins where you're square to the goal running straight at it versus what we're getting here.

Well, just to be clear, difficult for you, not difficult for me. Right. It's difficult for, you know, one of the all-time great scores in world history, Alex Morgan. But yes, I do concede that you would finish. No, no. I'm really high percentage. Yeah, those chances.

But yeah, it's a, it's a good look. It's a good look. And again, it just comes from Lynn Williams being in open space and being able to do something really dangerous. The 50th minute mark, we get Sauerbrun, who I kind of glossed over her entry when you mentioned it. She came in at half. Doing a lot of what we saw Germann doing,

which is getting the ball stepping up to the edge of the amoeba, that we'd pin deep and hitting entry passes into players feet sort of at right at the top of the box, which for me are really high value moments to initiate an attacking sequence. In both of these cases, the player receiving it kind of had the body language like, why would you pass me the ball here? Which is not what you want to see. No.

But again, for me, the theme is if we're looking for positives, center back play has been a real positive for us. Okay. I mean, how far are we falling, but that's a positive. Yeah, it's frustrating because it's like, I guess they feel like everything's fine. Twyla feels like everything's fine. This is what we should be doing. But it feels like a crisis to me that is just being unaddressed.

And a crisis is too strong. It's an abdication. A festering wound. Yeah, I feel like Twilis just abdicating the responsibility to be like, look, there's going to be a new coach. The new coach will take this on. It's my job isn't to fix it. it. My job is to... What is her job?

I don't know. My job is to, you know, wear the title, uh, take the press conference. And do exactly what Vlako would do. Yeah, we're, I'm treading water here. 58th minute. Nice stuff from Rodman and Morgan.

So Morgan does a little headed flick to get Rodman into the box. And Rodman prevails over the defender trailing her. plays a little cut back through three. defenders for Haran. Rand's covered in the box. So she kind of sole drags it back to Morgan, who dances around and has her shot blocked. But it's several nice little things in that sequence. We'll take it, right?

I mean, when nice little things are so few and far between, you latch on to something like this with everything you got. So real, real subtle cutback from Rodman. We love the flick from Morgan. If she's out there, this is what we want her doing. But yeah, that cutback from Rodman, because she got everyone driving back towards the goal at speed and then she kind of cuts it real softly behind everyone's momentum to find her hand so clever yeah we like that more of that more often for more players 67th minute we get hatch de mellow and kruger on for Morgan Sullivan and done then yeah

them's the facts yeah you got to know if you were super excited about anyone actually Give me your bit on all three of these. I like the, I like what Hatch did to create the shot that we're gonna talk about here in a little bit. Did well there and put a good shot on frame, drew a good save. Kruger, I think I like her.

I mean, she did some, she did some good stuff. I'm not, I'm not sold on to Mello. She's fine, but like she doesn't add anything. It doesn't look, it doesn't seem like she adds anything special right now.

didn't in this game at least all right I mean I at least appreciate the the switch from a solvent type to a Demello type because I think de Mello is going to be again more of a more of a drinkster in that

at the edge of the final third let's say and I desperately want us to have that I don't know if she's going to be our best drinkster through this cycle but again on like fundamentally I'm glad that we are trying to put that kind of player in the game in the 67th minute. Yeah, fair enough.

I want her to be more of a drink stir, I think. Like, that is the idea, but it's, it's, uh, the drink isn't getting stirred that much. Like you can't just set the straw in the drink. You actually have to have to actually stir it. You can't just move it side to side across the glass, you know, you got to like actually. So what's the next thing on the, So the next thing's going to be a nice advertisement for Ashley Hatch. Seventy third minute.

It's a really nice open field transition sequence after some sloppy stuff from us following a throw-in in our defensive third, our throw-in. Krueger has a really bad throw. It gives it straight to under-throws it straight to Columbia. A lot of Cook steps up. Trinity comes back to help disrupt things. And then DeMello nice in really well to flip control of the situation. And then does stir the drink a little bit here.

It's a quick ball to Williams to the weak side in some space to sort of key the break. Williams receives it nicely to beat a defender, kind of with a little faint, a little hesitation faint. She's got some nuance spells. And then hits a long diagonal to Trinity who's now running in the wide channel on the opposite side of the field. So Trinity's in space running. And lets it bounce twice and hits a really delicate first time pass to Hatch who's streaking up the center lane. into the box. The idea from Trinity good here, the execution is a little bit off the pass overruns hatch by quite a bit. She's got to chase it down wide of the goal. But she wins this leverage

battle. And this is a leverage battle that we weren't getting a lot of joy from Alex Morgan in the first half. It creates a really dangerous shooting opportunity that's well saved at the near post for a corner. But yeah, I think the contrast is there. And this is where, like, I think Hatch catches some grief because she has not finished a lot of the chances that she has been on the end of for the national team and her friendlies leading up to the World Cup. She was sort of, I don't know if you say famously, left off the World Cup roster. Performance-wise, there's really nothing separating Ashley Hatch from Alex Morgan. And if there is, it's actually Ashley Hatch is well ahead of her performance-wise.

You're talking about in the league numbers or like with the national team? I would probably say both because I'm not a, as most people know, I'm not a conversion guy. I'm a chance volume guy and Ashley Hatch has probably had better volume of chances for her for the time she's had. Now there's a huge difference obviously in legacy, right? And that does matter. That's not nothing when you're talking about, you know, a multi-time world champion like Alex Morgan. But soccer-wise, like if you had told me before the World Cup like, hey, they're actually going with Hatch and they didn't bring Alex Morgan, I would have sort of just shrugged at it and been like, okay, that's a lot of. fine. Sophia Smith should be a striker anyway. So Ashley Hatch is a perfectly capable backup.

But I don't know. I mean like you can't yeah yeah it's so hard to separate the soccer wise from the sort of it's not politics exactly. It's just inertia or whatever. Yeah, whatever you want to call it to drop Alex Morgan from rep reputation you know she's earned it and I don't necessarily dispute that at all. I just think on the soccer merits like Hatch probably has just about the same in 2023 that's probably about equal or better claim to a roster spot

than Alex Morgan. Yeah, this is why we need a new coach so badly because it really needs to be you know, Sophia at Stryker probably and I'm not I'm not super interested

in more Hatch experimentation myself. But she's fine, she's good. Like she's good to have her. It's good to have her but like for getting to where we need to go, I don't know that she's the one.

Do you disagree with that? You think she could be like the striker for like a full strength women's national team at the Olympics or the next World Cup and it be like good? I guess I'd say I think she could do a job. I don't think she does Sophia Smith's job. I think Sophia Smith is like an outlier

and it remains crazy to me not to have that be the position and we build around it. But I think Ashley Hatch would make a perfectly acceptable contender for a backup striker spot. So I do feel like some people are just out on Hatch. They're like just kind of done with her. And it's like me official time or whatever else. And I think those names will be in the battle as well.

But I definitely don't think Hatch would be. I don't think her time is necessarily over. Okay. So Sophia, speaking of her, comes on for Trinity. in the 76th minute and we get a few more good things happen in the game, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a nice moment from Kruger here in the 76th minute

just after Sov comes on. And we're finding some open spaces from Columbia. I don't know if this is sort of, it's a friendly and they're getting stretched. But again, there were some spaces to find the whole game. So it's not solely like last 20 minutes of a friendly stuff. This was just a simple switch around the back that makes its way to Alana Cook

and she has that really silky, long, low distribution up the field to Kruger who's in space and it's a good crossing opportunity for her on the run to hit it behind or retreating Columbia back line. I come down hard on crosses a lot.

Not all crosses are bad crosses, even if most of them are. This was a really good crossing situation and Columbia dealt with it well. It was a nice cross too. She hit it well. Just taken off of Ashley Hatch's foot but inside the six.

I mean, not taking off it, you know, intercepted before it reached her foot. Yeah, intercepted in a way that they can only play it out for a corner or an own goal. And this one went out for a corner. A couple minutes later, more simple stuff up that right side. Cook hits the same distribution to Krueger. But this time she's stationary instead of being on the run up field and she's being closed down. But she solves it with a nice first time pass just as the pressure arrives down the line. just kind of helps it down the line for Sophia to run on to 1v1.

So now again, it's Sophia running away from the middle of the field, but it's still a decent situation to create. We get a corner out of it. Okay. I think you have one more thing here and then I have two, three things and... Yeah, 80th minute, we get another decent transition moment to just kind of see what some of these players want to do. And it's, I think, a partially concussed Lindsey Horan at this point. Just came back onto the field.

maybe that's how she was able to get into the Columbia blind side, but she just wrecks a player at midfield, did not know that she was coming at all. Williams picks it up on sort of the left side of the field, and it's clear like we are moving, like we're streaming upfield. Williams with a nice, quick vertical pass into Hatch's feet with a defender on her back, and it's tidy two-touch stuff from Hatch to hit it to Heron on the left sideline,

but facing upfield. And we've got Williams, we've got Sophia, and we've got now Hatch all bursting forward towards the box, DeMello vacates the central area to overlap Huran with some like real intensity. Again, we're like moving here and it looks good. And then Huran chooses to Mello and like hits the ball out of bounds at the corner flag, which was very disappointing for the energy of the moment. But it's still like for me as evidence that this is a group that wants to take the ball from

the other team and then run. Yeah. That, uh, that, that ball that Huran played to Demello that went out of bounds. That seemed uncharacteristic of her, you know, like so, so badly weighted. I think generally that's the case. I think yesterday, Horan was just really off. So if it was just that one, I'd be like maybe it was a concussion, getting to her. She wasn't concussed as far as I know.

No, I thought, I was going to say the concussion protocol was very, like, thorough and by the book. But Iran was just off yesterday, and she can still create a couple of really good moments. I mean, she set up Morgan in the first half. But it's like when you think you're a team that is much better, and this might just be total U.S. arrogance here on my part, but like when you think you're the much better team, then what you're seeing from Horan in a game like this feels really wasteful.

It's like, yes, you had one or two good chances, but when you think you're much better overall than the opponent, you should be having dozens of these chances if you're really that player. And yesterday I just didn't think Horan was that player. We just don't, as a team, just don't soccer through it in the final third very well as a general rule. I mean, Trinity does, but as a team we don't, I don't think. 87th minute, we finally get Jaden Shaw on the field for Williams. And almost immediately she brings down a Smith cross in the box, lays it off for Kruger.

Kruger takes a touch and has her shot blocked, but good from Smith there. She also lost the ball Ends in 2014 Go ahead I was just going to say Yeah Smith rent somebody there in like a really Again joyful fashion

But just like with Trinity When she rent somebody On the end line in the first half Like still ends up just kind of hitting A hopeful cross in there And this is what Sophia did on this one too It's nice that the hopeful cross Did get to

Jane Shaw But it just doesn't look like Okay once we've done this We don't have a great idea Once we've done this really cool thing What's the next idea Yeah usually seems like there is none.

So Smith, and then final action of the game basically is Smith nearly scoring. It's just a bunch of scramble, scramble, scramble, scramble, ball, ball, all around the, in Columbia's half, and then the ball finds its way to Smith at the back post. I think from a Kruger kind of just clipped ball into the box. And then Smith does a defender and tries to cut it back and it skips up off the near post and then bounces out of bounds.

So I think we got a corner kick right at the end. But that was it. Yeah. Kind of dangerous moment from Smith. She's, again, her starting position is wide, so she's already getting the ball at a tight angle and then doing the defender of the end line creates an even tighter angle and she still almost squeezes it in.

But yeah, this game was, it was lacking. It sucked. Smith is good to see Smith back healthy you know she's been easing back in at Portland it's weird for Lindsay to well maybe it's not weird for Lindsay to have an off game

because she just scored a hat trick I think very recently either last weekend or the this past weekend or the game before that but you know all this transatlantic travel and everything if you listen to WOSO Wednesday you know some of this stuff

but Katerina Macario, you know, sort of the word they're using is, quote, integrating at Chelsea now. And Mal Swanson is back in some training with the Chicago Red Stars who are now out of the playoffs. So that's good news, too. The cavalry maybe is coming. Olivia Moultrie didn't get to play in this game. She's in the camp. I don't understand why.

Why not just player? Who cares? I mean, yeah, the who cares bit, I still think is sort of the right attitude. like, and I mean like who cares we should play them. We should play them. Not like who cares if she plays or not. Because again, like what we saw in this was that absolutely stout defense. But who cares if we have the really stout defense?

Like this is a totally free consequence free friendly. Don't just be like, well, let's make sure our defenses sound first. Like no, don't do that. Don't have that be your priority if that's what it is. Like get out there and try to play. And Moultry is a Moultry and Shaw. all those are players who can do those kinds of things or at least have the have the uh potential to do those kinds of things uh so let's see if it's their instinct let's see if it can happen right um

it could it could just a again a plan to ease her in i totally i think you can get behind that too columbia are a good team um so it's again as as much as i'm saying we shouldn't totally prioritize defense it is impressive that our defense can just shut columbia down like that uh england didn't shut Columbia down like that and this game definitely had the same intensity as a World Cup knockout game so I think they translate exactly perfectly yeah but yeah like hopefully it's just the plan to ease her in and like okay this is a you're getting the ropes here and then maybe game two you get the minutes that Shaw got and Shaw gets an extra 30 or a start if we can dream I'm afraid I'm not going to be doing any dreaming about that but the game is

on Sunday. You know, we'll have a recap in the days following that. And, you know, lots of scuffed episodes to listen to this week. How does everybody even keep track? But, you know, check us out on Patreon. Stick with us. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.