Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #523: Olympics — USWNT v Germany recap

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

Another huge win from an exhausted but determined Emma Hayes-led U.S. Women's National Team at the Olympics. Greg and Belz recap it in detail. Girma god-like, Soph delivers, Naeher comes up massive in the clutch. Next up is the gold medal match versus Brazil. 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.

If you didn't know already, now you know, we face Brazil in the gold medal match on Saturday, 11 a.m. Eastern time, 10 a.m. Central, Greg. Reese Montanorello, a great friend of the podcast, put that version of the intro song together. So this is the perfect time to use it. Got to use it. Also, to celebrate Brazil's win over Spain. I mean, what a win. Yeah, I mean, if any nation embodies the soccer as a party, ethos, it is Brazil. And, uh, and, uh, and, to have this be the matchup for a gold medal match, uh, is just fantastic, right?

With all the energy, Emma's brought to us, uh, and then on the Brazilian side, it's Brazil and it's Marda and it could be her last ever international match and she's playing for gold medal, uh, just,

just tremendous vibes now around this game. It is, I agree. It is a little disappointing that we don't get to eat a big steaming bowl of paella, you know, that we don't get to, we don't get to humble the Spanish. I mean,

they've been humbled already, but it would have been nice. to beat them in the final. To be the humblers? Yeah, because going into it, it just seemed like Spain were that team, right? They look good when they play. They look amazing.

They look fantastic through the World Cup and our defending World Cup champs, and you do want that. Like, that's kind of like the new measuring stick, is what it felt like. And so, you know, we don't get Spain, England aren't even in the Olympics. I don't even know if they're Olympic eligible

because of their ridiculous number of countries in one country situation, like solve that. I've no I didn't take you for a Scottish Independence guy I know it's a tangent but wasn't it the case that like Scotland could have thrown a game

against England or Wales one of those one of those other fake countries could have just thrown the match in qualifying so England would win so then Scotland would get to qualify for the Olympics I didn't know about that as the United Kingdom anyway it's a mess but England the other World Cup finalists

not even here So yeah, so the measuring stick changes. But it doesn't matter at the end of the day because what we're after is a gold medal. That's right. That's right. I think we're going to get it too. Brave. It's brave.

Well, yeah, we should say real quick, Brazil, you know, Brazil, Spain, 4-2 is a barn burner of a game. 76% possession for the Spanish, but they gave up a stupid goal in the sixth minute. Goalkeeper just slammed it off. her own defender, basically, into the net. And, you know, apparently you don't want to be chasing a goal against Brazil because they were pretty effective on the counterattack. Well, let's give it up for Brazil, because if they do win this gold medal, they'll have had to go through host France, which is always a big deal,

defending World Cup champions Spain, and then revitalized U.S. women's national team. So that'd be a decent run for Brazil and MARTA to CAPRA career. I'll save my giving it up until I need to give it up for them. You do not under any circumstances. Gotta hand it to Brazil. All right, fair enough. Should we do the lineups?

Yeah, let's hear our lineups. Okay, Alyssa Neerle Fox, Naomi Germa, Tierna Davidson back in the starting 11, and then Crystal Dunn, Sam Coffee back in the starting 11 after her yellow card suspension, Lindsay Horan and Rose LaVelle in the midfield. And then, of course, The Trident of Death, the Tridente de la Mueuerte,

Rodman, Smith, and Swanson across the front line. So as far as I know, that's the most changed lineup we've had in this tournament, or tied for the most changes in an 11 for Emma in this tournament with two, and obviously both of them just players coming back into availability in Davidson and coffee. Right. So we're expecting pretty much this 11 Saturday. On Saturday. Yeah, I think so.

Not going to be many curveballs. It'd be a shocker if it wasn't this 11. I mean, I guess do we know why Sonic came on for Davidson at the half? Was that just a minutes management thing? I never heard an explanation, but I assume, yeah, that it was just Tiena not fit enough to run out 90. Okay. Or it could have been like a reaggravation or discomfort from her prior injury.

Okay. Well, Germany was pretty similar to their lineup that they played against us the last time. I think the only difference is Alexander Pop and Leia Schuller were not in it, but both with injuries, right? So it's Anne-Catron Berger and goal, Julia Gwyn, Catherine Hendrick, Marina Hegering, and Felicitas Rauch across the back line, Janina Minga, Sydney Lohmann in the midfield, and then UlaBron. the, you know, kind of the best player on the field for Germany. Soskin, Nuskin, and Clara Buell across the band of three in the nominal 4-2-3-1. And then Nicole Anyomi got the nod at Stryker. You Abrand, impressive.

A player. I mean, she's in the discussion for best player on the field, both teams, non-Germa edition. Yeah. I'm so happy you made that clarification. That qualification. Yeah, she moves incredibly fast for someone who's like seven foot five, you know? Yeah, yeah. Kind of uncanny.

It looks almost like unreal the change is in direction there with control of the ball. Doesn't make sense. But, you know, she couldn't do it on her own. Couldn't quite do it. Let's go to the timeline. I'm going to try, I say this every time, but I'm going to try to keep this a little more abbreviated than usual. because my thought is both teams were really tired. And so it's going to be a lot like the timeline for the last game

where it's just wave after wave of sort of dynamism from the U.S. That kind of ends in slop. Or like, you know, I mean, that's like a lot of what happened. We have a promising attack because we have all these weapons and we have all these ways to attack. and then the final 12 yards, final 18 yards, final 36 yards were not, it just, it just didn't, we couldn't make it come off. Yeah, it's a lot of sloppy fizzling where things just kind of either fizzle out really quietly or just kind of super sloppy. And I don't, and I don't really think, I think it was, it's gotten more like that than it would be under normal circumstances because of the short,

turnarounds between the games, the small rosters, Emma's lack of rotation, which I'm kind of okay with, given the personnel we have. I'm okay with it. The rotation issue, I still wish that we would have rotated for the Australia match. I feel like that's the one. I'm not worried, I'm not in any way like, oh, we got to get subs in. It's the 70th minute. Why haven't we subbed out anybody?

That stuff doesn't bother me at all, because again, we talked about it. The players that you would normally sub are outrageously good players. much better than any player we would bring in with fresh legs. So it's like, no, you just got to ride them. You got to see if they can pull something off. The one potential issue was that Australia match, where we had a chance to rotate and reset sort of the turnaround times, right? And to be like, okay, we're going to start fresh going into the knockouts.

Everyone else is going to be exhausted, which clearly all our opponents are exhausted, too. And then we would go into the Japan match a little bit more rested than Japan. we'd go into this last Germany match on the fatigue that we went into the Japan match with so we'd be like one game ahead fatigue-wise but Emma has made it clear that she strongly values the repetitions and the chemistry gained in those minutes and for her it outweighs the physiological

factors that limit the human body and who might argue with Emma freaking hates, right? I guess that's fair. Yeah. Yeah, the Australia game, I guess. That makes sense. That's the one where you could say, hey, come on now. Okay. Three minute, three minute mark, going straight to the timeline. Three minute mark. It's a sloppy giveaway from Horan, recovered by Germa, you know, after a couple of passes, up to Smith, and she flicks it on for Rodman.

Rodman's in space on the right side. She squares it for Swanson. I mean, this is a really dangerous sequence right off the bat. squares it for Swanson at the coming into the top of the box. Swanson leaves it slash kind of helps it along for Rose Lavelle. And Rose is just all alone, just inside the box, looking at a lot of goal, and she hits it pretty softly with her right in-step directly at Berger, who gathers it, I would imagine, somewhat gratefully. Yeah, this is a really slick, lightning, quick attack from the U.S.

and it's I mean this is a really impressive moment for the team right so everyone executing really well right up until rose plays it real safe and tries to just guide it in but safely guides it directly to the keeper but yeah you're you're looking at this like here we are this is that's the trident of death right there and they they kind of through through lavella bone she's got to do a little better but uh could she have taken a touch put it put it put it on her left foot and then just hammered it i mean it seemed like she had time She could have. I'm just thinking, I don't know how much you're going to improve your shot.

Like, it's set up for you. It's not coming in hot. It's really just like, do a little bit better with your right foot and score it. Like, do all the same things. Just do it better on that last touch. Like put your laces through it. Take a little bit of more risk with the strike, you mean? Yeah.

This would have been a brilliant goal because starting with Germa, going through the Trident, and then setting up a great shot. But this is kind of the theme of that opening 15 minutes was the very tame final. effort. Yeah. Because I was, we talked about this on the last episode, whether Germany would sit back like Japan did in that, you know, extremely conservative block. And they really didn't, right? I mean, at all. No, they did. They did not. And it looked like maybe we were going to punish them in the way we did in the third minute. And then a few, few more times in the opening 20. And then as we'll get into, the timeline will start to sag because that kind of just stopped. I think maybe

maybe it's kind of like you can dare team to get into a track meet when you know that nobody's nobody's actually ready to get on the starter box and actually sprint for that 100 meters. Right, right. So seventh minute, another chance for us. Smith receives a firm pass on the ground from the sideline to the middle of the field above the arc.

Just bullies Hendrick for the thousandth time this tournament eliminates her over to Rose. Rose's pass for Swanson from the left side into the bulls. box is behind her and cut out. So like I said, there's going to be a lot of these kind of moments. I'm not going to mention them all, but like a pretty good, pretty good sequence. We get into a, we get into a situation where we have an opportunity to make something happen and we just don't.

Yeah. And even on the sequence, Rose's pass is cut out, but it cuts out right back to, right back to Rose. And you can, again, you can look at how we're attacking and we're, you know, you look at the frame when Rose attempts that pass. It's just Rose Mow and Sof. Like, Trent's not even in the picture yet. and there's six German players back. So we're three on six.

Of course, it's going to be tough to carve up the six defenders. But we still managed to get a shot out of this just with those three, where the ball gets sort of knocked back out to Lavelle by the defender. And then Lavelle and Sof kind of like stand on top of each other. But eventually, Sophie is just like, just give me the ball and takes it and creates a little bit of a window to shoot and hits another tame shot right at. Right at Berger. Yeah.

So we're like, it looks again like. we just do have the individual talent that could punish Germany for a bit. And again, I think that starts to fade out in frequency as we lose that opening adrenaline. Yeah. Yeah, because it didn't seem to me like Germany was particularly good in this game,

like as a team. Just we were better, but just also not particularly good. So I just talk it up a lot to fatigue. Trin Meg's Rauk, got to mention that. Pretty fun over on the sideline. Get a nice replay of that. Some enjoyment from Andres Contour.

10 minute mark. Fox has a bad giveaway dealing with a bouncing ball in the back line. And Carla Buell takes it from her, plays a through ball for Anyomi. And Germa just makes a perfectly timed tackle in the box to poke it away from her. What a player she is. I know we say this a lot, but watching her play is just a privilege. It seems like she is, you know, she's kind of godlike. Like the way she moves, she's not actually, her feet don't actually ever touch the grass.

She's mimicking the motion that you would do to run, but it's all just ethereal. Yeah. It looks so easy for what she's doing, you know. And just in perfect harmony with the rhythm of the game and always a step ahead. There's a comp going around on Twitter of a lot of her nice plays in the game and I suggest watching it because it's a treat. 12th minute, Soph wins a free kick, 22 yards from goal, turning Hendrick again. she's just unmarkable in that way and then Haran bangs the free kick off of Rose LaVelle I'm like bro come on

Which I'm sure like Fowdy is at this point Only watching these games to see if we can score a goal on a free kick So that must have just been devastating for her She's doing that stat a few times We're now just now like Toying with Fowdy with our free kick choices Yeah, Lavelle was just, yeah, I wonder what Fowdy would think of this if I just jump in the way of this. She didn't jump.

I think it was a little bit of a miscue, but anyway, 16 minute mark. Germany gets a counter. Brand wins a corner, thumping it off of Don who is covering well. Anyomi kind of played Brand a little bit wider than she wanted to be on like this, on the run. and on the ensuing corner, Neyer comes out and kind of whiffs on it, Sof heads it away. Yeah, I mean, but Neyer,

nayer can be worrisome in these moments. But at this point, you know, Neer's ne'er, right? She kind of, she's definitely put her selections beyond doubt. Yeah. No matter how many bad things she may have done in this game, which I don't think there were,

really that many, right? She redeemed herself. And then some. Yeah. Okay. Also, just got to mention Marina Hegering is out there busting skulls for Germany. The Wolfsburg's centerback committed four fouls, I guess,

but it seemed like a lot more than that. Sort of a scary figure out there. Yeah, I thought team wide, I thought they were doing a really good job of just bruising us up. which again part of this is the fatigue and for me one of the reasons that we started to fade in our dynamism and I think Emma commented on that too I think she said it was 15 minutes of good soccer and then not much after that did she say that yeah which I think that's pretty spot on it's like uh you know for all the the um hype we've been kind of giving this change in US play uh since Emma has taken

over um in the way we're like really starting to try to play soccer there wasn't actually like a ton of it throughout this match. It was very much like we would be very patient and hold the ball and control it. But eventually, once we did get up into that last 30 yards, we'd give it to one of the Trident. And then it was just a lot of like, well, let's just see what she does with it. Yeah. It definitely wasn't just like all action fluid movement because that requires like a lot of energy from four players around the ball, knowing that, you know, you're not the one who's even going to get it. So it's like you got to make this movement to key, the movement behind you to key the third,

you know, the third player off the ball. And that takes a lot of effort. Yeah. And we just like sort of run out. We ran out of effort. And you're seeing it from both teams in these games where it's just, uh, looks like it's just asking too much. And it really just is like, let's see if we can get an amazing solo moment or, uh, lightning in a bottle like we got in eventually in the 105th minute or in the 95th minute.

Right. Yeah, it's, you've got to be mentally and physically sharp to play good soccer, I think. And I guess that's why it's kind of a shame that the tournament is structured the way it is, because it's showcasing these, I mean, they're just, it's a slog. I mean, the Brazil Spain game was not a slog because there was just all these, all these goals and everything. But these games, these are two good soccer teams, and they're just not able to put their sort of best foot forward.

because they're all too tired. I mean, it's kind of a shame. Anyway, you LeBron runs at, well, no, here we go. 19th minute. Heran is a beat slow on the ball in tight space, which is definitely a theme of this tournament. You know, she just gets closed, she's been closed down a lot.

Her challenge riding isn't working as well. Maybe she's because she's tired, I don't know. Then Trin gives it away trying to do Rauk on the, sideline and it's a timely intervention from Sam Coffey's required like a pass or two later to keep Germany from a tidy little combo into the box. This is actually pretty dangerous moment. She just sticks a foot out and stops the final pass from getting to its destination. Well, I feel like Haran Watch is the other big thing besides our actual run through this tournament in the Trident and Germa. Haran Watch has been the other trend. And Bram-Warran Watch has been the other trend.

and RAN watch was not going well in this match again what we talked about last time was if she's not giving you the really good Horan stuff that we associate with her then she is hurting you in other places and you take that trade off for the good stuff

but if the good stuff isn't there and it really wasn't you again I don't know when Emma starts to ask like is the good stuff coming back because if not she's not the just so Corbyn Albert out there and she's not the player for the

for the lineup. It's not going to happen on Saturday, but... I don't think so either. I don't think it should, to be honest. Like, I'd rather risk it. And then if you lose because Iran has a shocker and, you know, you can be run through, like, a wet Kleenex, and you just say, dang, wish she would have done better in this tournament. Right.

But, I mean, it's definitely something to keep watching even after this tournament. See how she, see how she's performing. Germany wins a corner after a throw down in Duns. corner. Buell takes it, takes the corner and goes for an Olympico. This is in the 20th minute. I don't think we got a replay on this, but Neyer

just gets a hand to it to send it to send it out wide left. It looked to me like it was going in. And this was terrifying. Well, there's her immediate redemption for flapping at the earlier one, which never really still didn't get dangerous. It's not good to flap and it's just kind of luck if you go out

and don't touch it. But yeah, it's It's a solid bit of play from there because she's also dealing with a body right on her. She's occupied here. And she gets a good enough paw to it to guide it away from goal. At full stretch. Yeah. Yeah. And again, Neier's not the tallest goalkeeper we've got.

So she really has to do all the technical stuff right to get these kinds of balls. Okay. So she's redeemed. She's about to get double redeemed. Didn't even really need to be redeemed in the first place. Horan just keeps getting blown up. Even when she gets a pass off, it's by the skin of her teeth.

And I know some people were annoyed with how much I talked about it last episode, the Haran watch. I'm going to try to keep it minimal. But it does see, and then the other thing with Haran is, it's, our midfield is so porous.

Yes. It feels like we're running. And coffee is, um, coffee is culpable here too, I think. It feels like we're running an experiment where we say, well,

let's just see. How many full head of steam 4 v4 attacks Germany can run at us before they score? And because there were a lot of them. And it turns out the number was very high because they didn't score. But it doesn't seem like the right way to do it. Yeah. I saw someone, it might have been you in the chat during the game,

describe it as like coffee and Horan essentially forming a gate that teams could just run right through. And neither of them would like converge to actually stop the ball carrier. There's one in particular with Sidney Lohman I think in the second half like that Where they're just sort of They're vanguarding her down the field You know

Well on this one again Like this is another really good stop from Nair And this is a one for Nair watch She is very much glued to her near post again But the shot is close enough to her And I don't know that there was a far post window To slot it into that wasn't covered Oh you're talking about the Yule LeBron shot

Yeah the 24th That Nair deals with But it's a good save. It's a good rebound to not direct back into the middle of the field. She does a good job essentially guiding it parallel to the goal line, which, again, some of that stuff sort of underappreciated, I think, for people who don't have a lot of goalkeeping background, like how much control keepers can put on those rebounds sometimes

and really like intentionally move it to a less dangerous area of the field. Yeah. Couldn't be me. I wouldn't. That shot from Brond is a good example also of Horan not closing on a ball carrier taking it into the box.

Now Brond was hard for everybody to deal with but Haran doesn't even like she doesn't close on her and she just keeps moving closer and closer to the point where she has a shot. 31 minute mark we get Smith Free on the left she tries to cut it back for Swanson. It's cut out by

Hegering and then she kind of delightfully Crofts Swanson before playing it out. So she's not just muscle, Hegering. Rodman was arriving at the back post, which was maybe the better choice for Smith there, but no, that's that. So I'm skipping ahead to the 41st minute. Rodman does two Germans on the right side running in space and she's kind of cutting in towards the goal and she has Swanson running on her right in just a massive window and she plays the pass maybe a little too close to the centerback probably too close to the centerback and Swanson can't get to it. I'm putting, chalking both of these things up again to fatigue and this

like this sort of excellent moment with Rodman running at a back line and Swanson in totally unmarked off to her right is wasted because the past the past doesn't connect. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's another, like an example of our front three and how dangerous they are, but also, again, they tend to be sloppy even when they're not tired. And so they can so often do the really hard work and accomplish it and then mess up on like the actual, you know, less difficult part of the program. I kind of don't want to admit that they're sloppy even when they're not tired, but I think I have to. It's just, I mean, the thing is they can do the hard stuff so much more frequently than other teams. That's why I think of them as just these volume attackers because most players can't create that situation Trinity created to get that pass off.

And they're not passing it to fucking Mal Swanson when they are, when they do. And so to create that situation so many times, you sort of just shrug when they do this, when they just miss hit sort of the easier pass. You're like, all right, well, Trinand and Mal will create a new dangerous situation imminently. And you live with that for sure. I mean, you don't just live with it. You savor it. You enjoy it, yeah. All right, well, that's the half.

We'll be back with the rest of the recap after some ads. Skip them and join us by signing up for the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. Okay, we're back. Emily Sondit, as we mentioned earlier, comes on for Davidson at the half at centerback, left centerback. 47th minute. This is when coffee and her hand just let Sidney Lohman run between them with the ball for, I don't know, 30 yards. and she passes it over to Buell,

and Fox blocks the Buell shot as she cuts in. But I just don't know how we can continue to allow that kind of ball progression unopposed right through the middle of the field. I mean, that's exactly what you're thinking, right? You're like, how does the U.S. get away with this? Like, how is this the setup we choose? And then, you know, we've conceded two goals in Emma Hayes' matches. Right. since we don't give up goals.

And, like, how does that work? And I think, I mean, a ton of credit has to go to, Naomi Germa. A lot of credit, a lot of credit also, again, can go to how well we are, how much better we are keeping the soccer ball. It's not just, it's not just sort of like constant slop, as much as we're talking about how loose we can get. We are patient with the ball. And that really restricts the volume of opportunities that other teams get to run at us.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think Fox and Dunn and Davidson and Sonnet also deserve a lot of credit. Absolutely. They've just been really solid. I saw a soccer America's player rating for Dunn was a five in this game. I'm like, come on. That's crazy. She did a lot of good stuff. I'm sure she'll be worried about it as she's putting her gold medal on. She's probably sleepless every night. 48th minute coffee races past.

No, not, it doesn't race past anybody. She gets raced past by Bron. Bron then carves out a chance. This is another situation where coffee is just kind of, she's not even really trying to stop her. She's just sort of jogging behind her. And then Bronn carves out a chance after combining with Onyomi on the right. And she beats Dun and sonnet to the end line.

It's real slick and fizzes it across the six. But guess who's there too calmly? cut it out, collect it, and play it out of the back. It's Naomi Germa. Yeah. Yep. Same thing again where you're just like, we might have to reconsider this after this tournament, the coffee, Haran pivot. Well, it's just like there's sort of a cheerful acquiescence in Sam Coffey's body language, too, you know.

Well, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I don't know. 52nd minute Fox plays a good ball in behind for Rob. Her cross is claimed by Berger. I'm going to go quickly here. Germa heads a clearance, has a nice headed clearance in the 55th minute on a dangerous ball from wide right. She's just everywhere.

Yeah, that one deserves some love because of just how difficult that technique was. Because she, again, we were beat to the spot. The German attacker is ahead of her. And she manages to like sneak in to gain position, but also like flick the ball while she's running back towards her own goal. rather than heading it at Neyer, she has a wherewithal and control and ability to flick it directly, to continue it on its path towards the opposite sidelines. It's insane, yeah.

Again, just watching that and being able to enjoy the aesthetics of a centerback is sort of just like awesome. It's easy to enjoy the aesthetics of trend Megan people. But the stuff Kerman does is just really enjoyable to watch. So hard, too. So hard to do that. Germany is a more dangerous team here for a little stretch, but thankfully also not very sharp in the final third at all, really.

57th minute Rose recovers a ball at the top of our box and tries to dribble out and loses it. Germany gets a shot that goes wide, and this is, I mean, Emma Yanks Rose immediately at this point. Rodman goes at, and then we have this travesty of a foul on Rodden, in the 59th minute. She goes at Buell, gets dragged down, and then pile driven into the ground from behind

on the end line. No foul called. I mean, I think the ref was sort of equal opportunity in her arbitrariness. I think that's, well, I think this one wasn't even arbitrary. I think she had maybe given us a couple of generous calls in a row. Okay. And I think, I think Germany had voiced their displeasure, you know, kind of correctly. and so I think maybe that was in her head

and she didn't want to give a third call straight to the U.S. Right. Well, then Lynn Williams does come on for Rose Lavelle in the 60th minute. So it's different, right? I mean, this is a, because we talked about how Lynn is probably your best

sub on the bench, your best soccer player available on the bench, but you hate to bring her on for one of the Trident. And so Emma solves it by just being like, well, nuts to this, we'll just play four forwards. And we just take, rose off and move Mal into the nominal number 10 spot, which isn't going to change that much of what you're going to get in that position.

Because I mean, Rose isn't, Rose is hustling. But in this, this game isn't just like we're spending a ton of time in our defensive block where it's really going to stress Rose. And even if it does, like Rose kind of ends up higher in the block anyway in like a 4-4-2. So this is an easy, I think this is a really shrewd play from Emma to keep your three best attackers on and still get some fresh attacking legs onto the field. And that certainly paid off, right? Keeping those three on the field.

A big chance in the 63rd minute, Germa wins a tackle in the middle of our half. Well, she won a bunch of them, but she steps, dribbles 20 yards, and then just hits a dime over the top for Mal who takes it down. She's basically alone with the keeper. She's got some defenders running just behind her. She takes it down. The touch takes her a little wide. She rounds the keeper, and then she thrashes it off the side netting.

She did have two runners for the cutback on the other side. And maybe she was offside. I don't know. Did we ever find out if she was offside? They never gave us a replay. It looks off. It's super tight. It actually does not look off.

I think that if we score there, I think it gets reversed because the flag goes up for offside. And to score there, Mounted. absolutely should cut that back to the two runners. She rounded the keeper, but rounding the keeper really cut her angle down. She didn't even look. Yeah, yeah, that's got to be. And hopefully the runners are just, you know, losing their minds in the moment to try to get that ball squared.

But there's no butt, really. She's got a square. And then it would have been, the offside would have been chocked off. It would have been one zero. Game over after 90 minutes, much fresher to face Brazil. And plus then we would have had more time. to give more love to that Germa pass. The Germa, like, drive up the field.

I mean, she's ahead of her end when she hits this ball. It's not like she's sitting deep. She drove past the midfield. It's just like, I'll do it myself. Taking matters into her own hands. In the, oh, 767th minute, Dunn gets kind of, this is scary. Dunn gets trapped on the left sideline with Sonnet. Sonnet kind of plays her into a bit of a dead end and then tries to do a one-two with her

by running, like sprinting up field, which leaves our nests. entire, you know, back of our left side of our back four. It leaves the entire left side of our back four completely exposed. As Dunn loses it, they're both left behind, and Anyomi is just running free. She drives at the goal unopposed and then tries to square it and Germa cuts it out. Who else? But it was, I mean, Anyomi probably, you know, could do a little bit. better here.

Yeah, and I think this is where you start to be like, like Sonic could, Sonic could cost us a metal here. Yeah. Like she's had a couple of those. She's mostly held up again. Her job is to be the utility player. That's clearly what we're using her for.

It's not the time for a one, two, and a centerback sprinting up the sideline. And that's the other thing is like, she's supposed to be the savvy enough to like play within her limits. That's how she gets to be so mediocre at so many positions. And so, yeah, we got to, if we have to use her in the gold medal match somewhere, midfielder defense, we, yeah, we need that savvy to really show up. Yeah.

70th minute done then is incredibly resolute and up for it, defending Brond out wide. She gets a foot to the cross attempt, which sends it over to one of her teammates. She gets it back and plays it out. So she wins the battle against Yula Braun this time. 77th minute Trin gets some runway past Hegering or whoever it was wins a corner kick ensuing corner bobbles around it's kind of headed in Herand's direction she gets decent contact and draws a save from Berger down to her right sona is lurking as well it's probably our most dangerous set piece I don't know the

number of set pieces we had but it was quite a few um five corners yeah we had the other tierna had her tierna got a header in the first half that she kind of it was again it was It's one of those tame early shots we put together. But yeah, this was a good look. Good stuff from the U.S. in around the 80-minute mark. Horan, it's off of a throw-in. Haram plays it up to Swanson. She finds coffee in the middle to change the point,

sort of back into the middle, to change the point of attack. Coffee plays it over to Rodman. She kind of dances on the ball and then finds Smith out wide, who is in some space and has a shot. It's blocked. Rodman tries the volley on the rebound and hits it pretty well save just wide of the post

but yeah, a good hit and that's a little better from us. Yeah, a little decent soccering there. And again, maybe a little precursor to the soccering we pull off to win it 15 minutes later. 81 minute mark we play out. Rodman plays it up to Smith.

She gets tangled up but then beats two players over to Williams at the top of the box. She lays it off for Haran, touches and shoots, shot blocked. Then we have the Swanson. Well, go ahead. No, it's just going to say,

so again, we're almost like recommitting to a little bit of soccering is kind of what it started to feel like. It also started to feel like Swanson got a second wind, you know? She started to not look as tired towards the end of regulation and into extra time to my eye.

She has a goal called back. Swanson has a goal called back in the 86th minute. I mean, she was way offside, so it's kind of like what's even the point of talking about. it, but it was a nice ball from Dunn after she and Sonnet had mugged Bronn at midfield. It's a curling ball around the right side of their defense. Swanson finishes it nicely right through Berger's legs.

But yeah, she was like a solid two steps offside. It's always good to do that to demoralize a keeper, though. Is it? I have no idea. I think so. I'm going to say yes. And like Burger Miss plays a shot 10 minutes later. No, the sequence. She misplays the sequence.

Like instead of, so this one she stayed home, kind of ends up in, you know, a decent, uh, angle cutting off position, but still able to try to make a play and just gets rinsed through the legs. So maybe that's in her head. Maybe it's in her head for the next one. Oh, and then she goes down too far. She went, she comes out when she shouldn't have. She should not have, she, we'll get to it. We'll get to the goal. Okay. Okay.

It's not too far off. So at the end of, so that's the end of regulation. Nice Warner comes on for Dunn and Corbin Albert comes on for Horan. We're doing this thing where Germa wins a tackle in the box, kind of ending a German attack, and then we give it away at midfield in the first five minutes of extra time. We do this repeatedly, it feels like. And Buell gets a decent shot on frame after one of them in the 94th minute,

gets it through Fox's legs right at Nair. But then here we go. 95th minute, we get the goal, and here's what happened. Well, before we get to the goalkeeper stuff that you're going to elucidate. But here's what happened. Germa collects a long ball with plenty of time. She just plays a simple vertical pass to coffee's feet in the center circle. And then coffee finds Swanson sort of darting horizontally across midfield in front of Hendrick,

centerback. And then Swanson just takes a touch and plays a through ball for Smith, who is, you know, sort of curving her run in behind. The pass isn't really exactly right, you know? I mean, it obviously turns out to be right. right, but it's kind of heavy. So Smith, but Smith is like, no problem. I'm just going to swim around the outside shoulder of Rauch

and gets to it before Raoq anyway. And then shoots it just between Raoq's attempt to get back and the onrushing burger, kind of chips it into the net. I mean, she hits it. It's not really a chip. She just hits it well. And it just nestles in the net, 1-0 USA. Yeah, incredible.

So I'll give props real quick to the source. Swanson darting movement you described because that is another one of those sort of energy movements that we hadn't had a lot of. And I think part of that is fatigue. Like somebody has to make that move to key this whole thing. And so it's Swanson recognizing that she can get into the next vertical window by moving, you know, one horizontal channel across very quickly. So that's a huge part of it. And then to give Swanson more credit, how tidy she was to receive it and on the run, and turn and get her head up field.

It was fantastic. Like just an immaculate first touch. And then it is, it all just does come down to Sophia's ridiculous reading of that situation, where she has cut and gained inside position on the defender, but can't get to the ball. And the ball has just enough of an angle that it's going to race past both of them to the defender's outside shoulder. And for Sov to then gain the leverage back to the outside.

It's just, again, it's just stupid stuff that only. Sof can do. But the defender is still there, right? The defender is still right on her hip. And Sof is not in on goal. Like she's not, she's not so leveraged that she's now going to completely control the situation and get whatever shot she wants. The defender's meeting her at the same time. She's meeting the ball for a first time shot. And this is why there is no reason for Berger to be out here. If she just stays home, she's going to absorb just a pretty weak, you know, relatively weak shot attempt from Sophia from 17 yards out at an angle. And it's going to just be the, unless it's the shot of her life, it's just going to be a clean

collection for the goalkeeper. But instead, she's raced out for some reason to, like, close the angle like it's a free breakaway and leaves herself very little opportunity to make a play on a shot. It still takes a good shot. I mean, it's still totally possible that Sof could hit this ball into the keeper's body. She has closed the angle down. She's not like wildly out of she's not out of the frame of the goal or anything. It's just she, I think she created a universe of easier shots for Sof to score on than if she had stayed at home.

Okay. Again, the margins are still fine here. I think it was, I think it was a misreading of the situation. And staying home would really have created like it has to be sort of shot of your life, Trinity Rodman stuff. Yeah. I mean, I sympathize with the goalkeeper there because it's like you got to make this. split second calculation and I mean

as it turned out the window that Sof was had to shoot through was pretty small. Yeah. Yeah. She had like I said, she has actually close, she's accomplished something by doing this.

It's just been the tradeoff that I think she overestimated how how good of an opportunity. Smith was. Yeah. Yeah. And again, to give her credit on the very next entry in the timeline, she's going to sort of make a huge play to keep her team alive and almost enough to, you know, advance them to the, or to

penalties if her counterpart hadn't also made a ridiculous save in the die of moment. Okay. Lots of drama yet to go here. 104th minute, this is that chance you're just mentioning. Nicewanger plays a ball over the back of the left side of the right side for Sof, and she's just in wide open space, goes straight to goal, tries to beat the keeper, tries to beat Berger on the ground. But her shot is too close to Berger.

I mean, there was a bit of goal left on the table there, I think. And she makes a kick save. But an outstanding opportunity to make it 2-0. Yeah. And again, one that these always haunt me in real time. And we saw Columbia do this when they're up 2-0 and they're in on goal. And it's like, it feels safe at 2-0 kind of. And you know, when you're in the 80th minute or whatever.

But like, you have to hit it. You have to, like, put the nail in. and finish it off. And so when Sof didn't finish it off in real time, it was like, oh, man, this is how it'll happen. You know, if we don't get through here. Almost did. I know, I know.

So great save from Burger on that. Yeah. Nyswanger, got to mention Nyswanger gets beaten to a corner kick in the air. Like a little bit after this. It's like a flying volley attempt. I can't remember which Germany player, but it was, uh, She just dunks on Jenna.

And I think this is a legitimate weakness of Nice Warner's game that she's so easily overcome when the ball is in the air. Well, I mean, I imagine that's how one of the main reasons Crystal Dunn has has the job. And it's not just the aerial stuff. It's just the general defensive resoluteness. Yeah. What's the phrase you use for it? Like controlling the space around you or something?

Yeah, you got pitch control, obviously, and then just, yeah, controlling situations in your area. Yeah, Dun is a lot better at that than Nicewanger. And here's some evidence of that. So 119th minute, Smith concedes a free kick right on top of the box. She foul somebody, I think it was Bron. Yeah. And this looks like it's going to be the last real moment of the game. Buell takes the free kick.

It's blocked by the wall. She collects it and then lifts it to the back post. Laura Freigong latches onto it. It's a header from point blank range. Well, I mean, you know, what am I doing? Why don't you just describe the shot and the save? All right. So shots blocked by the wall.

And again, everyone's alertness and awareness in these situations for some reason drops to zero. So, but in this case, no, we did okay. The wall all charges out. So the wall, it's funny, the ball comes out and you have all like six players racing at a player who's definitely going to get just like an easy delivery in. She's not under anywhere near enough pressure that she's not going to get the delivery. So you're essentially all running at a player who's going to be irrelevant in like a fraction of a second, which could hurt it, which could really hurt us in rebound situations. Because we had so diligently on the weak side, like crashed back towards the goal to chase our markers, Emily Fox in particular.

is like by far the deepest player as his shot has hit. So as a shot goes back to the original shooter, Fox has a ton of ground to make up to try to reset the defensive offside line, which everyone else does because that's the cue, right? Ball moving away from the goal, old defensive line moves up field as quickly as they can to try to gain ground. And you trust the player next to you is doing the same thing. And they all were.

It's just Fox had such a bad head, like, she was starting from so far behind that she couldn't come anywhere near the rest of the offside line. And so as that ball gets clipped in slowly, it's just, you know, it's that textured delivery. Fox is still running upfield. So that's why it looks like both players are wildly offside. Because the entire-

I don't think they are, though. No, they're not. No, Fox is definitely keeping them on at the moment of the kick. It's just she keeps running upfield, and the ball moves so slowly to the wide-open players, that the ground between our last defender and the Germans looks significant. So to the eyeball, you're like, oh, well, they've got to be off.

but they weren't. And so it just turns into a free header from five yards out. And Alyssa Neyer has come out to meet the ball. How would I say this? She's going to meet the ball at its height. So it's going to be a header, you know, from a leaping player. So Neyer comes out and jumps to essentially get her body at the same height as the ball. Did John Chamon called it a star jump on the broadcast?

And you're doing it. you're spread. You're leaping and you're doing a spread and you're just jumping at the player and you're just hoping the ball hits you. That's what this is. And so it does. Like the ball comes in.

She still has to move her foot to it. It's headed down, which easily could have snuck under her, even though I think she's doing the correct thing to jump here. And she reacts. She managed to actually make a reaction save with her foot. Unbelievable. And it does somehow kick away from the three wide open German

players in the middle of the goal and she kicks it towards the sideline that's probably a little bit of luck there's not as much as they give credit to keepers controlling rebounds there's very little thought at that point from there going into like where should i kick this ball it is desperation move whatever limb of the starfish you can towards where the ball is well even if you do everything right which apparently she did in this moment you still need some luck for the ball to the ball's got to hit hit one of the points of the star yeah you got to you got all the appendages spread out out and you're just like hit one of them please or hit me in the face yeah but it's amazing and it's an amazing moment again it's like the drama you live for uh as a soccer fan um because all the talk about

you know we love to talk about the variance and that ball could have gone under her and it just didn't but that's the joy right that's the emotional release of like everything riding on this moment uh especially as you watch the replay and see that it's on side and it's like oh my god it was it was that close the margin was that narrow well that's the last big chance for germany and we get we get one more chance immediately after that uh smith bullying a couple opponents in the open field you know germany's got everybody thrown forward she dribbles into the box and has another shot saved by burger another good saved by burger i gather um so you know some some maybe you know there is some luck on the on the the nay or save, but I'll fight anybody who says the win wasn't deserved.

I feel like it was. And, yeah, we deserve to win. Probably could have won by more. Things could have gone against us, I guess, but... That would always be the case. Yeah, that will always be the case. There just is no inevitability in the game of soccer, as much as we'd like to think, like some team was just destined for it.

There just isn't in a 90-minute soccer game. So I absolutely think it's deserved in a sense that a soccer win can be earned. We did so many things well. We have so many dangerous players. And often enough get them into moments where they can be magic. And they've delivered in this tournament very obviously. I mean, like, statistically, the Trident is just blowing away the field. Yeah.

Yeah. Really excited. Do it one more time. Yeah, really excited for Saturday. I get a little bit of extra rest, one extra day this time. So hopefully everybody's taking it easy. right now and recuperating. But yeah, man, we're back.

We're back in a major tournament final. All it took was a coach. Because it's like, as we talked about, it's the same, you know, it's basically the same player pool. I mean, Mal Swanson's there. That makes a big difference, but. We'll take, yeah. We're happy to have Mal. Yeah.

All right. I think that's it. We'll recap the, we'll probably recap. cap the final on Monday. Got to do the Monday review. We skipped it this week. Vincent Waki and I will do the Monday review probably, hopefully Sunday night. So, hey, thanks everybody for listening.

Go USA. We'll see ya.