Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #475: Gold Cup Final — USWNT v Brazil recap

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Greg and Belz dig in on a victorious, but not very encouraging, performance from the U.S. women's national team.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 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. Hey, everybody. We won the inaugural W. Gold Cup. Beat Brazil 1-0 on a Lindsay Horan header right at the end of the first half. Our defense was largely solid. We got a trophy. But is this going to be a celebratory episode, Greg? I don't think so.

Oh, man. I mean, that's our curse, right? We love an outcome We love holding a trophy But we kind of are also heavy into the into the review of the tape Yeah And the tape wasn't great here So I mean, I promise I'm not trying to just be contrarian

Or throw the hot take out there But with the ball You know, when we had the soccer ball That first half was the worst I've ever seen The U.S. women's national team play And I don't mean like aesthetically, you know everyone knows we like our past move soccer. I don't just mean like it was not that kind of soccer.

I mean, it was the worst of like any type of soccer you could choose to play, whether you're playing possession, direct, whatever. With the ball, we were just brutal. We were nothing. We didn't have a type that I could tell that we were trying to play. Like much worse than Sweden in the World Cup. And if you carve out the Becky moments, much worse than against Mexico. The very nice thing is soccer is a funny old game.

and sometimes the ball goes in. And so after 45 minutes of that, on a kind of a nothing play, we score a soccer goal, which is great. And that soccer goal is enough to win us the game. You know, also throw in here,

because, well, I want to be clear, it was with the ball. This was the worst. Without the ball, we were our pretty normal, solid self.

There were some moments where our structure was kind of broken, and that was a, possibly a consequence of our possession structure. but as always, as we've been saying for going on two and a half years now, this team can win soccer games even if it is not in any way well like prepared or set up to get the most out of whatever is happening on the field.

We're just, we just have that kind of talent. And so that's what we saw. That's definitely, I think, what we saw in this cup final. Yeah. While we're dwelling on the positive, I will say, I will say, when. Brazil broke forward, as they did, you know, on occasion. It is nice to watch players like Emily Fox and Crystal Dunn and Naomi Germa just sort of stride back there confidently and deal with it.

They can deal with just about anything. And they did that in this game. When it comes to with the ball, yeah, it was atrocious. And the another, I mean, just a caveat, the team was tired. You know, they played 120 minutes on a very, very wet field three days before, four days before. So we have to admit that there was, you know, there may have been some leginess involved. Also, also a bit self-imposed, though, because, you know, we have the players on the bench that easily could step in for those leggy players, in part because this is one of the other big takeaways from me for the tournament.

Not really a single person had put their stamp on anything. in the prior games to demand that they be the starter in this game. So it wasn't a case of like, oh, we just can't take Trinity Rodman off. She's been doing so well. We have to have her on the field. Like there is no player. And that includes scuffed hero Naomi Germa. Like in the tournament at least, I don't know that like a single player improved their stock for the women's national team.

Maybe Alyssa Neier, depending on where you had her going in, just because of the heroics. and then maybe I'm going to say like Lynn Williams. I think Sam Coffey was a little bit of a bright spot in this game. I know she didn't do all the things I think we would like her to do in that position in the middle of the park. But I thought she was when she did get the ball, just a little bit more composed, a little bit more pass to the right foot at the right weight from her than basically everybody else on the field for us.

But, you know, I'll admit that that's sort of a marginal assessment. Like it's not, she wasn't, she didn't stamp her ground to use one of the classic phrases of the ecosystem. She was tussling. It was good to see her tussle. I mean, everybody was out there, almost everybody was out there like tussling. So that is a positive. Again, there's a battle.

And I think everyone sort of seized on that narrative. of like, oh, because after we lost Mexico, there was that sense of like we just didn't have fight in us. And then we did go on to fight our next several matches. So in that sense, yes, it's great that we have some scrap to us. I'm glad we do. I still don't really think that's ever been a question for any group of players that have stepped out on the field for the women's national team.

I don't think that's like, oh, the old era was scrappers and now we're all soft. I think the group has some scrap. I think it's all going to come down to whether we can put some form of a structure in. And I know the debate we're kind of having that you and me are on opposite sides of philosophically is like, would it be okay to play suffer ball when Emma Hayes comes in? Is that acceptable? Or would you enjoy it? And for me, it's like, I will take effective outcomes.

I would just say that what we saw in that first half of that Brazil game is not what I would consider like well set up sufferball. You can set up suffer ball to be effective. or you can set it up to, or just, I guess, would say, not set up anything whatsoever, and then you will end up with some form of suffering. Yeah. No, I mean, if we do suffer ball where we're playing it long to a target striker and then surrounding that person, whether it's a striker or not, surrounding that person with a bunch of people who are ready to win that second ball,

and there's sort of a coil, a spring coiled sort of movement forward, on that. I mean, I wouldn't love it, but I think it'd be better than what we saw on Sunday. And, you know, I mean, sufferball, murder ball, whatever you want to call it, like if we're going to, I guess maybe those are two different things, but any form of suffering or murdering that we set out to do with the ball, you know, I don't know that it's going to work when we play a really good team. And yeah, I think we do have to, it's not just aesthetics. We do have to figure out how to play with the ball, in my opinion. And, you know, to use a burrhalterism, disorganize the opponent with the ball to some extent. That's, I mean, I know, yeah, I don't think anybody really strongly disagrees with that, but maybe you do, do you?

Maybe we can just throw that completely out? No, I mean, that's what the first half looked like was, like, like, no thought whatsoever going into what do we do when we have the soccer ball where should pieces be what should the person on the boat like what is the decision tree uh if you're not in the discord um this morning i basically it was it was so uh um offensive that i actually did go you know it felt like it kind of in real time but sometimes it feels like it in real time and then you review and you're like that wasn't as bad as we thought and that's that's kind of what the me game was for me. I was like, oh, we actually broke Mexico's press a lot. The narrative was that Mexico

pressed us off the field. They're like, no, we cut through them quite a few times, passing, having composure, and then where we let ourselves down was after that, the actual downhill running break. And in this Brazil game, it was like none of that. It was like, I had to take every possession and put them into one compilation every time we had control of the ball in the first half. So if you are an absolute sicko, we've got like eight minutes of footage. It's a lot of footage in there. It's the thing where like if you're coaching a high school, high school kids and you're like have one player who's just wrecking everything, you know, possession wise. You'll like get them in the video room individually and be like, okay, you can pause every time they do something.

Like what was what was what were you trying to do here? Like what did take me through look at this picture. What is the thought process? What do you, how do you think what you're doing is going to improve our position or maintain? maintain, you know, the position we have. And it helps to really like ask that question and you watch their wheels turn. Like, oh, I guess I was just kind of kicking it. And then, and then you look at 10 minutes of video of the U.S.

women's national team. You're like, what is the decision here? What is the thought process? Like, are we trying to just gain territory? There isn't even a lot of that. Like, it'd be, again, we could play ugly. If we just launch it up the field and then set up our press, which had been kind of effective and go for, you know, scramble ball regains, fine.

Like, let's see that. But it's not that. It's, it is just, it's a baffling, it was a baffling thing. People are going to be so mad that this is how we're doing our trophy presentation. But I'll just remind everyone, like, you know, it's become Vlachos like now the Voldemort of women's soccer. Like, you don't even want to say his name. Vlachco waltzed through a regional tournament with this program too. And Vlokko swept like four months before the World Cup disaster that we all think it was.

Blakow swept, she believes, which was Canada, Japan, and Brazil. He won games against those teams, but it was always a matter of, and you can say, well, style points don't matter. But when you're assessing performances, they kind of can. Like, you do look for like, what are the players trying to do? Is everyone seemingly on some kind of a page that's similar to everyone else? And is there a reason to believe that what we are doing in these games can help us in future games? And so that's why this blanket is so soaking wet right now.

Yeah, I don't apologize. for it. I mean, of course we won the W. Gold Cup. We got four, we got four stars on our uniform. And I think, you know, while this idea that we could, you know, we could just completely give up on playing with the ball and, and play, you know, depend on the press to create chances, just kick it long to somebody. I think that's all sort of like in the abstract, totally possible. It's like, but is, is Emma Hayes going to come in and do that? Or is anybody who is the coach of the national team going to admit that that's what they're doing with the U.S. women's national team?

They might game to game. And the reason I'll throw that out there is scuffed darling and World Cup darling for a little bit. Japan did exactly that against Spain. This Japan team that we loved because of all their incredible pass and move patterns and ridiculous possession mentality went into the World Cup against Spain. and threw all of that out the window and very much were just hitting direct balls as soon as they won it

and if they didn't connect they would then regroup and defend Spain and they blitzed them 4-0 with a little bit of ball goes in you know ball went in for them in that game I think four goals on like five shots so it's not you know that's not the whole story but you can totally do that

and Emma Hayes has the tactical flexibility there's a ton of history of her having this tactical flexibility where game to game she could absolutely approach something like that, I think. And just be like, nope, in this game, we are going to launch it long to Sophia Smith and whoever else is running up there. And if we don't win it, we will make life really hard for the team that is trying to keep the

ball. Okay. Maybe not Smith. She's not very good in the air. But she's good running behind. We saw right away in that game. She's got to be one of the ones arriving around the target, I think. That's my opinion.

All right. let's, well, there's a lot to talk about here. Let's do the lineups. Alyssa Neher and goal. Emily Fox, Naomi Garma, Tierna Davidson, and Crystal Dunn across the back line. So Don gets the start in the final, which, you know, maybe there was some doubt about that after Nice Wenger got the

semifinal. Coffee and Albert and Horan in the midfield. And then Rodman, Morgan, and Rose Lavelle across the front line. I mean, anything strike you there? It's, it kind of went back to the well on the, the, my final lineup, except for done, right? Is done the only change? We dropped Jaden Shaw, which I think is not going to go over well whenever you record

your next Wednesday episode. I'm, again, I'm totally, I'm all four personnel debates. And so if you feel strongly that it's an outrage that Jaden Shaw's left out, I'm on board with that. But I tend to think, again, like, with how broken things were, it becomes almost like assessment proof. Like it's so hard to say this player other than our, are again,

it's as hard as it is to say this, Becky Sauerbrun. Becky had the tournament that you go, okay, she can, she can not have any more call-ups and competitive games. But everyone else is just like, I don't know,

maybe she's actually bad or maybe we just are, like maybe it's because we look, we're shaped terribly and are prepared terribly. So, you know, you're talking about Rosalvel versus Jaden Shaw for a lineup choice. It's hard for me to be like, how could you start Rose Lavelle in a cup final?

Like it's hard to kind of say that. She wasn't very good. No, I'm saying that. I think Shasha should have started over Lavelle or Rodman. I mean, either one, neither Lavelle nor Rodman was good in this game. But I do kind of agree with you. There's a tendency, which I engage in quite a lot to say, well, if we just put this one player in this one spot or take this one player out of

this one spot, then everything will work. You know, a lot of that is a lot of that debate is around Lindsay Horan right now with this team. I don't think that's like doesn't solve it. It's not going to solve it if we change one person in the lineup. I mean, Shaw came on for the last 30 minutes. Did she do anything? Did anything good happen around her? I don't know.

I think she might be our best player. So she won the outstanding player of the tournament, right? And I think that's a totally fair award for her to receive. And I'm still just like, she wasn't like amazing in this tournament. I think she is an amazing player. Yeah. But yeah, you can go back and like, oh, she's kind of loose with the ball on a lot of occasions. And then she had a couple of right moments.

But again, nobody on the team was just like, oh, they just dominated this tournament. This was, this was their tournament. No. Okay. And then Brazil's lineup, Luciana and goal, I'm just going to do a lot of first names because that's what's on their jersey. And that's how they, their Wikipedia pages are listed. And Antonia, Tarcian.

and Taiz across the back line, and back three. And then Adriana, Duda Santos, Duda Sampayo, and Yasim across the four. So Yasim and Adriaana are the wingbacks. And then Gabi Porchilo, Gabi Nunes, and Zonarato across the front line. Kind of free-flowing front three there. They were pretty good, I guess, Brazil. were they?

They didn't really threaten that much. No, they didn't do anything either. Yeah. Like if you were, if you're Brazil scuffed, you're saying, okay, I hope this is just transition stuff and not having Debenia. I know they had another player go down with a bad injury, but it's just like you're not happy.

And if you're one of the other powerhouses, you watch this game and you're like, well, these teams are not back yet. No. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. They didn't really do anything. But we do have a good defense, which we said right at the beginning before the wet blanketing began.

All right, to the timeline. My first thing is a giveaway from Crystal Dunn in the fifth minute. Brazil gets into the cutback zone, but nothing really comes of it. I know you have some stuff to say about this because this was the one that she received it. the fields were switched for one of the few times in this game over from right over to left to to done but there's a problem once she gets the ball right yeah so as we're moving this ball predictably like you see it go i think to corbin albert and you see her start to open up you're like oh we are switching she's going to you know hit this ball out to our left back uh done is already

narrow uh and then roosevel as the nominal left winger uh is you know one line up from her and she is vertically and she is like pinched in even 15 yards more narrow than done is so uh twilight made comments about one of the reasons lavelle started over shaw is that shaw's more of an interior player and she thought that we needed to have some width in this game and it's just like right away you see that this is this is kind of uh nonsense this is the first time the ball even made it to the left side of the field for us and uh done receives it uh looks up gets her head up sees that There's no, I mean, there's no triangle out here. Corbett and coffee are both over on the shorter side of the field where it came from.

There's no Lavelle option. We're just, we're just a mess. And she ends up trying to, like, feed Lavelle towards the line and it gets cut out. But yeah, there's just, the shape is, the shape is just, it's not great. Either Dunn needs to be that player who's farther out wide to give us the width initially, which would mean, you know, Tierna splitting out wider as we possess, or it has to, we need Lavelle out there as the as the wide option.

Yeah. And this was all game. This was all game. Like you can watch those possession clips that I'm posting. Maybe I'll put them on Twitter. I'd usually go to the Discord because I'm terribly afraid of copyright strikes. I don't know how Concaf is going to handle copyrights. But

because it's all of our possessions, you can just almost keep your eye on like in the first half the top of the screen and you're just like, oh, there are no U.S. soccer players out on the top of the screen ever. We just don't we don't play on the top of the screen today. Yeah. No, I mean, it's true.

It happens repeatedly where Dunn is receiving the ball almost at midfield. And then there's nobody out to out wide of her for her to play it too. And in this particular instance, Lavelle, she starts way too central, you know, for us to possess out to the left side. But then she's just like trotting in the cover shadow of the defender that's between her and Dunn, like the whole way. Well, it's Twiles rationale. Twiles rationale like makes sense.

Like if you think Jaden's an interior player, they're going to have that interior mindset. But Rose Lavelle is absolutely an interior mindset player. So as it starts to go wide, it doesn't occur to Rose Lavelle that like, oh, I need to break hard to the width because I am a wide player. She starts trying to like trying to flow into a pocket like a center midfielder would do. And it's just you just watch you just watch Crystal Dunn's eyes get bigger and bigger as the situation develops. And you're like, yeah, this is, hopefully is what you're hoping in the moment is like, first five minutes of a cup final, it's cagey, we'll settle down and things will get better. And you just, if that's what you're hoping, you'd be, you're going to be set up for a bad next 40 minutes.

You know, the phrase about throwing a drowning person, a baby, you know. That's what, that. You've never heard that before. No, it's fantastic. Well, it's like, it's a little bit like that. done got the ball or even lavelle and you know we'll get into it but there were some instances where lavelle ends up with the ball out wide and she's just she's looking around and everybody's just sort of they threw her the baby and they just back her back away you know let her drown her and

the baby both um let's listen to twyla's one of twyla's comments about width because she tries to explain the goal as uh the outgrowth of uh um you know a width strategy we also knew that there would space, you know, wide of their centerbacks. And the goal was to make sure that whether it was through organized play or in these transition moments or these transition like moments that the goal came from, that we were able to find those players quickly and then either capitalize on, you know, an early cross or just move the ball higher up the field so that then we could get our numbers up. And I've heard enough. I've heard enough. So she's saying that, were trying, we were trying to attack the width outside of the centerbacks. And that's what,

that's what led to the goal. Okay. So that we're going to, we're going to speculate that that's almost like a reverse tactical explanation. We're like, well, this is how the goal kind of came about. Again, after 40 minutes, if you said, are we targeting the width, are we targeting Brazil wide of their centerbacks to gain territory so we can get an early cross in? I would be like, well, we haven't done it yet if that's what we were trying to do. But then we did it once in the 45th minute and scored a goal on it. Off the press. I mean, coffee wins the ball, plays Rodman.

Yeah, kind of a press. I mean, it would be a transition moment. It was kind of reminiscent of that Emily Fox moment in the Columbia game where it's just like, it's all a mess. And then in that game, Fox just sort of squirted out of the mess with the ball. And coffee kind of did the same thing here. full credit to her like she had to really go into a challenge that was you know all all blood and thunder very english champo but like she went in and did it and came out and hit a nice ball in to gain that

territory uh but again there's nothing there's nothing amazing about the situation we found ourselves in there we're like oh here we go we did all that for 40 minutes so we could get this glorious chance but the ball went in the ball went in so it's it's all all play before that is vindicated once you're up one zero one zero. Yeah. So I couldn't figure out at first I thought Brazil's press was really a problem for us

because we couldn't stay composed. We seemed rattled to me. But as the game went on, I was like, well, maybe we're just not trying to have the ball? Like, it didn't even seem so much. I mean, we were jittery on the ball. Everybody was jittery on the ball.

Loose passes. Being surprised when the ball is passed to you and, you know, like not having your feet set. Lots of untidiness. But as the game went on, I kind of, it, Brazil's, the ferocity of Brazil's press as explanation for that just seemed less and less like the reason. I don't know. I don't know what the reason was, but. You have players with clear control of the ball on the ball and they would like pass into, I mean, the choice was to pass. into a window where it gets deflected over and over and over again.

So again, that's like a clear sign that you are picking the wrong window or you're just a terrible passer and literally can't execute a pass. And I think it was very much the former. Yeah. We just choose the wrong windows. And we, the other piece of that is we don't have come and get it midfielders. Or we coffee and Albert were not that in this game and probably haven't really been that in the tournament.

And it might be too much to expect the kids to come in and be like, hey, you come in and run the U.S. Women's National team, get the ball, demand the ball, settle things down so that we aren't in panic mode. And again, if you can't do that, then just go ahead and do the float it up between Morgan and the sideline and let her run onto it or float it up and over Trinity's player and let Trinity go chase. But that wasn't what we were doing either. Yeah, we'll come back to, I want to come back to the coming to the ball point because I think there's some rich veins of discussion. to have around that. But Brazil, the more threatening team early, there was that rip from Antonia,

from, I don't know, 40 yards that went over the bar. We tried a through ball around the six-minute mark to Horan. Robin tries to lead her into a darting run to the end line. Just no chance. I mean, that's, that seemed like it was more our plan than anything else. Get play it wide and then have Horan make a run. run to the end line and didn't work. Shockingly.

We got a lot of that against Columbia too, which is funny. Like there's very few funnier phrases in the language than, you know, looking for heron in behind. We did keep trying it. Yeah, we did. I don't know why we're pretending about that. But eighth minute, Brazil plays out of our press and gets to the, so kind of nicely, one of a few sort of nice passages of play,

and then get it to the cutback zone on the right. A little cutback ensues, but it's crowded out by Corbin Albert. Tierna concedes a foul in zone 14 in the ninth minute, which is just sort of swinging at a high ball and Duda Sampayo hits it real well, but just over the bar on the free kick. A little half chance for us in the 15th

off of coffee's pressing, which was basically our main chance generation tool in the game. She pokes it to Morgan, and Morgan touches it onto her left foot, and the shot is blocked pretty much off of her foot. Yeah, this was our first basically, like, positive moment of the match, 15 minutes in. And it comes off the press, which again, I think that's the other takeaway is that when in doubt for this national team, the press will work, and it will work against teams as good in Brazil and I think it will work against anybody we play against is that if you have the legs and you put the right players in for this

program we can press and we can get chances. Fair enough. And Neer who did all the heroics in the semifinal, she gets caught trying to play out after Germa plays it back to her. Just she's not real good with her feet. Gabby Nunes gets a chance to shoot from 20 yards and sends it over after the after Neyer gives it away. 16th minute, we get our first four-pass sequence, I believe.

And it's, you know, Germa almost losing it, winning a little bit of a cage match that she induced herself. And then we lose it, you know, two passes later, I think. Just extremely, extremely disjointed from us, like everywhere on the field. Yeah, this was not. This is not disorganizing the opponent. This was very much like trying to survive for one more, one more second in the, in the waves. And I want to point out, too, in the beginning of this tournament, when we talked about the growing pains of trying to become a possession team, this was not that.

This was not like, oh, well, this is just trying to pass and, you know, running, running into little issues along the way that kind of make it all look bad. any pretense of basic possession principles are non-existent here. So that's that this is different. This isn't like, you know, we all suffer it in the Argentina game. We're like, we're not really looking great,

but we are definitely trying to connect. We're trying to pass through this stuff. Yeah. And that just was not. We did that in that game. Yeah. Even against Mexico, we were trying to pass and we succeeded fairly often.

Columbia, we gave up, but we were very, like identifiably attacking a certain way, which was floating it up towards Morgan. I just can't get over how like how strange this first half was. It was soccer contest. Well, all right. Let's just keep going.

For 17 minute mark, more coffee in the press. I thought she had been a bright spot and Fox tries to play Haran into the box after coffee wins it in the press. Horan just can't quite get to it too slow. The past was a little hot, I guess, but also... No, no, no, no. Don't put the San Henley Fox. You can't...

This was good. This was, again, for me, this was like one of our best soccer moments of the half. It was very, very well done from, like, Fox to find that theme and put it in there. And the ball is rolling parallel to Lindsay Horan. It's not rolling terribly fast. She's not, like, racing to catch up to it. And Horan just doesn't have the mobility plus speed. to actually like take the two yards that she needs to cut across to the ball

and instead just continues running parallel with the ball until it rolls out of bounds. Yeah, she slides for it as it rolls out of bounds pretty much. Coffee concedes a free kick, 35 yards from goal in the 20th minute. Maybe need her to be a little better in the cage there, but again, I liked coffee's performance more or less, you know, sort of an oasis in the desert kind of dynamic here. 22nd minute chance for Brazil as a speculative ball

sneaks past coffee and Davidson and Porchilo has a shot with her left foot that goes over but a little scary. 23rd minute coffee's pressing again leads to a turnover deep in Brazil territory. We connect a couple passes and then Rodman swings one in from the right side with her left foot and it's out for a corner.

The crowd appreciated this and, you know, one of our bright spot seems a little generous, but one of our positive moments in the half. The press works. Yeah. Let's see. Horan, I noticed this just thought it was kind of interesting. 28th minute, Horan gets fouled as she tries to corral a pass

that's just volley blasted at her by Corbyn. And, I mean, Corbyn just smashes the ball when she passes it to people. She has so many of those. Or she drives it directly into somebody's abdomen. It's not good. She needs to stop it. But so then, so then Heran yells at Albert,

I think as she gets up, not yells, but, you know, she just seems frustrated. Keep it on the deck and try to switch fields. So she kind of like makes a motion down at the ground and then she's like points over at where Crystal Dunn is playing.

And I just thought that was kind of interesting. I don't know that we ever really, did keep it on the deck or try to switch fields the way we should have through our midfield, but ran, you know, making yet another enemy with her public comments. 29-ish, we went in the press again. Morgan tries to slip Rodman in, but Rodman, but does it, either Rodman makes the run too early, you know, bends her run in behind too early, or Morgan is just too late, probably a combination of the two, but because Rodman is about six yards offside when Morgan makes the pass.

That's, so that's the other thing. We talked about not doing great against Mexico when we beat their press. We aren't particularly good, even when we create these turnovers with the press. It's still our best, our best moments by far are these press moments where we turn over, turn the opponent over high. But we still kind of look like we have no idea what we're doing once we do that. And 95% of it, in my opinion, is the way we move off the ball. like when you're in the attacking third. It's,

you create the chances when the person who doesn't, when people who don't have the ball move in ways that are dangerous. And so let's talk about this, let's talk about why don't we, why don't, why do we have a team of professional soccer players who on Sunday simply did not,

forget about the attacking third, simply did not show for each other for passes. It's, it's not just Corbin, it's not just, Albert and coffee in the middle. No.

It's everybody. Nobody. There was one point where, you may remember this from the game where Lavelle is on the left sideline and she's kind of stepping on the ball and dragging it backwards, looking for somebody to pass to. If you go back and watch that clip, Alex Morgan is standing on the edge of the 18, slowly backing away. Lindsay Horan's not even, Lindsay Horan is in the screen, but not moving towards Lavelle at all.

Corbyn Almond. Albert is not really moving into a window to pass to her either. So Lavelle just gives it away. I mean, that's what happens. And Lavelle ends up looking really bad, and I think Lavelle had a bad game. But she had nobody to pass to. For a long time.

She's standing there doing like you eight toe touches on the ball, just like pulling it half a yard backwards at a time to try to buy as much time as she can until eventually she just gets tackled. And, you know, was joking in the Discord about all the, all the heat Greg Burhalter takes for a system. But I know you and Vincent Tariff talked about this too. Like that the idea of the positional play and just filling in,

filling in gaps in a principled way when your teammates had the ball would do a lot for us. Would do a lot for every player's sanity when they had the soccer ball. Because, yeah, you were watching her there. And while she is doing those toe touches, our other five attacking players create like one flat. horizontal line. Horan and Trudy de Rodman are actually moving up the field to create the line. Nobody is pissing backwards to help to help Lavelle. And coffee and Corbin are in one straight line with the ball.

So obviously one of them is sitting in the other's cover shadow and the one who's closest is covered by a defender. So everybody is nothing. I mean, everybody is not an option. So what you're left with is you need Roosevelt to dribble three people to get out of that trap. Well, I mean, that's the only conclusion I can come to is that they all think, well, let's see if Lavelle can beat a couple defenders and lump across in here because that's

how they're behaving. And I get that a better, like a coach, you know, a permanent coach could help with this. I think could help with this. But I don't understand how we have 11 players out there, professional soccer players who aren't doing this, like just instinctively. You know? Yeah. And you get into,

you just, I feel like you can just get into these modes where when there isn't a clear, uh, instruction, it can just always sort of be somebody else's job in, in any given moment. My God, somebody else's job.

Like, and we, we've seen that with, we saw that with the men's team in past iterations. Again, the current men's team like is very much like, we know what our structure is supposed to be. So I know,

I'm supposed to fill here. And people can say that's the wrong way to do it or not, but you, you can see that that happens. Uh, But yeah, when there's just a vacuum of tactical instructions on the ball, I feel like this is kind of what you can get. So I don't, I don't, I'm extremely, the reason I'm not like sky's falling stuff here despite saying it's, it was a terrible half of soccer is because I think there's so much easy stuff to fix. And I think a new manager or even while after some video review, hopefully, we'll fix a lot of the stuff.

I really do think it's like, oh, yeah, well, this is, this is really, really bad. but this is eminently fixable. So I'm pretty fine with what we'll be looking at. I don't think we're going to, again, I don't think we're going to be Japan by the Olympics or Spain by the Olympics with that kind of aesthetic. But I think we can absolutely get our way towards like coherent, effective approaches to doing things with a soccer ball. Okay. Good. I feel better already. Yeah, and I'm sorry.

I feel like you're wanting to be like the players need to solve this. Like, you know, Lindsay Rand talks about after the World Cup, she talks about like, we had to solve it on our own. You know, they kind of made those comments. And it's like, okay, well, you can keep doing that. If you think that's what needs to be done, nothing stopping you from doing it again. Right. Or at any point.

And so I'm with you. Like, I don't know why they aren't taking it upon themselves to do the things that would help make all their lives easier. But right now it's just not happening. No. Yeah, I think there's a sort of continual instinctive, a continual instinct to combine that is sort of just a fundamental part of being a good soccer player. That it concerns me that we aren't seeing it even in a game like this

where we don't know what the tactical instructions were. There was no evidence of tactical instruction in the way they played. But that seems like it should be something that everybody should be doing, you know? at this level of soccer and they're not doing it. But yeah, you know better than me that if something like that can be fixed by a coach

and I trust you. We're all trusting Emma. 31st minute, Corbyn wins it in the press. Much the same way coffee has done a few times, drives and dishes to Morgan. It's a good little slip pass in behind. Morgan kind of swims inside the centerback and runs onto it,

but can't quite get to it before the keeper. Pass was probably a little bit heavy, but mostly the thought that came into my mind is Sophia Smith get to that. Yeah, we get a taste of that. I mean, it's tough to be like, is Morgan just too slow, or could the pass have held on a little bit longer, or been taking a little bit off of it, especially because it wasn't just a pass into wide open space.

She does have to actually beat the centerback with this pass. Yeah. So she has to put it far enough from the centerback. from the centerback and also far away from the keeper and it's a difficult needle to thread. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not even sure Smith would get to it

to be honest with you, but the thought came into my mind. So coffee clatters number 21. I think that's Duda Santos and gets a foul, which I kind of like, I liked that she, I liked the blood and

thunder that Samantha brought to this game. Fox does some nice stuff through the middle, and makes a pass to Trinity out wide, but the pass is sort of shaped more toward the center back and gets cut out. Some people were thinking, well, maybe Trinity is tired. That's why she doesn't get to this. She did look tired, but also the pass wasn't right.

I mentioned that because the pass that coffee makes in the next segment, which is the goal, was the right pass. And we got to sort of feed on table scraps here. somebody makes a pass that's got the right weight and shape to it. I'm going to note it. So here's the goal. 46th minute.

So the first minute of stoppage time in the first half. Coffee steps through a challenge with the ball at midfield. More blood and thunder from her. Then plays Trinity wide. The shape of this pass is good, like I said. And Rodman barely tracks it down to the end line and then plays it back to Fox. who just lifts a ball to the back post, kind of a lumper,

just kind of tosses it in there. But we have numbers. Both Morgan and Horan are there. Morgan kind of sets a pick on the defender marking Haran. Horan rises up and heads it very efficiently back across the goalkeeper, totally unstoppable. 1-0, and that, Friends, was the game. That's tactics right there.

Tactics. No, it's a it's a lumper from Fox. It's from like super wide. I mean, she gets it on the sideline when, when Trinity plays this back to her. So you're not like in the high percentage crossing zone. It is three on three to where she's crossing it. Brazil have kind of overcommitted their bodies towards the sidelines. So I end up with like four players just to deal with Fox and Trinity. And two of them are kind of in no man's land. So they're not dealing with anybody. So we have 3 v3 at the back and it's actually a Morgan picks the player marking Morgan and just prevents that player from going up and you know glancing it out of the area and heran's marker who's in good position to start with just flat foot it just ball watches maybe thinks that it's going to be

Morgan and the centerbacks ball and so she just watches the pick develop and watches her and up uncontested. And I like Lindsay Horan in that moment to do something positive. Yeah. I mean, that is a real asset, her ability to have the ball in the net. She didn't have a great game, I don't think, outside of that. But then again, nobody did. So it's funny, right? Literally, everyone is absolved because everyone was so unrecognizable at the game of soccer. It's the Little middle school curfew trick where if you're in a hotel and the teachers put tape on every door to make sure that no one goes out of their door, if you go out and break that tape, you just break everyone else's tape too. I never knew that trick. And then what are they going to do?

You can't expel you all. Right. That is a good trick. Williams comes on for Lavelle at the half, Lynn Williams, that is. Rodman stays on. I mean, she really looked tired to me. And did she play the full 120 against Columbia? Or at least a lot of it, she did.

Definitely a lot of it. So one change, Williams for Lavelle. And that gives us more wit. So right away, she came in for Lavelle, but she also flipped to the right. And I feel like this is meaningful because, like we said, everything in that half for us was going down the right side. Everything that even, like, even the scrap was happening on the right side of the field. Yeah.

So now we have Lynn Williams on the right and we moved Trinity to the left that we kind of had been ignoring. And Trinity's job was to give us the width that Lavelle wasn't giving us. But Lynn Williams's job was to give us the width that Trinity was giving us, but to actually do things once she had that width. Because even on that goal, like Trinity made a mess of that. Like it's a good ball from coffee. And Trinity like kind of flails with her first touch and almost knocks it out for a goal kick. Again, no defender around her and has to like catch it. stopped the play dead and then hit a retreating pass back to Fox at the sideline.

So almost fell down too. Yeah. So Williams in as the width on the right was a huge improvement from Trinity. Do we need to talk about whether Rose LaVelle is washed? I can't. I just can't do it because of the, again, because of the nonsensical structures and and mentalities and like dynamics between every pair of positions on the field.

Yeah. Plus, we're just going to go, plus it's preseason. Let's see how they do in the next month and a half with, I think the club season kicks off this weekend. Yeah, it does. I just thought she looked a little bit like 2023 Megan Rapino in this game. Like, you know, obviously has quality,

but there's a physical component to the game that she just seems like a little bit out of. But we'll table it until, you know, midway through the NWSL season. All right. A good counterpressing moment from us from 48th minute, kind of everyone involved in trying to get the ball, win the ball back.

I think after Horan lost it, it could have been Corbyn. Those two blonde ponytail kind of confused me a little bit during the game. But Williams carouse it in a nice bit of cage match quality and then plays a nice ball through the centerbacks for Rodman. Rodman runs onto it looking sprightly enough. So I feel, you know, maybe a little bit mistaken in my assessment of her fatigue at halftime.

And then she tries to flash it across the goal mouth with her left foot. It gets cut out for a corner. Really nice through ball, though, from Lynn Williams, who's not. Very nice. I mean, she had one of those in the World Cup sendoff match, so. Lynn can do some things She can play a nice through ball, yeah I'm not going to be mad if Lynn Williams is in Paris

52nd minute Horan touches it out of bounds having a bit of a tough game 53rd minute then Fox Williams and Horan play out of the back one of the few times we manage this and Horan tries a long one for Morgan that passes

you know heavy are you getting bored with my timeline yet No, no, no, no, no. Okay. Especially because I spent, I just lived as a first half over and over again as I was doing my comp. So it's nice to get even just the few calm moments that we had in the second half. Yeah. Another kind of nice little moment, 54th minute, good from Albert to settle the incessant soccer tennis and find Williams out wide.

And then Williams tries the ball in behind for Lindsay Horan. And Iran actually gets to it. Yeah, yeah, which in part is because of the past. So Lynn Williams, for me, was definitely the grown up in the room here in the second half. And so her ability to like calmly collect it and then, you know, hit the pass where Horan can get it. Like that, like that matters. Like it's not like, oh, well, I'm going to play this ball in behind because that's what I would do for somebody else to run on to. It's like, no, that's Lindsay Horan.

I'm going to pass it in a way that she can use the sideline as a teammate and protect the ball with her body, she's very good at. Yep. And just stroll onto it at her leisure, which is what she needs to be able to do. Yeah. Whereas Rodman was playing it to Horan as if she were Mal Swanson. 56 minute, Albert does some fancy footwork. If you watch the game, you probably remember this where she dribbles through like three people.

It's really clever and nice. It was, however, a problem that she created herself by, you know, she received a pass, but then she kind of like turned into danger, which I, at, I think her ability on the half turn, her smashing the ball at her teammates, it's all a little bit too clumsy for me, even though this was some really nice, a really nice instance of dribbling. Do you have any strong thoughts on, Albert, or you just want to, you know, wait. I like her.

I really liked this sequence. Fox did it first. Fox, in the same sequence, dribbled like three people. And then, like, just kind of dumped it onto Corbyn. And so our shape is wrecked because Fox has just dribbled completely out of hers. Right. And then Corbyn does the same thing and then dumps it back to Fox. And then Fox promptly has it taken off of her book.

Yeah. So silly. But it's kind of the game in a nutshell. Like we got some good players. Yeah. I don't know what end of they're working towards, but. Morgan gets a yellow kind of soft, I thought, in the 55th minute for coming in late on a challenge. The next five minutes are kind of scrappy.

Morgan almost maybe, you know, kind of pushes somebody in the back. Could have gotten another yellow. on another day. Not very smart. And then Smith comes on for her. Still no Shaw. I'll go quick through the rest of this. Smith gets onto a Horan ball lofted behind the back line in the 62nd minute.

Very athletic. Love to see it. It's that burst, right? We talk about could she have gotten to that other ball. The burst here from Smith is ridiculous. She had come back in sort of during the head tennis. She'd kind of check back to contribute to the head tennis in a way. and then as it got to Heron and gets lifted over,

like she immediately is already moving up field and very quickly gains position against the centerback. So she's, you know, goal side of the centerback chasing this ball down. Centerback has to kind of like wrap her up a little let's go, savvy play from her. Still kind of risked it if Smith had wanted to go down and make the referee make a decision. Wouldn't have been the worst thing if Brazil are playing with 10 for the rest of the game.

but she chooses to fight through it, gets a shot. She, I would say her second to last touch, the touch before the shot took her a little bit away from goal and gave that centerback a chance to get back in the play. 71st minute Shaw comes on for coffee, which is kind of interesting. She comes in to play midfield, and Mitch Purse comes on for Rodman.

I was hoping these subs would change the game, but they didn't, really. Heron dropped it Heron dropped into pivot Which I'm actually like always interested in because I feel like that still might be the way that you get Some of our better players on the field And solve some of these attacking issues that we have

Is for Heran to be one of the two I know that that carries other tradeoffs But I'm at least I'm at least Heran curious in the pivot Yeah me too I feel like we've got to find a way to use her In the right way because she's like you always say, she's the adult, she's often the adult in the room in possession. We need that.

And I think we, I think our overall defensive solid solidity is good enough that we can, we can deal with it, you know, somehow. 79th minute, we have a goal called off. Purse jumps on a loose pass and plays Williams in for a good, a good far post finish with the left foot. it is called off because Williams was offside, not, you know, by about a step. Definitely offside, though. Definitely offside.

Still doesn't take away from the fact that our press can be monstrous. And I just want to, just going to, as I've been doing, going to keep hammering that. And I think that will remain intact as the, uh, volterite coaching transition happens. Smith in the 80th minute does well to ride a challenge after a ram passed to settle a scramble. and she plays it out to Midge, and Midge has a shot, but just kind of sends it over. Not a real good effort.

No, Midge is going to have to do more. Yeah. Overall. Yeah. I was big on Midge playing right back for us in the last couple months, and I am having to rethink that, I think. I'm staying with it for now,

just because I think she's going to do better with more of that vertical runway rather than staying beginning in the advanced position i want arriving to get around the edge still want it still want to okay i'm back oh yeah okay yeah and no one no one else has done like such a great job on the left side that i hate to take them off so i still dumping fox over on the left and running image up on the right which we should mention you know done done gets a lot it gets criticized a lot it seems like for loose passes but Fox had at least as many as done in this game. Well, everything was on the right, so she had more opportunities.

But yeah, she took those opportunities to give the ball to Brazil a lot. Again, I'm barely digging her for it because who amongst of them? Yeah, yeah, that's true. I don't know. What else is worth talking about here? There's kind of a scary set piece from Brazil in the 8th. 85th minute where they tap it to the second taker and whip it across and it's flicked at the back post it's not quite on frame but it wasn't far off yeah it was a cute cute set piece de benia

just come in I think uh yeah and so again Brazil playing without debenia for 80 minutes I'm not sure if it was I'm assuming it was she's battling through something but uh yeah once she came in the nerves the nerves escalated for me at least that was a really nice chance for them Got to mention that Shaw gave them a free kick right at the beginning of stoppage time, right on the top of our box, 90th minute, basically. Debiania hits it over. But it was kind of scary, and it didn't feel totally necessary. Yeah, and you kind of wonder, like, the Shaw for Coffee Sub just kind of doesn't make sense.

Like, I know I was excited to see Horan in the pivot. it, but when you're bringing Shaw back as sort of let's see out the game midfielder, like maybe that's, maybe you're kind of getting a little too much with it. Like put Shaw in as one of the wingers if you want and sort of give her flexibility, but to put her in the spine of the defense as you're trying to hold Brazil off. I don't know. Yeah. I just noticed in stoppage time, Corbyn won it off the press and shot it right at the keeper

in the 90, right around the 93 minute mark. And then there's a good cross from Brazil in the 96th minute, almost at the death after Midge gets beat on the left side. And Casey Kruger has to head it away from the goal line itself. And, you know, that was kind of the last major action of the game. I guess I'll take a couple of positives here. I mean, partly from talking to you. The press continues to be good. We've been talking about you've been beating that drum for a long time.

I think coffee stamped her ground maybe she didn't but I thought she was a little bit better than everybody else in possession. I'll jump on the coffee bit. Like she showed you that she can, again, she showed you this whole scrap. I think for both her and Corbyn, I think a coach can sort of nudge them towards taking more command of the full tempo of the game. game, right? Like it's, you go where you need to go when you need to get there to set the tempo for things. And if, if you're playing Mexico, Colombia, or Brazil, who are going to try to be up on top of us, and we're going to try to keep the ball and not just launch it over you to Alex Morgan, whoever we're going to put up top, like, that's your responsibility. And you've got to really, like, take that responsibility seriously. And I just feel like there are plenty of ways that a coach can demand that and make it happen. And I, and I genuinely think that can actually happen all over the game. And I, and I, I genuinely think that can actually happen all over the. the field of like putting that demanding that the players take that responsibility to come get the ball and solve a problem with their movement off the ball. And I feel like that has been non-existent for certainly long. That goes beyond Twilight. You know, that that was the Vlato issue too. So I do think

that it's there for a coach to come in. If I'm Emma Hayes, I'm like, I'm like salivating about where it is now versus where I think it can be relatively quickly. it'd be so interesting to see video of her watching this game I wonder what she was thinking or I mean maybe she didn't watch it live it was pretty late over in England but

what does she think about that I'd love to see her notebook right I'd love to see her what her notes are as she's breaking this down I I hope you're right that that Hayes can come in and nudge Albert and coffee in the right direction

and I'm very hopeful about that. I do, I'm willing to, I don't have to be right about this, but I do think, I've watched a fair amount of Corbyn Albert over the last six months. And she doesn't, her first touch is not, doesn't take her to the right place, almost ever. It's panic time when she receives the ball. And that's why she hits those hard passes, I think.

and ends up in some tight situations because coffee will let it run across her body and then take like an elegant touch. I mean, she doesn't do it every time. She's not like, you know, Sergio Bousquet's out there. But she has that ability. And I don't know if I see that with Corbyn. But if we're going to play murder ball, Corbyn's your gal, you know. She's very physically up for it. I mean, she went the full game here.

She was tough in the tackle. Yeah, she's flying. She was flying in the 95th minute or whatever to get that. Right. Preston chance. She's everywhere. Yeah. I do want to make a distinction between those two, at least in my opinion.

I think coffee's a little bit more of an elegant player than Albert is. Anything else, Greg? I mean, we should again say, I'm always happy when we lift a trophy. We don't have to apologize for the way we won a tournament. it's all about just sort of eyes towards the next window and like what did we see here that we think can be like improved upon, built upon, changed. So that's what the wet blanketing is, really.

It's just sort of how you come at this with an eye towards the next window. The trophy's ours anyway. We get the trophy. We get to keep it. We don't have to give it back with any kind of apology letter. I mean, but isn't there, isn't there a certain extent to which we're expected to win this trophy?

Like we, that's the, that's not a surprise that we won it. It's not, but Brazil, Brazil are a squad. Canada are Olympic holders. So I know they're both those teams, all three of those programs are, you know, definitely in transition. But it shouldn't be like, it shouldn't necessarily be foregone. You know, it shouldn't be like, oh, well, we'll definitely beat Canada. And obviously, you know, obviously it wasn't, you know, goes to a penalty shootout.

So I would say no, like even just throwing Canada in the mix, like you can't just assume that we are going to win it. Getting to the final, maybe you should think of as a foregone conclusion. And we made that difficult with the path we had to go, which had the nice upswing of being like we got to play three good teams. Columbia World Cup knockout team, Canada and Brazil. also made it to the World Cup. Didn't make it into the knockouts, unfortunately, for them. But we got three good tests,

four, Mexico's another good test. I mean, Argentina's a good test. This was a solid month of competitions for the U.S. to kind of measure themselves. And, again, to see what we can build on and what definitely needs to be improved. And there's plenty of both, I think. Okay.

All right. Well, let's see. NWSL season starting this weekend. Yep. Everybody will be busy. We got Chelsea versus IACs in the Champions League next week. I got that on my calendar. Emma is going to get a close-up look at Lily Johannes.

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