Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #458: Mid-week action wrap-up with Greg

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Gio's quarrel with Hummels, Pulisic's goal, Tillman's masterclass, Pepi's assist and Dest's nutmeg. Plus some quick discussion of the "Under Pressure" documentary, good results for Yohannes and Albert, and Hayes' Chelsea struggling a bit in Women's Champions League.Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon! Patrons get a private feed for the Monday Review, which is, among other things, a run-down of club action for national team players every week with Watke and Vince. We have recently added patron-only content that’s available every Friday. Patrons also 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/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody. It's a quick Friday show. I have Greg Velasquez here, the one and only. How's it going, Greg? I'm good. I'm ready for this little hit and run podcast. That doesn't seem like something you should call it.

Let's call it a different thing. Let's workshop that. Ah, that's all right. It's all right with me. The first thing is, well, there's a lot of midweek action to talk about. That's why we're doing this because there was some fascinating stuff in Eindhoven and Dortmund and I guess it was in Newcastle. That's where Milan played.

But let's start with that emotionally charged evening at the Westphalen stadium. Geo got on for a little cameo as tends to happen in meaningful games for Dortmund these days. Played pretty well, caused some problems. But then he had this really long heated exchange. with Mott's Hummel's after the game. Aside from just being sad to see two such handsome men argue with each other. Geo has definitely crossed that threshold, partly just because he's older now,

but he's a handsome fella. Yeah, he's not bad looking. They were pretty mad at each other, though. A whole thing's bizarre, right? Because you're right, it was emotionally charged, like you could tell. and it's bizarre because Dortmund won the group comfortably Yeah

They've won their Champions League group They'd already scared Which nobody expected Or very few expected And they played really well Through the whole group stage Like they even had a little bit of bad luck In their early games with the finishing variance

Like they'd really Controlled games So Yeah so it was strange to see this sort of aftermath When It's like what you all worked up about you you've won your you won your champions league group uh with some points to spare so i don't know i do enjoy the uh the back and forth i was going on in the discord the the thorough

examination of multiple uh points in the game to try to try to figure out what the source of this consternation was do you have a best guess i mean it's everything's going to be a little bit inconclusive here until matzumel's uh publishes his tell all i probably wouldn't even make his tell all, you know. Yeah, no, I have no idea. I mean, it could be the smallest nothing thing that for some reason just ultra competitive people kind of got stuck on for 30 seconds and for us to be able to be a part of that via the broadcast. But no, no clue. Waki, who couldn't join us today as a, you know, by his standard, pretty long video up on his substack, just sort of showing the clips that we have in slow motion over and over again.

And it's also pretty inconclusive. I guess the best thing I could think of was maybe Hummel's was upset with Raina for not tracking back hard enough after that. So he made that really nice play where he received a hot pass under pressure in the right half space, stepped by a guy, and then played it to Royce's feet just inside the box. Royce was not able to control it. and both, and Raina and Royce both put their heads, hands to their heads. But then PSG nicked the ball off somebody and started going the other way.

And it was basically Mbapé bearing down on the Dortmund box. And Royce got back before Raina did, even though Royce had been on the whole time. Raina had just come on a few minutes earlier. So some people were thinking, well, maybe that was what Humbles was upset about. But if you go back and watch, there's no indication. I mean, Hummel's doesn't talk to Raina right after that play. He doesn't even look at Raina. It's just sort of business as usual.

So we may not know. Well, and I should add, like, that couldn't be it. I haven't read Wachie's whole, or watched his whole dive into this. But, you know, obviously I'm saying that Dortmund advanced as winners of the group. They would not have if they had conceded a goal and lost PSG. So if PSG had gotten, they were one goal away from finishing second in the group, which, you know, does affect who you draw in the knockouts. So there could have been a little bit of like, hey, you almost cost us if somebody was mad about somebody's commitment to defending. Yeah, maybe that was it.

The other thing it did obviously was by Dortmund not scoring, it secured A.C. Milan's inability to advance. So I feel like there has to be some question. of whether Gio was playing for a different goal than what everyone else is playing for because Gio wanted to help his buddies out down in Milan. We can't just ignore that possibility. For our purposes, excellent cameo because we got a couple of really nice clips. We had the back heel, then we had his little like stumble. This is like, I feel like this has become like a vintage geo thing, vintage for a 20 year old where he's controlling the ball. He does actually either get knocked down or stumbles and like goes partially to ground.

surrounded by players, and yet still no one can take the ball from him. And he ends up getting back to his feet, not even looking for a whistle, and still just like making the next pass. Yeah. In that case, it was quite a good pass out to the wing to get Nicholas Sula full head of steam heading into the box. Should he try, do you think he should try to leave in the winter? Or, I guess a two-part question.

should he try to get alone in the winter, A, and B, would Dortmund even allow that, given what they have, what they face in the second half of the season? Man, I get so indifferent on these transfers because there are so many unknowns, right? Like, it was the same when Pulizik was leaving Dortmund, and yes, he has to go. He has to go somewhere where he's going to get playing time, and so he left, And then he went to a place where it was still not like a resounding success. And even then, like his not resounding success includes winning a Champions League trophy and being a key part of that success. So it's like all these transfers are so gray where it just feels silly to say, yes, he should leave and go to a top 10 team in the world where he will start regularly.

Like, of course, that's what we all want. But there's just no, there's just, there's just no guarantees in this life. That said, he should go to IACs and just waltz through the rest of Dutch league play and put up stupid clips and numbers. Yeah, that would be the most fun outcome, you know, for him to go to IACs as they try to catch up with PSV, which they're probably not going to do. Now, but they need to keep the run going just to make sure they're in the Champions League next year. Right. And they are on a run. They are totally back.

I think they've won six out of their last seven league game. after only winning one of their first eight. They're cruising now through the league. So I absolutely would love to see Raina get there. Of course, what we'd end up with is Raina going there and then somehow still coming off the bench for 10. Yeah, yeah. Well, good reminder that, you know, Raina remains a good player,

but, you know, things are not exactly perfect in Dortmund. Let's talk about quickly about... Well, you didn't say. You didn't weigh in. Where do you want them to go besides the IACs? highlight real factory. I guess it occurs to me, and we talked about this briefly on the Monday review, but it occurs to me that maybe even if he does want to go,

or if that is the best thing for his career, that Dortmund won't want that because they have such a lot to get after, after Christmas. But yeah, I would like to see him go to a club where he's going to play, where he's going to start every game. You know, Iax would be kind of perfect. but yeah I don't know if he should go somewhere else in the Bundesliga that doesn't seem like it makes a lot of sense I'd like him to play more that's I guess that's my main thing

exactly exactly we'd like him to play more and if he did leave I'd be it'd just be another it'd be a fun experiment to see what was sort of leading to his lack of playing time at Dortmund if anything and you know the same thing we got with pool sick when he goes to Chelsea was for me It was interesting to see what he would do. When he leaves Chelsea and goes to A.C. Milan, it's interesting to see that he is now kind of cruising. And even as A.C. Milan are not necessarily, like, having their best season. It seems more fun with Poolsick doing what he's doing. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about him real quick, because he scored a goal in Champions League to help bring A.C. Milan back against Newcastle. This was a taught contest in Newcastle. Newcastle. Just a lot of energy there. And Newcastle was very clearly the better team in the first half. And then Ace Milan kind of got their way back into the game. I don't think Newcastle could keep up that energy level. And then Pulisic, who did not, I don't think, have a very good game overall, got that important goal.

It was a ball kind of skipped through to Olivier Jou. And then he just in an instant made that decision to sidefoot it over to Pulisic. excellent pass, and then Poulisick, you know, can't miss from there, right? Greg, am I right? That's 100%. I mean, not with Christian Poulcic. You'll never find a miss from it. Yeah, it's a very, I mean, Drew very good-lookingly played it across. And I think, uh, whether Poulick was having a great game before or not, it stops, it stops mattering. Yeah. For us. And for our purposes, we're just, this is what we love, right? We have enough guys there that, uh, we're going to get some key moments and we just really have to cherish these.

And it was key. Like, AC Milan could still have advanced in Champions League. But either way, getting a win against Newcastle guaranteed them Europa League at worst. So that was huge in the comeback to end up getting to staying in European competition in the spring. That's a huge. I mean, that's a big deal. I mean, well, yeah, it's a big deal. much prefer staying in Europa League than going home for good as Newcastle is.

Yeah, and it was to the point where, like you said earlier, if Dortmund had scored, then A.C. Milan would have advanced to Champions League, and it would have been PSG going to Europa League. And the Dortmund fans were, it seemed like a little bit upset at the lack of initiative there at the end from Dortmund to put PSG down to Europa League. but that's just because they're good fans over there in Dortmund. Yeah, it would have been, I mean, again, it would have been cool to see both the oil money teams crash out.

I would have enjoyed that, not to moralize too much, but there just would have been something fun about that. Speaking of, you know, missed chances, Peppy had a couple in this game. He did, but it's, I mean, you know what I'm about to say. It's good that he's getting chances. Yeah. I know there are definitely some people who still subscribe

with the idea that Pepe is somehow superhumanly clutch as a finisher. I definitely am not ready to say that yet about him or just about anybody else who's 20 years old. But what we like is that he's getting in that spot, you know, following a play up where he nearly has a goal off of a rebound. When you were watching it, did you kind of, did your mind go to the Algeria game, kind of the mirror, the flip side, but it didn't, but it does now. that you mentioned it. Yeah.

Ball gets squared across. First guy slams it into the keeper at point blank range and Peppie's right there to clean it up, Donovan style, and just kind of smashes it instead of just kind of dink in it. Yeah. The dink might have worked there. And the smash can work there too, right? Like he just smashed it a little bit poorly.

Gabriel just got a toe out to it and made an incredible stop, I would say. But yeah, that kind of stuff is not easy to do in the moment. Yeah, we're happy that he's in that game able to do some things. And like we had talked about before, this is a total dead rubber. Arsenal had secured first, could not do worse. PSV had secured second, could not do better or worse. So it was just a, it was an academic exercise. But it's still a good one for PSV and a great one for Ricardo Pepe because,

I mean, Arsenal's backups, even playing in a dead rock, are a much better competent level, competence level than a lot of the team's PSV plays on weekends in the Netherlands. Yeah. And then Pepe got an assist, which was a, well,

I was going to say on the chance missing part, I did have the thought watching the game. Like if Hazes Ferreira were the guy missing these chances, there would have been a lot, there would have been hell to pay on the internet. And I prefer Pepe to Ferreira. I think he's a better player. That's my opinion.

That's my opinion. But I just think it's interesting. Now, the assist was the right choice with the right weight to Verteson, and Verteson hits a really nice shot to the far post. So Pepe played pretty well, I thought, like overall in the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, that's what you're looking for. He's not, he's not, like, destroying PSV's attack in a game against Arsenal.

It was an open game, like a really open game. you know, on that assist, like it's crazy how open it was, in part because of the play of another American on that that I'm sure we'll talk about. But that's good receiving value for Pepe. Like, I mean, that's a stat that the nerds keep track of is receiving where you're receiving the ball, which spots you're allowing your team to pass into. So just receiving it there is great. It's not a super difficult setup pass once he has it in that space. a lot of the work then comes on the finish to hit it off both posts and in. Yeah, that was a really nice.

But Pepe's doing his job there. He's doing his job against Arsenal in a Champions League game. There's no wet blanketing here. I'm not wet blanketing any of this. This is great to see, and it's a great data point. I feel like I've already missed wet blanketed it by talking about the mischances. I mostly wanted to talk about it as a way to get into the discourse. But I don't want to wet blanket it either.

I thought Pepey played well. And Tillman played amazing. I would say we throw the word masterclass around kind of a lot. But this is about as close as you can get. It started with that outside of the boot curving ball into Bakuyoko's path, the one that set up the chance that Pepe could have either smashed or dinked. That was gorgeous. And then, you know, from then on, he was just kind of in a flow state.

I mean, he set up, he played the ball. to Pepe for the assist to set up that assist. He played, he did that one time when he kind of came from deep and then got back healed into space and then played it to Pepe, who then squared it for Saibari and Pepe got a chance to shoot, but blasted it off a defender. I mean, there's just like moment after moment where Tillman's receiving in the half space, just doing beautiful stuff dealing to Bakayoko or Tezze or Saibari or Pepe. And he just cut that Arsenal B team up. I mean, Baca Yoko is probably the one that the Premier League teams are looking at

and saying, like rubbing their hands with glee at the chance to sign him. But I'd be surprised if there weren't some people watching who were like, oh, Malik Tillman, he's good. I mean, I'm hoping that boss thinks the same thing and that Tillman gets a start in the knockouts because that's sort of now where BSV are at for meaningful games. because IAC squandered so much early on. They've got a pretty commanding lead in the league in the Air Divisi. So that's where I feel like there's some wiggle room

that they might experiment with some lineups. But their real test now, they're real like money matches left on the schedule are going to be these Champions League knockouts in January, I think, right? March, do they not play again until March? When do they play the knockouts? I can't remember when the knockouts. When's a drawboard?

Are we talking right through the draw for who's playing who? No, it's not until Monday. Draws on Monday. And then the matches are going to be in February. First leg in February, second leg in March of the round of 16. So now we're kind of holding a breath. Not to say that we don't want both those, all three of our guys in Eindhoven, to really be getting chances in the league and cleaning up.

But it just really does come down to like, that league isn't tremendous. I'm again like I'm glad Desta's they're tearing it up I hope I hope Chiorena is in that league tearing it up in the spring but the real like the real persuasive points are going to come they're going to come in February now in March in the knockouts

I guess the only other thing from that game is that Des nutmeg which is just a lot of fun to do to an Arsenal player with a reverse Elastico and then the reaction from Bakayoko and Saibari is uh you know bakayoko goes wild and then saibari does the kind of like um what have i just have just seen a ghost kind of look it's wonderful what have i just seen it's good it's good to like

for as many people do appreciate desk on the same level that we get to uh on the international breaks yeah yeah he's good he's a good player um and yeah he was mostly rested for this game he came on late, I presume because it was a dead rubber. That's pretty much it for what I have prepared. I guess I'll spring something on you. Have you watched any of the U.S. Women's National Team

documentary? No, I'm going to for sure. Just because I love any sort of like peek behind the curtain. Like I got to just see it. I mean, I want to like, I'm kind of like walking out. I want to even like see if I can make out what's written on the whiteboard

behind the teams of talking like that. kind of stuff like what is what is actually happening inside uh you know a contender for a world cup trophy like that's that stuff is just uh yeah it's just gold to me um one one other quick note on champions league uh this is a total throwaway thing um but our guy sam vines uh who didn't didn't get registered by what they said was like clerical error just i don't know if it's a silver lining or if it's even worse. But he is still injured. So he was injured like just before they announced their Champions League rosters or registered them. He's still injured. And Antwerp finished, I think, bottom of their group. So he actually was not even back in time to have played in any games

had he been registered and they won't have any games in Europe after the new year. So it was a no harm, no foul situation. It was a story from a while ago. We kind of, I feel like Like there's some resolution that Sammy just hasn't made it back. And he was out for a really long time with some mysterious injury as well, like where he just could not get back, maybe played in like a game or dressed for a game, played with their reserves, their youth team a couple of times.

So I don't know if he's got some weird lingering injury issue that is just really, you know, one of those career stoppers that we've, you know, had the misfortune of watching so many players sort of endure. Nick Tadigwee. So, you know, it's just something I guess we'll keep an eye on in the spring, but there's a San Vines update. Okay. Appreciate it. On the under pressure documentary, I got to say, I don't think you really need to watch it. There's really nothing. There's not that much revealed. I mean, watch it. I'm not going to stop you. But there's nothing necessarily.

I don't remember any whiteboards. I mean, Vlako says nothing of interest in the whole documentary. That will be of interest to me, just to see how, how, like, just to see like the lack of insightfulness. And again, we're getting tiny, you know, I'm sure managed clips. I doubt, I'm certain U.S. soccer wouldn't have said, tape everything, show whatever you want. Right. Yeah, they didn't.

And obviously, a bunch of people didn't, a bunch of players didn't really want to participate. So the ones who agreed to it are the ones who are highlighted. And that's mostly Christy Mewis and Lynn Williams. And Christy Mewis is, you know, you can learn a lot about how grateful she feels that Sam Kerr loves her. And that's cool. But, yeah, Sam Kerr makes him cameos, right? Yeah, Sam Kerr is a quite a, you know, quite a character, a big personality. And she's like the, She's like the neighbor character that just pops in, gets a laugh, and then leaves from it. She was ragging on Christy because of the USA's setpiece defending. She said, do you guys not practice those or what?

It's pretty funny. Do you do not work on those? So Australian. Yeah. There's a point where Lynn Williams said that they were confused at the half time of the Portugal. game. They didn't know, like, give us some idea of what to fix, one or two things we could fix. And then they cut to obviously a heavily edited version of what Vlako said. And Vlako said, we get the first, let's get the first tackle and the first goal.

And, you know, it's possible he said more. It's, I mean, no, it's, it's certain that he said more. But the impression given is, like, not encouraging about his, uh, his sort of halftime pep talk chops or half-time adjustment chops, I guess, is more like it. Yeah, it's certainly consistent with our suspicion that he was just not providing a lot of soccer solutions to this team or soccer ideas over the last two and a half three years leading up to this. So it doesn't feel like it's just, oh, in the moment, he just couldn't come up with the solution. It didn't look like we've been trying to solve anything for a long time, which will segue us into what I hope is an administration, a team led by someone who has a lot of ideas for solutions and ideas of how to implement them. And that's certainly going to be the hope.

You know, that reminds me when you said a few weeks ago that Emma Hayes, you know, she was saying that she works on something, she's working on one thing. She's working on one thing. She stops working on it. And then, well, let me put it this way. She is planning ahead for like later in the season, even though she has a big game coming up on the weekend. And you were saying, well, that just illustrates an ability to compartmentalize. And that's really valuable.

And I was thinking at the time and I didn't say it, how do you learn how to do that? How do you learn to compartmentalize? And, you know, focus on one problem. and then not think about anything else and then drop that problem and focus on another problem. It's, you know, I don't have the answer.

I just think it is quite admirable people who can do that. And yeah, hopefully that intelligence and that those habits from Hayes yield better soccer for the women's national team. Well, I'm hopeful when we're able to get Emma Hayes on for an interview, we can kind of get into those

those processes mentally and actually like like the physical like in in your office how are you doing this what's your what's your schedule like where it's like okay I block out a piece of time to think about what next year's going to be to make sure we're not that this is sustainable or whatever it is like right speaking with Chelsea or Chelsea might be spiraling a bit now that Emma's on the way out the door is that right about a full spiral but it's like they're not comfortable in their Champions League group right now. They just tied. They just dropped points again yesterday.

To Paris FC? No, no, no. They drop points to Hocken. We need somebody else to tell me how to pronounce it. But yeah, so they're going to, they got to really dig in a bit. They're going to play in the knockouts, which seemed like an inevitability for Chelsea before the group stage started. So come on, Emma. Like, don't have your own.

like Chelsea fans asking questions about you and don't, don't cause American fans to say, do we have the right person here? Still hasn't won a Champions League. Speaking of Champions League, Lily Johannes got an assist yesterday for Iax and a 1-1 draw at Byron. I don't think anybody expected that. She, you know, she looks like a 16-year-old out there, but she's pretty good. She's pretty good. Has some stuff to work on.

And then Corbyn Albert and PSG got a win. over Roma at home. Albert went to full 90. Not a, didn't do a, didn't play a master class type performance. It wasn't a master class type performance, but, you know, she's out there doing work. The last thing I'll say about the documentary is Lindsay Horan comes across as the most sort of soccer thoughtful of the players.

You know, like she wants to talk about how to play. and what needs to happen. She talks about the possession style that the U.S. women's national team needs to play with and how that might come about in the future. She also said in that Portugal game, which I think was a gut check for everybody, especially when the ball went off the post late,

that they could have, you know, theoretically could have figured it out together as players what was going on because what was happening wasn't working. He said, We didn't, she said we didn't figure it out. And we needed to figure it out. And we didn't. And just those two comments from her,

probably the most interesting parts of the documentary for me. And I do want to, I have actually drafted an email to her agency to see if I can get her on the pod, which is going to be a long shot, I think. She's a little bit, a few levels above us, I think, in terms of status and standing in the world. But we're going to give it a show.

We're going to give it a try. Try to get Lindsay on the pod. I would love that because, man, like that, I mean, just that comment right there, I would love to just hear what her thoughts are on, on those exact same, you know, questions that, of what the player's role in this is, you know, as a collective to try to solve it.

For the, again, for the entire campaign, for the entire cycle. And not just like, oh, the first half of Portugal, like, we have to solve this on the field. But to we just extend that, back all the way through the Conca Calf Championships. And like, where do they, when do they start to feel in what games do they start to feel like, this isn't going that smoothly?

Like, this isn't flowing well. How do we, how do we as players to sort of maybe take what Flok Goes given us and then shape that in a way that actually leads to some real, you know, again, I'm just going to use the word efficiency, like some actual soccer efficiency. because I think she's again I think Lindsay totally has a mind for that kind of play like when she first came on the scene for the U.S. She felt like a different kind of player with that like with those ideas like the more sophisticated ideas. Yeah. She also has the takes great joy in doing special things too as we've discussed on like like scoring in different ways or you know just doing a trick.

She likes that. Yeah. She likes that kind of stuff. And that's unusual. Yes. An appreciation for that. Right. So hopefully we can get her.

That's it, isn't it? Thanks everybody for listening. Check us out on Patreon. If you get the chance, the link is in the show notes. We'll see you.