Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #451: Trinidad & Tobago v USMNT recap

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Magnificent self sabotage from Sergiño derails a perfectly acceptable away Concacaf performance, and then it gets a little nervy in the second half. Greg and Belz talk through it, full timeline. We're going to the Copa.Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon! Patrons get a private feed with one or two episodes a week, including the Monday Review with Watke and Vince, and a Friday show usually with Greg and Watke. Patrons also get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, the full catalog of historic game recaps we've made: 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 did it. We won the tie with Trinidad and Tobago. 4-2 on aggregate. 4.5 to 2 with the away goals rule. Right. It's still alive. Concaf's keeping it alive. So, you know, going to Copeland America, that's great news. Wonderful news. The draw is early next month.

So, you know, in a couple weeks, we'll find out what group. we're in, where we're going to play, that kind of stuff. What are the other positives from this game? We advanced to the semifinals for Nations League. Yes. Which is fun. And we added an absolutely amazing moment to the lore, I think. I don't think there's any way around the Sir Gino Deaths Meltdown being,

I mean, an absolute, like, iconic instant moment for national team fans. Totally insane, man. Like, what in the dickens was that? Unforgettable. Like, you'll never forget that. I can't believe it. I still can't believe it. Yeah. Burhalter called it surreal.

Yeah. I think that sums it up nicely. The only thing, I mean, the only thing that even compares, wasn't even a national team game. It was Clint Dempsey in an open cup game for Seattle tearing up a referee's notebook. Like, there's nothing else on that kind of like, outside of the context of a soccer game

you know I mean totally separate from the actual soccer itself that sort of meltdown yeah somebody on Twitter's you do you I mean I get I get that it's not great

but at some point there are tradeoffs and you know Seattle I mean there's obviously punishment that's not great for us because you know we had to play the rest of the game down a man and then we're going to miss Serginio in that semifinal And we tend to miss Sergenio.

You know, it extends the no fun side for one more match at least. We'll have to see, we'll have to see when Serginio makes his return to the national team. I don't expect it will be another penalty coming because, I mean, these are actually just yellow card offenses. He just stacked them up on top of each other. Yeah. And this idea that he should be punished by missing a window or something, absolute bollocks. No thanks. Not for me.

I mean, he's getting punished, right? The punishment is he doesn't get, he missed the rest of that game, and he misses the semifinal. And obviously, that's a punishment for the team as well, because it hurts us. I definitely don't see a reason to add another self-imposed punishment onto both him and the team. Certainly not given the fact that he's handling it

with what seems to be the necessary amount of, like, you know, head-down contrition. Right. He immediately apologized on Instagram in case you missed it. Again, I'm just going to say what I would have preferred from a spectacle standpoint Would have been him actually posting a highlights comp of himself from the first 30 minutes Because it's just again, maybe I'm just here for other things But that would have been that would have been that would have completed it

That would have been hilarious, yeah We joke a lot about how inscrutable of a character he is and that Continues to be the case So, okay, we got an iconic moment from Surge, qualify for Copa or onto the Nations League semis in March, which hopefully will be a big party. We looked, I would say another positive was we looked good in the first half hour. Not amazing, but pretty good. And I was thinking maybe my dream of us being a team that can get a resounding victory

on the road in Conccaf was about to be fulfilled. It could have been. I feel like it could have been. Yeah, we were cruising. That is for sure. We were super comfortable. And while we were comfortable, we were getting looks. I capped, I clipped the first, all of the shots from both teams

leading prior to the red card. And we were creating like real chances, converted one of them, seemed like we were going to keep rolling downhill. They had a decent chance themselves. We shouldn't shy away from that. But, you know, if we were trading chances five to one for over the course of 90 minutes, I'd be like we're going to come out with a pretty solid victory there.

Yeah. Brenda had a couple good chances Ballo had a good chance actually two good chances The negatives I would say Sergenio is

kind of insane I mean we have to I mean that's not the right way to put it he's he's dangerously unpredictable at least at the moment I imagine he'll

he'll learn from this and won't do it won't do it again at least not in the exact same way. We have to mention here, right, that this isn't isolated. He got sent off in the Nation's League semifinal against Mexico eight months ago, right? So, and that was a non-socker moment.

Like it happened during the soccer game, but sort of outside of the actual soccer, he got into an altercation with a Mexico player, and we all kind of laughed and was like, all right, you know, good on him for standing up for himself or whatever. But then there are soccer consequences to this. Yeah, and I feel like that one, Maybe I have a little more grace for because he got kind of slapped in the face and he slapped in the face back. I mean, you don't want to do that and get sent off, but it was a little more understandable than this, which was like, in his opinion, a missed foul call and a missed out-of-bounce call.

At a field. It wasn't a goal. We didn't chalk a goal off because the rest said the ball went out of bounds. We're going to give Trinidad a throw in. Oh, it's priceless. Yeah, 4-0. We're up 4-0 in the tie at that point. No chance of Trinidad, you know, really coming back.

And he did, he pushed the door open a little bit. The hope here for me is that, you know, the Mexico one is, it's an instant thing, right? You get hit, you react. This is not an instant thing. This is a really strange one. The hope is that this allows us to identify this about surge. And now we find ways to help him manage these moments. and like a Scarlett Johansson, incredible Hulk fashion,

where someone has like the right phrase and way to approach him and just be like, Trinidad. You know, you just like whispered Trinidad to him and it snaps him out of this and he sort of like mellows back out. And he's like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I need to go back to just cooking. Because, you know, when you talk about what we were doing for the first half hour, Serge was like the guy who was going to end up with a highlight reel out of that first half hour. I mean, he was having fun.

The fun side was the fun side, even without Tim Webb. I mean, they were doing a lot of cool stuff over there. I guess I like the Scarlet Johansson with the Hulk possibility. Also, maybe next time the team realizes that Serge may about to be going off, just frigging dogpile him, you know? Like, pretend he, like, scored a worldly and just everybody on the team just jump on him. Don't allow him to move or talk or be heard until he calms down. And, you know, maybe that'll work.

Yeah, I mean, he was clearly, like, beyond, like, I mean, he was not thinking rationally. Like, you can tell from what he's doing that he is outside of his rational mind a little bit. So you do need something to, like, snap him to. Maybe just aggressive physical contact is the answer. Let's get a, we need the sports psychologist back on here. Let me play, let me play what Burrhalter said. I mean, one of the things he said. I think we started really well.

First half was in order. everything was grown smoothly and then a regrettable moment that put us put us at a big disadvantage and I think a couple minutes later Trinidad scored a goal and scored in the second half again

and we end up losing the game. There you have it. That's the game in a nutshell. That's some excellent corporate passive voice from Burrhalter. I don't know if that's technically passive voice but calling it a regrettable moment and then

also glossing over the second regrettable moment in the second half, that was their other goal. You know, we'll have to get to that as well, because that is basically the story of the game. Those two moments. Yeah. There's plenty more we'll discuss, but. Well, I want to do a couple more negatives. I thought, I know you're going to disagree with me on this.

I have intel that you will disagree with me, but I thought the endgame adjustment from Berhalter and the team was not great. Like they, we actually didn't, we actually, despite conceding that goal right after Scali came on, we didn't actually look that bad in the rest of the first half. I mean, it wasn't like the, we weren't like running around with like chickens with our heads cut off the way we were in the first part of the second half. But the first 20 minutes of the second half were, I don't know if it was just our defensive shape or the personnel on the field.

We could not get a handle on the game. And Trinidad was in our half, you know, not threatening in really. really dangerous ways always, but in our half, causing us problems. By the time that they got to that 1v1 between Nathaniel James and Matt Turner, that was just completely wasted by James. It was 2-1 at that point, played in behind. Could have easily been 3-1 after that sequence. But at that point, they had outshot us 4 to 0 in the second half

and had the ball in our half most of that time. Yes, the team needs to do a better job. of just sort of like figuring out the moment. But I don't know if it was our defensive shape or the personnel, but we did not adjust well to the situation until Malik Tillman came on. And I think we can talk about more on that later. But something about Tillman coming on helped us calm things down. And it was just from then on, it was pretty much smooth sailing.

We're not going to score, but neither are you. And so I feel like the in-game adjustment ultimately was figured out, but there was a big period where it wasn't figured out, and I'm going to call that a negative. I mean, I think that's fair. I'm actually, I'm not defending, like, the substitution, essentially the scally for geo substitution as the response to the red card. I'm certainly not defending that as, like, the correct soccer decision.

I would say it very obviously is not the correct soccer decision. Like, if your goal is to optimize your chances of... winning over, I guess, the remaining 60 minutes of the game, 50 minutes of the game, and neting, like having a positive net, that is definitely not the textbook response, right? Like, you don't leave a gap in your midfield and leave two forwards in that scenario, I don't think. The way I'm sort of defending the adjustment, and I'm not going, we don't need to get into it too much now. Maybe we can do it as the timeline's going, is that that wasn't the priority. That wasn't Burrhalter's objective when he made that change.

And I mean, he kind of even says this. It's basically, he just makes a change out of convenience. And he has the wiggle room to do that because the score at the time we did this is four and a half to zero. And we're playing Trinidad. Like, there's no, there's almost no universe in which we concede five goals and lose this game. And even in the universe where we have a howler from our top goalkeeper, we still aren't anywhere close to that. So this is what I'm fair enough. is basically saying, like, you can afford to do this because if your plan all along was to

sub Raina at halftime, it's like, ah, we're at the 42nd minute. Let's just make this change anyway. And I want to give Peppy more, my plan was to give Peppy more minutes that, you know, I want to leave them on there. I don't want to take them off right now. It's, it's, we're basically in a friendly territory, right? This is the analogy I made in the Discord was, we're a basketball team that's up by 30 points in the second half. Like, you can, you can put your gray team out there and there's no risk, you might not win by 30. You might lose some points. on the lead, but you're going to win and you get your gray team minutes. And in this case, Peppy getting minutes might have been more of a priority to Burrhalter

than ensuring that we had a positive final, I mean, like a net positive score, final 50 minutes. And again, like he could have been like, no, I'm going to challenge the guy. Like, you got to, the midfield's going to suffer a little bit. Like, Luca, uh, Musa, like, you might have to suffer a little bit here, but like stand up and do it. Okay. Yeah. It's not, it's not, tactically, it is not the response. Like if this was a game in a vacuum, we had to win this game or like, and it was one zero when we had this red card, we absolutely should not.

Sub a midfielder off for a defender. And leave two strikers up there. Right. And I guess I wonder, you know, was it a little bit of a miscalculation? Of course, obviously it turned out well. It turned out fine. All of the missions were accomplished. But, you know, had James scored there in the 59th minute or whatever it was,

60th minute, and then it's 3-1, and then they need two goals. You know, things start to get a little bit more squeaky bum, I guess. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. Because we still had two forwards at that point. When they get that chance, although, again, when we get to the timeline, that's off of a corner kick. So not only are we keeping our two forwards on there, but we're taking a corner kick, and we're sending CCV up, we're sending RIM up. Like, we're not being careful.

We essentially don't respect Trinidad's ability to score the three, they still needed three goals at that point. We don't respect them to score the three goals that they need. Right. And I guess that that lack of respect was somewhat vindicated

by the way James handled that 1V1 with Turner. Another negative is CCV got absolutely worked on that goal. It was a nice goal, the first one, the one in the first half. from Rionne Moore, but CCV didn't do what he needed to do. And then I think we'll have to talk about how Turner did on that goal. Definitely the second one's a holler, right?

Oh, God, yeah. Second one's unbelievable. Like really, really bad. Worst goal is, I've seen him give up. Yeah. Okay, let's do the lineups. Yeah, yeah. I'll defend CCV a little bit,

or at least I'll qualify it when we get to that moment. I don't want to do it. I've been running off the rails already. We're both running off the rails. Turner, Engel, Dest, CCV, Ream, and Jedi across the back line. No, Chris Richards, definitely notable that he didn't get a start in this window. Or play at all, yeah. Trouble you at all, or?

I don't, it doesn't really, no. I really like CCV, so I'm glad he got minutes. These aren't the, as much as it wasn't as entertaining, I guess I'll say, as we would have wanted, or as clean as we would have wanted. these games aren't the the real ones for lack of a better way of saying it it'll be interesting to see

what the decisions are come March but you know we had enough space in these games to not make all out optimization our priority so I don't know that's just my way of saying I don't know

if Burrhalter is dropping Richards in his head or if it's just a way of sort of rewarding CCV and Tim Rhee for playing at the high level they are for their clubs, whereas Richards can't get on the field. It's hard to know those things until we play a game against a real opponent where the outcome really matters.

With all respect to Trinidad, I feel like I always have to say with all respect. Yeah, that makes sense. So then it was Musa and Luca Delatore in midfield with Raina, and then Pepey Balligan and Erringson up front. It was kind of a 4-4-2. defensively with the two strikers as the two. We got to our band of five,

I guess mostly with the full backs and the front three, right? And then Geo was kind of drifting around behind them. Yeah, Geo, again, operating with basically near complete freedom to go where he wanted, do what he wanted. Defending is sort of the right midfielder, an old school 4-4-2, which I don't know why that just, it was fun to see. Like, that's so foreign to see us defending that way again.

I mean, we spent a year doing it in 2019, but, uh, so yeah, so that was a Gio's job. Balo tended to drift wider, uh, than Pepey, felt like. Um, but it's not that that wasn't locked in stone. Sometimes it would be Bolo leading the, leading the central charge and Pepe, uh, somewhere else. Okay. Yeah. Decent fluid, decent fluidity for the first, uh, for the first 30 minutes. Yeah. And I didn't have any, I didn't have any problems with the lineup. I, I wanted Aronson to start instead of Kevin Perretti.

I didn't have a strong feeling that Sen Dejas should start or Leonard Maloney. I kind of wanted Malik Tillman to start, but it's okay that he didn't. To me, Trinidad was Denzel Smith in goal. He had a great game in Austin and had a couple nice saves tonight last night too. Shannon Gomez, Alvin Jones, Justin Julian Garcia, Aubrey David, and Andre Raymond across the back line. Rion Moore, Andre Rampersad, Daniel Phillips, and Real Gil, in the band of four, in that 5-4-1, and then Nathaniel James up front.

James was kind of highly visible in the game, not very effective when he had his chances. Dropped from the lineup in Austin were Noah Powder, who got sent off, Ryan Telford, and Malcolm Shaw, the striker. And obviously should be noted, Trinidad, much more aggressive posture defensively. They were not like sitting in that deep, deep low block,

which probably contributed to how fluid or whatever, if you want to call it fluid, how effective we were for the first 30 minutes. Yeah. So to the timeline, some good rondowing on the right side right at the two minute mark from Dest, Gio, Ballo, and Luca. Ballo plays Pepe in the middle and Pepe lays it off for Ballo one touch.

Pepe was kind of a one-touch layoff machine in this game. And Balo plays Aronson between two defenders. He takes a touch that works out well, and then pirouettes to sort of keep the defenders running towards the goal, and pirouettes back away from the goal, and it has a firm shot from 12 yards. Pretty good hit. Kick save from Smith keeps it out.

But immediately we're dangerous. Yeah, immediate danger. And I loved the tight passing because, you know, I feel like that can be a statement of intent, the tight passing along the right sideline in really small, a little diamond. Because the field's still not great here, right? So it shows that, hey, we've got the technique to do this. We're willing to commit to it. And we just turned it into a great chance.

That ball from Bolo to Bredo, a little hot. Brenda did real, real nice work to corral it. Yes, he did. the spin is solid as well to shake both defenders and create a shooting chance but we definitely have to do the still shot of as he's spinning with his back to the goal he has the easiest of four-yard passes to Pepe for a tap in

wide up from Pepey. So he actually sees him because he's spinning and can see it but I don't know if he's just already physically committed himself to swing in the leg and trying to strike it on frame but definitely missed a chance to give Pepe some more stat patting Yeah, Peppy was unmarked six yards from goal.

And I mean, like there's a couple of, I mean, Aronson could have, he probably could have scored if you would have hit it with the same velocity at the far post, you know? I mean, he hit it near post and just wasn't far enough away from the keeper. Because of the spin, it's, again, like you kind of take what you can get when you actually decide to shoot. Like, he's just going to spin and try to do as much as he can't have strike it on frame. But it is super doable to choose to pass instead and just pass.

it to the wide open, very visible figure of Ricardo Pepe. Yeah, bummer. Three minute mark. Luca and Eunice win it in midfield. Eunice plays it to Brendan, who lets it run. On the half turn plays to Baligan's feet at the edge of the box. It's a little bit similar. You know, Balagin sort of running into a space between two defenders, but Balagin takes a touch to his left to eliminate both defenders nearest him

and then set up a left-footed shot, which he peltz at the goal. Again, just a little too close to the keeper and another pretty good save from Smith. Yeah, but two examples in three minutes of decent work on this field to take the controlling touches in the box to create shots. Again, if you ignore Pepe's existence on that first one, it's really nice from Brendo to create the shot for himself. Yeah. So many times on the road in Conccaf, you see those chances evaporate because you can't quite get the ball to sit up the way you want. But both Brendo and Balo do that in the opening five minutes, and it feels like we're in good shape. here.

Yeah. It's the opening, it's to open Trinidad. We were hoping to see. We're like, oh, these guys are open and we are doing the things we need and showing the ability to get our shots off. Right. Lots of poor touches do come, though, in the game on a field that everybody complained about.

Ballot coming back to the ball gives it away on a ream line breaker. Just, for example, at the 445 mark. five, six minute, they get a corner and it gets punched away by Turner. It's a little nervous. In transition, Ballo tries a diagonal for Luca, and Luca just kind of mishandles it, I think, tries to take it with his chest and it goes out of bounds. Seventh minute, good pass from Luca to Ballo and a layoff for Brendan, who steps past Alvin Jones easily on the dribble.

is kind of a nice, easy on the eyes dribble from Brennan Aronson. I think it's dragged back for a foul. No yellow card, though. The yellow card's worse slow to come for Trindad in this game. Slow and then all at once, we get some. Right. Aronson gets a knock trying to shoot a loose ball, trying to shoot a loose ball after Raina curls a set piece into the box,

one of many knocks that Aronson took in this game. The kid was getting battered. Oh, man. And just weird ways, too. Like you got caught on the follow-through, on a clearance with the cleat. You got a shirt ripped off. Yeah, I'm sure we'll get to plenty of Brenda moments. Poor guy.

11th minute, lovely work to break the press from Dest, Luca, and Gio again on that right side. Gio drops it in for Dest behind. It takes a heavy touch and loses it. But I did think the fun side was pretty fun early in the game, even without Timmy. Yeah, I know. We missed him. I saw an update saying he's going to be. for another couple weeks it looks like but we are just really hoping uve take good care of our kid

and get them back to us safely at first spring break yeah still got four months four months before that so i'm i'm i'm optimistic 13th minute we get a brendo giveaway trying to dribble somebody it results in a nathaniel james chance up the right he's just one v one with tim ream um you know he's no Diego Linens, though. So James tries to cut in on his left foot and have a shot, and I think Ream blocks it, and it just sort of floats into Turner's arms. Ream gets a knock there. I think from Bredo, does Brenda step on Ream trying to come back to stop this?

It's hard to tell. This is a grainy, grainy video. I thought the injury is just the ball. If you turn your foot to block a shot, that ball can stretch some things out. Yeah. So I thought it was just a ball. I thought Brenda, so this is,

this is a, one of those comical Brenda batterings because he just dribbles directly into somebody else's body. Like he's shimmies, shimmy, shimmies, and the guy just doesn't move. And anytime Brenda runs into anybody,

he tends to make them look like the brick wall. Yeah. So that's what we had here. And then, uh, this, this was actually a really good chance for, for Trinidad.

And, uh, again, it kind of shows off the, the lack of urgency that we have from our, defensive midfielers that we're exploring in lieu of Tyler Adams because Brenda loses this ball, you know, well past midfield. He's, you know, 15, 20 yards past the line. And he's like almost fallen down. You've got Eunice Musa in the circle or closer to midfield like recovering, but

Musa never gets back to help Tim Ream out here. So Trinidad take this turnover and create a 1v1 in the entire like last 30 yards of the field against Tim Rine. You don't want any centerback having to defend anybody one v one in 30 yards open space. You definitely don't want Tim Ream doing it. And Musa does not get back to the point that Brenda actually does get back at the last second. So Brenda makes up 15 yards, despite almost falling down on the challenge over Musa. So it kind of shows the lack of that mindset to get back and protect the goal in these moments that we are going to need to find from somebody if it's not going to be Tyler Adam.

Yeah. Lucas is not off the hook here. either. Like, both Musa and Luca, like, they'd get back. They recovered just enough to say, like, oh, I got, I technically was back, but neither of them get back in any way that protects the goal or helps create a half a man advantage defending the point of attack. Right.

Yeah, we've got to keep an eye on that. I noticed in the 15th minute, Brenda, you know, he makes a nice tackle, and then nobody wins the ball. And then somebody else makes a nice tackle to him. and he just immediately gets dispossessed. And I'm like, in the moment, I'm just like, win the ball, Brendan. Just win the ball. Just get the ball under control and pass it to a teammate.

Getting a little frustrated with the lack of oomph from him. And that's our Brendo, right? And the thing is, if it's Brenda and usually if it's like Brenda and Musa together, like, Brenda adding that little bit of extra, you know, he's a gnat, right? He's buzzing around. him adding that little bit of agitation can usually be enough to let the actual ball winner win the ball. But when it's like Brenda and Luca, it doesn't look like that. No.

They both buzz around and then the player from, you know, Colorado FC. Yeah, it just ends up getting past them and beyond them. Yeah. We get a, Luca, Luca didn't, Luca had a couple nice moments, but didn't, I also didn't think how to have a great game. A 15th minute good Brenda chance set up by Gio. One of those left side defenders just trips on the ball and leaves it for Raina. And Raina picks it up, waltzes into the final third,

and plays Brenda toward the six-yard box. He has a shot with his right foot, but hits it right at Smith. And I would say scuffed it. Bit of a wasted opportunity. Yeah, it's, I mean, you know where I stand on wasted opportunities. It's a good chance. that we created.

So this is really solid from Gio to capitalize on the gift. I call this him capitalizing because he drives at the defense, weighs his options, allows the pieces to move in front of him, and picks out a guy who ends up with a very good shooting chance, 10 yards from goal. So for me, I'm like, that's quality. Yeah.

Everybody had poor touches. Jedi had one in the 18th minute that almost set up another 1V1 against Ream, but nothing really came of it. 20th minute Brenda gets hurt Trying to run past Jones on the left Takes a sliding challenge Didn't look that dirty or anything

But Brenda was down for a while A couple minutes later He gets that cleat to the hip On the follow-through in Trinidad's box As somebody one of the defenders clears it He's just spending a lot of time on the ground People were saying he was On that one that he takes the cleat

On the follow-through If the ref doesn't bail himself out by I think calling a foul, like a second earlier on follow, that's a good penalty shout. Like, you can't just kick a guy in the business just because you think you can follow through. So, you know, I guess if you're going to be a nat buzzing around, you might get a couple of those every once in a while.

Yeah, maybe a different ref makes this a different, makes everything look different for Brendan in this game. But he was not getting the calls for the most part. I think he was only four times was a foul whistled against him. It felt like he was spelled way more than that. But anyway, and then we get our goal. 25th minute. Just some patience outside the box from Gio and Luca and Dest.

And then we're not patient anymore and Desk pumps it into the box. And it's a good ball and Jedi ghosts inside Shannon Gomez and dives and punches it in with his head from just inside the penalty market. It's a great header. Good ball from Dest. Maybe not fantastic defending from Gomez. In any case, it's 1-0 USA, and things were looking good. Yeah, that's, I mean, and how about Jedi just being our attack in these Conca Calf games? Like, he's such a huge part of our attack through World Cup qualifying in Nations League. So I just love it for him. It's sort of just a, it seems a little bit of a lazy, hopeful cross. But again, of that aren't packed in as much.

So, you know, you can pause it at the cross and I think it's four on three. So there are worse times on a field like there are worse things on this kind of a field than hitting it into a four on three of players who are much better than their opponents. Yeah, a really good finish too. You got two strikers in there, right?

Take advantage. Two strikers in our, in our, and the ultimate pirate of the Caribbean. Anthony Robinson. Plus Brenda. Brenda, Brenda up there too. Brenda's in there. Uh, 28 minute mark,

Musa finds Luca in a pocket, he glides forward. This is actually a sneaky good chance, sneaky good moment, uh, glides forward to the left of the goal and just misses, uh,

Ballow trying to square him in front of goal. It's cleared by a defender, but it was, uh, it was close. Yeah, and again, this is,

this is us being in total control of a match, uh, that after that Jedi goal, which was worth one and a half for being an away goal, we are, It's done, you know, like it was basically done at 3-0 from the home leg. It is now totally done, and it looks like we're going to actually try to have some fun in an away match where we're going to try to score some more goals. Yeah, I was so ready for it.

We get one more, I got one more good chance. It was, Dest is kind of rollicking up the right side. He finds Brendan in Zone 14 after beating a couple people on the dribble. Brendan shoots and it's blocked. I mean, it looked like it had no. chance of going in the goal, but it's blocked off the ground by a defender right at the edge of the box. Ballot gathers the loose ball behind the defender and kind of gets maybe a little pulled down

as he shoots it with his left foot and scuffs it wide. He was hoping for a call. Didn't get it. Didn't look like that much in any case. That's the 34th minute. And kind of our last, I think kind of our last big chance of the game. We get the Raina a couple minutes later where best hits a nice, a nice floating ball up to Raina striding into the box at the edge, edge of the box, and Raina goes for it for the volley on the run.

And it's not terribly close, to be honest. No, five yards wide at least. But he hit it well, hit it hard just as the defender, just as the defender kind of closed him down. And then comes the craziness. 38th minute, Dest kind of falls on the dribble in Trinidad's half. He thinks he's tripped. no foul is called he remonstrates to the assistant referee

and then 30 seconds later Ream plays a ball over to Desk to sort of get us out of a little bit of a little bit of trouble and the ball is a bit heavy so Dest has to run over and just keep it out of bounds I mean just keep it from going out of bounds

in his own mind at least it was called out of bounds then he goes crazy I'm watching it back The the inciting thing in Death's mind, I'm sure, is that foul call that he doesn't get. And then when he gets the throwing against him, I just think Desk thinks the assistant referee is essentially like showing him up. And I feel like Dest is just not going to have it. And, you know, who is this assistant referee to be doing this stuff?

I'm out in the middle of nowhere. This is what I got to deal with. This is, come on, like, what are we doing? And yeah, so he just decides that he is going to have his say. Because the punt, I mean, the punt, you know immediately what you're doing. You're not punting that ball free of consequence. And then to persist after the punt, where you know you're already now on the book, to just persist until you get your second yellow,

he made his choice that he's not going to let this assistant referee do this to him. I guess, yeah. Yeah, he just jawed at the ref, incessantly, Raina couldn't stop him, Ream couldn't stop him. Again, I think we got to go with the dog pile method next time. Just tackle him and don't let him do anything more.

But he blows a kiss at the ref, keeps talking. Then he gets his second yellow and sent off. Just insane behavior. I think DeMarcus Beasley called it baby behavior on the HBO Max half-time show. I think that's fair. And again, I'm happy to say that it's baby behavior and like whatever, totally unacceptable.

And then also say, but I accept Sergenio and, you know, we'll see him back here in March. Yeah, no doubt. Let me play something that Burrhalter said. He was asked how concerning this is about Sergenio. It is concerning because, you know, that's not what we want to represent. That's not who we are as a group. You know, we pride ourselves in staying mentally disciplined, battling through any type of conditions, whether they're good decisions or bad decisions.

You know, we're supposed to keep going and respond in an appropriate way. And that obviously wasn't the right response from Sergenio. He apologized to the group. He said it's not going to happen again. You know, as a team, the players, the staff, we need to hold him accountable because it's inexcusable. It really is. And, you know, we're very firm with our words after the game. You know, he put a number of guys in jeopardy, made a number of guys do a lot of extra work in this weather.

And it's inexcusable. For what it's worth, he also said he apologized to the team. He said it won't happen again. He obviously apologized on Instagram. It doesn't sound like Brawaters thinking about any sort of, like, ban. That's not in the cards. And I couldn't agree more. I guess.

Yeah, yeah. And that is 100% like what Berthelter said is 100% the case. Like the outcome of this is these guys, the guys had to suffer, right? We had to suffer and,

you know, we'll talk now about the change, right? The change is Raina off, scalyon. And it's not like for like. Like, if the plan was to take Raina off at halftime, I'm sure it would have been

like Malik Tillman for Raina and it's like for like and we still have all of our structure. Everything's still intact. But it's not anymore. Now it's a lot of extra ground for Musa and Luca to be responsible for. And they were absolutely suffering for the next 45 Luca in particular suffered. And again, one of the reasons I kind of defend the choice here to stay with two strikers up top

is because I don't mind that Luca has to suffer here. I'm like, all right, well, let's see how he does with more responsibility in a really adverse environment with no stakes. That's the key. There's no stakes here. It's just an adverse environment. I don't want them to get like a mercy hook or relief. I want to like see how he's if it's not going well. Why isn't it going well? And and can we do things in game to fix it? Because there were. Like when you watch this, no, it's not the textbook tactical response. But there, we also weren't playing at like the peak level of what the response was if this makes sense. So Burrhalter makes a change we weren't doing all the things we could have been doing

in our 4-3-2 to make our own lives easier. We were still missing a bunch of touches. So it's not just the center mids that we're down a player. All right, we've left Pepe and Bolo up top. Can you guys, like, relief pressure when we get the ball up to you? You know your midfield down, man. Can you get it and hold onto it? And it let us sort of...

And yeah, and they didn't, right? And it wasn't all because of the structure. There were plenty of times where a ball goes into a wide open forward's feet. and they just like bounce it 15 yards away from us and we lose it and now there's even more suffering going. So no, we didn't change our structure to make our lives as easy as we possibly could have, but we also didn't perform in ways that minimize that suffering either. So for me, I'm like, I wanted to see more response from the players

to solve some of those issues on the field and be like, hey, you know, I can still stand up here and and like hold the ground that I have and we didn't really do a great job of that. No. I guess my only quibble is this idea that there were no stakes because yes, there were no stakes but there could have been.

There were no stakes until maybe there were all of a sudden, you know? Like James, we're going to get into it real quick but James didn't just miss that 1B1 with Turner. He had another chance right after the first goal where he, you know, if he has the night of his life and handles both of those chances well, then they still just need one more worldly.

Yeah, right. They just need one more goal for the last half hour, you know, and they got the crowd in it, they got the whole team bought in. But yeah, fair enough. I'll give you that. I'll give you that. But like, I also think that at that point,

like Greg worked with the wiggle room he had. So he had a ton of wiggle room and then suddenly he had a little bit less. You know, we can see it immediately. We want to go over that one. you mean the goal yeah the goal we can yeah yes yep first so Trinidad

after Scali comes on for Raina Trinidad scores immediately it's Alvin Jones gets the ball with some time just inside his half so he so they had plenty of time with that 4 3 2 we were using on the sides to just pick out passes

and this is what happened he plays a ball down the channel kind of curls it around Tim Ream It's bouncing into the path of Rion Moore who has gotten the edge on CCV takes a good first touch and then blast it over Turner at the near post. I thought CCV got worked here.

I'm curious to hear what you think. I also want your analysis on Turner. Okay, so we'll be the pruder the whole thing. And the reason that they end up with this opening is because Trinidad worked this really well, in part because we didn't give them a ton of time to play. We actually kind of kept trying to press them high up the field.

And this is where the structure hurts us, our lack of an extra midfielder in there. Because as they're kind of working the ball through this pressure, Luca steps up a line to try to press and, you know, intercept or meet a player right as the ball meets him. And he's a half beat late. And that guy gets his pass off towards the short side of the field. And now Brenda steps up to that man, and he's a tiny bit late,

and they move it again. and because Luca and Brenda both stepped up, they now Trinidad have like a free man where our normal like pivot would be and so Tim Ream steps up to that man. And that guy doesn't end up involved in the play at all, but he brings Tim Ream up seven or eight yards and that's sort of all that you need to drag somebody out of the way

to find that diagonal to just a 1V1 runner against CCB. So that's like the structure, how the structure breaks down. Okay. And then what they end up creating is still like a very contested shot from almost no angle. So I agree with you that CCV gets worked in a sense that he is beaten by Trinidad's player in a way that the Trinidad player is able to create a shot. I think we tend to still be really bad at sort of assessing the magnitude of these defensive errors, especially because it's just, it's very binary. The guy either scores or he doesn't. And so if he

scores, in our mind, the mistake that actually is made tends to be given way more weight. So So CCV gets, takes a little bit of like a forearm. That's all it was. He's running stride for stride with the guy. He gets a little bit of a forearm on the run and you don't think CTV will be affected by that. Completely loses his balance. Yeah. Maintains, it's like his run.

So ends up staying right with him and is, again, like, reaches his leg out as the guy is almost on the end line. And is almost there to block the shot. If he doesn't take that forearm and lose his balance even slightly, there's probably, there's probably no shot created. So in that sense, the guy does work him for a no angle shot that he absolutely smashes over Turner's shoulder at the near post. And that is like the only shot that exists to score on in those situations, regardless of the keeper is over the guy's near post shoulder unless the goalkeeper has taken himself out of the frame of the goal. You can't hit it anywhere else. Everything else is blocked. So that's where he hits it. And then you combine that with Turner's

plant leg giving way on the field a little bit. And Turner ended up on one. knee reaching up for the ball instead of moving even a little bit upward from his crouch to try to get a palm on it. So all those things go wrong the same time and it's 1-1. It was also a perfect. I should say it's four and a half to one. It's a perfect first touch for more to sort of drag it along with him into that spot where he could shoot.

Okay, so it's 1-1. I still don't think we're like, we're scrambling the way we were in the second half, but we have a nice spell of possession, you know, right after the goal, just taking the air out of the game until Joe Scali gives it away over on the right side. And it's intercepted by, I don't remember who, but picked up by Rionne Moore. He plays Nathaniel James into the box. And I mean, it's not like there's an easy shooting opportunity to come up with here. But he had time to take a decent touch and have a hit.

and his first touch was just a total wreck and he ruins the chance for himself which is lucky for us Right and so this is where you say Is this, did our structure cause this Or is this just Joe Scali missing a 9-yard pass to Musa that You should expect him to hit every time

Yeah, he missed a 9-yard pass in this case For sure 48th minute we get another spell of possession Before the half looked fine mostly If obviously less threatening than we were with 11 men There's a Ream giveaway in our defensive third That nothing comes of for Trinidad

Again Nathaniel James, the guilty party He just kind of dribbles to the top of the box And expects his teammate to pick it up And his teammate doesn't So we pass our way to the halftime whistle And that's the half And everybody's just thinking like What the hell did Sergenio do?

What happened? And since we didn't know that the geo sub was planned It's like oh now that cost us geo Yeah. Cost us more geo time. And again, if he takes Pepe off, even if that's like the correct play, or Bala, one of the two,

and it's like, oh, like, that's disappointing because this was supposed to be, like Pepe was supposed to get some time. We wanted to see these two playing together, and now we lose that, because we have to cover for Serginio's decisions. Yeah, you know, another thing from the Braha-ha-de-press conference that was interesting is he said they decided to go

with the two-striker setup the day before the game. and they never really trained it. They just talked it out. They didn't train it because they didn't want anybody to see that they were training it. So they just talked it out. And he didn't go into great detail on why he thought that was the right call. Anyway. I mean, you barely need, like, you sent Weston home,

so you just lost another starting midfielder. You're already down your wingers. It gets easier and easier to say, say Pepe's the next guy up, we should just get him on the field with our other A teamers here. Yeah, that's true. And people were talking about, well, we should have made more subs in the second half. And I look down the bench and I say, I don't know. I don't know who we need to sub on, aside from a leak.

And it just goes back to what I'm saying about what do we want to get from the game. You know, the fact that Greg is comfortable saying we're just going to start two, we haven't run two strikers, I don't think, since we haven't started it since probably DK and Zard. in the 2021 Gold Cup. Like for him to just say two days before the game, or the day before the game, we're just going to do this. Who cares?

It's because we have that freedom in this game to do that and get away with it. Fair enough. Fair enough. I do have to admit that watching it on a rainy Tuesday morning at my house, it's a lot less bad than I thought it was last night in the heat of the moment. and with all the emotion on the internet.

Yeah, there's a ton of emotion. Well, and there's inevitable echoes of 2017, right? And we lose to Trinidad. And, you know, as we'll talk about the other major adjustment in the second half, is that we were not trying to win this soccer game. We didn't even try to draw this soccer game. So once we start the second half and we've gone through the surge stuff, the big adjustment here is that we have decided to,

make the second half a clock killing exercise. That is all we are trying to do. The first throw in seconds after the half starts, Joe Scali on the right side has 15 yards to walk and it takes us 40 seconds to throw the ball in. Seconds after that, there's a deflected ball by Trinidad that runs to Matt Turner and he traps it with his feet and stands on it

until Trinidad comes and makes him pick it up. We stopped caring about the soccer. So it's another thing where, you know, seeing people lose their mind about, I can't believe we lost this game. We weren't playing to win this game. We were playing to maintain or to just see out the significant cushion that we had built up and go home. Yeah, I think I could agree that we were playing to see out the four and a half to one two-leg victory,

but that's not how it played out, at least in the first part of the second half. Trinidad was, we came out in that four-three-two shape. Trinidad finding space, which is no surprise. But we just couldn't get a grasp on the game. Couldn't possess the ball. And I guess I'll do some timeline items before the goal. 49 minute mark. Luca gets dispossessed with only CCV behind him.

Trinidad did little with it, but it was a pretty bad giveaway in terms of location. He was trying to let it run past him and get around the guy. Trinidad gets a set piece from 25 yards after a questionable foul call on Luca. James hits it into the wall. For a little while, they're pumping crosses in, and Phillips collects one clearance. Just turnstiles Luca and smash has won a couple yards wide of the near post. Yeah, Luca struggled in that set piece was a bad one for him.

And this is where it's like, you know, Leonard Maloney might give us an upgrade on Luca for this situation, For this game, like when you're saying looking down the bench, should we play, when you're watching Lucas struggle with the added defensive responsibility, you could give him that mercy hook and throw Leonard Maloney on there and just be like, hey, like, blow everything up. But again, in my mind, I don't want that. I want Luca to get in there and, like, step up. And if he doesn't step up, I want to see that he is struggling to step up.

Yeah, that's fair. Because at some point, like, we want to know if we can use Luca and Musa together when Weston's not there or when Tyler's not there. So we want to learn this. And so this is where I think there's some value in watching Lucas struggle for the next 40 minutes. One other note on that set piece from 25

is that the foul happened 30 yards away. And this is another thing that we just got to get a little bit savvier about. Like whoever commits the foul or somebody else, like get yourself right to where that foul happened and stand there and just make sure that the referee knows this is where the foul happened. Because Trinidad buys three or four yards,

two or three yards probably on this one. one. But that adds up on set pieces, as a goalkeeper would tell you. And it'll come into play for the next thing that happens in the game. Do you think Luca passed that test? Or is it a, is the test incomplete because we were down to 10 men or something? No, so it's, I don't think it's incomplete at all. I think the 10 men creates, especially against a team that is not as good. I think that's what creates the test. If this was, if this was 11 on 11 the whole time, there basically is no test. you know, we kind of got that against Uzbekistan, where they didn't really do anything.

They kind of, you know, they sat back in their deep block and never came at us. And they still kind of got through Luca a couple times, but that's where it's incomplete. This one is like, Luca's under some duress here for 50 minutes. And I would say that I saw enough here to not use Luca in this situation in a game that matters.

So from what I saw in this game, like he isn't going to find a way, or you can't rely on him to find a way to be that hard man that you need at times. So if you're looking for that for a situation in the Copa or in March, like he's not the guy I'm turning to. Yeah.

Yeah. Agreed. And the goal comes in the 57th minute. Aronson gets called for a foul about 30 yards. Was it further than 30 yards from goal? It was further. Yeah, he gets, Brendo drags the guy down, maybe 35 yards.

but Trinidad steals a few yards to set it up and take it. And you got to do your share of the refereeing here to just sort of help a guy out and make sure that in a set-pee situation from shooting range, you make sure that they don't sneak extra yards on. It shouldn't have mattered in this case. Didn't end up mattering in the last case, but just as a habit, build those habits.

So there's a lot that's interesting. here. Alvin Jones hits it. It's buckling in the air. Turner still gets two hands to it and just palms it into his own net. It's 2-1. Everything just feeling a bit too on the nose to me at this point. I know you were cool as a cucumber over there, but it's interesting

that Jones is the exact same guy who hit that banger against us at Kuva from basically the same spot on the field. Just it was in the run of play instead of a set piece. And, yeah, Trinidad had been packed in our half, I mean, they had been parked in our half for most of the second half at that point. And outshot us, like I said earlier, four to zero up to that point in the second half. And those Covea echoes are there because, you know, Howard had to definitely eat the own goal. I mean, you don't love that Gonzalez did that, but Howard's got to do something on that.

The worldly, you give them a little bit more grace, but Turner gets no grace on this one. That's a shocker. Yeah, I mean, any more to say on it besides that? Like, he just has to palm that wide of the goal. Yeah, he just has to hit that anywhere besides into his own net. Is how I would describe it. Fair enough. As a goalkeeper coach.

So 2-1, and they create immediate danger right after the goal. It's an errantson corner kick that gets headed away. Shannon Gomez beats Jedi and CCV to it And then he's just rushing down the field with them Kind of trailing him He plays the ball over Scali's head In behind for Nathaniel James Nathaniel James has a legit one-on-one with the goalkeeper

Gets his feet all wrong And settles for a shot from further away than I think he would have liked And scuffs it wide left We're really let off the hook there Yeah, this is, again, we talk about the two strikers, but again, I don't think structure is really the issue here when it's directly off of a corner kick for us. So this is just poor, poor center fielding from Scali. And before that, you know, we've talked about this before. We get naive at times. So even Jedi here needs to do more. You're not trying to win a fair fight when you go up for that little header. That's, you know, those weak balls that you're never going to put a ton of power on. So you're just trying to go up and. head at another four yards back up in the air. He goes up shoulder to shoulder with somebody and sort of loses the battle. And again, it's not your job to, like, really win it.

Your job is to never let them win it. So he's got to do more to disrupt and foul if he has to and just never let this Trinidad run race get started. Yeah. I was really frustrated at this point in the game. I'm like, geez, Louise, what are we doing? Success. Oh, yes.

But again, this is, I'm frustrated here, but at no point am I like, we got to fix. we have to fix the shape. Like this is very much like, Jedi, you've got to fix something here. Joe Scali, like, what is your responsibility on these corner kicks? It's to not let someone get behind you.

Yeah, to prevent a 1v1 with the goalkeeper. Yeah, just real naive from us on this. Yeah. We, 60 second minute, our left side gets worked by a ball on the ground into the corner for Gomez, and Brendan loses the duel. Gomez wasted it by just blasting it over the goal from a bad angle.

And then Tillman comes on for Pepey. And there's an immediate shot for Trinidad right after he comes on. A throw in from deep for us and Baligan loses it on the half turn and it kind of pings around a little bit fortunately for Trinidad. And Andre Ampersad has a good hit from Turner's left. Turner gets down and palms it away. I don't think there was much doubt here. was going to make that save.

And then Scali gets fouled as he shields the ball. But, well, do you have anything to say about that sequence? No, no, that was a 20-yard pinball situation. Yeah, it was pretty wild. But that was Trinidad's last shot of the game. You know, I think the Malik sub did a lot to help us calm things down. I guess it was mostly the shape. We went to a 4-4-1 and just, like, prevented really anything from happening.

I also think Malik didn't do anything crazy but he extended possessions here and there didn't get flustered in ways that I think we kind of needed and I'm going to list them out here they're not none of them's going to sound like a huge you know like a huge victory for

quality soccer or anything but it helped in my opinion yeah for sure and this we all wanted to see this because Malika at this point, especially here on Scuff, has definitely earned a reputation for being languid. And this wasn't going to be the cameo for languidness. Mm-mm.

And he wasn't. He wasn't. He wasn't. He wasn't a good shot of espresso before he came on. He was positively brendo-ish. Brandish. Brandish. 67, 25, he gets out of a tight space and plays it back to Scali to extend a possession.

69.40, he, he, He pulls down a blooped Turner clearance on the sideline, controls it, and draws a foul. 70-55. He runs down Aubrey David in the press and wins a corner kick. I mean, every time we win a corner kick, that's like, that's pure gold in this situation. We were running a minute off the clock. Yeah, easily. And then 7710, he plays it backward when Trinidad is in a low block, which just sets up, you know, kind of a 3V1.

for CCV, Ream, and Jedi with one person pressing them. You know, those little moments over the course of about a 10-minute span, they make a big difference. And I don't know, from now on, the game felt like it was in hand to me. Like, it wasn't concerned anymore.

Yeah, and you know, that 77 one where he just plays it back 30 yards to the centerbacks, it stood out to me because up until that point, you know, when we say we couldn't get a handle in this game, as much as defensively and on restarts, we were just killing the clock. When we had the ball, it didn't actually feel like that.

It was still like when we had the ball, it was like head down, it wasn't like organized or coordinated going forward, but it was like we were still just trying to go forward. I mean, part of that's just the personnel. Like, Brenda's going to try to get it and go forward. Musa's just going to dribble forward at the ball. And if he doesn't have options,

you know, he's going to dribble people until he loses it. So it was not, it definitely was not, calm. There wasn't that, like, on the ball, there wasn't that sense of let's just kill the clock, work it around a little bit until,

until eventually you kind of dump it in behind to our two forwards. It was, like, frantic. And Tillman definitely, I think, reduced that level of franticness. A touch. Like, a lot of what he was doing, honestly, was just losing it in better ways than our forwards were losing it. Like, losing it in ways that he was still contesting,

instead of our forwards kept losing the ball and, like, touching it eight yards away from themselves, and then Trinidad just gets to play for free. and Malik was losing the ball quite a bit, but he was like losing it. I mean, I don't, I want to comp it. Yeah, I want to comp it because him and Pepe and Balo, because I think that's where you see the difference

is that he was losing it in ways that he was like still contesting, where you end up winning a couple of throw-ins, losing a couple of throw-ins. But it doesn't let, it sort of disrupts what Trinidad can do as well, even if we don't have the ball. Yeah. Yeah, we kept the ball down in the right corner, from basically from the 80 minute mark to the 82 minute mark.

Good professional yellow from Scali in the 79th minute. Got to give him some credit there. Good dribble from Brendan in the 88th minute and he shoots from the edge of the box when he maybe could have played Malik into the box and it gets blocked. Only other thing I have is Tillman dribbling that end line and trying to cut it back,

but we've got nobody in the, we've got nobody in the in pay dirt so yeah and so those those corner kick uh time so we had multiple corner kicks at the end and again this is where if you're mad because we didn't get a result uh like again we very obviously we're not going

for even the draw here uh because we have a corner kick and we do the short corner to just kill time like we're just killing the time to lose the game two to one uh i don't think we would have seen that in 2017 I'll go back and watch our corner kicks but So we take that. We have two people in the box for that corner kick.

We waste time. We earn another corner. We do the same thing. Still have two people in the box. You can like see people are being told to just back out of the box. And then Malik does his end line dance really well. And there's no one there to cut it back to. That's all I got.

See you in Dallas? Everybody? I'm hoping. I'm hoping. That's going to be, this is going to be exciting. And again, this isn't as just. joyful of a two-legged series as I think we wanted. But it's not damning too much of my enthusiasm for what I hope is going to be a really good

showcase for the group in Dallas. Also, I should point out, part of the fact is I felt invincible going into this game because of the women's roster that was announced earlier in the day. Yeah. We got a little bit of a changing of the guard from the women's national team, finally. Yeah. excited for us to get deeper into that one. Yeah, we are recording WOSO tomorrow.

Awesome. And the U-17s, they lost early this morning to Germany, but apparently acquitted themselves quite well. Lost three, two. Yeah, and then after tomorrow, we're taking the rest of the week off. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Thank you for listening to our podcast. Anything else, Greg?

23s lost to Morocco too So we had It was a rough day for the men's Senior and Youth teams Rough 24 hours Yeah There's still understand why I don't have a great holiday everyone

I still don't understand why Twyla Kilgore The player The coach who You know we're going to do this transition To better attacking soccer More possession style Soccer

And we're going to The person who's going to shepherd who's going to steward this transition is one of the assistant coaches for Vlato. Look, sometimes assistant coaches can be chameleon. So if she's just a good assistant coach running what Vlato wants, she's going to be part of the bad stuff. If she's a good assistant coach for what Emma wants and we're playing the right players, and we called up a lot of the right players.

I'm indifferent. We saw Anthony Hudson doing things, you know. I need a written apology from Twyla for her role. the world come. I'm just not going to rest until I get it. All right. No, seriously, have a great holiday weekend and we'll be back, well, tomorrow and then back in business next week. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.