Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #535: Poch IN, and USMNT v New Zealand

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

Greg and Belz on the Mauricio Pochettino hiring, and then a recap of the mostly dreary affair in Cincinnati on Tuesday night. 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. The U.S. men's national team remains winless since that Pyrrhic two-zero victory over Bolivia at the Copa America. With a one-one draw against New Zealand in Cincinnati, it was a largely unremarkable 90 minutes of soccer that we are still going to recap. But it was also not the biggest news of the day for the team because Maricio Pacetino is now officially. the coach of the U.S. men's national team. It was announced in a press release 30 minutes before kickoff. Greg, how you doing? I mean, we're celebrating.

We don't have to wallow in the soccer from this window because we get finally like the official transition into a new era. And that's really what we can focus on. But that's not going to stop us from spending between 60 and 120 minutes. painstakingly bringing down this match against New Zealand. Well, I say it every time, but I think we can keep it shorter than usual. It's huge. This is a huge announcement. This is a huge get.

We said it when it was the big rumor. This is a stupid get. I mean, it's ridiculous that this is our national team coach. You know, again, all the comments saying, like, we finally have a coach where a lot of that is sort of like shade aimed at the previous coach. but in fact that applies equally to every coach we have ever had compared to this new hire. Other than on the men's side, of course. We had a similar coup on the women's side a couple of months ago.

And the earlier returns on that have been fantastic. Yeah, he's the best possible option, basically. And we still don't know if we'll get home run outcomes. But yeah, the hire itself, I mean, this is, you cannot, You cannot do better than this for a higher. Yeah, I mean, kudos to Cindy and JT and, you know, everybody involved. Emma Hayes was involved in lobbying him too. Apparently they got...

What can't she do? What can't she do? She and Potch got along swimmingly at Chelsea, which is really no surprise. And she was interested in enough in it that during the Olympics she was checking in on the progress, according to a report from Jeff Carlyle, which I will liberally. borrow from in the next five minutes. And I'm sure I'll chime in with direct excerpts from Paul Tenorio's piece too, because yeah, it's just, I love how this has obviously been essentially, you know, as has been

hilariously documented on Twitter, like a done deal for a long time until it was finally a done deal yesterday. But the thorough reporting already in the can from these guys, these journalists, shows just how far along it was obviously. Yeah, the pieces were ready to go. It seems like, let's just read, let me just read Pachitino's statement in the press release. He says, quote,

the decision to join U.S. soccer wasn't just about football for me. It's about the journey that this team in this country are on. The energy, the passion, and the hunger to achieve something truly historic here. Those are the things that inspired me. The opportunity to lead the U.S. men's national team in front of fans who are just as passionate as the players is something I couldn't pass up.

I see a group of players full of talent and potential, and together we're going to build something special that the whole nation can be proud of. I like the last part of that. I'm not sure, you know, he's being, I think, generous with the whole fans as passionate as the players part. But, you know, some of us are passionate and some of the players are passionate.

But, yeah, that's his statement. Carlisle's piece for ESPN this morning, which I just talked about, had a couple other things in it that are interesting, several things. So the end of the transfer window actually helps speed things up on the Chelsea negotiations. They were busy with a lot of business in the transfer window. All of it, you know, sure to be successful for them. We'll see all that money pay off on the field for Chelsea.

Yeah, yeah, money well spent. And then the executives took their European vacations, which is, you know, it's a big thing in August, the vacations. But once September rolled around, things started to move faster. Chelsea will pay Potch and his assistance, quote, most, though not all, end quote, of his estimated $14 million payout. Carlisle reported. Ken Griffin, the hedge fund billionaire, is making a, quote, significant contribution, end quote,

to Potch's salary, as is another extremely rich guy. I love it. So, Tenorio, also, I don't know if this was in the ESPN1. Tenorio described that Ken Griffin has also put like $8 million recently towards U.S. soccer to build mini pitches, 50 in, I think, Chicago and 50 in Miami. Nice. Which is amazing. And I'm just going to assume that everything else that this billionaire has been giving money to also aligns with my views and philosophies.

I think it's a safe assumption. Yeah, I'm not going to do any further investigation. I just will keep considering Ken Griffith. any hero. There's no way that anyone can milkshake duck this from us. He also bought a dinosaur, I think, like a dinosaur skeleton. There you go. Okay.

That's it. I mean, that aligns with my interests. Yes. No more facts, please, just no more facts or history of this billionaire. No, I don't, I'm not really that interested either, to be honest. A few other things. His assistants, we're paying that, we're getting his whole crew. He's bringing the crew with him.

Like, this is great news. Emma did the same thing. She brought all her folks that she had with Chelsea, I think. most her key player. So same thing we're getting here from Cacitino. He's bringing the whole staff that he's brought with him through like four club changes, right? Yeah. The same crew that he went on a whitewater rafting trip with.

Waki has a great video about that up today. It's really funny. U.S. soccer made a presentation. This is interesting, I think. U.S. soccer made a presentation to every prospective coach, coordinate Carlisle. and here's what he reported about that. I'm just going to read a whole paragraph here.

Pocitino and Assistant Perez came back and made a pitch of their own in terms of what they liked and didn't like about the player pool. Quote, they are certainly intrigued about what we're trying to do overall as a soccer country, and quote, said one source with knowledge of the process, quote, and they love the idea of being involved with coaching education and these national teams. That seems good. I mean, is it kind of like something that every coach says to some extent? I honestly have no idea.

I really don't know. I mean, would Josie Marino come in and be like, I want to take the, I want to really influence the U-13 pool? Like, I don't, I really don't know. But what I absolutely am focused on is the bits that Pocitino and Perez didn't like about the player pool. And all I want now is for somebody to figure out what was in there. content. I would love to know that, yeah. And then maybe we can get him on the pod to talk about pool noodles, you know?

I'm sure it was in their presentation. By the way, the guy that we talked about on that last episode, he used pool noodles and his rondos with college kids. Amazing. After we dropped that episode. Mike Idland. Great recovery activity. You got a recovery day anyway.

Like, just get to pool noodles out, have some fun with it. He sent me the video, and I forwarded it to your email, but, you know, it's probably an old email address or something. And then last, Potch is going to have a home in Atlanta, and it's possible he'll stay on past the World Cup. That's also in that Carlisle article. So thank you, Jeff, for the good reporting. Thank you, Paul Tenorio.

We're happy to relay what you have uncovered and cite you. And again, thank you to U.S. Soccer Brass, who has been on a pretty solid wind streak. Been on a tear. Brassing. Like, whatever brass are supposed to do, uh,

I feel like we're getting some, some big picture. We're getting some great brassing. Why do they call them brass? Is it because of the buttons on their jackets? No, it's, uh,

it's, they, it started out with, like, mining companies who would mine, I don't actually know what brass is or if It's just found natural here if you have to heat copper and bronze. Isn't it like a combination?

Copper and iron. We're really getting found out here. Here we go. Can't believe you. To the game? Broached it. To the game? Yes.

Let's talk about this New Zealand match. I'm laughing. This is, it doesn't, it doesn't come off as like a January camp type roster. You know, because some of the key players are obviously. And because it's all European guys. Like, it's all these kind of obscure European players from second divisions. Belgium. But it very much is like a

like a maybe a top choice striker and then a all reserves. Yeah. Center backs are, you know, Richards and Bolo and then just backups and backup backups.

I think Musa, you know, Musa, I guess maybe technically a reserve, but he, um, given the way players get injured in the game of soccer, he's often first choice. Yeah, I didn't want to re-watch it, but I think watching it was actually somewhat encouraging, and like in a small way. It wasn't quite as bad as it felt in the moment. Not that there was any major revelation, but maybe the centerbacks, McKenzie had a pretty decent game, I thought.

In terms, you know, I've been hard on him. I know. I'm laughing because you just can't. escape the optics of that last action. Yeah, but that's not, I can't really blame him that much for that. Do you, I mean, he could have cleared it in a different direction, but. Only a little. Yeah, that's really all it comes down to is don't hit a blind clearance in the direction

of the pressing defender in that situation, in that sort of 50, 50 balls between you and the goalkeeper, sweep it straight out to the sidelines, literally sweep it out for a, or guide it out for a corner kick if you have, if you're not sure. Yeah. It's such like a dangerous situation out of nothing, because if that attack, can just reach out and even put a toe on it and just like put it towards goal. The same thing can happen. So you do that.

You got to deal with it somehow and we just dealt with it in a way that turned super unlucky. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we probably don't even need to talk about the play that much more. But I guess I put more blame on Wiley for the head, the header, although the ball was spinning. And it seems like the ball was spinning in a funny way. I mean, it's all kind of tricky and fluky. Yeah, real fluky.

When I say that McKenzie maybe was sort of a semi-minor revelation, to me at least, he played a lot of nice passes between the lines. He wasn't tested that much defensively. Right. But he did have that one-on-one with number 11. Elijah Just, I think is his name, and blocked the shot. So, you know, I don't know. Anyway, I'm not going to. we don't need to get too much more into that.

No, just that that goal we did concede is absolutely the goal, the ending that this window deserved. Totally. Yeah, it felt very appropriate. Let's hear what Pulisic said about Pochitino's arrival after the game, which gives, I think, a pretty clear idea of how he felt about the game and the window and the state of things. There you go. Better times ahead in the recent announcement of Mauricio Pochitino arriving. What excites you the most about what? what he can bring to this team.

Yeah, I think just hopefully a culture that is willing to fight, that is willing to take risks, you know, win. I mean, there's a lot of things that need to change in just the mentality and the culture of the group. I think we have the quality, but, you know, I know hopefully that he's going to, that's the first thing that he's going to want to change. I mean, that's how a lot of fans feel, I think. They feel exactly the same way.

I sort of feel that way. So in a certain way, it's sort of affirming to hear Pulisic talk that way. He's doing the classic Pulisic sigh and, you know, he doesn't want to be there having that conversation. I love to take risk spark because that is so much sort of what I see with this team. And it's not even just with all the B team players or backups that we saw in this window. But that just amplifies it. We are a team of, like, a bunch of role players. Like, we have very few,

true, like, game-changing players, game winners. You know, like, who's the match winner? And it's, like, who's like, is a match winner? Everyone else is, like, a role player, you know, for the club and even doing it, and the way they play for the national team kind of is the same. And so you have all these role players. And it's, like, cool, says, like, somebody has to, you have to do something. You can't sit here and, like, play, like, play, like,

passively win soccer games against the good teams. You can passively win against some of the bad teams we play by, you know, just sort of attrition. But at some point, like, we need somebody to come in and make a play. And again, in this window, it just made it even more clear that are the role players that usually start for us when you bring in their backups. Like, there's not a lot of game changing going on here. No.

And even Pulisic, you know, he is a match winner for his club, but he has to operate from a platform that is built by other players. You know, if he's getting the ball 50 yards from goal and trying to get, trying to make stuff happen, it doesn't work. And he ends up getting frustrated and, and he looks like not good out there. So he, he needs to have, I don't know, it's like a different category of a match winner, like a midfielder who like projects, you know, who projects themselves into the game and makes things happen.

So yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more with that. Even Pulsick is a supplemental match winner. Right. Okay, so the U.S. lineup, real quick. Matt Turner gets the start ahead of Shulte, who I thought a pretty good game the other day. And then Marlon Fossey gets the start at right back. Playing in Belgium, standard liege, liege, Chris Richards, Mark McKenzie, and Christopher

for Lund, round out the back line, and then we had Aidan Morris, Eunice Musa, and Brendan Aronson in the midfield, and then we went with like sort of a, some big wingers, Ricardo Pepepe on the right wing, Hodg right on the left wing, and Fuller and Baligan up top. Any thoughts about this, Greg? I mean, so pool sick not starting, right? It's the big, it's sort of the big eye-opener. And, and, uh, I don't think it was any sort of like, we're going to hold Christian account. as the leader of a team that just struggled against Canada.

I don't know if they really discussed it much on air or if anyone sort of reported anything. But while, like, the fans sort of need that blood sacrifice when the team is playing this poorly after crashing out of the Copa, I'm guessing it was more just very practical considerations. Like, he played a lot on Saturday, and we don't need him to go back to back and play a lot again in this particular window.

Like, I don't think Mikey Vars is really in a position to be sending messages as a lame duck manager here. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense to, I mean, pool six been healthy for a long time now, knock on wood. But we don't, why push that for this game? It doesn't make any sense. I wish, the one thing I wish we would have seen was, would have been Malik out wide, in a really free role to come in.

I mean, like, you know, Brendan played wide right nominally against Canada, but he was not a hug, sideline hugging player. He was very much in the middle. That was one of the problems. We were so narrow because Scali's not like galloping up and down the line the way Fossi is. So I was hoping, I was kind of hoping to see Malik in that wide role where you could just be free to go wherever he wants. Basically what we were doing with Rayna last cycle and letting him just do whatever. Go wherever you want, Gio, and find the game.

Very few defensive responsibilities, which I think could suit Malik really well. Yeah, that's a good point. Haji didn't have a good game. Neither really did Pepe. I mean, Pepe seems like sort of the poster boy right now for not taking risks, at least, you know, in between the lines. I mean, he's so conservative and so backwards facing. I mean, he gets involved in some good...

What's that? It also just feels like his executions off. Like, he'll just... Well, that too. A guy, like, playing on one of the best rhythm teams in Europe in PSV where, because they're so much better than their weekly competition, I mean, they are just, they're so fluid to watch. And so he's kind of underhitting passes and like selling them short and breaking up rhythm an awful lot.

Yeah. And Haji just looked. It's a little different with him. Like when he plays for Coventry, you get the sense that he's locked in. He knows his role. He kind of understands what he's supposed to do and he can sort of, you know, just go at it. And he doesn't look like that at all. He didn't look like that at all last night.

He just looked, I don't know, listless, kind of uncertain, and it's too bad. And then our other favorite strikers, Josh Sargent, who, again, we were kind of wondered if they were just treating him with extra caution. And they did say he had some ankle issues. So no Josh Sargent this window, of course. Right. Story of his men's national team career so far. New Zealand, real quick, Max Crocombe and goal, Tim Payne, Fincernam, Nando Pinnaker, and Liberato Cacche, across the back line. Kakace plays for Empoli in Syria, the most prestigious club in this lineup, I think, came in off the bench in their last game.

Marco Stominich, Alex Roofer, and Joe Bell, and midfield, and then Elijah Just, Chris Wood, and Matthew Garbet. Well, I guess Wood at Nottingham Forest is, as their striker is, at least as prestigious. just as Empoli. The rest of the team kind of split between Greece, Norway, MLS, and the New Zealand League. So this is not a strong opponent, at least when it comes to badge FC stuff. And it was, you know, there weren't a strong opponent in reality either. We were, we were in their half most of the game. They were organized enough.

They weren't a shambles defensively. So it was like a, it was sort of, again, we've seen a lot of low block exercises with our core players not go particularly well or impressively. And so this was our, you know, our less core players. Also not looking particularly impressive against a low block. Yeah. Not totally bereft of idea, but, you know, pretty, pretty dull. Yeah. We just, we're just toothless, I think.

You know, we were just toothless when we got into the final third, which has kind of been the story of the last half a decade. to some extent. First minute, or right at the beginning of the second minute, there's a giveaway from Moosa on the top of our box. It's a loose touch under some pressure. I have to pass from Aidan Morris. And he gives up, he gives it up right there.

Zone 14, worst place on the field to give it up, really. And there's a shot that goes wide. There was a foul called, which kind of bails Moose out. But I think in the viewer's eye and maybe in the, eye of like reality it was a giveaway i don't know that you really got fouled and again it's just a just a terrible moment coming on the heels of the loss we just had uh and this is against you know when canada's pressing you they're they're trying to be on top of us uh new zealand are not trying to press us so like he had a bunch of time he dallies he takes a heavy touch uh you're just like

how how are we how are we doing this already one minute into a game yeah yeah yeah and And I think that that made everybody pretty mad at Moussa basically for the rest of the night. But I thought he was actually pretty good after this moment. I mean, he did get caught further up field one more time. But he was, I thought he was really good. And I felt like Musa was, I mean, again, that was a dally and sort of a bad touch. But it felt very much like Moussa is trying to push things. And he does it the way he does it, which is usually trying to do it on the dribble.

We'll talk about it. It was a big shift in how we operate. and how things would get pushed when Luca De La Torre came on. It's just such a stylistic difference between the two of them. Yeah. And Luca looked, I thought, good. Well, so fourth minute, good sequence. Aidan kind of, we're passing it around the horseshoe.

Aden kind of steps on the ball, and Bredo just kind of shadows in to a little pocket from left to right. Aiden finds his feet. Brenda turns and kind of feeds a through. ball in for Wright and Wright just is I think he's caught by surprise a little bit by the pass because it seemed like the weight

was pretty good just I don't know I don't know why Wright wasn't sort of ready for it but he doesn't quite get to it yeah like basically it looks like he was checking his run but I don't think that's really what he was doing

he was just a slow reaction and Brenda's pass was waited for like the correct reaction in anticipation from a player in that position so so it looks looks sort of like an overhit pass when really like, Hajie, what are you waiting for?

Like you were on. You had the, you had the lane. You have to go and trust the pass would get to you. Yeah. As soon as, as, as Brendan's foot goes back, Hajie's got to, like, you know, start booking it. I don't think he was going to be offside. Fifth minute good up back through from Richards to Pepey, lays it off from Musa,

and Musa plays Fossi into space down the right wing. He and Aronson are both in behind with nobody between them and the goal. It's like a easy side foot pass from Fawsey and Aronson is in a 1v1 with the keeper. I, you know, you know, I may have some disagreement about this, but I don't think Fossy noticed or that Aronson was there. I mean, we have the screenshot in front of us.

It's, you know, I capped it at exactly the most damning moment. But, because the window closes really fast. Yeah. The defender recovers. but if he just pushes it into Brendan's path, it's like, you know, it's a really, really, really good chance. Anyway, he runs past the ball, stops it, and then hits a cross that gets cleared, basically.

Yeah, and it's just a really bad moment from Fossee because he misses the runner, it seems like, obviously. He's, I mean, he's got to see him. Like, they were, this was like an extended run as that ball gets sort of clipped behind where they're running side by side. So he's got to, I'm sure he sees him, is aware of him and hears him. But he just chooses, he just chooses like a really safe touch attempt and he kind of bottles it.

So not only does he not do the early touch to Brenda, he thinks he's got to like control it to get a, you know, a more controlled touch. But he bottles that. So he handcuffs himself and actually like, because he's running full speed and his touch is short, he has to overrun the ball and like run past it and stare down at it. So he can't pick out the next runner. So, yeah, just it's not a great moment from Fossi early in this one. By the time he gets his feet set, the New Zealand defense is back and set in the box. Yeah, they've got six in the box by the time he tries to deliver it. I got another screenshot that to me seems damning.

I'm curious what you think about it. Six minute. Ballo faces a guy up on the wing after getting it, like, you know, just sort of a straightforward pass from Lund. and he sort of tries to dribble at him and everybody's just standing still at least 20 yards away from him right most cinematically just kind of

like nobody's nobody's running into the channel nobody's checking to him and I was like what's the idea here is there an idea or this I think this is just sort of the the tactical issue you're going to run into

when you're when you throw three strikers in your lineup I know Haji's not a striker anymore. He's basically a winger, but still has sort of that mentality. They're not like, none of these guys are buzz around attacking midfield types, you know. So when Bolo gets it here, Haji and Peppy both default to, like, get to the top of the box. And so then there's no one to come play soccer with Bolo from the attacking line. And he sort of has to wait for anyone to join him.

And, you know, once it's clear it's not going to happen, then it's fine to step on it and be like, okay, well, there's nothing here. we're just going to very slowly recirculate. This is where I really think Luca helped us, because Luca was such a buzzy player. His passing and, of course, his movement, like dictate that everyone else has to buzz around, too. Yeah. Buzzing was really contagious, yeah.

10th minute, good pass between the lines from McKenzie to Haji's feet. It's a bit tough to handle. He misses the window for the cushioned layoff to Aaron's. I mean, if he cushions it in the right direction, this is about the 9-20s, 25 mark. We're off again, but he instead he kind of leads him, the past a little behind him, leads him into a duel, which Eranson loses, and New Zealand is running at us with Lund caught

up field providing the attacking with. This is when McKenzie ends up 1v1 with Elijah Just, and he cuts in and aims for the far post, and McKenzie just sticks a foot out and blocks the shot. So I noticed this is a theme of us hitting these balls directly into the feet. of follow Pepey and Haji back to goal and never really having too much coordinated following actions where it was really like we didn't have midfielders particularly available

this one's kind of an outlier because Brenda was really available and Haji tries to do the right thing it's a little messy and then it's Brenda showing sort of his weakness as a ball dominant center mid because he should be able to protect this ball and not give it away so easily

but he's so wispy and New Zealand just kind of run right through the spot that he should be protecting or should be like leveraging. But yeah, I thought a real theme of our struggles to have free-flowing attacks forward from deep build-ups was the options available for those target men as the ball was going into their feet. Really? See, I sort of chalked it up. I sort of chalked it up initially to just a lack of, you know, like we just didn't play clean or brave enough. But you're saying there maybe wasn't enough actual coordination and like somebody available to pass to when the ball comes in. Because the passes were coming into these guys' feet pretty well, you know?

Right, right. That was, I thought that was a positive. And then it's just like, okay, as it's going into, you know, ball's feet and he's holding one. player off, who are the players he's looking at? Because you're not expecting that guy to turn a high percentage of the time. Like it's got to be a little layoff and then to somebody who's looking up field. And it's got to be quick and then we've got to be moving. And it just felt like, again, in my mind, I was kind of assuming it was the profiles of the players we had up there where it's peppy, Balo and Haji together. Those guys aren't the types who are going to

like work underneath each other particularly effectively where like a Tim Wea might, a Christian Poulsick, obviously, will work underneath, and you can lay off to him, and then you're running, your whole team is now running forward with midfielders catching up. Okay. All right, all right. So then comes the goal that gets called back. I think it's worth describing a little bit, because Musa plays it out to Fosse on the right side. He one touches it to Pepey, who kind of dummies it to Ballo. So it's messy.

He kind of dummies it to Balo. I don't know if he tries to get a, like, you know, get a Croif touch on it or anything, but Ballo then tries to spray Pepey and down the right wing, but his pass is blocked. It's a little bit telegraphed. It gets blocked back to the onrushing Fosse, who is very energetic in this sequence. It ricochets off of Fossi in behind, and he runs ahead and touches it, just gets a touch to it to Pepe, who is also, I mean, they basically sandwich a guy.

and then Pepey collects himself slots at Far Post. Goal called off. I was it, I was watching on Telemundo, so I don't, you know, not really understanding much of what was being said. Was he off, was, was it a foul on Pepey? What was the call? I never got an explanation either, an official one. I'm assuming it was just didn't quite look right was the official call. Things just didn't quite look right here for a goal to be the outcome, the just outcome.

So I said because it doesn't quite look right somewhere, whether it's him being a little bit off sides or just barely on, or him maybe clipping a guy's heels in a way that wasn't quite a foul. Combine everything and this just, we can't give a goal here is what I think. Because they like met and they had a little conference. They're like, we just shouldn't. That sounds reasonable. This shouldn't be a goal. Because he wasn't

He wasn't offside I watched it back Definitely was not offside But he maybe did foul the guy Well grown up stuff We're looking for fight I don't think anyone's gonna be mad about any Of the things that happened on that play

We built some good momentum It was a little like slop with some deflections and whatever But the downhill running That we created was nice Yeah All right, 27th minute Musa carries it from deep, plays it out to Pepe. You know, on the right wing, he plays it back to Fossey. He finds right at the top of the box turns and shoots with his left foot.

It goes over, but it's a good sort of sweeping move, I think. And I thought, you know, there's more examples of Musa doing good stuff. 35th minute, another chance created almost entirely by him, carries it past three guys in our half, hits an in stride, floated ball from the center circle to Fossie running out wide. Great first touch from Fossi to get himself going full speed ahead down the line. And he squares it for Pepey just inside the defender that is, you know, shadowing him, shadowing Fossi, that is. Pepe has a take, kind of scuffs it, just wide of the far post, gets a glare from Haji.

I'm not sure why exactly, but a really good move. All Eunice there. Yeah, Eunice really did, like, after that giveaway, start to just look like he was trying to be the grown-up. Not that Aiden Morris was invisible or bad. No, Morris was okay. Yeah, it did feel like Eunice was like, you know, like we're talking about, like what Pulisick is talking about.

Like, I need to do something. I need to actually, like, do something. I can't just collect it and move it to the next player. Yeah. Horrible touch from right in the 39th minute. It gets a pass between the lines from Morris. Morris had a few of these passes between the lines. I thought he was, he was some good, some bad,

but Wright just gives it away, like a baby throwing a plate of food on the floor. Morris overcommits, trying to win it back, and they're off, get a shot from the left side. Pretty comfortable save from Matt, I thought. I thought it was a really good save. I mean, he makes it look comfortable, but I thought it was, I don't know, again, goalkeepers backing goalkeepers here. I thought it was very clean, I'd say.

I defer. I defer to you. It was a very saveable shot, but I'm just, I was glad to see him in the right spot, get down quickly, and no rebound. Okay. Well, we get a little flurry late with Musa hitting one from distance, drawn a good save, right gets to the cutback zone, which is just to be clear, the area sort of between the side of the six and the inside of. of the 18 along the end line, if that makes sense. Can't find a cut back from there, which happens. Long story short, we're in their half, most of the first half, just pretty toothless.

Yep, I think that's about right. We're trying, we're kind of trying. But yeah, we are lacking match winners. Yeah. Let's take a break, come back with the second half. All right, we're back. So Musa came off for De La Torre at the half. half and my timeline, my timeline is really, really dries up at this point.

That's fair. I mean, that's totally fair. We'll talk about some. I mean, I'll kind of give a little bit of color to some of the stuff or some themes as we go. So, I mean, one thing I noticed was in the 51st minute, Morris saves Turner on a hospital ball coming back to the goal. I don't know why Turner plays this past, but the, uh, Morris is just, he's got a guy on his back,

and he does really well, I think, to get position and win it and then win a foul, draw a foul. But then he turns and yells at Turner, which I like, at least Morris is, Morris is out there yelling at people a little bit talking. Yeah. Oh, no, it's great. No, what I'm watching this, I'm like,

I wonder what is the exact moment Turner realized is like, this has been a horrible decision. There's no way. Like when was he like, oh, here's the pass? You're doing your decision tree, your flow chart, and like the wide players are taken away. You've dallyed on it a little bit too long, and now you're actually about to get like tackled. And you're like, oh, the next pass, the next checkdown is my center mid dropping back to me. And the read should be like, is there somebody draped all over him?

Yes. Maybe I go somewhere else with it. But he doesn't. So I'm curious when in this sequence, he's like, oh, that was definitely the wrong checkdown. Like when does he realize? Is it before he's hitting it, but he just doesn't have any other choice because he's about to get tackled? Or is it after the ball's left his foot and he realizes that Aiden Morris can barely get to this ball before the defender can poke it? Where is that for Matt Turner?

On the rare occasions in your life where you have played a pass that you regret, where does it – I feel like it happens as you're hitting the ball. That's what I think too. I think the second it leaves your feet, you're like, my guy might not even get to this first. And even if he does, and that all like happens very quickly in your brain. In the blink of an eye. Yeah, and you're very apologetically like scrambling to get back to where you're going to need to be to try to save your team from your own mistake. Yeah. But yeah, I think Morris, you know, Morris does do well there to sort of save the situation.

56 minute New Zealand nearly scores. Morris overcommits again. So this happened twice that I could count on a ball that's cleared out of New Zealand's boxing. We have it in their defensive third a lot of the game. This was one of those occasions. It just gets cleared out. Morris goes into a duel with number eight. Who is that?

I mean, just going to assume, we can just call all of them former rugby player. Right. do they why don't why doesn't why doesn't the soccer team do the whole like the thing you know where they stare at the other team and show respect by um they're probably just simply they it would take all the power away from it because they're so less than average at soccer yeah that's true oh okay okay yeah it was stominich who just wins that duel with morris and then just runs he's in miles of space, runs 50 yards with a ball, maybe.

Not 50, 30 yards with a ball. And then plays a nice little through ball that wrong foot's Lund. Lund a little bit out to sea here. And it's Elijah Just again, running onto it. And Turner makes a nice save here.

Very good save from Turner. Yeah, Lund is all out to see takes a weird, you know, you're dropping. You're just dropping. to protect the goal here and he's doing that. But then right at the key moment, he kind of like flips his hips back out to the sideline and flares the direction of his movement out to the man.

Just it's subtle, but like that's all it takes to get your angle wrong and then there's no recovering. The overhead behind the New Zealand goal angle on it really, really like gives you that whole moment in slow motion that you just described. Yeah. And again, it's a nice reminder to all us like amateur players like. just how little of a mistake you have to make to just be completely eliminated from a play at a high-low-upon-old player. It's crazy.

But Aidan Morris here is the main culprit, and it's because if you're an enforcing center midfielder, you don't even have to win the challenge at the top of the box there for the 50-50. You just blow them up. Like you just hit the guy. Oh, I lost the challenge. You got there first because I'm not quick enough because I'm not, you know, the quickest center. defensive center made in the pool, it doesn't matter. You don't have to win the ball.

You don't have to get to it first. You just need to wreck the guy, and anybody can do that. Almost anyone. He doesn't even need, he doesn't need to do either of those things. I mean, he could just stand the guy up and kind of force him to make a decision there. I don't know. It's like getting totally eliminated is the worst possible outcome. What I'm saying is there wouldn't be hardly any danger, I don't think, if he just sort of, if he sort of approached it with caution and stood there in front of the guy.

He could totally make that call, too. I'm just saying you are actually free to go in hard there to see if you can, like, keep this ball in, like, keep the attack going, essentially. Just make sure you grab a leg on your way through. Yes. I mean, like, we see what Luca DeLotoria does on our next event here, which. Yeah, tactical foul. The first one since 1997 from the U.S. men's national team.

Mostroani, I'm assuming. I'm assuming it was Mosterini had the last tactical foul for the U.S. Yeah. It's Luca after getting beat down the line as they're trying to do a jail break. Just worth noting because it is possible to do. Lovely move in around the 63 minute mark from Pepey and Balligan. So Morris finds Pepe's feet between the lines. As I said, something he did a few times.

Morris, that is. Pepey turns and plays it to be. Ballo's feet. And Aronson makes a run off of Ballo, and Ballot does a real nice, deft turn and a little soft ball in behind for right into the path of Aronson. He opens up and hits it with his left in step. I mean, he's one-on-one with the keeper, hits it with his left-in step. Keeper saves it down to his right without too much trouble.

It's not a fantastic finish. Yeah, so Poolsick came in at the 56-minute mark-ish. And I just feel like we were very actually pleasing to watch from about that moment until about like the 80th minute, where we really were just like knocking the ball around with ease, moving fluidly across like six or seven positions. And again, I thought, I was like, oh, this is kind of a joy to watch. And this is one of those sequences that was exactly like that.

And again, New Zealand aren't a very good team. but when you're playing a team that's not very good that's shelled up like they do. This is what I wanted to see. I wanted to see us poking and prodding and finding little six-yard combinations. And so we were getting some of those. You credit a lot of that to Luca too, him buzzing around. I honestly do. I think it's so important to have like who's going to be the, who's going to sort of be the initiator of the buzzing?

because it's so easy if everyone just is standing there to just have everyone keep occupying their spot and just you can still pass the ball around but you're just not folding the defense at all so you're not bending anything or and so to have that one guy who starts well when one guy goes someone else has to will naturally sort of fill that area they were in

or make the next run in the sequence because that is actually like ingrained once someone keys it and this was just really nice and I want to give a ton of credit to Balo's pass because that was a sneaky, really good pass to put Rendo in. Yeah. Is it shame?

I mean, we know shame is a great motivator. But is it shame that makes buzzing contagious? So you see somebody else buzzing around around you and you're like, oh, wait a second. Maybe I shouldn't be just standing here. Is that what it is? I don't really think shame is a great motivator. I mean, there could be an element of that. I honestly think it's actually like,

Like, I genuinely think there's, like, a joy to it. And there's a joy to that coordinated, uh, uh, choreography, um, when you're playing soccer that, uh, exists, again, exists to like all levels. Like, you can, you can be your adult league team doing that. And it's like, oh, we are moving. We're cooking. You know you are. And it's like, you get a couple of those in. And it just, there's a feeling about it, you know?

And so when we're doing that, like, you get the little back heels and Malik Tillman stuff. And Timway and so Gino death's like, they. they start to really like express themselves. And we basically just need to bring Yergen Cleansman back on. If Butchitino doesn't work out. Yeah. Great. Great call.

So Tillman and Wiley come on for Aronson and Lund, 66 minute. And we get our goal two and a half minutes later. Actually, neither of them was involved. But I mean, this was again a lot of, you know, we're passing the ball around nicely, I think. Nice clipped ball from Morris over to. Fawsey on the right side. He plays it to Luca, who is doing this buzzing you're talking about, showing for him just inside a bit. And this is the move.

This is the touch that keys the whole thing. It's a one touch pass from Luca to Pepe's feet with his back to goal. It just kind of makes everything kind of speed up. And Pepe turns, plays it to Ballow's feet with his back to goal at the top of the box. He turns and plays it square over to Pulisick out to the left, who takes two touches. and then just rolls it in at the far post. Nice team goal. Nice finish from Pulisic, too.

Yeah, I mean, I don't really have anything, right? It's just, that's the fun stuff you should be doing against a bad team in a block. Just trust that your teammate that's six yards away from you can deal with your pass, even if there's someone on their back, keep moving off of it. They'll ignore you when they should and go the other way with it like Pepe does here. This is great.

I mean, fun. Like, this is great. This is a nice way to spend a weeknight watching your team do this. Speaking of which, it was a weeknight, and I think the announced crowd was 15,000 compared to 10,000 in Kansas City. So Cincinnati wins the window, you know, because Kansas City was a Saturday game. Maybe that's a disadvantage given the college football season and everything.

That's a good point, yeah. What's Cincinnati competing? What's the competition for... I don't care. I'm sorry. I can't pretend it. Cincinnati is competing with Kansas City. No, I just mean what are people in Cincinnati? What are their alternatives for entertainment on a night like this?

I don't know. The University of Cincinnati. And I quickly realized that I'm not too worried. You know what I do miss? I do miss that what I actually miss about it was there were no scuffed events that I could live vicariously through at these two matches. Like no tailgates and no pickup. soccer. It was helpful that Vince and Sanjay were in Kansas City.

That actually went a long way because that was really fun to experience through their sort of experiences. Yeah. I mean, Vince did a great job, I think, being a, being like a gumshoe reporter. There's a nice dummy from Tillman in here somewhere. Ballo has a nice strike from the top of the box. Pulisic goes high and a little wide. And then really only thing left.

This is fun. This was like a fun. I thought it was a fun stretch. of soccer. I didn't really think of it that way, but okay. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I like that. The bar is low, but again, when I'm watching a B-team play on a weeknight in Cincinnati, I'm like, oh, here we go, guys. These guys are enjoying themselves. They're doing a little bit. It's a long ball from deep left that gets us on the equalizer. Like we talked about earlier, bounces with two guys running back at the goal, skips up for Wiley, and he kind of shanks the

header. McKenzie kind of flukes it off the guy's chest, goes up over, Turner, and into the goal. Brings to mind the face goal from Jawsie's artists back in the late teens. A couple of them, I feel like, in a row. But, yeah, it's just... There you go. It's hard to... Yeah, it's a Wiley missed header.

So Wiley's trying to head it back to Turner, right? Is that the conclusion that you're on? Yeah, that seems that way. Because otherwise his header doesn't make any sense. Like that's what I keep thinking is if he's trying to do anything else, then this doesn't make sense. I think he's trying to put it back to Turner. And the reason this is important is because this brings Turner out of his goal, which is why any weird deflection drops in easily instead of just being like caught comfortably by Matt Turner on the goal line.

If Wiley's not trying to head this back, Turner should be retreating back to his line. Because there's no reason for him to get caught in no man's land. and based on Wiley's movement and the power that he was trying to put in with his shoulders, this is definitely what he was trying to do. So while McKenzie ends up having like the clown moment on the optics, it's Wiley creating the problem and really just botching a technical execution. He didn't have to have. I guess what I'm saying is he didn't have to actually head it.

Like he could have just run along with it. And again, swept it out of bounds in any direction. But to go for the header and whiff, that was sort of the devastating is too strong. He didn't give him a tap in. He gave Mark McKenzie a chance to do a different clearance. Yeah. Devasting.

Devasting. It was devastating. It was more devastating than devastating. There you go. The end of the pre-Pocitino era. The Mikey Varus era coming to a really, I mean, they'll go down as like maybe the worst, the least,

exciting, entertaining era of all time. That's too bad for him because I think he's not so bad. But, you know. Well, no one's actually going to think about his era at all. No, that's right. I mean, that's the real takeaway. Yeah. Did we learn anything?

I mean, except for, you know, maybe a little bit about McKenzie. I don't know. Morris, I can Morris probably. deserves to continue to be in the picture. Like he hasn't played himself out of the picture, has he? No, I don't know that, I mean, again, because it's a new manager coming in, I don't think anyone played themselves out of the picture. Like, Johnny had some shocking moments here.

He had, you know, he had kind of the, you can even go back to the summer where he had the Columbia giveaway in that as we started to spiral in that game. But I don't think any of that matters. I think a manager will go in and they'll watch his, what he does for his club team to assess what they think they can do with him with their national team. Yeah, that's right. So it's good. We'll just see what,

I mean, it's going to be fascinating to see what that next roster is. We'll have to go, we'll have to dig deep and really, really do a big, long roster episode. Well, I know,

like, the projection, the roster projection episode is just going to be a mess, though. Yeah, well, we'll have no idea. Well, we have some idea,

but, I thought Wiley sort of looked like the header notwithstanding, even outside of that, kind of looked like he had first cab jitters, which I think are a real thing. Was pretty disappointed in Wright's performance. I like your shout that should have been Tilt. Maybe would have been nice to see Tillman on the wing. Otherwise, I think everybody just sort of played too par or slightly below it. Fossie didn't have a lot of first cab jitters that were.

apparent. That's true. Not super tested. And he was fun. I'm super glad about that. Again, as one of those random guys that we follow and would like occasionally check their Y Scout to be like, what's this guy doing in Belgium? And he's not really doing anything particularly wild or impressive.

But he just looks like a, he's a confident pro out there in Belgium playing. He played with confidence in sort of like in a spirited way, you know? Like he was going. at it. And between him and Kate Cowell, like, it really improves our actual, like, aesthetic on the field of just really, like, cool

ass hair. Uh, so I appreciate that. Um, yeah, it was, I'm glad he got to look. And again, because our right back pool is so, is so sort of anonymous after Dest and Eve and Scali.

Um, why not, why not Marlon Fossey for a couple of camps? It's good, good on him. Yeah. Yeah. Scally's sort of, you know, piqued his eyes over the curtain of anonymity a little bit. Just barely. So we know Death is still out until after the new year.

So again, we're going to have two camps at least of somebody's going to need to be Scali's backup. That's right. Yeah, that's a good point. Fossi was bright, I would say. All right. I think we're done. I'm glad we could end on Fosse because that's a happy one for me. Yeah.

It's probably happy for Daniel Smith, too. He's been following him more closely than we have. Hey, thanks everybody for listening. We do appreciate it. And have a great rest of your week. We'll see you.