Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #525: Olympics Gold Medal Match — USWNT v Brazil recap

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Full recap of the final in Paris from Greg and Belz. 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. We are the world champions, the Olympic champions, to be precise. We ground it out and got the 1-0 win over Brazil. It feels to me like this is just the beginning for this team under Emma Hayes. Greg, how you doing? I'm doing great, Bells. We are still in full celebration mode. Our women's team never disappoints in the celebration department.

And it's amazing. I love the era that we live in where we get to see so much of the celebrating. Because, well, this team already has a ton of personality. You really get to see it come out in the videos and images that are sort of shared. Yeah, Emma Hayes and her son partying late into the night in Paris with the whole team. It's great to see. Before we get into the nitty gritty here, let's listen to a clip from Emma in the postgame press conference. the whole thing of which is a good watch,

her and her and Lindsay taking the stage. But this clip in particular stuck out to me. America means more to me than most people realize. And I was a 20-year-old who had come from a pretty stuffy society that didn't embrace the women's game and women in football. And I went to America and they looked after me and they nurtured me and they opened the doors for me and they gave me opportunities that England never,

ever, ever gave me. And I'm just so happy, so happy to repay that faith in me. And I am, honestly, I'm a delighted sort of half American today. And then Lindsay leans over, gives her a hug, and says you're a full American today. And she says, yeah, you know what I mean. So yeah. It's beautiful. And I think it puts a nice spotlight on at least what, I mean, America is, going to have lots of legacies. But at least one legacy, a very positive one, is sort of the place we have in women's athletics. And in Title IX was a huge, huge part of that.

And it's a huge part of why our women's team is where it is today on the global soccer stage, global basketball stage. We just got to celebrate that. And so it's nice to have sort of that British perspective from Emma and her. her experience with it, sort of put at the forefront as part of the big celebration we're having. Yeah.

Title IX, I mean, Title IX, not only the reason for those things, it's the reason Emma was taken care of here in the U.S., you know, and why she got her start here. So much respect to Title IX. Let's get to the lineups. How about that? Let's do it.

Neyer and goal, of course. Emily Fox, Naomi Germa, Tierna Davidson, and Crystal Dunn across the backline, Sam Coffey, Corbyn Albert, and Lindsay Horan in the midfield, Lavelle on the bench, maybe dealing with a little bit of a knock. Maybe, maybe, I mean, it's a selection that kind of made sense for this game, don't you think? I mean, so it makes sense on paper, right? Like, I didn't love it. We were talking about the key piece here being Lindsay Horan.

staying on the field, Lavelle being off. If it's for the health issue and Lavelle is always sort of a health risk, I get it. But if it's just soccer and you just need to keep her in on the field, but you don't think she's strong enough

to hold up and transition against Brazil, so you put Corbyn in there instead. That makes sense. But then you're saying, Lindsay's going to give us a lot in the attack, and so we're going to use her up there instead of Lavelle. And I don't know that that's necessarily the play, but we won a gold medal with this lineup.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're going to, I'm going to studiously avoid sort of prosecuting Horan in this game. Because there's no point, right? I mean, it's, we're the champs, and that's that. But she did not give us that much in the attack in this game. Yeah, I mean, it goes back to what we've said the past several games, that we have been able to win this, despite very little on offer, certainly up to the usual standard we are accustomed to,

of on-field production from Lindsay Horan. And I don't mean like goals and assists. I mean, she's been a huge part of ball progression for us for the past calendar year. And that was virtually non-existent in this tournament. It really was. It's remarkable. I mean, not just ball progression,

but sort of a safety valve that transitions into ball progression. like she was the one who did that for us up until this tournament started. Yeah, she was doing it against good teams. Like she was doing it against Canada. She was doing it against Colombia, Japan in the, you know, five months before this tournament. She had been doing it at an impressive level against good teams. And it just vanished. Yeah.

So that's, again, you know, I was going to talk about the wet blanket that I tend to bring to these things. But part of that is just because any time you get into. like the weeds of a particular soccer match the way we do. A lot of times the win ends up being wet blanketed and the loss sort of ends up being, I don't know, sugar-coated or whatever because so often in a game, occasionally there are just absolute stinkers of games and absolute blinders. We had a couple of those at the Gold Cup. Yeah.

But usually, usually it's like it's a fairly even game and you win because a couple of things broke your way. But it does mean every single thing was perfect. And you lose because a couple things broke against you It does mean every single thing was terrible. And that's soccer. So we definitely are not coming at a gold medal or return to glory with our wet blankets. But inevitably, we're going to end up talking about some things that didn't go well in a gold medal performance.

Well, and then hopefully at the end we can talk about like, you know, at least a little bit look to the future and say, well, how can we get even better? which I think we totally can do. You know, we've got the players, we got, we got the coach. So, anyway,

the front line was Robin Smith and Swanson, of course, the Trident of Death. And, boy, again, your analysis, I think the last couple

recaps of them being, you know, high volume at doing the hard part, but then sort of lacking precision in the, with the final,

in the final moments. It's really borne out again today. Lots of volume with them, you know, racing into the final third with lots of space. And one time it resulted in a goal, you know. Over 120 minutes. And it's just like, it's just hero ball after hero ball. And it's just like, go for it, ladies. Boy, we're lucky to have them.

So the Brazil line up was Lorena and goal. They had three at the back, Taise, Laurenne, and Tarcion. a pretty tough trio, I would say. And then Adriana, Victoria Yaya, Duda Sampayo, and Yasmim across the band of four. And then Gabby Porchio, who was just very dynamic. And then Jennifer and Ludmila across the front line. Ludmila also extremely dangerous in the first half. Yeah, no question.

Formation-wise, it was kind of interesting. You know, we can talk about what Brazil did with their three, four, three and how it was super different than what, say, Japan did with their 343 in our knockout game, where Japan totally sat deep and we had, what, 75% possession in that game? This was nothing like that, right? Brazil were coming after us all over the field, and it was a game that played that way, where we never could really settle into moving the ball around with any kind of comfort. And, you know, I don't know that we really were trying to.

I really feel like Emma had sort of anticipated this, and the way she set us up, you know, we read our lineup, but the way she set us up was not like a three-player midfield. It very much felt like a two in midfield, and Horan was basically like up high, almost as a forward. So a really unusual, a departure from what we'd seen in the tournament in the past, or any of the games, really, in the Twyla to Emma transition. We also didn't defend in our 4-4-2 that we usually defend. And we defended in like a 4-33 or at times even like a 5-2-3, if you want to call. It was the closest I feel like we've seen to Rodman and Dunn being almost like symmetrical wingbacks. I still don't think it was totally symmetrical. But Rodman was definitely shaded out wide deeper.

And Smith ends up almost like as that right-sided defensive player with Iran is like the central high-high defensive player. Kudos to you for identifying that because there was I mean it was so much transition in this game you know that it was like I don't know how much time there was where teams were actually

in their shapes you know because it was just so much head tennis and you know the ball just careening around the field and which is I think how Brazil wanted it right that's what they were that's what they were going for I think so and I I don't think it was necessarily the wrong play.

I think with their person, again, I think Japan did a really admirable job of what they tried to do, and it could have been enough to win a game on another day. And I think Brazil did an admirable job of what they could try to do with their personnel at this stage in the tournament. You know, with all the minutes on everyone's legs, they'd rotate a little bit more than we had in the tournament. They had fewer or no extra time matches the way we had two in a row. So they, I mean, they obviously tried to pour it on in the first half to get their goal. and they came close on numerous occasions, but it didn't happen for them.

And then they had to suffer a lot in the second half. Yeah, perilously close, which we, I guess, we'll get into right away. With the timeline, because they just came out ferocious, and in the second minute, you know, one minute and 45 seconds in, they get a big chance. And it's a, I mean, it's a little fortuitous for them that they cut through us the way they did, but they did. Ludmila finds Jennifer's feet in front of Germa.

So with Fox pulled up on Ludmila, and this was often the case. One of our fullbacks would be pulled up with step to engage somebody, and they play the ball behind them, and then go at us. So Jennifer plays it back to Ludmila. There's sort of another deflection off of Germa.

Or actually, Fox tackles it away from Ludmila. Germa tries to collect a cant, and it goes over. to Jennifer right at the top of the box and then she plays a really nice pass in behind for Ludmila who just continues her run straight at the goal.

That pass also gets deflected. So there's like three deflections in this sequence that lead to Ludmila being basically alone in front of Neier about at the penalty marker and she just, thank goodness, kind of scuffs it right at Neier.

But what a break we catch here. It isn't a super clean carving up. of us, but it seems like, one, you know, we need our midfield to be just a little more decisive and, which is sort of the, has, we've been saying that all tournament. And, and then they're, they're going at that space behind our fullbacks when our fullbacks step to engage. Yeah, yeah, it's really, it's, it's really like lightning stuff, like fully vertical

from Brazil. Um, and they do, they race right. Ludmila races directly past coffee. Coffee's on her hip, uh, but Ludmila gains. Gaines like a step easily on her with the ball. And then Foxes pokes it away, but Ludmila's momentum keeps her running right past Germa and coffee never. I mean, coffee doesn't like leave her. It's not like she just stops tracking Ludmila.

She just cannot stay with her. So as Germa makes a play on the ball and kind of has an unlucky deflection, coffee is still with Ludmila. She's still accounting for her. Just really poorly. I'm totally just unable to stay with her on that foot race. And so, yeah, so it's a little bit of a little bit of. luck that it breaks to the Brazilian player who then feeds Lulmila again through.

But man, is it we get our luck just in Luhnila's attempt to the finish. Yeah, yeah. So that's the first big chance for Brazil, and there's more coming before, you know, even basically within 15 minutes. But we get a free kick above the arc from Swanson wins a foul in the fourth minute. It hits it, you know, kind of curls it in behind or sends it. in behind for Heran and it's just a tad too firm for her. She can't quite get to it.

We get a Smith chance from the top of the box. Fox dumps it down the line for Trinity and she cuts in. Sends a ball across. It's cleared only as far as Smith. She passes over to Corbin. Corbin's kind of looking for that shooting window from the top of the box and dances to her right, plays it back to coffee, coffee on the deck to Smith, right at the edge of the box.

and she takes a couple touches and shoots from there. It's a decent hit. It's just right at Lorena. Yeah, that feed the trend down that right sideline where Fox kind of dumps it in the corner. It comes off of at least a decent little pattern to build up to it where she hits Mal's feet coming back in the pocket.

Mal has a little layoff and then Fox finds that space we've created with that minimal pistoning, that oppositional movement. So again, we're at least looking a little bit to manipulate. the defense to earn some spaces for that trident to run into. Okay. Okay. They get their, Brazil gets their next chance in the sixth minute.

So it's, uh, done gets pulled up on the left side. I don't know if she gets pulled up or she just goes up to engage. I think Adriana and she plays it, Adriana plays it to Porchio over, sort of over the top. She's one B one with Tirna, which is not ideal. I don't think. And she plays it across, but it's cut out. Again, that's them getting in behind one of our full backs. So this is where it's starting to be worrying, right? I mean, this is just a really easy 3V3 that Brazil get out of this. And it's not really that Dunn has done anything wrong here. She wins a header forward. And then again, because Brazil are in their 343, they've got that wide player in the in-between area that Dun then comes up to engage after winning the first header. And there's just, there's, there's no presence from coffee or Corbyn to help protect and add half a body to account for Brazil's actual front three.

They're locked into the other two in midfield. And we just are leaving three on three in big spaces for like kind of a long time. Like coffee never actually gets back goal side. And the chance that Brazil get coffee's on the wrong side defending it at, you know, inside the penalty marker. and it's just sort of a scuffed attempt from them. Yeah. Yeah, I got to figure out that midfield. Otherwise, we won't win a gold medal.

What are we going to do? Again, tons of credit in this entire tournament needs to just be heaped on the entire back four plus an error. They did so much. Just, yeah, just absolute massive performances from them. Okay, so Dunn does well to break the press with a little, break the pressure, I should say, with a little volleyed outside of the boot pass to Horan. She turns, she's in a lot of space, waste the opportunity with an errant pass in Swanson's direction.

I mean, it's just a little bit off, gets cut out, out of bounds. But the space is there. If we can break that first wave of pressure, we just need to do a little better, be a little cleaner in exploiting it. Yeah, and Haran's only job, I mean, she's clearly not being asked to do anything defensive. Her only job is to feed the front three, I feel like, in this case. You know, maybe pop up on a set piece. But this is, this should be what you're doing.

We find you in that space running downhill. Like, this is Lindsay Horan bread and butter stuff. You've got to be able to feed Mao. And we didn't even just like not get her in a good position. We could not get the ball to her. Yeah. We, I mean, I don't know that Haran had a single effective moment. It's going to be like, that's the question is do we, do we, how much do we, how curious are we about a gold medal winning game that we would, that we're going to go watch all of Lindsay's touches and be like, she really did not feed the front three even one time.

It was coming from Fox a couple of times, Corbyn a couple of times. Yeah. Well, I promise not to go, you know, go too deep into it. And I'm not going to. I think that's the last. Okay, fine. I'll quit nudging too. Well, you can nudge.

I think you have more license than I do. Swanson corner kick doesn't beat the first defender in the 10th minute. Brazil counter. Dun does really well to Shepard Borchio out of bounds. Just like you said, that backline deserves so much credit. Dun deserves so much credit for her just reliability and consistency in this tournament. 11th minute, we have some real nice soccer from Trinity. She megs Yasim delightfully on the sideline.

I guess we're calling it the trend spin. I'm not so sure about that, but fine. Do you know who coined it? I don't. Is it a youth or is it an old? If it's a youth, you just got to be like, you just got to shrug and be like, okay, the youth. But if it's an old, then I feel like we can judge it a little more harshly.

Sounds like ageism, Greg. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know who coined it. If it's a youth, I'll accept it. She drives and slips Swanson into the cutback zone. Swanson tries to visit across for Smith. I think Smith's run at the near post is a little bit muddled, honestly, if you watch it on replay. But it's a real nice sequence up until the final.

Maybe Swanson can tuck it in there between the goalkeeper and the defender who cuts it out. Maybe not. Well, so she shouldn't. She shouldn't try to. The reason the window to Sof gets taken away is because the centerback doesn't run out there with Mao. like Trinity hits a great ball to Mal into that cutback zone. And if the centerback comes out to engage her, then Mal finds the window to either Sof or Lindsay, they're both there.

But the centerback sort of gambles a little bit and just stays home. She just stays in the goal frame. And so Mal needs to just collect this and then run directly at the near post, like we're going to see Brazil do in a couple of minutes and just smash it in at the near post or when they finally do come over to stop her, then square it for somebody to tap in. So it's just, uh, um, Mal gets a little, little too, uh, ahead of her, ahead of herself and squares, it cuts it back when she shouldn't yet.

Just need a little more patience, huh? U.S. exerting some control now, but, but the, the, the attack is that even, even that sequence illustrates is just a, it just isn't quite, uh, precise enough. I, I clocked a smart foul from Corbyn Albert on a budding counter attack in the 15th minute She drag somebody down, doesn't get a yellow card for it, which is good. And then 16th minute, there is a glitch in the Matrix. Something happens that we have not seen yet this tournament. Ludmila runs onto a ball behind from Yasmim, again, behind the right back in this case.

She faces up Germa from the edge of the box, almost on the end line, and then just does her dirty, like cuts, you know, chops it onto her left foot from her right foot. Germa tries to reach over and get to it and misses. And Ludmila is running straight at the goal, as you mentioned earlier. And she just smashes it right over Neer into the net. So it would have been a really nice goal for Ludmila, but she was offside by, you know, a quarter to half step. Thank goodness.

Because I don't think it would have made any difference if she had been on side here. Well, I'll push back on that just because, soccer so much about winning that first half a yard race. I mean, speed is great, of course, but like so much of it is you get your, you get your leverage, that pitch control, where Ludmila nice in front of German by half a step, and that's what forces Germann to have to go to the inside, you know, to avoid running through her. She has to, like, concede the ball to Ludmila and then just try to get goalside. So if she's not half, if she doesn't have that half a step, maybe Germa just beats her straight

away to the first ball, and it's never an issue. Just throwing that out there. I mean, Luddela could get to it. There will be times where Ludmila will face Germa up, straight up, in an onside position. And if we saw what just happened there, like, it was hard to believe it, right? I couldn't believe it, yeah. I mean, when's the last time she got beat, like, just roasted 1B1 like that? So not only are we not expecting it.

Very clearly, the rest of the U.S. team is not expecting that to happen. We completely are allowing Germa to just defend on a total island there. She's got it. She's defending at the edge of the box. no one has come over to help her whatsoever. Tierna, and this is also in part because we are just going numbers even defensively, which is like lunacy, really,

to do that over a long, long stretch, if that's like part of the plan. It's always going to happen, you know, situationally, but the idea is, like, as it's happening, you should be having at least one player working as hard as they possibly can to add that extra body, so you're not just one for one on the attacking team.

We never get to that point in this situation. four on four. As Fox goes out to defend on the sideline, there's three attackers lined up against our remaining three defenders. So it does come down to like, if one person gets beat, that's it, it's curtains. And that's what happens here.

Tierna stays locked onto her player, Dunn's locked onto her player. Coffee and Corbin are both late coming back from the midfield side to help. And so it's just Germa against Ludmila and Ludmila rinses her. But we get the letoff. because she's off.

18th minute. Well, that's two near goals for Ludmila in the opening 16 minutes. And she's going to get another near chance here shortly. 18th minute. Porchio does Davidson on the left side again, as soon as done steps forward. Adriana plays Porchio into that 1v1. I'm assuming that it's a 3 on 3. 3 on 3 and the entire defensive third of the field.

Again, it's crazy this is happening. Porchio whips, Porchia kind of spins Davidson like a top and then whips it across just inches ahead of Ludmila who is, who is wide open, free between Germa and Fox. It's, this is scary

and the idea that occurred to me earlier that we were exerting control was a mirage. It does not feel like we were in control at all. This is, this game is so, so different from the Gold Cup final that we just played against Brazil. in March or February,

where there was very little organized possession or, you know, sustained possession from either team in that game either, but there was way less gold mouth action in the Gold Cup final. Like, this is like very little possession. And it might be the fatigue, you know, like where in that gold cup, if people were a little fresher,

you know, as the game's racing from end to end, you just get more bodies to clog things up. But yeah, the number of 3V3s or 2V2s over, over like 35 yards to goal is crazy in the first half of this match. I mean, kind of on both sides, right? Yes, yes. Yeah, we'll get to the U.S. in a bit here.

Lots of fouls in this next section of the game. Game becomes choppier, which I think is good for us just to sort of slow things down a little bit because that full speed stuff was given us trouble. It does seem like we're a little late to everything in the middle. I mean, that's just sort of, subjective broad strokes chit-chat but no it's not i i don't think it is we're again we're running two players it's two midfielders uh so what we're i'm kind of if if i sound like i'm being

critical of coffee and corbin for not getting back to help that back three as as we face all these three b-threes they're being tasked with something on basically impossible because haran is not in there as a midfielder uh she's not in their winning balls she's not in there being like an option in possession uh she is a forward who who plays, like, worse defense than most forwards play when she does even get her body back into a defensive spot. I mean, the level of pretending to defend is just crazy. That makes me wonder, you know,

if you watch that whole press conference with her and Lindsay, she gives Lindsay a lot of flowers for her behind-the-scenes work for the team. And, you know, mentions that people don't always, she doesn't always get credit for it, but she's done a lot of stuff for the team. And Lindsay loses it. You know, she starts crying. And she says, what the hell?

You know, because she's got to answer questions too. And she's like blubbering up there on the stage. Do you think that this is shades, do you think that this is shades of, you know, Emma Hayes saying really nice things about Alex Morgan before she dropped her from the Olympics roster? I'm really ruining it, aren't I? I you're saying was that Lindsay's

U.S. Women's National Team eulogy in the gold medal post game. I have, I honestly have no idea because again, we have seen Lindsay do really good things with already in this new, you know, post-Vlatko era. She's my favorite player a month ago.

I mean, we were calling her the adult in the room, like the only adult in the room when we were trying to possess the ball. It could have just been where we'd made a choice in this game in particular, to not really worry about possession and to just trust that over 90 or 120 minutes, our front three would get the job done more often than their front three

going against the respective back lines that they would be going against. Well, we're going to do, you know, Lindsay's 30 years old. She's going to be 33 at the next World Cup. And, you know, we're going to do that on the next WOSA Wednesday. I think we're going to really dig in on, like, who are the midfield? Who are the other midfield? it's really mostly midfielders that were that we're interested in because because no one's in a hurry to switch out the front three and really it's or the back

four yeah well i mean you'll have to get into done in there too because while they've had heroic performances uh they might they might be looking at i mean time waits for for no soccer player that's right yeah so maybe we'll talk about some a full back and a goalkeeper here there but It's really the exciting young players coming up are a lot of them are midfielders. And we'll have the next WOSO, which I think will be a week from this coming Wednesday. We'll hopefully get into some detail on that. So look for that. 21st minute done easily could be whistled for a penalty after coming together with Adriana,

just inside the box on the left side. It's the ref and the VAR say no. It's not a penalty. So it's like a bouncing ball. I think we got a shot of Arson Venger while the ball. ball was being played. So we didn't really see how it came about

but it's essentially a bouncing ball in the corner. Adriana runs onto it and then Dun and her their legs kind of get caught up with each other. Varsas Adriana kind of initiated the contact I guess but it's also I feel

like it's a play that on some days with some refs could be called the penalty. So again we're breathing a big sigh relief here. Yeah, huge one. And again, this just goes back to if the brakes go your way, then it's, then everything was perfect, right? Everyone did great. All of the decisions were the correct decisions. All the tactics were spot on. And if, if like a different VAR is looking at that, then

suddenly that's no longer the case because it's a penalty and we're in or in the mud. Yeah. Would you have called it a penalty? I would have, I live in probabilities, Bell, so I would have called it a penalty probably like 30% of the time. That's what I think. I think of it like, yeah, that gets called a penalty sometimes. If the ref calls it in real time, it doesn't get overturned.

Yeah, that's right. A lot of negative stuff so far, and I apologize for that, dear listener, but on a positive front, in retrospect, it now looks as if we had at this point pretty much weathered the storm. I'm going to give it 10 more minutes on the timeline because I'm going to hit, I'm going to hit that 28th minute pretty hard. But, but all right. I'm with you that we get out a little bit here in the next. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I mean, yeah, the 28th minute, I guess, I guess you're going to hit that hard. And then there's a big chance right at the end of the half. But that was other than those. That was a chance out of nothing, you know. Yeah. And there was also some good fortune to it as well. No.

Yeah. The 28th minute when we get there. feel like those were more like emphasis on that structural issues we had but well let's let's not skip over to the u.s.'s brilliant moment here yeah 20 26th minute big chance for the USA and it's just pure mal swanson uh brilliance to even make it happen we're trying to get it out of our defensive third we're not having a ton of success and tyrna just wax it long and it bounces at midfield swanson races onto it touches it past laureen and she's in behind races past her, drives into the box, goes at the goal, and tries a, you know, so Tarcyon is, is just, is racing across the field and lunges across Swanson's face right before she shoots.

So she's got to shoot at this moment. I think she tow pokes it. Is that, was that your read on it too? Yeah, right footed toe poke as she's driving in from the left side. So I love the technique. I do too. Love the choice. And it's a good save from, from Lorena, um, saves it with her left. left hand, right hand maybe two. Still zero, zero, but our first big chance of the game, and it shows how dangerous we can be even when we're struggling a bit. You know, we can kind of get something out of nothing. Yeah, the way that Mal just left Lorena behind,

and she, I think we do it again, either Mal or so from the second half. Yeah, it just says so much. And it might also be maybe Lorraine is just not fast because Tarcyon does catch up. I don't want to say comfortably, but like, she's like, oh, I have to make this ground up, and then she does make up the ground. You'd expect to centerback to make up against a dribbling attacker that Lorena just could not do.

I mean, to be fair to Loren, it was the touches that she was getting left behind on were much bigger than the touches that Tarcyon caught up on. You know, it's like those set-up touches before the shot. But yeah, this is a good game, not intricate, but two heavyweights going at each other. So why don't you want to talk us through the 27th and the 28th minute? chances. So there's a sequence here of a few and it actually starts just in the 27th minute where

we are set up and we do have numbers in the box. So this isn't the three on three issue we'd been having where we just were like, well, let's see what our back, back three do. Brazil worked it in and we have bodies like Corbin's in there, coffee's in there, all four back lines, even Horan sort of hovering at the top of the box. So we have the numbers back for this one. In Brazil, just sort of have it now comfortably just outside the edge of 18 on our right side, or on our left side. Yeah. They create just enough room

to get a cross off, but they're crossing into like, again, like three on five in the box, but we've just really organized poorly. Where Tirna and Germa are both closer to the crosser than any Brazilian players. And so what we end up with is actually a two on one on Fox at the back post. And the cross is hit almost right

at Fox, actually. But Fox has to like, I mean, Fox is basically bracketed by Brazilian players. And rather than just sort of read the flight of the ball and take it as it's coming right to her, she kind of commits to the near attacker closest to the crosser and sort of gets to her back to disrupt a header just in case she's misreaded or just hasn't read it correctly. And it's a free header from, you know, dead center on the goal six yards out. I don't think that's a terrible choice from Fox. The issue is it's too high for both of them at this point now and it just floats to the totally, free player on the back stick.

Yes. And fortunately, it just eats her up. Because if she's properly set, she has an uncontested shot from there. But it's sort of, she ends up sort of taking it on the short hop with her head. And Germa recovers well to come sort of just blast it away, anywhere we'll do. But we don't get it very far. And Brazil feed it back out to the right side.

And again, we have all these bodies in the box. but they hit another cross this time low through all of those bodies. They find the one seam. And it's Yasmeem again, totally alone again. Fox is still like connected too tight to Germa. And so they get another wide open look from the far post to take the lead here. And Yasim, she kind of panics. Yeah.

Yeah. She panics and it looks like she almost tries to put it back across rather than just lashing it with her left on frame. It would have been a really difficult finish. Either one of them would have been difficult. Difficult finishes. But in a game like in the gold medal game where chances, clear chances for Brazil haven't really materialized since the first minute,

these are both very good looks. And then we still don't quite get it cleared out and Brazil get to float another ball into the box from farther up the field. And this is one where Ludmila gets another step on us again and she's in on Tierna. And for whatever reason, Neyer doesn't come out and get this. So it bounces inside,

the six just after grazing Ludmila's head. Yeah, yeah. So that for me was just like, it wasn't poor structurally. Like we had tons of bodies on all three of these entry balls into the box from Brazil. But Brazil still managed to get three really dangerous moments out of them. And they just didn't turn any of that danger into anything, really anything that was difficult to deal with for Neyer. Right. Yeah, and then the ref shortly after that, the ref whistled for a water break and it was a welcome reprieve.

Let's see. 34th minute, good tackle from Albert, plays it over to Rodman. It's a bad pass to Horan in the middle, so we lose it, but there's a bad back pass to Lorena. And Swanson chases it, kind of clatters with the goalkeeper, who clears it and makes the most of the contact. So we have like a lot of stoppage in here in this part of the game. or try to go faster the rest of the first half. Porchio roasts Davidson 1v1 in the 40th minute again and lifts it to the back post. Fox does quite well to glance it out for a corner.

I think it's Ludmila lurking behind her. And that's another 3v3 moment just for the, if we're still clocking those. Or are we just coffee and Corbyn are nowhere to be found as Brazil brings three players at us. Get your 3V3 bingo cards out. and let's see this i mean it seems like the lack of the lack of precision from us from our honestly from our front three and from haran is making it even more difficult for us to get anything going against this kind of dynamic opponent because we just can't get any traction when we get the ball um get a second tactical foul from corbin in the 45th minute this one on

Ludmila over on the sideline as she's about to get left behind. Again, no yellow given. So maybe the Brazilian version of our podcast is really mad at the ref. I don't know. I mean, they probably are given the non-penal. I mean, no clear-cut mistakes, I don't think, but you could feel like, you could feel like there was a lean. Yeah.

It didn't. There were a couple that I feel like she sort of tried to balance things out. But there were some high-profile calls that you could just feel aggrieved by if you're Brazil, I think. This is one of the reasons I don't complain about many of the refereeing performances we've seen that kind of haven't favored the U.S. Definitely saw some of those. Because, I mean, if you're going to insist that the referees are perfect for any time you lose,

then you've got to give away some of your wins too, and I'm not ready to give away my wins. No, no, no, no. In stoppage time, Brazil gets sort of the big highlight real chance of the second half of the first half. which is the Adriana Cross after a throw-in. This is when we got to look at Arson Venger. I'm sorry, not earlier. And so we didn't really see the build-up to it, but I think it was a throw-in.

Adriana crosses it. It deflects slightly off of Dunn on the way to the six-yard box. Porchila steps right in front of Germa and hits it pretty well, sort of a curling, glancing hit. And it's a nice save from Neher to preserve the zero-zero.

know, not sure it was miraculous, as John Champion put it, but the shot was on frame and she kept it out. I'm calling this a dynamite save. You get a save like this in a gold medal match. You're pretty happy, especially in a match that you keep them off the scoreboard entirely. This is good, man. Like, this is a real small reaction time play. So while it's in her, it's definitely like in her range, she's not at full stretch to get to the

ball, the strength that she gets to it from that, from a, you know, that distance from a shot with that much power, uh, it's real good for me. Okay. You see those, you see those sneak past the shoulder and in plenty of time. So, uh, I'm giving Neyer her love here. Again, big, I was not a huge like, Neyer's clearly are number one. I haven't been saying that for the past year. Uh, but she absolutely delivered in this tournament.

Yeah. It does feel like Brazil was the better team in the first half. Not that we were toothless, but it felt lucky for us that it's a draw. But we'll have good news from the second half after the break. I mean, the good news is that it was still a draw. The good news is that they didn't get the break they needed despite some of their field tilt that they created. And we will take a break here. We'll be back in a second.

Okay, we're back. I promised I'm not going to overdo it with the criticism, but there was a moment right at the beginning of the first half that bugged me. We had a throw in on the left side, Dun collects it, and there's this big pocket of space between, you know, there's a passing lane into it, and, you know, Horan is up on the front line, you know, on the attacking front line. I believe it's Smith occupying the center back in the middle of the field,

and nobody comes to the bar. and then, you know, Dunn kind of gets closed down and she sort of pokes it into that space. And still, there's nobody there. Iran is the closest one to it and it rolls by her and we give it away. And I'm just thinking like, well, can we just show for the ball?

It feels a little Vlakoish in this moment, at least, you know? No, I think that's fair. We clearly, again, have not, we did not sort of engage in the kind of fluid, total football that we've seen the team, this team dabbling in over the past few months. But there was no, there was no intent to do it.

In this situation where you're talking about, like, again, we kind of turned our trident of death into, we took one of the tines away, right? We made Rodman like a wide midfielder. The reason, like Lindsay Horan became part of the Trident. And that's not nearly as deadly as it would be with Rodman swapping for her. So even in this situation, the fact that we're, counting on Heron to become one of those dynamic attacking players,

kind of tells you the approach that Emma wanted to take. And so while it might be way less opportunity for the aesthetically pleasing ball, you do have Trinity Rodman closer to help defend the goal that we never gave up. Yeah. Okay. And also, the second half was much better, I think, partly because Brazil ran out of steam. Like, they just couldn't, they couldn't keep up the pace that they said. in the first half.

And so we gradually, I wasn't even gradual. It's like almost immediately in the second half. We were a better team. I agree. Smith pounces on a Taise mistake in the 48th minute,

takes it, races forward, tries to fit a little through ball in for Swanson, but the pass isn't quite good enough. It's cut out in the box just ahead of Mao. This is the story of like most of our attacks. Just the pass isn't quite good enough or the choice isn't quite good enough. Yeah, Horan actually,

so we win. And again, the front three at this point is Iran, Sof, and Mal, not Rodman, Sof and Mal. So we win it on this mistake. And Horan is like so slow to transition that it actually frees her up. So she kind of takes a really long route to let Swanson run past her or to let Sof run past her. And she like overlaps her then. And it actually ends up becoming a late arrival, even though she started out ahead of everybody. She still manages to arrive late.

And she would have been wide open as all the attention shifts. shifted over to Mal's run. So if Sof had sort of that full 360 vision, she would have cut against the grain to Heran arriving late on the right side for a free shot. So sometimes Heran's speed is an asset. Sometimes she's playing 4D chess out there. 51st minute, well, Vittoria, the midfielder for Brazil, gets stretched off with an injury. I wasn't sure what it was.

I don't know if we saw a replay, but she came off. 51st minute. Rodman comes out of a mess just inside Brazil's half with the ball. She's in space, plays Smith down the wing. This is actually a really good chance. Smith chooses the correct cutback to Swanson, who makes a good run. She sort of flares to the penalty area as Horan makes.

The far post run drags some defenders with her. And Swanson just whiffs on it. I think we didn't get a replay, but it just looks like she, she missed it with her shooting right foot and it hit off her left leg and popped up. Yeah, this is a really good chance. I mean, this is about the same chance, almost the same chance that Neyer had just saved for Brazil at the end of the first half. And it's a fun one because Rodman totally creates the mess that she ends up winning with like a failed back heel.

And I think it's her second failed back heel to start the second half. A pretty untidy outing from Trinity as well. I mean, good on her because she's just trying whatever she wants. But she just totally outmuscles everyone after she messes up the back heel and ends up running, running downhill with it and sets up that through ball to Sof with a nice little like glide to the inside. So she's got the ball sort of on the outside of the defender, almost like a crossover, just moves it to the inside and then hits it to the wrong side of the defender to free up Sof. Yeah, really good, really good chance. And then we get a, I mean, we recover that the miss from Swanson, and then it ends up with coffee, like a layoff for coffee,

and she just kind of sends it into the seats. 55th minute, Heran is headed in behind by Swanson on a flick from a Germott long ball. And this is a little bit maybe like that Swanson opportunity earlier in the game where you were saying she should have driven at the goal and and drawn the defender to her, because Horan has time to sort of figure something out and just kind of hits it into a yellow shirt at the penalty area. She's trying to cut it back.

I'd like to see her make more of that opportunity. Yeah, it has the ability. It's weak. It feels like a surrender by somebody who hasn't been having much success, finding blue jerseys. And it also shows the difference, right? Where I want Mal to absolutely take that ball until somebody stops her.

like mal requires that kind of commitment from a defender to come stop and heran just doesn't like heran if she's going to start trying to accelerate towards the goal any Brazilian player will be like okay I guess I'll go stop this you know there's no there's no real threat to heran running at you the way there is for mall or so for trend it's not it's not Lindsay's superpower 50 and now here we're getting really close to the the sort of the ultimate moment here we get a chance in the around the 56 minute mark. Coffee wins a duel after some head tennis, kind of side-foots it to Swanson.

And she one touches Horan into space right above the Brazil box. Horan has Rodman curving in behind. It's a good run. And Haran's through ball is just a little too heavy. She knew it was a missed opportunity. Yeah. Nice layout from Mal here to,

we do a little soccering to start this. And then, yeah, it's something that, Iran's the player you'd want to hit this pass, I feel like. Yeah. You want her hitting that pass. Of all the players on our team, you want her hitting that pass. Yeah.

10 out of 10 times. Directly to the keeper. Yeah. None of it matters. Her gold medal is absolutely as earned as anyone else's. Who cares? Just I just want to keep saying that. 57th minute, we get the goal, and it's more head tennis at midfield.

Just the ball's just clanking around. Coffee tries to play through the midfield lines to Swanson's feet on the ground. It's cut out. by Lauren and it's cut out directly to Corbin Albert in the midfield and she's in space, takes a touch, pushes a through ball in for, it seems pretty clear she's playing it to Sophia Smith straight ahead of her, at least to me it seemed clear. Smith is way offside, but she lets it run past her, thankfully. You know, I mean, it travels right next to her foot before, as she lets it run past her.

And Mallory Swanson's coming in from the left side. Smith very cleverly leaves it for Swanson. And I don't know if there was some shouting involved there, but she leaves it for Swanson. It feels like, I mean, Smith was so offside. It kind of felt like they were both offside, to me at least, when you watched it in real time. But Swanson collects it, takes a touch with her left foot,

takes a touch with her right foot, and then just she's alone with the keeper, just slots it past her. Lorena's defenseless in this moment. Swanson glances over to the assistant referee as the ball sails into the net. She sees the flag isn't up. She wheels to the corner flag, arms out like an airplane.

It's a big time celebration on the field. At least in my living room, I was like, well, is that going to get called back? And you could hear it from John Champion, too, on the, on the, it's kind of a disappointing goal call because he was thinking it was going to get called. back too. Yeah. But it didn't because Swanson wasn't offside. And I would love to hear your discussion of the rules, but I guess there's several ways

to be offside, but technically being a decoy who is way offside, who kind of lulls the defense to sleep because you're so off while your teammate comes in and takes it and scores a goal, that is not one of the ways to be offside by the rules. That's definitely right. I mean, the decoy part. The question at the heart of this one is whether or not Sophia makes a play on the ball to disrupt it or makes it becomes an active player playing the ball. And I feel like she gets so close to it that it does be. In my mind, it's subjective.

I don't think I've heard any of the referees. I haven't heard Dr. Joe come out and opine on this one. So I would be curious to hear just them say, yeah, it's just subjective. and some referees might determine that she did make a play on this and some wouldn't, or if they'd say, no, this is one of the classic examples of she doesn't technically make a play on it. And you're totally right about, like, SOF being so far offside does make it seem like Mal's offside too, because the way your eye sort of works as you see the through ball go, you immediately look at SOF, and you're like, oh, she's off.

And then by the time you look down at Mao, because of that, you don't see that she started it, you know, half a step behind. You just see her now two yards behind everybody. You're like, oh, okay, well, I'm sure they're both offside, or at least you're pretty suspicious of it. And knowing that, you know, it's going to get checked and there's going to be a definitive yes or no. I was not optimistic, to be honest,

that this was going to stand as a goal. I wasn't really either, but not complaining. We'll take it. I mean, they're not wrong. I don't think it's wrong. And again, I would love to hear that referee talk about it to know how a grieved Brazil can feel, whether they can be like this was a really gray,

gray one that broke against us, or whether a referee would be like, no, there's no question like, Sophia does not interfere at the play because she doesn't, you know, touch the ball or redirect it

and doesn't affect anything that Mal Swanson would have done on it. Right. Which she doesn't. I guess the thing is, did the, how much did that back line slow down and,

um, because I mean by the time Mal is racing into shoot they're all running back as fast as they possibly can well them slowing down them slowing down for as far as I know wouldn't matter at all like them slowing down anticipating a offside call does not get them off the hook like no we slow down because she was so far it'd be like how did they did they move essentially to defend Sophia Smith as she's about to touch the ball did they have to react to this player who's about to touch the ball and then at everything changes because that player suddenly is like, no, I'm not in the play. Sorry, don't mind me. It's this onside player who's playing soccer. Well, maybe the argument is had they moved to defend Smith, they would have, had they been doing that, they would still be moving in exactly the same direction, you know? Right. We got to get Dr. Joe back. Okay, well, it's a track meet from, so that's it, one zero. As you know, if you watch the game, that's the final score line, but it's a track meet for like the most of the low 60s of the game.

Brazil's pushing for a goal. They don't really get close. We have several chances to get a second goal. I mean, coffee sends Swanson into space. She's free out wide but loses it sloppily. Sof wins a cage match at midfield and strides into the attacking third. She's got Rodman and Horan off to her right and she gets kind of knocked off the ball as she tries to pass it to Swanson.

I mean, these all feel like. like really kind of promising moments. Lorena comes out 40 yards to clear a ball. At one point that Smith is racing onto. I mean, there's just so much space back there. On the right, Rodman does Angelina, who had subbed on, and then races at the top of the box, cuts in on Tarcian, I believe, and shoots with her left.

This is maybe the best shooting chance of that didn't go in in the second half. You kind of back her to put this on frame, and she flashes it wide. and then coffee loops one down the channel for Smith. She runs onto it and cuts in, tries to shoot at the near post and kind of snatches at it, sends it wide. So we very nearly get our second goal in that like flurry of chances, but we don't.

Yeah, and you worry, right? This is where we're like, oh man, did we miss our chance to seal it? And now, and now, like, Brazil's going to steal something at the death. Or, you know, maybe they still have plenty of time. but that little flurry definitely outweighed. If you're doing like who deserves to win, that flurry definitely outweighed that 28th minute flurry of not quite chances from Brazil in the first half.

So we're back on the good side of the universe. Okay. That's where we want to be. Yeah, you always want to be owed. You never want to owe the universe. We got 70th minute good combinations from Albert Swanson out to Smith and she tries to visit across. It's cut out.

maybe want a little more patience from her there, but let's not dilly dally. Sonnet on for Davidson in the 74th minute. How worried were you? Giving your reaction to Sonnet trotting out there was 15 minutes left in a gold medal game? Not worried. I feel like she's,

I'm fairly confident in her in this game, I mean, in this tournament. She had a couple things she didn't do exactly right, but mostly she's been very good, wouldn't she say?

Yeah, I thought she's mostly been fine. which is what you hope a injury replacement will be for you. Let's see. Tarcyon gets a yellow card for clearing out Sophia, mostly because I think she thought it went out of bounds, and the ref didn't call it in the 81st minute. Horan takes the free kick and from a pretty dangerous area,

bangs it off the wall, then tries a volley and slices it wide. 83. Sorry, on the Iran one, I just wish because in the first half, we'd had to deal with this, the sun. This is a weird stadium where they're playing like east-west, and they're looking at the sun as it's setting in Paris. And it caused some problems for some of our outfield players. I don't think Neher ever had an issue with it.

But this was a free kick where we were right in line with the sun. And I was hoping it was like at the exact right time where the far post was in the sun and the near post was in the shade. So I was hoping Horan would just bang it at the goalkeeper side on the far post and not try to beat the wall and finally get that. Get that goal for Julie Fowdy. Yeah, she did go. She tried to go near post, but, um,

83 minute mark, Albert's counter pressing creates a little bit of a chance. There's some scramble ball. Iran plays it back to Albert 25 yards from goal, and she, she takes it first time with her left foot, nearly loops one into that sunny far corner with her left foot,

with the sun glaring in Lorena's eyes, but it goes just over. It's probably our, last real chance of the game. And now we're just kind of holding on. Williams comes on for Smith in the 84th. Coffee concedes a somewhat reckless foul in the 88th minute just outside the box on a bouncing ball.

Marta takes it, which is kind of scary with that left foot, sends it over, thankfully. I do think Albert and Coffee looked much better in the second half than they did in the first. I think in part because of that. phenomenon of Brazil running themselves out of gas. Yeah, and Albert and coffee, Albert certainly feel like they can run forever.

So even if they just don't slow down, if everyone else is, then suddenly they're able to hold that two-man midfield a little tighter. And then here's the two big moments from Brazil and our defense in the, I guess, the 94th minute, so fourth minute of stoppage time, both Sonnet and Neier, kind of heroic here. a nice bit of vertical carve-up from Brazil through our right side and then Porchio gets it just inside the box

cuts in on Sonnet. She looks like she's about to shoot from a really, really dangerous spot and Sonnet just pokes it away, a great tackle from her to send it out. But it only goes as far as Angelina who floats a ball to the back post where Adriana is flying in, full head of steam.

She heads it reasonably well on frame and I guess I'll let you assess the save but Neyer makes the save, reaches out with her right paw, almost like palms it, you know, and preserves the lead. Yeah, I'm curious because I don't think we ever saw a replay to see if this runner on the far post is offside.

They catch us sort of, again, we half clear it on that sonnet poke, so that's the cue for everyone to try to step forward, and we didn't track that weak side runner well, as we're stepping forward. And I think, I think Germa might be late up on the line. But it might not just be German.

Everyone might be holding her on. Anyway. What a shamble she is. No, I mean, to be honest, Dun probably needs to account for a little tighter than she is.

But it's a great delivery. It's a really good look. You, you wonder if she'd almost try to control it and bring it in, uh, on two touches rather than going for the header. Um,

but it's a, it's a wide open header. And it is a really good say from there. because she's got to, I mean, she has to, it's six yards out again. This is a really tight distance to react to. So she gets the big bear paw out there and she does just corral it rather than parry it down the goal line. Because even the parry straight down the goal line, which is what you'd want to do, would have led to. There's not enough velocity on it.

Yeah, you don't, you aren't going to get it out for a throw in. You're not going to put it out behind for a corner. And there's a Brazilian player with full inside position on everyone else. right at that far post if Neyer pushes it out that way. So I don't know if she clocked it, but if she did it just makes it just an incredible decision and execution to keep it right in front of her where Grimma or done can now clear it out. Awesome.

And they are just coming up big at the end of both of these last two games. So Swanson comes off for Kruger as we're trying to see our way out. There's that forearm to the head of Horan as she's going up for a header, which is a little scary, but it turns out she's okay. And that's really the last major incident of the game. Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We did a pretty solid job of holding on.

And so we won a gold medal. And then everybody belts out the national anthem at the gold medal ceremony. I clocked that. Everybody's free to not, but it's fun to see everybody do it. Everybody's singing together. We're back. It just feels, it feels really nice to see, uh, the front three get to have the success that they, I feel like we've been thinking they're capable of.

And it's almost like they've, they deserve it. You know what I mean? Like they deserve the success because they're so freaking good. Uh, and then, uh, for the backline to be as heroic as they were, uh, for this entire tournament is huge. And the midfield also get gold medals. Yeah. That's, that's, uh, that's, uh, that's, that's, uh, that's, too much. The midfield, obviously, everyone

put in shifts. You can't win these games against the teams we beat with people like taking games off, even if they aren't at their best. You know, everyone's there. Everyone's doing something. I feel like Corbin had a good,

like a surprisingly good tournament overall. You know, I didn't expect her to be as good as she was. No, we're in full, we're in everyone. I feel like I missed the call-in show. I was at like a cabin. I couldn't join it.

But I assume it's just everyone's just, is there relief? How are you feeling? Are you relieved? Are you just like, awesome. We're good. We are a good team. I mean, it's still kind of hard, you know, since we started this podcast, this is easily the biggest trophy that the U.S. has won.

Well, I guess, you know, they won the World Cup in 2019, but we weren't covering. the women's national team then. So it's a little bit, like, it's a little bit weird, you know, for me. To just win a whole tournament. Yeah, I'm like, what? But yeah, I think everybody's, I mean, lots of sharing of celebration videos on the Discord. And I'm excited, I'm excited for, you know, the next camp. It's, uh, I want to get Lily O'Hanis in here.

I guess we should mention she shared on Instagram, uh, that, you know, the, the big graphic slash photo that said we're the Olympic champs. So that's a good sign, right? That's an awesome sign. We got to get her on here. Even if we can do it, I'm sure she wouldn't say it while the red lights flashing, but we've got to ask her, she was aware of how liberally teams could move alternates in and out of the roster.

Because if the rumor is that she was going to be an alternate, but said no, because it's like, yeah, you're not going to just go just to, you know, sit on the side. But if she knew that she could have, like, played, whether that would have done it or not. Yeah. I don't know. That's a good question.

There's probably, it's probably more complicated than that. But, yeah. Maybe we can get her on someday. She's an exciting one. I'm super excited for the WOSO breakdown of some of these potential midfield, mostly, faces we could be looking at this coming cycle. The rest of the, you know, now that it's a strange cycle with the wind where we have this and now we're shifting.

to sort of three years from now. So World Cup 2027. So, but it's, it's fun. Like, we have so many fun players. And it's also fun because there is, like, that air of sort of inevitability just does not surround this team anymore. And I don't, I still don't think that's a bad thing.

I think that's very much a credit to, uh, the rest of the world putting, putting energy and commitment into their women's programs, um, where this gold medal was certainly not inevitable and not even, you know, with Emma and knowing it, what she's capable of.

with the players we have. Like, they're just really good teams. And as Spain found out, like, you can get got by anybody in a knockout tournament at this point. They're not anybody, but there's easily half a dozen teams that can beat you, even if you don't have a catastrophe of a match. Yeah. Well, and, yeah, a couple of things on that. I mean, we have unfinished business with Spain. We got to, it would be really fun to beat them in a knockout round game at the next World Cup.

but we got Cat Macario waiting in the wings hopefully and you think about who was on this roster obviously it's a short Olympic roster but really we had one attacker who came off the bench and that was Lynn Williams you know and we got we I mean we have more

we have more players waiting in the wings I think there's a lot it's not just Macario you know there's some young attackers Croy Bethune is going to continue to develop and then there's Lily there's the other midfielers that we're going to

that we're going to talk about on the Woe So show Jaden Shaw didn't play in this tournament Yeah that's right I forgot that Jaden Shaw she was on the roster didn't even play Which you got to think of like

Is that a little bit of a wasted roster spot If she wasn't fully healthy Or did she just did that not become clear until we were in Paris Well we never had to chase a goal Is what I think of So we didn't dress her in the group stage but then we dress her in the knockouts.

And so I'm wondering if like, okay, well, she's not super fit, but if you have to chase a goal, you're going to use her. Is kind of what I assumed. But we never had to chase one. We're never losing in the tournament. Yeah. Must be nice. Yeah.

So, yeah, Jaden Shaw, who might, you know, who could be like potentially a generational attacking talent, you know. So lots to be excited about. And congratulations to the team. Congratulations to all of us fans. We did it. Deserved. Deserved.

Anything else, Greg? No, I am, I mean, I am happy for fans who didn't just, like, kind of give up, like, oh, we're bad. Everyone's caught us and we can't, we can't play anymore because we went out in the round of 16 in a shootout. You know, like, we're, we're good. We're good. We're going to be, we're going to be probably betting face. favorites in 2027.

Yeah. We should get quite a bit better, I think. I think we can. I really think we can. Yeah. All right. On that note, hey, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.