Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #551: USMNT v Jamaica recap, St. Louis edition

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Greg and Belz talk through a very fun-to-watch match in St. Louis. 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. Easily the most fun I've had watching a USA game since we paddled Panama and Orlando back in early 2022. Greg, how you doing? Bells, I'm doing great. Fun is just fun, isn't it? And the one thing that I really think that the Pachitino hire has done is, well, it's done a lot of things. But one thing that has definitely done. I think more people are allowing themselves to have fun when we're going.

when we beat a bad team? I think that's true. A bad team that maybe wasn't even trying that hard. But you don't have to care. Like you don't have to care that they're bad. You can just, you can just be like, it was fun to see our boys do that and not be like,

but what does it mean or what's the big takeaway? Or will we be able to beat Columbia in a knockout match and then find yourself not getting to the knockout match to play Columbia? So this is just, this was just fun. We got some fun kids out there and they're doing some fun things. Yeah. And interesting and interesting things too.

I do kind of want to take all the wet blankets and throw them in the washing machine. Maybe throw some lemon scented detergent in there and then dry them and make them all cozy. But I mean, we should probably acknowledge right off the bat. Jamaica wasn't very good. They weren't putting a lot of pressure on us and like really anywhere on the field. So wet blankets gone? Fair enough? I'm not here wet blanketing anything.

I mean, Tim Wea is back. Tim Wea, who I consider the most aesthetically pleasing player in U.S. men's national team history is fun all by himself. And we got to see that right away that Tim Wea and Sergino Destwell, we've dubbed them the fun side. Tim Wea is fun no matter what he is. He is the fun no matter where he is. The last time I really enjoyed watching the team play in a sense of like, oh, this is really fun. would have been Tim Wayas' last full match for the U.S., which was Bolivia,

and then the Brazil friendly right before that. Those games, I had fun watching those games, and I really think Timwaya is a huge part of how aesthetically enjoyable the U.S. men's national team in. He can't he? Oh, my days. A couple of different ways. There's probably more than two, but let's do the lineups,

and then maybe some, like, sort of big picture stuff, and then we'll do the timeline. I think it'll be heavily weighted towards the first half. as it should be. Line up is Matt Turner and goal. Joe Scally, Mark McKenzie, Tim Riem, and Jedi across the back line, Tesman, Tanner Tesman,

and Weston McKinney, and Christian Pulisick in the midfield, I think, nominally at least. I mean, the shapes were all, shape is like a whole 30-minute discussion here today, but then Musa and Wea on the wings and Ricardo Pepey up top. I mean, some interesting things here.

I think, well, the most interesting thing is way on the left. Well, so the formation graphic drops, and it's definitely pool sick showing as the 10. And so that's where I think everyone's eyes were going, right, you know, right at kickoff. It's like, okay, is pool sick really the 10? Because we've got this, we've got Musa McKinney and Tessman out there, three midfielders. Surely this is the game that Musa slides in and McKenney is advanced and Pulisick and Way are the wings. But that wasn't the case. Musa definitely is staying on the right. But more importantly, and within 20 seconds, you were starting to try to watch for the shape of the front four.

And then instead what you see is Jedi Robinson trot into the double pivot. The Jedi inversion. And instantly, you're just going, oh my God, Nick Lima is back. But in left form. So it was, I mean, that was the dominant wrinkle, which got all the attention and should. Because it's just crazy. Like, that is never the strength that anyone associates with Jedi is like, get him into the midfield so we can build our possession through him at the earliest phase.

Yeah, yeah. And it was his underlapping runs from that more central position that were the sort of the surprise body blows that Jamaica couldn't fend off, you know? I mean, it was just like they couldn't, they couldn't figure it out. Unless they have invested heavily in their own drone program. They did not see this coming. Like no one was thinking, what we're going to get here is Jedi moving into the middle. And this is great, right? Because again, we've already talked about the fun side and how that had been a staple of Wea and Dest on the right in the last administration. And quite frankly, like as much as Pulcic was our best player and showed up in big moments, like there was sort of the feeling in lots of games that Pulisick and Jedi

were kind of underachieving, not really getting getting things cook in the way we wish they could have given their relative stature within the player pool. And, And so this game was so interesting because right away, Jedi goes into the middle and you have Wea on the left and Pulisik, you know, nominally central. But really then what you have is Pulisic and Wea doing fun side of the stuff on the left with Jedi sort of joining in from this deep central role. And that was really interesting. I mean, I mean, interesting and entertaining is all hell. The interchange was fun, right? So you're watching it and you're thinking, okay, if Jedi goes into the middle and adopts this, you know, left side of Nick Lima, which is, I think what everyone was.

was referring to it as because it definitely is just a left side of Nick Lima. What's going to be our width, right? So Timwaya, I think, is right at home there, but it wasn't always him. So it might have been Wea sometimes dropping down the left side line, but sometimes Pulisic would just flare back and out. And he would collect the ball in sort of that left wing back spot. And Wea would stay high. So there was a lot of unpredictability, and I think Jamaica were absolutely bamboozled.

by it. Yeah, totally. I mean, there was so much fluidity. It was, I guess, I guess we're into the shape, so let's keep talking about the shape. I noticed Musa, you know, Musa was wide, right, just like Waya was wide left. But sometimes Musa would drop into that back three instead of Scali, and Scali would go forward. And, I mean, McKinney was flaring deep and wide. Like he said, Pulisick was flaring deep and wide on occasion. I mean, McKinney and Pulisick basically didn't have positions in possession. They just went wherever they wanted to. So yeah, it was really interesting.

All the interchange, all the, all the, like, it was hard to put a number on our possession shape, like a number formation to it. I mean, I think it was a three to five, basically. But it morphed into different things, you know, almost every other time we got the ball. I would push back against the three just because, because of what Scali was doing. Like, again, he's been a stay-at-home right back, so I think there's going to be a a poll to, like, say that he's still this, but he was definitely not in this game. I mean, he was, he was immediately getting way wide and getting higher than Ream and McKenzie.

And, and then again, like you said, at times, pistoning with Musa. And that was a big, that was a big, uh, development because all this time, you know, we're watching Scali, but what we're really thinking is like, what Serginio Dest going to do when he comes back? And is he going to really be a stay at home right back? And this was, uh, even in the way, like, I think Scali was getting into some advanced positions. But this was like definitely him being a more traditional fullback. So you could absolutely take a comp of Joe Scali from this from both legs and just put Serginio Dest in that spot and be like,

okay, this would, Serginio Dest is going to be able to do some things here. He's not going to be totally wasted. It's just like sitting in the back line as a de facto centerback in possession. Potch was asked about why he did that. Why did he put Jedi as a, you know, sort of a nominal six in possession and was it more to get Pulisick on the ball? And he was just totally cagey about it. Like he didn't answer the question at all. He said, we're going to test a lot of different things. Next camp, we're going to test some other things.

So it's just like he's not given anything away on that front. But it was obvious to everybody watch the game. And it was pretty cool to see that. Yeah. And again, what you can absolutely see like, you could see us flipping this on this, you know, vertical axis in March and saying, okay, if Potch will do this with Jedi with it in one camp and put Jedi into the middle like this, surely he'd be willing to do this with Dest. So Desk could do the exact job Jedi just did and Jedi could just do the exact job Scali just

did just on the left side. And so, yeah, I mean, I think our personnel is going to give him a lot of tools and flexibility and I'm really excited to see what his ideas are, all while Timuea is doing really aesthetically beautiful things. Yeah. He, another thing on Timwaya is Potch talking about the dominant eye. And they were talking about on the broadcast and I was like,

what are they talking about? And then I guess I saw the, the press conference afterwards. And let me just play a clip where he kind of explained, Potch kind of explains what he's saying about the, do you know what I'm talking about this whole dominant eye thing? The ocular dominance, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I don't. I heard them talk about it. Yeah. I mean, it's basically just the idea that you're, well, I'll just let Potts. explain. How about that? Simple like this, we have one ice that always is a dominant ice, no? You have one. I don't know, it's left or right. We need to, maybe to check. It's easy to check. But, you know, I see it's important for us with Jesus always we work in this way,

to trying to find, you know, sometimes we say, oh, some player in some go natural and go in some, you know, left or right, because it's a dominant ice that brings you in a position to feel comfortable with the ball. If you are an offensive player or defensive player, if you know how you defend, your body shape. Always, we try to check. I literally had never thought of that before in soccer, but I'm glad I'm thinking, I'm glad I'm thinking about it now. Yeah, I mean, it was brought to the national tension in the famous documentary Zoolander back in the early 2000s where it can prevent somebody from being able to do things left and right at the same level

of quality. So I imagine Pach is just saying that Timwaya will be able to be better on the left side because of this ocular dominance. But we've seen Timwaya succeed on either side. It is interesting because Timway, for me, sort of announced himself for the national team against Jamaica

in World Cup qualifying in the home match, coming off the bench on that left side and just carved him up. Like he had maybe 20 minutes and he created like five outrageous chances. So it was fun to see it because we haven't seen him do too much on the left side since then. It was always pool sick sort of was planted on that left side.

And the way it was always the other. So this was just really fun to see him be able to cut in and have that right foot available to smash balls whenever he wants. Yeah. Yep. So let's get to the timeline because that's the first item is him cutting in. He hits the post in around the three minute mark. I mean, there's a ton of fun stuff in this first half. We just, we got chance after chance after chance.

But this one is a simple pass from Tim Riem to Pulisic, who is checking down the sideline deeper than Wea, like we talked about a little bit earlier. Jedi is in his more central spot. Pulisic receives it, turns, taps it up the line to Wea, and Jedi makes the run that creates the chance. He's underlapping, I guess you'd call it. And Wea cross it into his path, very aesthetic, aesthetically pleasing, and then darting. set the goal as he does. Jedi gives him a good return pass in stride, way it dribbles past the closing

defender on his left and slides to catch a good hit that pings off the inner curve of the post back across to face a goal. I mean, McKinney recovers it in the corner, but, you know, an inch further in and it's a goal. It's very, very close. I do, it's a really nice sequence keyed by the Jedi inversion, I do notice that Tyreek McGee, the Colorado Springs switchback player, who is, I think, you know, repeatedly responsible for tracking Jedi, just has so little interest in doing it, you know. What's the, uh, on the pyramid, where does, where does fulmsit relative to Colorado switchbacks? How many places?

Oh, brother. That's a, that's a tricky one. Uh, four, four pyramid levels. I don't know. It's gorgeous. And again, it's not even just the X's a nose that you can drop me. Like, okay, the pass went here, the past went here, and then, you know, the run went here. Again, it's so much of Tim Weas, the way he just shapes his body.

And so this ball that he receives a simple ball at the line from Christian Pulisic, to find Jedi as Jedi slash into the scene, he just does it in a gorgeous way, right? It's a little croif, but then more than that, it's the croifing as a defender arrives, and then just the absolute burst to curl around that defender to then beat him to the inside for the return pass from Jedi. It gives Jedi a ton of room to put the ball.

And then Jedi does a really nice job too to work off his pass. So now we've got a two-on-one on the edge. And Wea could slip Jedi in, but instead just absorbs that contact, like doesn't really phase him at all. In fact, almost like by the guy bumping into him, the way-way absorbs it creates even more of a window

for him to shoot. He manages to, like, create separation off of the bump. And, yeah, it's just, it's just so pretty, so pretty. Yeah, nearly, nearly a goal. Gwaya scuffs a chance a few minutes later at the eight-minute mark, it's, well, I'll let you talk about it a little bit, but McKenzie plays it to Musa. Scali overlaps.

So, Musa over on the right sideline. And Musa just whips one in. It kind of ricochets off Pepe's hip. in a bit of a tight spot with a couple of defenders on either side, and it falls to Weaa, free on the backpost, bouncing, and he just miss hits it, scuffs it off frame. Yeah, and you really like Wea in this situation to have the technique to do better with this.

So, yeah, I don't know. It's okay. It's fine. It's going to happen sometimes, but normally this is a sure goal. Now, what this highlights, this is some great foreshadowing. Moussa hits the wrong cross. Pulisic and Pepec are both in the box, and they are both accounted for with two and a half Jamaica players.

You've got the two centerbacks, or I'm sorry, you've got the centerback and the weak side fullback. And then you also have a midfielder who's kind of, you know, wedding-kaking to disrupt from above. And Tim Way is totally free. So this should be the crossover everybody. Musa will fix this later in the game. Yeah.

but we have a chance to fix it like moments later because Wayas shot is scuffed, but Jamaica only cleared out to Tessman and McKenny. I'm sorry, Testament and Jedi, the double pivot that everyone expected. And it gets fed right back out to the right side to Scali. And you can see, again, Jamaica are just totally lost here in their transition. As the ball's kind of going between our pivot, Pulisick is free because, you know, the Jamaica defender had moved out to Way after the shot attempt. As it goes out there, the Jamaica player defender is like, oh, no, I can't stay with Timway on the weak side.

I've got to go to Christian Pulisick in the middle of the box. So he goes there. And now, once again, as that ball goes out to Scali, Tim Wea totally free on the back post. And Scali crosses it to the wrong player. He crosses it to, you know, five foot six Christian Pulisic instead of floating it over everybody for Timway to have another chance of to volley. Yeah. Yeah, and Jamaica never, you know, sort of this. I don't know how they would have or what.

like what the exact problem is, but they just could not, they didn't have enough bodies on that left side of ours. Yeah, they just, I mean, their organization is just not great. Okay, so, uh, just going to note this real quick. The 11th minute, we have this competent, but, you know, not quite champagne sequence of passing from Turner to Musa to Musa to Tassman to Wea, and then Wea and Pulisic move it up to the corner. Pulisic's got in the corner, and then they bring it back to Jedi without losing possession.

and Pocitino was just clapping on the sideline. He was very, very pleased with the, I guess, the bravery, the ball retention, the sort of sense of responsibility shown by everybody. We kept the ball. It didn't lead to anything, but yeah, it was good. I mean, it eventually leads to Pulisic, taking a guy on and cooking him and then losing it to the next defender coming up at the edge of Jamaica's box. Okay.

But yeah, there absolutely is just a general quickness to the way we're playing. And I thought that was evident even in the away leg. It couldn't lead to very much in the away leg because even with that sort of quick play, eventually the ground eats you up and the field just says no more. You can't keep doing this. But I do think there's like a level of trust in our players,

which comes from, it all comes from their movement. It all comes from the movement and the readiness and players being available early in predictable ways. So that as the ball's arriving, You know the guy next to you is going to be in the right spot, and you don't have to stare him down or, like, confirm that he's there. You can just sort of play the soccer that you understand should be played. This is Potch, right?

I mean, how does Potch get it out of the players when, or Haldor couldn't, or at least not on the same level? So I would assume that it's an emphasis. It's what you're emphasizing, right? So whatever Potch is emphasizing in their time, training over a tiny amount of time is getting guys into closer spaces, closer proximity, more, again, more predictable passing lanes sooner. And then giving guys on the ball, like, I don't know if it's just the confidence or the,

again, like the trust to be like, no, you're good, make this pass. Like, don't wait to see if it's there and be super safe. You have to make the pass or we can't play this way. And it remains to be seen whether this is also just sort of a bit of a mirage because Jamaica are, you know, not very good. Or if we really are going to be better at this in meaningful, against meaningful competition. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, Pulisic, I noticed after the game in his post-game interview, he was much more,

he praised much more the win away than the win last night, even though it was a fun game to watch. He said, you know, I'm happy that we won that game down in Kingston. We showed a great mentality. It's good to get, he said essentially, it's good to get a nice win here. But I think the translation is like, this is what we always do. You know, we always beat Jamaica on a nice field somewhere in the Midwest. But, or Texas, or Texas.

So to him it didn't feel like that. I think it was pretty clear in what he was saying. It's not that big of a deal for us to win this game. The one that he was paying attention to was the one down in Jamaica. I don't know. For our players, I think that should scan, right? I mean, that has been the elusive accomplishment, the outcome that we just haven't been able to pull off. Again, as far as like medium, long-term takeaways, we aren't going to have to win a game on a field like that in the World Cup in 2026 on the West Coast.

We're going to need to play good, I mean, good effective soccer on really nice fields with a lot of good space to play on. but against good teams as we go farther into the tournament. Yeah, are we going to have to play any games on bad fields between now and the World Cup now? I guess Nations League probably kicks back up again after the Gold Cup. Yeah, we're going to be, we should be spoiled for surface here. We should be able to play. We should have the ball roll where we want it to roll. And so hopefully it's more of this kind of soccer, even in the, in the,

semis and hopefully final in March. Yeah. All right. So 11 minute mark. I just noticed a McKenzie foul on Nicholson in transition. I just want to note it because he's under the microscope. Mark is as a, you know, as I think a centerback who's pushing his way into the, you know,

into maybe like a starting role regularly. He's at least pushing against Richards. Maybe he's already surpassed Richards in the depth. chart. I don't know that he had a fantastic game last night, but this was one of the good things, a low-cost foul to kill a possible counterattack. Good to see it. Love it. Yep. Love a, clumsy. It's not even clumsy. I mean, he just kind of steps on the guy and says, nope, you're not, you're not going to keep playing soccer. Right, right. And then we come to the goal, the first goal. 13-minute mark. It's just lovely stuff all around. We're dealing with a little danger down on our end.

Leon Bailey gets a cutback in the box and slips. I think it was his second slip of the game at that point. Ream steps in. Musa taps it to Wea at the top of our box, who sends Pulisic up the gut. He's dribbling forward in transition, but getting closed down from both sides in the center circle. So he steps on the ball,

halts his progress, taps it backwards to Wea, and then kind of backwards and to the left to Wea. And then Wea hits this like just gorgeously shaped cross-field switch. to Wes. I mean, curves it. It's like curving right into Wes's path. Kind of took Wes by surprise the trajectory of it.

I think he's like, you could sort of see in his body language, he was like, oh, no, I'm not going to get to this. And then he realized, oh, yeah, I'm definitely getting to this. Then Musa drags, you know, does a dragging run to the right sideline, which I think gives Wes a little bit of space

to sort of set up. And Pepe is also dragging centerbacks that way with his run. So Poulosik, after playing that pass to Wea, he finds himself running straight up the gut and he's got a free run into the box. Like there's nobody marking him. And Wes curls it for him. It's a pretty lofted cross, but it's a really nice pass right into his path.

Pulisic meets it on the half folly just as Blake arrives and he just kind of strokes it far corner with that left in-step. Very deft finish and a good pass from West too. Yeah, and again, we have Jamaica totally bamboozled. They have too many guys float out to the ball and sort of flow that way and just no accounting for Poulsick on the backside. Andre Blake makes, it seems like, a business decision here. That was the one thing I was most thankful about

was that he did not just come out in a wrecked Christian Pulsick. He stops short and just sort of like waits to see if the ball will hit him. And again, like, we've seen Pool Six sacrifice himself more than once. So I was sure there was going to be that full collision where somebody ends up with a broken occipital. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't even think of that. It's, yeah, I'm glad he didn't do it too. But this was, it was a great transition moment for us, right?

And so this has to be an area that we get better at, both in our execution and our willingness. and we were so willing to do it. So the quick pass from Musa, and then that really good pass from, I'm sorry, the quick pass from Musa to Wea at the top of our own box on the recovery. And then that really, like, without thinking about it, waya just hits the ball, the pool stick in the pocket.

Waya didn't have to play it upfield there. He had, the pass from Musa to Way at the top of the box freed us from any pressure. And Wea could have just sort of dribbled into space, and then like calm down, we've got it. We can now relax. Instead, he hits it up to Pool Sick, which basically forces the issue.

I mean, we're not going to lose it there, but Poulosick is now receiving it in a pocket where we now have to all move forward to keep the options alive for Poulsick. So just those kinds of like rapid decisions to force the issue for me are a good sign for this team. Yeah, and then you know when Poulosick gets the ball in the middle field, he's going forward. Like that's just what he does. Yeah, and again, way I could have hit that ball to Poulcic and then just stopped him. Like, okay, Christian can go. and he could have been done with his, but he doesn't. He comes up and joins it and starts to almost get past him for Pool Six to hit that option to him.

And then, of course, beautiful from Timway. He makes his body like an extension of the ball and curves his right foot into the, everything is just somehow curving to impart that English. So much English. And we just love it. He's like, I can do a little parlor trick here while I get this ball to my teammate. Yeah, it's such a perfect, perfect ball. he did have a giveaway in the 23rd minute on a back pass to Anthony

that leads eventually to a little chance for Nicholson on a nice long ball from Bailey covered fairly well by McKenzie Turner deals with the shot pretty easily too I think but you know there was that yeah and it's Jamaica's first shot of the game and it is enough to be like I don't want them to get this kind of a shot this easily and McKenzie disrupts it but they get

the shot, right? I mean, if the guy hits, we've seen, we've seen Trinidad smash this in, we've seen Jamaica smash these in, I don't love, I mean, you're going to give up some chances over 90 minutes, but, uh, I want, I want a little bit, I want a little bit more from Ream and McKenzie. I'm going to be super greedy and just be like, no, they can't just let this guy get behind them and then have to make a play from, you know, chasing him down in the box. Yeah. Yeah, and it got worse in the second half. and Potch had some critique of that, I think.

We get two big chances. I mean, one of them, one of them, no. Yeah, too. Sorry. We get two big chances in the 24th and 25th minutes. So once for, well, they're both for Pepey, I guess. But, no, once for Pepey, once for Pulisic. He gets fed a little bit of a heavy ball by Jedi in a little transition moment.

Waya gets dispossessed just inside Jamaica's half and kind of sat down but the ball is over by the sideline but the ball just stays there and Pulisic darts in and scoops it and sends Jedi free into the box he tries to play Pepey in but it's just a little bit ahead of him

maybe Pepe could shape his run more directly to the ball I don't know but Blake collected it Well Pepe gets there right it's a shot from Pepe so Pepe does get there before Blake and he gets a poke It's just that because it's that far ahead of him, Blake is arriving right there. And it would have taken a really nice finish if it was possible at all to give it a little. Yeah, he pokes it.

Oh, does he? Okay. He's just 2330? Yep, it's a great save. And it's just we got it. He just didn't find the trajectory to dink it over the sliding Blake. Okay. So maybe the past wasn't heavy.

I'm just making stuff up over here. I mean, it's both, right? And I don't know how much Ruby had to take to not hit it that heavy. I think he probably could have. But by hitting it heavy, he lets, he makes it so that Pepe doesn't have to run out to the sideline to receive it. So he gets to get it facing the goal. It's all, it's all tight, tight margins. And it's good from Andre Blake.

Yeah. Okay. And a very similar sequence happens very shortly after that where Jedi feeds Poulosick into the box in the past, a little behind him, but Pooley's first touch is outstanding to gather it in, and he goes a bit wide. I don't know if he's shooting or cutting it back, but either way it's cut out with a sliding challenge.

I'm a Jamaican defender, and then we'll get a nice shot of Arena and Burhalter in the stadium. 32nd minute. I mean, the Ares Tour is right there, right? Was part of you wondering if Clemsman was just out of the frame? I don't know if he's part of that same

club, you know? Uh, Berhalter did look, like, absolutely wrapped. Like, he was really, really paying attention to what was going on on the field. Well, Bertholder is eating this up. Oh, yeah, he's having a, he's having a class. We're going to see, we're going to see him, uh, like, we're going to see him, uh, like, we're going to see him, he's going to be trying to do everything Pashtino's doing. Arena just sort of more, his general bemusement is, uh, evident. Um, fun chance on a Bailey giveaway in the 30.

second minute to Musa on top of our box, the giveaway that is. Musa dribbles and then plays Wea down the left wing. Pulisik's right there, too, and he overlaps as Wea tries to feed Pepey arriving on the other side. This was a great idea for a ball. Yeah, I loved it so much. It's just a little heavy. This one, I know he didn't get a toe to. Pepe did.

No, no. And this is, I love this too, and I love, I love Way for trying it. Yeah. he's got Poolsick, right? It's tough to look Poolsick off here, I'm sure, overlapping basically wide open unaccounted for. It's not totally unaccounted for because the guy defending Wea

would be able to, he'd have the angle to sort of chase down Poulsick, too. He'd be able to defend him both. And so that's why this one's a little different. And then I'm going to go back to the Iran World Cup match where we got Sergeant Free racing a goal. Tim Wea runs across his face from end to out, and then you have Poolsick on the overlap free. and Sergeant chooses to go to Wea

instead of hitting it, which you could say, oh, well, this is, Weir just made the same mistake. But he didn't. Like, Sergeant's balled to Wea was only going to be collected by waya

running at the sideline. Wayas balled a peppy, if he pulls it off, is Pepey into score. Yeah, it's a goal, almost. That's why I'm totally fine with Wea's choice here, because if the pass is completed, that's the goal.

We score. Whereas if he, if he hits it to Poulosick here, it might also lead to, a good chance and goal, but there was nothing else that Pepe would have needed to do besides apply a finishing touch. It wasn't like the way I was abdicating the responsibility of creating a shot to the next person he passed to. It was setting up the goal. A shot creating pass, yeah. It was just a little bit heavy, just a touch heavy. Too bad. So the other thing, you know,

that pass being too heavy means we don't get a shot off of it. And I don't know if you saw the stats here at the end of the game. Or yeah, the full-time stats. We didn't create a lot of high percentage shots. We converted some really low percentage shots that were really fun. But the game felt really dangerous. I feel like it was because of a moment like this and a few others throughout the game where we didn't actually get the last touch on it that we needed, but it just felt like we were really knocking,

not like close to almost thinking about knocking. Like we were there knocking. And so this was just another example where, we really played it well and we were you know inch and a half away yeah well yeah there were like at least two fizzed balls across the six that our strikers just couldn't quite get a foot on i mean there was a lot of non-xg danger in this game generated by us and and none basically by jamaica so that's why it it felt it felt i think accurately like this was a dominant 50 to 60 minutes for the Yeah, I totally agree with that.

Let's take a little break. We'll be back in a minute. All right, we're back, and we're going right to a goal. 33rd minute. Goal USA. This is the own goal, actually, on Deshawn. Oh, I never gave the Jamaica lineup. I feel like that's an abdication of responsibility, abdication of duty.

Andre Blake, Tavon Gray, Damien Lowe, Deshaun Bernard, Amari Bell. That's the goalkeeper in backline. Lada Bodier, Isaac Hayden as the double pivot, and then Leon Bailey, Tyreek McGee, Damari Gray, who scored two goals on the night, and Shamar Nicholson, round out the 11. I'm sure no one will mind too much to hear the lineup there. And we also didn't get to comment on Jamaica's passport issues, which...

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Again, like, what do you do? I guess, you know, the U.S. has had a player to miss on account of paperwork. Yeah, I'm definitely, I'm not in a position to criticize someone about that. We also didn't talk about the Pulisic Trump dance. Oh, man. So it seems like that, I mean, it very much.

It totally was, yeah. John Jones did it, like the UFC champion. I guess apparently the greatest UFC player of all time, UFC fighter of all time, did it with Trump in the audience a few days ago. Yeah, credit to Jeff Carlyle here in the post game for, like, really nailing down because, you know, sometimes those, those kinds of things can be vague and, like, was that really, was that what it was? Or was he just doing some other dance that he's also, he's bad at a lot of dances. So you don't know exactly which one he's bad at right there. But Carlisle pressed and, like, fast follow-ups and was like, so it wasn't a Trump deal or anything. And Cool's like, well, obviously it's the Trump dance. So that's what he was doing. There's no, there's no gray to it. I mean, yeah. And it was, I think it would say it was even before that it was kind of obvious. It's like, exactly. he did exactly what John Jones did. I didn't have a lot of exposure to the John Jones performance.

But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm not a shut up and dribble person for anybody, but definitely like what people do will definitely like, you know, I will form my own opinions about what those people think. Of course. So I'll just say, I'm definitely going to lean really hard into my Tim Wea love and appreciation over the. over this next cycle.

I mean, that's kind of where it is. Half of the country, I think it's just a good reminder. Half of the country, more than half the country voted for Trump. You know, won the popular vote. Yeah. And there's a lot of people who are like, how dare he? I mean, like, fine. Find a criticize.

But you probably know. We all probably know plenty of people who voted for Trump. So the fact that Polisic did and supports him should not be a shock. Yeah. I mean, it definitely isn't a shock. Let's do the second goal. 33rd minute. We get our second goal, and it's really lovely back-to-front sequence.

Ream wins it, cutting off a Bailey through ball. I mean, our defense cut off a lot of sort of stray through balls from Jamaica in this game. We work it over to Scali somewhat haltingly. I think this was a moment where neither Musa nor McKinney filled that pocket of space for Ream to pass to him, and he kind of like pointed at it, and then they both went into it, and then ream passed it behind McKenny, and McKenny almost lost it right in front of right on top of our box. But anyway, it gets over to Scali.

I say all that to say, you know, there's still some kinks to be worked out in the whole scheme. But anyway, Scali gets it. He finds Musa checking toward him from the middle. Musa turns and just a vintage little flick pass with the outside of his boot to slide Testament into space. I mean, this is the key pass in the whole sequence. the key pass in the sense that it takes us from nothing to something in a flash. And we're off. Testman hits a first time ball springing McKinney down the line.

The pass is a little heavy. I think it takes him wider than necessary, but he's in. McKenney cuts it back for Testament, who's arriving at the edge of the box. And he dummies it. He dummies it for Pulisick. Hits it low at the near post. pool as it does anyway. Unclear if on frame or not,

but Blake had it covered, it looked like to me, ricochets in off the inside of Damien Lowe's leg. So good fortune on the finish, but lovely from Musa and Tessman and McKinney in the lead-up. And I tweeted, one last thing, I tweeted this, but, you know, Testman's a player from Birmingham, Alabama, who just decided to

check his shoulder and decided to leave a rolling ball in the box for a teammate. I'm happy about that. The nuance, right? Yeah. The nuance can come from anywhere. Yeah.

I tweeted that and I got like three or four Birmingham residents who are like sort of mildly offended at their suggestion. Suggestion that there aren't. Even in backer's ass, Birmingham. Yeah. Even in the worst place on it. No, just kidding. It's just, you know, SEC territory. It's brilliant, right?

The Musa McKinney Pistening here is great and that's for sure what sort of keys it. It's brave from Scali to hit that ball into that zone that Musa is checking back into.

Musa checking brings Jamaica's left fullback up with him into an area that left fullback probably never really wants to be in and then forces the midfielder to be responsible for tracking West of McKinney

who's vacated and that midfielder does not want to be is not used to chasing guys down the sideline. he's a little bit slow to recognize that he needs to be doing it. And even then, it takes this really brilliant touch from Musa to split into Tanner Testman to eliminate all these players and to allow that lane to open up into McKinney running the seam. So, yeah, we do have to ding Testament a little bit because Musa's pass to Testament creates a huge

wide open window for Testament to hit it into McKinney's path and create a 2V2 running free to goal. And Tessman's past is far enough to the outside That that is illuminated instantly from the past And it turns into more of like a I don't know, four on four, four on five Yeah, I mean it turns it into like basically we were We're gonna end up working it around the top of the box Which is what we basically did

Yeah, so I'm glad that Tessman is the guy who then creates the shot With his with that nuance with the dummy So because we did We had to then beat some defenders to create an opening. And Testman's awareness does just that. And then, yeah, we take the luck. Yeah. Testament, I thought, I feel like my very quiet testament investment is paying off.

Now, do you hold it or do you sell it off after this? Oh, I'm holding it. I'm holding it. All right. I'm saying like a great performance against a bad team is often a fantastic time to unload that stock. Well, maybe, maybe that's right. That's why you're a certified financial planner, Greg. I don't know.

Yeah, no, I think he, I like his, I like the cut of his jib. I like the, I like, I mean, Kyle Martino was going on about it a lot on the, on the broadcast, but his, his sort of languidness is, is nice, I think. Ochitino had good things to say, too. This is, and this is exactly, I mean, we talked about the way like being a different sport. This is the sport that Tanner Testament's going to thrive in. pretty bad team that's not able to really put a ton of pressure on you. He did just get to find, find spots and receive the ball pretty comfortably, I think.

And I don't mean that as a negative thing. Totally. That's good that he was able to do that. This was a really good game for him. I still, just from the financial sense, I would probably, I would probably just go ahead and sell now. And you'll make, you're for sure going to make something. You sell today.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's the kind of, I mean, that's, I've earned tens of thousands of dollars in my life over the course. life. So I feel like this is, I'm qualified to give that, this kind of advice. Yeah, I, I mean, the speed, to your point, I think the speed of a game against a tougher opponent, more pressure is what we, we need to see, uh, him. We need to see him against that and look this good against something like that. But, uh, yeah, I guess I'm just too much of a

sentimental investor, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm not cut out for the markets. He was good. He did a lot of things quietly very well. So I'll even say there were, you know, I was watching his all involvement. And he does have a lot of, again, very quiet, productive forward passes. So I know we're like Zaprudering this one and be like, ah, that wasn't the best. Yeah. We're giving him his love for the dummy, of course. But there were other moments where he's making passes.

For longtime listeners, we used to use Keaton Parks as the guy who would like just hit these really quiet progressive passes. where the pass isn't going to be flashy and it might not even really accomplish anything in the moment or even appear to. But it's big to hit these little passes to Poolsick in the pocket that normally we would just recycle or recirculate when it goes to Tessman or a player in that position and go around the horseshoe.

And instead, Tessman will hit a really nice, easy-to-received pass even if it's eight yards, four yards, to a really good attacking player. And you just want to do that because you just want to increase a number of times your attacking players receive the ball unexpectedly where the defense is like, oh, I didn't think that that pass was going to happen right now.

I thought they would have to just play the easiest one over to their fullback. But no, Tasman just hits this little pass into a guy's feet and then we can kind of try to cook. You know, that's all very true. And also, I noticed one time he's coming out toward the right side and he's got Scali. And Scali's open.

but the defender between them is sort of trying to shade into the passing lane a little bit and he's on his right foot but instead of using his right foot to pass I mean this is this is even more mundane than anything else we've talked about so far in this but I think it is actually important the um he's he's because all he does is ends up sliding it out to scally but he does it with his left foot instead of with his right foot and so there's like no there's no like there's no back swing to it. It's just kind of a quick little pass. But the, but what the difference that makes is it keeps the defender from jumping the route because there's a little bit of surprise to it. And he puts it, like he puts the perfect weight on it and the perfect like

trajectory so that Scali is running forward into open space. And like that little kind of detail really matters to me too. I don't know. That sort of, you see that from some players, but not most that they have like this trick in their bag where they use their weak foot as like sort of a surprise passing tool. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's it.

But it matters. Those fractions of a second will matter rather than putting your left foot down, which immediately telegraphs what you're going to do to plant and then open up with your hips to hit it with your right foot. So yeah. I mean, all right, bells, hold the stock. Just hold it. Keep it.

Okay. If you say so, boss. Let it simmer. Let it simmer. All right. A 42 minute mark we get our second, our third goal. Our third goal. And this one's Ricardo Pepi, second player of the game to look Pulisic off in the box.

It's because of that penalty. This all goes back to the A.C. Milan penalty that, like, Pulisic lost his, he lost some standing there. Well, I thought it was going to be because of the Trump dance. But also McKinney did the dance, too, very briefly. So this goal happens. Because of, so I'm going to say right now, this is the time to say it. Rico had a really bad game overall. Vince tweeted this during the game, I noticed.

But I noticed I was watching the same game. I don't know that he did a single positive thing outside of the goal. There might have been one or two, but there were like 10 ding-dong moments, you know? Or just getting like absolutely moved out of the picture by a centerback who was. just way stronger and more has done a lot more, you know, traditional wrestling than Pepe. Yeah. Just getting leveraged out of the TV screen, basically. I think that's fair.

And I think, I think, I'm sure a comp will surface. No, like this is, a comp will not surface. Oh, it will. I think they're, I think a comp will surface. And I'm not promising, but I feel like there are going to be some cops from this game. Because it was, it was so interesting. And, like, there are so many different layers to look at. It could all of these could be meaningless when we find out against a team in the semifinals, Canada or Panama or Mexico,

that, like, oh, we can't actually play this unless it's Jamaica. Yeah, yeah. But no, I agree with you. And so what's going to be interesting, because I know there are people who say it doesn't matter. He got the goal, which we're going to describe here. I don't think Potch thinks of it that way. I don't, I can't imagine that he does. I think most managers in 2024 don't think that way.

And, you know, I don't, I think getting the goal is always good. Like, it's better that he got the goal. And I don't, I don't think that, like, Vosquez is going to pass him on the depth chart next window because Vosquez got a couple of good looks in his, you know, 10 minutes. But I don't know that if Potch had Pepey below, you know, Josh Sargent and Bolligan, that the goals in these two games. are going to be like, well, I can't, I can't not play him. I got to play him.

Yeah, no, I don't think that's how it works either. Yeah, so the goal, but the goal was, the goal was nice. And it was, in large part, a result of Rico's industry. His pressure forces a tenuous pass from Blake to the sideline. He just kind of floats it over there. Jedi intercepts it in the air to Wea. Wea kind of cleverly, this is also subtle, cleverly kind of taps it to Jedi out of the air.

It's like chest high when he does this. You know I'm going to jump in on the way I touch. I know. I mean, it was pretty nice. And then Jedi first time taps it to Pepe at the edge of the arc. And he turns. He's got Pulisic running free into the box off his left shoulder. And he just looks him off, shoots it low and sneaky to the far post through the defender's legs.

I believe it was Damien Lowe. And Blake, I think, gets a finger to it, but just not enough. It's very well placed. and sneaky, like I said. Yeah. 3-0. I couldn't tell if it defended off the defenders, the bottom of the defender's calf or not.

Don't really care. I love shooting through defenders' legs. And I'm going to defend the decision not to try to slip it to Pousick. Because it was, the run off of Pepey was tight. You know, it's like that basketball where you run right off the guy on the high post and they hand it off to you almost. And that's, there's plenty of ways for that to go wrong. So using that run as a dusterer,

decoy to then turn to the inside, I think, is a, is a defensible choice. It's still a really tough chance to put away. Whereas if you execute the past Pulisic, you've got the highest possible chance you're going to get in that scenario. So, you know, I'm, I'm sort of torn on the math, but I love that Pepe gets his goal because I do, I actually just want it to be, uh, I want there to be some drama around our striker picture. And I want it to be because people are scoring goals. That's, that's my favorite kind of striker drama. Yeah, and you do, I think it's kind of a cliche, but you do want a keeper who wants to score and is a little bit selfish in front of goal. I think that's right.

I don't. I want players who make the optimal decision every single time. But I don't know that that's a real thing that humans can do. Yeah. Like on a theological level. Yeah, so that makes 13 goals for the U.S. for people. Pepe, he is now tied with Bobby Wood on the all-time list. Three straight games for Pepey, and because he wasn't available for the Mexico-friendly

in Mexico, because he got smacked in the face by ball and had to head back early. But that means he is, again, he has scored in all of the games he has been present for, for Pachino. So this is going to be fun to see how that sort of influences Pott's striker depth chart. What was it he said about him? He said he's a player who, wherever he goes, any game he plays in, he will find chances to score goals. But he needs to work on a lot of other stuff. And he, I mean, that's basically what he said, right?

Yeah, and that's basically what you said to start this whole, this whole peppy discussion. Yeah. He, I mean, he missed that huge chance on a fizzed ball from Musa in the 52nd minute where it just like hits his leg. I mean, again, this is not an easy situation. the ball is like coming out of nowhere kind of emerging from a forest of legs and it's coming in hot but he's at the six he's unmarked and he he doesn't find a way to deal with it most of his buildup play was i think pretty bad like um not great so uh chance after chance for the u.s total dominance in that first half it was fun to imagine desk out there we've already done that you've already done that in this podcast um And, you know, implausible as it may be, a fully charged Gio Raina sure would look good out there. He would. Now, the question becomes, like, for Dest, it's easy because you just say,

Desd do exactly what Scali did or do what Jedi did and then Jedi does what Scali does. That's easy. Geo gets trickier, right? Like, is Gio taken the job that McKinney was doing and then McKinney slides into the job? Musa was doing or the Tessman spot? Like, where do the dominoes fall to throw Gio Raina out there? Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, if he's fully healthy and, like, actually playing,

you got to get him out there somehow. So probably the McKinney rule. Probably the McKinney role. I don't know. Yeah. That's why you got to sell your testament stock now, man. Because Wes is going to drop into the testament roll. Yeah, Wes is not going to the bench.

No, that's true. Yeah. I mean, it's like, how do I redeem this stock? Like, what's the, what's the mechanism? You're fine because Gio Reina only exists in abstract soccer fields. He can't play on it. He might be back. They're saying, they are saying, bells, that he could feature the weekend.

Yep, against Freiburg. All right, we'll get to that. Yeah, we'll get to that when it happens. Right before the half, McKenzie does a bad. You know, I was pretty high on his performance down. in Kingston, but Jedi plays him kind of an awkward lofted pass from the left, and he just, he's got a defender closing, I mean, an opponent closing on him. He just tries to do like a side foot volley forward into oncoming traffic on a ball that, like

basically a sky ball dropping from the air. And it gets sent back toward, like, so just right back down our throats, toward Nicholson, in our box. Luckily, Ream is there and sort of Johnny on the spot covers it, sends it away. but it would sure be nice to just have one game without anything like that from Mark, you know? Yeah, Jedi did have no favors, but at the same time, it's like maybe this is what we need to do

is keep putting Mark in these situations where he has to make a choice to... He gets a chance to eliminate the danger, but he did not do that. It was super awkward, and it's like, okay, recognize that this sucks and kind of be mad at Jedi for putting you in the spot, but eliminate the danger.

Don't hit some. Jedi's under specific instructions from Potch to do this. Jedi was standing right next to Potch. So this could have been it. Like Potch could have been like, Jedi, do it. Play it with sky ball. Do the McKenzie. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's the half. And, um, you know, big chain. Yeah, we're cruising. I mean, the second half is somebody, MCB on the Discord said the second half was a friendly. And I think, you know, there's some truth to that. It's, it was also raining very hard. Started raining very, at the end of the.

first half and was raining pretty hard a lot of the second half so here's some here's some items 51st minute big chance for jamaica gets waved off they're knocking it around in our half nicholson's a step or two behind mackenzie so he's way offside but mackenzie does get beat by the entry pass from above the box and then turner makes a really good save as nicholson he's in on goal opens up tries to bend it to the far post you think it's a moot point because he's off anyway but then mackenzie and ream get beaten behind again, like moments later, by a lovely ball from Amari Bell on the left side for Nicholson. This was a sick pass.

Yeah. I couldn't tell if it did it get deflected? I don't think so, but they close in on him, and he doesn't get a shot off, but that's two really dangerous moments in like two minutes. Yeah, and we can go back to the first half chance, too, where you just don't love for as bad as Jamaica were. and it's not like they had the ball constantly, so we were constantly getting chances to do some mid-block defending.

So for the rare times that we were in that, for Jamaica to get behind us that easily, is discouraging. Because, again, you shouldn't be in a situation where you're having to defend with both centerbacks chasing from behind on a breakaway. Like, something's gone wrong for you to be in that position in the first place. Okay. Yeah.

I already mentioned the peppy missed chance. So let me play the clip from Potch, which I think is his critique of this moment because the next thing on the timeline is the goal, the first goal for Jamaica. But here's what he says. We can see the chance that we need to, in that moment, to realize

and be strolling our mind and change the tempo of the game and not to give one chance, second chance, third chance, and then concede the goal, and then realize that we need to increase our level. He's basically saying we should have sort of manned up there in that, you know, after the first two chances and done something to sort of adjust. And we didn't.

And Jamaica scores the 53-minute mark. They're in our half a lot now. We just talked about the two chances that happened at like 51st minute and 52nd minute. And then they play a lovely combination. It's Bailey out wide, hits Isaac Hayden making an underlapping run on that right side. Hayden gets into the cutback zone. He's got Pulisic tracking him, you know, not our best 1v1 defender. And he gets – Pulisic gets cut to Hayden's left, and then he just clips a left-footed ball.

right at Damari Gray, who's ghosted in from the left wing, and DeMarie Gre meets it side foot volley, gorgeous, really, in at the far post, and it's three to one. Yeah, we've got smart movement from Damari Gray because he basically creates the confusion for Scali and McKenzie, so they don't pick him up quickly enough. They don't pass him off. He goes from being Scali's man nominally to being McKenzie's responsibility.

but again, for me, more importantly, this is the central midfield stacking up. You love the wedding cake bells, and this is absolutely that. This, the Jamaica, the sequence takes long enough to develop that there is no reason that we don't have central midfielder's back in that most important space to defend, to just add a body.

Even if you're like, oh, well, my, you know, it's Weston McKinney, I'm just going to have to say. Tessman is in the play, and he's shaded to the ball. So he's back able to defend the ball where he should be as the strong sort of strong side central midfielder. Poolstick is obviously all the way back. He's done, you know, what you would expect more than you would necessarily expect Pulcic to do just to be chasing this deep.

Yeah. Eunice Moosa is the sort of right-sided player who's also back and also being a spectator not getting back far enough. But it's McKinney's job here as the other center mid to just go fill a area of the pitch and control it. And then if it does go out deeper to, You're a man, you know, the guy, the other Jamaica center midfielder who McKinney is closest to the moment of the cross, you can go from the deep area out to meet him and contest a shot. But where he is standing sort of straight up, not engaged enough in the play, he cannot do anything to help disrupt the area that Jamaica score from.

And he needs to be able to help disrupt from that area. As the ball's floating in, he should be there to either intercept it or, again, just make it difficult so that Gray can't hit whatever technique. great chooses to hit. Yeah. Where would you want him to set up? Like right on the penalty marker? Just stand on the penalty marker? Or it should be a little further out than that?

I'd want him pretty close to the penalty mark. I mean, the idea being that he and McKenzie can meet at any ball in between them. And there's no ball between them that neither of them can get to. And where it sets up, McKenzie can't get to this ball. It's not like McKenzie should have gotten to it first. All he can do is arrive to obscure some. portion of the goal, which he does. And it's a really nice finish from Gray. He won't finish that every time. But it's still, we still have to fix this from our center midst. This was,

this was our issue against the Netherlands in Qatar. And it's continued to be an issue for us. We just aren't stacking our bodies up with enough urgency in these moments. Yeah. Because McKenzie's got Nicholson to deal with and Damari Gray. I mean, Scali's got Gray to deal with. And doesn't really, you know, deal with him, I guess. But yeah. Come on. Everyone else is controlling some area of the pitch that needs to be controlled. And McKinney just isn't. I mean, is what it kind of comes down to. So if you're thinking about how can you deploy your pieces optimally to control as much of the most important real estate in this moment,

it's McKinney being five to six yards closer to the goal. And he could have gotten there. It wasn't like he just didn't have time to get there. He's walking and watching the play. Yeah. A little sloppy from us in this stretch. We give up another half chance. right after this one.

And then Waya drops the hammer. It's 55th minute, 56th. Nice work from Jedi to run and receive a pass from McKenny in the center circle. This is again his sort of inversion playing a key role and a goal-scoring move. He moves like a big dagger through that surprise Jamaican defense.

He plays a little pass to Pulisic in the next pocket up, just above the box. The passes behind him. So I guess what I will say, Jedi looked great in this role. It surprised the hell out of Jamaica. He's still not like an elegant, you know, number six. There were some great, there were some really nice passes. There were some passes that were a little off.

This was one of them that was a little off. So it forces Pulisic to kind of stop. He deals with it well, pirouettes and taps it out to Musa, who's wide open on the right. As Pulisic gets knocked down, Musa takes one touch, and then, uh, And then C's way of wide open on the opposite side, curls it over to him. This is one way it takes a touch and then absolutely punishes it on the half volley. Just it's got how many revolutions per minute does a soccer ball? Does a soccer ball spin?

Yeah, 540 something. It was, I mean, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it went up and was already coming down when it hit the net. Went right over Blake. Great, great finish. Great finish. You know, we foreshadowed this with the first half. Just being that free man, Jamaica flowed. I mean, first off, they all collapsed on Pulsick.

Yeah. They wreck him. And then you just have five Jamaican players standing over a pool sick who's laying face down on the ground. But they're not defending anywhere else. So, Wea, great job to get free. Musa great job to identify and hit him. And then that first touch from Wea is so just beautiful. What does he do with his thigh kind of?

Yeah, yeah, to just drop the thigh under it. Like, again, that's almost like, you're almost doing like trick stuff to do that touch, to cradle it that way. And then to have him, like, at no point in doubt that he's going to smash this with the top spin technique. What do you do, man? What would be your technique on a first touch here? Take it with the instep? I mean, if this is me, you know, and if I find myself in this situation, I actually, he has time to size this up.

He could have just taken it first, totally first time and had to volley on his first. And it wouldn't have surprised me at all if Timway goes for that, because he is somebody who values aesthetics. But the fact that he could do the thigh drop, that's just him working in his canvas. But it does also make it an easier finish, you know, right?

If the ball is just sort of, if you just sort of kill it and it's just bouncing right in front of you Oh, for sure. And you, like, just destroy the ball. That's, like, the best place to... Yes, it's one in the thousand to take that actually first time in front. Right. I think mine would...

I would probably try to, like, trap it, like, off the ground, like, off the short hop, and then I would lose it. And everybody'd be mad at me. Like, he might... I mean, when you watch it, he might have just sort of gotten the trajectory wrong at first. And that's why he has to take... Because he's kind of taken a little step backwards now. to do that cradle.

So this could have been, again, like a Wea mistake. But with Tim Wea, he's Bob Ross. There are no real mistakes. Everything's just a happy movement towards the next incredible thing he's going to do. Yeah. What a player. Next thing on the timeline is the second Jamaica goal.

CFOS, who had come on on the wing, goes at Scali on our right side and gets the cut in. takes a good shot to the far pose. I mean, he's dribbling at Scali for like 35 yards. Gets it not too far inside our half. But the shot saved well by Turner. The rest of what happens is just kind of unlucky, I think. It ricochets off Jedi as he's trying to kind of help it out of there.

He helps it out, but right into Gray, Damari Gray, who is like flying at the gold mouth. I don't even know if Gray, like, did he shape his body to strike it or to just like hit him in the knee and go in. Anyway, it thumps off him in the goal for two. Yeah, I think we can call this one pinball justice for Pulisic second, right? Fair enough. We got our pinball goal.

Jamaica gets their pinball goal. You know, Scali is going to get dinged here because, one, he's not Sergenio, so we're going to be looking for like, well, this is why we want to get Sergenio. Scali's not like some shut down right back, and he's not. But, like, he needed help here. And it's not just because he's Joe Scali. The issue here is allowing Cephas to cut into the right to no other help defenders. He's able to cut to the middle, and there's nobody in the picture.

And I'm going to go back far enough to say that this is also on Weston McKinney. When Jamaica starts their sort of flowing movement into their left side to get Joe isolated, McKinney is the midfielder closest to Scali by a solid 10-15 yards. And like we talked about on that first goal, where we talked about Tessman. Testman was in the box and he was shaded to the ball because that's what the ballside center mid should be doing. McKinney does not do that here.

He doesn't shade over and work really hard to arrive with Joe Scali. He kind of just trots straight down the center of the field towards the box. And he forces Musa, who would been farther upfield by 15 yards and like farther to the other sideline to do the recovery for him. So Moosa actually outruns McKinney, and at the time that Scali gets cut, Musa's actually closer to our goal than McKinney is, which means he had to,

he's just working harder. He's working harder than Weston here. And by the time Cephas takes the shot, Musa is probably three yards from him, four yards from him. So if you do the math in your head, if he started out 20, 15 yards farther from that play than Weston was,

Weston should have been able to recover and have been there to be the help side defender. Yeah. I wonder if this will get pointed out in the, in a, by Potch and his team, you know? Um, I hope so.

It's, it's, I feel like again, McKinney urgency would be massive for us to, to take these moments that we can, you know, we're going to concede eventually. Uh,

and, and just make them a little, you got to make them just a little bit less dangerous. That's, that's, that's the whole game. game, right? Like, turn it into a slightly more contested moment for Jamaica.

I mean, wedding, it all comes back to the wedding cake, really. Yeah, you just got to add a body. Even this one. Yeah. Just add a layer to the wedding cake. Hmm. Okay, 72nd minute, I'm not going to do this, but let's see. I want to mention the peppy scissor kick, flying scissor kick attempt, because I assume that

is a technique you endorse. Is that right? Fully. Yes, fully. And again, I actually think it's the correct technique to employ here. You just gets the timing a little bit wrong. Gets the radius of his foot a little bit off. Too far away, not enough speed on the ball for him to really head it with Venom from there. And so, yeah, just didn't quite work out.

Cal and Vasquez come on for Wea and Pepe. Cal does, like, fizzes a ball, like an outside of the boot ball across the six in the 78th minute. after getting played in by Ream. I liked that. It was just ahead of Vasquez, maybe a little hot. Vasquez gets a chance where he rips one after Busio wins him

into a 1v1 with the keeper in the counterpress. It's a good hit, just a couple yards wide. You know, Moussa has a few speculative hits in here. Zendayaas comes on for Moussa. Brendan comes on. I guess I did I not mention him earlier? Yeah, Brendan had already come on. He had a couple nice moments in stoppage time, which in the interest of fairness and balance, I want to mention.

He played Brandon in real nicely, a real nice through ball. Brannan was just like, Bosquez was just like a half step offside. And then he also did some nice work to retain the ball in possession. I mean, it just kept dribbling and dribbling and dribbling and dribbling and dribbling and dribbling. It's good to see that from him. you could tell Brandon was frustrated with himself after the game for not scoring. I think he had two decent chances plus the missed, the missed fizzed cross from Cowell.

And I don't feel like he did anything really wrong. But I guess what I noticed from it is like he probably notices that this is, he probably knows that this is, you know, these chances are not going to be unlimited. And he wants to make his mark. So I kind of felt bad for him. seeing his face after the game. And it'll be the same thing here, right?

Does Potch look at him as a bottler of chances? Because he, you know, between the Jamaica away leg and then these two looks that he got in this game. Or does Pajz say, hey, I threw Brandon Vosquez on at the end of games and he was in, he was in good spots, lashed the ball a few times. And you can go back to the Mexico friendly as well. Like, hits the ball hard at the goal. Maybe this is the guy who can do a job off the bench in these moments.

Yeah, that's what I think he thinks. I mean, Potch, that is. And then the other question is going to be, we've got two other strikers, nominal, who were ahead of him at least in Potch's first window, because Brandon didn't get called originally. He was an injury replacement for Bolligan. Does he want a Brandon Vosquez type?

Because as much as we love sergeant's trunk, I don't think, I still think Vosquez is like the big striker we've got. I agree with that, yeah. So do we need, does Potch want a big striker after he's seen Vasquez up close, kick the tires a little bit? Or is he like, yeah, it was good to have him when we were missing guys, but we don't have to have it. I guess we'll see. This is the last game of the year.

I don't know. Another USMNT year in the books. The women play in England and the Netherlands here in about two weeks. And that'll be it for them. The men meet up again in January. It looks like we're going to play Venezuela on January 18th. So, yeah. Paschito January camp is pretty fun.

Like, that just feels like such a ridiculous juxtaposition to have this guy coaching a cupcake. Yeah. He's going to call it the MLSA the whole time, too, you know. We've got TV contracts to fulfill. Like, we've got to have this game, so let's see what we can do with it. I hope Walker Zimmerman is our captain and starting central midfielder. Put him in the inverted role. You don't think he's getting a little tired of babysitting?

Maybe. Maybe. I mean, I'm sure he and Potch would get along well. That seems like they would. I think that's it, right? Any closing thoughts on the game? I mean, it's fun to have fun, like you said at the beginning. It is.

It's fun to have fun. I love Nations League. I continue to love Nations League. best of all worlds I hope Mexico get through we haven't talked about Mexico falling on their face

in the first leg they've got a big one tonight I hope they get through I think but mostly it's Canada for me now like Jesse Marsh and Canada is the matchup that I want to have more than anything if we win it we gotta play both of them

right well I guess there could be there's a scenario where we don't have to play both yeah don't sleep on Panama here buddy okay yeah Honduran Like you said, Honduras, or like you alluded to, Honduras beat Mexico 2-0 in Honduras in the first leg of their Nations League tie. So it's a big night for El-Tree where they got to dig themselves out of a hole.

And then, yeah, they threw somebody in the Honduras fan, somebody in the Honduras crowd threw a giant beer can at Aguette and like bloodied him pretty significantly. Yeah. Um, hey, this was fun. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.