Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #498: USWNT vs South Korea (St. Paul edition)

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Greg and Belz on the heavily rotated side that faced South Korea a second time, our struggles this time to play through the middle and the lack of viable alternative approaches, the flip-switching moment when the first-choice attacking group came on, and then, of course, Lily Yohannes's glorious debut, at 16 years of age.———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. Patrons also get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and our full catalog of historic recaps, plus right of first refusal on our next Scuffed trip to Europe: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Okay, second game of the Emma Hayes era in the books. Nine changes in the lineup since Saturday, a bit of rain, a bit of a slog in the first half. And then, in the second half, all our dreams come true. Emma Hayes, you sandbagging son of a Brit. That was flipping a switch. Yeah. The first choice front line comes up.

on about the hour mark and immediately well immediately creates a big chance and then immediately scores right after that and then Lily came on Lily Johannes the 16 year old and the whole thing turned into a party so Greg how are you doing? I'm doing great

I'm glad we ended the game with that 30 minute run of just highlights just downhill racing yeah yeah a lot to get into Let's get right to it with the lineups. Nine changes, like I said. So Casey Murphy comes in for Jane Campbell in goal.

Casey Kruger starts over Emily Fox at right back. Emily Sonet starts at centerback with Sam Stobb, replacing Germa and Davidson. Nice Wenger gets her second straight start at left back. And then Corbin Albert comes on for Sam Coffee. Peran is the other holdover from Saturday, also on the midfifference. field and then rose lavelle starts for cat macario as the you know the ten who plays in the right half space and then crystal done for trinity rodman Alex morgan for soph Smith sophia smith and then jaden shaw starts in the mal swanson role which is you know sort of a nominal winger but in possession

in the left half space any surprises or thoughts there Greg um no not really uh you know we we'd we'd literally been like run back the same 11 from Colorado. Right. But it was less of like, this is what we should do. It more of just like, I'd be fine seeing that. I'd be fine seeing just about anything else. And so this felt very much like this is Olympic auditions, right? I mean, these are the games Emma has and then whatever tape she's watching from club seasons and past national team games.

And this is it. She's going to pick the Olympic roster from this. Yeah. Right. And so you think, is it your sense that the first game was more like the first choice and the second game is more auditiony, like more bubbly? I would probably go that route, knowing that, again, she'll update her priors based on the first game and, you know, sub performances from the first game. Substitute, not suboptimal. And then and then bake in this new data that she has and sort of her experiences with the team. So I don't know that it's like even by the end of the Colorado match, the match in Denver, if the pecking order had stayed the same or if there were already changes, but those changes wouldn't necessarily affect this lineup. Like this could very well have just been the planned 11s going into the window.

Yeah, yeah. It's exciting, man. Very interesting. As much as the 18 player roster is a disaster, you know, from like a, I don't want to say like a competitive standpoint, soccer integrity standpoint. It is a beautiful thing for people who love doing puzzles. A lot of puzzles doing going on in the scuffed podcast Discord server, for sure. And we had a call-in show last night where we talked about some of this a little bit, which is available. to patrons this morning.

But apparently Bev Priestman, the coach of the Canadian national team, said there's like rumors behind the scenes that they might expand the rosters to 23. I mean, yeah, just, we saw Tannenwald retweet somebody else when I feel bad because I don't know

now who he retweeted. It's okay. Bev Priestman, I think just saying that coaches are angling for it, which shouldn't be a surprise. Like, of course the coaches will angle for this. it would this would be massive to switch this to 23 it would even be massive if we go back to the 2021 rules update where you know you have the 18 players on the roster plus you have four alternates

in 2021 like a week before the competition uh they changed the rules that the alternates could change from game to game so you could essentially rotate them into the 18 and rotate players out of the 18 into an alternate slot alternates couldn't be on the in uniform on the bench or anything but you could at least change from game to game which players were available for that match. Even that would be huge. And would basically like pretty much, I think, almost eliminate any real roster questions and discussion.

Right. It is kind of winnowing down a bit. Yeah, I hope they do that. I hope they expand the rosters. I guess the argument against it from the Olympic Committee's point of view is it's a leveler. Is that it pretty much? Like it levels things for the big countries versus the small countries?

Maybe. I don't know that I've ever heard the Olympic rationale for it. I'll just say, I mean, it's, especially on the women's side, it's only a 12-team tournament. So it's pretty much all of the heavy hitters are pretty much. I mean, not all the – it's such a small field. A lot of heavy hitters are left home, and basically everyone there is a heavy hitter. and the ones who aren't, like, there's almost no leveling that's going to matter. Yeah.

Respectfully. I mean, I'll say that and then and then we'll crash out in the group. And Barbara Banda and company are onto the knockouts. But it's, you know, the underdogs here are very, very significant underdogs. Right. Okay. Let's do the Korea lineup. It's Kim Jong-mi in Goal, a three-man backline in Kim Hiri.

Li Unung-Yang and Li Yangju, and then the band of four in the midfield. Again, you know, sort of a nominal 343, but really basically a 5-4-1. So the four would be the wingbacks and the two midfielders would be Kang Chai Rim, Jun Unha, Jiso Yun and Chu Hsu, who was the one who was hacking at Trinity Rodman all afternoon on Saturday. and, you know, really didn't cover herself in glory on that first goal, I don't think. But Cho Uri, Lee, Jumin, and Casey Fair across the front line. So some changes, they made some changes in midfield and on the back line and a different striker for this game, I think, is the extent of their changes,

not as many changes as the U.S. to the timeline? Yeah, well, just since you kind of rather line up and talking about changes, The biggest change was tactically and discipline in how they approached us, where we adopted sort of our same 3-25 in the build-up, and they just stayed much, much tighter together, both vertically and horizontally. They basically designated a couple of players to just glue themselves to Horan and Corbyn, Albert, as our sort of two in midfield.

And even our half-space players, the, you know, Lavelle and Shaw in those pockets, they were much tighter. We talked about in the first recap, how easy it was to just play a simple ball from the centerbacks to Sam Coffey, who could then find Kat Macario in a huge pocket of space between the lines over and over and over again. And in this game, there was none of that space really existing by intentional positioning from South Korea. Yeah.

That's the story of the first half for me. Okay, yeah, good. I'm glad you said that. It seemed to me like a visually kind of like a cartoon Christmas tree just like waving back and forth in the wind. You know? Because it was pretty narrow

up in the midfield because they just were clogging in the middle so much. And then we couldn't really figure it out. We couldn't figure out how to, I mean, we did score, of course, but we couldn't really figure out how to get around it, you know, And I felt like we were pretty patient a lot of the time, too.

I mean, we just couldn't eliminate anybody. No. So we couldn't eliminate anybody. And we can kind of talk about it now, right? The tactical. Yes, please. So we couldn't eliminate anybody the way we did in Denver, which was just that simple passes. It could have been the shape.

It was probably a combination of the shape and the personnel. In Denver, what we would have is coffee would sort of just drop out of that. lines from South Korea. She would sort of drop out of their amoeba towards the centerbacks and pick the ball up and then pick out her pocket, which is, again, that's more of a coffee tendency. She did it again as soon as she came in this game within a minute. You know, we'll talk about it. She got the ball three times behind South Korea's amoeba. I don't know if Corbyn Alver made three passes in the first half.

She did, but it was she was definitely not, you know, like orchestrating. She wasn't playing as like a circulator. I don't think that's really her mentality. So you have that difference in personnel. And then you just, again, have what South Korea are very committed to taking away. And so it doesn't mean we couldn't play through them that way. There were other ways that we could and did kind of gain ground. The one we'll get into is that pass that we like to see and that we're expecting to see a lot of, I think, in the M.A.'s era,

is to sort of just hit an attacker between the centerbacks and the behind the fullback, between the centerback and the sideline. where they can just run onto it and eat up a ton of space. It's not going to put them in on goal. It's not usually going to even put them in like an immediate race to the end line and cut it back. But it's just here's how we can get the ball 60 yards up field as a shortcut. And we saw that a lot. We saw it within a minute, I think. Kruger hit Lavelle into that space, did it a few other times to Crystal Dunn.

The issue with this tactic is the personnel we have for that also isn't going to exploit it very well because we don't have like the explosiveness in that elizabeth. with Swanson on the bench, Trinity on the bench, Sophia Smith on the bench. The players we have in there are not the ones that they're good set up pieces, but they all kind of need that explosive player that they can try to set up.

Yeah, it did seem like it ended up over with Dunn and Lavelle a lot. And the one you talk about, like, first minute. I mean, it's that good Kruger ball over the top to Lavelle that you just mentioned. She tracks it down, but then she tries to sauce her way through the defender and then it can't.

You know, and... Or didn't. We'll say didn't. She didn't. I don't want to say can't. Can'ts a loaded... Couldn't. Yeah, so...

Well, maybe she could have. So, yeah. She didn't. There you go. Yeah, but that is true. It's like the... We just didn't have the speed on from the wing position. And even Jaden Shaw, who is a young, you know, a young athlete, really good player.

That's not really her game is, like, making runs in behind. and then, you know, like doing somebody down the end line and cutting it back. You don't see her. I mean, she could probably do it. I'm not going to say she can't. I didn't say that. But it's not like, that's not like her wheelhouse, you know? Yeah, she is.

Where I see her explosiveness really shine is in like combination. We've seen that before where she'll, she'll like draw a defender up to her, release the ball, and then just blow past that overcommitted defender. Less, less like in the open field. the way that, again, Swanson and Sophia Smith are just cheat codes. Yeah, and Rodman. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I already covered the first timeline item,

and that was that Lavel ball where she didn't beat the defender. South Korea in that 541, I guess you already covered it, but it's like either the windows aren't there as much, I think true, or the movement isn't as crisp. I don't know if that's true or not. Emma said it was. Emma said our rotations weren't quite right. And I believe her, again, there are player tendencies.

And Kat Macario is very good at that kind of movement. I think coffee and Iran together are very good at kind of rotating into windows. So I do think there's a huge element of the personnel there just aren't great window rotators. Yeah. For this first half, in conjunction with each other. I guess this is where we should maybe talk about Corbyn Albert a little bit because she does offer some things. I think I got to be fair about that. She plays some pretty good defense.

She did hit a couple of maybe two, three good passes to feet into the amoeba, as we like to say on the scuff podcast. But she doesn't play like somebody who wants the ball. You know? And when she does get the ball, it looks like she's worried, you know? I mean, maybe she's not. Maybe she's just calm as, you know, I don't know. What's a very calm thing in the world? But she doesn't look that way.

She looks like she's just trying to get the ball out of her feet as quick as possible. And oftentimes it goes backward. She's not, I mean, the contrast between her and coffee is, not to mention the contrast between her and Lillianas, but the contrast between her and coffee is just so stark in this game. And yeah, I don't know. Maybe the light bulb goes off for her at some point,

you know, in the future, and she can, or goes on, I should say, and she can sort of handle that responsibility of picking the ball up from the centerbacks, playing on the half turn and finding somebody's feet. But she's not there right now. And there's not a lot of evidence from her club footage to show that she,

is either. So it's like, do we bring her to the Olympics because we want somebody who can break things up in transition? Maybe, you know, maybe that's, maybe she's there for a defensive cover. I don't like it, but I can see the rationale, you know? Yeah, with 18, that's a tough, that's a tough person to carry. Although again, you could say she's set some kind of a floor as a center mid to sit next to her hand. I don't think she's going to start over Sam Cough from an even game state. Absolutely not. Against anybody.

Like I don't, I really, for the U.S., for as good as we are, and I know we're not just like clearly the best team in the world, but we're still good enough that I don't think we're ever going to have our approach be anti-socer. You know, in the sort of, I think everyone kind of understands what that means. Where I think that would be where Corby and Albert would thrive. And there's nothing, you know, wrong with that being your strength. But I think, yeah, I think in possession, I think she's just a passenger.

She's a spectator. And that's huge for us because we have to be able to circulate. Again, even if you're not the one making the line-breaking passes, you've got to be able to get on the ball enough times to just change the defensive shape, right? You've got to fold them around a little bit. Even if you're making safe pass after safe pass, to be able to keep making dozens of them is important. So that when it goes to her, so that we can circulate it to Lindsay Horan,

who can make the line-breaking pass, The defense isn't in just a totally comfortable set shape. Yeah. And those safe passes, they have to be in rhythm. They have to be the right foot for things to sort of become, for us to build rhythm as a team and to be fluid. And very rarely are her passes in rhythm and to the right foot. It's like, it's like a panic strike.

And it's like you're on your own trying to figure out how to receive this pass teammate, you know. But she does have some burst. She got forward on that ball up to Lavelle. She gets forward in the second half because she stays in when the ringers go in. And you see her racing up there and joining attacks. Yep, a lot of energy. Tons of energy. So it's, I mean, I'm not going to lose any sleep if Emma puts her in the 18.

But I'm not going to be worried if she's not in the roster either. And I wouldn't, again, I wouldn't expect her to be a starter for anything but like groups already sealed. We can rotate her in. Yeah. I mean, it sort of brings up this sort of larger question of how necessary is defensive cover and how much defensive, how much do you prioritize that over, you know, people, a player who can help you play in a, you know, in a sort of a coherent way in possession? because if you have the ball the whole time, you don't have to, you know, run around and disrupt things all the time. Then it comes down to like these moments of transition,

which are really important, you know? And I guess I'll just go ahead and say it. I mean, I can see, I've watched enough Lili Ohanis that I know, I know what people are saying when they say, like in transition she struggles. Like I could totally see at the Olympics if Lillianos goes,

but before we get into all the great things about her, I can totally imagine her, like, flapping at a challenge in transition and the other team scoring a goal. Because she's, like, she's 16 years old and she's not, you know, she's not demonstrated that she's like a, she's a killer as a defensive midfielder, at least in the, in her club minutes. So I can totally imagine that. But then, like, how much weight do you prioritize the two things, you know? Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a big question. It's a really big question. I would be reluctant.

I said this in the call. I said this in the call-in show. I would be reluctant in a zero-zero-zero game in the knockouts of the Olympics against presumably another top eight team in the world. I would be reluctant to run out there with a Lindsay Horan, Lily Johannes, midfield duo playing behind a Kat Makari or Jaden Shaw or Roselvel. I think that would be probably two calls. cautious to risk averse to do that. Yeah. Sometimes you got to trade in the European sports car for a Ford Taurus at the Olympics.

What's ridiculous here, not ridiculous, because this is who we are as a podcast. This entire discussion feels like then, I mean, no one, I don't even think anyone's advocating for that being the starting lineup. I feel like everyone's content with a coffee, Iran starting pair. So this is very much about like if something happens to coffee, can Lily be your peer back, your only center midfield backup in that for that role? Or do you have to have Lily plus some kind of a more defensive proven like discipline or alert?

And again, I'm not even trying to say Lily is proven that she doesn't have those characteristics. But those are those are things that in my mind as a coach have to be proven in the positive sense. You have to, like, positively prove that you have them, not just, like, she hasn't shown that she doesn't have them yet. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's going to be fascinating to see what Emma decides here because, you know, seasons change. And I think players change over time, especially when they're still in their teens. 16 years old insanity. And I think Lily has changed.

I mean, Emma even said this in the press conference last night, but Lily took a step up from the first camp to the second one. and I guess presumably she's watching a lot of like training footage and stuff because Lily didn't play in that she believes camp but um it even looked to me like she was she's she's grown into her frame a little bit more in this game you know the way she the way she bodied the Korean opponents twice but again yeah it is a it's a tough question and maybe Dunn can play can deputize as the six you know I don't know let's keep with the timeline.

Okay. Choppy first 10 minutes. Pretty rainy. At the 8-minute mark, Lavelle takes a set piece from wide left after Morgan is fouled, and it just skips out of the reach of Morgan running at the face of goal on a drier field. Maybe that ball catches on the turf a little more and continues its curl, but it just kind of skid it off. But close. And then 13th minute, we get our goal.

Haran wins a tackle Haran wins a tackle in the midfield In our third And it goes straight to Crystal Dunn Who kind of quick outside of the boot pass to Morgan A bit of an overcommitment from Number 17 That'd be Lee

One of the centerbacks And then Morgan's just running it In like acres of space And she kind of trots her way for the next 40, 45 yards. I don't know if she ever really looked to her right to see Dunn, you know, streaming in on the right.

But she does find Nice Wonger. Everything kind of slows down. She finds Nice Wonger out left. Nice Wanger faces up her defender, takes a touch, and then whips a ball in and Dun gets on the end of it, bundles at home. So the number 22, the one who was hacking Rodman, Chu, was, you know, just way behind the play and just kind of jogging even as the ball was being crossed. And I imagine if I was a fan of the South Korean women's national team, I would be a little upset at her. So they have their choice of who to be upset about here because this is a ridiculous sequence.

It's nice from Horan, it's nice from Dunn. It's even nice. Morgan Bates, I think I can say Morgan Bates, the defender to over-commit. And then, you know, once she gets it, even though that was a centerback that overcommitted, when Morgan gets up and starts driving into all that open space, they're two on five. It's Morgan and Shaw and then five South Korea players. There's no way that this should turn into a good look for the U.S. And even like done like races into that wide open right space, and we should find that.

That's the immediate mistake that we should exploit. Is there shape to give done that full right flank? We don't. We kind of squander that. We hit it out to a nice one. And everything should be like slowed down here. But we have to slow down because the initial, you know, defense that South Korea has.

But no one else from South Korea is racing back to help protect this. So it's not just 22. It's like their entire squad. Anybody who should be coming back to help defend, you know, back to front into out, fails to do so. They actually send four people over towards Nyswanger and Corbyn Albert

to defend two. And they leave two people in the box where we just have four players standing who've already arrived. So we're four on two in the box with Niswanger gets it without any real pressure on her. She gets to take a prep touch.

She has to create a little window to cross. But yeah, she's crossing it into four American players against two, 10 yards from the box. Which is a good time to cross the ball, right? Yeah, it's a good time to hit a ball that doesn't get cut out by one of the nearest defenders to Nicewanger, because sometimes that happens to too. But yeah, it's the poor centerback who gets closest to being able to make a play on it is like got Alex Morgan totally sealed up. But then that just means Crystal Dunn is all by herself to sneak in and poke it free.

Yeah, and Chu doesn't get there in time. I guess Lavelle's in the box too at this point. So 1-0 That's good in the 13th minute I got a clock Corbin does some good defending in the 15th minute Tracks a runner onto a through ball And then blocks the cross off that attacker

For a corner kick So yeah you get that from her I think that's pretty clear That's something you get from her Is energy and a defensive alertness Yeah that was a big play We kind of got cooked a little bit there Kruger kind of gotten pulled wide and Sonnet didn't come with her to connect.

Sonnet stayed really tight to stob. And Salisker did a really nice job to sort of exploit that area of the box to play a ball into. And it was really good alertness and, again, good acceleration from Corbyn to get back and break that up. I think she won a goal kick out of it. Just a little bit of luck there. But I mean, yeah, very, very good defensive center mid-senter mid-sendting. that's right it was a goal kick i said corner it was definitely a goal kick um 16 minute mark rose uh does that flick from her uh from sitting on her bottom to done uh to win a corner kick just fun

just fun you know she uh it's a ball played uh out to her and she slips trying to adjust to it actually i don't even know if the pass was played to her it might have been played to somebody else But was that a pass from Shaw? I think it was. Yeah, Shaw had Dunn and Lavelle both on sort of the same line of a pass. So it just went just past Dunn's feet, and I'm not sure who was intended for. But that might have also been what caused Rose to stop suddenly and lose her footing. Everyone was losing their footing all night, Lavelle in particular.

Well, from sitting on her butt position, she kind of scooped it with her right foot and played Dunn in behind. Really nice and fun. and I don't know, probably Rose's best moment of the game. Is there a little bit of shade implied there? You just really, really enjoyed that play. I really enjoyed the play, and there's a little bit of shade implied. I'm always excited when LaBelle is in the lineup, and I'm excited when she gets on the ball

because, like, you know something cool could happen. But are enough cool things happening? That is a great question, and it's one that this game in particular is going to, I think demand like a more thorough investigation of. And I'm excited to do that because, you know, we were very blah in the first half. Like we just didn't create a lot of good possession chains that led to a lot of good chances. You know, we get our goal.

And then we don't really put anything else on goal until our centerbacks decide to take over the attacking. So this was this was a game where like everyone's, I feel like everyone's assessment or evaluation kind of suffers because we never get a good chain going. And you don't get that sort of satisfactory build into the box. And so what you can have happen is any one player could actually have like a relatively flawless like evening where every time the ball comes to them, they actually do do the right thing and execute it pretty well. But then because it leads to nothing or there's no extended chain of success,

you just forget about that player. You forget about their sort of success rate. So I really am interested in Lavelle. I'm really interested in like Kruger because I feel like Kruger's kind of fighting on the fringes of the roster. And it really is going to take like a full rewatch to be like, were they really screwing things up or like ineffective? Or were they actually doing normal effective things that just get lost in the constant fizzling out of U.S. possession? Yeah. Well, I guess I'll compare Shaw and Lavelle

Because I didn't think Shaw had a great game either She was very quiet in the first half Like almost didn't see the ball But then early in the second half You know you get that one two with Morgan Which will be on the timeline Where she rips one and it gets just like Somebody gets a toe to it and ricochets out for a corner

And then she had that You know she gets on that That play from Sophia Smith which of course I guess Lavelle wasn't on the field at that point but I mean that's maybe the big thing for me is like would Lavelle look a lot better if Sophia Smith was on the front line and Mallory Swanson was on the other side probably you know probably and that's exactly kind of the phenomenon I'm trying to get at is that without those explosive players in the first half even if the non-explosive players

are doing their things right none of it's going to stick in your mind like it's all just going to be like it all fizzles. The whole thing fizzles. And then if Lavelle's making the same plays, but she's given it to Mow, and Mow blows by somebody and we set up a goal, then it's like, oh yeah. Like Lavelle initiated the sequence that

you know, Mow does this incredible stuff with and we score. And then your rating of Lavell actually changes, but it's just, that's basically just a Mow bump. Yeah. Well, kind of like, well, yeah, I guess we'll see. We'll see what MAA has decides.

Yeah, and if you're on the Discord, you'll see a lot of these, a lot of these breakdowns of each player from this game. Yeah. The first half in particular. Second half will just be, you'll just see, it is just going to be the party. The party continues. Yeah, we haven't got to the party yet. Let's get there a little faster. Long section of the game after that Rose Flick where we're just patiently trying to break Korea down but can't do it.

I mean, tons of passes put together, and we just can't eliminate them. 26 minute done Recycles it from the right corner to Albert And there's a good pass into The amoeba to Haran's feet Haran helps it along Quite elegantly in my opinion To Morgan just inside the box

And Morgan's first touch just fails her It kind of pops off her foot and she loses it But that was You know one of the more piercing things we did In the whole first half No you're right It's Haran the grown-up. And yes, nice little play from Corbyn Albert.

She'll get the treatment too. So we'll see if when she does have the ball, she's doing enough good things. Yeah. There's this messy sequence around the 28-minute mark. Dunn cuts out a pass, but it kind of, it does well have cut out a pass, but it kind of skips up into the air. And nobody can really deal with it. And it ends in a free kick, a handball on Kruger,

right at the edge of the box. A penalty was not given. Perhaps it was a penalty. And then the free kick is decent. It's a good hit. It's a good hit. It requires a diving save from Casey Murphy. Was this all Hollywood or was it a good save? So it's both.

I mean, the save itself is necessary. She had to stretch out that way. I do think a lot of people commented on it. I do think she got a little nervous and crept too far behind the wall, but part of that could just be TV angle from the camera. Like, we didn't have a line between the ball and the edge of the wall. So even though to us, it looks like she's literally standing behind the wall, I got to work out the parallax there to see what her actual positioning was in that sort of configuration.

But once it's hit, she does have to reach out. And then it's a good showcase of how far Casey Murphy can reach. She is a long goalkeeper. And it's comfortable. It's a comfortable good-looking save, which tells you something. If she was cheating way over behind the wall, can still save that back comfortably.

She's got some length. Yeah. That's range. I think Sonnet got rinsed on that sequence that led to that. Did she? Free kick. I think got spun, kind of did the foul,

but didn't fully commit to fouling tactically, to just slow the player down. But even doing that in letting go and not getting called for the foul, she still couldn't actually get to the right side of the player. Emily Sonna, yeah. So South Korea exerts some pressure for the next five minutes, I would say. Nothing too crazy, but we're not in control of the game for this little section of the game. And I think if you chart the emotional ups and downs of the fans' experience of watching this first half,

this maybe was the nadir of it, you know. We just couldn't get our foot on the ball. But we figured it out. We figured it out. 35th minute Kruger gives it away with nobody behind her kind of gets bailed out by the whistle it seemed to me

Yeah you don't want to rely on that whistle too often in a knockout tournament No I don't know that that's going to get called as a foul very often But there was a there was the The Sonnet sort of plays I don't have it in the timeline But it happened somewhere in here

Sonnet plays Corbin into like kind of a messy situation. I mean, the pass was kind of to the wrong foot. And maybe Corbyn was running to the wrong space. I don't know. But Corbyn gives it away and then, you know, fouls the person pretty thoroughly and ends that sequence. Oh, that's a good veteran move from Corbyn then. Yeah, she did the right thing there once that was, that situation was,

once the train was already down the tracks. gorgeous ball off a free kick, sort of a free kick routine in the 40 minute mark, at the 40 minute mark from Horan, find Stobb, Sam Stobb, the centerback, running into the penalty area, looking like Alex Morgan, and she tries to sweep it in with her left foot

and just sends it over, but what a lovely goal that would have been. Just kind of off a set piece. Yeah, a really difficult one for Stobb to take because she, you know, she has to, the ball's coming from like right. Behind her almost. Oh, yeah.

So hard. So hard. And so for a centerback, I mean, I was like, that is gracefully done to just miss. I actually thought it was Alex Morgan. I for sure. Like an hour ago. Yeah. Yeah, it looked exactly like her.

And the set piece was kind of funny because it was like, I think Horan had already seen that she's doing the backing up to the ball that's set on the ground, like surveying things, but kind of, you know, playing it cool. Like, oh, we're going to take our time. And then she was ready to take it. So I wonder if we had somebody in behind South Korea, like they'd fallen asleep and we were going to get in there. And then Nice Wanger, who is also fooled by Heran being super casual,

walks right in front of her. She has to pull out of hitting the early surprise restart. Oh, I didn't notice that. So then she just plays it short to Nice Wonger and then gets her right back and then hits the same pass that she wanted to hit before. Great ball. Another, well, so 41st minute, Peran wins it and taps it to Lavelle.

transition who carries into zone 14 maybe this is Levelle's best moment of the game and fires one with her let with that left foot of hers that looked pretty good to me you know from the angle behind the shot but it met a Korean head just inside the box and it's blocked away but you know you see some you see what Lavel can do there a little bit oh my my so my early thought is Levelle was was solid in this game

I think she's gonna I think she's gonna be vindicated by all involvement Okay. Solid. That's not, that's outlandish talk. No, she's probably solid. I don't know. 42nd minute, I am curious if she actually is vindicated in that way. 42nd minute, a very good right-footed ball from Nicewanger, looked similar to the Horan one a couple minutes earlier. Sonnet, it finds Sonnet's head and she sort of tries to flick it on to the far post and sends it just wide.

Great ball. nice attempt from Sonnet you know intriguing to see Nice Wenger hit a ball like that with her weak foot Yeah and these are We're kind of back to the home run balls of your And again These are these are the shots we've generated

Like this is since the goal It's the Stob chance and the Sonnet chance And that's not ideal right That's not like the sign of a good Well-oiled machine running through the first half No What do you make of the question quietness of Shaw in the first half.

She did look a little better in the second half, even before the subs came on. But what was, what, what do you think was going on? I don't really have a good look because we don't have a good camera angle of it, because she's off screen. So I think we can safely say, South Korea is on her pretty tight. So you can't just hit her feet in the pocket. And so then it just becomes like, could we have found her more often to the channel? Or, I mean, it looked to me like she tended to be creeping back, like wanting to get the ball.

deeper than Lavelle was, for the most part, there are some exceptions there too. But there are definitely some moments that, like, you can freeze frame it, and Shaw has brought that defender up, and there is this now massive space in that channel that I would love for us to play into more, where Morgan could move into it,

and we could try to hit Morgan into that channel and let Morgan just go control the ball comfortably. And we don't do that. I still don't think we did it enough to either side, but we didn't try to the left side, hardly at all. It was almost always going to the right side. And then if you're able to do that a few times, it makes it makes them, makes them more honest, you know, and then you can, then you can maybe find feet in the

pockets more often. But yeah, that's kind of what I thought is we, we, it absolutely would. I mean, and you also have the chance of actually getting your chances there. We did almost instantly after we made the subs. But I'm not sure why we, why we weren't trying to play Shaw into those sort of go retreat. it spaces. We rectified it early in the first half. I mean, earlier in the second half. I think we made a point to get her the ball in the pocket.

Okay, the half arrives. A couple programming notes and an exhortation. So Woso Wednesday, we're still figuring this out, but it might be a little bit more sporadic over the next few weeks as we lock in on Copa America and try to do justice to that tournament. We do need to get Vincent Terra together to follow up on this game, though. I mean, there's so much, so much that

They need to weigh in on. All of us were together last night for the call-in show. Patrons get access to that. It's on the patron feed already. And can also call in and make their voice heard. Which brings me to my exhortation, which is join us on Patreon. You get the Monday reviews every week, emergency pods, call-in shows. When we take questions or when we organize a trip or when we do a call-in show, patrons get first dibs.

So consider subscribing the links in the show notes. Greg, you love when I do those promos, don't you? From what I understand, they're an important part of hosting a podcast. 50th minute. Shaw has come to life a little bit, starting to get on the ball more, as we discussed. Nice combo with Morgan. So she gets it in the pocket. She plays Morgan's feet in Zone 14, and then makes a run right past her.

Morgan's soul rolls it to her. What is the right word for that? It's not a back heel exactly. So we would still call that a back heel. Like when we were coaching, we'd be like, because we want the runner to call for a back heel because you obviously can't,

Morgan can't turn her body 360 and play it. That's inefficient. So it's a heel, but we would teach the players, like don't actually use your heel because it's really hard to hit a backheeled pass with the right weight. You always end up kind of punching it too far.

So you're supposed to drag it with the sole of your foot, even though the player's calling for the back heel. So I don't know. We're going to need a different ruling on that. Maybe we need Joe Lowry in here to tell us where the back heel is. So then Shaw just rips one. Again, I thought it looked good off the foot. And a Korean foot gets to it just barely.

And it ricochets out for a corner. I think on the ensuing corner, we had a pretty good flick from Horan, too. And it just missed Shaw arriving right at the edge of the six. So I just clocked that because it seems like our, it does seem like our set pieces are a little better. It feels like it. And it could just be,

because we scored a couple and then now they all look good by us. But I do, no, I think there is something to that. I just want to note on that combo with Morgan. It was also Shaw that started the, like Shaw hits the ball into Morgan. And again,

just burst past defender who was closer to her, to the inside, which is just a movement I love there from her. So good recognition from good execution. from her, good execution from Morgan. That's a decent look right there. Probably Morgan's best moment. Yeah.

And man, Shaw can just hit the cover off the ball. Like when she, when she, I mean, she doesn't even need to wind up. She just smashes it. 60 first minute, a couple of notes from here. Horan finds Shaw in the pocket again. Shaw turns and finds Lavelle's feet. And she tries to first time spray it to Morgan in behind and it gets cut out. But again, like some nice stuff.

stuff here. Thoughts are, can I keep moving? Keep it moving. Okay. Sonnet has to call Casey Murphy out to deal with a ball that is skidding away from her in the 61st minute as she loses a foot race. Murphy seems a little slow to come out and deal with it. It's kind of nerve-wracking. I don't know, what's your ruling on goalkeeping alertness here? I don't, because, again, because you can't see where Murphy's starting from, it's impossible to know whether she came out late or whether she came and bailed Sonnet out. My initial read as it was happening was that Sonnet thought she was going to come because she slows down, right? That ball gets headed past her.

Sonnet actually slows her gate and checks over her shoulder because she's going to intercept the Korean attacker and like, you know, obstruct her, basically. And then she's waving for her to come out. And then I feel like once she realized she doesn't, I thought she changed and was like telling her to stay. and now Sonnet breaks hard and is like, now I have to go get this ball because it's too risky now for Murphy to come out. And then you see Murphy kind of rushed out if she deals with it super comfortably in the end.

Yeah, it was. It turned out to be comfortable. Okay, let's get to the fun stuff. 63rd minute, Smith, Sophia Smith comes on for Morgan, Rodman comes on for Lavelle, Swanson comes on for Nye Swanger, which moves done back to left back.

And Shaw moves from the left half-space to the right one. And then, of course, coffee comes on for Haran. So it's only one zero, but big changes across the front line, and we get coffee on for Iran. Riding out wide right like she has been. And it's immediate improvement. That balling behind that you were talking about

where a forward runs onto it in the corner and kind of faces up the centerback and you can kind of join them and get some chances from it. We do that immediately. Dunn hits Smith. making that run down the left side. Smith does well to stay on side, I thought, and then picks up the ball, drives at the goal,

and then just casually flicks it back to the top of the box for Shaw. It kind of leaves it for, Shaw hits it first time with her left foot, and it is just wide of the far post. It's a really nice chance. Yeah, lightning quick attack that starts with, it's keyed by a Sam coffee pass out to Crystal Dunn. And again, this is what we'd been missing the whole first half,

was coffee dropping outside of South Korea's amoe to get the ball from the centerbacks and then just spraying it wide. And this was the third or fourth time she had done it since she came in at the 62 minute mark. So it's, I mean, that's a, that's an obvious difference in either instruction or just tendency from the player compared to what Corbyn was doing. And I said this on the call-in show. I don't even blame Corbyn for having this. This is, to date again, at least, is it obviously not a part of Corbyn-Albert's game. Lindsay Horan can do it. And so in the first half, when we just can't get anything going,

I really think it's got to be on Lindsay Horan to be that grown up that we know she is to come back and do it for, even though she'd rather be one level up and let the other center mid do the first part so she can do the harder second part. I thought Horan needed to do it just a little bit more and pick up some of that slack. Such a wonderful fluid game, Sakura is, isn't it? Yeah.

Just beautiful complexity to it. But yeah, this is really nice. from done. And again, this had been on a few times from Morgan in the first half and we didn't find it. But South Korea's backline was exposed this way because they were so concentrated on our players

in the pockets that you could put their centerbacks in tough spots if you were willing to do it. Well, and then we get our goal, the first one of the second half. It's not really, it doesn't have anything to do with hitting people in the pockets or the amoeba. It's just

Shaw and Rodman win it in the press. Shaw applies some pressure. Rodman steps in front of the receiver of the pass and then she's off to the races. She plays Swanson into the penalty area. Swanson kind of has her back to goal at the penalty spot and leaves it for Smith. Kind of helps it along, kind of leaves it. The pass is a little short so it doesn't come off exactly right. But Smith wins a cage match with the sliding defender and kind of like kind of carry it over to the sideline and then great body control, great precision, just slots it in from a

very difficult angle after rounding the keeper, I guess. Yeah, and this play from Sophia is like a recognized skill that she has. I think you guys have, I think Wauki has called it the struggle drill, but it's a real thing. Like when two people meet and it should just be a pinball situation, it's not. Sophia Smith has an edge. She's the house in this situation and she's over her, over the long run, she's going to win a lot more of those than the opponent does, even though it seems like it should not only just be a random thing.

She just does. And she wins it in a way that it actually somehow stays close to her feet and she can make another soccer action. And in this case, it was to sneak it in at the far post. I thought at first that Shaw left it in as like a courtesy, like just to be in a real good team player there. But I don't think she actually could have gotten to it. I don't think she could have touched it before across the line.

Oh, yeah. I had that question, too. I was like, she might have thought about, you know, sticking her toe out, but you're thinking she couldn't have even if she wanted to. Yeah, from what I mean, maybe she should have just slid just to make sure that if it was going to sneak by, it would hit her body and go in. But I don't, from the replay, I don't think she could, I don't think she could have actually toe poked it in. Okay. I can be wrong. She's, maybe I should just give her more credit for being able to close that distance very quickly.

Well, it is wonderful to see the smile on Sophia Smith's face when she scores a goal. It's a life-giving thing for her, it seems. She's really happy. And it's 2-0. And let's see, 71st minute, again in transition. We're getting after it. Smith on the run, out to Rodman. Swanson's attacking the goal.

Corbin's the second runner. Robbins ball across for Swanson right in front of goal. just a little bit hot and Swanson can't quite get to it. It's bad from Trinity. Like, this is just a bad one because she didn't have to, this is the one I kind of got mixed up in the call-in show. But I definitely stand by my take on her, on the actual past. She didn't have to curl this around anybody.

It is just Trinity and Mal. Yeah. Like, Mal is doing well to stay level with the ball, because there's no defenders anywhere near either of them. So it's just like just put this ball towards Mal Swanson and we score anywhere where she can reach it and we just miss her. Yeah, too bad. But the party, it still counts, again, as we all know, for me, the opening is important. So we're getting the openings.

Yep. And then Lily Johannes comes on for Corbyn. And Emily Fox came out for Kruger. And Lily, I know you're going to throw cold water on it. I know you by now. But she was outstanding. I mean, she was, she didn't put a foot wrong. Well, she did put a foot wrong a couple times, I guess.

But like 95% of what she did out there was flawless. And, I mean, there's the ball she plays in behind for Rodman, which is like maybe the highlight of the match. Just a gorgeous, you know, sithing ball down the half space and it dies, you know, when it hits the ground. And, I mean, Robin's fast too, so that helps. But it's a ball that Robin can get to. And, you know, she just kind of casually does that off the bench as a 16-year-old in her first national team cap.

What the... Yeah. So, okay, so the cold water is going to be that... Not that she had a bunch of mishaps that, you know, just don't remember. I don't think that's the case. I think Lily will definitely hold up on the all touches comp. No, the cold water is just going to be

the game state and the window state. You know, it's the second game against South Korea. We're in the last 20 minutes. Whatever kind of concentration and will they had is probably dipping at this point against the ringers that the U.S. just threw at them.

Yeah. I mean, again, just to hit again on the ringers, this group is so explosive that I was like furious right when they went in on a defensive corner that we had where we won it and we had the ball just outside of our own box and the referee brought it back for a foul in the box and I was like you got to play the advantage advantage I mean it's real right like that is uh that's uh that's a that's a meat and potatoes situation for for that group so so again that's that's the the wetest of the like it's it's a just barely a wet blanket like it's like a warm it's

at least like a warm wet blanket. Like this is you're not you're not uncomforte even that uncut. So she did really well, uh, in that pass in particular, even with the caveats, that's still an outrageously difficult pass. Like it wasn't a huge window that South Korea was affording us. Like it was a tiny spot to hit it through the window and a tiny patch of grass that it had to stop on for, for us to be able to get to that ball and extend an attack. So, um, there's no wet blanketing that, that pass whatsoever. Well, there was other stuff too. So, like, Her first touch when she comes on is like a kind of a scramble ball pops up towards her. And then she just, she kind of helps it along, knocks it along for Rodman.

And, you know, that's, for me, that's like a, that's a legitimate plus moment from a player. When you can like sort of bring a little bit of order to chaos and not just order, but order that is sending Rodman running forward at full speed. Now, Rodman takes a little bit of a heavy touch and she gets blown up right away. But that's not going to happen every time. And then what else happened? She did the, well, all of her, like all of her receiving the ball and passing it was just so clean and smooth. Like the way she receives the ball and turns, I know people are tired of me talking about this, on the half turn. It's like the ball is stuck to her foot, you know?

And then she just, and then she plays a little simple side-footed pass, and it happens to go like just perfectly in rhythm for the player that she. she's passing it to. So, like, she plays it sideways to a centerback. The centerback is moving forward with the pass. And, yeah, there was a bunch of that. Well, then she bodied number 11. And I guess I looked it up. She plays for Birmingham City in the championship.

But she bodies her, plays Trinity out wide, right? Trinity cuts in on her left and just smokes it off the crossbar. This is a really good save from the keeper, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was, again, another part of the party. Again, I'm letting you have this because I don't disagree. Like, she was, uh, Lily was maximally efficient and, uh, and routinely took the first touch for her teammate as Dennis Burkamp, her, uh, Dutch colleague would love, would frame it as.

But I mean, there probably is like a cultural element of that, right? Like, it's not enough that you get the pass to the player. Like, you get the pass to the player to your teammate in the way that gives them the easiest next step. Yeah, I mean, maybe there's a cultural element, but that's just soccer. Yeah, of course. What else did she do well? I mean, a couple, you know, she sprayed it out wide a couple times nicely.

She won a header, and when she won the header, this was off a Korean goal kick, it played, you know, Smith down the sideline in a way that Smith could get to it and then face up the defender. So, oh, yeah, she also scored a goal. there's that too. Right. Yeah. So she can also show up in scramble ball moments and scramble a ball home. Pretty tightly. I think it's a little, well, go ahead.

Go ahead. No, I mean, we should spend more time on the goal. I don't want to cut her goal. I mean, it's her debut. She's 16 and she scored a goal. We should linger on this. I can't remember if it was after a set piece or what. Yeah, it's a corner kick.

Okay. So it gets back out to Rodman. She roast somebody and then just sort, side foots a ball right through the penalty area. Now Lily is kind of wrapped up by her marker and runs towards the back post. But I think her height has something to do with this. She can just kind of like peer over the whole crowd

and see what's happening. So she sees that ball coming to where it's going I think definitely before her marker does and pops back out to meet it. And, you know, just side-foots it through the crowd. It's a efficient finish. And man, what a moment for her. She said after the game she'd played that scenario out in her head many times.

Yeah, and it's a beautiful thing, a 16-year-old on her debut for the national team scores a goal. And I was selling it short too just how fun the goal was because the camera's locked onto her for the whole buildup. So you're actually seeing her jockeying with a player who's very clearly intent. on like staying touch tight to her and for almost the entire sequence and Lily is pushing into her, pushing off, and then like catches her like just dozing for a second and breaks into a open space

that if the ball comes to me, I'll score and the ball comes to her and she scores. So it's a great, it's a great like capture. The cinematics here are also perfect for a goal like this. Yeah, because actually on the telecast is even more perfect than that because they just showed the very wide angle replay of that ball she played to Rodman. And then, you know, in the stoppage while they're setting up for the corner kick.

And they're talking about her the whole time. The camera is on her, like you said, as she's jockeying with this defender, and then she scores a goal. So it's like, I mean, basically from the time she comes on, you know, Julie Fowdy and the what's his name are talking about her the whole time. You know, they never stopped talking about her. So you got, you got shades of the Horan header against the Netherlands in the World Cup where everything's focused on her, with her little battle, her little tiff with Vanadonk, and then she scores that header. So yeah, so everything about this, perfect moment for Lily in the team.

The celebration is fantastic. So yeah, so we definitely, I'm glad we spent the time we did on it. It's just, again, it's just going to come down to like, that is totally, she checked the boxes in the best possible way you could check the boxes. Like if this is a standardized test, she filled in that circle completely with a number two pencil. And you do not have to worry about this being read the wrong way. It's just going to be, we just need to see how she answers like the next 10 questions against Mexico. If she's on that roster, but she's got to be. The way I see this, I think Emma made comments about the alternates to the Olympics,

having part of that experience being for like building plays. players up, which leads me to believe, like, Lynn Williams is not going to be an alternate to the Olympics. Even, you know, even if she's maybe like one of the next best attackers to be left off, it's going to be somebody younger. So in my mind, like, Lily's going to be in the camps leading up to the Olympics. It's just going to be whether she's an alternate or in the 18. Okay. That's, I'm like, I'm so excited. I'd wager nearly everything on Lily being in the Paris travel group. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, man, the class that she brought, I felt, was, I mean, and yes, she had a lot of time on the ball, right?

But so did Corbin Albert, you know, Corbin Albert had a lot of time on the ball, a lot of the time as well. And just the things that Lily can do with the ball, I think she's a true, she's a true baller. We'll see how she shapes up as a defensive midfielder over the years. but even if she doesn't play at the Olympics, this is still really exciting. Super exciting. And again, it's nice that from what the team looks like now, a player like Lil Johannes,

players like Croix Bethune, who are absolutely on fire playing at a high level, it doesn't feel like we need to have them because the players that Croy Bethune is competing with, you know, are Kat Macario and Jaden Shaw. Yeah. And a Rose Lavelle who might be bouncing back into 2019 form, fingers crossed.

So the other thing Lily has going for is that she is competing for a roster spot that is basically vacant right now. I mean, we're talking about it could be Corbyn Albert, it could be Emily Sondit, or it literally could be that we don't have a Lindsay Horan backup, and that's what Willie could be. Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like that 6-8 player pool, other people have said this. Vince has said it, I think, is really weak outside of coffee in Iran. Eventually we're going to be talking, we would be talking about Andy Sullivan, you know. Ashley Sanchez, Savannah D. Mello, D. Bernardo.

And none of those players, I think, are realistic because none of them have played a minute for the Emma Hayes, Twyla Kilgore era. And so it really is just like, what's stopping Lily for? from being in the 18. And for Lily, it's,

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it could get her in with both of them. And it'd be like,

only if Corbyn and Sonnet are in the roster, does it be like, well, then it's tough to get Lily in too. Well, if it comes down to Corbyn versus Lily, I'm gonna,

I mean, it's a pretty clear choice on my, from my point of view. But, because you can always bring in Sonnet as the, you know, sort of the different.

defensive cover midfielder. She's probably not quite as, he's not, she's not as mobile and fierce as Albert is, but she can do the job, right? I mean, yeah, I've been kind of defending Sonnet's ability to make the roster on those grounds the whole time. She's, she is an organizer. Like if she, if we're going to spend some time building up and just need a coffee stand-in, uh, that will help organize and circulate the ball around worse than coffee does.

Sonnet, I think is, I'm comfortable with her in that, in that. that position. She did it against Sweden in a knockout game in the World Cup. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I mean, you don't want her to be your match winner, but she's not. You know, at this point, we've got some match winners on the field in a way that are operating in a way that looks like they'll win matches. Yeah. Okay. I think that's, I think that's what we got. Anything, any other thoughts, Greg, before we get out of here? Now, we'll come back, I think, before the, before the rosters announced and talk about who

the locks are. And just as a tease there, I think I've got nine outfield locks out of 16 and it's low because I haven't put a single fullback in the lock category yet. Which is, that's the big T's, that's the big hot take. Okay. I can't wait to see your

spreadsheet screenshots. Hey, hey, thanks Greg. Thanks, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see ya.