Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #527: WoSo — Gold Medal Celebration Pod

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

Tara and Vince take it away and revel in the USWNT's return to the top. 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. Welcome to the scuff podcast, ladies and gentlemen. This is Woso Wednesday. Woso Wednesday, once again. Just me and Tara this time. But we're here to celebrate the Olympics. We're Olympic champs. We won the gold.

Tara, I don't know how you're feeling, but I'm feeling absolutely tremendous. buzzing ever since, what was that, Saturday? Sunday? Yeah, Saturday. We're triumphant. We're back. A lot of people try to speak on our downfall after the World Cup. But here we are. Here we are, Tara. How are you? Yeah. USA, baby. I'm basking with pride. I haven't gotten a real chance to debrief with you yet, so I'm really happy that we're taking the time. talk today, even if it's just,

even if it's just us, I'm really glad we're going to be taking the time to do brief. I'm not over it yet. Nope. I'm proud. I'm excited. I can't wait to get into it. Yeah, that's right. And the thing is,

Adam Bell's tried to silence us this week. You know, I hit him up. I'm like, yo, we're doing a well-so this week? He's like, nah, let's wait until next week. Next week, come on, baby. We just want to go. Oh, man, he can't silence me. I didn't get the opportunity to be on the postgame show, which if you're not a patron and you listen to Wausau Wednesday,

there's a postgame show that you can, one, be involved in, and two, if you don't want to be involved in it, you can listen to it on our Patreon. You can sign up for that. Descriptional, I mean, the link will be in the show notes, I assume, provided our benevolent leader, Adam Bells, decides to put the link in the show notes. But yeah, yeah, he,

He was like, yo, let's wait two weeks. And I was like, man, we can't get into everything I'm going to, I'm going to want to get into in one Woso episode. You know, we tried to, we're going to, in that next Wosso episode, you know, we already got plans to talk about what we can do, moving forward to improve the team, to improve our midfield, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, we're going to get into that, but that basically means we're leaving the Olympics and what happened and this beautiful triumph. We're moving on from it. And I didn't want to, I wanted to make sure I was able to talk just a little bit about what's going on, because I'm hype. I'm hype, man. Yeah.

World champs. We can't move on to how we remain world champs until we sit in it a little bit longer. That's right. That's right. Because the people told us, they tried to tell us we were finished. We were through. We were cooked. Mm-hmm.

And guess what? We're not. I remember, I remember reading NWSL was a return. Retirement League. Crazy. A retirement league. I remember reading, you know, our own Emma Hayes was... Our own Emma Hayes was throwing shots in the...

In a... What was it? The Guardian? I don't know what type of British publication it was. But yeah, Emma... I think so. Emma was stomping on our grave during the World Cup, which now we know came from just a place of... love, a place of deep, deep love and admiration for the United States of America.

But, you know, when everybody's coming to us, it didn't feel that way in the moment. It didn't feel that way in the moment. Leave us alone. Leave us alone. But lo and behold, she, number one, took the job, came over, did her thing. You know, everyone's saying that she only did it in, how many days she'd been the manager? 70 or something? 75. 75 days.

I'm happy Belles isn't here because I'm going to give some, I'm going to put a little respect on Twyla, a little bit of respect just because she did, she did bleed in a few of these players, like the changes that we did make from the World Cup to the Olympics. A lot of them were introduced by Twyla. And as we know, it was Emma pulling the puppet strings behind. behind the scenes and all that. You know, we got Sam Coffee back. People forget, Sam Coffee was not in the picture,

inexplicably removed from the picture by Vlako after really not doing anything wrong in her appearance, in her appearances that she had leading up to the World Cup. So Sam Coffee back in, et cetera, et cetera. So Emma did her thing, of course. Twyla did her thing. I also got some proof of life of Twyla Kilgore. You know, most of the time when Emma,

She was pictures of her of her staff. There is no Twyla to be seen. Twyla poses some pics. She was there. She was in Paris. Yeah.

So. The content was amazing coming from Emma and her like core staff. Poor Twyla was not, not in that core group though. I was worried about her for a little bit there. But yeah,

she showed up at the end in the ceremonies. I was happy to see her. I was happy to see her there at the end because she did usher in this beginning of the new wave. Yeah. As you will. Yeah. It may along continue.

I guess you talked about the vibes just coming from the coaches staff in general, but what about, I mean, the players, the celebrations, them singing, what is this? I haven't watched the Cheetah Girls movie yet. a long time. You know, like Raven Simone was one of my first crushes. I watched the Cheetah Girls movie plenty of times, but I do not remember Strut

whatsoever. I might have fired Cheater. Oh, Mike. No, this is, this is going to be, you're going to be dad of the year when you bring Cheetah Girls back into these girls' lives. Like, this movie, iconic. I'm going to watch Cheetah Girls again, and I have no reason to it. I saw a video where they were subjecting strut to, like, a team USA bus.

The track team was there. The swimming team was there. And these other athletes were just sitting there. And Mal is like standing on the seats, like swinging from the arm, swinging from the, swinging from the armstand and everything. Trinity's screaming the lyrics. They looked insane. Bus is very packed.

It looks very uncomfortable. Like any unnecessary movement or gyrating, singing, any extra vibration added to that bus would just make anyone uncomfortable based on the, you know, the proximity everybody was sitting. So, yeah, I can only imagine. But it just, it does seem like, and another thing I really like to see, like, the squad is just, they're it. Like, they're the ones. Like, they're the celebs of Team USA for the most part. No, I mean, you have, you got a hierarchy, you right? You got the basketball teams.

But really, I mean, I would probably put them at one C with the basketball teams is the women's soccer team. Everyone loves them. Everybody wants to get a picture with them. You saw Tara Davis get in. You saw Nikki Heights. Get some. No, Tara. Tara Davis was posting that she was adopted by the soccer team.

She said, they took me in. And, I mean. This is an aside, but those closing ceremony jackets, the white ones with the U.S., I had to buy one. I bought them. I was swept with emotion after the events of, I think it was Saturday. Yes, because Saturday was the soccer game and the men's basketball game, which I'll talk about this on the Monday review, but men's basketball, it will be my one over everything. There's a lot of stuff wrapped up into basketball, which makes me just rabid beyond all belief. if men's international basketball was a thing,

I probably wouldn't be doing this. I don't know. This is actually a great segue. Did you see the vacation pictures of Kevin Durant? Yes, I did. Okay. Okay. So Kevin Durant and Devin Booker are on a yacht in St.

Trip. And I saw it there. hysterical pictures, Kevin Durant's going down a slide with his arms up. He's having the time of his life. And I was looking at him and I was like, these NBA players, they have so much money. I loved watching that final as much as anybody. Like, they go right on a yacht after vacation. I thought, I thought, oh, our players are going right back into season.

I wish that they could go on a vacation like that. Lo and behold, I was completely wrong. Naomi Germa is in Mekanos. What? She's right. Yeah. Naomi Germa is in Mekonos. She's posting pictures by yachts.

And I was like, okay, Naomi Germa, Kevin Dorea equals. What world do we live in now? Let me see. What is the start? I think we got like two weeks or something. Yeah, yeah. So August 24th is when the waves next matches. So, yeah, I mean, she, they actually do have a little bit of time.

Today's the 14th. Yeah, they can probably go the rest of this week. I would think the club's probably given them. They probably got to report Monday or something like that. Yeah. This took an incredible turn, but, hey, I'm happy she's going to get, She's going to get a nice NBA-style vacation. I mean, if anybody deserves it.

If anyone deserves it. What a tournament. What a tournament. I mean, come on. Come on. This is beautiful. You think she has a shot at Ballandor? Um, I couldn't tell you.

I guess so. Um, I kind of think she might. She just, she was the best player of the tournament. I think everybody saw it for the first time. It was more than just Americans. Yeah. That's right. But you can never, I mean, these pesky Europeans, you know, these pesky Europeans, it's tough.

You just don't know. You just don't know. Yeah. But I guess we will see with this ball and door ceremony, like, you know, is this something we need to actually pay attention to? Or do we just need to create our own? trophy because as we know and as has been proven well it's already been proven but as we reminded the world you know women's soccer runs through the United States of America so you know the fact that we even outsourced this trophy in the first place but because you know

the Boundor had their own clout built up in the men's game or whatever whatever but we might need to just create our own might need to create our own it. It depends on what they do. If they do that thing, then, okay, okay, we can rock with you. But, you know, the final is going to be, final is going to be a whole bunch of players that didn't make it to the final. I'll tell you that. And that's what it's probably going to end up being.

A whole bunch of players that didn't make it to the final. And one of our girls, whether it be Naomi, whether it be South Maltran. One of them. But just one, though. But just one. Yeah. But I hope not. But I hope not because I always enjoyed seeing, like, Trinity go to the Ballandore ceremonies.

Who else? I think Sof went this past year, I want to say. But they get to get dressed up, hit a red carpet, you know what I'm saying? All the pomp and circumstance that comes with the Ballandore, I love it. But just act right. Act right, French Federation. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.

But yeah, anything else from the Olympics in general or the ceremonies or anything? I think I just came, well, you know what? I'll tell you this, Tara. I'm just salty. I feel like we had the best Olympics of all time and I was not in attendance. That's what's hit me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I agree with you.

I went into it knowing that it was going to be a good one. I really felt confident that this team was ready for the international stage. And I should have known better. I should have known better. I should have got on a plane. Yeah. Just, I mean, I didn't understand how dope Paris is. It hadn't been properly communicated to me.

But a lot of people, a lot of people after the fact are like, oh, yeah, you didn't know. Paris is like the best city in the world. I'm like, oh, I did not know. I absolutely did not know. But just seeing the sight lines, just the venues, the colors, the aesthetics, everything was just beautiful. I think it was one of like the former gymnastics girls that like made a post about the vault and how beautiful the vault was. Like the color blue that they used on. Like, you know, everything aesthetically, which I guess makes sense with it being Paris, was just absolutely beautiful.

the venues on like NBC or something they had this one guy walking around one handsome I think he's he might be of like Middle Eastern descent or something I forgot the man's name but he was just walking around

Paris like showing you what the venues were and like these venues would be like the fencing venue would just be like a classic French like museum or hall type of thing you know with the columns and like all

and the steps you walk up and you just walk in and it's like, oh, it's offensive in you. You know, they've turned this whole thing into like, like, it's just beautiful. Everything. There's everything old and historical. Yeah, I've never wanted to watch an opening ceremony. But then when I saw they were doing it on boats going down the river, I'm like, oh, this is dope. What?

Like, that was tremendous. I never really wanted to watch a closing ceremony either, but because the opening ceremony had already gained so much goodwill, I was like, you didn't. damn right, I'm going to sit through and watch this whole closing ceremony, which was absolutely ridiculous. Did you? It was, yeah. I watched every bit of it. I watched every bit of this Olympics.

Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise grabbing the flag, taking it to L.A. And then I look over to my wife, I'm like, yo, it's Snoop Dog going to pop out in L.A. And at first we get red hot chili peppers. We get Billy Ish. I'm like, okay, I guess not. It's going to be ridiculous.

I can't even imagine how we're going to compete with what Paris pulled off this year. Can you? It doesn't seem like we'll be able to. I mean, if you know anything about anybody that's been to L.A. knows anything about L.A. Like, come on. There are so many, there were so many memes about what our opening ceremony was going to be like, like, traffic? Yeah, like, I mean, just.

the influx of tourists that are going to come that are going to pull up right and you know all these these venues are going to be spread out as hell like they I mean they're going to be all over the last time I was in the last time I was in L.A.

Everything took two hours to get to. Yeah. Which maybe if I go I'm just going to post up at I'm just going to post up at Venice. They said they're going to have three on three basketball Venice Beach. I'm excited about that. That'll be amazing. Yeah, that'll be.

If they had like weightlifting out there or something, too, that would be incredible. Skateboarding probably. Yeah, skateboarding, all that. That would be Venice, hopefully if they really do everything at Venice that you can do at Venice, you know, that would be tremendous. I don't think the waves are big enough to have surfing necessarily. But I don't know. But, yeah, Olympics, I'm Olympics-pilled.

It's been a while since. we've had a good Olympics, right? I mean, 2016 was a while away. I don't even remember that Olympics. But anyway, yeah, if we could, if you give me the choice between a World Cup and an Olympics, give me the damn Olympics. It's just beautiful.

Seeing the camaraderie between everybody. Yeah, so I'm happy we did our thing, and we did our thing there. But Tara, before we actually move on, on to the soccer. Let me ask you this. Does a part of you wish that our rebuild

would have took like slightly longer? No, why? I'm just, I don't know, maybe I'm weird. I'm not, I'm happy we won the gold.

Don't get me wrong. But part of me does wish we could have did like some type of piece by piece rebuild like, oh, we're getting there incrementally. It's like, oh, we're struggling.

We're buttoning our head up against the wall. And then, like, we finally overcome it or something like that. But... You wanted us to fight a little harder for it? We fought plenty hard. I don't want to... I'm not trying to diminish what we did at all, at all.

But, but, yeah. So just something... It's just a little... It's the devil, right? You know, you got the angel devil on your shoulder. The devil is just like, ah, man. Well, I mean... The thing is...

The thing is... I think that this brings up a very good part of the conversation. The rebuild still has a lot to do. Yes. We have so much to celebrate. There was so much celebration going on. I'm so proud of them. The entire team has so much to be proud of.

but there's a lot of missing pieces still in order that our coaching staff has to play with, I think. And that's exciting for me. Yeah, fair, fair. I guess maybe I'm just wondering, like, because you get this big success, right? You get the big success. Maybe that causes things that be a little bit more stagnant

that we wanted to be all this stuff. It's just the unknown. Maybe it's freaking me out a little bit. But I don't know. I just wanted to see where you stood on that. But, um... Well, I think, I think that's totally fair. But something that gives me a little bit of comfort in that is I was forced almost against

my will to watch Chelsea all last year because I was on categorized. Marina Macario watch. The comeback was on and you never knew when it was happening. So I watched that team all last year. And it was interchanging the entire time. She sat the stars all the time. It was Lauren James in, Lauren James out. It was Jess Carter in.

Jessica Carter out, Fran Kirby in, Frank Kirby out. It was, it was, she had, she had no commitment to the big dogs. Like, and, and that, that wasn't just based off of my one year of watching, like, the people who are committed to Chelsea women's soccer team have been saying the same thing for a while. and I think that we can take a lot of reassurance of that. Okay. Okay. Well, I will take reassurance from it. We still have one particular player who, you know, has not been set, has transcended administrations.

We'll get into that next woe so. We're going on that next WOSO. Yeah. But anyway, so I guess big picture takeaways. I'll start this off, but I just want to talk about some of the themes that we've been going through on WOSO as we've been leading up to the, this moment, basically, as we've been leading up to the Olympics and things, the different problems that we had chosen out that we had focused on. and what actually happened, you know, what played out in reality versus the theoretical that we were, that we've been going on about, talking about. And the one that sticks out to me, largely, hugely, Roosevelt, right? We've been going back and forth.

Is she cooked? Is she not? How can she play on this team? Is she worthy of starting on this team or being in the team? and pen or whatever. And I just want to give a big shout out to Rose, man. She came through. She stepped it up.

And, you know, we talked to particularly me. I talked a lot about how she's just not doing a ton of creation at Gotham necessarily. More like on the receiving and the chances, she didn't necessarily do a ton of creation in the Olympics. But the huge thing is that, and maybe this is just something that we should assume will happen now this is tournament rows tournament rows that's the thing you know

the uh what we saw against Gotham in that NWSL championship what we saw in 2019 what we saw in these 2024 Olympics

tournament rose is a different rose and the main thing that she brought like I said not a lot of chance creation necessarily but she brought dog and didn't know if she had the legs to do it didn't know if she had the willingness to do it, but she brought that and I'm just,

and I'm happy. And I will fully take, I will fully take an L for my Rose take. How are you found about it to her? I'm definitely proud of Rose, and it was something I wasn't sure of either, but something I'm still not sure of, and it, it goes past Rose Lovell,

and it's something I'm curious about. Do you think what we see, saw from this tournament is Emma's desire or Emma's commitment to playing with like a true 10? Do you think she wants to do that

for the future? Yeah. And I'm taking that from the manifesto. You know, when she talked about where is the creativity at, blah, blah, blah. I think she does want to have one on the field, yes.

for sure and so so i i i i i i i went past rose a little too much there i am extremely proud of rose i think the biggest the biggest difference here was she got a lot of minutes and a lot of preparation in her legs before the olympics so all credit goes to the gotham coasts for warming her up and and keeping her healthy, slow and steady. It was, it was a few minutes here, a few minutes there. It was complete, careful preparation for Rose. And it worked because she stayed healthy for as long as we could get her. Who knows what happened there at the end.

But it worked. It worked. I mean, we need to turn. with Kat going down, with Jaden going down, we absolutely needed Rose, and it ended off paying, it ended off working, working out wonderfully. Yeah, worked out wonderfully.

And, yeah, she didn't play that last game, which that last game, I would have liked to have her. But, like, as Greg said on the recap, right? The controversial selection here would be putting Lindsay at 10 in the situation when we have like if we had a healthy

Roosevelt Rose would fit better there at that 10th spot but we have no inclination that Emma is going to sit Lindsay as it stands right now so you know she got hurt like basically what I'm saying is Rose gave us all she had

she gave us the full Rose allotment of minutes you know And at the end of the day, she couldn't finish it through to Brazil, but it's like, job well done, Rose. Job well done. You played more than I could have imagined, you know. Ever, ever, except. Yeah. And you did a great job.

And you did a great job. So I'll take it. I'll take it. You earned that gold medal system. Earned it. Wonderful work. Earned it. Earned the party after.

You know, which everyone, everyone gets a kick out of Rose. Because she's the one that goes the hardest. But as somebody said on Twitter, you know, from Cincinnati and a Wisconsin grad, like, she's not, she's not new to this. She is true to this. It's in the blood, yeah. With Cincinnati being like a sister city to Louisville, like, that's one thing I know. One thing we do, particularly the Catholics, particularly the Catholics. Drink.

Just drink. Drink, drink. Excuse is to drink at any time. Fish fries during Lent, you know what I'm saying? Picnics during the summer. The Catholics, Catholics go hard. We got the same kind of culture here in the two cities. So, Rose is just from that cloth, baby.

But my next takeaway is, uh, We talked a lot about our midfield, right? That's going to be one of the places, right, that needs upgrading that we'll talk about next week. But also at the same time, maybe it doesn't defensively. You know, maybe Nehne McGe Germann was just that good. That's the thing I've got. That's the conclusion I've come to. Because, like, we saw it happen multiple times.

Lindsay, be late to stuff. Sam Coffee be late to stuff have issues getting pressure to the ball That's what I thought Corbyn did a Did a pretty good job of at Brazil If we would have had the two of Lindsay and Sam Against Brazil I mean we would have been roadkill

It would have looked like Looney Tunes like Wiley Coyote And a roadrunner or something When they see They set up like one of those traps Like it just would have been Sam Cofy Lindsay Horan just picking themselves up off the

of the grass after being splattered by a boulder or something. It would have been very nasty. But like I said, maybe Naomi's just that good to where we can afford to go a little bit lighter on defense for the most part in the midfield area. Yeah. I mean, I think something we learned is even the highest praise for Naomi girls. isn't isn't enough. We had a coach come out and say she's the best defender she's ever seen.

And yet somehow it still feels like we could say more. I wish I could write a soliloquy for Naomi Germa. And she's somebody I've been following for many years. I think she's grown into such an incredibly talented. multi-dimensional defender. She's still so young. I can't imagine

where she goes from here. I see Arsenal fans trying to find a way to snag her up at this point. I'm trying to try to you know,

wot them away, like flies. Get out of here. I just, I just, I think, I think Naomi affords us the time to experiment in our midfield.

I don't think we stick with this midfield because there are so many holes, but Naomi allows us time. We can play around with it. Yeah, yeah, as evidenced by the fact that we were able to win a gold while. Yeah. While, like, yeah, go ahead. like Emma had Emma had so little time

to experiment with a roster she she kind of got stuck with what we had she had she was ghost riding under Twyla sure

but she was on the ground for two months now that we have a gold medal and we have what two and a half years until a World Cup I am, you know, thrilled to see what happens next because there's so much to experiment with in so many different ideas for how we can get better in just a few positions because we really are so, we really are so talented. And it could very well just be our bench even too. Right.

I mean, the alternates, right? You know, it was a great opportunity for Croix, Hal, to get, what, two months, basically training under Emma? Seeing all Emma works. What she wants from... Now they're champions. Well, Hal is a... Champion S.

Well, unfortunately, did not get a medal. So sorry, Hal. It's unfortunate. Croix is though Roy is I mean which you know I mean Hal and Jayden Shaw played the same amount of minutes one of them has a medal one doesn't

unfortunately Croix saw the field Yeah Roy saw the field Corey saw the field but yeah we have we got the players which is what we've been telling you on a well so Wednesday

for a long time now you see a lot of people coming around there. A lot of people are like, oh, we were telling you the whole time. We were telling you the whole time. Get Lachol out of here and switch a little things up and we're just fine. Like, no, you didn't. No, you didn't. You were sitting here talking about U20 results and how, you know, we haven't got out. I had to look this up. You know, we haven't got out the group since, I think it's 18. Been a while.

But yeah, people are bringing that up. And we sat there and told y'all, you know, there's still players coming out. The U-20 results, don't worry about those. It's kind of a false, false flag. Red Herring. I don't think Red Herring works there. But Tracy Kevin's was coaching. That's what we'll tell you.

Tracy Kevins was doing, I mean, something way worse than what Black Co has ever done. Am I humble? And she's back? She's back next week. And she's back next week, which everybody needs to tune in to that. If you want to see some of these future stars, we got them. We got them.

The ones playing in the NWSL, they're playing in this U-20 World Cup. It's going to be beautiful. Well, hopefully it's beautiful. But I'm hoping that those players that are now professionals that have had professional coaching, et cetera, can overcome Tracy Kevin's. I hope. Yeah. My hope is that.

at least at least two of these girls can graduate on to the senior team after after this world cup even if it's just to get the experience or to get a look because these next these next two windows of the senior team being september and october no being october in november they're they have no meaning they're just they're just friends So if we could get a healthy Dressel Thompson or a Claire Hutton, I think that could be really exciting. That's right. And one of those meaningless, meaningless matches will be in Louisville, Kentucky, ladies and gentlemen, in Louisville, Kentucky, October 30th. My niece, my niece might go.

Oh, tell her come by the tellgate. I will. October 30th in Louisville, if anybody wants to pull up on me, we will be, I will be tailgating, food and all, etc. I just looked at the, I've been checking Ticketmaster daily. It's looking like we got about 100, maybe 150 tickets left of actual non-resale, non-resale seats left. That's great. Yeah, it's looking very good in there. So expecting a sellout for sure.

And that's even with their, they're bringing in bleachers too to put behind our like. Who do you play? Who do we play Argentina? Yes. Argentina is, it's when Claire Hutton's U-19 team went to the Pan America games. Oh, right, right. And they played the senior Argentina team. And she scored that goal against the Argentina keeper.

and she retired right afterwards. So obviously we won't see that keeper, but just know it was a great game. It was a great game. Beautiful. Oh, did you know, did you know we got a U-17 World Cup this year too? No.

No, that's going to be exciting. It's in the Dominican Republic. See, women's soccer is so exciting. We have so much to look forward to. And our group is Spain, Columbia and Korea, South Korea. Let's go. Let's beat them all. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, the October window, I did want to mention. The October window is a three-friendly window. So I'm fully expecting there to be a lot of chopping and changing, particularly for, I mean, we're in, and the Louisville game is the third game of the window. Like I'm expecting, I don't know who the hell is going to be out there. Ryan Williams, North Carolina, Kurt. That would be awesome. Are you kidding me? I would love a Ryan Williams' star.

I've become a Ryan Williams fan. I've been watching. Louisville's been playing a lot of games against North Carolina here recently. And I'm just like, man, that's a good player. That's a good player right there. But yeah, maybe we get a little Taylor Flint. Maybe you get some Saddam-Mello back. I don't know.

Because, I mean, it is a three-friendly window right around the time that NWSL playoffs is supposed to start. So we'll see what happens with releases and all that different type of stuff. And then also that November window, it's already been announced. Saturday, November 30th in Wembley. We're going back. We're going back. Another England match, baby. That window is, that FIFA window is the end of November into early December.

So I'm really curious who we play early December. Hopefully it's, I don't think it's been announced yet, has it? No, no. But it should be a European. Yeah. Last time it was Spain. So hopefully it's somebody good. Right.

Right. Didn't we do England, Spain, and Germany in the same window? Or was it? It was a two different window. I think it was just England, Spain. And then we, I guess that next window was the two Germany's or something. but Okay

But yeah Let me see Anything else we learned in this In this Olympics Learned about paying cave I want to shout out I want to shout out Big

Appreciation for Crystal Dunn and Emmwood Fox That's right Have always always loved them But I think they They stepped it up tournament. They stepped it up.

Crystal Dunn listed as a forward. Emma tricked us. Emma said, nope. Just kidding. She did not touch the forward line even a little bit. And that's why I like, I see people, a lot of, a lot of, and a lot of Olympic wrap-ups, people have been saying like, hey, Crystal Dunn has been like a big winner from this tournament, you know, coming into the thing.

We didn't know if she would be on the roster. on the bubble, what she was doing, blah, blah, blah. And I've seen people push back on that. But I would say I agree with it. Not necessarily that she was going to be on the roster bubble necessarily, but that we just didn't know where she was fitting in. Like, had the left back spot been fully transitioned to Jenna Nasswanger? Gena Niswanger was the one getting the starts.

Let us not forget. Had it been fully transitioned, what was going on? Because Crystal was playing forward. I mean, the first window, she played it a little bit. Once Jenna was subbed off or something, I think Crystal moved back. But she was starting in the forward line and whatnot. So you really did not know what was going on with Crystal. But, like, yeah, when the games came, it was time to get serious.

Emma went with who she knew, who she trusted. I mean, they go back, right? They go back. So she was always going to be on the roster. But it's how she was going to be used. And, yeah, the performance was... performance was A1.

Tremendous. From both, yeah. And something she really earned this tournament was all that dancing. We got in trouble. We got in trouble at the World Cup

for dancing, but this year she couldn't stop dancing and nobody's mad at it this year. We was dancing, we was TikToking. We was Julie Foutian, you know what I'm saying? Lindsay Horan's in the mud.

Everything Lindsay was talking about was just like, yeah, we are going to do that and we're going to win a goal. And it might have been a distraction of Lindsay. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe all that put Lindsay off. Maybe that's why she talked about it because it's like, I can't focus. I can't focus through it.

I'm not worried about them. I saw TikToks with Crystal and all of our. track stars. Like, even the track stars had Crystal dancing. Crystal don't stop dancing, man. Kills me.

Every single behind the crest, I tweeted out at one time. I'm going to go through all these behind the crest from, from 2019, because that's when I first noticed. That was my first World Cup actually following, you know, the team. But, yeah, I mean, they were,

I remember them being in New York for some reason. Like, after the, it was either after the World Cup or before the World Cup, Crystal just dance Every time you see Crystal She's dancing Hey, hey, I mean, my type of person The most recent

Behind the Crest that came out, she's on the She's on the training ground Doing a Tutsy roll. I mean, just a lovely lovely person, lovely vibes. You know, but yeah, to bring it to Emily, yeah, Emily just

did a thing. She, she, she found the consistency that I knew that she had within her, you know, the sideboard. She really just brought it out. Once again, I would like for her to just start carrying the ball a little bit.

She's really good at carrying the ball. That's like one of our best traits. And I think she did do it once, at least once or twice in like the Germany match or the Brazil match. Nothing like crazy, but just, you know, carry the ball to get you a better angle a pastor of somebody.

Leah. She was tremendous. Tremendous. I mean, so many last-ditch interventions from her. Always alerted the back post. And the last thing I had, I wanted to shout out

a few of the spouses I saw. Hmm. Okay. But the first being Sophia Smith's fiancé. Oh, wow. That was beautiful, wouldn't it? Yeah, he was at.

in a presser for his football team about how inspiring she was and how she inspired him to, you know, reach his goals. And he listed off all of her accomplishments since she was in college. From how many caps she got with the national team to being the youngest MVP in the league and so on and so on. It was just so sweet. but I'm comparing it to the next spouse. And it was almost in the exact same setting.

Okay. They asked Dansby Swanson about Mao. And this one ended up being my favorite. And why I'm nominating him as an early frontrunner for spouse of the year. He took it in almost a completely different direction. he um he said mal

asked him to not ask for time off to come to France to not mess with the mojo so I just already humble king he said I can't I can't step foot in this country to mess with the mojo and we want we won a gold medal because of it thank you Dancy

for not entering the country um but he did He did thank her best friends and her family for being there for Mal. And I just, I thought it was very funny and lovely. And thank you, Danzby for not going to France, messing with the mojo. That's right. That's right. And she obviously delivered.

Mao did. Thank you, Mal for understanding that she needed her mojo to stay safe and calm. not have her husband anywhere near France. That's right. Which if he had asked for that time off, you know, it would have been a little mini scandal, you know. Dansby leaving the cut.

I don't even know if the Cubs can make the playoffs or what's going on with the Cubs season right now. But leaving, like, they will rip people for taking their like eight days off to have a kid. Yeah. But like when it happens in the middle of the season. Like, oh, Sharia, Shia taking. They get some very small amount of time.

I think it's like five days. I haven't been a baseball fan for about five years now. But when I was locked in, I think it's about five to ten days they can take when they have a kid. And even then, people. That's crazy. People will hop in and be like, what's he doing? He should have playing better anyway.

Should have had a kid during the offseason. What's going on here? So, um... Well, I am, I'm thrilled that Mal understood that. She, she protected the mojo and no, no France for Dansby. Shoot, I was surprised that, uh, Simone Biles' dude could leave training camp. That was interesting to me. Right in the middle of training camp in the thick of things, he's on a new team, too.

He left the Packers, went to the Bears. He stayed for a while, too. Yeah, he was there. He was there for a minute. So, yeah, like, shout out to all our professional sports organizations for not succumbing to toxic masculinity anymore. I think this is an appropriate time for me to use that phrase. A lot of times, I'm not going to lie, a lot of times I tend to roll my eyes. But this one, specifically, like, huge life of.

Vince? Yeah, man, you don't We don't need you in training camp getting your brain busted in. Go over there and enjoy Paris. Happens once every four years. That's right. Let me see. Any other takeaways, Sarah? Front three is going to be the front three for many years to come.

Yeah, yeah. Mal Swanson is the oldest of the Trident. Vince, she's 26, years old. Yeah, I was about to say. She's the oldest one. It's beautiful. Incredible. Incredible luck. And, I mean, we've talked

about it many times before. Reinforcements are coming. That just means everybody who raged against the lack of substitutions, subs are coming. But this is the Trident for years to come. Man, the sub thing is just... Because you know the situation. The Emma, 75 days, like you said,

haven't had a lot of camps. She hasn't had time to put trust into people in the first place. I wasn't upset about it. I understood it. But my point is that's the next thing that's coming. Her understanding the rest of the pool, have no fear. We have all of the talent in the world.

Yeah, right, right. I am agreeing with you. I was more talking to the people. Because it's, I mean, the one thing that you'll always find following these coaches, particularly these international coaches that don't get that much time, they're going to go with who they know, who they know. Coaches don't like uncertainty. Coaches don't like uncertainty.

And they can watch all the film that they want, but until you do it for them in front of them and show them that you can execute their ideas or whatever they want you to have you doing, until that you will ride the pond, which as we've seen with Jaden Shaw, like, you know, all the good Jaden Shaw stuff that she did, as good as it was, she did it under Twil.

You know, unless she comes in, has a few so-sell matches in Emma's first, first window or whatever and then, you know, ended up catching an injury and all that. Like, it's... Sorry, but, you know, it passed you. It passed you up, unfortunately. You got a nice gold medal.

You got a ton of gear. I mean, that's a... I'm very envious. A ton of free gear. Got to travel France. But... And that's something I talked about on the call-in show. I went back to

something Tobin Heath said after the World Cup was she was talking about why didn't Sophia Smith have any international experience before the World Cup like she should have went to Tokyo even if it was

as an alternate even if it was to sit on the bench, something to get her feet wet before the World Cup, knowing that she was going to be the star of this team someday. She should have gotten experience. And Vladko should have known that

because he was the coach. Jump to this is going to be really good for Jaden. She got hurt. That wasn't expected, clearly because Croyd did get minutes. But Jaden now has an international tournament under her belt.

And that's going to be very good for her. She's going to go into the World Cup already having experienced an international tournament. Yeah. I mean. Which is more like I've seen people comparing it to we sent Kat home. and we didn't send Jaden home. Kat's already been in the sixth, been to an international tournament.

There's a difference. Jaden now has this under her belt. Fair enough. And, yeah, I think it's a good place to end. It's a good place to end. Nothing but, nothing but, bright horizons in our future. Pain caves.

Emma has inspired me to go into, my pain cave. You know, see and see what I can come out with. We can do hard things. We can do hard things. You know what was crazy. That Brazil, the most rotated team in the tournament, just dying in the second hand. They couldn't keep up.

They couldn't keep up. I was like, as soon as that second half started, I was like, oh, we're going to be fine. We just had to last. We just had to last one half. I thought we were like mostly okay in that first half anyway. We like we created our traditional breakaways. We just didn't do anything with them. Like, you know, we created, we had a probably about four corners,

five corners in that first half or something that came from traditional, you know, triple espresso, triple espresso breakaways and whatnot. We just weren't able to, you know, fashion them in the shots, etc., etc. So the XG at the half did look crazy. It did look crazy. Yeah. But.

Have you seen the XG charts of the Olympics? No. Oh my God. It's like Mal number one. It was some outrageous number. But then it's Lindsay number two with like some even more outrageous number. Beautiful. But yeah.

Should we fire Giovanni? The set piece, man? Our set piece. Yeah. Oh, man. I mean. Hey, he got us the goal against Australia? Well, we got an Australia goal.

We got... There was another one, right? When they were Germany goal? I don't remember. Yeah, I don't either. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just remember how mad I was getting at our corners. I can't remember.

But, yeah, I don't know what Matt was... I was doing some BS with particular with those first two. She just kept trying to float them. Yeah, Matt was making me mad. I'll just blame it on tired legs. Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. But yeah, that is all.

Shout out to Brazil for being extremely tired. Maybe you need to fire your strength and condition to coach. I don't know what the hell is going on. They just got zapped. Shout out to endurance. That was our winning strategy for, like, at least three games. We just, we just endured. And we can't even, we can't even say that,

It's like, it'd be different if it was Spain. It's like, okay, all these people are out of season. Like, no, this is Brazil. This is NWSL. They in there right there with us. They should have been fine. But yeah, shout out to Enduring. Shout out to pain caves.

Whatever, whatever juju or snake oil that Emma was selling, it worked, baby. It worked. It may long continue, women's national team, as a program, as a people. We're back up. We are back up. It's so crazy with like the World Cup and the Olympics being back to back like this.

It's like, man, Spain didn't even get to breathe. No. We're real chance, baby. Took it right back from them. So that's it. Like we said, we'll be back next week. Talking about how we move forward. what players should we be looking at to reinforce this roster.

Got a U-20 World Cup coming up. Got a U-17 World Cup coming up. Got a whole bunch of women's national team. Got at least five women's national team friendlies coming up in these next four months. So a ton of women's soccer coming your way. And once again, we reign supreme. Go Duranga next. USA, baby.

number one can't wait to talk more about it you 20 World Cup coming up we have so much to look forward to thanks for talking with me today Vince thank you Tara and no thank you to Adam Bells

who tried to muzzle me but anyway thanks for listening we'll see you