Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #541: USMNT v Panama recap

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

The Pochettino era begins in Austin, Texas, with our new coach leading a largely second-choice squad into battle with Panama. Greg and Belz recap it and try to suss out the differences in the way the team played. 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. Hey, everybody, the Potch era has begun. We've got a 2-0 win over Panama in Austin in front of 20,000 fans. Greg, how you doing? I'm celebrating. I am celebrating watching this man on the sidelines. We got all the videos of him in training in the week leading up to it, all of which were fantastic and amazing.

And from what I could tell near flawless coaching, flawless press conferencing. And now he has a flawless. ballless win-loss record for the U.S. men's national team. 100%. I got to say, you know, Thomas Christensen was over there in his off-white linen blazer, having outlasted Burrhalter looking, I think, a tad smug. He sure got his comeuppance in the post-game, in the post-game greeting period. Did you see, did you see Wachie's video about it?

Yeah, that was classic. I mean, that is vintage Waukee stuff. And, I mean, Pagetino touched his face no less than 17 times. times. Yeah, yeah. And each one sending a message. Yeah. Of who's now in charge.

It was glorious. So a few line-up notes, Christian Pulisic, Marlon Fossi, Weston McKinney, Ricardo Pepey, and Zach Stephan, all left camp. Mostly for load management reasons. I mean, almost, I mean entirely for load management reasons. And it's on to Guadalajara and a game against Mexico in Mexico for a change on Tuesday. So let's first go as to the Panama match. let's first go to the formation because, you know, Pach said it was going to be a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3

and then in his first match as coach, he runs us out in what some, some are calling a 3-4-3. Greg, what was the formation? Have they not been listening to us at all? I don't think they have. I think like most of the people, yeah. If you're going to do formations at this point, the formation is your defensive shape. whenever anyone's like we're in a 4-3-3 or whatever else, you're almost always talking about what shape are we defending in.

And we defended in this game in a very standard 4-2-3-1. If it looked asymmetrical in the game, it's because Panama are asymmetrical. So if we're in this 4-2-3-1 and you've got Musa-wide, right? Give us some spoilers on the lineup that you're going to announce in a second. And you've got Pulisick on the left in that 4-2-3-1 in those wide attacking roles. Panama's their left backs of the guy on Musa's side They were asymmetrical

So he'd get higher up the field in their buildup But Musa would drop with him And their right back was kind of a stay-at-home guy Like Joe Scali was doing for us And so Pul-Sick wouldn't be forced back as often or as early So it might look like Well, Moosa and Pulsocuk are doing different things So it's actually

Moosa's like a wing back on that right side But no, it was a pretty clear 4-2-3-1 in my estimation I would need some real convincing to think otherwise. But then in attack, it was very obviously not a 4-2-3-1. We were asymmetrical,

where Joe Scali stayed home. Jedi was not really sticking around for the build-up. He was mostly upfield very early to create like a 3-2-4-1 or we usually just call it a 3-2-5. Which again, this is just the norm at this point for all modern teams. When we first started doing it in 2019

with Greg Berhalter in the first games, It's like, wow, here's what the U.S. is doing now. This is kind of different than what we've ever seen the U.S. do before. Like, take this very distinct possession shape and try to build out of it. It's the novelty wore off a long time ago. And again, every team does this, whether you're either building in a 3-2 or 2-3, and then you basically have that band of five attackers occupying the zones, the channels of the field split five ways vertically.

Yeah, Pistening, hopefully. Hopefully, yeah, it was great. great fluid movement within that. A lot of, yeah. Another reason it was kind of hard to figure out what our against possession shape, our defensive shape was, was because Panama didn't have the ball for the first, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes, hardly at all. Yeah, possession was like 70, 30.

Okay, so a 325 and a 4, 2, 3, 3, 1, basically, you know, Potch uses the same selection as the Burrhalter era, and more or less the same formations. Yeah, I mean, I feel like if you took any 45-second clip of us in possession in this game, especially starting from the back, and took a 45-second clip of us, I don't know, you wouldn't do the last time we played Panama because obviously that whole, there was a pretty big variable in that one where we were playing with one fewer player on account of the Timway a punch.

So that wouldn't be a good apples to apples, but you could take almost any other game from the era, from the Burrhal to era. And it'd be, the possession was roughly similar against the team that was mostly sitting back. You'd swing it around the back without a ton of ways to break through,

but we were trying. We were definitely trying to like pass our way up the field. Um, and we would have some, like some real like successful eye-catching moments. Um, but then once we got into the actual last third, just like, has been the case with, with us for a while.

Uh, we weren't super, sharp and super clean. Yeah. A lot of shots blocked. Yes. Yeah. Which was, you know, it seems like so it's kind of been that way for a while.

There were some nice moments of possession. I got sort of scared to point those out in the latter years of the Burrhalter era, you know, for fear of being labeled a shill or an MLS shill, you know. But now I'm, now I feel like I'm free to talk about how nice they were. And there were, there were a lot of nice. I thought Aidan Morris was pretty, pretty slick. at least in the first part of the game. Second half got a little, got a little yucky, I'd say. Yeah.

I mean, it was a mixed, I thought almost every player out there had like a real mixed bag of stuff. But that's fine. And again, like, we'll talk about how this game and, again, any game from the last cycle, or kind of a pan from the office, same picture situation. But I'm not, I'm not. I certainly am not saying that as a criticism of Pachino, like, what was the point of getting this high-profile manager? First off, you know, when we get into the lineup, this is not our full team or anywhere close to it. Yeah.

But mostly it's like one of the things we were always saying that always came off as Burrhalter like Apologia was that there isn't a ton of very obvious low-hanging fruit stuff to fix with what we were doing. It wasn't like, oh, here's the obvious way he's screwing up. we should just do this differently and fix it. There's a talk of not having enough energy or not having a fight. We talk about the awareness from center midfielder's to be alert to danger as the ball's kind of moving behind our back line. That is something I hope can be sort of an overnight fix. But most of the stuff, if Pachitino is going to improve us, and he absolutely is a much,

much better coach than Greg Burhalter, it's going to be like gradual, I assume. Again, I would love and I'm open to when we get our first first, first, team guys back if they are good enough that he can give him, you know, just information in a camp. And they're just like, oh, yeah, that's absolutely what we should do. And we'll do this a lot better. And we do become significantly better very quickly. But I think mainly it's going to be gradual improvements, sort of, you know, fine-tuning, fixing a couple of little things that will give us a slight edge that over time will make us more formidable and give us a little bit better chance of getting to a quarterfinal. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it does feel like the pundits out there are still sort of floating ideas for how to describe the difference between Potch and Brawler. I mean, the conclusion is that there is a huge difference already, you know, but the way to get there is still being sort of sketched out. I think it's in the planning stages. It's in the first draft stages. We'll see where everything lands. But it totally makes sense. I mean, to be serious for a second, it totally makes sense that it would be gradual. I thought there was a little bit more energy.

I could be imagining this, but I thought there was a little more energy in the counterpress and a little bit more sort of just like an urgency than maybe we've seen for the last little bit from the U.S., especially in the first half. I thought the second half, unfortunately, the whole sort of like frantic white knuckle hold onto a lead thing. that was kind of a hallmark of the last five years was very much in evidence. I mean, we got that last goal. But we gave up, immediately after we scored, we gave up two pretty big chances. And then a little bit before Pepe scored, that Farrado chance was an outstanding chance.

I mean, I don't know that that's on anybody. Go ahead, go ahead. No, I was going to say, nice work from Panama. You kind of just applaud the moment that they create. And again, you hope that you've created enough in the game prior to that, that if they do capitalize on their really nicely worked shot, that it's not going to be enough. And I mean, I mean, it's fair to say that that's what happened here.

We created quite a few looks of our own. I think we created some. I haven't seen the XG. Have you seen the XG numbers? I think we created more than they did. Yeah. I think we pretty much doubled them up for whatever one source was at like 1.8 to 0.9. Again, don't put tons of stock in a single game number like that.

But, like, you can think back. It can be helpful to be like, oh, yeah, because we had this look. We had this look. We had the McKenzie missed header that won't even go down as a shot. Like, we had plenty of plenty. We had a few real obvious, dangerous moments. It's funny you mentioned that Mark McKenzie one because he definitely backed off of that ball, which I do not necessarily criticize him for.

But then he got punished for it by getting slapped in the face. Getting slapped in the face in the second half on a much less good chance. Just full on palmed by Mosqueda. But I am expecting by the end of this window that none of our guys would back out of a header like that because we're going to have that Pachitino dog instilled. I mean, you know, maybe, maybe, Greg. All right, let's do the lineups. So it was, we're going back to Matt Turner, the Patrick Schultierre maybe was brief.

and Turner starts in goal and then Scali, McKenzie, Tim Ream, and Jedi across the back line. Busio and Morris in a double pivot. I thought they both made a nice account of themselves overall. And then Musa, Aronson, and Pulisic and the three in this

4-2-3-1, and then Josh Sargent up top. This is what's awesome about this. It's the Pachino debut, which we love. And then you look at his lineup and it's like he's got two, I'm going to say two, like nailed on starters in this group, and it's Jedi and Pulisic. And then after that,

a couple of question marks, like a Turner. I don't know where Sergeant and Bala are going to shake out. Not sure about how McKenzie and Ream are going to shake out. I'd love that he went with two passing centerbacks for a home match against Panama. I think that was a good plan.

McKenzie actually did have quite a few really nice passes into the amoeba that we didn't make much of. but that's what he's there for. That's a differentiator for him. So, yeah, just kind of interesting to see how the team could shape with what are essentially a bunch of obviously backups and then a couple of maybe players competing for first 11 spots. Is that too harsh to say like a Morris and a Buzio

aren't really competing for a, I mean, they're obviously competing. I don't want to make it sound like. Everybody's competing now. I think, no, I don't think that's harsh. And I think, you know, when you look at it that way, maybe the performance is even a little more impressive because of, because this isn't just lip service. Panama is a solid team.

Right. And they're competent for sure. Yeah. For us to play, especially in the first half as well as we did, as dominantly as we did against them, with a 75% second choice lineup is, you know, it's good. It's good news. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it is good. Again, this might sound like I'm setting a low bar for what is one of the best managers in the world. But he took a team like this that has very few minutes together, certainly in this configuration. And we look totally organized. We didn't look super, super fluid all the time, but we looked incredibly organized. No, no, like, confusion, no one, no Panama getting behind us with guys being like, who was supposed to be there, who was supposed to be taking this runner? Like, there was none of that.

And in possession, we were sturdy. Again, not particularly like consistently slick and fluid. But, yeah, looking at the personnel, like, of course they're not going to be that on their first game playing together. I mean, there was, to be clear about my opinion, I think there was plenty of slick fluidity in that middle third. And, you know, some nice combinations right up the gut. But it's just like when we get in the final third, it was, you know, somebody's shot would get blocked. or they didn't make the right choice or they dallied on the ball for a second

in the window closed, which is, you know, that's just soccer. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. One guy intercepts the pass that would have gone to Busio's feet at the eight-yard line we would have scored for sure.

Do we say eight-yard line? We're talking about soccer? Yeah, well, let's go ahead and say it, yeah. Pretty sure it was the nine-yard line. To the timeline. No, we've got to do Panama's lineup. We've got to get Panama there. Oh, yeah, that's right.

That's right. Okay, Orlando Mosquera and goal, Fidel Escobar, Guardo Farina, and Roderick Miller across the backline, and then Michael Morillo, the Marseille player, and then Christian Martinez, Alberto Coco Caraskilla, and Cesar Blackman, so Blackman and Murillo as the wing backs, and then Edgar Barrances,

Eduardo Guerrero, and Jose Rodriguez across the front line. a bunch of just very good I mean very good is a little strong very solid players who beat us in June so and in the gold cup on penalties advanced over us

in penalties after draw that's right so yeah Panama and we did we did I mentioned the Christensen Pachitino greeting afterwards

but I do recommend you watch Waki's video on that it's quite good the timeline so right off the bat we get a nice combo. Like you said earlier, Jedi was spending a lot of time high up in possession, and we were trying to hit him with that long ball.

Riem was trying to hit him with sort of the vertical long ball, and that's obviously where the first goal comes from, that revenue stream. But in the first minute, we get a nice combo from Jedi and Pulisic. Pulisic Springs Jedi making a smart little runoff of Murillo's blind shoulder into the box. He's like, he's carrying the ball at the near post. And his touch gets away from him a little, and he's tackled trying to slip it across the six for sergeant, which I think was the right idea. But so that's nice to see that right away.

It sets a nice tone for the Potch era, 40 seconds in. It did. And again, you like to see Puliswick and Jedi combining well because, again, those were the two starters. Like, those are two best players on the field. So that's what you want to see. You want to see that sort of level of grown-up-headedness. from those two. You know, that said,

I didn't think Pulisic had a particularly good game. I mean, he got the assist, but he was pretty wasteful in possession. Yeah, I'll give you that. He also was part of a lot of the nice combinations. So it's one of those where, like, he's wasteful because he's going to accept a higher volume of higher leverage plays.

I'm not trying to give him a total pass. Like, I want him to perform better in those moments and make, you know, the optimal choice more often. But he very much is a part of a lot of the things we were doing well. Yeah, that's true. Okay, fourth minute, nice flowing build out of the back against something of a Panama press. Morris, Sergeant, and Busio all do well here. Sergeant did a lot of these, like, coming back to the ball and laying it off for somebody. in rhythm, and boy, that is nice, and it helps us out a lot.

And I thought Morris was looking good early. Yeah, Morris and Busio, throughout this game, a trend is, and I think a real, real scuffed podcast, listener legend, Pat Keeler pointed this out. The midfielder's playing closer together in the Pach era. And I think you don't have to squint too hard to be like, no, I think that might be a real difference from what we've seen in some other games the U.S. has played in the last two, three years. but it's not it doesn't mean they're like stationed closer together it's it's almost like a measure of their buzzingness buzzy they're buzzing so to get to make sure to be always be close to somebody it's not you're not always moving together but you are constantly moving early like you have to move early to get close to the guy once the ball arrives so I thought morris and buzio did a really nice job uh of doing the work early so that as the ball would reach

one of their midfield partners or pool sick or brendo coming back or sergeant Like, they were always buzzing nearby. So that level of activity that was sort of intelligent, I think, was there for this midfield in this game. Adding to the buzziness factor, I think, was also Brendan Aronson. He's busy off the ball against the ball, you know, in all the situations. And I thought he had a pretty good game, too. Not in front of goal Seventh minute

Real slick from Morris to Pulisic's feet And he touches it along to Sergeant So this is like 605 mark And they just eliminate four guys Sargent takes it He plays it out He's got a centerback on his right shoulder Plays it out to Jedi

Who takes I think a beat long To sort of settle his feet Before sending it in high over everybody And Pulcic definitely wanted that fizzed Ball just behind the centerbacks To side foot in didn't get it, remonstrated a little bit. But this is another one where the coordination here,

Poulsick jump, like checking to Morris to create that short passing window is just exactly what we have to have over and over and over again. Yeah. It can't just be guys waiting in their space for the play to arrive at them. Just a ton of initiative is what we're going to need to break down competent teams. Yeah. This is a really nice sequence Very pleasing to the eye

Morris had a giveaway Trying to play it to Busio I've got to mention that Because I've sort of praised him a lot So far in the seventh minute A mistake for Martinez At the 10 minute mark Gives Jedi a second chance to cross it

And he zips it just between the goalkeeper And Sargent Moscaro gets there a second Before Sargent And Sergeant doesn't get a chance at a shot It's cleared by Farina For a corner cana on the short corner Which ensues

It's Pulisicic to Aronson back to Pulisic. He kind of cuts in and then cuts back to his left and stands a ball up into the six at just a juicy height. McKenzie's right there and unmarked and just backs off, I think, a touch in the crucial moment like we talked about earlier, expecting a collision with Mosquetta, which does come later in the game. But yeah, Mosquera came out and was closing down Sargent behind him.

So, like, Moscaro was going to intercept the ball at Sergeant. and so McKenzie just had a free shot at it with Mosquera taking himself virtually out of the frame of where his shot would be if McKenzie just makes any contact and it goes towards the goal. So yeah, I agree. McKenzie kind of jumps up and braces for impact,

almost like starts to lean away from where the ball is and then just kind of does the like woodpecker head motion. Like pretend header, yeah. So, I mean, but we know this, right? One of the things about the U.S. set piece situation is that we don't usually, we certainly don't play two dominant centerbacks in the air to bring up in these. And with McKenzie and Ream,

I would say we aren't really playing any dominant aerial centerbacks for these set pieces. Yeah. I mean, the only centerback we have in the pool that I would back to just like hammer this home with the forehead is Walker Zimmerman. Yeah, yeah, and he hasn't played for the rest of the year. Right. Miles Robbins.

Robinson maybe would, would probably get some contact on it. Richards has, Richards actually has a decent track record for us of getting to, getting to the ball and is threatened, scored a couple. So he can't, like, he's got there. He can get there. But, but yeah, when it's Reema McKenzie, it's not something you're going to be like,

this is where we're getting our goals from. And we don't have Weston in this game. And so this definitely isn't our, this definitely isn't our corner dominant team. I'm really of two minds about this moment from McKenzie, too, because if we're talking bells in Sunday league, I'm 100% pulling out of this with my head and doing the woodpecker head like every time. So it's very much a do as I say, not as I do kind of situation. 22 minute mark, Aronson wins it off Karaskiya in the press, plays it to Sergeant out to Musa. Musa's cross is cut out.

Then we get it out to more. Well, actually in there somewhere, Busio takes a shot from 20, which is blocked. and then we get it out to Morris and he slips it on the ground in the penalty area and the direction of Pulisic. Pulc takes a touch, his shot is blocked. I think this is where you mentioned earlier. Pusio was at the eight-yard line right behind him.

Yeah. If he would, if Pulisic dummies it, this is, this is Ojean Luca time. Yeah, it's not tapping, but it's a, it's just a firm pass. He gets to kind of line it up and just pick out like a nice pass into any open portion of the goal. Which, again, it happens, but you're happy about the build-up. You get a little bit of the Musa at wide attacker experience here

because on that initial turnover, Sergeant hits a nice ball into Musa in the box, and it's Musa with, like, the defender's still eight yards off of him, four yards off him. In the box, that feels like eight to 20 yards. But Musa just tries to hit like a ball on the ground to somebody and just hits it directly to that defender. who's four yards off.

And you're like, oh yeah, this is Musa playing wide attacker. But he continues to stay in the play and does some nice controlled passing in the box that we end up creating this chance from. So he still has plenty of that control of his personal space that doesn't go away, no matter how far up to field he gets. We just need to see, we're still just waiting on that quality of incisive pass. in that moment from Eunice. Yeah. And again, I don't think... I don't think this is an indication

that Potch sees Eunice as his wide attacker. This is a patched-together roster, a lot of sort of ill-fitting personnel for that wide attack base. After the game, Potch was asked why he played, essentially why he played Musa at Wingback. And he said, you know,

he just wanted to give him confidence. What we wanted to see from him is that he can recover his confidence. He came without play. playing, the feeling of confidence that a player has to have, I think, to find him in a position where he can find himself comfortable and free without much responsibility in the buildup. Above all, little by little buildup, his state of form. I think he can get better, and he's surely going to get better.

I think he had a good game and getting his first goal. It's welcome for him and for the team. Obviously, we'll get to the goal, but basically, less responsibility in the buildup and more freedom for Musa. It seemed to be good, I think, a good choice. Yeah, again, so many fewer, so much fewer, so less variables to consider for any player who's receiving the ball with a sideline right behind him versus where Eunice Musa is usually trying to collect a ball where he's got to have a 360 degree awareness. So I'm sure mentally it's more of a relaxed 90 minutes for him.

It totally is, yeah. Okay. First real opportunity for Panama comes in the 24th minute, Barsinas. gets played in behind Ream from deep, sort of similar to the ball that's played by Ream to Jedi for our first school in the second half. But he gathers it, real nice first touch, faces Ream up, beats him to the end line,

and then stands a ball up into the box, but Turner claims it with two hands firmly. But they did start to find a little action in that space behind Ream. And I think maybe this explains, also explains why people were thinking it was a three-four-three because we're in possession and then when Panama gets the ball

and then quickly plays it forward, it looks like we're in a three-back formation in defense even though we're not. Right. And then Reams sort of playing as a left centerback at that moment and then he gets outrun by barsoness and probably basically any winger, any international winger in global.

soccer probably. Yes. Yeah. And that's the scary thing about this, right? If you're playing that sort of, if Scallies are stay home right back and so you're playing with a right centerback and Ream, Ream becomes the edge defender on that left side momentarily, right, until we can recover back. And this wasn't even like a transition moment. This was us pressing a Panama goal kick. So we were just all up field and Jedi had moved with his man upfield. A guy was checking back towards the the deep space to try to be an option for Panama and Jedi went with him and that's what creates the read for Panama

to go over Jedi's head and test out Tim Ream. And to Ream's credit here, he does make it back, right? He makes it back and it's not like McKenzie had to come over and take over and then Ream recovers to the middle, which is the next normal progression,

which will happen sometimes too. But Ream makes it back and is able to close down the player at least. So Ream didn't get totally pantsed on this place. Panemaw just gained a ton of territory with the with the ball into Reams area. It is it is a liability. Like I don't know any way around it. Like if you're going to rely on Ream defending the edge for any moment of time,

you're going to have some scary moments. Yeah. But as scary moments go, this was a pretty low level one. You're right. It was a cross from just, I mean, basically the edge of the box. And along the sideline, easily claimed by Turner. so Jedi cuts out a pass from Panama straight to Pulisic in the 26th minute and he can't quite corral it. You could feel the crowd get excited as the ball sort of headed in his direction because he could have turned and gone off to the races.

This is where I started to think maybe he wasn't at his sharpest on the night. I do totally acknowledge your point about him, you know, taking on the responsibility for a lot more high leverage moments than most of our players. and so of course nothing ventured, nothing gained. The sequence or the sort of pattern was there for us for the first half. I felt like this was most of what our exciting moments were when you talk about the crowd started in the sense that something might be on here. A lot of our building out of the back was pretty plotting and slow, but there were a few of these moments, these instant transition moments where we like won the ball right to a player in the center

of the field right in front of their back line that did feel dangerous. We didn't get a ton out of them, but that looks like something we can do against, you know, weaker sides. Yeah. Yeah, and I thought maybe that was

the key difference between how we played last night versus how we've played for the last few years is just the quickness of that transition. I could totally be, you know, imagining that. But it felt like it was a drilled thing or at least something that was on the player's minds

to just immediately just press the advantage as soon as there's a, as soon as there's a turnover. So I'd say the beauty of this is, you're allowed to just think that that's, even if it's not different, it's fun to be like, oh, this is different and more fun now. And it doesn't matter if you're wrong. You're still having more fun. Yeah. Well, then I'm just going to stick to it. Yeah.

It's totally different. Like you shouldn't try to like bust the bubble on any kind of sense or any illusion like that. If you're enjoying it, do not find a way to undermine your own enjoyment of it. Yeah, wise. I like it. Okay. Farina levels Pulisic in the 30th minute, knee to knee. I think it was maybe a clean tackle, but it was a little disappointed that there was like just no response from anybody.

I think Josh Sargent had a chance to stick a shoulder into Farina's chest. and say, hey, get off my guy. Nothing. Maybe Sergeant thought it was a clean tackle, too. Yeah, no one in there telling him to knock it off. Knock it off, buddy. Nice pass from Sergeant, from Busio to Sergeant in the 31st minute. Sergeant loses it.

So I actually thought Sergeant was pretty good on the night, but he wasn't, he was a mixed bag, too, just like everybody else, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, even Jedi, like, or as dangerous the Jedi was, We're still plenty. And this isn't really a Jedi problem. This is almost always like a symptom of the team issue. But like when we would be doing those buildups, there would be those times that look really reminiscent to our struggles.

From the past four years of, you know, Ream just hitting a predictable ball out to Jedi, Jedi getting it with Panama arriving and having no clear option and just sort of hitting it up the field into some window between the first two Panama defenders, but almost always, not almost always, but going to another Panama defender. I'm just being like, well, I guess that was the end of our buildup there.

We ran ourselves out of options. Yeah. That was going to be me saying Jedi was a mixed bag, but then I immediately am taking it back because that's not a Jedi problem, and Jedi was just phenomenal to watch. He is really good. 33rd minute, another little opportunity for Panama. Erringson gets tackled by Kataskiya,

just sort of put down. Martinez puts Guerrero in between Ream and McKenzie. McKenzie covers the angle really well here, I think, and Guerrero hits it off the side netting. But it's a good chance. It's a good chance for Panama. Excellent defending from McKenzie, though. Yeah, I thought this is one where McKenzie does.

I mean, he has to come over and clean this up. Again, there's always questions like, could Ream have defended it any differently or better? You don't love when a guy gets into that gap. And the question that's always going to surround Tim Ream is, would a quicker defender have, prevented it without needing the help from the other centerback. And I don't know that we're going to have an answer on today's podcast,

and I don't know that, again, I'm really curious where Potchino is going to, like, land with Tim Ream going forward because he is ancient, and the World Cup is still over a year, almost two years away. I mean, Potch made him the captain, and seems to like him. 34th minute Some good hold-up play from Sergeant He knocks down a goal kick with his head A Turner goal kick

Aronson races onto the second ball Plays it out to Pulisic Pulisic takes a shot from a pretty suboptimal angle Out wide right And it's blocked I just don't know I don't know what other options there were For him maybe he plays it inside to

Aronson making a run inside him I don't know Yeah it's either that or he poolsick past the defender Like he embarrasses a defender with a shimmy of some kind. Yet again, we have the slick sequences. We talked about a few of those. It does feel like more of our most exciting sequences

are these sort of direct ones, where we had the, whether it's the transition, and we'll get to a couple more of those, or whether it's, you know, this is a goal kick from Matt Turner. And when we get to the 94th minute, our goal comes off of a goal kick from Matt Turner. Maybe that's another difference is just the willingness to play direct.

Is that a difference? Probably not. Again, this would take some, this would take some digging. This would take like a lot of, we need stats. We need stats bomb out here charting our launches. Yeah. That's what I mean. It's tough to eyeball like the energy.

When you talk about we just had more fight, it's really tough to eyeball that aside from like, well, but we won this game. And we didn't win the last time we played Panama, so there must have been some more fight. Yeah. So Panama does attack the space behind Ream again. with Guerrero. He's offside, though. It gets a bit messy from us in the late 30s. There's like a sequence where there's a Morris giveaway than a Jedi giveaway. But Panama doesn't seem real serious about disciplining us at this point in the match. In the 39th minute, Pulisic wins it in the press, goes in behind somebody and taps it to Sergeant. Sargent gives it right

back. So this is transition, but it's also kind of slick interchange. Pulisic is striding forward, full head of steam. plays Aronson in the box. Aronson lines up the shot just as he enters the box and shoots. You can see the crowd behind the goal all rising to their feet. And it's just not a very good attempt to score. It's the shot. The shot is right at Muscarra pretty much chest high.

And it's saved pretty comfortably. Not comfortably enough, if I'm being honest. Like this is one that Muscaro will wish that he, because you don't get a ton of chances to, like, embarrass attackers as a goalkeeper. And this is one where with Brenda one-on-one and everyone being like, here it is, we're going to get our breakthrough. Like, that's how you feel watching it.

If you aren't familiar with Brenda's history in these situations. And then the shot that comes in is just a really weak, like, you can see, like when you can see gravity acting on the ball, because it's kind of that weakly hit and it just kind is already dropping. Like, that's not a good sign for somebody's shot. So Moscaro really needs to just catch this with. both hands and then just sort of stare down Brenda and be like, that's what you, that's what you brought.

So he'll wish, he'll wish that he had that one back. Maybe another touch to draw the keeper out or I don't know something else. Maybe fake like you're going far post and then just try to sneak it in at the near post. But, you know, scoring goals is hard. As Sergeant illustrates a few minutes later, 41 minute mark, Sergeant gets our best chance of the game so far. The ball is kind of sailed across the box by Pulisick on a free kick.

skips over to Busio. He tries to clip it in with his right foot, and it deflects straight to Sargent, kind of bouncing ball, unmarked, just outside the 6th, right in front of the Gold Mouth, takes it on the half folly with his left foot and just sends it over. Should have done better there.

It's a free take from just outside the 6. Yeah, I did the math. Sargent is in his championship, in his days with Norwich, I think in the championship. I guess I didn't even check to see if this extent. ended to the Premier League. He's pretty significantly overperforming his ghost stats for finishing. So I don't know that anyone would say sergeant's a bodler.

He doesn't even have that reputation. This is just a sometimes they miss moment. I agree. Yeah. And you see later in the game, he takes that shot with his left foot. And you see just how clean he can strike a ball. I mean, he absolutely lit that ball up, the one in the second half. where he cuts in, he shoots his left foot, draws a save down to Mosquetta's left.

Like, he can rip the cover off the ball when he strikes it. Yeah. So it's too bad he missed this chance, but I'm starting him on Tuesday night in Guadalajara, 100%. Katasquia shot from distance at the 44-minute mark after Ream heads across away. Some sense from the booth that Potch was Kyle Martino, thought Pach was irritated with how quickly our midfield was bypassed, the build up ahead of this? Yeah, so it's hard to tell from the broadcast

because sometimes you just don't get the angle you want. But it's Panama building out of the back and they have it back at their goalkeeper's feet and Kataskiah actually drops all the way back to almost the top of the box to get it. And Aidan Morris goes with him. So Aiden Morris is now way up on our forward line. And then when the keeper makes the pass beyond Morris,

he skips that line, there are just no other USA players in the vicinity where this camera starts to pass. hand with that pass as it moves up the field and you never actually get our back line into the frame. So Buzio was sort of staying with the backline. So somewhere somebody didn't stay connected. Either Morris shouldn't have gone with Karski of somebody else's job or everyone should

have moved up as Morris did in unison to compact that space instead of leaving that massive 45-yard gap. I see. Okay. So maybe what he wanted was everybody to stay tighter. I mean, yeah, for sure we need to stay tighter. The question is whether we needed to have stayed back or if the back line had needed to come up. Okay, that's halftime. If you want to listen to the SCuff podcast without advertisements, you know, join the Patreon, the links in the show notes.

We'll be back in a second. And we're back. And the first action of the second half will be the goal. It's in the 49th minute. Ream floats a ball down the line for Jedi. He does extremely well in tight quarters against Murillo, kind of cuts back and taps it to Pulisik in the half space, who receives it sort of standing up straight,

and plays a real quick and nice little one-two with Aronson. And I love the way the quickness of Pulisick's past Aronson just eludes the feat of the closing defender, because he doesn't have a ton of space here. And then Aronson receives it, kind of hesitates on the ball, stands up straight and then plays a slick little outside of the boot pass into Poolick's path as he runs to his left towards the end line. Pulisick first time whips it across the top of the six and Musa goes in past Blackman

just looks like a, you know, looks like a poacher with that run to get in there past Blackman and side foot follies it in on the leap. One zero, his first goal for the USA, big, big smile. everybody's happy for him, which is cool because he's not playing much at A.C. Milan lately. A fact, we've sort of glossed over on the Monday review because we've been spent so much time celebrating all of Pulisic's goals. But yeah, this is a great moment for him and for the national team.

It's an incredible moment. We always want to take the time to celebrate this stuff because it is so easy to get buried in the weeds of individual plays and individual footwork. And here, this is Moose's first goal for the national team. which is ridiculous actually No matter what role he's played for us I know he hasn't been like a key

Attacking third piece To not have poached anything against some of the teams we've played It's kind of wild So Pocciino first game Musa first goal Anything else that happens I'd be totally willing to call a wash This is awesome that this happened

And it's a very nicely worked goal Don't you think I mean, real good from everybody, Jedi, Pulisic, and Aronson. And Musa. I mean, yeah, like you said, this is a perfectly timed run, perfectly thought-out run, where he has the Panama player, I mean, the Panama player just loses track of him. He's got hips and eyes locked into the other side of the field the entire time. When he finally looks over, he isn't even able to see Musa because Musa already hasn't beaten.

and you actually just, he just knows that, oh, if I can't see him by looking over my left shoulder, that means he is now on my right side closer to the goal than I am, and I am in some trouble here. Yeah. So that moment of realization is always fun to see when you cause a defender, that moment of panic. And then he's just got to hope that the defender's just hoping the cross is close enough to the keeper that he's not the one who looks like a fool. But alas, perfect pass from Pulisic, great finish in the air from Musa. and we get this Moosa moment that we're all going to treasure for a long time. It is a trickier finish than it looks, I think, to jump up,

guided in with your in-step while you're in the air. You know, great players have sent that one over or off to the side or, you know, scuffed it down into the goalkeeper's, the frame of the goalkeeper's body. I think it's always important to, as lay people, to point out how tricky some of this stuff is for body control and things like that. This is a, I feel like this is a Tim Wea vintage finish. I feel like his first goal for the national team way back in 2018 was this kind of style where you jump off your right foot and then finish with your right foot in the leap.

So Musa, Musa has seen plenty of Tim Wea do this kind of thing, so you absorb it. He's definitely watched that 3-0 win over Bolivia in 2018 back. Moosa, that is. All right, 50th minute. Morris blows up, Barsanis in the middle, and Sergeant tracks it down running at the box, cuts in on his left in a somewhat labored fashion,

but then just blasts it with his left foot. I love the way he hits the ball like this, just leaps off his boot, and draws a pretty good save from Mosqueta. I mean, a save you expect him to make because it's close enough to him, but you see what. But I just, man, I really want Sargent to sort of consummate himself.

That's kind of a gross phrase, but consummate himself with the national team and really show what he can do. Because I think he is, he's going to help us a lot. And he just kind of needs to get over that hump of scoring a goal, basically. You know what's brilliant about this? If that ball had snuck in at the near post, it wasn't going to count anyway. I don't know, I feel like that kind of, it all happened. Really? But the save goes, like, tracks along the end line forever.

And then it goes right as it's crossing the line, AR puts the flag up. But the next thing that the camera cuts to is Panama taking like a restart from the six-yard box. Those flagged offside for Pool Sick being in the goalkeepers line at sight. Okay. Okay. Yeah, he was actually. He did get out of the way, but anyway. So anyway, just it would have been,

it would actually would have been almost incredible if Sergeant had gotten the goal, but then still not fully consummated. Yeah. You're not going to escape that one. That's going to now follow Sergeant around. Let's keep banging on about it. Two good saves from Turner in the 52nd minute

when we give up a couple chances almost immediately after our goal, which I think is a little troubling. They're pressing us, And Morrison Buccio kind of almost win it back two, three times. But everybody else is a little flat-footed. Martinez gets it past Buccio, plays Barsanus out to Scali's right. Barsinus cuts in on his right foot and goes far post.

He draws, I think, a really nice diving left-handed save from Turner. The rebound falls to Guerrero, his just arrives ahead of Jedi. I don't think Jedi really does anything wrong here. He tries to get in the way as fast as he can. control the trajectory of the rebound and then turn it denies that shot which is on the ground with his body diving to his left again so two real good chances for panama right off the bat feels like we're a little bit sleepy in this in this moment yeah a little bit sleepy i mean to be honest like a little bit soft and i'm a mark and boozy go down for it because uh it's that little

50 50 with it you wouldn't even call it a 50 50 because we have two guys you don't even call it a 50 50 because we have two guys coming for it and they only have one. So I can't do that kind of math. I'm very good at 50-50 math. But once you had a third, third body. Is that a 150? Three body problems are difficult. So this, this is coming in and it's like sliding across from Morris, the side who's on the left side of half, over to Busio on the, it's sliding on the floor. And Busio and Pulisick are both about to arrive at the same time as Martinez. Poolisick kind of jumps out of the way, but you expect that from Pulisick. You know, no offense to Poolsoc. sick.

Busio can't, right? Like, Busio can't back out of that challenge. Basically, McKenzie's, except in the midfield. So, that's how Martinez

just slips past, slips out of that double team, and is able to pick his head up and slide the ball into the, Barcanias' feet into the box. So, Bozio's got to blow this up.

It's on him. It's a miss from Busio. And then it's really nice from Barsanis to create the shooting window. I don't, I'm not too, like, Scali needs to do better there.

And it's also really nice from Barsanus to get the power on it that he does because in creating the window, he doesn't have much of a windup to work with here. No. He really smacks it pretty well. And it's a good save from Turner. Packeler again, coming up again, asked the question of whether Turner could have directed the rebound a little better.

And I would say, one, that's a fair question. Even like average goalkeepers that you have played with, Bells, if they've played enough goalkeeper, you can do that. Like you almost without even thinking about it. shape your rebound to where you want it. This just wasn't one of those moments. This was very much just like a strong paw moment where you just get your strong paw to it

and get the heel of your hand and almost like punch it. Because of the distance and the power coming on the shot, you just react to get your paw to it. And that's all I could do. The mistake you might see here is like somebody getting both hands and trying to catch it and then just sort of killing it right in front of the box

if they can't catch it clean. That'd be the ultimate mistakes. But there's not going to be any blame here on where the rebound goes from Turner. Okay, okay. Yeah, Pat Kieler, appreciate all the content you're providing to us today. 56 minute, Sergeant knocks down another long ball with his head. This one to Aronson. The goalie is, so this is like, it kind of loops up to Aronson in the box.

Mosquetta is out of the goal. sort of like doing a walkabout in the direction of where Sargent got the header. Aronson has, I don't know why he doesn't just take this on the volley, just side-footed in, you know, kind of arc it into the net. But he gets whistled, he ends up getting whistled for a handball trying to bring it down as, you know, two white shirts close in on him. But I thought this is actually a pretty sneaky, pretty good chance. Again, Sargent creating something by just being a big,

Handful, basically. Yeah, it's a sneaky good chance to punish a ridiculous Muscara mistake. I have no idea what he was doing. He ends up, like, out of the box on his follow-through run here, like entirely out of the 18. And was nowhere close to getting to the ball. So Sargent gets there comfortably first. He wasn't comfortable, but his challenge wasn't from Moscares. It's challenge was from the defenders, not Muscara.

So, yeah, Brenda just needs to find a way to, even a looping header here would be really tough for Panama to keep out of frame out of the goal. But like anything, any shot with his left foot with any kind of top spin at any part of the goal is basically a goal. And even if it weren't, you would at least be like, okay, well, he got the shot off rather than trying to collect it in a sea of bodies to then do what? You're the littlest brother on the team, buddy. Like, you want to move this ball quickly off your feet.

I've criticized Brenda a lot as I am wont to do, I suppose. But I do think, I would hope that he starts tomorrow against Mexico. He does bring a lot of that energy that we need and provide something in combination. Obviously, he did on the goal. 58 to 60 minute mark, a spell of pressure here from Panama. It kind of a set piece starts it. We just can't get them out of there. Several U.S. bodies thrown in front of shots.

I mean, there's probably like three or four shots in this two-minute period. I think this may have been what Pach was referring to in the press conference when he was responding in Spanish to Carlos Navaa from ESPN. Thank you to Sanjay Suj Tzu Jant Kumar, who has translated some of Potsch's Spanish comments for us. Here's what he said. Navar basically asked, what do you think of the game? What do you think of the performance? And this is Pash. I think we have shown that we know how to compete in all phases of the game.

there was a moment in the second half where we had to defend low and compete. We competed very well. I am very happy in that aspect. In general, like I said at the beginning in English, a professional performance where there was intensity and the ability of suffering together. I do think he noticed this passage of play, which was not positive from a sort of layman's perspective for us to be getting a little bit shelled like that. But for him, it was positive.

that we got into this situation where they're kind of parked in our defensive third for a while, and we did not let them get a shot on goal. I don't think they did get a shot on goal in here. It was just all the shots were blocked. Yeah, and that does matter. Like, we work constantly getting bodies in front of shooters. And sometimes that can not be enough. Like, you think of the Panama game in the Copa,

and like their first goal goes through Chris Richard's legs. Sometimes that can still happen. But it has been a bit of a hallmark of us is to just not have the number of bodies we should have in those moments. So yes, it is a step up just to have the bodies there. And the more you have, the more likely you are

to have that shot to get your guy and move away from the goal. Yeah. Yeah, I find that interesting. And I do, yeah, it's good. I'm learning from POTCH just like everyone else, I guess. So 63rd minute, nice work from Sergeant to carry and find Musa, who taps it into Busio, slip pass for Sergeant, his shot is deflected out of bounds for a corner. On the ensuing corner, this is when McKenzie gets up for it and gets slapped in the face by Mosquera,

as he nods it over the bar. And then we get some subs, 67th minute. Lund comes on for Jedi, get some well-deserved rest. Peppy comes on for Sergeant, Haji Wright comes on for Pulisic, and Tessman comes on for Busio. And the timeline slows down quite a bit here, or at least thins out.

But this is an important part of the game to note that when Hodge says that every game is the World Cup, he doesn't actually mean every game is the World Cup. You know, it's very much not the case. And I hope people didn't expect that that's what we were going to see. But it very much should be the case. that whether it's a friendly against Panama or a World Cup semifinal, if they have the ball at the end line and you're a center midfielder,

you don't stand 30 yards away and watch and see what happens. Like, if you're the center midfielder on the field, even though you wouldn't be the one who would play in the World Cup, you get back there and defend for your life. Yeah. You're talking about that sequence where everybody's throwing their faces, their bodies in front of it. Absolutely.

Yeah. Any sequence. Any sequence for eternity. Wedding. I keep thinking of the wedding cake. terminology, you know, your wedding cake in front of the goal, um,

as much as you can. I've even thought about using that with my, my U-5s, but I somehow don't know that it would hit home. Uh, 72 minute mark. Nice interchange from Tessman and Pepey. Uh, so Testament kind of wins a loose ball, plays it to Pepepepepepe, pepies it off.

And then Tessman plays a good ball in behind for Lund. Lund is whistled for offside, which is not true. He was not off-suff- side. But we were off to the races here. We had essentially a four on four with London behind the, running onto a ball behind the back line. It would have been fun to see what materialized there. Yeah, this was another one keyed by McKenzie. And he, again, he had quite a few of these where he's got it, you know, in the back line, and he finds Brenda in a pocket. And it's a really nice find. And he had a bunch of these where the rest of the sequence

was kind of let down by the attacking player he passed through and it basically happened again here too where he gets into Brendo and Brenda misses the initial layoff to Testman starts to try to turn outside to try to find Joe Scali overlapping which was not what Joe Scali was doing today and he actually gets it tackled but the tackle from Brenda put the ball right

into Testman's lap which is what the Brenda should have sort of done anyway. So it's really it turns into the pattern we wanted just Brenda having a tackle. I'm not coming down on Brenda for this. It's just something that happened. But anyway, the Testman to Pepec combination, very nicely executed and a really good left-footed ball from Testament that just looks effortless to put Lund in all that space. And Lund, this is on Lund for going to beat early, because he didn't need to. He had so much room to get past the actual

defender on his side. And he had the centerback for Panama, who was deeper, like giving him that advantage and he just tried to cheat it a little bit too much a little too early. And I don't really fault Lund for not having the attacker brain to like curl your run out slightly to the sideline to delay that vertical movement to keep yourself on side. I think he was on side and it was just a bad, a bad flag. But, you know, it's not that big of a deal. They're not going to do VAR or anything. So Tillman comes on for Aronson, 78th minute.

and Zendahas for Musa in this 85th minute. And then in the 87th minute we get that big, big chance for Panama. Boy, the narrative would be different if Fajardo had put this away. Murillo just gets it. I mean, I think we're in pretty good shape defensively. Everybody's sort of where they should be. Murillo's got it over on the right sideline, and he just plays an absolute dime, curls it in from the right side for Fajardo behind McKenzie.

Jose Fajardo had subbed on for Geredo, and Fahardo just messes it up. I mean, he slides at it. Martino didn't think he needed to slide. I don't know if that's true or not, but he slides and drags it wide with his left foot. He's right in front of goal as the whole frame of the goal to shoot at.

McKenzie was beaten. But yeah, what a ball from him. Maria. Would have beat anybody? I don't really fault McKenzie. No, I don't either. Like, you can watch it back in super slow motion and check all of the footwork and be like, maybe, as this guy's about to hit his pass from the sideline, I mean, he's 50 yards away from goal on the sideline. Maybe McKenzie could have used his movement to get closer to body up the runner rather than try to take a an angle on the trajectory of the ball, but I don't know.

You're really kind of nitpicking. It is. It's just a beautiful curling ball that finds us way behind our centerback. You know, even setting this moment aside, there was, like I said earlier, some of that frantic seeing out the game quality in this game that we, I think, I, at least I got used to under Burrhalter. and it just doesn't feel like we Potch kept calling a professional performance

which I guess depending on what that means I guess I agree but if it means like an assured sort of seeing out of a victory like seeing out of a one zero lead I don't agree because we we were just white knuckling it there for a while against Panama at home

and I guess that's just not something that's going to get fixed overnight Yeah, and I think what Posh would say is you hope we don't do this constantly against like a Panama level team, but that the white knuckling is part of the professionalism. Like when they say you're going to suffer, you're going to have a couple of minutes where you're forced to do this in any meaningful game. You're trying to maintain a lead. Or, you know, against some teams, we'd be happy to be doing this at zero zero to try to see out a draw, you know, for a result. this is part of what you have to do as a team

and that suffering is part of the professional professional performance. This one, again, I know we Zeprootered McKenzie on it. The mistake is probably honestly between London, the midfield. So the backline and the midfield ahead of time where it's 86 minute. I think our tendency as Panama was able to pick their head up for the backline was to kind of drop deep. And the midfield didn't really go with him.

So Morris is kind of stuck in no man's land as this ball finds that player on the sideline. And Lund is nowhere close to him. Whereas if we had stayed compact as a unit again, Lund probably would have been there to meet that player as he's receiving the ball and he never gets to pick his head up and find his runner. So while McKenzie ends up the one who's going to have the most questions asked, this is really one domino earlier is where we got to fix this. It's a compactness of shape problem, basically.

Which you did see Potch doing a lot of this, you know, putting it... The accordion. Yeah. Yeah, that's the accordion. Okay, he's doing a lot of the accordion. And then 93rd minute, so the last minute of stoppage time, we get the second goal. That makes the scoreline look, I think, quite a bit better than the game was for the USA. Turner free kick from Real Deep after Lund suffers a foul from Maria.

He floats it upfield. Tillman wins it. So Tillman wins it in the air with his head or maybe his shoulder. It kind of pops up. He's the first one to realize it's right there. He gathers it and then plays Hajjee right in, you know, kind of darting in from the left side line. And right just first time zips it across the penalty area for Pepe. He slots it through Mosqueda's legs.

Rikishase up into the net, but it's good. 2-0. USA. Kind of a weird moment? I mean, a weird sequence, just kind of bang, bang. But well done. Yeah, I mean, you're always looking for these when you're up one zero late in a game where you can catch the other team out. It is, what's weird about it is it's a goal kick.

So it's not like Panama had just attacked and now we can catch them on the fly going the other way. But it is, it functionally works the same. We just caught them in this little moment of uncertainty as Malik challenges for the first ball. And Haji isn't waiting to see what happens. he's just racing behind. And so great work from Malik, great weighted pass to lead him,

and really good from Haji to hit that first time. And Pepe knew where he was going to. He got behind the back line to the point where you might think he's offside, but he's well behind the ball. So we left, we basically left Panama, no plays to make. There was no last ditch defending than anyone's going to be able to do. And that was, that's pretty good ruthlessness for me in the 94th minute. You all, you want, you, you got to do that.

I don't care that it's like you don't, you shouldn't be embarrassed about it taking 94 minutes to finish the game off. You finish the game off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a great, you're right, it's a great ball from Malik and a great ball from Haji. I think the surprise and what catches Panama so off guard is the way that first ball just kind of dies right next to Malik. Yes. And then he, and then he's like, oh, here it is. And then it kind of takes everyone by surprise and creates that moment of uncertainty.

Awesome. Happy, too. Like, again, you don't want to short change the celebration here because he's in Texas. He's scoring again. He's got plenty of these now on his resume, these late goals coming off the bench for the U.S. And I doubt Potch is the kind of guy who's like, well, he gets the goal. He moves up in the pecking order. Like, he'll look at full performances from all of his guys.

But it's just, again, just a great moment for Ricardo. So that's 11 goals are the U.S. player for Ricardo Pepe. And that puts him 21st all time, tied with Chris Wondelowski and Brian Ching and Jordan Morris and a few others. And one goal behind Clint Mathis. Nice. Four goals behind Jesus Ferreira, his former team in Dallas. Dallas Connection. Those Texas boys.

So, I mean, what's Pepe now? He's not even 30 yet, is he? he is he's a 203 so he's 21 so yeah so he'll probably have some some games left where he'll jump some of these guys he's tied with I would think he'll end up in the top 10 quite easily to get to the top 10 he needs seven more goals okay it's just it's awesome again he's a 21 year old I know there are people who are super invested in whether he's above sergeant or whether he should be starting whatever and more more power to you I just love that he's here available, and he's 21.

So presumably there's plenty left in his tank, both in his club career and his national team career. And it's just going to be awesome to see how Potch rates these guys and how he decides to use them and how they perform. Potch was stoked about the goal. He celebrated the second goal a lot more vigorously than the first. So before we get out of here, Let's do some lineups for tomorrow.

Oh, man. For Tuesday. Just make it up as you go along. No, I'm just laughing because, again, we're so patched together now with Poulson going home, McKinney going home. Like, the hope was McKinney was kept out as precaution for that game and that he would get to play the Mexico game a little bit. And instead, quite not at all. Like, nope, we're just going to say nuts to this. Off he goes.

So it is very. Well, Koch doesn't respect Mexico at all. that's pretty clear. I mean, it's going to be Sergeant, well, we should start in the back, of course. I think we run it back. We do exactly the same back for as we did against Panama.

I would take it. It is a quick turnaround time. That was something that was immediate, like as soon as I should release the matches, you're like, oh, we're doing Saturday, Tuesday instead of like a Thursday, Tuesday. So there's a little bit of that going on. And obviously, Potch is willing to factor in the effect on players

and how we want to send them back to their clubs. I think he explicitly said that. He wants to send them back to their clubs as good as we got them. Yeah. I mean, look, if it's going to be Miles Robinson over, I think I'd like to see McKenzie again. If we go Miles Robinson over Ream, I'm fine with it. But I think we've got to build on what we're getting with.

with McKenzie. I thought he had a pretty good game. You know, he didn't run himself ragged or anything. Yeah, I think that's what I'd like to see too. And I wouldn't hate seeing trustee either, just because it would be fun to watch him play. But I would like to see McKenzie again, because, again, McKenzie's only of those guys that I consider like a passer. Miles is decent. He's not nothing, but McKenzie seems like right, left foot, super versatile. so I want McKenzie and then I would like to actually flip from Ream. I know, like, it's hard to say that because I just adore Tim Ream and what he's, what he's doing for us and what he did for us in the World Cup.

But I do want some minutes with some non-timene pairings. I just think that's going to be important. You mean partly just when it comes to like succession planning. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be this window. Like, it doesn't even have to be this year.

but it's going to happen. Like, it just is going to happen. And I don't think that it'd be different if all the other guys have just been, have been, had gotten looks and have been shambolic. But I think it's early enough in Potch's era, and even going back from Burrhalters, it hasn't been where it's, it's just been nonstop shambles from all these guys. So see what they do.

See if the drop off is significant. And if it's not, maybe it's time to think about that retirement package for Tim Riem. So maybe it's Miles in the McKenzie roll from last from Saturday night and then McKenzie in the ream roll. So you have him as the sort of the left centerback in possession. I'd take that because I'd want to see McKenzie in that spot because that will be a, that will open up a lot more doors for us if McKenzie can be a good passer from his left, from his left foot.

If you're just saying what would be best for McKenzie, It would probably still be him in his right-footed spot. I imagine. I think he'd... Yeah, you know, I think that's right. But he does have a good left foot. So, I mean... A ton of his good passes yesterday were with his left foot.

So then I assume you've got Turner and goal again? Give you Turner or Schulte. I'm fine with either. It doesn't matter. Okay. I mean, I think Turner's still our number one, but it's a friendly, and Schulte's a good passer.

I don't know what our passing appetite is going to be in this match, but... Yeah. we didn't get much out of Turner in terms of passing. We asked him to. We gave him the ball and he stood on it while Panama kind of crept up on us and his early options were taken away and he still tried to hit a pass in the midrange. And I think that's to tell, right?

If the instruction was like, no, no faffing about from you, Matt Turner. If you don't have McKenzie or Ream or Scali is one of your easy options uncontested, you launched this thing and that's not what we were doing so we were asking him to play or at least we didn't explicitly tell him not to play. Yeah.

Okay. So in the midfield I've got I'm running it back with Busio, Morris, and Musa. I know Musa wasn't a midfielder per se in this game

but but he's ready to do it now? Yeah, I think so. I think I'm good with that Except I think I'm going, I want to get Malik in this game. And so I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with Musa. I'm going to go Musa and then pick one, pick any midfielder to run next to him in like a pivot.

And then I'm actually going Brenda again as the center sort of attacking me. Okay. I love that you're like writing this down earnestly. Like, okay, Greg says, Brenda. I remember that. Well, I don't think there's that much difference between what we're choosing here. I guess if it's a 4-2-3-1, I'm going to have Buccio, Morris as a double pivot, Musa, I guess, out on the right wing,

Aronson in the middle, and then Tillman on the left wing. Okay, there you go. And then Sergeant up top. All right. I got Haji, Sergeant, and Malik is sort of my attacking guys, with Brenda as my attacking. Okay. And for people listening, he didn't write down any of my other things. It's just as soon as I said, Brenda, he was like, hmm, and he like,

I actually didn't write. He got this face. He didn't write that down either. I got this disapproving face and just started writing down furiously like, Brendo. So you're not imagining, you're not imagining this vendetta that Bels has against Brendo. It's real. I didn't write any of that down, actually. It's just Bells. Everyone else loves Brendo in this podcast and thinks he should be playing more.

But Bells in particular, just wants to see a struggle. Just call him balls and strikes, my friends. I'm just calling balls and strikes. Leak Sergeant Haji, I feel like, I feel like that group can, can run in Mexico City. Malik, Malik's finding Sargent for at least one goal tomorrow night. I hope so.

Again, I thought this could be the Malik party, this window. And he was involved, heavily involved in that peppy goal. But he wasn't great before that. Yeah, yeah. Nobody was great. The game was a mess then. Yes, yes. I guess I'm much more forgiving with Malik than I am with Brenda.

But, um, all right. All right, let's get out of here. Thanks everybody for listening. We appreciate that. We'll see you.