Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #500: USMNT v Colombia recap

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Greg and Belz work through the shellacking in Landover. Full timeline and analysis of a fairly normal performance for 60 minutes that turned into complete slapstick for the final 30 minutes.———Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon! Patrons get the Monday Review every week with Watke and Vince, emergency pods, call-in shows, and access to our Discord server where they can participate in live call-in shows: 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. Columbia 5, USA1, the worst defeat in the D.C. metro area since the first Battle of Bull Run. What happened? Why did it happen? Greg, help. Yeah, exactly. 100 years to the day, the first battle of Bull Run, which is actually pretty amazing. It was weird that that happened in 1924. It was, I mean, it was just, so I was, you know, as I've kind of made clear, I can't almost never watch these in real time, certainly not at 4 o'clock on a Saturday. So I'm watching it, you know, after the fact, so I kind of know what happened. And I follow the reactions.

And I'm watching, you know, the first half. And I'm like, all right, that wasn't great. But there were some weird things that happened and, you know, we're down to zero. And then I see a score of goal. And we'd been kind of knocking on the door a little bit leading up to the goal. And I'm like, this is, this is fantastic. I'm sure if we just maintain this level for the next 35 minutes, no one will have a single problem with this.

I already knew what the final was. But then, yeah, I finally got the last 30 minutes, which was just slapstick, just like pure comedy. You know, we've had bad performances in a lot of different ways, going back to when we've begun this whole endeavor. and this was like a unique bad performance. The one silver lining being, Joe Scali is no longer anywhere near the most important question

that we need to answer going into Copa America. Yeah, I guess that's a silver line. Joe was okay. Joe was mostly fine. Totally fine. He's good at times. So we get to finally, because no disrespect to Joe Scali, it gets boring talking about Joe Scali.

He's like built to be the most boring soccer. player on the planet. Effective at times, but still just utterly boring. And so now, now he gets to talk about fun stuff. I guess, yeah. And by the way, this is episode 500 in this endeavor. It's not, you know, I guess it's sort of a scuffed episode 500, you know. Then this is perfect.

I feel like this is perfect, given that we started because of the catastrophic failure of the U.S. men's national team. And we've come full circle. The World Cup. Now here we are after just a thorough, eventually thorough dismantling. It wasn't thorough for the full 90 minutes, which, again, we've seen some of those performances. Well, and it is a friendly, you know, it's, I mean, how do you sort of weigh that, you know, some people will say, well, it's a friendly, we shouldn't get so worked up about it. I don't think a lot of, actually, I don't think a lot of people are saying that right now.

People are worked up. Yeah. But it is a, it is a factor. that people bring up. Well, how do you think about that? It should be. This is still not the test, right? This is a pre-test, and we don't get a lot of them because of the region we play in

and because of the way that the international calendar has sort of begun taking shape over the last four years with everybody just doing their own regional nations league. We can't get these games very often. It's incredibly valuable when we can, which is why it was also so, so disappointing that we appeared at times to be sort of sleepwalking through it because, you know, some of us know people who maybe showed up to like an SAT hungover and then take the test hungover

and then invariably do really poorly on that test. The results come back terribly. You say, oh, but that wasn't a true indication of what I'm capable of because I was so hungover is what that person would say. Yeah. And then the problem with that is like, yeah, but if you showed up to the test hungover, that might say something about you. Like that might be part of the problem. So us showing up to this test and kind of like at times, a lot of the times, kind of like either half-assing it or just doing some inexplicable stuff, that's a problem too.

I can't wait to get into that, what you thought was the half-assing and the inexplicable. Um, because it, like you said, we were, we scored that goal in the second half. And it looked like, it felt like, hey, we'll get another one. And we were doing fine. We were doing fine. Then we immediately did some inexplicable stuff. But, uh, and then when the subs came in, then it went full out, again, full out Buster Keaton.

Yeah, it got silly. All right. Let's do the lineups. And, and we will talk about, you know, Burrhalter. We'll get to it. Oh, sure. Turner. In goal, of course.

Joe Scally, Chris Richards, Tim Reem, and Anthony Robinson across the back line. The midfield was Johnny Cardoso, Gio Raina, and Westa McKinney. I don't know if it was, like, officially a Cardoso, Gio double pivot, but it kind of worked out like that a lot of the time. I thought it was more single pivot in buildup even. I thought Johnny was deeper and Gio and West were like on the same line, but then they would actually kind of seesaw around Johnny. So I did think Johnny was sort of the single fulcrum.

And I thought Gio would drop back plenty of times to get it. Wes would flare out wide. I think Gio got the ball more often than West did, which makes sense. We should try to get Gio the ball more often. Yeah. Okay. All right. And then Tim Wea, wide right, Fuller and Balligan at Stryker and Christian Pulisic at left wing.

Columbia was, and I'm going to read the clubs they play for, just because I think I was curious and I think it's interesting. So their goalie was Camilo Vargas from Atlas in League of Emekis. And then the back line was Daniel Munoz, Davidson Sanchez, Jean Lucumi, and Johann Mojica. And those clubs are from right to left, Crystal Palace, Galatasarie, Bologna, and Osasuna and Lukumi was

McKenzie's buddy over at Gank Yeah Was he? Was he at Gank? Oh yeah Oh yeah Because there are other guys Questa who is still at Gink

Yeah yeah Yeah there were That was part of the McKenzie Playing Time watch Even back in 2021 Was because these two guys Would both be playing for Columbia For international duty

And then they'd always come back And be like Oh McKenzie's going to get some games because these guys are just getting back from Colombia. I see. Okay. Well, Lakumi, you know, 25 years old, and Bologna finished three points behind Yuvay, so he had a very good season, I gather.

The midfield was Mateus Uribe, who plays in Qatar, and then Jefferson Larma, who plays at Palace as well, buddies with Chris Richards, I think. And then John Arias at right-wing, from Fluminense. Hamas Rodriguez at the 10 and Luis Diaz at left wing. Hamas plays in Brazil now too, and Diaz, of course, plays at Liverpool.

And then the striker was Rafael Bore, who plays in Brazil at Internacional. So that's the Colombian lineup. They were pretty good. I mean, they weren't, like, terrifying or anything, at least for the first hour. But... No.

They came to play for sure. They did. And what I would say is even for the full match, it was never the case where they just, like, toyed with us and carved us up. We didn't make them do that because, again, we just handed them goals. We carved ourselves. Yeah, there was so much self-carving. That doesn't mean they couldn't do it. That's kind of the rub here.

When teams do score on their first chance on goal that you've handed them on a platter, you don't get, again, that test becomes like the, the, results become invalid in a sense like we don't know what they would have done had they had the game state stayed zero zero for longer and they might have been more motivated to do some car right right we just don't get to you can't run that hypothetical back so um that's another sort of frustrating bit about it uh but but yes columbia this is obviously a very good team uh they're 22 unbeaten now i think 22 unbeaten which comes with the very minor but pretty important this caveat i think that They didn't have a World Cup to play through. So the unbeaten street goes beyond the 2022 World Cup. Oh, does it? Okay. Whenever I see that stat cited, I always assumed it started after the World Cup. Yeah, started after they got eliminated from the World Cup.

But it does, I mean, that doesn't really take too much away. They beat Brazil and World Cup qualifying. Yeah, I mean, they're winning these games in Como Bowl qualifying. They're a legitimately very good performing team. Doesn't excuse the performance from the U.S., we've got to be clear. No, absolutely not. Okay, let's go to the timeline. So I thought when I watched initially, and even on rewatch,

that we looked, I thought we looked a little bit sharp right off the bat. So right in the first minute, you know, we went to throw in, just kicking it long, and then Wea plays it to Scali, who plays it to Raina, rena over to Pulisick at the top of the box. He plays it into Baligan in the box. Balagan turns, kind of swiveles and shoots with his left foot, goes over the goal. A little bit speculative, but it's a respectable, you know, attempt, I think. It's respectful, and again, technically, it's very impressive.

This is, this continues to be a thing that I am always impressed with with Baligan, is that he creates shots where other players probably don't even get a shot off. Right, right. And maybe he should have played it out wide to Jedi. I don't know. I mean, you know, I take that back. He shouldn't have played it out wide to Jedi. He should shoot it.

The next three minutes or so, we're settling into our defensive shape, defending pretty resolutely as Columbia prods and probes. So let's just talk about that real quick, just because it's kind of fun. There was just a little wrinkle with a defensive shape. And I think, I don't know if Wachie broke this, but Wachie definitely shared with us that there was, in fact, a mid-block wrinkle that they've been working on in camp. And I don't think we've seen this one before.

It was almost like setting up a 4-5-1 is how I saw it. Lieutenant Morocco clarified that this is what you call 4-1-4-1. But, you know, when I'm watching a 45-1, no, that looks like a 45-1. And then, you know, with Balgan High, when Columbia would work it around their back line, what we're used to seeing is our wingers, which would be pool of second way in this game as well, like they would advance up high to, you know, make a little bit of a line of confrontation and forth to Columbia to swing it and then drop back. This was different.

It was Gio and McKinney stepping up from the midfield three. So when the bald go right or left, Balgone just sort of sit in his tight little space, like there's a spotlight on him and he just stays there. And Gio would step up on the left side and McKinney would step up on the right side just to force Columbia to make the next simple pass to circulate and then they would drop back into the line.

And I don't, we haven't tried it before. I'm all for trying new things in a kind of friendly. I have no idea what Burrhalter's take on is going to be. I don't think it was necessarily like anything that Columbia exploited to devastating effect. I think there were some knock on effects of it though and some confusions that were caused that we'll get into through the timeline. Okay. Interesting. And you know, Brazil just studying the tape. Do they even have to? I was just that was what I'm joking about. Yeah. They're like, oh, they're switching. into a 4141 with the midfielders stepping forward.

What are we going to do? So that is kind of like one of those cultural things. Do we just kind of assume that Brazil can just start playing the game and no matter what we do, they're like, oh, this is what they're doing and they just see it without even maybe consciously thinking about it and just be like, here's how we move to defeat it? I assume that, but I maybe err too much on the side of mythologizing

the big soccer nations. So I don't know. So four minute mark, played sharply up the right side again. It goes around the back and then Richards plays it to Scali. Nice little pass from Scali to Wes, who's making a little in-out run to the sideline.

West plays it to Wea, and then Wea whips it across. And Ballos sort of tries to help it along. Maybe he thought about going for the Scorpion there, and it pops up and it's headed away by Munoz. But it's just a little clean exchange from us and you're thinking, all right, we're knocking the wall or not. We belong on this field.

Right. So those are the two data points I have and thinking we look sharp off the, from kickoff. But then, of course, Columbia scores. And so they're just kind of playing it around the top of our box. Notts doesn't look super threatening. Hamez gets it above the box. And he's shepherded rightly, I think, to his right by Johnny,

but not really closed down. and he tries to force a through ball in for Munoz, who is just not making the run to the end line. It's not even there. Jedi doesn't really know this. He slides to intervene, and unfortunately puts it right into the path of Joan Arias. Gio's in the vicinity.

I think he probably could have got there to collect it. Maybe not. I don't know. It's close. But he doesn't sense the danger and doesn't try. I think he's expecting someone behind. him to deal with it. Arias flies in, takes a touch with Ream on his left shoulder, and then just rips it up over Turner's shoulder at the near post. Bang, bang, one, zero. I am curious

what you think, but I guess I'm putting the largest share of blame on Ream for just not having the fast twitch muscles to react. Yeah, it's, it's, I don't. I put most of the Ream on, or most of the blame, I'm sorry, on Jedi, uh, just because of the total unnecessary. touch that he has to extend the play, like in a way that it's like, this is what you would want an attacker to do if all they could do is desperately slide to keep a ball from running past them,

even if they don't know where it's going, just leave it in a dangerous area. And that's essentially what Jedi does. So, should he know, you're saying he should know that Munoz is not making the run, basically?

That's a thing. It's just a difficult one, and it ends up just being a bit unlucky. And it's unlucky because of the most dangerous area that Jedi leaves the ball in is between two of our not very bursty players in Tim Raymond Gio Raina.

And that's where you can get into like, all right, should Gio Rana be the guy who's counted on to be defending in that space? Which is always going to be the rub with Gio Rana in a midfield three, which is what we all want to see. He's got to do some level of defending. I think he did in this game. Maybe not the right kind, but...

It was unlucky for sure. So it's just, it's a perfect little storm. Yeah, it's a bit fluky. Jedi kind of creates this issue to begin with because in the buildup, like they just, before all the even working around the top of the box, they just hit a ball in behind him. And in the Copa, this all might have come back for the guy being offside running behind Jedi. But Jedi actually, even though the guy is probably offside by a half a step, Jedi actually beats him to the ball. and then just has it with clear possession

and tries to like launch it up the field and just has it like stolen off of his foot. The guy just nicks it off of his foot as he's taking a full windup. And that's how they kind of keep it. And that's part of, I'm kind of mentioning it because Jedi clearly overall did not have the best game.

And this was just another thing that kind of contributed to this whole fiasco right here in the fifth minute. I agree he had a bad game. I just, I'm a little reluctant to come down too, hard on him for this one, but, but he definitely, definitely had a bad game. Anyway, it's one zero.

What about Turner? There we go. So on the shot itself, the window here is tiny. I've got the still frame here on the notes and Reams' foot is like directly in front of the shot. So the guy hits the ball over Ream's toe, which is also the best place to hit a shot here. Like near post, he hits it with a pretty good pace over turn. shoulder, and that's super hard to get to.

So if you're seeing people saying you never get beaten your post, like that's just not the case. Goalkeepers do get beat near post here, especially over their top shoulder. If it beat them low to the near post, that'd be a different story. You don't want to give that up here. But when it goes over your shoulder to the near post here, it happens. Okay. Because I guess if you're Turner, you know, you are still a little worried about what if he

hits it through Reams' legs to the far post or I don't know. I mean, it all happened so fast. I can't imagine that there's any thinking going on, really. A little. It's more just you're in your stance and that ball over your shoulder is the hard one to get to because you're in your coiled crouch. Could he maybe have been a little higher in a crouch, I guess, but that's, I mean, again, it's this, this isn't something where outside of the Turner is, you know, falling off a cliff narrative. This, I don't, I wouldn't see this as like a, um, too much, I wouldn't put too much thought into this actual goal getting past him. It's a pretty sweet finish, too, I got to say.

Okay, eighth minute, Diaz cuts in and has one from 22 yards, goes over the bar. So, you know, starting to get it feel a little not great. Maybe McKinney being a little silly in the way he defends here. He's kind of, I don't know, he's like backtrack. He's like backpedaling, but sort of like, what's that drill you do where you cross your legs over each other as you run sideways? The grapevine. He's doing a little bit of a great bind there in the box And I don't know

I mean, I thought McKinney was playing a little bit of like With a friendly energy I don't think he had any Huge miscues Like he did You know the game that a lot of people and myself included Kind of go back to is the Japan friendly For the World Cup

Where we were not very good in that game either And McKinney in particular was not very good in that game Kind of went into it with a this is a friendly I can kind of take it easy, save myself for the next one. There was an element of that in this sequence and an element of that in several sequences throughout the game, I thought, where he's just not as active, not as committed as he could be. And again, going back to the Gio and midfield discussion, it will be a problem for us if Weston McKinney is less committed to being in the right defensive position than Gio Raina is. you know, that's been the thing since the World Cup is, you know, if MMA sets the floor,

Gio Raina could make things better, but that comes with some kind of a defensive tradeoff and that slack has to be made up by the players around him somewhere. And McKenny was not making up that slack in this particular game. That he was not, as far as I can remember, not directly culpable for any of the goals, right? But just it just was a sort of a constant. thing because he was he was I noticed at least one other occasion where he was really really slack really lax okay uh Columbia's shape seemed to me they were in a pretty standard four three three defensively just trying to clog the middle and sort of giving us the wings is that what you saw yeah I saw that and I saw us uh again my read on it it's impossible to know this but my read on it was that we were still we were emphasizing playing through that middle, even though it was clogged.

Because there were tons of times where Tim Riem, who was a good distributing centerback, at least usually for us, you know, he hasn't been playing a lot of club minutes, has the ball with like a very easy and available pass to Jedi up the flank, like upfield, like gain some territory passes to Jedi, wide open window to hit it over to him. And he would just sort of look it off and stare down like Gio Raina. And it wasn't necessarily on unless Gio came all the way back. it wasn't on to the point that Ream would stand on it until he got pressured and get in trouble.

So it seemed to me like that might have been a point of emphasis for this match was to try to play through, geo, play through the middle. And we weren't, again, we just didn't have a lot of, it looked like we didn't have a lot of desire from those players to make the little bursty runs, the tiny little three-step, you know,

explosive movement to become available. Yeah. We did, it did seem to me we started to, take that wing option. We were doing a lot of switches over to Pulisic and Jedi as the game went on. I guess we'll get into that. So right at the nine minute mark, we get a pretty decent chance. Richards plays it to Jedi.

So from the right center back to the left back. Really nice ball from Richards. Yeah, it's a really good pass. And then Jedi just clips it over the back line for Ballo. This is uncharacteristically very nice pass from Jedi. too, I think. And Ballo is able to corral it behind the back line, running in on goal. He sort of rounds the keeper, tries to hit it with his left foot into the goal.

And it's cleared off the line by Sanchez, I believe. And honestly, if Sanchez hadn't cleared it, Lukumi probably would have as well. So it wasn't like that great of a chance. Maybe the only way for him to get like a clear-cut goal-scoring chance, of this is just to take it first time out of the air, which I don't even know how he was going to do that. How do you do that? Like karate kick it. I don't know.

Now, it was a brilliant sequence, though, right? I mean, between the ball the richers, the ball the Jedi, the touch from Balagan, and then to beat the goalkeeper, this was really nice. And again, it kind of evaporates as soon as we don't score it and all the rest of the game happens. But this was quality. This is a nice moment for all involved. Bala was sharp. I thought Bala was sharp for most of the game. Yeah, I liked his performance.

Of course, the assist was very nice too. So 10-minute mark, good tackle and transition from Johnny. I just clocked it because we had to chase down Diaz after Scali gets caught up field behind a way at giveaway. I mean, Waya was trying to play it inside to Scali and the pass was just way behind him. And they were off to the races. But Johnny did a good job of solving it, I thought, with the help of Richards, I believe. And I haven't read ahead.

I haven't been skipping ahead here. But if Wea giveaways don't show up a lot in the timeline, they should because this was a tough night from Tim Wea, apart from the brilliant sequence on the goal. Yeah, I don't, I didn't clock a lot of them, but I agree there were. I mean, I didn't clock a lot of them in the notes, but I agree there were a lot, I'm including the cinematic one where you. Yeah, that one will show up, I'm sure. Yeah. But it was all over the place, and it was like in situations where there just was no need to have a giveaway there, like upfield, you know, clear possession that he's got it. And what we usually talk about, Tim Wea having very good control of these situations.

And he would just show the ball or like heavy touch. And that was it. That was the end. Attacks were just fizzling out at Tim Wea. Now I know So Wea coming for some Coming in for some Criticism

I thought Gio Played pretty well I didn't think so much that when I first watched But And I still would like him to do more To be more of more influential Because from whom much is given Much is expected

Much is given in the way of talent I would say But he did have several nice moments I guess the problem is if the end result is him just like tapping it out wide to Jedi on the left wing, which it seemed like a lot of times it was, and then Jedi just pumping across off of Davenson Sanchez's, you know, in step, then we're not going to score, you know? Yeah, I mean, I'm with you on geo being, I thought he was solid.

I've got him hopefully starting against Brazil if his body's up to it. But yes, I do think. It's the defensive. It's the defensive thing. No, I mean, again, I think Gio is fine for defense. I'm totally fine saying, Gio, if you put in this defensive performance, this level of energy for defense, I'm good with that. Okay. We got to find you a partner, midfield partner, who will do, like, more.

Okay. And I think Weston will. Like, I genuinely think Weston will as soon as the games matter. He probably will on Wednesday night, you know, I mean. I hope. I hope there's an element of like, again, just like pride that kicks in here because that was, I mean, it was a humiliating game, right? This was humiliation by the end of it. And even if you weren't in for the full slapstick, even if you'd already come off the field,

or even if you coming off the field directly led to the slapstick, everyone's wearing the same jersey. You all suffer it. Yeah. I mean, but that's the thing. is these guys we're talking about right now were not. Well, I mean, Waya was on for the slapstick. Waya was a big part of the of the slapstick. But Geo

and Wes really weren't, right? I mean, things started to go crazy after Mousa came on. Yeah, not directly because of him, but yes, it was when the triple, like, all the mass sub happened, that it really went full on. Yeah. Okay, let's try to keep

going here. 18th minute Well 19th minute really The backline problems start to show up a little ream Is this one of those He has it blocked off his foot by Bore Trying to play it over to Jedi Or maybe he wasn't even trying to play to Jedi

I don't know But it's a very quick combination from Uribe and Bore To play Uribe in behind Jedi Rebe hits a ball across Richards intervenes But kind of leaves it bouncing at the penalty marker Where Bore arrives And only has his shot put off

by a last-ditch challenge from Johnny. It's a pretty scary moment. Doesn't result in a goal, but don't worry. It's about to. Yeah, and this was exactly one of those moments where when Ream initially gets the ball, he has Jedi with, again, a ton of ground to gain by just playing it up the field.

I know that's not always the tactical's favorite pass because a lot of times that center back to outside back pass is either like a trap that the other team is setting up, or it just is a never you know it's going to lead to the horseshoe or on the back um but this this wasn't one of those moments like this was like clearly we can get jetti in looking head up he can pick out whatever pass he wants um and we just looked it off and held on to the ball and held on to the ball and didn't have any other options and then i think did try to make that pass out of jettai again later like and and yeah columbia just stepped in front and deflected it yeah well oh and no we can't

that Richard's off the hook here either. That was that was like, that was one of those inexplicable plays. He didn't clear it. He just, he just literally left it at the penalty marker for anyone to run onto. He didn't, he didn't leave it for our player to run on to. And it was a miracle that Johnny, or not a miracle, it was good play from Johnny

to get there, alert defending from him. But it didn't, make any sense. That wasn't the only play Richard's had. Like, Richards could have just skied the ball back where it came from. And it, that decision to just like try to control it to somebody else made no sense whatsoever.

Yeah. Well, ensuing corner, 19th minute, they do a short one. Adias lifts it across. Reem heads it up in the air and a challenge with Uribe, but he doesn't really deal with it. He just kind of heads it up in the air back towards a little bit away from the goal. And then Jefferson Lerma gets to it ahead of Scali and Johnny. He heads it over to Borre.

Yeah, he's all alone and just. bikes it at Turner's feet. Turner can't get down fast enough to stop it, bounces off the turf. I think off his hands and into the goal, 2-0, Colombia. Yeah, it's, so, I mean, at this point, on this goal, it just comes down to, like, could Turner have saved it, right? You could maybe quibble with our two guys challenging for the header and not getting there. Right. But, I mean, I don't know, it's a scramble. It's a scramble ball.

A lot of narrative on Turner. He has been struggling. this is a saveable shot. It's also a bicycle kick with hit with a decent amount of pace from close in. And these are difficult. Because it's an unorthodox trajectory,

you're reading it going down and then coming back up and he doesn't read it very well. And it's in the back of the net. Again, it's not one that I put a lot of like, it's not, I don't consider this like a howler. Matt Turner 2021 Gold Cup I feel like makes this save, right?

Yeah, it does feel like that. Well, Matt Turner, 2024, Copa America will make this save. We'll just say it. Or Ethan Horvath, 2024, Copa, America. Right. And I mean, that's the thing is

if we replace Turner right now, Yeah, who do we replace him with? Oh, it would be Horvath, I think. And I don't think, I wouldn't have a huge problem with that. I think this was just, the universe is just having fun with Matt Turner here. I mean, the bicycle kick goal, the smash over his shoulder here, and then when we get to the other ones too. It gets wronged footed by a deflection.

Yeah. Unknown of the goals would I actually be, would I evaluate him and be like, this was just really terribly played by Matt Turner. So he basically just has to answer for that ridiculous handball he took. Which I don't even have on the timeline, but so you'll have to bring it up. All right, 22, 23 minutes in a decent spell of possession for us. Columbia's closing space down really fast in that middle. they are allowing us to tack up the wings,

but we just can't really generate danger from it. One example is a nice flick from Pulisic into Jedi's path. He rushes forward with the ball but gets it stuck under him and then is dispossessed inside the box before he can get a cross off. Even when he does get a cross off, it doesn't ever come to anything, except for, I mean, that one that I think he kind of accidentally hit off of Pulisick's head. Off the post. Yeah.

Yeah. I think this is fair. And when you say Columbia closing down space really fast in the middle, they are. And also, again, we aren't doing a lot to create space, right? Like, it is a two-way street here. It's not like we are constantly moving and shaking and Columbia are just taking everything away. Like, we look static. We look like we're playing in 85-degree heat in humid Washington.

I assume it was humid just from what I hear about the swampy environment of Washington, D.C. Do we have the wet bulb? but it's we look like that's what we look like we look like we were playing in a friendly in a swamp and you know it just goes back to like are we okay with playing like that like kind of disinterested or is this just you know absolutely unacceptable for a friendly before a big tournament and i i land more towards like it's kind of unacceptable guys like we we are trying out some things that we need to get right uh because this is the chance to do it and All of our next friendlies are going to be Canada and Panama,

and we got to do it for real when we have the chance. Yeah. I mean, Columbia is playing in the exact same conditions, and yeah, I don't know. Yeah, and they're creating much of overloads on Jedi Robinson. Right. Jedi's given the ball away a fair amount over on that left side too, just can't quite connect those passes that he's trying from wide

to into the interior of the field. 32nd minute West dances down the right It's kind of a, I don't know, limp cross that's dealt with easily. But then Gio, and he does this a few times in the game, blows up Hames in the counterpress, and we work it over to the left through Gio where Jedi fires a low cross at Pulisic.

I don't even know if he was aiming for Pulisic, but it does go to Pulisicic and about 12 yards from goal, and he heads it hard right at the near post, hits the post. It's a weird chance. but it's a chance a decent attempt that goal

I do think Vargas had it covered Yeah so Vargas might have had it covered And we definitely weren't even trying to do this Pool Sick was trying to dodge it Once he realized it was going to intercept him You know geo blowing up Hamas In the counterpress is really interesting for me Because Hamas

I mean just on a non-tactical sense Hamas like had his massive tournament In Brazil in 2014 and Gio Reno was 12 years old, and I'm just like super curious. I feel like you can't ask him this now after we got blown up by him. But if we play him again in the tournament, like I would want to ask Gio what his memories are of Hamas in the 2014 World Cup. That's actually what I'm super interested in,

because I'm sure Gio was watching that. And, you know, that's, Gio's trying to be that kind of player. It was a transcendent. I mean, that goal against Uruguay was a transcendent moment. I think. So, I mean, it wasn't everybody rooting for Colombia in that tournament. I felt like everybody was. Yeah, we won't get into it too much.

But then they kind of went the villain route because they played Brazil in the knockouts and destroyed Namar. And it was both sides kind of going at it. Yeah, I mean, Brazil was giving as much. Yes, for sure. But when you take the golden boy out of his home country's World Cup and then the suing match for Brazil. That's a whole other thing. Totally would have beat Germany if they had Namor.

I mean, maybe, who knows? That was sort of a weird day as well. Anyway, Cardoso and Scali both miss with those big crosses to the left side in the span of a couple minutes, so we're still trying this. It feels like both ending goal kicks, just noting it. 36 minute, we get a pleasing combination from Gio and Wes, which sets up Gio to shoot from the edge of the box. shot is blocked for a corner,

but at least we have a little self-determination here and trying to play soccer, down to zero. Yeah, a little bit. I mean, there's not, there just isn't a lot going on, right? We can skip through all these events because it's very sleepy, and we're playing sleepy, but we're down to zero. Columbia is playing sleepy in this humid hot weather,

but they're two goals to the good. So, yeah, they're not carving us up, but they're just like, okay, job done, two-zero, the U.S. aren't very good. Let's get out of here. Yeah, I mean, let me just quickly say, you know, we get kind of a half chance on one of those switches from, this one from West to Pulisic in the 42nd minute.

He goes at Munoz and then lifts the left-footed ball into the box. McKenny, it's just over McKenney, who's like jumping to try to hit it with his head. Ballo can't quite get a window for a shot in the scramble. So, I mean, that was a little bit exciting. and then in the 46th minute, so first minute of stoppage time, Columbia gets another chance. So this is the one where I noticed Wes being way behind the play.

It gets Hamas plays Mohika down the left, and there's a cross, but all the while Wes is like, I don't know, just kind of trotting 15 yards behind the play. And then he kind of watches. So as it's crossed, he kind of watches from the edge of the box, as we're all like scrambling for it. The ball goes back out to Mojika and he crosses it again. But at this time, Uribe is arriving late, like with a full head of steam.

And the ball goes over everybody and hits Arribay, you know, running free right by the goal. He just kind of doesn't. He just kind of biffs the chance. And, but it was a very good chance for Columbia. Yeah. And nobody picked up Uribe at all. It was, I mean, West could have been involved. He wasn't. Gio didn't see him at all.

So, you know, it could easily been 3-1 there. 3-0, yeah. Oh, yeah, 3-0, yeah. But it will. They'll get their third goal. Yeah. Yes, we left ourselves totally outnumbered, again, in part, because if if geo's going to be a guy you're counting on to make that tracking run 70 yards to get all the way to the to our six yard box um that's probably that's probably an error in setup so if west isn't going to do it either uh then then we might have to rethink our midfield configuration or or we just again kind of kick west in the in the backside and say like you got to do this in in a real game what do you think he's going to do it right?

I think he's going to do it in a real game. I think everybody's going to play. I mean, everybody's going to play, nobody's going to play this bad again for the next few weeks. Certainly not all at once. Yeah. I mean, that really does become the key. The number of people who had like the worst mistake they've made for the national team all in a 30 minutes stretch. And I know that, you know, like sometimes you say when everyone plays bad, that's on the manager.

And I get that too. and at some point the manager the accountability there is going to be a level of like the players need to be accountable and then Burrhalter needs to be accountable to like demand that this doesn't happen again and then the higher ups from Burrhalter need to be accountable to be like if this keeps happening he's gone for sure

but yes like also it was just some of them were super just unlikely weird things yeah Burrhalter is not going to get fired before Wednesday, that's for sure. No. But, you know, I guess if we, if we have a bunch of people just trotting around or, you know,

looking confused about how to, how to pass into the middle of the field against Brazil and lose 5-0 or something, then do, then does he get fired? Probably not. Yeah. I think, so I think what I, after I watched those 30 minutes and finally got caught up and was just like laughing. And, and, you know,

sobbing. I was like, come on, you weren't, you weren't sobbing. No, you know, it's not what I wanted.

I wanted this to like look to art and, like, stand up and be as good as Columbia. And we weren't. Even if we were like close for 70 minutes, we still weren't. And then you can't just ignore the last 30 minutes. Like that's part of the soccer game.

So, you know, I think, take away was like JT and Cindy Barlow Cohn need to have their calendars cleared for Wednesday night to be able to make a phone call to Crocker if things go terribly. Crocker needs to already be maybe reaching out to some of his contacts in the agent world saying like, hey man, I haven't talked in a while.

Maybe we should catch up soon. And then I also think Greg Burholder needs to really consider like a bloody Sunday situation here. where examples are made and like you guys, you have to show up. You can't. Like that's part of the accountability. Yeah. The players did things that they shouldn't be doing that you would never expect them to do.

And when you say, well, that's on the manager. Okay, then the manager's response should be like someone's glued to the bench in the next game and maybe in the group stage. And I was like saying if he really wants to take it as far as maybe the game calls for, for like you bring in a new body that's not even in this camp and somebody's going home. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm up for all of that. I guess the thing about the last 30 minutes when you just said that it made me think of the way we played at the World Cup, where like we were pretty good for, we were often pretty good for like 60 minutes, but once the subs came on, it got a little chaotic.

And this was obviously way worse than that. but it's the same kind of thing. It's the same category of thing where like it's like all bets, like once the sub start coming on, it's like all bets are off, man. Like who we were just going to like white knuckle it to the finish line.

And I don't know exactly why our team is like that under Burrhalter, but it is. And I don't know, I'm just noting it. So I feel like in the World Cup it was, there was a depth issue, right? Like people like to say, you know,

Halter got as far as all the other coaches before him, but he had the best talent that any coach has ever had. And he might, we might have the best talent in the 2022 World Cup. But we didn't have it all healthy and available on the day. So, you know, we were, we ended up being paper thin. We had our 11, which I thought was a very good 11. But then McKenny had to come out at 60 minutes. Sergenio Dest had to come out of the game at 60 minutes.

And Gio Raina, if he was hurt, which I, maintain he was certainly not fully healthy. He wasn't actually available. So as good as he is and as amazing as I still think he is now and as amazing as I thought he was in 2022, he wasn't available. Like it doesn't matter that he's in the pool if he's not available. Chris Richards isn't playing in the World Cup. Like we we sub, we had to bring these guys on and we had to use our bench for fitness reasons. And the guys behind them weren't terribly good.

The hope is that the guys. we have now are much better. Like we have, we think we have more depth now. Didn't look like it on Saturday. What walked onto the field was just like, yeah, just, it was amazing how, like, how, like, how, the ways that players, like, chose to be inept over that last 30 minutes. Yeah. All right.

Well, it's halftime. and this is my chance to say all of us were together last night for the call-in show on the Discord server with Vince running the call. Patrons get access to that. Patrons on Patreon. They can call in and make their voice heard

and can listen to it now if they missed it. So join us on Patreon. You get the Monday reviews, you get the call-in shows after the games, emergency pods when big news breaks, and when we take questions or organize a trip or when we do those call-in shows,

patrons get first dibs. So consider subscribing and supporting the podcast. It is how we make money right now. The links in the show notes. Haji comes on for Poulsick in the second half. Like at halftime. I think this was a planned substitution to save Poulsick's legs. Is that right?

I think it was. I got to assume so. I mean, that was the substitution. I assume that's what it was. I'm a little disappointed just because I don't want Haji to just be like, the left-sided mid, the left-sided winger when Pulsick can't go. Because if that's the case, Haji will never play a meaningful minute because Pusk's not going to come off if he's fit. So, like, I'm hopeful that we at some point would see Haji on the left and Pulsik on the right.

Yeah, I'd like to see that at some point. So, but, you know, Haji was bright. Jou's bright for 10 minutes. Yeah, initially quite bright. Richard Rios, a Palmeras player, Pomeras player on for Uribe. the midfield. He was kind of the handsome guy number six with a big smile who clashed with Musa. So 48th minute, Scali has Wes running into out and opts to go back to Richards. And I just clocked it because I noticed Wes was a little upset as he pulled up and sort of walked back

along the sideline. It's hot, man. You make that run. You got to get rewarded. It was on. He should have passed it to him. I mean, it wasn't. on for like a, you know, a guilt-edged chance to be immediately created. It was just a bit of progression that was left on the table. 48th minute, Richard switches it over to Haji. He does two guys. This is that brightness you were referring to, I believe, or some of it. Yeah, this was quite bright.

Yeah. And then he plays it to Ballo, who is offside. I think he was actually trying to hit Jedi, wasn't he? That's what it looked like to me, and Balo kind of got it caught up in his feet because it came with the pace to get to Jedi. Yeah. But nice, I mean, nice to see us, Hajie dribbling past two guys.

50th minute, we get, you know, Jedi wins a free kick and Geo takes it because Pula's six not on the field. Haji gets a header on the delivery, just over the bar. But decent efforts all around, I think. Good efforts all around. Absolutely. And again, this is where I was like,

oh, we're knocking here. Like, Columbia haven't had a lot of, like, great looks in a while. I mean, they had one right at the end of the half. But they weren't, again, they weren't just like, it wasn't Matt Turner being put under a barrage of shots for 50 minutes, and we're threatening on the other end. Right. It felt like we were still totally in the game, to me at least.

Johnny wins another free kick in about the same spot two minutes later. And this one, Gio goes for goal and misses the top corner by some distance. It does look really silly and maybe was. but he was trying to catch the keeper out. So it's kind of a, you know, not going to be too hard on him. 55th minute, nice combo up the middle from Gio and Johnny and Wes after a loose touch from Tim Ream. And Gio drives and plays Haji darting in from the left wing.

His first touch is just not good enough. He ends up bringing the defender back into the play. Goes wide, left of the goal, and tries to shoot. But he's so wide of the goal and leaning away. And he just blasted over. I thought this was a nice sequence. And I mean, it was a little like a suboptimal from Haji. But overall, I was like, okay, that's solid.

I know Tim Wayo was on the weak side doing the GEO arms. But there was no path for Haji to have ever gotten it over to Waya that I could have seen. So again, if you're giving me a chance that ends with Haji with that left foot of his smashing it towards goal, like, I'm like, all right, that's decent. Yeah, well, it was a really nice sequence up until that. I mean, if he takes a little bit better first touch, maybe he, you know, he's running at the goal with a full head of steam and has a better chance. But, yeah, overall.

Again, still felt like we were knocking. Yeah. And then we finally break through. And we scored it. And it's a really nice goal. It's patient buildup. Gio, Johnny Gio, over on the left side. Wayas way over there for some reason.

Maybe you know the reason. Because Wayo goes wherever he wants. And I'm not kidding, Way and Geo go wherever they want. Or at least Geo did before he became this, like, pivot. But it just, again, every time I hear that Burrhalter system is so rigid and everyone has to fit the system, it's like, no, absolutely not.

Like, Sir Gino Desk goes wherever he wants. Timwayo will do whatever he decides to do. No one is bound by some super strict system. No, Wayo was actually playing central, like high, like the striker for a minute. Balo would shift it over to the right half space. and Haji was in the left half space and then Waya and Haji did a little piston action

where Waya came, Haji went slash towards goal, Wheya checked back to Gio basically just took the ball from him and there was like a five, he got within five yards and Gio over in that towards the left sideline and yeah so Waya gets it just does a little turn sprays it over to Balo. It's a

long distance combination and then this was like the Tim Wea of Qatar where he looks like he's moving and fast forward while everyone else is kind of in regular speed and Balo settles the pass from Wea and then pauses for a second while Wea bursts past two lines of defenders. You just sits a nice ball into the box and Wea does his beautiful hip swivel, smashes it in,

far post. Yeah. The weight on the pass is perfect from Ballo. And then the finish is delightful, you know, across the keeper's face through a little tiny window up off the ground just enough to get over the goalkeeper's leg top spin on it. It feels like game on. Absolutely. Yeah.

And again, we'd been knocking. So at the time, there was no reason to think we couldn't continue to generate chances. And Columbia weren't generating chances. Again, it might be that you'd say, oh, well, this woke Columbia up. And now they're going to, now they're going to sort of like, be like, oh, we have to play now. The Americans are doing things. Yeah. I don't know if I'd say that.

I mean, I guess you could say that, but I don't, that's not my instinct. I think when we, when the subs start coming on, then we, things start going back. Well, immediately on their kickoff, they end up with the ball in the box, faced up with Joe Scali. A guy tries to embarrass him, and Joe Scali, to his credit, does not get embarrassed. He doesn't ever actually, like, get the situation totally handled. And the Colombian player has enough control to buy the time for an overlap. for a wide open player, totally unaccounted for, into the Man City Zone. But then they just hit the past out of bounds.

And that was, again, that was straight off the kickoff from the goal. And it's like, okay, well, I don't know if Way of still celebrating, because it should be like, why doesn't Joe Scali have any help over here? Yeah. But it was, that was like not great. But again, that ends up paling in comparison to what ends up happening. Yeah. Well, 61st minute.

you know, Gio wins the ball off of somebody, I can't remember who, and then Jedi ends up with it. I just clocked the Gio winning it because he had like three of those where he blew somebody up. But then it's a Jedi, Jedi gives it away over on the left side, just kind of dilly-dally in with it a little bit. And go ahead. Well, so Gio wins it over on the right side line,

and he kind of wins it over to Scali, who's on the right sideline. And Scali hits a nice, like, field-switching, over to Jedi because, you know, all the, all the traffic is over on the right side. We don't as a team shift super fast over to Jedi to give him help, but we do have a man checking over to him. I think it's Johnny. He is in a big window. It would mean Jedi would have to play the ball over to Johnny with his right foot, and Jedi

either just doesn't have the confidence to do or just thinks he'll be able to skip past the onrushing defender, and he does not skip past the onrushing defender. He skips the ball directly into the shins of the onrushing defender. And that's Munoz, Munoz, and he's off to the races, plays it to Diaz. Diaz is dribbling into the box. I really got to ding Richards for this one.

He takes just a way too forgiving angle on trying to close Diaz down as he's going into the box with his left foot. Turner's trying to cover the near post. Richards is, yeah, it's just too forgiving. I don't know how else to explain it. And so Diaz has this giant window to shoot for the far post and he

hits the post it rolls across the face of goal you know an inch to the left and it's a goal and it's pretty scary should be 3-1 yeah and again just one of those totally unnecessary giveaways doesn't make sense that we that Jedi tries to take the guy on there instead of just protecting the ball and recirculating

but we're off the hook and we think we're still ended at 2-1 yeah and then there's a lot of subs. Columbia's subs on Jorge Carascal, who plays for Dynamo Moscow. He comes on for Adias. And John Durran

comes on for Borre, the striker. Duran, of course, plays for Aston Villa. And then for the U.S. Tillman comes on for Raina, Malik Tillman for Raina, and CCV for RIM. And I think

most of us were like, yeah, this is great. Let's see CCV. Good for him to get, you know, get some minutes here. And I would say at this point, the U.S. still looks, I mean, okay. Is that fair? I don't know. That last one was pretty bad, but. I mean, it was the Jedi Miss Q was sort of the first big gaff since the first

goal. So we're like, okay, all right, but we're not going to just keep making gaffs, surely. No. We did. We did. CTV's first touch. Yeah. It's he, we're just playing it.

I think it's Scali over to CTV. He mistouches it. No, I guess it was Richards over to CCT. Yeah, it's Richard. Diaz collects it, you know, from underneath CCV's foot, squares it for Hamas just inside the box. He shoots from 15 yards or so. And Turner makes a good save on the stretch

down to his left. Very poor from CCV. On, like, was it actually his first touch? Pretty sure, yeah. And again, this is super uncharacteristic. And it's not uncharacteristic in like he's being asked to do too much. This is just like non-professional soccer. CCV's whole thing is, you know, one of the reasons that people gave for him starting the Iran game,

because Iran's going to be in a block and CCV is really efficient moving the ball, circulating around the back, you know, and I don't disagree with that. So this is just how do you explain it, right? Like just one of those ridiculous things that just happened. And then we get five more of those things. Yeah. All right. Subs for Columbia in the 71st minute.

I don't have a lot between that mistake and the next subs. Do you have anything in that? Between the 63rd and the 70th minute? Yeah. So CCV has that terrible touch, right? where he just gives the chance. And nice save from Turner. It's just I think his first save of the match.

And then and then like a couple more plays from CCV that are just really unconvincing. When again, he's supposed to just be the guy who's steady. And that's what I always hope that he will be for us. But just like a cleared ball from Columbia that's sort of bouncing and it bounces a couple of times weekly. And he waits for it and waits for it. And by the time it gets to him, it's moving at such a weak velocity. He tries to like head it. over to Scali and like heads it into the Columbia player who's closing him down.

Like it just isn't dealt with convincingly. There might have been a handball that would have bailed him out anyway, but again, unconvincing. And then a couple minutes after that, another situation where him and Richards are kind of retreating, collecting a ball easily between the two of them. And they have Matt Turner, you know, as an outlet too to relieve pressure. And CCV gets to the ball with one Colombian player bearing down on him, one bearing down on Richards, who's like eight yards away from him,

and CCV just plays the ball to Richards anyway, and it really like narrows our field. Richards ends up forcing it towards Jedi, but it just runs out of bounds, and again, like in a slapstick way. But it's very much a CCV decision that causes it by not just going to Turner and letting us expand and breathe out, and instead, like,

not being willing to just surrender that 15 yards and instead keeping us really compact. So really, really sort of dicey stuff from Carter Vickers here. But, I mean, he looked uncomfortable, don't you think? Like, even when he was stepping on the ball and trying to find somebody to, I mean, we'll get to one of these very shortly, but trying to play the ball up the gut, trying to find somebody. And he looked like he was frustrated and, like, things weren't working. And it literally might just be when you do that with your first touch, the giveaway you had with his very first touch, just to miscontrol.

it might have just affected him for 10, 15 minutes. Yeah, it could, yeah, probably did. But also, like, I can't turn this, that, I can't turn CCV's discomfort directly into a prosecution of Burrhalter, but I'm sure some people can, you know? And, like, is there some way that, like, that we were, we just weren't set up in a way that makes, you know, a centerback who comes on in the 60-second minute comfortable? You know? Right.

And that's where, you know, you do have to try to distinguish who's responsible for why. And no, I don't think there's any universe where the mistakes I'm seeing CCV make here are somehow. Burr-Alters fault. Yeah, somehow instructions these received from Burr-alter. Well, obviously not. Not the mistouch. No, but I mean, you know, I just mean like that don't go back to Turner, play it to, you know, you and Richard solve it together. Like, that doesn't make sense as a guideline.

as a principal. Okay. All right. 71st minute, more subs for Columbia. Luis Sinisterra comes on for Diaz. Sinisterra, of course, used to play at Leeds now at Bournemouth. And then Juan Ferdinand Cantaro comes on for Hamez. He plays for racing in Argentina.

And then for the U.S. Pepe for Balo and Musa for McKenney. Quintero had a nice time out there, didn't he? 72 minute Richards dribbles into a cul-de-sac wide left leading to a Cantero shot from distance. That was pretty slapstick, I thought. Oh, yeah, and this is where it seems like it's all gone to pot because this was like our next action after the Turner handball

where Turner comes out to the edge of the box. That's right. And like he knows it's close. He knows like he's reaching just to the edge and maybe over. And he's not under pressure to like, he's not meeting it at the same time as Columbia. So he can easily just do the safe thing and blast it out with his foot, but instead taking the handball.

I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's incredible that we're doing this. And again, in a COPA match, that could easily be a red card because it's obviously a foul. And it's not a penalty. So there's no double jeopardy issue here. And so he's stopping a Columbia player from running onto the ball while the goalkeeper's 25 yards out. a net. And so I don't, I don't, I'd love to hear a referees take on it, but I assume in Copa that would just be like a definition red card. Like you got no like the rest like, what can I do? You,

you grab the walls your hands outside the box. It doesn't matter that it's close to the box. Like there's no there's no wiggle room for like, oh, you just thought you were in the box, but you weren't. You grabbed it with your hands out of the box. It'd be no different than doing that 25 yards from goal where you're clearly out of the box. The intent isn't important. You grabbed it while and Columbia player would have just taken and scored, you're out of the game. Don't do that again. Math. 73rd minute Musa gets blown up by Rios in the middle of the field.

It's kind of a knee-to-kash kind of scary because Musa was down for a while. But it seemed like he was okay after a few minutes on the ground. Columbia comes at us after that challenge, but can't. really get anything going. I have to say at this point of the game, Haji's brightness that he showed in the first 10, 15 minutes, totally gone. There's no brightness anymore. No, he's been bottled up pretty well. The Mousa one adds to the slapstick just because of how it looked in real time where he's

like got it and then he doesn't have it and he sort of falls theatrically. But the fall is legitimate and even the Columbia player was struggling from that contact. Yeah. It absolutely should have been a foul, just not called. Yeah, it was a foul. and then Columbia gets their third goal. Cardoso gets blown up from behind by Duran in the middle of the field. So just has it, just goes in behind him, he doesn't notice that he gets dispossessed.

Ball goes out to Sinisterra on the right wing. Still not a terribly threatening position to be in as he's going at Musa 1 v1. I mean, it's not great, but it's not like a total jail break at this point. We have six players in the box as he's going at Musa. Cardoso and Malik Tillman. Cardoso was right next to Rios for a little while, just kind of let him drift away from him. Malik doesn't even, I mean, Malik's kind of moving towards Rios, I guess,

but Sinisterra just cleverly cuts it back to the inside of Moussa from the N-line. And Rios is all alone at the penalty marker, basically. side-foots it in. There's a little deflection off of CCV who's stabbing at it to try to stop it from going in the goal. So Turner's wrong-footed by that. But just the languidness

from Malik here, Cardoso, the Cardoso giveaway was quite bad. He played a pretty good game overall, I think. But the giveaway is bad, and then he just, like, you know, he doesn't track Rios. I don't know, which one is more responsible to track Rios here?

They're both, neither of them does, but anyway. Okay, so the giveaway is bad from Cardoso. It's like the Rico Clark situation. It's his job as a defensive mid to have that 360 awareness. We are fine numerically, right? It's a bad giveaway. Columbia have to go wide, and we are solid in the middle.

We've got bodies. Malik should have added another body more to the middle. He recovers towards the ball, which is a mistake. but then Richards and CCV badly misplay it and I'd probably put it more on Richards as as Columbia are driving to the box Musa sets up because he's he's covering the space and he's denying the sort of

dribbler. Yeah he's denying the dribbler to the goal which is fine he's doing great Richards doesn't have the luxury of going to like be the one and a half guy over there This is a transition moment. He's got to identify players in the middle of the field because we don't have the luxury of assuming there's enough help

that you can go leave and just defend space near Musa as like cover. So he ends up at the near post defending nobody as this play develops. And Carter Vickers is the guy who's glued then to the Colombian attacker highest up the field. And he has to stay with him because Richards isn't going to come bracket him. ideally CCV should be able to pass that guy off to Richards and then identify the next man coming who ends up being the goal score. And Malik Tillman should be coming in and filling in and helping to protect from the backside of that player for the like sharper angled cutback. Neither of those things happen because CCV can't give his guy away because Richards is on him is Richards is, you know, defending space. So we make a mess of it even after the Johnny giveaway.

Okay. Turner actually is furious as this ball goes into the net Because he actually finally has this covered He's about to make an amazing save He reads it all really well He's like diving into the open area That the shots are going to go into before the shots even taken And from the angle you can see it'll probably hit Turner square in the gut

As he's diving across to the far post And then Carter Vickers deflect it into the open gap Yeah it wasn't hit very well It was like he didn't like punish it or anything. No. So, yeah, again, this was just the universe really having its way with Matt Turner because he was all set to have a highlight save here. Memo Cho versus Pulisic style. Instead, CCV scores it for Columbia. Totally unlucky. I'd out of CCV's control, but. The rest of it not unlucky at all. No. It's what we deserve. Again, for how we play this, this is what we deserved for that sequence.

Yeah. 82nd minute, another good chance for Columbia. Duran runs onto a ball and loops it across. The header is saved. Things keep going kind of badly. Well, I want to note here, the header is saved, but not by Matt Turner, right? Does it go off of Richards? I think it's CCV in the middle of the goal.

Okay. This totally adds to our slapstick reel. And the worrying thing about this is the way it starts, which is not a solid. slapstick issue. It's a Malik Tillman recognition issue. And it's another ball. I want to say Joe Scali does a really nice job like winning the ball on the right side.

It's Scali and Malik combined well to win it. And so they win it in the right channel, right at midfield. And right when we win it, Malik has this huge window to just pass it immediately to Eunice Musa to switch it over to the left side of the center circle. He just doesn't make the pass. And then he just stands on the ball

and moves like four yards forward, just sort of dancing on it until he just gets swallowed up by three Colombian players and never move he never releases the ball and this is where it's like is Malik is Malik just feasting on on Erdivisi defenses or can he like can he do this for us and we still have I feel like we still have to get that answer um so this is a bad one for him and then Columbia come down do their little through ball Matt Turner comes way out for the through ball but doesn't actually get there realizes he's not going to and now he's not in the frame at all.

And Columbia clip it across with that looping header that Cameron Carter Vickers clears off the line. I believe it ends up being called back for offside on the through ball. Oh, did it? Turner's blushes would have been spared. But after the handball, again, I don't actually put any of the goals on Matt Turner, but the handball and then this little walkabout that he had still make it seem like he's got a bit of the mental yips.

Okay. 83 minute we get a sub LDLT comes on for Cardoso It's like who cares at this point It's it's a you know I guess we're just saving Cardoso's legs We look pretty silly out there Turner and Richards conspire to send it out of bounds

For a throw when we try to build out This is like a poor touch from Richards I think mostly is what that was Just to add to the slapstick reel 85th minute well do you want to say anything about that No I mean that's exactly what it is 85th minute

A goal for Columbia Making it 4.1 Wayia drops deep to pick it up And then he tries to dribble past Kadaskal It's a really poor attempt To dribble by somebody I will say And Katskal

Just pokes it away to Kintaro Going immediately the other way It's a three on two And Kintaro drives Drives gets CCV to commit and then just dishes left to Catascal with a casual side foot finish to the far post. Turner was leaning to his right.

I think, you know, kind of expecting a shot to the near post. Obviously, the shot went to his left, and he was left splayed on the turf in a way that looked both painful and humiliating. Yeah, it's how an artist would depict suffering in like the fourth circle of hell. Like no one's comfortable in any way. You're not even allowed to sit or lay down,

comfortably on the ground. And that's probably how Turner felt like he was in one of those circles. Yeah, again, there's not much to say here. This is an inexplicable giveaway from Tim Wea. I think Berlter mentioned that the centerbacks were left hung out to dry, and they were on several occasions. They did their own hanging on several occasions. And poor Matt Turner.

Yeah. The images are just, yeah. I mean, as the ball goes by him, he almost like collapses sideways in despair, you know. But Columbia's not done yet. We're not done yet. 88th minute. The final goal of the game comes. CCV tries to play it up the middle to Pepey, who I would say had a, you know,

had a largely anonymous outing out there. Pepe was calling for it. And then CCV kind of looked away and then kind of no look past it back to him. Lakumi, the centerback for Bologna, not at all fooled by this, and steps right in front of Pepe. Pepe didn't see him coming. And I'm thinking Peppy needs to come to the ball a little bit here. Yeah, Peppy needs to seal off the center back there. The pass was on.

It's actually a good moment for CCV in my mind to hit that disguise pass when all the other options are taken. Pepe made the right choice to check back. He checked his other shoulder. Pepe checked his right shoulder. And Lukumi ghosted in from the left. And Pepe just didn't have that accounted for. Yeah. And LeCumi takes it, takes it cleanly, plays it to Quintero,

and Quintero just caresses it into the path of Sinistera, who beats Anthony to the spot and side-foots it in, goes and dances a nice little jig over in the corner, 5-1. Well, I'll get into more of the details of the goal, one other little detail, but how do you feel about Columbia's goal celebrations because I like them okay I liked them I'm I'm a little tired of this trope I was genuinely asking I love I do love watching Columbia goal celebrations I love the dance I love any of the dances that they want to do I would prefer not to give them five opportunities

to do the dances when we meet them in the semi final the Copa America yeah so the little detail here. Obviously, you know, Pepe makes a mistake to get the, to let Lukumi take it. That shouldn't turn into a unopposed shot from nine yards out, right? Like, that's the, that's the issue. So as this ball's traveling up towards Pepe, uh, Musa and Luca both at this point are kind of the pivot, because Johnny's out. And both of them, like, read the advance pass up as an opportunity for them to break forward, uh, which isn't necessarily the wrong read, but it's not the read that both of your double pivot midfielders can make at the same time. And they both like flare out wide, like make that curving run out wide and high to just like the visual of them totally abandoning the middle of the field is just incredible as Columbia win the ball in the middle of the field and just have no obstructions to waltz into our goal. Yeah, it was it looks so easy. I didn't realize that they both flared out like that. And then Jedi, you know, Jedi was, I think he was out pretty wide. to start, right? Yeah.

And so I think he doesn't really lally gag trying to get back in front of Sinisterra. It seems like he's running pretty, running about as hard as he can. Yeah, it's one of those things where, like, it's not Jedi's job, really, to have this taken away. Rest defense is a huge thing in modern soccer. The defensive shape you're in for giveaways.

Like, eventually you will turn the ball over, right? And then what's your shape when you turn it over? But it's like that's usually set up for turnovers in the normal order of soccer. And the turnovers we were having in this game were just not the normal soccer turnovers that you make. Like they were all just the most ridiculous turnovers that if you're accounting for those, then you're basically saying we can't play, we can't pass the soccer ball. Which some people probably are saying we should say that.

We should say we can't pass the soccer ball and we should be done passing it. and we should find another way to play soccer. Yeah. I don't want to say that after a friendly leading up to the Cope of America. Yeah, I don't either. I don't either. I mean, it could prove to be true, I guess, over the course of the next two weeks, but three weeks. Okay, so, Bells, my bit, my takeaway here is, you know, we had the call-in show with questions from a couple weeks ago before this tournament.

And it was like, would poor showing here get Greg Burrhalter fired? Poor showing in Copa America or what kind of a showing. And I absolutely think that this, we, I think both believe that U.S. soccer at this point is a rational body making rational decisions. I don't have any reason to think that they are like totally opposed to firing people who they think are underperforming. And what this game does for me is it completely opens the door for, a sort of mediocre but otherwise somewhat acceptable performance in Copa America to now be worth of firing when you add this kind of a game on top of it. And Lord only knows what's going to happen against Brazil on Wednesday.

Yeah, especially if he does Bloody Sunday and, you know, throws Christopher Lund out there that left back to punish Jedi for his lacklester performance. He's not going to do that. that though. Do you think like he's Jedi's starting on Wednesday? That's my guess. I think I think Burrhalter gives the guys those guys a chance to prove that it was

not their typical performance. And again, I think the humiliation because there is, there's a humiliating aspect to it, I think that will probably be enough motivation. Yeah, and enough motivation for them to come out and play. But I do think now the stakes

for Burrhalter personally are much higher going into Copa because I think he, I absolutely think if we, you know, do the business against Bolivia and Panama and then look not very good against Uruguay and then look not very good against Brazil or Colombia and lose to teams that we should. I think now with this sort of pantsing on the CV against Columbia, I think that's it. I think they'd move on. I think it would be very easy to say he can't do it. He like, he can't get us in position to get lucky against teams like this. you mean even if we get out of the group and then lose to Brazil right even in a semi respectable fashion

I mean if he does like a 2009 confederations cup final lost to Brazil or we take a two zero lead whatever and it's a spectacular match then maybe but if it's just like a ho-hum Brazil kind of comfortably win put two zero kind of we never trouble him too much uh or a netherland style kind of match. I feel like that'd be it. I feel like that's an easy call. He's gone. You pick a new guy to take it the rest of the way.

Yeah, that rationale makes a lot of sense to me. We're not going to take it to the next level. We've given him a chance, you know, and he hasn't done it. The key for me is like the World Cup performance basically qualifies as fine. We did fine. And then if we do worse in Copa than four. fine. And it's not all results based. For me, obviously, I've very much been a proponent.

It's performance-based. But this Columbia performance will matter on the balance. Like, it won't just be nothing if the other performances are sort of just like, okay, okay, again, you know, in the group stage, but we lose and we're not, we're not threatening performance-wise. Then I think it'll be easy to say between those and the humiliation. Like, yeah, we try someone else now. He was definitely more angry in the press conference,

or at least the quotes were more pointed than they've ever been before, you know. Stuff like, what do you say? We did not respect the game of soccer. Yes. I mean, that's a brilliant quote. Yeah. I love that quote. I like it too.

Or the opponent. Yeah. A lot of stuff like that. But again, that is like, like, Like, that absolutely is his job, right? And so he, if he can't make the players feel like they're being held accountable, to not make mistakes that they should never be making and almost never make, then he goes.

And if we have another game like that against Brazil, then that ice is extremely thin. And it would take, it would essentially take more like positive, a positive affirmation through Copa and not just like, we were fine and, you know, we could get lucky conceivably. Like, we got a show that we're capable of being organized and coherent and up for it in a way that we could get lucky against a good team. Yeah.

Well, you know, we should beat Bolivia and Panama. I think everybody agrees on that. But there's not a guarantee that we will. And I would assume if we, you know, Panama could get us. And if that happens, he's definitely out, right? Oh, if we go out in the group, he's out. And that will, then there's no performance appealing you could do. Like, oh, but we got so, you know, we dominated Panama and just couldn't get it into the back of the net.

Like, and I think in large, because of this Columbia game, like, I think that will shade it where you can't even, you can't even do that anymore. Like, okay, fine. You got a little unlucky against Panama. but you got absolutely ripped here because your guys weren't up for it and you didn't get them you didn't get them up for it like that's you okay so take burrhalter out of it this this my guess my last question to you is um if we generic coach for the u.s generic coach for columbia if we play them 10 times how many times you think we win how many times you think Columbia wins um I'd, let's say, oh, man, let's say, uh...

And these are knockout round games where you can't get a draw. Oh, shoot, you can't, no, you can't do that. Because I was going to say, uh, three wins for us, five wins for Columbia, two draws. Okay, well, I'll allow it, yeah. All right. Yeah, I think they're, they're better than us. Like, like, not, not like, way, way, way better than us, but, um, better than us. And I guess I wonder, you know, I'm not trying to defend Berhalter here, but, okay,

say Burhalter can't take us to the next level. Can anybody? I mean, I continue to say no. I mean, no coach, there is no coach out there who makes us favorites against Columbia. A coach who is coaching the U.S. against Colombia, against Uruguay, against Brazil, their job is to have us organize. enough that if we all play really good games, Keeper has a great game, like we can get lucky against one of those teams. That's where we are right now in 2024.

So that's what we're looking for. Is there a coach who can get us to play an immense match and we get lucky in a couple of different ways, whatever they be, referee calls, bounces, saves, ball go in. We can get a result against any of those teams. And we can. None of those teams are unbeatable for us. and we have this

we know this you know that Spain match in 2009 came on the heels of getting rinsed by Brazil and Italy in the group stage like it wasn't like Bob Bradley had this magic sauce that he could just always get the team right like we didn't we got we got pants twice in a row

and then the miracle against Egypt combined with the other result in Brazil Italy got us into the semi-final against Spain and then we had to get really really lucky in that game And we also had to work our socks off. We didn't just like, you know, whistle a tune and win the game two zero. Every single player was playing like crazy. We didn't play a perfect game.

But that's what you have to like you still have to get lucky and you have to have you. Everyone has to show up. And we can find a coach who will help us do that. But no, there's no coach. It's going to be like, oh, suddenly we're going to win six times against Columbia in 10 games. That doesn't exist for us right now. assuming Colombia has a good coach, right? And we think they do.

And we think Uruguay has a good coach. Yeah. They're well-coached and they're better. Ah, Uruguay's coach is okay. If they're well-coached and they're better than us, then there is no magic set of tactics or locker room speeches that will make us the favorite. Somebody is just needs to be able to put us in a position to get lucky and then you do need the luck to hit on that day. Okay. I like it.

Well, we'll see what happens on Wednesday. Anything, any other thoughts on this game? I mean, it's, we will for sure have the last 30-minute highlights set to Yakety Sachs in the Discord. All right. Hey, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.