Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #473: USWNT beats Colombia, full recap

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

We went direct vs Colombia in a Gold Cup knockout game, and pressed them hard. Greg and Belz break it down.———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 ———SCUFFED TRIP TO ITALYInformation sheet on the trip: https://earthlydelights.notion.site/Italia-24-with-Scuffed-info-sheet-50449936319a48babe75dea13eefdae1Form to fill out if you’re interested: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYPo58LFY5kfsU2qkxzfTXY9RxDiHXUblnAQ-VHsq2nD2gsg/viewform———OTHER LINKSScuffed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAoundrEkZUgZ13IE5XIqrg We’ve streamlined and revamped the merch we’re selling. Check it out: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Scuffed on Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XU 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. Okay, we've got a 3-0 win over Columbia to celebrate. Greg, how you doing? I'm doing good. We're good again. It's nice to be good again after being bad for a little bit. Not so fast. Not so fast.

We'll talk about whether we're good again. But a couple announcements. First, you'll have to excuse the ambient noise on my end. I'm traveling with family and have to record this. outside. Also, this is an exciting announcement. Patrons of the podcast have known for a while that we are planning a trip to Italy at the end of April and early May. It's not totally finalized, but there's strong interest, and I think it has a good chance of actually happening. The plan is to see Yuvay Milan in Turin and Turin and then games in Como in Venice. George Qureshi and I will be

on the trip for which there are still a couple spots left. So we're opening it up to the public feed audience. If you have any interest, go to the links in the show notes. I've got a link with a lot of detail about the trip there that George put together and then a link to a form where you can let us know if you're interested. So check that out. And, you know, scuffed pod at gmail.com. It's also a good way to ask questions and investigate.

So, yeah, trip to Italy. Decent chance is going to happen. So get on board. It's amazing. It's amazing. And while I can't go, I am very excited to follow religiously every single day of the trip in the Discord, where I'm sure you guys will be posting travel logs. Yeah, we'll do some kind of Greg Velasquez homage.

You know, there'll be something. Okay, to the game. How about we start with the lineups? Yeah, let's do it. Knockout game. where we see who Twyla thinks is our best team to win a soccer game. I think, I don't think there's any

hedging here. Alyssa Neier and goal, Emily Fox, Naomi Germa, Ternad Davidson and Jenna Nyswanger across the back line. Kind of a double pivot of Sam Coffey and Corby and Corbyn Albert. And then Lindsay Horan is the other midfielder.

More advanced. Trinity Rodman, Alex Morgan and Jaden Shaw across the front line. So yeah, that's our best lineup right now. I mean, it's at least what she thinks, what Twyla thought it was going into the game. And again, because we have so many new faces here with so few reps, even Twyla could be changing, you know, swinging wildly from game to game.

Should note here, the Coffee Albert double pivot was definitely like a double pivot. And this wasn't like previous games where we kind of possess our way into that 2.35 or 325 shape in buildout. very little possession to speak of. So we never really, yeah, so we never really got like the fullbacks to just build up high into our shape. It was more just like Jaden Shaw would pinch well in on the left as a left number 10. Iran would be sort of the right side of number 10.

Rodman would be the right width. Morgan would be up high. And then we kind of just didn't have time to build much left-sided width very often because we were playing so direct. It was sort of just hit it up towards. Morgan and then and then play hustle ball after that. A lot of hustle ball. It was hustle ball, but again, it was to at least when we were pressing when we were

off of the ball, out of possession, it was very effective hustle ball. And it's kind of something we touched on before that if you can't or won't be good at possession, then maybe with our team. murder ball is not the worst thing to do. No, I mean, it certainly makes sense from a pragmatic point of view, right? It works. It's not very risky. Our defense is so solid.

Yeah, I feel like 90% of our chances or joy we experienced was just coming from turning Columbia over. Yeah. Which they seemed very willing to get turned over. Yeah. Natalia Geraldo, Engel, Carolina Arias, Jollin Carabali, Daniela Arias, and Manuela Vanegas across the back line, Daniela Montoya, Lorena, excuse me, Lorena Durango, and Ilana Isquiredo in the midfield,

and then Manuela Pavi, Carolina Usme, often dropping wide and right. It should be said, and Linda Cicado across that nominal front. front line. Isquiredo, I want to mention, is a Mississippi State Bulldog. She's the one who had the best chance of the game for Columbia. To the timeline. How about it? Yeah, let's hit it.

As you alluded to, we were pressing hard right off the bat and playing direct to Morgan's head. That seems to be the game plan. Do you think the instructions were just slam it up to Alex from Twyla? Because it sure seemed like that. I think it had to be because we haven't seen this from our team. I mean, I don't remember the last time we looked like this obviously direct. So I think it had to be an instruction that was on purpose and probably in response to the way Mexico pressed us.

Even though, again, I don't think they necessarily pressed us off the field and we could get through their press several times and start running downhill. You know, should also note we didn't really address this in the lineup. Roosevelt benched and something that was discussed. a lot after that Mexico game was that Rose Lavelle was where a lot of those downhill attacks fizzled out and she if you can't like play your way into a 10 in the open field and facilitate a lot of chances through her then maybe it is time to say right now this isn't the way we should play and so dropping your number 10 and then not playing through one very often because you feel like the 10 you have is not effective enough I mean it makes sense right so yeah

So if that's sort of, it's consistent with that to have the game plan be specifically. We don't have to build through this. We don't have to, you know, connect six passes center mid to center mid and try to carve a team up. If they're exposing themselves a little bit, just go to Alex Morgan and then let our, let our runners fight for the next ball. You know, that's the thing is I guess I was looking for evidence that that was the plan where obviously the plan was to kick it to Alex but you got to have people sort of crowding around her to win that second ball and I don't I couldn't see any evidence that that was like definitely on the other players minds you know to come win that second ball it was like the second ball was kind of a

oh I guess I should go get that instead of a instead of like a choreographed thing I I could be wrong but I think we saw the same thing. We posted a couple clips in the discord of, you know, even like deadball situations where you have total freedom to do what your exact plan is. And you still just had like habits that maybe are hard to break. So we've got, you know, a centerback taking a dead ball and you still have like one of the double pivots or even both of them like checking back to it in a way that isn't just like I'm going to draw this defender up with me and then I'm going to break up field because I know we're going to kick it long. like they dropped back off for the reset and then we smashed it along to Alex Morgan and it almost looked like it surprised and like oh okay and then they just kind of stopped dead in their tracks so like well now the ball's 60 yards away from me it's like if you're going to be a good direct

ball team everyone should know what the situation is and if you are going to check back and you're you might be you're just doing it as a faint because you know no we're not trying to play short to me so that I can hit six few passes we're going and I need to be up to join where the ball is going to beat where I know it will be in two and a half seconds. So there was definitely an element of like mixed messaging from body language. And again, this is where I'm hopeful that, you know, and I'm not even saying it's just on Twyla, but with some time with the actual head coach that we get those messages communicated well and we start seeing the full team playing on the same page because I think we can get better at playing

direct. We weren't, we weren't like amazing at it. No. Nice wanger goal notwithstanding. Yeah, that was a real moment of class, particularly, well, from both of them, both Morgan and Nice wanger. Okay, so I also think, you know, the opening five minutes give anybody fodder to say that anybody was bad in the game, you know, like Haran was sloppy, Shaw was sloppy,

early on, Rodman was sloppy, yeah. Corby. Albert wasn't particularly sloppy at the beginning of the game, but got sloppier as the game went on. And, yeah, I don't think anybody looked great. Even Germa had a giveaway. Which you could argue was because Rodman didn't come back to the ball. But anyway, seven-minute mark.

Albert wins it in the press, up to Rodman. And she's coming into the box from the left side. And she just does a clever little outside of the boot touch to her right. I missed this on the initial watch. and her and her hand gets a shot from a good spot. It's kind of tackled off her foot, but real, real clever from Rodman here. And the shot, which was, like I said, tackled off her foot, still drew a save from the keeper diving down to her left.

So pretty good chance, actually. And within seven minutes, the theme was already set of us not interested in, like, little triangles. We're not triangling our way up the field. And also, Columbia, just not able to do anything. So they'd already had several goal kicks. They're taking them all short. They look like a team that's doing training reps to build out of the back for the first time ever.

And it's a knockout soccer game. So again, this is a really strange thing where they are having zero luck. They are giving the ball away instantly. And we are on top of them in these situations. And they just keep trying it. This throw in like they won't throw it long. I don't know if they just have no one who can throw it long. You know, Mexico scored off of us all to throw in because we were a little last.

lack of a dazeical defending it. Not the case here. We are all over every single throw-in that they take from their defensive third and every goal kick. And yeah, Corbyn-Albert wins it. Like, it doesn't even bounce to a Columbia player. She's in with like a flying jump kick in the air ready to like pounce. So that's the other thing.

Vince talked about the pouncing against Mexico and how Mexico ready to pounce in the U.S. Absolutely or not, which I think is true. And I think a lot of that is in how you set the team up. in what you're asking them to do. It's not just like, oh, we had a soft mentality that game. There might be some of that, but a lot of it is how you set your team up. You've been listening to scuff since the early days. That was 2019 U.S. men's national team where we set up in a really passive 4-4-2.

And then everyone's like, why don't we have any fights? Like, well, we're set up to not want to be going out and fighting to step into these challenges and be anticipating pouncing. And that was not the U.S. women's national team yesterday. What did you, what did you call it, a soft, chewy 4-4-2 or something like that? It was such a, yeah, it's been so long since we were that butter soft. Yeah, and so again, yesterday, or Sunday I should say, our gals were not butter soft. No, no, we did, I mean, to be totally fair to the team, they came out and played hard for sure.

and particularly Morgan put in a shift. Ninth minute, Caicedo does a pretty clever little give-and-go down the left, and neither Fox nor Coffee. Ninth-minute, Caisado does a give-and-go down the left, and neither Fox nor coffee tracks her. She cuts in on Fox, who has sort of recovered, and curls a lovely ball to the backpost for Usme, who just can't get her first touch.

right, it's too heavy and it goes right to ne'er. But this is a really kind of dangerous moment for the U.S. And it feels a little lackadaisical from coffee maybe in particular here, why she doesn't run over to help Fox. She just kind of trot, she just kind of falls in line and trots back towards the gold mouth. But anyway, all of all that ends well. Yeah, I suppose. It's a bit of a broken play.

Morgan and another Colombian player had just collided in, midfield as there were a thousand of these types of collisions that went. Oh, so many collisions. Like everyone expected a foul to be called. And then when there wasn't, everyone was still kind of stopping because it was like, call me a player down with a possible head injury. And so you have that sort of broken play situation where five players around the ball kind of stop and are like, you know, just saying, all right, is she okay?

Like, we all stop here, right? But the play just continued. And I think that's how initially we got unbalanced. Trinity stopped. and she's over there on that right side that could have offered some help defensively. And then we still get our shape back enough

that Fox shouldn't get beaten as badly as she does. It's just sort of bad footwork body shape to defend the give and go. She sort of turns her body in with the pass instead of tracking the runner and bumping her off the run. And then Nicewanger also falls asleep and lets her player cut in behind her back door

and it is Columbia in my mind. It's Columbia's second most dangerous situation of the game, and they squander it with that heavy touch. Yeah. Okay, got to play better defense. 10th minute, we get our goal, and it's definitely off the press.

Morgan nicks a loose pass over to Haran, right in zone 14, right in the area on top of the box. Horan plays Morgan back into the box. Morgan chases after it and gets, takes a touch, gets shouldered over pretty ruthlessly by Karabali, and it's a penalty, I think, clearly. Morgan and Horan do the bait and switch on the penalty. I like that.

Morgan holds it for a while. There's a lot of chit-chat, some gamesmanship, and then she handsmanship, and then she hands it over to Haran, who takes it. There's still more gamesmanship. Number 17, you know, rushes into the way of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, penalty and gets the, you know, chastised by the ref sent back. But then Horan just cool as you like puts it away, bottom right corner. Real nice penalty. Yeah.

A lot of wildness in this game. Yeah, you can see the, there's so much, there's so much just like slapstick to this game. It's kind of funny. We caught in the first 20 seconds. Columbia fouls, nice one around the sideline. And then two players go up and like stop night, like stop a free kick. to be taken quickly, and the referee comes over and very, like, demonstratively shows that she won't be taking any of that funny business.

So that was 20 seconds of the game. And then she proceeds to take funny business for the entire game in a way that encourages... Oh, she took so much funny business. Encouraged as much funny business as any team could hand out. And I appreciate it. I, like, respect that aspect of it. I feel like anything that an underdog team can do to change it from a fair soccer. When I say fair, I mean, like, you don't want to, if you're the worst team, you don't want to measure yourself up straight up.

You want to like find little edges. So good on Columbia to see how we would respond. They might have had us a couple of times with our responses, but overall, ball went in for us. And it makes a lot easier to stomach some of that. Yeah, we'll get into it, but Robin definitely should have been sent off in this game. But on the actual sequence, on the actual sequence, like to create this, really smart from Morgan, really savvy, like that's, in my head, I'm like, that's good veteran stuff.

She kind of found her way back into midfield and was kind of hiding there a little bit, kind of like when a striker hides behind the goalie after they pick it up, and then the goalie rolls it not knowing they're there, and she just sneaks her. This was kind of like that, but on the other side of the field, She was kind of hiding in the center circle And then as Columbia started to build up slowly like they'd been doing She just burst out of it She just kind of got shot out of a cannon

Read the little Backpats that Columbia were about to make And just you know Just guessed that maybe it would be under hit And it was under hit just slightly Certainly under hit for when you have a striker running full speed out of the circle To chase it back And she gets their first and makes a really nice

Touch to move it just move it over to Heron so she can keep her run going. So well executed on all fronts there. Yeah, yeah. So it's 1-0, and I had the thought in this game, which you have articulated several times, that even though it was sloppy, there was some sloppiness from Horan, particularly early, she is the adult. This is a Velazquezism, but she is the adult in the room when it comes to possession.

and it seemed like especially clear in contrast to coffee and Albert, who, not that they did anything terribly bad in possession. I mean, it was a sloppy game for everybody, but they just look like they want to get rid of it when they get it. You know, they just got to get rid of it as fast as possible. And then it's not until it gets to Haran that actually, in the midfield, that actually something starts to happen, you know. So I'm still team Lindsay.

over here. But, I mean, you know, just when it comes to her value to this team. 15th minute, Morgan and Usmay get into it again. This time on a corner kick, after all, the penalty shenanigans. They both get a yellow over the course of the next four minutes from the ref who we should probably name Marianella Araya. She's from Costa Rica. She's a chaos merchant.

She's a chaos merchant. I mean, she's what the tournament needed. again, like, I don't know that she's going to get a lot of games the rest of the way. Maybe she will. But for entertainment value, I'm glad she was doing this match. Yeah, a lot of it. We got a Shaw header off target on a set piece. Shaw nearly Knicks won on the press again,

kind of flying into a tackle with the goalie after a short goal kick and then a pass back to the goalie. And then the ensuing corner kick, Rodman's header is off target. Shaw nearly scores on a... So it's... I don't know who played the ball because the broadcast cut away from it, but Nicewanger was played into the corner.

It was a nice ball. Probably from Germa, but maybe from Davidson. I don't know. But I know. I wish that we couldn't see it. And I'm just like, oh man, I don't know if, like, I don't know if we had some cool triangle passing from Corbin and coffee to set this up, like, the first time in the game.

Or if it was just like, nope, we just had it in the back and we just launched it over to Jenna. Well, Niswanger collects it nicely, and then she cuts onto her right foot and just wax up prayer of a cross into the box. It doesn't beat the first defender, but the first defender sort of clears it straight to Shaw, Jaden Shaw, who's arriving in the box.

Shaw takes it first time and just slashes it over the bar. A really nice hit. Almost scored. Yeah, real tight. So you can see, you know, Jaden Shaw just had the point in blank chance, if we're calling it that, where she takes it off the goalkeeper's feet. And then she's on top of this one. And like you've said, up until that point, she'd been super loose, like tons of giveaways,

had the ball dispossessed at her feet multiple times. Everyone in this game was kind of like not very good, didn't look very good until suddenly they did something very important. Nice swunger with the, I mean, got beat on that bar post play. And then this kind of like hopeful cross. I don't know if she's a strong crosser generally. But the decision here was fine. We had three on two, like right in front of the goal to hit it into. All she has to do is get it to the middle six or back post,

and we've got good, really good numbers. And it like didn't even get to the near post. Like it skipped probably 15 yards off of her foot off the turf and then just ate the Columbia defender up. She plays it off like her knee. Maybe it's just weak foot on the execution. Maybe she just doesn't have a good cross from her right foot. Yeah, I don't know.

Either way, it's like, oh, well, this has been a disappointing start for Jenna between getting beat backposts and then this kind of disappointing service in a good situation. But I think, you know, maybe something will happen later and she'll redeem herself. Yeah, could happen. She sure can't strike the ball with her left foot. I don't know about her weak foot. what's the next thing on the timeline so straight after that shaw hit over the crossbar

Columbia switched to taking long goal kicks they kick their players out of the six yard box where they've been standing next to the keeper and it's like oh no now we can't now we can't just keep taking advantage of their silly decisions out of the back and it looked like a youth team that was playing against like a 50 mile an hour wind we've all we've all coached or seen those games

played where like it's just it's the ball's locked into one penalty box because of the wind uh that's what it looked like for columbia they just did not have the either the will or the ability to just hit a ball 65 yards up the field and be like no we don't want to be over here this is we're embarrassing ourselves just get it out of here uh so even when they switch to the long goal kicks they still couldn't quite do it and then it yeah and then it was just a lot of soccer tennis like an english championship game uh both teams just kick it kick, kick, kick. Well,

should we go ahead to the Rodman drama, I guess? Well, we still have the, we got the Haran swivel volley that I kind of talked around. So even though Columbia switched to long clearances, they had this one moment where they just drop it back to their keeper's feet. She tries to hit it long, but again, she just can't hit it very far.

So she goes along with it, but it doesn't get too far out. And we, I think Jaden Shaw wins it air and just kind of guides it back upfield towards terrain at the top of the box. And she tries a pretty aesthetically pleasing swivel volley. The technique's pleasing the end result. She doesn't hit it very well and just kind of goes wide. And then she glances over and sees that Trinity Rodman was totally free in on goal. She just touched it over around that center back that was clothing her down.

And I think we got an apology from Iran, like immediately like, sorry, sorry, Tran. We did some lip reading on the replay. but it was again it's another very clear chance from Columbia just handing the ball to us and us and us being very aggressive in our posture which again something Twyla touched on yeah I mean the press worked for sure um robin gets a yellow for fighting with uh I think it's Daniela a aides um number three there she tells her to back the F up in the in super slow motion. We love Rodman, right?

We love Trinity Rodman. Again, just tons of entertainment value. As we've touched on, she is a multiple yellow card risk. And at times a straight red card risk. She was pretty mad in this game. And she did let it get better of her, I think. Let's talk about the

go ahead. This is a perfect game to get Trinity Rodman mad because the referee had lost control so early and Trinity Rodman I think gets very frustrated if she gets sort of wronged. So if you are able to sneak and knock in on her that isn't called a foul, I feel like she is going to sort of take some of it into her own hands to write that wrong. Yeah, vigilante justice. We get a goal. We get another goal in the 22nd minute.

It's the Nicewanger one. Floated Germa ball into the box, so just play and direct. And then Morgan plays a lovely headed flick over to in the direction of Nicewanger. I mean, this is, at first it looked like it was just cleared to Nicewanger to me. But on replay, it's a delicate touch with the forehead from Alex Morgan right into the path of Nicewanger. Just excellent stuff. And then Nicewanger meets it. about as sweetly as you can,

pings it off the far post, low through the legs of the defender who's closing on her. 2-0. Really a great goal. Yeah, so Morgan sort of at the heart of both of them at this point. You can debate how much, you know, it's a very good header. You can sort of debate how much intentionality

there can even be on a play like this. Morgan... I suppose. Morgan does well to sort of put the centerback off and sort of throw her off balance, not undercutter, but just sort of get, slide into the position where she's now underneath the ball. I don't think she ever looks over her shoulder

at what the right side is to see that Columbia have sort of lost Nicewanger because the other defenders kind of cheated towards Morgan and then the last weak side defender is just slow to react. So it's not like you could say, oh, well, this is just how you draw it up because I don't think we knew that this is how Columbia we're going to defend this exact sequence.

But it turns into a very nice, Cushioned almost Morgan just sort of settling it down into that area of the box for nice longer to smash in and I love love Love love any first time hit like that that is a screamer that's like an inch and a half off the grass the entire way It almost feels like nice swungers like kicking all of physics in the teeth when she hits this soccer ball Yeah check out the replay if you haven't seen it. It's real nice then we get Rodman getting the first escaping a yellow for the first time yeah she tackles Vanegas just way late I mean it's a clear yellow it's a clear yellow in any soccer universe

comes in late gets her pretty good lucky to avoid being sent off I would say yeah and this this Trinity tackle came less than a minute after she had been like just absolutely bulldozed by Vanegas and Cacchetto in like a high low that Columbia had kind of pulling off on a all game where like one player kind of knocks you into the other player who's gonna who's gonna hit you again while you're in midair. Uh, so she just had that happen with no call. Kacchato would even get her like a arm to be like get up like that was a saw you're going down easy. And so you can see you just see it in Trinity's like body like she's going to not let

this stand, you know, so, uh, she didn't. She got her, she got her revenge on Vanegas and probably should have been sent off. And at that point, like, she's got to come out of the game, you know, like she's going to get another one. This isn't, uh, you know, a player who's on a yellow, so you should take him out preemptively and you shouldn't do that with everybody because most people, it's a fluke if they, you know, if they, if something like that happens. Uh, but when Trinity does that, when she's already already on a yellow, you say, okay, she just will not stop from going after players. We need to take her off.

We're going to be playing down a player. Yeah. Yeah, pretty out of control, really. 25th minute, we get that Morgan fly route. Yeah, it's just beautiful, isn't it? This is like it doesn't turn into anything, but sometimes you just have to stop to appreciate these moments. I think it's nice longer that just launches a ball over the top

to Morgan going streaking straight up. the middle of the field between two Columbia players and she takes it over the shoulder with her left foot reaching up again it's like for me it's the Dennis Burkamp versus Argentina touch just to pop it up in the air with her left

and then still in stride before that ball hits the ground touch it again with her left which again the replay is just poetry so hop on the Discord check that out and then she can't quite doesn't have the gas left to like

do anything with it. And no one's with her because she's the center forward going on a flyer out. No one's, Lindsay Rand's not going to catch up to that play. No. She does, if we're picking Nits, the second touch does take her a little bit wider of the goal than, but the first one was gorgeous. It's the same, it's the same exact sequence that Weston McKinney got a assist on for Juventus a couple weeks ago. And very similar, like the whole thing is very similar.

Like kind of a scuffed, a scuffed ball across the the middle. This one just didn't happen to find Haran. And McKinney's did find Vlajavich. Do you know the one I'm talking about? It was like two weeks ago or something. Yeah. But yeah, lovely from Morgan. Probably our best player. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry, about it. Well, I was just going to say good stuff from, great stuff from Morgan.

Probably our best player through half an hour, you know? Yep. And so this is where what happened in my, like what I noticed happened. after this play, you definitely notice it on the rewatch. She's like goes down on her back, you know, from that long route, the attempt that didn't quite turn into anything. And, you know, there's that air of like, oh, it didn't happen. It's disappointing that we didn't get the chance out of it. But also it's like that was a lot that I just did.

And she, like when you said she put in a shift, she absolutely did through this moment. And then honestly, like, if you watch the rest of the half and just keep an eye on what she does, she never quite arrives in a play again. Like she's always just like not quite there. Interesting. I think she sort of might have gassed out at about 25, 30 minutes. And in the first half,

and just didn't have anything left for half to, until half time. Interesting. I didn't notice that, but it makes sense. Did Smith come on? Smith came on at what, like the hour mark?

No, she came on like 70, 72. All right. So Morgan went to 72 minutes. But yeah, I mean, our press sort of vanishes after the, It's not just this run.

I mean, everyone had been putting in a, and it's not just Alex Morgan, everyone had been doing a crazy amount of work to swarm Columbia here. Columbia also made themselves slightly less swarmable. But yeah, from this moment to halftime, like we don't get nearly that kind of turnover joy that we've been getting through the whole game. Okay. All right, 32nd minute, our buildout just sucks. Give away from Fox trying to pass it to Rodman,

who's running back into our half. and then a crisp three-pass sequence from Columbia. Cicado gets it in space striding into the attacking third with coffee and Albert kind of behind the play and then she uncorks a good dipping shot from 22 yards. Draws a save from Nair. I'm not sure, you know, got to check with the goalkeeper's union here, but I'm not sure it was really that impressive of a save.

No, but, you know, these things need to carry a lot of narrative weight, I feel like, in the moment. And I don't even think there's anything wrong with that. That's how you experience soccer games. But no, technically this is an extremely comfortable save that everybody in our pool will make. She does a solid job of batting the rebound like very far away from goal along the end line.

So there's no secondary danger. So that's all well and good. But no, this is not a tough save. The build out for me is still the worrying thing here. And it is just our shape. Like our shape is a mess in a lot of situations for, almost like it's sort of rest defense that we're a mess in and it leads to problems even in our buildout not just in transition but then in our buildout once we

won the ball so like the lead up to this is us kind of hounding Columbia way up the field on our left side of the field and part of this might have been Morgan not ready to do all the sprinting but Trinity Rodman had just chased from the right side line all the way over to like the left the left our left half space upfield to like prepped ball and she like gets the crowd's appreciation because she like blocks a long clearance from Columbia out of bounds for a throw in you know that kind of use soccer cheer uh everyone loves the hustler crowds crowds all over the world love that stuff yes uh but yeah so she'd spend like 60 yards across the field and upfield to block this and then stays

over in that vicinity for a columbia's throw in uh which again all fine but With the narrow role Emily Fox is playing for us, once Columbia get their throw in and get the ball up the field and break through the little cage we've got, our shape is just terrible. They don't do anything dangerous with it. They just hit a ball that we collect easily with our, we corral it with our back line.

But once we start moving it around that back line, there's nowhere to keep moving it. Like we go from Tierna to Germa and then Germa over to Fox who's really tight because that's part of her starting position and maybe partly because Alyssa Neyer is not as much of an option as we'd like our goalkeeper to be in possession. But as it gets to Fox who's already narrow, there is nobody out wide or even close to her.

You get the still frame, and Trinity is just crossing midfield by the time Fox gets the ball at the top of our own box, and she's still 20 yards from the sideline. So it's like she's in the half space where a 10 should be, and there's nobody out wide creating a triangle with, box. Yeah, you know, and Angeli, Jordan Angeley, who I think's been doing a great

job with the color commentary on in these games on the Paramount broadcast. She once again harped on in this game on Rodman's width. So this is a bit of a different situation because she was way far up, like you said, earning

plotts for her hustle. But even in like more sort of run-of-the-mill moments of the game, she's not quite wide enough. to like attack the ball and attack that left defender she has to first sort of corral it

and then turn her momentum and come come at them so I thought that was interesting I think Angeli said the same thing during the Mexico game too yeah like you said our swarming defense no longer doing as much swarming

at this point in the game yeah you think we were cooked I mean, our front, yeah, I think our front three was good. I love it. I love the vacation ambiance. Our front three just could not close the angles down as much as they were before. So Columbia are now being able to finally receive the ball in the back under like no real pressure, pick their heads up.

It also created a lot bigger windows for them to play through. And so like you see, you know, I think coffee took some, was getting dinged a bit for not closing windows down. And I think those dings are fair. And I think the reason that Columbia started to find them more is, and be able to identify coffee, not closing windows down very well, is because of the lack of pressure that we were putting on up front. So coffee needs to get dinged. Like she's got to, she's got to be able to read where she needs to be to prevent like through balls,

line breaking passes. but the reason you didn't see it very much until the 30-odd minute was because our front line of defense was never giving Columbia anywhere near there was nothing Columbia could do for that first 30 minutes. Right. I did not pick up on that, so that's interesting. Let's see, 38th minute, an even better save from Neier. I think this one was a really good save.

Switch from Kaisado over to Usme, a really nice ball from midfield, and then they overload nice Wonger's side. This may place somebody in, then there's a cutback, not really even a cutback, just sort of a square ball across the box. And Mississippi State's Ilana Isquiredo meets it sweetly,

hits it at the near post, and Neyer gets there, man. This was a, look like a really nice save to me. Yeah, this is an outstanding save. You know, the first one benefits from goalkeepers doing routine things that just look, aesthetically amazing.

This one, aesthetically amazing and actually amazing. Just this stupid amount of technique, reaction, body control, and even like the strength of the hand she gets to it, because that ball can still power through a hand and sneak in just inside the post. Yeah. Everything amazing. Isquiredo didn't get the scouting report that you shoot to the far post

against Neer in these situations, because Neer hugs the near post. She was cheating. Yeah. She was cheating when the ball was wide really badly. And then she was not able to get to the center of the goal for the shot that was taken dead center. So that's why she's in position to get to this shot where it's placed. But none of that matters for the actual technique of the save.

That was still incredibly difficult. What about Germa? She kind of whiffed on this one, didn't she? She jumps to, she tries to jump the route and pick off that pass. misses Yeah Like I watched it as many times as I could to see Where Germa could play differently

And we should say too Like The Germa love here is Is sort of It's obviously the heights it reaches Is a bit Like Germa is a soccer player Who is going to make mistakes

We talk about her as this infallible player She's not And so we're probably doing a disservice to her Because then when she does make You know her shaky moments It's about the magnitude and frequency of mistakes, of course. Yeah, you could say if she reads this poorly because she lunges in for the cross and can't get there. And so then the question is like, should she have lunged at all then?

You've got to know if you can get to it or not. If you can't, would it be better to take a half step over and try to block the shot instead of intercepting the pass? And so there's room to say this is a wrong read and it's a mistake from Germa. It's just going to be a, she's in a tough spot here because. She's in line with the ball. She has no real help from her double pivot center mids tracking back. So some of it is just tipping your cap to Columbia and saying they executed this well to create the shot they created. Yeah, no, it was a nice sequence from them.

I guess she, I agree with you that Germa is a human, just a human soccer player. But, you know, compared to Sauerbrun in her last performance, she looks like a demo. demigod, you know, or a demigodess. Is that a thing? So. It is now. Maybe maybe Girm is the first. Right.

She should not sit. Oh, no. Again. No, that's definitely, that's kind of what I'm saying. Like, we shouldn't actually expect perfection from her, even while knowing that, in my mind, she's still clearly our best centerback. And that hasn't changed from what we've seen from Dahl Kemper or Tierna either. Yeah.

I thought Tierna was. pretty good in this game. What did you think? I'd say the same. It was that one kind of messy moment. Yeah. Ball stuck a ball stuck in her feet a little bit. That also contributed to that last buildout that we were talking about where we were

also slow to build out because Tiana got the ball stuck under her feet. A few players did. Maybe it's a sticky ball. I haven't heard any comments about it, but sometimes for these tournaments you get a strange ball. For those people, they changed it after the penalty. I know so there's something going on

at least one of the malls. Interesting. Yeah. This is me just throwing excuses out there already. Just wildly speculative excuses. Tell us about Trinity's third yellow. This was her third yellow. She's just sort of being pursued by Cicero and she gets that arm out, you know, that trailing arm that waxed Caseto across the face, which you can sometimes get away with.

Like, okay, well, that's accidental. Haran, you know, got one in the last game against Mexico, delivered one. So you can do that and just say, oh, it's just my natural arm swing. But the tell here is she hits her face and then cups her hand and then rakes it down the face of guys Atoe, in a secondary action. And that's where it's like, no, that's going to be the yellow and potentially, like, reviewed for a straight red.

Right. Got to get her out of there. Yeah, you're just thinking, oh, she's not. nearly made it to half time and then and now she's going to be gone and she hasn't done a lot of things with the ball so it's like what are we what are we holding on to here and then moments later we see what we're holding on to here yeah tell us let's let's talk about it uh how does it happen this is a this is a lovely goal it's a lovely goal it's like uh proceeded by like 60 seconds of chaos ball um where it's just hilarious it's just a hilarious 60 seconds i mean it's just

pinball for both teams just like I will just I will not have a plan to calm things down I will just whack the ball in some direction where there might be a teammate we're not even we're not even like whacking it through open windows it really is just pinball but eventually

it pinballs all the way from like where Rodman starts out with it at the corner of Columbia's box it pinballs all the way to like the center circle and keeps pinballing and then suddenly Emily Fox just emerges out of the chaos like does a little shoulder faint as the ball gets to her feet and puts Kai Sato on her back.

And then she gets to just drive forward with a three-on-three ahead of her. So she's got traffic right around her hit, but you could say technically this is now a four-on-three going at Columbia's goal from the center circle. And Fox hits a really nice waded pass to Trinity, who's got a step and a half and some space on a Columbia defender. I think... And a little bit of width.

Yep. Has a little bit of width. She's right in a great cutback zone. So good read from Fox. good execution and then Morgan is just sort of tying a center back up at the top of the box Which is enough to create a 1v1 with Jaden Shaw and a defender They're both racing back towards the goal and it's just going to be a race to wait what you know Trinity Rodman is going to do which is squared across the field So you can you can see it all developing nicely Trinity hits a really nice pass to keep it like from being too close to the

goal because that would give Shaw less of an angle to get to it. It's almost like back towards Shaw or right in between Shaw and the defender, so that point is just a matter of will and burst, and Shaw has plenty of both, and she sweeps at home. Great instincts in the box from Shaw, yeah. Yeah, she just beats the defender to it. Yeah, and so this is what, like, you're, again, Shaw hadn't been great.

She'd sort of gotten on the end of, I mean, she'd gotten on the end of two other chances. One, she created with her own, again, burst on that goal kick that she almost took off the goalkeeper. Then the other on that, poor clearance from Columbia. But other than that,

like we hadn't seen much from her. Trinity hadn't really done anything besides give us some good entertainment and make us bite our nails on whether she will stay on the field. And then suddenly, she's in delivering a fantastic assist. And it's 3-0.

And yet it didn't feel... It's 2. We just have a 2 so far. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no. No, it's 3. Yeah. It's 3.

Yeah. 3-0. At this point. It just didn't feel like a very good performance, though. You know? And maybe I'm just being precious about how I want them to play. I want them to play with the ball on the deck. I feel like that's not...

We have to get better at that if we're going to beat the really good teams. But yeah, maybe I'm just being too fussy about it. I don't know. I mean, there's, because I felt, I felt fussy at halftime. Well, the Columbia chances add to that. But there's, so there's definitely an element of like all goes in so that that can change the, the experience for people where it's like, well, what were we complaining about? We're winning 3-0 at halftime against a solid Columbia team.

I was, I was on the boat of being like, it's good that we were winning this game three, and I haven't given Columbia too much. Like they had the two neyer saves. The first one is sort of a speculative shot that's comfortable. And the second one was a really good buildup. And then they had the moment where they beat Nice Wenger behind the line that they just squandered. Yeah. But it certainly wasn't the case that Columbia was carving us up.

I felt good about this half because of how aggressive we were defensively, because I think that's another thing that we can do well. The possession stuff and even the direct play stuff, I think we can get a lot better at, which for me is a promising thing. It's good to know that, like, we are leaving so much on the table, and we can still beat a good team 3-0 at halftime. So that's kind of my optimism that's always going to, like, power through the ugliness of an ugly soccer game.

Because it was very much an ugly soccer game. Yeah, it was. Chaw starts cooking a little bit right at the end of the half. After having done very little, she scores, and then you noted this one in the timeline, but it's a buildup from Neyer to Tina Davidson to Shaw between the lines, and she just receives on the half turn

in the most lovely fashion, eliminates two players with that touch, and then she plays it to Haran in the box, or just outside the box, Horan tries to dribble into the box, goes over maybe a little bit easily under a challenge, and hoping for a foul, but there is no whistle on that one.

And it's... No, we get to foul here. You can murder. Oh, we do. Yeah, this is, so loved the sequence because it's, it's that vertical carve-up that we had been, you know, we'd been dreaming of since we got it a few times against Argentina. But it's just the simplest stuff in the world. Neyer, straight up the field to Tierna, 10 yards, Tierna, 30 yards up the field to Jaden Shaw with a line-breaking pass. Shaw finally does eliminate defender.

She had not eliminated like a single defender in the half. She'd gotten her chances. but they were all meeting meeting the ball on her way to goal. This was the first time she finally received in the pocket and took players out of the play. And we're going to need that more from her, no matter who we're playing against it.

That's going to be how she keeps that spot over Rose Lavelle, I think. So she does eliminate the defenders and then hits a beautiful ball to her ran. It's really close to a penalty. Like a more stringent review crew might, with a better angle, might sort of change their mind here. And then on the free kick,

We set up, and this is the one Horan hits directly off the post, bounces it right back to us. So another excellent chance of we almost padded up to four going into the locker room. Yeah, that's right. What am I talking about? Okay. Half comes. Midge comes on for Rodman, which was totally necessary.

Columbia makes three changes at the half. I don't have a ton of timeline items for the second half. It was very sloppy. I thought Corby and Albert had another rough passage of play in the second half. Lavelle comes on for Shaw in the 56th minute. And then I've got two more items. Do you have anything you want to say before I get to the 77th minute and the 82nd minute? No, I think all of that is fair.

And I think it continued the trend of like most players, even Midge, It was just like, ah, this needed to be a little bit better. Yeah, Midge wasn't that good off the bench. So the two good moments I have spotlighted from the second half. 77th minute, there's a nice move up the left side from Nice Wanger, who plays it to, who plays Smith, who's making an out run in the channel. from the cutback zone, Smith plays it back to

Olivia Moultry and Moultry I mean this is a really good chance she has a good chance a lot of the goal to shoot at she just kind of can't get her feet right and spreads it a little wide So that's the 77th

Yeah and that was our best Open play chance of the game in my mind so Sophia and Moultrie both just come in in the 73rd So we're talking about you know It took them four minutes and they combine to create what I think is, again,

our highest percentage chance for other than the penalty. And it's really well done. So other than that, like Moultrie kind of looked a little bit off the pace. And you could say even this might be a case of off the pace. I don't. I think this is just, you know, sometimes you miss these. She's in the right spot. Yeah, yeah, she's in the right spot.

I think it's even the right choice to just try to pass it into the far post, which was there was plenty of space to hit it. outside of this, I thought she kind of looked a little bit like she's catching up. This would be by far the most intense national team situation she's played in, and she's a kid still. So I'm glad she got these minutes in a 30, Colombia, where we're winning 30 comfortably. Outcomes pretty much decided.

So she can sort of work through some of those nerves, settle in. And then hopefully we can see her wheel in and dealing a little bit more when she plays next. I don't know when that will be. This was her first, these were her first minutes since the Dominican Republic opener. Maybe injury related, maybe just still not quite ready for the pace yet. I know, she's a, she's a bit of a fan favorite for the NWSL sickos, I think. And yeah, I'd like to see more of her. She's going to have a tough road in because she's going to have to, I mean, she's going to play the 10.

I don't know that she's got a lot of double pivot to her. And you could see even here, like her pitch control isn't going to be that great out of possession, right? So everything that's happening around her, Columbia could be very comfortable when she's sort of the player defending. So if she's going to get in here, it's going to have to be by being like a better 10 than Lavelle, then even potentially Shaw or being so good that she can force Lindsay Horan into the double pivot. And then the other thing everyone here is going to have to deal with is we haven't talked about it yet, is Katerina McCarillo is playing soccer again. Yeah, maybe the biggest news.

of Sunday, came back after, I think Emma Hayes said it was 600 days, a 600 day layoff, so not quite two years, but getting close. That's a long winter. And she scored. She scored a goal for Chelsea. So that's really big news, and maybe we'll see her in the next window. Last thing I have, 82nd minute, lovely buildup from Germa to Smith, who plays it out to Lavelle. I mean this was lightning fast

again vertical I guess to use your phrase a vertical carve up and um Lavelle plays Moultrie kind of a diagonal ball on the ground to Moultrie alone in the box and she just can't get the ball out from under her feet and gets dispossessed before she can get a shot off but had she taken a efficient first touch she is all alone in the box by herself

all alone is what that's what that means and would have had a really good chance she's not even just all alone that's the beauty of it is she has the option to shoot at a very uh finishable goal or she could she even has an attacker with her that she could have squared to for for the possible tap and knowing mulchery like she might make that choice so uh yeah just needed to be a little bit cleaner a little bit quicker for that pace of play but i'm sure she has it in We can see it from her in the league, so it's not like she is a clumsy player on the ball. So I think that's coming,

but it's going to be on her to sort of take the moment she gets because it is going to be a crowded audition space. Yeah. Short rest. So that's the other consequence of not finishing in the top two. Short rest going into Canada on Wednesday. And like I said, Alex Morgan is of an age where short rest can matter.

And she was, she went a long time well after she was probably a little bit cooked. So there's going to be a choice there. You've got, you've got a player that you could rotate in in Sophia Smith.

Again, for all the love Morgan gets, for like setting up that nice chance with her head. Like Sophia Smith came in and in her time set up an excellent chance of her own. I don't know, where you land on who are starting against Canada.

No, I want Sof, I think it's a great time for Sof to step up. Because Morgan did, now that you've said it, it seems obviously true that she did fade after the first 30 minutes of this game. And it's going to be hard for her to come back. That game is at 10.15 Eastern Time tomorrow night. Yeah, it's a late one. 9.15 Central. So yeah, I'd like to see Sof start.

Give Morgan a little break. If things don't go well in the first half, bring Morgan on. I'm pretty much in the same boat I was in going into this game. You know, we're always talking on lineups on the Discord. And for me, it was just like, as much as it hurt, I hate to say it out loud. Like, I will be a little bit bussy if Becky's hard run is in the 11. And after that, I'm just like, sure, they can play. We might, they could win us a game.

Oh, that's where I'm at for this. Naomi German needs to be on the field. I think Lindsay Horan needs to be on the field. And after that, give me nine other soccer. Emily Fox, Emily Fox, for me, needs to be on the field. She, you know, that, I had to, I need to agree with what you said earlier about her bringing a little order from the chaos.

That, in that, on that third goal, that 60 seconds of chaos was only brought to an end by Emily. And she does have a tendency to do that, to bring some order to things. Yeah, let's get Fox in there and let's help her out a little bit with our structure. Can we give her a little bit of help in some predictable fashion where when she gets the ball, she can know where the pieces should be and are around her? The pickleball courts behind me are filling up.

I think it's time for me to go. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Greg. This is an early morning for you. Appreciate it. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.