Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #479: USMNT v Mexico recap

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Greg and Belz talk through another very satisfying win over El Tri. Tyler bombazo, Gio player of the tournament, a bit of a slugfest from both teams on Sunday but it feels like we're cruising these days with regard to our biggest rival.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. A yes, Dosacero. The roar in the stadium at Tyler's goal. Geo pointing at his chest as he runs to the corner. Tyler running into Burrhalter's arms. Just a lot to enjoy. How's it going, Greg?

Good, bells. I'm a simple man. I appreciate a good scotch. I like watching rain through oak. open windows, and I like, I sure enjoy watching my favorite team beat their rivals for the seventh straight time. And the draws count as wins. I don't care.

They just do. Well, you know, going into the game, I didn't feel too worried about it. And that turned out to be the right approach, I think. It wasn't, however, like a dominant performance, would you say? No, it was, uh, it was, it was not a beautiful game. and our games against Mexico haven't been beautiful in those seven wins we've almost intentionally turned them into street fights

we've we have flipped sort of the easy competence on the ball meter into our favor where now Mexico look like the team that are always laboring even that easy competence that we've shown in the last few games against Mexico wasn't necessarily on display in this game tonight or I'm sorry on Sunday night And a lot of things that could have factored into that,

not least which was the 120-minute runout in the semi-final, and then a short turnaround to play this game. Yeah, there weren't a ton of lovely combinations and everything, but that's okay. It was still a whole lot of fun. Let's get to the lineups, get to the timeline right away. Our lineup was Turner, in goal, of course, Desd, Chris Richards, Tim Ream, and Jedi across the back line.

I think a lot of us wanted to see Ream after the Jamaica game. We got to see him and he proved his value once again. Tyler got his first start in over a year for the men's national team and, of course, made the most of it. And then Gio and Wes as the other midfielder's, so Gio and the midfield. and then Tim Weyer, Haji Wright and Christian Pulisick across the front line. I'm curious what your reaction to was the lineup. So Wright was the big surprise. And I know we're one of the ones who are always talking about the striker hat and Haji being in the striker hat.

But it's still surprising. There was some like whispers of Bolo being injured, but I didn't see anything further on that. And then obviously he appeared in the game later. So I don't know. It was just like a, you know, a minor thing or if it was nothing at all. and it was just a pure soccer choice from Burrhalter. Didn't expect Aji to have jumped Pepe for that kind of a role just in almost like the man-man management sense

from what Pepe is done for the national team over the last few windows. That said, Pepey was quite, quite bad against Jamaica. Yeah, he wasn't very good. I don't want to, again, I'm not one who draws sharp conclusions from 45 minutes. And people aren't going to like this, but I was copying Pepe's involvement against Jamaica and then I was like,

you know, posting it anonymously somewhere for future use. I just kind of have an archive of things on different burners. And the last thing I posted on that burner was Ferreira against the Netherlands.

And the parallels between those performances were not good. Yeah. Because there were a lot of them. And Jamaica's a much worse team. But I don't think that, I don't think that that's going to somehow mean that Pepe's now

out of the hat. I think he's still very much in the hat and as we'll get into. Haji didn't like lock his spot in ahead of anybody. No, no, I didn't, I didn't, that's the only thing I really didn't like in the lineup was right at the nine because, you know, he's obviously a weapon.

But we've talked about him playing on the wing. He played on the wing against Jamaica, scored two goals, two really nice goals. But, um, I don't know if he's like the line leading number nine, that we kind of need who draws players in and makes things happen.

I mean, my knocks on him are not the best in combination. Like, not terrible, but not, doesn't, doesn't have the instincts that Ballo and Rico have. And then, you know, he's a big man who plays kind of small, I think. So it didn't make a lot of sense to me. I probably would have run out. I mean, if, if Ballo was hurt, I would have disregarded the poor performance on Thursday and given Rico the start. or just, you know, if Bala was healthy, probably start him.

It seems like Bala was healthy, so. Yeah, it's definitely one that, you know, if that is a tip to what Burrhalter felt like after the Jamaica game, you know, the decision to start Haji, I don't think what Haji did in that game will, in a sense, like, vindicate Berhalter. No. Even in his own mind. Like, he will probably be like, okay, well, that wasn't quite what I wanted or what I expected when I made that choice. So we're kind of back to a question mark for either backup. I don't know that there's going to be that much of a question mark for the starter, to be honest, after that. I feel like Bala will retain his starting spot as we get into the COPA lead-up.

Yeah. I hope so. But that's not to say I don't, I want Haji involved. You know, he's, he provides a lot of value and just not as like the number nine, like the number nine. bowl number nine because that's the other thing. He came in against Jamaica for the wing spot, but he definitely plays it differently, right? Like, he played on the left instead of Pulisik shifted over the right. Haji obviously is not playing that left-sided winger role the same way Christian Pulcic plays it. He doesn't play it the same

way Wea plays the role on the right. He is almost like just a left-shaded forward. Yeah. That's true. Well, Mexico's lineup was Memo Cho and goal, of course. Jorge Sanchez, Cesar Montez, Johann Vasquez and Jesus Gallardo across the back line. Tough night for several of those fellas. Edson at the 6th, of course. Luis Chavez and Eric Sanchez were the overmatched advanced midfielers in this street fight,

and then a front line of Oriol Antuna, Henry Martine, and Chuki Lozano. Before we get to the time, I just want to say, I do this after every trip, but I want to thank everybody who came to Dallas and held it down down there. We had a great time at the tailgate. The scuffed house with Justin and Bilal and Chelsea and Claire and Jackie and OGB. Like just brought an incredible energy all like for the whole five days of the event.

And I'm really grateful for that because they kind of were like the center of gravity for the scuffed sort of weekend. and it's hard you can't do that i can't i can't do it all by myself you know and at this point i'm not you know it's like everybody else is kind of carrying the load of having a good time and celebrating the team and it is uh it's wonderful yeah it's a delightful community now do i understand it's right they those folks literally all live together in dallas and you know right well no yeah of course not but they uh they all got a house together and they just kind of were like uh the center of the party, if you will. Now, that's perfect. And that sets a bar

for what the Copa experience should maybe be. For anyone who's looking to do things, like, that's how you do it. That's the recipe right there. Yep. Atlanta and Kansas City, here we come. And I mean, people are going to be gathering in Dallas, too, for the Bolivia game.

So, yeah, it was, it was super fun. And, you know, being at the stadium, seeing the Paramount Plus broadcast, you know, kind of shouting at Clinton Dempsey and Charlie Davies as they try to provide commentary in the post game. It's all a true delight. So let's do it again, folks.

To the timeline. I thought in the early minutes, just a scrappy contest. And that was basically the whole game. Lots of head tennis. We did not sort of dogmatically attempt to play it. on the ground through the middle at all. And, you know, I love that, the heavy rumble of the crowd, like a distant jet plane on the broadcast.

Even in moments when there's nothing happening, we'll get more into that. But it's a good scene. You know, I had been to USA, Mexico in Cincinnati, which was a World Cup qualifier, you know, a heavily sort of curated audience, if you will, mostly U.S. fans in that stadium. This was, of course, much different,

mostly Mexico fans in the stadium. And it just feels like a much bigger, it is literally much bigger, but a much bigger event. And it was fun to experience that for me for the first time. I know several of you, many of you listeners have been to other, you know,

Gold Cup finals and Nations League finals, but this was my first. So I loved it. Yeah. And I think it's fitting that you're talking about the rumble because it's that sort of rumble of like, that accompanies sort of the slow build moments. And that's almost all there were.

There were so few crescendos in this game. I feel like in part by design, but in part just because these two teams tend to just be, at this point, sort of street fight FC when they match up. Yeah. Okay, Tyler Fowles Henry Martine early, but in a pretty good-natured way, they smile at each other.

Raina then cuts down Edson a couple minutes, later. We're setting a pretty physical tone, I think, all over the field, but especially in the midfield with Tyler. And Gio, man, Gio came to, he came to scrap. I think it's the first time I've seen him like that for the U.S. Yeah, Gio, Tyler and Weston, Weston too. And that first tackle with Tyler, Weston and Tyler buddied up and decided that they were just going to knock a guy on his back side. And that was, again, I think that was very much the intent. And the other, the other tone we set and in Mexico we're doing this too. I always key in on throw-in tempo.

Both teams, the US had a couple of them in the first two minutes, like super slow. Like, end of game when you're killing a lead slow. And I'm sure again, this goes back to, I so wish that they would just publish the fitness stuff, at least after the tournament. So we can see like, oh, this person was on like,

you know, they had nothing in their blood oxygen-wise. But, like, you, Like we were doing like the one guy runs out to take it, but it's super phony. They run like they're going to take it fast and they look and look and then they're just like, oh, now I'm just going to drop it for a Jedi to walk as slow as he possibly can to come actually take the throw-in. And that is very much a deliberate thing, especially, you know, when you know the U.S. have a Tennessee burholters talked about it. Quick throw-ins are the high percentage throw-ins.

The quicker you can take it. Like there's a threshold. After like one and a half seconds, the success rate of throw-ins drops precipitously. And we were taking, we were taking like 20 seconds per throw. And it is, it's just we're shortening the game. All those, all our guys ran a ton. A bunch of them are still like not matched fit. They're not playing a lot for their clubs or they're just back from injury.

And I really think there was an intentional attempt to make this game not actually 90 minutes. Get it down to 60 minutes of action time. It's just some ruthless pragmatism from the ideologue, Greg Burrhalter. No, that's interesting. did not notice. I mean, I guess now that you say it, I noticed it, but I didn't, I didn't think of it that way. Yeah, key and on throw in tempo from the start if you want to see, because it'll either mean a team thinks they're just the underdog, because that's the other reason you'd really want to shorten a game is if you're just much, much worse than your opponent. So you're like,

okay. Well, that's not it. That's clearly not it in this case. It definitely isn't. But that's what you bleed the clock if you're much worse. And you bleed the clock if you'd say, our players don't actually have 90 minutes in their legs. So we want to, we have the better players, but we want to play a 60 minute game instead of a 90 minutes. Okay, well, we get our first chance in the fifth minute, and it's a pretty cool one. Ream plays Jedi into the corner. It's a nice ball from Ream, and Jedi kind of takes a flying volley to cross it into the middle. It's cut out just in front of Haji.

We recover it. Jedi and Gio do a one-two. Gio's return pass outside of the boot, outside of his left boot, kind of loops over the defender into the box. Geo heads it on the bounce over in the direction of Haji. I think he was playing it to Haji. But Pulisik is just charging at the goal as he does, as he does. And he claims it with an outstretched right foot on the juggle between Vasquez and Antuna. A really nice touch. And then second touch comes off his right thigh. Takes him a little bit, I think, wider of the goal, wider of the goal than he probably wanted. But he still gets a shot off with the outside of his right boot.

It's a very, very nice effort from Pulisic, but Cho makes a nice play, bats it away from his face, and it's still zero-zero. Yeah, this is insane from Pulcic to even turn this into a shot because he's running full speed. It's a bouncing ball. He just, the knifing in is fantastic and takes everybody by surprise. Yeah. It's definitely not what we were trying to do. And yeah, the incredible ability to keep that first touch anywhere close to him rather than just sending it straight out for a goal kick. Fantastic.

I also want to point out this was a bit of the fool's gold for like how we might play in this game because this was our first extended possession. Everything else, it took a while because we were killing a lot of clock on restarts, but everything else was like we were we were just kind of doing some sky ball, just a lot of like creating 50-50s. This was the first time we really moved the ball around. It started from Turner. We moved it side to side and it was also our first glimpse in this buildup of Geo dropping all the way back into the centerbacks line with Reem and Richards picked up a ball on the left side. You know, does his casual look around and then just sprays it 60 yards across the field to surge. Or Timway, I don't even remember, but he hits it all the way upfield to the sideline in this buildup.

And from there, we build it back around to the left. And eventually Reem hits that ball up to Jedi, which is, you know, how the actual move is keyed. But it's his taste. And I'm like, oh, man, we're, we have a, we've got our structure. It was nice buildup. And you're thinking, okay, geo dropping back has pulled Mexico. up and that's how we find Jedi up in this big space on the left

flank because it kind of confuses Mexico and maybe this is going to be a nice avenue for us throughout the game and that was the hope it didn't really turn into that we didn't end up hitting this kind of pattern over and over and over again it was kind of it turned into a nice, nice moment, nice sequence, but very much the

exception. But we did try to do that a lot. We played a lot of diagonal balls into the corner to Wea and Jedi, and I guess Dest a little bit too, but mostly Wea and Jedi, right? Do you think that was the plan? Because, you know, there has definitely been some criticism of this, of Geo having to drop so deep. You know, the ideas we want in between the lines so he can turn and cook. And, you know, him, him being back by the centerbacks maybe mitigates his impact a little bit.

Yeah. Go ahead. Well, there's two different, like long. diagonals that we kind of play in the sequence. The first one was the geo hitting it all the way out, but that was more of like hitting it to a target with with player in an advanced role. You know, he's just going to be standing there underneath it chest it down and then it's basically just functions as a big field switch. And then the other one is Ream hit actually hitting Jedi in behind. So I was hoping we'd hit more of the in behind balls. We ended up hitting more of like the hitting it just out to a stationary target trying to find their chest. And a lot of them we just overhit and they sailed out of bounds. Yeah. Throughout the course of the game is kind of how it seemed to me. Yeah, Geo had one that went over, I think, Waye's head, and then Tim Ream had one that went over somebody, I think Jedi's head. Okay, ninth minute Adams rushes forward to apply pressure on Edson and forces a hot back

pass that Gallardo then kicks out of bounds on the right sideline. Adams turns around and exhorts the rest of the team to join him in applying pressure. think, maybe mostly talking to Gio. I only mention it because it's just good to have Tyler back out there. He is a real presence. And he's also a dad now. And I think his power and intensity have been magnified. He definitely leans into it, doesn't he?

Yeah. Like, I'm afraid to say it, because I don't know what it's going to do to the Monday crew. But, like, you can see Tyler in 10, 12, 15 years putting on the tight coaching pants and kind of being a little bit bit of a Jesse. I don't know. Yeah. Hopefully his sense of proportion is a little more finely tuned than Jesse's, but, but yeah, he, you can tell we missed, we missed his, you know, I guess it gets a little mystical,

but his leadership out there, he does seem like, uh, um, an important presence for the team. Even though he has, I do think he has some limitations as a player, which we're not going to get into today. but not much at least some will just come up on the on the timeline yeah I suppose moments later he has a left-footed shot from the edge of the box blocked but hit pretty well I think looked like it was going on on frame and that's a foreshadowing we get a richard's oopsie in the 11th minute Lozano nearly in Tim Riem old man Tim rides to the rescue kind of covers it up he's got that speed that Tim Ream

speed. So it's a Richard oopsie and it really showcases like how high up our fullbacks are playing because this is a nothing situation where Mexico's not pressing us you know per se like they've got a

like a medium mid block here they're sitting in. It's like a narrow front three that kind of matches up with the front the back three that we create in the buildup with whether it's Tyler or actually it's usually either geo or Jedi

in this game becoming that third player in the back with the two centerbacks. And Mexico were kind of like three up with those, and then they have one of their center mids trying to flash up to deny our pivot. So usually the pivot was Tyler Adams. And in this case, like, Tyler and Gio had both shaded to the left, and Rime, and Gio has it,

and Gio hits a nice easy ball to Ream, and we have tons of space, and then Ream hits it to Richards, who has a decent amount of space, but it's a good trigger from Mexico at this point. They do jump it, And so as they're jumping it, Richards has nothing to his right. So he's collecting it just outside the right center circle.

And he has no options to the sideline, no safety valves. He either needs to make an instant read that it's got to go all the way back to Turner or he's got to essentially drop a shoulder and beat that onrushing Mexico player, which is there's a real, there's some risk to that too. Because he also doesn't have central midfield help. With Tyler and Gio shaded left, neither of them break hard. as the ball shifts over, neither of them break in to help to help Richards out. So McKinney kind of does, but he's sort of got a player shadowing him.

And so it's not great from Richards. He kind of in a bad situation does the worst thing he can do. But it's also not a great structural setup here for him. I did notice, even though they weren't pressing, there was, I don't know what the trigger was exactly, but there were, they would sort of, the midfielders would sort of, the midfielder's to creep up and then and then try to really bury us. You know, maybe just inside the Mexico, I mean, just inside our half, you know. But definitely not way, way up in our box.

But like right in the, yeah. And we, the tendency of this game was we essentially rewarded them for that in the sense that we would just lump it. You know, we'd kind of hoof it or we'd drop it one layer to somebody who would sort to chuck it up field and then we'd scrap for that ball. We'd send a couple of players to go scrap, so it was kind of like, all right, well, we're just going to do first ball, second ball today, and just assume that our players will have the better of it than Mexico's because our players are better.

And they are. Our players are better. My players are better. I mean, that's another thing, even though it wasn't a dominant performance, what you said about that easy comfort on the ball, that was very evident in the stadium. It just felt like, I don't know why it be more evident in the stadium than it is on TV. Maybe that's irrelevant. But it just felt like across the board, we're going to mostly win the like 1V1 challenges.

It didn't always play out that way, but for the most part, I would say it did. Yeah, it was like a scrappy affair that kind of took place, not in our attacking third necessarily, but like between midfield in our attacking third. Yeah. It's where it seemed to heavily, heavily be happening. And that little 20-yard band there, 25-yard band. Not coincidentally, right about where Mexico picks up the pressure. Right.

Okay. So 13th minute, a good help along, swivel volley pass in the middle from Tyler to spray it at Haji on the back line. Haji makes a nice touch to coming back to the ball and rounds the center back. that's on him. I think it was Montez. But he was offside, and he was offside several times in the game when he probably shouldn't have been, which I think sort of speaks to him maybe not being the right guy for this job. I don't know. At least he should be more alert.

Yeah, that was frustrating because it's not like, there's one of those sort of analytic things where it's like some strikers you want to be flagged off sides more often. You say they're not being caught off sides enough. It means they're not being aggressive enough running in behind the line. But these were different off sides. These were Haji getting flagged coming back. Yeah. Come on, dude.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, 15th minute desk fires a ball across that gets to Pooley on the far post. But Haji mauled Vasquez to the ground in front of the goal as the ball sailed over them. So a foul is given. Just clocking another little. ding on Haji, I think. 18-minute mark, nice bit of interchange

from Jedi, Wes, and Pooley, Poulis' past to Spring Jedi is cut out, but we're, you know, starting to impose ourselves a little bit down that left side. Yeah, that was like our second, I thought, really positive possession moment. So we're not,

we're definitely not, they're not too frequent, but we pepper them in every once in a while. Mm-hmm. Our set pieces just don't feel dangerous, which I think is, I wish we could be a little more dangerous on set pieces. I'm not the only person saying that, but I feel like it should be said. Do you think this isn't a target-heavy roster? I mean, again, when you have Tim Rheem, he's not a super great set-piece target.

So you lose one of your trees. That's just like 30% of what you hope to have. for big set piece monsters. So you get McKinney, and Richards is okay. Even Richards isn't like some dominant presence up there. So yeah, so as much as Pulisic takes a ton of the heat for his deliveries going all way back through the World Cup, we aren't giving him a ton of targets to aim for. I do think it's a lot about the delivery, though.

I mean, you know, if somebody can't get to it and head it in, fine. But, like, you know, curl it in there right in the danger spot and see what happens. And it's like we're rarely getting a ball that looks dangerous on the delivery. 22nd minute, a chance for Mexico. It's actually a pretty good look. It's a long throw from our right sideline. So Gallardo throws it. McKenny rises to head it away, but it skims off his head right to Luis Chavez,

who takes it on the half volley with his left foot, but scuffs it, I think. I think is fair to say. Just to Turner's right, pretty easy save. But could have been dangerous. And, you know, Teu De N. On their broadcast, maybe the same thing happened on the Paramount broadcasts. They showed the replay like six times because they were like, ooh, that was it. It's a huge chance.

Like, this is an uncontested shot from, you know, 16 yards. Yeah. Oh, is that even clear? And so we talked about this in the Jamaica one. the Jamaica game like because they got their goal off of no 14 yards for you're you were right but yeah so Jamaica scored their goal off of a throw in we know what happened in the world cup off throwings like this is we got us we got to fix this and this is another weak side nap that is being taken by Jedi and rain it together so in the first game it was scally and wea

and if you know I know people rush into scali's defense which is fine I'm not from the X's the nose. It's just one of those where it's like, yep, there's, there's one and a half guys here that Scali's got to try to handle and we didn't handle it very well. But it's also like Scali, you got to like pull somebody over to you. Yeah. You know, if you need, if you need help, pull away a back three steps as soon as you need to do that. And the same kind of thing here, Jedi and Raina, we have the bodies there to not let this

happen. Raina is ball watching standing straight up, flat footed. And Jedi doesn't recognize the danger quickly enough either. and you end up with a guy between them taking an uncontested shot. And that's, we just cannot afford to be doing these things. We've got Uruguay, Columbia, one of Columbia or Brazil, if we get out of the Copo group stage. Like, we can't just give chances away. This is the only shot Mexico gets in the half.

So I'm not saying we're like a disaster in the back, but we've got to not give away these easy ones that are, in my mind, easily preventable. Right. Yeah. It's a communication issue with Scali and Tim Wea in the first in the Jamaica game and probably a communication issue here too. Geo needs to be like alert. Like he needs to be playing soccer and not just like he just sort of takes a break. Can you see this all the time?

This isn't like, oh, this is just Geo. Players do this on the weak side of set pieces. They just stand straight up. They take a little like soccer break where it's like I'm not the one playing soccer now. and you just have to have it a weld. It's like you have to drill it. It's like discipline. Like everyone needs to keep playing soccer through the full set piece.

Yeah, would it change the game completely if that, you know, if Chavez hits that clean and puts it in the net, it might be having a very different podcast. All right, 22nd minutes. So same minute, just a little bit later. Good pass through the lines from Jedi to Geo. this is one of the few times where he received it between the lines in the middle of the park. We get a little ahead of steam as he plays it over to Pulisik.

Pulisic cuts in and Pooley tries to pass it out wide to Dest and it's cut out. Just noting, I mean, not a great final ball there from Pulisic, but just noting the moment because it was kind of rare. And you got to see Gio doing Gio things. We do love that. Yeah. Uh, Jedi Upsi in the 24th minute. Um, good cover from Gio and Tyler to kind of recover the ball and play out.

Um, 24th minute. A little danger from Mexico after some head tennis, uh, Martine Clips on Tuna in, but he can't quite handle it as he gets crowded out by Adams and Richards. So I guess good recovery defense there from those two. 25 minute mark, Gio getting stuck. in. He was putting in a shift, man. I mean, notwithstanding the, you know, taking a soccer break on the throw-in.

Yeah, he is. He was playing. I mean, it was two ways. So he was dropping deep at times to get it. And again, I'm sure that was deliberate because he wasn't, Gio wasn't usually the one dropping that deep in other matches. It was usually West or Musa. So I'm sure this was deliberate.

And West stayed higher more often. And there might also be an element. of just like, Geo wants the soccer ball. And so if we're struggling to move the ball up field through other means, he's going to be like, give me the soccer ball. I'm going to come back and take it from you. And then... I think there is an element of that, yes.

And we're built to accommodate that kind of thing where it's not like if the way anyone moves for the U.S. at this point, there's going to be like a bit of like an automatic counter move for most players. So it's like, Geo's going to come back and somebody else will fill into the space that he's supposed to be taking. We were a little bit off

at times. And Haji was, one of the offenders here of just not always moving into like windows that we would need someone to move into. And again, maybe that's just asking too much of Haji Wright to come in, play Stryker and be like, be in all the right spots wherever Giorina goes or everyone else goes. So, yeah, I would, I would say that sort of counter moving into the windows. I didn't see, I didn't see us doing that very well. maybe throughout the game.

It was pretty static. Like when Geo would get on the ball, you just have everybody kind of, I don't know, standing or just moving gently. No, I think that was one of our biggest issues. We had our structure, but there wasn't anywhere near the interchange that we had in Jamaica off the ball.

And I really wonder if like, you know, when I say I was hoping we would find more of like the Jedi run in behind that we found in the fourth minute. that comes from like pistoning and you know like one guy dropping in the other guy going yeah and if we're not doing a ton of that I don't know again if it's just like not being able to read mexico's defense or if it's literally just energy conservation because a lot of the theme of this game off of the ball was energy conservation whoever was next to the ball was scrapping there was no question about that no for sure But yeah, off of the ball It was just like it was like a clock killing exercise at times

It did feel that It felt very static So 26 minute Just real quick And Adam's giveaway in the middle Didn't check his shoulder Leads eventually to a clipped ball At the back post which Richards does well

To chest down for Turner Just ahead of Henry Martine Professional Yellow from Wes In the 27th To stop a chuky jail break up our right side. I like it. I like it from Wes.

Let's see. Right around the 30 minute mark, Chuki NGaiardo beat Dest 2V1 out wide. And Gallardo whips a ball to Antuna at the back post. He tries to knock it down for Martine, but doesn't get the right touch and it's cut out. This is a little bit dangerous, I think. If Antuno can direct this back towards Martine,

it's probably going to be a good shot. So again, it doesn't feel at this point in the game, even though it does feel like we have better players, we're doing fine, we're not giving them a lot. I don't know, it's pretty even, you know, at this point in the game. Yeah, even and it's still, I mean, as a spectator, very nervy, like super nervy. The guys basically delivered in the key moments

other than falling asleep on that throw-in, even the players look nervy farther away from goal so I want to say like when we're 40 yards away from goal Richard just looks like nervous playing he didn't look like super composed but once we got closer to our box then it looked like we were more

in control of the dangerous moments yeah I mean going back to him chesting the ball to Matt Turner right somebody hanging on his back yeah that was really nice from him we get a Jedi giveaway in the 34th Maybe Geo should have been a little more on his toes for that pass, but it's an errant pass. Mexico comes at us.

We do well to get back and shut it down, though. And then go ahead. I'm just going to throw in quick. We're 34 minutes in, and we aren't building up well. And I do think that, like, you can't ignore that Tyler Adams has not been, like, relevant in the buildup almost at all. Like, it is a different game with Tyler Adams in there than with what we have with a Eunice Musa, who, does want to come get the ball and then while he

will hit some errant passes, a lot of, like a third of his errant passes in the Jamaica game where after he'd already advanced the ball with, you know, with his feet for 10 or 15 yards. So there is definitely a difference here in what we have. The quality of the opponent's different too, but we know we've seen Musa

do this against any quality of opponent, including Mexico. Yeah. So there's very much like a difference in what we are able to do in the buildup with Tyler versus other center-made options. Yeah, I think that's right. And it's kind of a dilemma. Yeah.

Yeah. 35-minute mark, patient buildup and a wonderful pass through the lines from Geo, as Mexico tries to pounce on us with five. Not, again, not in the press, but kind of like they're, it's like a trap almost. And we feel the trap coming. Geo makes a nice pass through the lines to Haji, like a one-touch pass after getting it, I think, from Ream from very deep. And then Haji's offside again. Come on, buddy.

Yeah, this one hurt a lot because Haji, like, collected it well. It came in hot and he collects it well. He spins, and he's actually, like, about to hit Tim Wea running in behind with a runner with him. And you're just like, oh, we were there. We were there. There's no reason to be offside there. Details, yeah, we've got to get the details. I mean, he might, he's hiding.

Maybe he's, it's hard because camera work kind of isn't helping us because he's not in frame. But maybe, maybe he's hiding off of a shoulder and then just trying to sneak in last second. It's, the flag, the flag is frustrating. Yeah. Rain is playing really well. I think that's what, that's what I have in my notes. He's a really good player. And then let's get to some fun stuff right at the end of the half.

First, at the 38 minute mark, the desk chance. I remember, I'm old enough to remember how many people wanted to bench him for this camp after his red card at Trinidad. And, you know, maybe we'll collect all the receipts on that. But he had a lot of fun. He had a lot of fun in this game. It starts with a throw in and he dances past Chuky, just kind of shrugs him off. And then absolutely sits Luis Chavez down completely. He just slowly sits down on his bottom.

And then he cuts in on his left foot and on corks one that doesn't miss by much. I think Pulisik wanted it out wide left in space and there's a shout for that, but I don't mind Serge trying to cap off his run with a banger here. Here's the call on Univision for your enjoyment. It's pretty short. Here we go. I said this on the It's fun to the Tilly

It's fun to listen to the Tejou deanna broadcast Because they really appreciate Serge In a way that English broadcast doesn't quite Capture, you know? Like they just love that stuff And so do I They're able to translate his essence a little bit better I think so

We at the scuffed podcast I think have a pretty strong affinity To the right side The fun side of the U.S.'s formation Yeah And it's super notable that this is basically the first time 38 minutes in That we're talking about something fun happening on the fun side

Because there just wasn't a lot of fun This wasn't a very fun game in that sense Where you get a lot of the These moments Until search decided to do this And then Serge himself has two or three more that we'll get to. But like Wea wasn't even trying that much stuff. McKenny was was gamely trying some things, but just not coming off that well.

It was, I mean, the fun stuff in this game was mostly surge. And then the pot shots that will live forever. Yeah. Because they went into the goal. There was some fun stuff up the left side, but not, not a. a ton there either. But a little bit more than on the right side. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just being a wet blanket on that. Even the good stuff on the left, I feel like, was just good relative to the absolute slug fest that was the rest of the game. Fair enough. Fair enough.

41st minute, Raina takes a loose touch and then runs over Edson twice. It's a foul, no yellow, but Edson's a little hot about it. Raina Boston. Just haven't seen him play with this level of physicality for the national team before. Edson, Edson like gets up. you know, he's like, he feels insulted as a person and he's like doing the finger shake and Raina doesn't even acknowledge it, which is an outstanding response from Raina. I don't even think about you at San Alvarez, you are beneath me. Yeah. Whether that's true or not, we'll leave to the listener to decide, but we don't have to. We don't have to. Raina did the thing that lets him get away with anything. Yeah. Dangerous set piece for Mexico

in the 43rd headed away just in front so it was a corner kick headed away just in front of Edson by Richards again why can't our set pieces

be dangerous this is about service you know it was a good a good ball in and once again assured a defending right in front of our goal

from Chris Richards 44 minute mark surge absolutely emulsifies Gallardo down the right maybe the sizzliest

of all this is real highlights from this game. It's a croquetta. You do you do TikToks with your youth soccer team? I don't. Were they just knocking back and forth between their feet? So I haven't been coaching in a while. The last time I was coaching, the kids were still on MySpace.

You know, a TikTok is when you like, it goes back and forth between your feet, you know. Oh, I literally thought you meant like, do you show highlight reels to your youths? No, no, no. I you know after the after the grassroots episode with Jim Hart I've tried to do that with where you play music and then ask them to do uh different moves yeah I've had okay I got you now I've had limited success with that but um but yeah it was a that's what it was a tick-to right past Gallardo again just awesome from surge on the ensuing corner we get the Adams goal and what a goal it was the pool of six corner sales

across the box, untouched. Ream tracks it. Hold on. Hold on. On this goal, you just had to throw in that little bit about Poole 6 service.

I think Poole 6 service is a little bit of a problem. All right, all right. Continue, because we got the good bit. Yeah. Ream tracks it down on the left side line.

Back to Wea. Wea dribbles toward the center of the park, pirouettes with the outside of his foot. He's just sort of like, he's the only player I see doing that so regularly. He plays out wide to Wes. West takes a couple touches in, plays it to Adams,

35 yards out, has a little bit of room, takes a touch, and then just winds up and puts his laces through it, hits it through the outstretched legs of the lunging Eric Sanchez, past the right shoulder of Edson Alvarez, and into the net, just a screamer.

He runs to the sideline, starts smiling after about 10 strides. Man, do I love that smile. You know, that's a, That is an earned self-satisfied smile right there. And he jumps into Burrhalter's arms. There's a great picture of that out there on the internet. And there it is.

For me, pretty even first half. And Adam makes it feel very, very good with that blast from outer space. It's now the banner jiff on the scuff discord, the shot from behind Adams as he strikes it. You know, always the best shot. They got some great angles of that one. Yeah. What'd you think?

So clearly, I can't even get at the goal without talking on Timwaya because he is literally just like the reason you watch the game of soccer. This kind of fluidity, this motion that he has when he's doing the pirouet and like he doesn't even like touch the ball in the pirouet, the ball just becomes a part of him. Like it actually just does stay on his foot as he rotates and drives a yard and a half. And the ball is like doesn't leave his foot. So again, it's not even like he's touching it. It is just him now.

And it's all just to create like, you know, one slightly more open pass to Western McKinney. Right. And then the Adam shot. I mean, you love a Thunderbastard. They're going out of style. They're like vanishing from the, from the ecosystem because of, I think because of carbon neutrality. But the key here is you don't coach your kids, your teams to do it, but you love it when it happens. So going through the angles of it, right?

The angle from behind is perfect because you see just how like how much it leaves Edson Alvarez out. Edson Alvarez is actually like doing the smart thing. He's just like, okay, well, I can I can just put my hands behind my back. I'm going to stay square to the ball. I keep my shape. I stay big. And I'm going to just, you know, block this shot from not a dangerous distance.

We can get a shot away. This shot isn't going to break us. I just do my job here. And he doesn't. The shot defeats him. He is defeated. And because he's like one of the few good players from Mexico anymore, it feels extra good to defeat him specifically. You think he should have been slid over just a couple, a couple yards to deny the near-posts?

It's like a foot and a half. Like the margins here are tiny and he does get his geometry a little bit wrong, right? So you see him in that angle, that super slow-mo where he still. sliding centrally and the ball goes over his outside shoulder by again like six inches and it's what like three feet inside the post it's not like straight off the post and in it's not that close to the post that means edson is taking away the wrong part of the goal that means he's taking away a bunch of the central part of the goal where you have a goalkeeper standing so uh you know i'm a goalkeeper like taking away every single inch possible is the name of the game so you you know you're you

You just need that like superhero level spatial awareness for Edson to know that he needed to stop. Because not only did he take away the wrong part of the goal, but you can see from that angle behind. You can actually see Memo shifting like in step with him because Edson's shifting left is taking away Memo's view of the ball. And so Memo has to take a half a step left and like lean to his left to even like see Tyler. and when Tyler actually hits the ball, Edson or Memo is now like dead center of the goal, which he shouldn't be because Tyler's not dead center. Tyler shifted off to one side. MMO, of course, should be slightly shifted to the near post, but he's not because he was moving the wrong way.

So he can't get there. I mean, superhuman is. It's a screamer. Yeah. Well, superhuman is the right word for what it would take for Edson to do that geometry correctly from that distance, isn't it? I mean, like, do you expect a player to, as, you know, as things happen kind of bang, bang, to know exactly, you know, what their cover shadow is 18 yards behind them in the goal? No, you want, you want them to know the concept and you want them to come close.

You want them to actively be doing it. But there's a reason that even with a dead ball situation where the ball, the play is stopped, you still have to have your goalkeeper go over and stand and, like, direct it. Because even in that, the players will stand in slightly the wrong spots. if you just left them to their own devices. So yeah, to get Edson to have it exactly right as the ball is moving from left to right and a guy about to step into it.

No, of course not. He's not going to get it right. Yeah, you just want that thought to be going through their heads. My job is to take away the far post. Definitely don't go across the goal where you start by taking away one post because you see that a lot

with players like scrambling across to try to catch a shot. I mean, we didn't even talk about the fact that this Meg's a dude who comes flying into the frame horizontally. Which does make it more difficult for MMO, right? I mean, it's like briefly unsighted because Sanchez is flying through the, basically through the shot. Maybe, but since he's coming from the outside, that probably doesn't affect MMO, to be honest, that much.

And since he's so close to it, it's not like he, MMO has to wait to see if it deflects off or anything. That is almost just, just an effect you add in post in the movie to make it look extra incredible. It does make it look. really cool. Because yeah, Sanchez is horizontal with the ground, with his feet, maybe, you know, with his legs, maybe like, you know, the normal distance that legs are apart from each other. And it goes right through there. Let's just real quick, I mean, it's not going to be that quick. It's a little bit of a lengthy clip, but let's just real quick bask in Andres Contours call of the goal, which he posted on his Twitter account. The audio is from inside the booth,

but not the broadcast audio. So you get a sense of the crowd reaction to the goal. All right, I'll cut it off there. I mean, he does say goal of the USOGOE Golazo of Tyler Adams. But here's the thing, you can hear, if you've seen this on Twitter, you can hear just the massive roar

go up in the stadium after the goal. And so a couple things come to mind. Are U.S. fans who were, of course, dramatically outnumbered in there based on the colors of people's shirts just really loud? Is it that the acoustics in AT&T Stadium are really good?

Maybe, maybe, but I also think there's something else going on here that I didn't realize before this weekend. And that's that, you know, we talk about it being a hostile environment, these games, where the stadium is full of Mexico fans. I mean, I've talked about it like that, and you hear people talking about that. You see people throwing beer at players or the images of that guy who got hit in the head with something and was bleeding. And then there's, of course, the chant at the end of the game. and you're like, oh, you know, it must be really, really contentious and hostile in there. And it's not. It doesn't feel like that at all.

In fact, it's, I think it's much, much more complicated than I realized. Vince made reference to this in the postgame show, which is on the, which is on the Patreon. But there's, you see more and more sort of dual national gear at these games, like flag, you know, the mashups of the US and XVI flag. You see families where like half of the family members are wearing U.S. gear and half the family members are wearing Mexico gear. And I really do think this is the, you know, if we're going to make American soccer culture what we kind of want it to be, you know, if it's going to become what we want it to be, this is the fan base. This is the fan base right here, the people in that stadium. Because even I was sitting next to some pretty sad

Mexico fans in the game. And, but, you know, I'm trying to think of, like, what their feeling is about it or how they seem to me. And the thing that comes to mind is the Alonzo Morning Jiff, you know, the famous Alonzo Morning Jiff, kind of like, oh, man, this sucks. It is what it is, you know. Because, because, you know, they're, like, I assume they're all Americans, you know. Like, they're all American citizens or, like, been.

You know, residents have been living here a long time. So I want to get into this more with Vince because I know he's interested in this topic on the Monday review, which we're going to record on Wednesday, tomorrow. But I was really struck by the sort of divided loyalties of the American-based Mexican fan base. And there are a lot of young, a lot of younger kids with Pulisic and Raina Jersey's on. And I'm excited to sort of explore this further. We're wearing them down. I think we just got to be wearing them down, right? I think so.

I bet you were starting to get some of those Alonzo morning reactions after like the third win, the World Cup qualifying win back in November in Cincinnati. I bet you were already starting to be like, oh, I mean, they beat us three times in a row, dude. They're pretty fun to watch. And then again we beat them. And then they can't beat us at the Azteca, you know, and we missed two sitters that would have, you know, sealed it. And then we beat them again. And it's like, yeah, I mean, it's just the U.S.

is just a better team. Maybe it's time to start flying the U.S. flag at these games. Like, I'm sure that's happening. I'm sure they're like gradually like, I would rather just pick, go with the team that's winning. It's more fun to celebrate than to, because come on, like, there's plenty of, there's plenty of persuadable fans in the world of sports.

Yeah, I think so. And I mean, we'll see what happens, but I was fascinated by this. and I think I want to talk about it more. But I guess we got to get through the rest of the timeline here. That was the last action of the half. Adams Banger, his last action of the game. Johnny comes on for Tyler.

Tyler was reportedly mad about it, but that was the agreement with Bournemouth. Yeah, Tyler apparently had his, like, there must have been some kind of restriction on how much he could play. You could say that he was only able to play a limit. limited role in the tournament because of an injury. And that's a tough choice that coaches have to make sometimes because if you leave it up

to the player, they'll always say that they're fine. And they can play more, they can play more than what you're willing to play for them. And if you follow the U.S. soccer team or have since November of 2022, you're intimately familiar with how this works. Okay, around the 40, you're referring, of course, to Geo Raina at the World Cup. I'm referring to a constant. part of soccer players who are slightly injured but can play a little bit. Right.

Right. Okay, around the 46 minute mark, Serge Croquetta's Sanchez, so he's just pouring salt in the wound over there on the right side. Wea blasts his crossover, everybody for a throw-in. I thought it wasn't really Wayas night. I mean, he had some moments. He had that lovely pirouette that we discussed, but I don't know.

Why wasn't he more effective? Just we weren't, he wasn't getting on the ball much, for one thing. wasn't getting on the ball. I don't know, again, I don't know if he's fatigued. He doesn't play that many minutes for Eventus. Yeah. So that could easily be an issue for him for fitness for what was a lot of minutes crammed into a short time frame here. But yeah, he wasn't nearly as effective. And even that being said, he still creates two for in a window where we didn't create a ton of clear cut chances. He still created two of our best chances of the window. Okay. The Malik chance against Jamaica and we'll get to the Johnny chance.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. Okay, so Haji goes 1v1. I think at Montez and the 49th gets wrecked. Not Haji's night. But we do, I think we're starting to look a little more expansive, a little more dominant earlier than earlier in the second half. I'm sorry, a little more dominant early in the second half than we had looked in the first half.

Does that track with what you saw? It did. And I was watching through it and it's still difficult to figure out what we were doing like necessarily differently. The easy one would just be like Johnny for Tyler. But when you're watching what Johnny's doing, he didn't turn into some kind of like a ball progressing dynamo. So it might just be that Mexico was slowing down and they couldn't keep the intensity up for tracking our players in the middle of the field. But we did just look more comfortable with the ball. We still weren't we weren't carving him up. by any means, but we were more comfortable with the ball in the second half than the first half. It could just be adrenaline. I don't know.

Yeah, maybe. And maybe, yeah, I don't know. 50th minute, a good probing move from left to right to isolate Waya with Gallardo on the right side. So it's, Raina plays it into the amoeba to Pulisic, who plays it back to Cardoso, who plays it back into the amoeba to West. And then West turns and plays it wide to Tim. Tim lines one up and blasts it low at the near post. It's a really good hit, actually, and a good save by memo. I mean, a save you expect him to make, but.

Yeah, Waya was trying to catch him napping or just catching him old, I think. Like, how quick can you get to your near post, old man? Or it's just way of blasting the ball because the way I loves to just blast the ball at the frame. It's got all that top spin on it, you know? Yeah, it was so pretty. Waya could have maybe, I mean, I'm not going to be mad because he hits a really nice shot on frame.

It draws a good save. But as you're watching it develop this nice, again, this is one of our few sweeping moves. It gets to him at the top of the box with a ton of time, right? Like he's not under any pressure. And part of that is because Timway is very good at being in control. So he's in total control here. And he's got Serge coming. Like, Serge is coming on the overlap to create a 2V1 against this guy who's already afraid of Tim Wea.

And you also have pool six slicing through Mexico from like the left half space. And this is one where I do feel like we could have extended this play. And maybe ended up with something a little bit better. But, you know, the shot we get is still a decent chance here. Yeah. 54-minute mark, Haji wins it in the press. Draws a yellow card on Vasquez just outside the box. So he capitalizes on a Vasquez, oopsie,

and draws a, gets a set piece for us right outside the box. Probably Haji's brightest moment of the game, I think. Pooley tries to hit the free kick near post, and it hits off. It goes off the wall. Then we get a decent set piece from Pulisic in the, around the 56 minute mark. Ream gets something on it from the back post. So kind of one of the few times we've gotten something on it, but it's claimed by memo. 57th minute, a sign of life from Mexico, a good combo up the left from Lozano,

Martine, and Eric Sanchez. Chucky gets a shot from the edge of the box, but hits it right at Turner. So yeah, so Mexico Still able to occasionally create But they're not they're also not like just like we aren't They aren't just like moving fluidly from back to front Like when they're getting their chances it's a lot of it's a lot of like direct stuff from them to Pink ping ping ping not pink ping ping ping like clank clank clank I guess

It's the loose And yeah so Chuky does what Chuggy does which is you know Head down dribble a couple times and then fire it towards a goal and this was was one of the better moments for her. Yeah. Some clever, understated ball security from Wes on the sideline as he slides it through two Mexican players to Wea. He just has an ability to make that little pass through a really tight window that I like. Edson comes in very hot, studs up right through him, and Amy gets a yellow card.

Burlter and Adams explode out of the technical area. Burralter comes on the field Has a little scuffle with Edson But I just think it's interesting That even in a quiet game Wes offers so much Sort of reliability I know it wasn't his best game

But he's still He's still good And I'm marking this down too As like a Wes I don't know if you want to call it maturity But just like This could have exploded with Wes You know

Wes has been at the center of a lot of skirmishes in these Mexico games. He's been choked out several times. He's had one to two jerseys ruined by just being torn in half. And he's picked up a red card in the process. So like for him to take this really dirty tackle from Edson Alvarez, like Alvarez saw an opening here to go in. And even even like going in here,

he chose to go in in a way that a different referee at a different day could give him a straight red card. Oh, yeah. And Wes didn't, like, lose his mind about it or, like, you know, turn it into anything. He kind of just was very calm, composed. Just, again, almost like, you're not good enough for me to be mad at you. Ooh. Maybe. Yeah.

Yeah, he did. He got fouled a couple different ways and responded with sort of a wry smile each time. So that tracks with, you're not good enough for me to be mad at you. Let's see. Decent look for Mexico in the 61st, a long ball from Memo. Chucky beats Richards to it in the air, flicks it on for Martine, who kind of wins the battle with Surge to corral it, and then has a left-footed shot from close range, a tight angle, but just shanks it, kind of comes off his toe and goes straight out of bounds.

Yeah, this is a really nervous one, and it doesn't bode well because this is nothing but Memo hitting a sky ball, and it's just like you need your centerback to get under it, plant their feet and head it 35 yards back up the field. Right. And Richards just doesn't. Like he doesn't judge it right. He drops too far back. And then he tries to like flail out of the last second.

And can't actually beat Chucky to a ball in the air. And you're like, we just have to be able to win those balls. No questions asked. Ream is caught out here too. Ream can't track because it should be Ream running with Martin. And it's not. Like Ream can't catch him. He just runs straight away from him.

And that's why Serious. has to get in from the outside to get there. And then it's a really tough one for Serge because with that bouncing ball, you can't do anything but wait for it and jostle for position. And Serge jostling for position is not the situation you want to be. You know, like we, there's something that's gone wrong elsewhere for it to be surge as this guy. And I actually think Serge does really well.

He gets bumped. He absorbs a bump. And even that bump could have been whistled. But he absorbs it and then stays in and continues to disrupt and make sure that it's at least a worse shot than what it could have been. Yeah. Yeah, he didn't make it easy for Martine, but I'm a little worried like a better player, say an attacker for Uruguay. You know, they get a chance like that and they're just like roofing it from there, you know.

But that, you know, let's not dwell on the negative. 63rd minute Gio wins it wins the ball with hustle. Yes. And then loops forward. Did I say loops forward? He lopes forward. and draws a yellow on tuna and we get our second goal on the ensuing set piece

not the kind of set piece that I was that that that disproves the idea that we're not dangerous on set pieces so Pooley and Gio tap it back and forth Pooley goes at Jorge Sanchez and beats him with a really beautiful clipped touch she kind of clips it over him

over his sliding challenge on the end line and then he has a little time and a little space. He fires it into the six. It ricochets off Vasquez and then right back to Vasquez. Vasquez tries to head it away. I mean, given how much speed there was on the ball that he headed it, I don't know that he could have headed it any further than he did. But it goes directly in the direction of Geo.

Geo runs towards it, meets it on the bounce, and kind of jump volleys it in at the near post. just a really class finish. It's hard to get, it's hard to, A, make good contact on a ball like that when it's coming directly at you, and B, just to keep it down, you know? I mean, that is so easy to kick that, like, 50 yards in the air.

I mean, 50 yards in the air, that's pretty high. Let's say 60 feet in the air. Go ahead. Geo's the perfect guy that, the U.S. for this ball to come out to, because part of keeping that ball down is like keeping calm, right? Like not getting your eyes too big. And Gio is the guy who's like heart rate does not change.

So he doesn't get the big eyes. He doesn't get that big adrenaline rush. He seems to never get an adrenaline rush. So this ball's bouncing out to him. He's just like, okay, now the next step is for me to leave my feet so that I don't have to worry about trying to keep my balance because once you're in the air, you don't have to have one plant foot that throws off

what your other foot can reach. or what angle you can hit the ball at. So you just jump and then you can meet the ball at exactly the right time instead of worrying about the ball fitting where your body is. And he just, yeah, he just like slaps at it. He's got that different techniques where it's almost like he makes the bottom half of his leg kind of like a dead fish. He can just kind of swing it any direction he wants.

And then it's just part of it is also still just ball goes in. And this one does sneak in low at the near post with the same shot. same way I was testing memo on and this one gets through. You know, he hit it pretty, he hit it good too. Like he hit it, he hit it clean. Then he runs to the corner pointing up into the corner of the stadium and then points at his own chest, some beers shower down on the team as they celebrate, beers and maybe some other stuff.

Burrhalter pulls everyone away from the corner as soon as he gets hit in the butt with a beer. And, I mean, to me, kind of felt like the game, was over there. It wasn't, obviously, but... Oh, for sure. It did feel like it. And real quick, I just want to get back to Geo's celebration.

He points up at the corner, are we assuming, are we assuming that's where his family was in that shadowy luxury box watching? That was my guess, but I don't know, for sure. I think we have to assume. And I, we've got a good discussion going in the Discord about, like, the Raina's basically being, like, exiled royalty where the U.S. will, like, you know, they're allowed, they're still allowed to attend these games. You know, in comfort, total comfort, they'll have anything they need.

But it's going to be like, there's going to be armed guards the door. You guys don't get to come join the Bull team. Like Napoleon in exile in Corsica or something. Santi comes on for Martin, Oberlin Paneda on for Eric Sanchez. It makes no difference. I mean, it made a little difference, but Ballo comes on, Ballo comes on for Wright.

Any surprise we didn't see Rico? Come on? We talked about it at the top, I guess. Yeah, it's a little bit of surprise. In part because we thought maybe Balo was hurt, so then it's like a new surprise, oh, well, I guess Balo's not hurt, or at least not all the way hurt.

But it was a surprise that Wright started over him. And then we can just kind of talk about what the implications are for RICO. If Wright had been outstanding in this game, the implications would have been more significant. As it was, it just leaves it sort of more, again, open-ended now, going into the rest of the club season where the guys have more time to try to make cases and then going into that pre-Copa camp.

But we talked about this when the roster came out. There's other guys who are doing really well that all of these guys have to sort of be looking over their shoulders at. So if you come into this window and aren't great, Sergeant's coming back. He was going to be in this roster anyway. I'm sure he's going to play this weekend. I think he was just sort of like a manage an injury situation. Yeah. So you got Sergeant to worry about.

You got Jordan Pfok to worry about who's putting up good performances every weekend against good teams in the Bundesliga. So I'm not worried about Pepe because I think he's a good player, but I'm also not worried if he ends up falling out of the senior team roster for the summer. We do have the Olympics as like a ready-made solution to put him on a roster and get minutes. since he's age eligible. But again, it's not going to bother me if Pepe's back in the Copa roster in four months. Yeah.

But it is nice to have options, and that Olympic option for Pepey does make a lot of sense. First person I said, saw say that was Doyle. I mean, I'm not tracking every chat board closely, but let's see. Gio runs back to cover for Jedi in the 67th minute and clears it out of bounds. Just love to see that from him. And then, oh, but wait, Mexico has a chance. 72nd minute, a penalty shout. Again, just kind of ball clanking around the top of our box.

It falls to Santi and Jedi. Jedi swings for that bouncing ball as Santi pokes it through. Santi goes down in a, you know, a terrible heap, and it's whistled for a penalty, as if Jedi, you know, cut him down. Jedi, as it goes to Var, the Var check, Jedi's saying repeatedly, you can see him say it to the ref. Ref, zero contact. Ref, zero contact. And it turns out he was right. There was no contact.

Var unaworted the penalty, and Santi gets a yellow for simulation, which seems just. It seems just and again It's just like Just piling more mud on Like not only are you going to lose But you're going to like You're going to lose and you can't even You can't even try to game your way back into it

Plus Santi is just soft here Because Jedi did swing his foot pretty wildly His foot's up by Santi's like shoulder Yeah That's why it was given as a penalty Yeah I mean Santi's got you can't You gotta know

This is like a baseball player You don't get out of the way of this pitch Like you need to get hit You got to step into the outstretched boot with your neck and make sure there is contact. Because the only reason there is no contact is because Santi dodged it. Like, don't dodge it, Santi. Step into the kick.

Take the lump and get yourself a penalty. Yeah, he couldn't do that. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Too soft. Okay, Chavez, here are the rest of the chances for Mexico. Chavez shot blocked off his foot in the 75th. Alvarez, Edson shot blocked by Richards comfortably in the 78th. Paneda shot from distance goes over.

in the 85th. A chuky shot from an even greater distance goes way over in the 86th. Santi tries to hit one from 50 yards and isn't close in the 88th. And then a poor effort from him in stoppage time on a cutback kind of floats over the goal and onto the top of the net. So that's it. That's Mexico's other chances. Desperation stuff. All just desperation stuff. Like nothing remotely threatening from those. Yeah, I mean, I guess the cutback one, you know, if Santi makes good contact, he's actually in a decent spot.

He's in traffic. I mean, there's people all around him, but that could have been a good chance, maybe. 87th minute for the U.S., we get a nice run from Eunice, steps by a guy, sends it wide to Pulisicic, who dribbles a bit and hits a left-footed shot that's deflected out for a corner. And then in the ensuing corner, we get our big chance of the, you know, the last quadrant of the game. So it's a set piece.

We do a short corner. Pulisic whips it across. This is a good ball. It's knotted across, knotted back across the mouth of the goal by McKinney. And Wea flicks it along to the backpost. A really nice little flick.

And Johnny is arriving at that backpost. He tries to stab at home with the bottom of his foot, which a technique I really have a soft spot for. you know, reminiscent of Michael Bradley in the 2010 World Cup. And it's a good save by memo. And I mean, it's a good save. The shot was kind of right at him too. So this was a fun moment because it was really like almost a carbon copy of the chance that

Jesus Ferrer had against El Salvador in World Cup qualifying, where I think it was even McKenney instead of a header back across. He was just looping it across. But it was the way a flick on from like the top of the box into like the point blank shot. And Frera went, lifted his foot up and used like the top of his right foot. And just went over the goal. Johnny keeps us on frame.

And it's a nice play for Memble. Between this and his pool sick point blank save, like he does well. And it's not like he's a totally washed. He's got up with some good saves from Mexico in his day. But anyway, it just came to mind. And it's a really good chance. also wanted to point out that it was a nice little shimmy for Musa to slip a guy

in the lead up to this corner where he slipped a guy and then Pabusa again and Musa got the ball from an easy I think but very quick identification from Johnny it was like a half clear for Mexico and Johnny just settles it and quickly just pings it six yards up to Musa so it's not difficult but it's just like hopefully this is what we get from Johnny because we have seen this in one of his earliest caps after the World Cup. He's one of the guys who was trying to hit quick balls upfield to follow after we'd win

possession. So it's like in that transition moment, the regain, Johnny is thinking like get it, move it upfield, move it upfield. He does, he plays a lot of nice little passes between the lines for his club too, I think. That's it pretty much. You know, trophy trophy presentation, glittery confetti falling from the roof.

Tyler Adams brings his baby out and that provides us with an incredible meme of him kissing the FMF logo. We're gonna do, like I said, we're going to do the Monday review tomorrow

and sort of, you know, go through that we didn't go through here. And, you know, if you want to, I guess I'm going to make that one public, but if you want to get them under review every week and join the community on Discord and, you know, be like really a part of it, I think, I think the value is pretty good for the money, honestly. Join the Patreon. The link is in the show notes.

The Discord is where, so the Discord is where we do all of our chalkboard video breakdown. It's not on Twitter anymore because I'm so afraid of copyright. So all the little clips of the tactical moments that we, want to break down and like watch over and over or just the highlights of surge and the goals like that's that's just all in the discord where we just revel in it there's no there's no sequence no sequence too tedious and no surge moment uh too frivolous right yeah no Greg's video stuff is all on there and you can be you know you can we have I think people on there ranging from like, you know, Discord super users who just like to be on Discord and argue with people

to, like, people who like to just celebrate at games to people who, you know, want to talk tactics 24-7. And it was like the whole range of people is on there. And, yeah, join us. Patreon.com backslash scuffed pod, or is it scuffed? I can't, I can never remember. The link is in the show notes. And Greg, anything else?

Seven, seven straight. Mexico, you can't win. Yeah. Next up is, I guess, the send-off games in June and then the Copa. Also, U.S. women's national team roster coming out today. Yeah. Cat, Macario's back, Mal Swanson's back, Lily O'Honis called up by Emma Hayes slash Twyla.

Eva Gaetino, the young center back at PSG, she's in the roster. So a lot of excitement there too. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.