Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #517: Olympics — Under-23 USMNT v New Zealand recap

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

Belz and Watke recap the 4-1 win over New Zealand. Next up is the pivotal game against Guinea. 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, we beat New Zealand four to one. Recapping it with me is Waki. How you doing, man? Doing very well, Adam. Comfortable, stress-free win. Yeah. That's a nice change of pace.

It was wonderful. And Canada's in disgrace. Oh, man. Cheaters. Throw the book at him. What fun. What I appreciate you about this. scandal is we kind of knew they were doing it we didn't care but now we're going to hit them

with everything yeah it's like what how much advantage is there to the to obtaining drone footage of another team's training sessions i it seems minimal but in any case things could not be going better yeah on that's great i learned new zealand is named for a province in the netherlands zeeland with two ease yeah it was later anglicized by James Cook. There's a Zeeland in Michigan, you know, which everyone knows is heavily Dutch. Who knows how that the Dutch got there? Anyhow, that's kind of the big picture stuff with me right now.

I'm happy to get into this game. Let's get into the game. Let's start with the lineups. How about that? Patrick Schulte and goal, it was the same 11 that played against France. Do you have a hot take reaction to that, that rotation from our manager there? Total garbage, Mitchrovich out. No, I guess I was a little surprised that we went with the exact same guys.

But it's fine. Well, we'll talk about it. I mean, Booth came on, Yao came on later. Booth and Yaw both came on later in the game. I thought they, I thought Booth in particular provided something that Kevin Perettis didn't from right wing. He did not provide all the flopping that Kevin provided. However. Well, no one can.

But you haven't produced the players as a country anywhere close to Kevin with flopping. Right. He's good. He's good at it. What, do we, both of our first two goals came on? The creator. Yeah, off of fouls that he drew.

Okay, so, yeah, no, do you have a hot take on the lineup? Well, I like the approach. And I don't know if it's the best 11, but let's assume for the second that it is. You throw out that best 11 against France, try to go for something. Okay, it didn't happen. Now we're in a must-win game.

You just do it again. These are young men. They can handle two days. They can. If Marco thinks it's the best team, I think he should have put the best team out today. I think we can debate whether it's actually the best team. But it's a, you know, there's a lot of hair splitting there.

So Schulte and goal, Nathan Harriol, at right back, steady as she goes over there. Miles Robinson, Walker Zimmerman. and John Tolkien round out the backline. Tolkien's been, I think he's been wonderful to watch the way he plays soccer. Both games, honestly. Testman, Bousseo and Mihailovich in the midfield, the ever-controversial Georgie,

and then Kevin Perretti, Duck and McGuire, and Paxson-Arensen across the front line. I will give the New Zealand lineup. Alex Paulson and goal. He had a busy day and I think he did a lot of good things as goalkeeper work goes. Tyler Binden, Finn Sermon, Michael Boxall, and Sam Sutton

across the backline. Do you know anybody named Finn? That's F-I-D-N. Huckleberry? Oh, yeah, him, for sure. Just Huck. Yeah. And I think as a character

and Finn isn't a character in some, something. That wasn't a very good contribution to the podcast. I'm aware of a character named Finn. Finnegan's Wake? I don't know. I was thinking of a TV show.

Oh, okay. American graffiti maybe? Could be. Could be. Finn. I do think Finn is a name that's coming back a little bit, though. I perceive that in the landscape. So, yeah, that's the back line.

Joe Bell and Matthew Garbit, who had an extremely busy day in midfield. I mean, he was the penalty conceder, and he helped create the New Zealand's only goal. Ahead of the two in the midfield is Lackland Bayliss, right-wing. Sarpreet Singh is the number 10. He used to be Chris Richard's teammate at Byron Muni, and then one in a, you know, one who presumably owns some drones, Jay Hurdman.

Probably learned to fly I'm really young. This is his son? Yeah, this is John Hurdman's son, Jay. Is that mean to say that? I mean, he probably had nothing to do with it. Disgraceful heritage. I think people will know that we were not actually blaming him for his father's heinous crimes. And then Ben Wayne at Stryker.

And, you know, if, well, I didn't think New Zealand was all that great. A little unlucky on the day, wouldn't you say? You know, put yourself in the shoes of a New Zealander. What it looked like to me is their spirit was broken by those early goals. And maybe they could have been resolute out there. But once we're up a couple, I don't know that they had much to go to. No. We were the better team.

Let's go straight to the timeline and we'll make a quick work of it. How about that? right off the bat we get that Tolkien hit from distance after some aggressive approach work down the left Tolkien Tolkien looks comfortable out there and he takes a touch with his right foot onto his left foot shoots it's deflected

saved well by Paulson He tried to kick it really through the defenders and almost succeeded at that I have a unique intuition for physics there than I'm really impressed by. It seems like a risk worth taking most of the time because if it gets through, it's like, what, twice is hard to save?

Yeah. It's up there. And he did it with complete confidence. That's the key. You can't be thinking, oh, there's people in front of it. There's no way it's going to go in. You have to think, I'm kicking it, and it is going to go in even though there's two people right in front of it.

Yeah. Pretend there's nobody there. Smash it. Yeah, we're getting, uh, some hustle in the third minute down the line from Paxton to win a corner. It's an okay ball from Tessman that gets deflected. I mean, these, particularly the right side of that New Zealand defense seemed to have a little trouble dealing with stuff.

Yeah, and maybe just from the hustle reading early signs that Pax intends to be an impact player in this game, which I think he was. He was, he was. All right, and the first goal comes. in the sixth minute for the U.S. Paredes, who was eager to draw contact and whistles. I won a foul from number six Bell over on the right sideline. I think he gets elbowed in the face kind of.

Georgie goes short with the free kick to Tolkien. Tolkien plays one of his sort of sweet diagonals to the back post. Testman's there. He nods it across. Love to see that from the big man. Nathan Harrile collects it. kind of dances over it slash lingers over it for a minute and then gets, I would say, very stupidly chopped at by Matthew Garbett, leaves the leg out.

Ariel goes down immediately, which is what he should do, and it's a penalty. Definitely a penalty. I want to go back to the beginning of the sequence where Paredes has gotten hit in the face. I will argue he did not get hit in the face. Oh. I think this was a simulation by him. fantastic work. Maybe he did.

It doesn't really seem like he did, though. The important thing, he's going down fast. He goes into any sequence like this knowing anything close to a foul. I'm going to crumble like a rag doll. Does it give you hope for the future to see Kevin doing this sort of thing? It does, although he does it with such shamelessness. It's a little bit... I feel a little bit uncomfortable with it.

This wasn't the worst one, but he had quite a game. Yeah. There's something that happens in the, I think it's the second half that I can't wait to talk about. But we got to wait until we get there. Georgie buries the penalty to the goalkeeper's left. Goalkeeper guess is wrong. He opens up his body like he's going to the right. And the keeper's right, that is.

Instead goes to his left. Love it. Okay, so there were some, I would characterize them as unhappy people, critical of this supposedly weak penalty. And I think the key to understanding this is not, week penalty is that he opened up like that. Yeah. It wasn't just a case of the keeper guessing.

He tricked him. He bent the world to him to put it right there. And that wet up a goal. Like a Steve Jobs. Yeah. Okay. I'm totally receptive to that argument. I might even start arguing it myself.

Oh, I'm realizing before we go on, we skipped over a crowd shop from about a three-minute mark. Oh, yeah. Three men painted as an American flag. One of those men was a scuffed community member. A dear scuffed community member, I would say. Harrison Fox. Yeah.

Yeah, I actually, I didn't know that he was in France. I mean, he's been, I guess he's posted some videos and stuff to the Discord. I had not seen those. So I saw it. I saw that on the broadcast. I screenshot it. I said, is this Harrison? He was like, yeah, it's him.

Wow, there he is. He was changed. chanting USA. So thank you for your service hair. Which one was he? I don't know what he looks like. He wasn't the one whose flag was ruined by the sweat, was he? He was the one on the right.

I don't know if the flag was ruined by the sweat. Yeah. He was the one on the right. By his sweat. Yeah. It wasn't ruined. It was just a little messy. I know this is a little indulgent, you know, to talk about this kind of thing.

But he has been following the scuffed Twitter account, I think, basically, since it started. Like, not too long after. like I've known him on the internet for six years now so it's great to see him out there I apologize for coming at as a just a little bit blurry the stripes it's all well yeah I mean he's sweating he's getting after it he's getting after it

what did I do by the way today yeah we just sitting there in your air conditioning complaining about his sweat I'm embarrassed by what I've just unbelievable criticism and then we get another goal very shortly after this Perretus wins another foul.

Was this one shameless? Did you think? I think we just need to assume they're all a little bit shameless. I don't want to dwell too much on the, you know, if I have, what I would say is he barely got touched. Was it a foul? Maybe. Maybe.

He made it a foul, though, is the important thing. Yeah. He's coming back to a pass on the ground. Goes down in a heap. And we get a Georgie free kick from Wyatt again. This time he doesn't go short. He hits it into the mixer. It's a little closer, so that's why I think.

McGuire gets a little bite at it, flicks it on a bit with his head. I want to talk about Nathan Harriol's work here because this was actually quite nice what he did. It all happened really fast, but he sort of takes a touch with his head after it comes off of McGuire's head, one of those touches that's just like gently cushions it down

so it comes down in front of you. And then he stabs it down to the keeper's right and draws a great save. I mean, he doesn't get a lot on it, but he got as much on it as he could be expected to get on it in that situation. Great save from Paulson, but Zimmerman is just,

he's just prowling around in that area and he pounces on the rebound. while it's under a New Zealand defender. Kind of flicks it up. Yeah, it just slips that leg right in there. Yeah. And then cops it up. I'll tell you what, if that had been Peretti's, he did that too.

He would have flown through the back of the net. That would have been called a foul on Zimmerman. Yeah. New Zealand lacking in the dark arts, I guess. Puts it in the, you know, top left corner. And it's two zero. Can you believe it? Have we not given enough,

I shouldn't, maybe not say we, but have we not given enough respect to Haryl? Because I've just trained myself to, I see that name, he's kind of always in the mix of some kind of youth national team. He's a professional player, but like I need to,

I just in my head think I don't need to think too much about him. Has that been a mistake? I don't know. I don't know. It might be. It might be. We have to,

we have to consider that it could be a mistake. Because I feel the same way, I haven't paid a ton of attention to him. He's been really good in this tournament. So maybe I'm going to treat this as just a reminder to return to some amount of humility. And thank you guys players. Always good thing to be reminded of.

Yeah, I guess maybe it was like, well, he's not going anywhere. He's still at Philly. Paxton went somewhere. He didn't exactly light the world on fire at Eintracht Frankfurt, but he's going to light the world on fire at Utrecht, don't you think?

I think so. I think so. This almost looked in moments. Maybe it was just Taylor Booth running in open space. It started to look like a game in kind of the bottom level of the Iridivizzi out there. Herakles-L-Mello versus Nacbreda.

Precisely. Um, okay, so that's it, two zero. And we get a little chance for New Zealand, a shot from range, saved by Schulte, not a little chance. This was actually kind of scary. So they're parked around our box for a while, and we're in the 22nd minute. Nothing really dangerous from them. And then Garbitt, the guy who did that stupid penalty earlier, he, you know, nobody really closes him down and he takes a good hit from 20 yards. it clips hard off of Zimmerman's head.

You know, Zimmerman's trying to throw his noggin in the way. The deflection changes the trajectory of the ball, I don't know, by like three or four yards relative to where it's going to cross the goal line. And Schulte already diving to his left, not diving, leaning to his left, reaches back with his right paw. He was leaning enough where he could not jump back the other way,

reaches back with his right hand, and keeps it real strong, pops the ball up in the air, incredible save, I think. Then scrambles to his feet, and he and John Tolkien put off Binden, the number four, when he tries to head in the rebound,

and his header goes over the bar. So I was a little, I don't know if you were, but I was a little concerned with Schulte's goalkeeping on the first goal, the Lacazette one, against France. This was good, though. This was good. And for people who are going to zip-rooter that three or four yards,

we're talking about relative distance between where Schulte was and where the ball was, and we also mean like three or four feet. No, I don't. Well, how wide is the gold mouth not to get too deep in the weeds? It's very wide. Three yards is an enormous distance. Okay. So not three or four yards.

But it looked like it was going. to the to the corner to the left of Shulte when the shot was taken. He thought it was. That's why he's leaning that way. And then it goes right down the middle. I probably wasn't three or four yards.

It didn't take a... That's what it looked like at first. It did not take as hard of a deflection. I don't see much... I don't know why I'm coming at you right now as hard as I am. Well, I appreciate it. But from the perspective of goalkeeper, it was an enormous and very significant deflection.

And for him to keep his arm out strong there like that was. Yeah, it was impressive. It was very impressive. We get a lovely curling ball in the 25th minute from Tolkien over the right back for Paxton. He plays a good cut back to Busio, who takes the shot first time with his left foot. And he just scuffs it, if we're honest, you know, scuffs it. pretty easy for the goalkeeper to deal with. Well, no, actually it was blocked by a sliding challenge.

But it was sort of a sign of things to come, wasn't it? 27th minute. I've won the clock a lovely Croif turn out of pressure from Tanner Testman. Doesn't he? He looks pretty in command out there, doesn't he? For the most part. Stollard. Just commanding.

I was mostly watching Paredes, particularly on this. play so I don't know I'm not really sure he seemed good though oh yeah because paredes right what how were you watching on this exact play paredes has for no no reason that's clear to me backed into his defender the defender basically just puts an arm up to prevent for paredes benefit to make sure he doesn't bump into him Kevin crumbles he goes down and you know he's like he's like he's like like rubbing his back for the next five minutes.

That's what's so key about him going down is he's committing all the way through every time. And at the Olympics, too. Yeah. A lot of people would tone it down up a couple goals at the Olympics. Not him. He doesn't have an off switch. But as we'll see, as we'll see, it's not all the, it's like, it's not. It is useful stuff.

It's also, I don't think there's much malice in it either. Because he's such a friendly guy. he's still on good terms with this man. Yeah. I think they high five a little bit later. No, yeah, I wanted to bring that up. I think that was a fascinating moment. It's right after this.

It happened. Oh, yeah, yeah, this is it, right here. So he makes a sliding challenge to poke a ball out for a corner kick. It's actually a good defensive play. And then he leans over the guy and kind of thrills something into his ear, just like, just like Gio Raina did with the guy from Honduras. And you're like, whoa, Kevin, what are you saying to him? And then they both get up and kind of smile at each other and shake hands.

And then Kevin gives... He was saying something nice, apparently. Yeah, he was encouraging his opponent. No, should this man be fraternizing with Kevin like this as he keeps getting demolished by this flopping? I don't know. Maybe he can't help him. Maybe that's the power of Kevin.

Customs. I wonder if he maybe actually did say something mean, but then when I believe it was Sutton looked up at him, he sees that smile. And he can't be anything but charmed. Maybe. Then they do the high five. Yeah, maybe he said something mean

and then they said Sutton thought it was funny. Who knows? Also, it was a completely fair and good tackle. Oh, yeah, it was a great tackle. That Kevin did. So a minute after this, after this, you know, oddly illuminating moment from Kevin, we get our third goal.

and it's created by John Tolkien. What a nice player he is. He does this elegant little first touch half-turn thing on the left side line. I will say the closing vigor from Sarpreet Singh on this place leaves a little something to be desired. But the aesthetics are really nice

and he receives a ball by killing it with his back left foot, opens himself to sinks pressure, then accelerates past him, dribbles just to the edge of the box where he slides a ball on the ground. through the crowd, through the crowd, again, over in the direction of Bousio and Paredes,

who are arriving on the other side of the box. The defender's kind of caught between two minds because maybe Buccio takes it, but skitters just passed him through to Paredes, who's free, he touches it to his left a couple times. It kind of never feels like he's going to score in moments like this, to me, not to be a downer or anything, but I'm just like, ah, is he going to put it away?

Is it the patience that? I don't know. There's a clear patience that he has. There is a patience, I guess. I don't have any problem with that. Anyway, he takes a couple touches, pokes it over to Bousio. Buccio takes it first time with his right in-step,

blocked by a New Zealand defender, comes right back to him, takes a touch with his left foot, and then just pokes it with his toe as hard as he can, kind of through the forest of legs. pings off of Paulson's leg and passed the goal line defender. Very frustrating if you're wearing a black shirt out there, I would think.

3-0, USA. You know what I think it might be? There's a frantic quality to the patience. Yeah. Maybe it doesn't even correct to call it patience. It doesn't project as patience. It projects as I don't know what to do. Maybe it's just as such a strong Kevin advocate,

I read it as patience and really that there's none to be seen. Maybe, I mean, you know, it's, it's patience, I think. I mean, he's not a,

he's not a goal score. No, not really. But he got an assist in this game and he did a lot of, well, wait, did he get an assist?

No. I think technically the ball bounced off of him on the sequence. I think it hit his shoulder, whether the Olympic committee will award it to him. I have

some doubts. Yeah, that doesn't seem like. But I'm going to give him a assist for that. And they did do a choreographed, high five dance sequence. Oh, yeah. After the school. I'm not going to walk us through,

but it was multi-stage and had more commitment than we've seen. Like, I guess most of the choreographed stuff we see between pools like in Weston, this had a little bit more, I think this had a more natural quality to it. Hmm. Although, I don't know if you,

talked about this already because I've been out of the loop. Bulls like went on the Tonight Show and had a very natural performance. Got a really good joke in. It was a probably the best performance of his career so far. And you know what it was. His best joke, in my opinion, was when he's telling the story about being in L.A. and his teammates ask him for something to do. And he says, I'm from Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Huge laugh. He's told that joke before in interviews. The difference was he committed this time. and he physically sold it. Yeah. He rose to the occasion. He looked very comfortable, didn't he? He used into it.

Yeah. What do you think he's just growing up? Or is he? You know, I think part of it is he has the ability to do that in these smaller interviews, but it's like a guy in a room and a little camera and he can't get himself there emotionally. Then when he shows at the night show, it's Jimmy Fallon. He knows he has three marks to hit and he's going to hit him. Just like he can do in a soccer game.

Yeah. Big development, really. I think we should get into it more on the Monday review, which might be on Tuesday or something, but let's do it. Immediately we win it in the press off of sermon. Georgie's the guy hustling. Goes to Busio, Busio plays it back to Georgie. Georgi plays it back to Busio.

And he touches it over to Duncan McGuire, who takes a touch and has his shot blocked. We're hunting impacts, as they said on the broadcast, just all over New Zealand at this point. We get a little cultured Tolkien curling ball to the back post for testament, and he tries to dink it back across and it's cut out. And then Boussio pulls up with, I don't know, is it a hamstring injury? McGlynn comes on for him.

I think I'm going to reading this as good news. Here's what he said. It's all right. We'll see. it's just the same one I've been dealing with for a while, but I don't think it's anything too serious. So I don't know how good of news that is, actually. I'm reading as good news because my immediately worry was,

I don't want to see him miss the beginning of this next season. Right. As a long view type of patriotic viewer. I want to get him. Yes, the Olympics is important, but. I'm hopeful that it was just precautionary. But maybe that's just irrational optimism. Well, it looked like he knew to be precautionary and sounds like afterwards.

I don't think he should probably play in that next game. Well, I mean, McGlynn was fun and good, I thought. I mean, I don't know how he'll do against a team that's really asking us questions or more serious questions, but McGlynn's fun to watch. I guess we all know that, but it was confirmed again today. My last thing from the first half is him using his body well to win a challenge, basically to take the ball from somebody and then draw a foul. He didn't even go to ground.

The other guy did. He just absorbed the challenge from behind and kept it moving. And my last note for the first half is Predace did do another flop after taking a slight shirt pull running him behind. Oh, yeah. And didn't get the whistle, though. I think he did get it. Oh, he did?

I believe so. I didn't put our note in because there were so many. I figured we probably just need to move on, but I didn't want to short change him. No, thank you for mentioning that. So let's take a little break. It's halftime. Let's take a little break. We'll come back in a minute.

Okay, we're back. I think the overall context here is New Zealand's spirit is broken, as you alluded to before. and the game is just kind of coasting. First thing I have in the second half is a lovely pass from McGlynn to Aronson. So he receives it, I think, from Tolkien, real deep. New Zealand's pressing somewhat. And just a first time sort of wicked pass

out to midfield. Love to see it. Aronson could have just let the ball ride in front of him and he would have been off to the races, but he stopped the ball. and eliminated 40% of the advantage created by the pass. So there's a critique. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit.

Something that could have been better, Paxton. It could have. 55th minute, we get McGlynn shot from distance that draws a decent save set up by Paxton, his old teammate, just a little recirculation pass from the left corner. McGlynn was looking to shoot. 57th minute Dietz comes on for Georgie and Yao,

Griffin Yao comes on for McGuire. That's Maximilian Deeds. Yeah. And just before this, and I think we'd get it by now, but Predace got got out fouled and tried to make it seem like he got hit in the face. I was rolling around a bunch. He didn't get hit in the face. Not on this one either.

No. Well, Yao makes an immediate impact. Another kind of curling ball from Tolkien over the back of that right side of New Zealand's defense. and it gets cut out by a sermon, but he just hits it straight into Yao's path running down the sideline. Yao carries it to the end line, pulls it back for Aronson.

Aronson just shoots quick through the defender's legs and it ricochets in past Paulson. 4 to 0. You know what I was about to say is that Yao is a terrier out there? I don't think that's fair. I think he's a little bit of a meteor dog than that. So I don't know my dog's well enough to know what a little bit of a bigger dog than a terrier would be, but I'm thinking. Beagle?

Beagle. Oh, what? No, that's worse. Is it? Beagle. It doesn't matter. He was a mid-sized, he was a mid-sized, aggressive dog out there. Springer spaniel.

Exactly. Yes, he was a Springer spaniel. Okay. Yeah, I mean, he gets some stuff done out there. I like that about him That he fights hard And he's trying to make things happen New Zealand

Pretty unlucky I think with some of this But also a bit of a shambles They concede a silly giveaway To Harriol in the 60th minute Takes a shot It's deflected wide of the near post We get a neat little clipped ball

From McGlynn Into Griffin Yao And he can't flick it backwards in on goal a 62 minute mark Dietz wins it in the press Touches it to Yao A firm pass This is a clean firm pass

In behind for McGlynn He shoots It's a great far post finish From the left side of the box To the far corner He was a step off side Unfortunately Another shot from McGlynn

Goes wide right Booth comes on for Paredes Is this where you stopped watching the game I did I didn't even tell you that. This is where I stopped watching. I didn't stop watching. But I wanted to.

And I kind of checked out emotionally. Fair enough, yeah. And then Benjamin Kermoski comes on for Haryl. So at this point, I think what it was was Miles at Right Back, Zimmerman, Dietz, and Tolkien along the back line. and yeah McGland I have in the notes McGlynn was fun he does a lot of fun stuff

very good soccer player 77th minute Tolkien serves as a provider again a nice little zipped pass across the six and Kromoski flicks it with the outside of his boot his right boot it just misses wide but this is a nice both a nice pass and a nice attempt to finish

on goal and then a minute later than that 78th minute a goal for New Zealand. It's a move up the left side. Garbit plays it out to sing, who is a pretty nice player. It just was totally sort of played out of the game.

And then he plays a return pass into Garbett arriving in the box. It's pretty slick. Garbert cuts it back for Randall, who had subbed on, and he loses Deats maybe a bit easily, turning with his back to goal to receive the pass, and then shooting with his right foot, roofs it from the penalty marker.

Deets is like well, not even close to closing it down. So another little critique here. We have some people in the community starting to call him a cool name merchant after that play. Really? I think that's a little bit strong.

And one thing on this, I would draw attention to, I didn't love the angle Miles took. A lot allowed the pass in. I think he was defending a little bit too wide. He was a little bit too worried about that wide area. Yeah, maybe so. Dees defending was not good after that, but it takes a village out there, doesn't it?

It does, and Miles not taking the perfect angle there, you know, somewhat more excusable since he is a centerback by trade. Things get a little hairy, so that makes it 4-1, a little bit, sours a little bit. Hold on. As you know, I stopped paying attention after Predates came out. If Miles was playing right back there, I fully retract his angle. I assume he was playing centerback. That's part of a two.

Well, Zimmerman was still out there, right? I don't even know. I have no idea what was happening on the field in that part of the game that I'm giving commentary on. No idea. Full brown out of the whole sequence. Well, it was confusing because you wouldn't expect Miles to be out right back. But I think he was. So, yeah, you should be ashamed of yourself.

I am, and I'm going to, I'll put together an apology for the Mundair review. Okay, great. Which listeners can listen to by becoming a patron. Yeah, and you can skip all those ads also by becoming a patron. The game is over, but a few notes on that. So a few notes I have We already talked about Yao's scrappiness So I can scratch that

His What kind of dog he is Booth has I think more quality And provides more danger He was nice in this In his little cameo here I think he provides more danger than Yao Probably than Perettus as well

He does not Draw as many fouls though So I guess it's you know Both soccer and life In both things They're tradeouts. He is better, though. I think he's better, yeah.

Yeah. Is Kevin to do a ton beyond the drawing the fouls? No. I'm not being completely honest about his performance. He didn't, he doesn't ever really beat anybody either. And, you know, Booth had that really nice combo with Kramoski late, and then the one where he cut it back for Paxton. Paxton could have taken it first time with his right foot. He takes a touch.

The window closes. He plays it over to Yao. Yao shoots and his shot is blocked before it gets to the goal line. That was maybe one of the nicest moments of the second half. And the last thing I have is McGlynn almost hitting that wonder goal in stoppage time off the crossbar. Tim Howard called his left foot a wand. And I think that is correct. It's beautiful the way he strikes the ball.

Yeah. Well, should we talk about advancement scenarios? Yeah, I think that's it. We have three points and a zero goal differential right now. Are we going to advance? Well, if France wins, we advance with any one goal lost to Guinea or better, obviously, tie win. and then it has to do with the goal differential. That's the first tiebreaker and goals scored.

And there's, I can go into some details there, but we don't need to. If France and New Zealand draw, we advance with a win or a draw versus Guinea. Okay. Or eliminated with a loss. Okay. If New Zealand wins, we don't want that. But we advance with a win big enough not to be over time. taken by New Zealand on goal differential.

That's the first type record and then goals scored. And they're at minus two right now. I don't want to go. I can't do that math right now. Let's wait, defer on that until it actually starts happening. Okay. God, I imagine France is going to just annihilate New Zealand, even though they're already through, right?

Yeah, I do. I think so, but they also just, they're not really doing that this tournament so far. seems like they're going to click in this third game. They're using it. And importantly, if we're tied on goal differential with New Zealand and on goals scored, we have the third tiebreaker, which is points in head-to-head competition. Okay. So that's a good safety net to have, and it won't be going to, you know, fair play record.

We're going to cut it off before that so we can get as many yellow cards as we want in this third. game. Okay. It's going to be a tougher game than the New Zealand game, are the one against Guinea, right? I think so, because that just turned into a walk. Yeah. They were going to see some more intensity. Basically, if we get a draw, we're all right, a draw.

I mean, I know you described it in a much more specific detail, but if we get a draw, we're going to be fine. I think we're going to be fine with a one-goal loss. Yeah. Yeah, because France is going to win. We got a pretty good group situation here, I think it's the bottom line. We did. We found ourselves in a favorable situation. All right.

I think that's enough. Right, Monday, we're going to be, we're going to, Greg and I are going to be recapping the USA Germany game. That recap will come out on Monday. We already know. The plan's already in place. Come out on Monday. and then we'll do the Monday review after that maybe later on Monday maybe on Tuesday

Anything else Chris Just that's the only place you get my apology for the By not knowing the form defensive formation During the game A little bit in the show notes A little bit Not that honorable of me But hey this is a business

Yeah Seems fair and honorable to me All right Thanks everybody for listening and we do appreciate it. We'll see you.