Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #515: Olympics — Under-23 USMNT v France recap

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Belz and Vince recap the 3-0 loss to France, which was a little more encouraging than the scoreline would lead you to believe. 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. All right, the U.S. men's mostly U-23 team lost 3-0 to France, a mostly U-23 team as well, of course, in Marseilles earlier today. The scoreline made it seem worse than it was, at least for, you know, an hour. Here to break it down with me is Vince. How you doing, man? I'm doing great bells. And, you know, before anybody gets too worked up about this result, you got to be a lot. You got to realize that nobody just comes into the velodrome and leaves with a result.

You know, an opponent, an opponent. The home team comes out and gets a result all the time. But it used to be the orange velodrome. I don't know if the sponsor has changed. But shout out to the velodrome. A beautiful place to watch a soccer game on TV. It was. It was a beautiful scene.

You got, you know, happy to get that NBC production. Oh, beautiful. Oh, my gosh. When the rings popped up on the screen every time before, like, a replay, just the crispest HD. You already know, the peacock does it best. The stadium was looked beautiful. You know, they got the tricolor theme going. The French National Anthem brought a little tear to my eye.

I don't understand a word of it, but it's wonderful if you hear a whole stadium singing like that. And I will say the U.S., you know, as many of you know, it's been a struggle for me to muster a lot of enthusiasm for this men's Olympic team. But I was pleasantly surprised. I thought they were, I thought they played well until they kind of fell apart, which is, you know, becoming a somewhat familiar story. But I think they can do some damage in this tournament. I'm much more excited about the team than I'm. I was six hours ago or whenever the game kicked off. So I do want to say that.

Yeah, yeah. And of course, we were always playing with House Money with this match in particular. Once we saw France's Olympic roster, the lineup that they put out, knowing that this is the place, the country where the Olympics is hosted, opening up their campaign here in front of, I don't know, 20,000, 30,000 strong. It was always good. The deck was always going to be stacked. But it should not dampen your enthusiasm for the rest of the term. That's right.

That's right. Because I think they showed, especially in the first hour, even after the first goal from France, that we can do some damage. We can do some damage even against a good team. We just need a little bit more. We need a little bit more in the final third. We need a little bit more in the defensive third. Yeah.

Story as old as time. So I'll just jump in and do the lineups. So for us, it was Patrick Shalti and goal, Nathan Harrell at right back, Miles Robinson and Walker Zimmerman looking very veteranly and strong in the back at centerback. John Tolkien at left back. and then a midfield, well, kind of, Testman was the deepest lying midfielder, Busio and Georgie Mahalovich in there with him. Then we had Peretti on the right wing, Kevin Perettus,

and Paxton Aronson on the left wing with Duncan McGuire up top. Anything strike you or surprise you from that? No, if you've been following, you know, the friendlies that this U-23 team has played up until this point, you knew that this would basically be the first choice lineup for Marco. So, you know, we might have players that we rate more highly than Marco that might, they may or may not be on the bench. I know I saw a lot of clamor for Taylor Boo, for instance, Caleb Wally on the bench, etc. But, yeah, if you've been following the lead up up until this point, this was always going to be the lineup.

Yeah, I mean, it did cross my mind that this team could have used Diego Luna's, you know, his ideas in the attack at certain points in this night. But, you know, the ship has sailed. He's not there. That's it. So for France, it was rested. Their lineup is mostly guys who play in Liga-un or the Bundesliga. And that includes Michael Elise now after the big transfer to Bayern Munich. But we got Resteson goal, Sildia, Bade, L'Eauvdé, L'Ecava, and Truferre, across the back line. And then we got Cone and Chautau in the midfield, and then Mio L'Aquesette, Alexander Lacazette,

and then Michael O'Lise in the band of three. Alise. So, Alise, I'm sorry, Alise at right wing. Of course, he's a left footer. And then Jean-Philip. Mateta at Striker. So he's one of the overage guys. Lacazette's another one.

One more thing. Well, two more things. I'm a big fan of Mateta, first of all. He's a joy to watch. Also, with Alisei last year on that Crystal Palace team. Alisa is gone, but we will still be watching Mateta play for Crystal Palace this company year. Just a big mobile striker who can do a little something with the ball at his feet, too, and create his own shot. It was mostly kept quiet.

by the centerback pairing. And Kone, the midfielder for Glabok, if you watch a lot of Joe Scali, you've watched a lot of Kone. He's a very sometimey player. Like, when you watch Glabok, sometimes they might have issues progressing the ball and getting the ball up the field. And you're looking at that midfield with Kone in it,

and you're like, why? Why is this the case? Because you watch him today, and he's just totally unbothered by anything that the U.S. through his way. just gliding past people progressing the ball he was 44 for 47 passing 94% I mean he was just totally unbothered and yeah

that's the type of talent that he possesses the type of talent that France possesses right this Gaverebelt so deep so deep and I wouldn't say I would say our midfielders generally played well yes

but they're not you know there were several times where somebody was trying to carry the ball, you know, the way Musa can carry the ball forward. And that wouldn't happen. That wouldn't happen. They just have somebody step in front of them and take the ball, like, unceremoniously. Happened to Busio a few times, Georgia a couple times.

Testman. It did happen to testament as well, yeah. So to the timeline, choppy early, neither team comfortable, not unusual in a soccer. a soccer game. But we looked like we were ready to compete.

First item I have, two minutes in. Testament kind of dribbles into a dead end, but the tackle takes it straight to Busio. We have a little bit of a break, and it's just a misconnection between him and Duncan McGuire. I thought it had a nice, especially opening 30 minutes of the game, but they couldn't quite connect. Some little green shoots of

possession from us here and there, you know, like a nice little combination, but it by and large wouldn't last more than like four connections, you know? Yeah. Or it would peter out somehow. Which we did get

we got that confirmation early that just, you know, France isn't going to come out and press us. Which at least you could check that off the box. You can wipe your brow like, oh, okay. We're good. We can get in this game. We could sit in our 4-4-2 a little bit. And when we get the ball, hey, just knock it around the back a little bit. Let's catch a breath. And yeah, so this, despite the opening five, 10 minutes as Match Me and Choppy, we got some encouraging signs just from, you know, stuff like that.

I mean, the fact that France didn't want to press us was a huge blessing. Thank you, Thierry, show a mercy on us. And we're going to cut his checks off at NBC. It's a CBS. Fourth minute, a really nice combo from Georgie and McGuire. I thought McGuire's flick game was on early. And then Georgia gives it away with kind of a blind back heel, which you just can't, you know, can't really do that kind of stuff. But you thought, I know Georgie came in for a lot of criticism.

You thought he wasn't so bad? No, I don't think he was ass. You know, my trademark. red letter that I can sometimes give to a player after one bad game or multiple bad games I would not say

that Georgie was as in this particular match he was he was okay I mean if you wanted I guess if you want a little bit more in the attack from him all that different types of stuff

with him being I guess ostensibly our creative midfielder I can understand that but as far as he didn't make too many he was just mid he was just mid you know and you can criticize him for being mid that's fine but uh i don't

people people say they never want to see him in a u.s shirt again which which you know if he keeps being mid i will gladly uh back you on that um but being mid against france like i'll uh you live to fight another day george now mid against new zealand might have to talk yeah yeah always sticks in my memory that he went to a bar to watch one of the U.S. World Cup games wearing his own U.S. jersey, which is great. I love that from him.

It gives him a little leeway in my eyes. All right, six minute. Paredes takes on a guy and goes down, says he had his shirt pulled. Ref doesn't see it, doesn't give it. Then we have a slick bit of combo to play Paxson into the arc. where he suffers a late challenge. I thought he was fouled here, but no foul given.

He gets there first, kind of pokes at it, and then just gets chopped down. Goes down in a heap. The ref wasn't hearing it, though. Yeah, I would have to say one. But I did think... One of these would have to be a foul, in my opinion. The Paxone one looks like a foul to me, but I couldn't see whether Paredes' shirt was being pulled. definitely.

Prez is kind of a flopsy mopsie player, you know? Yes, yes he is. He flops all over the place. But good sign for me that he even took a guy on in the first place. Yeah. I do want to say that.

In the Bundesliga, he can be pretty averse to those things, where when you watch them in MLS, you know, he was taking everybody on at any time. So that was cool. Yeah, and of course he had the two really nice crosses in the second half, which we'll get to. But I think I would like to see more from him in general.

Oh, yeah. This isn't, him playing as a forward is not it. You know, you can tell he's a very smart football player, very smart soccer player. He was trying to make, he was trying to make copious amounts of runs and behind the line. You know, he has ideas. He knows how to play ball. But number one, he just doesn't have the juice. So when he does try to run in behind, it's like it's not, it doesn't really threaten you too much.

Like that left back, he didn't necessarily have to be on his toes. He could be on his heels. And Kevin Pradesh can try running behind and still be there, still be in a sit pocket. Yeah. And I just believe his best attribute is his ability to get and receive the ball and buildup. that's where I see and really shine for Wolfsburg. Maybe the final ball too.

That'd be a harbinger of things to come. Yeah. But yeah, I think he's kind of wasted as a winger. As somebody you're going to run the attack through and depend on to beat people 1B1, I'm not sure he's there. Real quick.

But yeah. Real quick before we move on to this, I just want to note again, this is a, this is a, Duncan flick to Paxton right there. Receive the ball top of the box, back to goal, right foot, just boom. Flicks that thing, what, perpendicular to him for Paxton to runoff?

Duncan was doing a lot of that good, a lot of that good stuff. A lovely touch from him. Well, okay, seven-minute mark Busio gets foul, but I thought it was smart from him to shield the ball as it comes out to him. I think it was Tesman who played it out to him or maybe Zimmerman. And he did it, he did really, he did really well to get in between the ball and the, the French defender who was coming up behind him. Because there was some kind of pressing or counter pressing going on in this moment. Yeah. And it relieved some pressure.

Yeah, I think we, I think we thwarted a, uh, a France attack. And yeah, Tanner hit the clearance to John Luca, who, you know. Okay. And I thought John Luca had a nice, had a nice start as well to the match. Just. Agreed. Nothing in particular that really stood out, but he just. He looked assured of himself.

He was positive in his play. He looked like he came out there to kind of take it to France, make a statement. And, you know, you can always tell. You can always tell when you really look at these guys, like who's up for it, who's scared. Like, there's no hiding on a soccer pitch, you know. And you can just tell by your body language, your body position, when you receive the ball, all those different types of things. And just John Luca checked all the boxes for me to start this match. In the Velodrome.

Yeah. The home of Zinidine Zadon, you know, that's where he came up. Lovely touch from McGuire on a long throw from Haryl. This one springs Bouscio to win a quarter. I mean, this is a really, really sexy little bit of soccer. And the ensuing corners glanced wide by, so Buccio wins a corner. He doesn't turn the corner on his guy, but he, you know, bangs it off him. out of bounds. And then on the corner, Miles Robinson makes pretty good contact on kind of a glancing

header from the near post aiming for the back post. Not sure if he was going for a goal or just flicking it on. But there was really nobody on that page, the flick on page. So it went out of bounds. But nice, you know, some promising signs from us. France comes down and wins a corner through Lacazette and Schulte comes out and claims it pretty well, I thought. Tim Howard. was impressed, so was I. Yeah. Yeah, it's just one of those things, right? I felt...

When Tim Howard says it, it's like, okay. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, he was really impressed by Al Schulte read the flight of the ball and came out and claimed it. Yep, that's right. Great job. Yeah, no, and I thought Shulte was pretty assured with the ball at his feet through the first half,

through the whole game, really. He looked comfortable with the ball at his feet. So to see him do something like that, I was like, okay, let's see, let's see what Schulte's got. Long passage of play from us here. Patient, not particularly incisive. We get that long switch from Tolkien. John Tolkien, we haven't really talked about much yet. To me, he seemed like the sort of the best of our defensive line at, you know, progressing the ball.

finding a pass to sort of release somebody. I mean, Haryl actually was pretty good too. Yeah. But I thought Tolkien had a really good game for the most part. And so anyway, he hits a long switch over to Paredes. Paredes, you know, kind of didn't quite know what to do with it. He recirculates it. Then we get like a decent cross from Bousio, a low cross at Duncan.

Duncan, McGuire, that is, flicks it on. It doesn't, this time doesn't quite get to Paxton. but again, fairly promising. Yeah. And just in this patch of the play, I do want to point out that Georgie does try to give it away three passes into the sequence. Three passes into the sequence.

So Schulte plays a ball out with his left foot to Tolkien. Tolkien receives it. First time pass to Georgie, who's in a bit of space. Yes. This is really nice for me. talking, by the way. Yes. So Georgie has the ball. He's looking at Pax. Pax kind of half-heartedly kind of start

to run. Like he wants Georgie to play him in behind. But like I said, it was half-hearted. He takes like three steps and then stops. But by that time, Georgie had stopped looking at him and just started looking down at the ball to get the weight of this pass right, plays it, gets cut out. but the ball falls to Tannertesman and then we keep possession there. But maybe if you were, maybe this register pretty high for you on the assometer

for Georgie, you know, as... It probably did. I mean, it was a subconscious, but, yeah. But it seemed like he had a few of these, but maybe he did, maybe had fewer than I thought.

He probably had a few, two, three. Two, three. I'm not going to prosecute Georgie anymore than he's already being prosecuted. It's okay. He had a really nice shot later, which we'll get to. You got a clip you want me to point. Oh, yes, yes.

After this, in between, I think it's about the 18th minute, Georgie comes back in buildup and wins a foul and prompted this little bit of wisdom from Tim Howard. Bells, if you just want to go ahead. And you can actually see my high limit's there telling his player, he's coming towards the ball, but he doesn't actually want it. He wanted to be bypassed in the midfield.

Yet when he gets it, he's strong enough to buy the foul. That's going to be important because in moments you have to take the ball under pressure in football. If you want to gain any sort of territorial advantage. Yeah, I just, I just, for listeners, the scuff podcast, or particularly the Monday Review, we talk a lot about especially midfielder's ability to play on the half turn. we've come under a little bit of fire for this from some of our beloved patrons. And like why do we care so much about it? And there's Tim Howard telling you why we care so much about it.

Got to be able to take the ball into pressure if you want to progress it and gain territorial advantage. That's all we're saying. Listen to Tim. Listen to Tim. Yeah. And I thought, you know, I thought Testament was really calm. under pressure.

I gained a little bit of a new appreciation for him, I think, today. Yes. He was a... Yeah. It was a mixed bag for him. Like, not everything was great. But if you're watching Tanner right now, and let's say you weren't watching them, like, two years ago, just know that this is, like, a completely... A completely different player.

Yeah, he now really looks like a midfielder, where before he would, uh, he would, uh, he would... he just looked like a talented dude playing ball. You know, he would always be able to pull out the nice switch, always be able to pull out some type of nice dribble that you wouldn't expect to a 6-3 dude to pull off or something like that. But now he's just a lot more clean with his technique. You know, he can receive the ball and control it and pass it consistently now in ways that he couldn't.

He used to just have ridiculous giveaways where he looked like Bambi out there with the ball. Like, you know, the ball was not one with him. Now, the ball's pretty much, it's pretty much one with him. And, you know, you just don't see any of those completely ridiculous things that he used to do while still keeping some of the eye-popping stuff that we'll get to. You know, this all reminds me, this has been a summer of revelations, right? I mean, the Copa failure, then watching the Copa final, just being kind of gobsmacked by that. and now this

it does seem it does kind of make me think we're in this like we're in this half space as a program up and down all the way up all the way down where we are

everybody out there had good ideas you know for us today like I mean Georgie had some good ideas Busio had lots of good ideas Tolkien had good ideas Testament had good ideas good ideas. Yeah, Harry will have good ideas. And we did

some nice stuff here and there. But it's like, it's like maybe it's just too new for us. Like we got this shiny new toy. We're like, well, look, we can do this. And, you know, like, what was it? The Waki said the other day,

we need the, we need the grit and the, we need the grit to come along with the, you know, with the soccer. We need both. and the grit kind of ran out in this game today. Because the hardest thing to have, right, and the thing that nobody seems to know how to actually coach, right, is just the quality part of it.

Like the class, you know, it's just innate. It's like it either comes out of you or you don't. You know, like nobody, and not a lot of people come in without like the final ball gene or the final past gene or the final third gene just in general. and like a lot of there's not a lot of players that come in without it and leave with it.

Develop it. Yeah, it's just. Yeah. If you didn't play soccer for four hours a day when you were 10, you can't go back in time and do that over again, you know? Yeah. So that's the last part. Right.

When you see what separates the two teams like in this actual match, right? It's that. It's those moments that they can. pull out. We don't get that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's such a game of inches too, because well, we'll get to it. So let's try to go a little faster through the rest of this first half.

So nice passage of play in the 21st minute with Perretti's facing his guy up and cutting in. He zips it over to Paxton. Paxton gets a chance to shoot. Tries to kind of shoot from a standstill through the defender's legs and it's blocked off his foot. Yeah. This was nice from Tanner.

leading up to it. Just a patented tantatestment dime from deep. Has it on his right foot, fainted and chopped it over to his left. In midfield to get himself a little bit of space. Now he has it on his left foot. Just saying basically uncorks a laser over the paredes, which starts this whole thing. But yeah, that's tantar testament for you.

Yeah. It hits those switches with both feet. Buccio got a shout at him out. for some extremely resolute defending down in the corner against Olyse. Happy to see it. I was having visions of him scoring the game winner and then posting the song on Twitter.

It would have been a party. Wasn't to be. Wasn't to be. Was not to be. 27th minute, a worrying sign, a little bit of a lucky break for us as Francis is starting to get more of a hold on the game. And then they have a quick one to,

and a shot from just inside the box. Looked to be gold. I mean, look like it was going in and hit a French back behind the back line. But, I mean, there's a rip from 17 yards. Yep.

And, yeah. And as Tim Howard says, as he says after this shot, always look at the keeper and see if the keeper moved, then he knew that thing was probably going to be gold bound. And, yeah, Schulte takes a hard step

towards his left before it gets deflected. But yeah, we just talked about John Lucas, resolute defendant, Al-Wide against Alisei. In the lead-up to this, he got crunched in a dual by Kone for France to win the ball back and regain possession. And then he also is the one that gets one to it around for the shot. And this comes after, this comes after Alise gets his revenge and receives the ball in the half-space between Busio and Perides receives it,

turns, gives John Luca a little stop and go, and then John Luca tries to get on his hip and Elysa basically shrugs him off like a net. So, you know, it's the,

it's the John Luca experience, essentially. He's no longer lineman jogging. He gets around the pitch a lot better now, but still a little bit. Not an elite.

athlete athlete. Still a little bit to go. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So we'll get some good defending on a corner from Zimmerman. I thought, you know, I thought I should note that because he goes up and puts Bade off. Body is the one who scores later on a corner.

But, you know, Zimmerman and Miles are good choices for overage players for this team. I think they fit in perfectly, pretty much. 32nd minute, a lovely touch from Tessman to spring Georgie and break the press. then Georgie plays his pass behind Harriol to kill the moment. This is just a pet peeve of mine. You have this like knife's edge moment of possession through the back, under some pressure, incredibly sweet from Tesman. Georgie just has to play it a little bit ahead of Harriol out wide.

I mean, he's got a giant window to pass through. Harial's got a ton of space. And he plays it like three yards behind him. It's just like kills the whole, any momentum we had there, gone. We're just basically, now, I mean, it's good that we got out of the pressure, but we could have, like, had a little bit of something cooking, and we didn't. It's just my axe to grind. Side to side, back to front passage of play in the 39th minute.

Harry will pings it over to Pax, and that is. He cuts in, tries to sneak one in at the near post. It's actually a pretty good effort. I mean, totally wrong foot. Rest is the keeper. And he makes a kick save in some level of, desperation. Yeah.

So I'm feeling pretty good. Feeling pretty good. Yeah. And Pax, he looks a little awkward playing the wing. But, you know, he does, he's one that might, just might have that final third gene. And, you know, you see his ability just to be able to get shots off, get him on frame. You know, we all know, Conca Calf Championship Golden Boot winner. and produced pretty well.

False nine extraordinary. And produced pretty well for Vitesse in his half a season that he had there. He's a danger man. And also the lead-up to this, just a nice kind of one-two from Busio and Harrio, like that whole build-up. The whole business end of the buildup comes through that right side. And you talk about ideas from everybody on the pitch, just the fact that Buccio kind of receives it on the right touchline.

Harriol comes infield to give an angle for Buccio to square or two. Now Herio's in a little bit of space and he chips that thing over the packs. Just some good-looking ball. Absolutely, yeah. Night and day from what we saw in that friendly was it against Japan a month ago? Yeah, yeah. It gets a little scary right before the half, but I won't get into all of it. I mean, it's just kind of a lot of like kind of messy danger from France.

Did you have anything before we go to the half, go to the break? Nothing. Just, I guess there was a, there was a Mateta long shot from the top of the box that, you know, just glances wide of that of the right post. And, yeah, I don't know. There was something about when I saw it. was just like, it's coming. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. It was something about that shot where I'm just like, man, if we give these dudes too many of these long, one of these, one of these will find them that. Yeah. But, uh, well, that was a prescient instinct. Yeah. There was another one that, uh, that Schulte stopped that I think like the foot was

deflected by Testament a little bit. Anyway, let's go to the half. We'll take a little break. Reminder, if you want to skip all the ads, listen to every scuffed episode, ad-free, listen to every Monday review, which usually are just exclusively for patrons. Join the Patreon.

The link is in the show notes. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Second half, starts a lot like the first half, kind of choppy. We went a corner early. They went a corner. I don't have a ton to say

about the first 15 minutes or so because really the busiest 10 minutes of the game. I mean, there's McGuire's confrontation with Bade in the corner, which I think was somewhat encouraging just to see a little spirit from us. But really the bit... Go ahead, go ahead.

Well, just real quick, as far as like a big picture thing. Yeah. Just the fact that, like, we, the U.S. made that first half a pretty uneventful affair. You know, through, some of it is because of us. Some of it is because of France. We were both content and kind of sitting back in blocks

and with a kind of low line of confrontation and just being resolute in our block. But we'll take that as a win. We'll take that as a win. And the fact that the second half is, the second half starts out uneventful as well. Well, yeah, everything's going to plan. I don't think Marco could want for much more.

All the events really come once we start to get stretched a little bit. I'll uncategorically take it as a win. But as I think about it, I think, okay, is this team just a lot, lot better than we thought they were? Or was France kind of bad, too? you know like I was thinking about the whole you know

people still occasionally say should T Riyamri be the U.S.S. national team coach I was thinking like man this France team doesn't look that good despite all the talent they have

I don't know do you have an opinion on that I just didn't think they they didn't look like they're obviously good they did beat us 3-0 but they didn't look look we looked like the better team

for a lot of parts of this game. Having a talent advantage and not necessarily pressing it in the way that Tieri did not. Like, that's not how I would go about it. You know? Yeah. It's, I

want to come out here and see if Harial, Tolkien, Walker, Miles, you know, if they, if they can all be composed under pressure, you know? See, See if they'll crack. Right.

They're in the velodrome. Once again, in the velodrome. Yeah, that's just by not forcing the issue, right, you leave the door open for the other team to play football. It's just what it comes down to. Are you a fan of cycling as a sport, you know, speaking of velodromes? You know, like the, I'm not, but. Lance Armstrong shot killed it for me, man. Yeah.

Well, I mean, like, probably what they do at that stadium is, like, the track racing, you know, right? Where they go around and round and around. It's more like Indy 500 or something. Anyway. Okay, let's get to this. The busiest 10 minutes of the game is basically from the 58-minute mark to the 69-minute mark somewhere in there. and that's where all the action happens. It does feel like if we just get one moment of quality from somebody,

we can maybe come away with a win. A draw feels very possible at this point in the game. And then in the 59th minute, sure enough, we nearly get it. Georgie collects a cleared, I think was it a corner kick or a free kick? Some kind of steppiece. Okay. He collects it maybe. So John Luca poked a ball away from a France midfielder.

Got it and got filed. And then free kick from there. Okay. So off the free kick, it gets headed away, collected by Mahalovich, maybe 25 yards from goal. He takes a couple touches towards a goal and then just absolutely peltz it with his right foot from, I don't know, 20 yards. Keeper doesn't even move. There's no chance of him stopping it if it's on frame. And it just bangs off the crossbar straight up into the sky.

30 feet in the air. And it was so close. What a hit. I mean, like, no rotation on it. Everything, all the, you know, the blind back heels and the misconnections would all have been forgiven. So he was fading back too, man. He took a couple steps, a couple, two, three steps. Backpedaling, he felt like that thing had a pretty decent shot, which, of course, it did.

But yeah, he felt good once it left his foot. Yep, follow through. Yeah, it was interesting to see it because you don't see a fade away that demonstrative too many times in soccer. I didn't notice that. You can catch that thing and it's going, and it might go on to Rosette, you know what I'm saying?

But he knew when it came out of the foot. Man, so close. And then, of course, France scores almost immediately. So there's a lot. There's a lot going on. But Paxton loses it to Sidiya, the right back. It's kind of a man against boy duel there where Paxx tries to go around him to the left. And Sadiah is just like, nope, absolutely not, buddy.

And then Paxon gets whistled for a foul. He was like pulling on him. And then I'm interested in what you've got to say about this. But France comes back at us. not like, it was not like a lightning quick strike. Just kind of moving the ball down the field, but we're kind of maybe a little switched off as a unit. I mean, it's easy to go back and Zapruder this stuff and say, well, we were switched off.

If, you know, if, if Lacazette's shot doesn't go, doesn't, isn't absolutely perfect in its placement, then we wouldn't say that, but it does look a little lacking in urgency. I would say we're switched. off just because of the fact that like, okay, what I would say was like the, where all the stuff happened, right, where the business end of that attack happened, that would usually be right in the teeth of our two lines of four, right? And the file happens and we don't get back down the pitch and set up into our block. And like you said, it's not like France's rate.

They're not racing down the pitch at all, really. Like, this is not a quick restart. This is not, they smell blood or anything like that. Like, they get the ball to Mando Cone. Cone is kind of a one-speed type dude. He takes it up the pitch, passes it to... Alise. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Passes it to Alisei, who, like, Tanner Testman is there, but Alise kind of has a two-way go because Tanner's protection on his left side, which should have been Paxton. Paxton is not back. No. He's kind of bringing up the rear there. And so he doesn't know whether to shut off the right, left. At least they acts like he's going right, comes back left, and then hits Lacazette.

And Lacazette is able to peel off the back line into space because our lines aren't set up and they're not compact. And, you know, John Luca tries to make it over there. But, yeah, I do think this is a failure of our shaping. we need to get the shape God on, right? Greg Velasquez to see if we're being fair or not. But I do, I would say that this is, that's the biggest failure here for sure. Because all the space where the joy was had,

there would not have been that space in the first half, right? Yeah, there was a big hole in the midfield because Busio was slow to get back to kind of trotting back. and Laca Zat, like you said, he's pushing the, he's running along the shoulder of, I think, Zimmerman. Yes. And then as soon as Alisei cuts in,

Lacazette just pops right into that big old hole of space right in front of the centerbacks, receives it with all kinds of time. It's almost generous to say he receives it on the half turn because he takes a huge touch. His first touch is huge into like this another big area of space. Busio is a little slow to close him down. And Lacazette just rips one from, I'd say, 24 yards, 25 yards,

low into the far corner. I thought Schulte, who'd been good all game, just didn't get enough push to tip it around the post. I'm not a goalkeeping expert. I mean, we need the goalkeeping god Velazquez on here to talk about this a little bit, but it seems like he could have done better. The shot bounced twice before it crossed the goal line. He perhaps was, and I think he probably was unsighted

on the early flight of the ball because Miles was between him and Lacazette, and the ball went behind Miles in the back post. But there it is, one zero. One zero. And I'm watching this again. And yeah, like, if... So John Lucas is bringing up the... He is also bringing up the rear, as you mentioned, right?

And, like, once the ball is played to Lacazette, he kind of makes a B-line towards Lacazette. And it's like, if he is in position and in his spot right there, there might not... well, the hold to pass the ball into just isn't as long. It wouldn't be there. Yeah. So, yeah, this is a shape failure.

Gotta be. Gotta be. You got to snap back into it, man. Everybody, because this comes from a break, right? This was kind of a break where Paxton gets filed. You know, John Luca carried it, turned around, played it backwards, and then made it over to the left side. And then Tolkien played, played packs down the line. that this all happens in about 10, 15 seconds.

Like, everybody made their way down the, down the pitch to attack. Yeah. You got to get back to defend, baby. I mean, it's just blocking and tackling, man. It's the basics. I'm not too worked up about it. Like I said, I thought we looked pretty good.

It happens. And I'm hopeful. What's that? It happens. Yeah. So, We get a couple good chances in the next four minutes. Really good chances.

One's off a throw-in in the 63rd minute. Harriol rambles across the field to the middle, kind of pokes it to Georgie, who plays a really nice kind of against-the-grained pass to Busio between the lines. Busio receives it on the half-term, pushes it out to Paredes. He steps onto his left foot

and plays a good curling in-swinger. Got some nice movement from Paxton on the back post to kind of dart in ahead of his marker and get pretty good contact on it with his head. I think it was decent contact. I think it probably deflected off his head and then off of Sidiya. Anyway, saved by Rastas down to his left. But it's a good chance. It's a really good chance.

Probably Georgie's most incisive moment of the match, really, when you think about it, that pass to Busco. Yeah. I mean, outside of the almost bang. Right, right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it was a nice. And then we had another, like, very kind of similar moment. One minute later, 6325 mark. Get it back. We work it over to that right side again. Nice contributions in kind of tight quarters from both Busio and Testman. Finds Paredes out wide. He steps in, hits another end swinger. This one finds. Tolkien for absolutely free header on the back post. He arrives, heads it down like you're supposed to.

Textbook just hits the post. And then there's a scramble. There's a gold mouth scramble. Body's flying everywhere, but we just can't find the back of the net. Tolkien obviously could have done better, wishes he would have done better. But I don't know, better to have a chance like that to not have one at all, you know? Yeah, yeah, I guess so. But, you know, when that little ball right there from Paredes, right,

when you see a little clip ball, clip cross that's not coming from far away, that hits that runner coming in clean from the back post, I mean, whenever you see that pattern in a game of ball, like that's almost always a goal. Like I was, have my hands in the air like it's good. It was not good. Because the goal is just defenseless. I mean, there's really, like, unless you hit it off his body, he can't save it.

So that's why it's almost always a goal. Oh, well, oh well. Yep, yeah. A little bit further to the right for Tolkien would have been a goal. Three inches, yeah. That's all it would have taken. And then four minutes after that, France scores again. Why don't you describe it to us, Vince?

Okay, yeah. This goal, first of all, it starts with the U.S. in possession. Gold kick. Shulte with the ball. We're trying to build out the back. It gets played to Harriol, back to Zemmer, back to Shulte, then out to Harial. Harial plays a little clip ball to Kevin Prades,

who's coming back to it once again just a bad use at Kevin Praday is in my opinion him coming back to the ball trying to shield somebody off of it. It didn't go well as you would as you would probably guess

and it's cut out and it's played toward the France goal the ball is won by Alise who taps it back to La Caba France has possession now and after a few passes and attempted through ball to Trafair is cut out by Parades

who doesn't collect it and the deflection falls to Lacazette La Cazette now has it at the top of the box the left side of the top of the box kind of glides through glides in the zone 14 just, you know,

taking a stroll along the top of the box and passes it to Alise who has found a little bit of space and he receives the ball, turns and fires it with his left foot, to the left corner of the goal to know. From about what?

I mean, he's 18 yards out? 17. Yeah. An inch perfect finish. I mean, this one's unstoppable. I don't think there's any blame on Shulte here. But, you know, maybe a little blame on Paxton. I mean, Paxton was the guy closest to Alicia, right, in this hole.

and I'd like him to sort of lead him to his right force him to go to his right a little bit especially in this spot on the field I think he was caught a little bit on his heels there because once the once the cutout pass wasn't collected by Paredes basically we had a situation where France had more attackers on the box

than well they had an overload basically in the middle of the box to where Hogan had to collapse down to mark a French attacker, which then would cause for Pax to come down and kind of be that fifth person on the back line. And he just wasn't necessarily as alert to it as you would want to be, especially when it's Michael Alisa who's going to get the ball there. Yeah, he hasn't been watching his Crystal Palace, I guess. Yeah, but it's a bang, bang, bang read, right? It's a bang, bang, bang, read.

Like, Tolkien. It is. And maybe Tolkien should have, like, just shouted at Pax as he was collapsing himself. But, yeah. Well, I know if Greg were here, he would say, that'd be Greg Velasquez. He would say he would want, he would want, he would want, he would want Tolkien to take away the far post. You know, that's what Shulte would want from him. Instead, what he does is he just takes away, he doesn't take away really anything.

I mean, like you said, it's all bang, bang, and it's, I mean, it's just a ridiculous finish. I don't know. Game is, I mean, it is crazy how, like, just casually, France scores two goals without seeming to exert hardly any effort. Yeah. But that's what it is, man. And, you know, as we've hit this rough patch as a, a program, as a, as the United States Men's National team, you know, we're having a lot of this

happen to us. And that's the effect of quality. That's the effect of class, man, where you're just scratching your head, like, well, damn. Damn. Yeah. It's like, did we really mess up that bad on these, on these defensive shifts here? Like, no, not really. No, I mean, we're going, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, We're talking about it in detail, of course. But yeah, it's not like, there's no catastrophic failures here.

It is what it is, as you like to say. All right. And then so 2-0, game feels pretty much over at that point. 85th minute, France gets their third goal. It's Loicbaade on a corner kick. Miles is marking him. Another guy falls down. Miles kind of stumbles over him.

He can't jump into the challenge. So it's basically a free header for Bade from like eight yards out. He just hammers it in. The only other thing I've got is Yow, Griffin Yow came on. So did Jack McGlynn. McGlynn hit a nice switch over to Yao in the fourth minute of stoppage time. And Yao did really well to take it down, put the defender down on his back, and then dribble in and just rip one.

past Restes. But it's all for not. He was leaning off side when the pass was hit. And honestly, you know, Griffin, that's just not good enough. You know, you got the whole back line to look at. Yeah. It didn't matter at this point, but, you know. He really was in position to look at the whole back line.

Yeah. But it was, but, you know, another little encouraging science. So lots of encouraging signs. I think we can beat New Zealand. We can beat Guinea. New Zealand won 1-0 in their match, I believe. And we can get out of the group. I didn't watch the match.

Don't have any XG figures. But I know Guinea far outshot, they outpossessed outshot New Zealand. New Zealand won. And yeah, New Zealand. Guinea always going to be a little scarier than New Zealand. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But New Zealand got the three points in their pocket,

so maybe they're feeling a little fat and happy, and we just come in and lay the law down. That's right. They're getting soft already after their one win. Yeah, so that is on Saturday at 1 p.m., New Zealand versus the United States, 1 p.m. Eastern Time. I should also mention, you know, Greg, So Greg and I are going to recap the women's game, which is tomorrow at 3 p.m. against Zambia.

We'll recap that in the coming days. That's, I mean, from my point of view, kind of the big one right now. The women's tournament is, you know, it's big. It's big. It's big deal. We don't have big expectations for this U-23 team coming into this tournament. We do have big expectations for Emma Hayes and the crew. So, you know, keep.

Checking your podcast feed for that episode when it comes out. And anything else, Vince? Give us a parting words. Nah, that's really it. We'll be back in the Orange Velodrome on Saturday. That's all I know. So we went ahead and broke it in, broke it in for the tournament. And now we get to go in here and do our business.

Yeah. I think we'll be all right, man. I'm excited. I'm excited. Yeah. I wonder what the turnout will be in the stadium on Saturday. But it doesn't really matter. I'm optimistic. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.