Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #563: USMNT v Costa Rica recap

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Greg's back on the mic with Belz to recap the second of two enjoyable January Camp victories under Mauricio Pochettino. Why are we more fun this January? Who from this camp will get called up in March? And, of course, Big Balls Diego is canonized in the lore.https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfp2O1bIr5KNSymt3ayP3ctERCooDo3ADM5Kf_kSHpmr6ITMg/viewform 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. U.S. men beat Costa Rica 3-0 on Wednesday night. And I got to say, January camp felt a little more fun this year. Greg, how you doing? I'm doing great. Of course January camp is fun this year. We've got Maricio Pachitino coaching Diego Luna for the U.S. men's national team. Like, this is fantastic. This is fantastic content.

Yeah, we got one of the great early moments of the Potch era after the game when he described what happened with Luna. We'll get into that later. It's been a while. So I want to see if, is there anything burning a hole in your pocket that's not related to this game before we get into this game? Speed, top speed analysis. Who's hit the instantaneous velocity? No, yeah, I know a lot of the conversations start to feel like high school math class. No, I don't think so.

I feel like the joy of this coming March camp is increasing. Yeah. Joy, even the anticipation. Getting excited for this. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that. And one of the questions I want to get into is, you know, is anybody from this camp actually going to be here for that camp? Because Potch is just steadfast.

refusing to give any hints. You know, people are, he's had like 3,000 opportunities in the last few days to say, oh yeah, well, this player has really impressed me in this camp. And he's just, he's just happy with everybody. He's thrilled with everybody and will not give a hint. So, and maybe that means there's nobody, you know, it could mean that. There's, there's going to be a few. There's a handful.

Zach Stephan's going to be there in March. Yeah, let's do the line. up. So Stefan started the game, which I think it's, you know, I guess it's a little surprising if you're in the scuffed universe, but I'm probably not that surprising to just a normal fan of the U.S. men's national team. It's, it's only, I feel like it's only surprising if you're in scuffed universe and sort of put, put stock in like the numbers or assume that a coach who's coming into the national team program from probably not paying any attention to the U.S. national team pool. is really putting any stock into the numbers but the nerds are compiling. Right. Because the nerds would have said

Matt Freeze clearly the best goalkeeper of the three in this camp and then it's Matt Freeze who doesn't get a single minute on the field. He's the only player in the whole camp who didn't play. So anyway, Zach Steffen starts. We get an extremely experienced backline of Miles Robinson, Walker Zimmerman, Tim Ream, and DeHuan Jones.

And it was a, it was pretty asymmetrical, right? I mean, it was basically a back three. Yeah, it was a really narrow. It was a really narrow back four is what it kind of looked like to me, where Miles was not trying to like hold the sideline when he was the weak side defender. But yeah, it's kind of another interesting wrinkle to throw Miles Robinson in that stay home right back role.

You know, people kind of speculated that we can do that. If that's how we're going to use the right back, then again, sort of anybody can play as long as they're not someone who's liable to get burned around the corner constantly. Anyone can be a safe stay home right back. The Reggie Cannon job. Yeah, and I think Miles is pretty well suited for that, actually. Ameca Anelli, the Real Salt Lake midfielder, who's in his first camp, he got his first start.

Ben Ha Kramaski also started in the midfield. And then it was Indiana Vassilev, Diego Luna, and Brian Gutierrez across the Band of three. I mean, Vasilev, I think, pretty fair to say, deeper than Gutierrez in this game, almost a wingback at times, but also kind of inverted the way De Juan did on the left. So, I don't know, you should, maybe you could shed some light on this. I'm not sure I understand the formation or how to describe it in the English language. I could easily explain it in a different language, but it's a perfect way to describe it,

because, again, we're at the point now where, for me. diagrams or trying to read off the formation by numbers sort of means nothing because DeWan Jones as a left back was doing nothing similarly to Miles Robinson who was the right back. Duon was a midfielder at times. He was a winger at times. He was the left back in a block. And so, yeah, you almost just have to describe what at this point, we're in an era where you just have to describe what each player did during the game.

This is the role he played. Everyone's position is unique. Right, because my tendency would be to say, okay, if, if Miles and De Juan had completely different roles, then surely Indiana and De Juan had the same role. But they didn't. They didn't have the same role. Yeah.

In Indiana and Gutierrez definitely did not have the same role. And even Eneli and Kermaski didn't have the same role. Yeah. And then the striker was Brian White. Kind of cool to see him finally score his first goal for the national team. This was an entirely domestic-based roster from Costa Rica. I'm I don't mean this in a disrespectful way,

but I'm not going to read the names just because like doesn't nobody even None of them is even going to ring a bell to you. Not just because, not just because it's entirely domestic. I mean, yeah, they had very little in the way of national team experience. I think the median caps for the 11,

or for the 10 outfield players at least was four. Yeah, that looks right. So it was super inexperienced. It wasn't necessarily young. Like, they had some old dudes out there. They just weren't old dudes who played much for the Costa Rica national team in the past. One name you would recognize is their coach, who is Miguel Herrera, El Piojo, who coached Mexico at the 2014 World Cup, among many other assignments over the years. Kind of cool to see him in charge of their national team.

The other thing that was unfamiliar about this, and it's going to play into some of the questions you have or that you want to explore, unfamiliar about this Costa Rica team is the way they play. So many of us have spent our formative years watching Costa Rica just be absolutely a nightmare to play against with their like being organized, sitting deep, super conservative.

And that is not what Miguel Herrera did in this opening match of his tenure. They were trying to come out in attack and be aggressive. And I don't know that at the moment they're particularly good at that, or at least with this group personnel.

But I think that really factored into how fun and exciting this game could be because it left a lot of space to play for the U.S., provided we were capable of executing and playing into it. You know, that said, it did seem to me that the intensity of this game was a little higher than the one on Saturday against Venezuela. There was less time on the ball, a little bit more getting after it from Costa Rica. And maybe the bellwether for that is for me is Jack McGlynn, who looked like, you know, totally majestic against Venezuela. And then in this game, he comes on and he didn't do hardly anything, you know, anything of note, except to get a yellow card for simulation.

The intensity, I think the intensity, I just wanted, the intensity I thought was good for both games from the U.S. players. Like, this definitely didn't have any kind of a sleepy January quality. to it. Like the kids looked like they were ready to try to win a spot in a March roster. Yeah. Yeah, they did. They did. And, you know, Luna's sort of, I don't know, maybe incredible moment is a little strong, but, you know, Luna's, the sort of storyline with Luna about that sort of, I think, illustrates that these, these players all know that they're, you know, this is their chance to, you know, make a move and so that they can be on. on the World Cup roster in 2026.

So I guess you're going to say the space afforded by Herrera's approach to attacking us was part of the reason why this was more fun to watch? I mean, you actually did already say that. That plays into it. Again, that should be a contractual obligation for any January opponents. They do not just sit in a block. But, you know, it's hard to know how, you know, the team, under the, last ball coach would have attacked that space.

Or at least how well they would have attacked it is what I would say. So it's really early. I know we all want to see these new developments now that we have, Paschitino, which again, it's just an amazing thing to keep saying out loud. We're looking really hard. And so it's still really early and hard to tell whether the excitement and joy that we're feeling is sort of a quality that's present in the soccer. or if it's a quality that's present in us, the observer.

Yeah. But you don't, again, you don't have to try to find that out right now. If you're having fun, just keep having fun. That's how I'm approaching it. But I mean, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't want to get, you know, I don't want to get into the same old story over and over again. But I guess I will bring up, we had Tim Riem on the podcast. Sanjay Sujah Sujata Kumar interviewed him in Fort Lauderdale.

last Friday, so six days ago. And one of the things he said was that it's a quote-unquote breath of fresh air to be in a setup where you're a little bit, at least the way he described it, a little bit more free or feel a little bit more free to solve the problem in front of you in various different ways, like in the way that you deem best, I guess, a way to paraphrase it. as opposed to, and I think this is the quote that a lot of people will seize on, you have to pass it here and then pass it there, to pass it there, to pass it there,

which I think is, I don't think he was being nasty to Burrhalter, but I think is a way of describing perhaps an overly prescriptive approach from Greg Burrhalter, which I think people have long argued, maybe fairly, maybe unfairly, I don't know, but have argued, well, that that overly prescriptive approach is what made it so hard to watch us sometimes because players were overthinking, like, whoa, what's the next, you know, what's the next step in the equation that we have been assigned in this game, you know? So I wonder, you know, if you buy any of that, like that, that, that there's this newfound freedom because POTCH is just better at understanding, like, how to give players agency out there. I would totally buy it. I would totally buy that Greg was very prescribed for how we'd want to play.

And I feel like it's not just, if you think about it, it's just like the order of the passes. That's sort of one side of it. The other side of it is obviously he's prescribing these passes, which also implies that the movement around that pass is prescribed. If this is the next pass, then this is the next one. You're saying then a player needs to be moving into this next space. And I think so much of what we eventually got to with Greg Burhalter was the possession was very much affected or even determined by essentially like rest to defense. When we turn this ball over, we need to make sure that we are in an organized shape that is not going to be cut to shreds on a counterattack. Like denying transition moments, I think was as much of a priority for Greg Burrhalter, if not more.

than creating openings going the other way. So I think those two things kind of probably go together. And we did have a really good, we had a really good defense under Thralled. Through the 2022 cycle, I think that's accurate to say. It's certainly organized. Like we just weren't a team that you could just easily cut open again and again via a possession. We might turn it over trying to build and, you know, friendlies where we were forcing those. situations where we were going to build up no matter what.

But in competitive matches, it was rarely the case that a team would be able to just sort of possess through us or transition through us. Okay. With Pachino, like, it does look like there's just a ton more. I do think, you know, something we've identified already is there looks like more energy in possession. Like, players are buzzing around more. Yeah.

And part of that ability to buzz around is like a freedom to be like, I can buzz here and not worry about the fact that I'm vacate, I mean, if you're buzzing from one place to another, you're vacating a spot. And so if you're not worried about, is it okay for me to vacate this spot or is this wrecking our, you know, our rest defense, then you're going to, I think a team will have that look. And I think that can definitely result in more fluid soccer when your team has a soccer ball. That's interesting. It's a distinction between, you know, Professor Burrhalter pushing his eyeglasses up on the bridge of his nose and saying, you must pass it here to hear to hear to hear just because that's the best way to attack which is very like obviously kind of

silly and the distinctions between that and burrhalter just prioritizing not getting cut open on the counter you know i mean yeah in a way that it doesn't seem like potch is right now right yeah one of the highlights of burrhalter press conferences was uh john muller asking him if he'd moved from being like a team that's trying to disorganize the opponent with the ball to being a team that was trying to Oh, man. Now we're going to have to go find. Trying to organize itself against the ball or something. We got to find it now.

But the wording you used was just brilliant. Mueller's a pretty smart guy. So I guess just trust me if you can't immediately bring that question to mind. And he's hilarious. I think that really is the case, like, that it was clear that we were not necessarily disorganizing teams with the ball, particularly well or consistently. But what we were doing was always trying to be in a decent shape when we lost the ball. And the question remains for Paschitino's team is how will we look in those moments?

How will we defend when we play good teams? We haven't yet, you know, the Jamaica games and this Costa Rica match, the Jamaica competitive matches and now these January friendlies are not what you'd consider are like good tests for how you're going to defend against good teams. I mean, it does seem like we're more fun to watch. There's the buzzing around. I have an idea, too, but you go first. For me, the buzzing is like 90% of it.

Like, when you have players doing that, that is fun. Like, you feel that energy of those guys moving around like that in those spaces. And then, again, we're just going to trust right now that with Pocitino, we will be able to do this effectively. and not leave ourselves super exposed, or if we do that he'll fix it because he's a really good coach. Yeah. Yeah. His, just his sort of confidence and swagger as a man is really enjoyable as well.

I think part of the reason that they're so, part of the reason they're so buzzy and fun to watch and a little more fluid is, least in this camp, I think is partly attributable to Mikey Varus, you know, much maligned for his interim tenure, and probably rightfully so. Nobody remembers his interim tenure, Bell. He's maligned every day across this country. No, I mean, yeah, nobody's going to remember it. But he did also coach a bunch of these guys in the U-20 age group, and they played in the

same way, if anybody would remember, like Luna, Gutierrez. McGlynn, those are the three that come to mind the most. I mean, Paxson Erinson was on that team. But there is definitely something similar about watching them play now together to what it was watching them play together as U-20s, particularly Luna, and particularly those three, Luna, Gutierrez, and McGlynn. So I think it's just kind of, in some sense, in this camp, at least, it's just who the players are, you know?

In those players, well, and those players get to. do it against a particularly, not particularly, a weak Costa Rica outfit. Yeah. Yeah. Although, yeah, definitely. Definitely weak. But somehow a little, somehow they seemed a little tougher to play against than Venezuela. I'll buy that.

Yeah. So we're going to get into Diego's Big Balls moment. Talk about whether anybody from this roster is going to force their way into the national team. But first, let's take a little break and come back and do the time. timeline. If you want to get the scuffed podcast, ad free, uh, join the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. Um, and also I got to say, I got to mention this. We're going to Rome. We're trying to go to Rome in May, May 10 to 18, C. Lazio Uve and Roma, A.C. Milan. There has never been a better time to see U.S. men's national team players in Syria,

with all due respect to Alexei Lalas. Michael Bradley. Yeah, and Michael Bradley. But it's a totally different ballgame now. And those games actually might be meaningful at this point because there's going to be Champions League spots on the line. And so we're trying to get it sorted and make another trip. We went to Northern Italy last spring,

and it really was a blast. It was a well-organized trip by George Caraci, the guy who founded Howler magazine. and so if you're interested at all, if there's even a little possibility that you can do it, go to the show notes and fill out the little form that we have in there just so we can sort of get that ball rolling. We will be back in a moment.

We're back. So to the timeline, pretty cold in Orlando by local standards. My sister-in-law sent some photos of snow in Savannah, Georgia, yesterday afternoon when that's crazy. I think high 30s, low 40s. Like I said a couple of times, it seemed like less space and time in this game than the one against Venezuela on Saturday.

I don't know, first 10 minutes, it seemed like there was a lot of nice, short combination passing. I was sort of expect it from Luna and Gutierrez, but I was impressed with DeWan Jones, his ability to get in. That was kind of the fun side last night, that left side.

I thought so too And it was fun to see Duan Jones kind of stretch his stretch his legs a little bit A lot of range in his moves and responsibilities

Yeah What do you mean What do you mean a lot of range So I'm literally talking about The fact that he's going inside To be a center midfielder Yeah At times

Like and that seemed to just be Like a weak side shift He'd shift over When the ball was over On the right side He'd shift over And be part of a pivot Like we saw Jedi Robinson do

In the home match Against Jamaica But then when we were in the initial phase of buildup, before the ball had shifted to the right side, he would be up hugging the line, shifted up ahead of Tim Riem, who'd flared out wide.

So he was playing the wide, wide fullback role in possession early, but then if the ball moved over as the weak side player, he would go all the way in as a midfielder next to Anelli. And then as we had attacked, again, he looked like he was totally free to go anywhere in the attack. He was setting up,

he was in the box constantly as the ball got upfield. so just a lot of, a lot asked of him in that game. Yeah, it is kind of a lot like what Jedi did in his last appearance for the U.S. And I thought Jones looked really good. I feel like we've liked Jones for a while here and never quite figured out why he didn't get more, at least chances to prove that he didn't belong. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe he will get, maybe he will be. that guy for March. So 12th minute, there's a real nice combo from Luna to Kromoski on an entry pass from Miles Robinson, and Kromoski just misses Gutierrez with the through ball. This would have been super gorgeous. I think the run could have maybe been more determined from Gutierrez, although he was off-screen through most of the sequence.

I guess my thought is he's not a line-stretching runner as a matter of course. course, but he should be. You know, he should get better at that. You're saying Gutierrez needs to be a line stretch, or are you saying Luna? I'm saying Gutierrez, because Luna comes back to the ball, lays it off real slickly for Kramoski, and then Kromoski just hits a one-time pass, like, through the centerbacks. But I think Gutierrez is kind of running in front of the centerback. Again, you can't really see him in most of the clip, but my suspicion is he's running in front of the

centerback just kind of like thinking, oh, I'm going to get a past, maybe I'll get a past defeat here and I'll combine when, you know, there's a, there's an opportunity for like a death blow there, you know? Anyway. Yeah, and with Diego Luna, you just always have to expect the death blow, right? Right. Right. And I wouldn't say, you know, you should always expect a death blow from Kermoski necessarily.

But you delivered it this time. It's a good one, yeah. You know, we get a half chance here, half chance there. I feel like Luna is fun. Gutierrez is fun adjacent. Kramoski is interested in being fun but isn't quite, and Jones is more fun than I gave him credit for. I think those are solid fun tiers for this window.

17th minute, we're having a nice spell of possession in Costa Rica's half, and this is when the sort of the drama begins. Luna gets tackled hard. I mean, it's a clean tackle, but he gets, like, put on the ground, kind of dribbling along the top of the box. And in his chase to compensate for losing it, he, you know, he kind of, he gets, well, he gets a solid elbow to the nose. His nose is broken by this contact.

Blood streaming from inside and outside of his nose has to go to the sideline to get taken care of and try to talk his way back onto the pitch because he's, you know, it's a pretty serious wound he has. And so we're getting, again, we're getting some key moments in U.S. soccer lore, I feel like, that are building up here. Yeah, totally. So finally, after an extended conversation with Potch and with, you know, plugs like white, they look like white ear plugs, the kind you use at a concert or a construction site, maybe. They're basically tampons. They put tampons in.

Oh, is that what they are? Okay. I mean, they might be specially made for the nose, but yeah, that's basically what you're doing here. Yeah. I mean, they're certainly not traditional tampons in their size. Anyway, he's got those things up his nostrils. He changes jerseys and trots back on at the 1930 mark. So, you know, about three minutes later.

And immediately recovers a loose ball, you know, plays it back to Ream. It kind of the ball gets passed around a little bit. Jones hits him between the lines in a lot of space, to be fair. He drives at the back line and then plays, I would say, a lovely pass through three defenders for Brian White. White takes a touch and then slots it low and hard at the far post past the keeper, 1-0 USA. It's a real nice finish, real nice bit of sneaky movement from White. You know, in all the highlights you see, it's like Diego is like directing White where to go. But really, White is being real clever.

He's going away. He turns the defenders back and then he cuts in front of him. him real fast. Congrats to Brian on his first USMNT goal. Should we listen to how Potch described what happened? Of course. Like he said, how you feel? I said, no, I can't.

Please, coach, let me to keep playing because at least after in the half time, I go out, you know? Doctor, give me the okay. Big personality, yeah. I said, the doctor said, yeah, yeah, okay, you're going. And the first action, assist, and we'll score. I say big balls.

Sorry, sorry. No, I love it. But it's true. Because another. Everyone knows what that means. I love it. I love it. Another say, okay, I broke.

I need to go. But in the way that he played, because after suffering another, you know, another action that he showed great character. Again, this is just like the fun content of being a soccer fan. This is what you got it. You have to enjoy this stuff. This is,

this is, like, one of the best coaches in the world coaching our team, talking about our kids, and it's just a blast. Yeah, totally. And again,

it's not, it's not just a random kid. It's a kid that we were already, we're all in love with because of, like, the flavor he brings, the character he brings. Yeah.

And so now to pile this on top of it, it's just fantastic. Yeah, it was wonderful. Great. Great job. Great job. all around. Great job Diego. Great job Potch.

Great job, Duan Jones, that entry passed. This was a great example of Costa Rica not being in a low block. This actually all started with Zach Steffen very confidently feathering a ball directly to Costa Rica to attack us. And then we went back

and knock it around a little bit. And Costa Rica are not in any, like, urgent way recovering to get deep. You know, like the old Costa Rica would have immediately dropped, picked up, like, line of confrontation on their side of the field. And this was like, they kind of came out and kept trying to press us a little bit after we'd want it back.

And a little, not super urgently, but just like, oh, we're fine, just kind of hanging out here. And there's a, when DeWan Jones hits that ball to Diego Luna, there's like 30 yards between him and the back line. They're retreating. They don't know who should step, who should go. They finally step really late to Diego Luna, but not everyone holds the back line. And that's, again, that's how Brian White gets to make this run. It's good movement to dust the guy, but it's also one defender eight yards deeper than all of their other defenders holding the line.

And it's that sort of you talk about the Gold Cup group stage back line that you get to play against. This was that in January. Yeah. It is kind of funny to look at the screenshot too because Luna could have played it to Gutierrez too. He could have played Gutierrez in on goal as well. I feel like Gutierrez is standing straight up because he probably stopped thinking, I'm offside, I've run past their back line. I'm six yards deeper than the Costa Rica players who don't care about me anymore

because of how offside I am. But no, there's one Costa Rica dude not paying attention. Yeah. But we punished it. You know, they give us that and you punish it, and then you don't take a ton away from it because we don't know if that vision and that movement and that stuff is actually going to be the same

against a confident back line. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, the screenshot I have in our notes here is right after the ball is struck. So maybe, you know, maybe Gutierrez wasn't wide open and it wasn't quite six yards behind. But it's still a solid three or four yards. I will say I didn't think Luna, and it's understandable, you know, he had a broken nose. He had to have surgery after the game. but I will say Luna didn't, outside of this one moment, didn't do a ton to sort of announce himself or seize the moment.

I thought, you know, somebody was tweeting at me about this, and that Andres Contor thought Milhevik was more impressive than Luna in this game. And I kind of agree, because, you know, I thought Milovic was pretty bad in the first game. but I don't know Maybe it's indistinguishable But I just didn't think I would like to see Luna do more in a game than he did here Again he broke his nose

And then he got hit again on his broken nose So I mean I don't know what it's going to mean for his future call-ups But assisting on a goal Moments after having your nose broken And being told he got big balls Is as far as I'm concerned announcing yourself on the national team picture.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I just mean, like, he immediately wastes that 3V2 in transition. It's keyed by White poking the ball away. And he just kind of telegraphs his pass over to White, and the guy, the defender just takes it easily. And then there was, like, a few moments later, another kind of wasted opportunity, not quite as good of one,

but one where he's got the ball at the top of the box. He tries to play it over to Jones, I believe. and that pass gets picked off. And then he didn't really, you know, the rest of the half was pretty quiet from him. But you're right. I mean, you get called big balls by Mauricio Puckus. You got to consider that a victory, don't you? What do you think of Emeka Nelly?

I liked all his ideas. I liked that he was trying to get in those spots. Again, he was being asked to do a lot. He was sort of the single pivot. I know that's, but, it because different guys would drop into the midfield, but he was the guy in that midfield space just ahead of the back line that needed to be the director.

And I thought he was doing the right things to try to do that. The execution wasn't always there. And it led to a couple of Costa Rica moments. So it's just going to be like how to Spatchway what he did versus, you know, what he cost us. And I mean, again, I don't feel strong. any of these guys are going to be like made huge leaps it was fun to watch a nellie doing that stuff and we'll just have to keep watching him yeah yeah yeah kind of um yeah i don't want to make

comparisons but it's hard to see him you know it's a it's a long ways from a mechinelli to even i think probably unis musa um and musa is a player that not everybody think should start for the national team and probably won't start some games okay we should talk about zach step in a little bit You know, you talked about his feathered ball precisely to a Costa Rican earlier in the game. He did have, I think, two sort of cinematic saves. One in the 37th minute on a shot from outside the box. They said on the broadcast they thought it was going in. I'm not so sure about that, but it was dipping.

It had to be saved. What do you think? Is this a save everybody should make or an excellent save or what? I thought it was a really good save. I thought it was a really good save. This one has to be one of those really good saves that also looks fantastic. Because it is like, I mean, this is at the extent of a keeper's range. He got to shuffle in.

He got a good push. And he is up high to get this ball. So Stefan's a long goalie. And that comes in handy on his next one too. But he had to do the fundamentals right to get to this ball. It was great. It was a great stop. Great stop.

Okay. I mean, we'll just go ahead and talk about the other one too, which was much later in the second half. I think it was the 55th minute, 56th. This one was not as far away from him, but maybe hit with a little more power from a little closer. Yep, yep, way less time on this one, so he's got to make a reaction save. And same thing, like positioning's good, footworks good, he's coiled up, and he gets a good reach to it. Again, his length helps him, but he did everything right here, and I think it's a really good save. Okay.

Two really good saves from Zach Steffen. And again, while we're talking about it, we tried to say, even when we were back into the Stefan days, when he was an unquestioned starter, and we were trying to say it should be Turner, it was never supposed to be the case that Stefan was going to be, like, falling all over himself making mistakes. Like, it was supposed to just be like, well, Turner's, like, marginally better, and over the course of lots of games, he's probably going to save you a goal or two. So it's kind of remarkable that Stefan actually managed to lose the job by falling all over himself for the national team and for Manchester City. That was a ridiculous run of mistakes he was making. At the same time, Matt Turner had his outstanding Gold Cup. So a lot had to sort of go right for Turner to jump Stefan because it's so hard if you aren't really going to do the full nerd like post-shot XG comparisons. which again have their issues.

They're noisy stat from year to year. Yeah. So it can be really easy to just be like, I trust this guy, this is what I'm going with. And in training, you know, people are saying,

do you think they have the players that training know who's better? And it's like, it's really tough in training because every keeper at this level is going to make ridiculous safes in training when there are so many shooting reps. And they're also all going to actually allow

like some bad ones where it's like, ah, like we need you to make that stop in our five-on-five games. that we want to win. So it's really easy to just have selective memory kick in where like this is a guy I like. So I saw him make this save. This guy let in a bad one.

He's garbage. But like really, it's tough to lose that spot from the starter to the backup unless you have a series of howlers. And so we've seen that from all of our keepers at this point. Turner with the club is that a series of owlers that have dropped him to the bench and not playing very much. he might start getting more trust in cup matches because he's done okay in those. Same with Horvath. Stefan had to come over to MLS to get minutes

and he's still not doing great statistically. Right. If Pots trusts him, like there could be a battle for number one in not much time. Totally, yeah. It does make sense in a position where the stats can be so noisy

that it just comes down to, personal relationships. Jib check. It's a lot of jib. And Zach Steffen looks the part, doesn't he? He's a big dude. He's a good-looking dude. I trust that guy to run the show.

He's the most goalkeeper-looking dude in the pool easily. Easily. So one more thing from the first half. We get this fun moment in the 42nd minute where there's just two great tackles in a row. First Jones tackles the ball into the mid-fee. field. It's kind of a loose ball skittering into the center circle. And Brian White comes flying in to beat a defender to it and tackles it over to Kremont. I mean, he takes the guy out too.

Kramoski drives at the retreating back line and plays it to, and in a white immediately pops up. So White put in a shift. You know, he's not the, he doesn't have the greatest quality. I think everybody would agree on that. But he finished his, that chance really, well. He had another pretty good shot on target on that Tim Ream flick on the on the near post corner. And then he just was, he just was working, you know. And so as soon as he tackles this guy, a really nice tackle, a blue collar tackle. He pops to his feet and he's running as fast as he can to drag attention off to the right as Kromoski plays, plays it to Gutierrez on the left. Gutierrez does a real composed job of sort of working his way into the box and being patient

and he sits a defender down. Then he bangs his shot off some Costa Rican shins, but he looked dangerous there for a second. And I said last night that I thought he looked like Burbatov for a second. And someone was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, nobody looks like Burbatov, which is fair, which is fair. But there are, you know, the part where he sat the guy down from inside the box, was very Burbatov-esque. I'll push back on the Burbatov thing a little bit in that everybody's adult league team has somebody who looks like Berbertoff.

That one player who's just like way better than everyone else moves to like half speed. No one else is Berbertoff at the level of Berbertoff was Berbertoff. Right. Against like the best players in the world. Yeah. No one in the EPL right now is Berbertoff. No. And Gutierrez is not Burbatov either in a comprehensive sense, not by any strength.

not by any stretch of the imagination. You've already described Gutierrez as one of our buzzers. You can't be a buzzer and be Brambertoff. Like that just doesn't work. No. So we create some danger there in the last five minutes of the half. White eventually fumbles a pass to feet from Gutierrez after a nice little bit of interchange and is very frustrated with himself.

But that's halftime. And let's kind of move quickly here. So Milhevik, Clark, and McGlynn come on for Luna. Gutierrez and Kramoski. As Potch said earlier, Luna was okay with coming off at half with his broken nose. He just wanted to get the rest of that half in.

I don't have, I don't know, I don't have that much to say about the second half. You know, it was pretty rough until, I don't know, the last 20 minutes or so. We got that Stefan save in the 56 minute, which has your stamp of approval. Oh, yeah, it's a good save. Good length, Zach, Stefan.

Shack Moore comes on for miles in the 59th minute, you know, and the whole nation moved to the edges of their seats. Shack didn't do very well, I feel like. I feel like he didn't do a lot to try to jump into the right back depth chart picture for Potch. Again, famously Posh just did not bring backup fullbacks to the Jamaica competitive games, which says a lot, I think. So there are spots to win, and I don't know that Shaq would have, one of those spot.

No. He looks so, he's only 28 years old, but he kind of, doesn't he kind of move like he's older than that a little bit? Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's fair. And again, he hasn't meant he doesn't deliver the awesome crosses that we saw so much

at his time at Tenerifee in the Saguna. He's just chilling, I guess. He was like, him and Chandler, even though my no-crossing soapbox that I get on all the time, I was like, all right, those two guys can cross. I had fun watching those two guys whipping across. Yeah.

Well, Arfston comes on for... Who did he come on for? For Vasselov in the 69th minute. But before we get to that, I guess we got to talk about Jack McClain's yellow for simulation a little bit. This is right before Arsson comes on. He has a chance. You know, he's dribbling. He gets played into the...

and at the edge of the box, he kind of dribbles in, and there's a little grab on his arm, but it's not sustained enough to be whistled, I think, for a penalty. And he just bundles himself over, and he gets the yellow card. I feel like it's a little embarrassing for Jackie. It's like the equivalent of missing up a knicker, right? Like you got to kind of own it.

VAR isn't going to lie about this. So you just got to own it. It's basically like a gamble thinking that this guy is about to step on your feet, and it took a really good play for the Costa Rica player to avoid it. But McGlynn had already sort of committed at that point, so he's going to try to sell it, even though it can't really be sold. Yeah. Man, my enthusiasm for McGlynn as a future national team player is still there

if he can sort of sort it out, because I just love that left foot. I love his instincts for a pass. Kind of Alex Mendez-esque, you know, for anybody who's been around here for a long time. You know, the way he just, just the gorgeous way, he'll play a line-breaking pass with that left foot. But you're holding a bunch of Testman stock, too, aren't you? What are you doing here? I feel like Testman's got the, Testman's going to hit all those silky passes at McGlynn's hitting. I need my secretary to remind me of all my positions.

I don't know. I don't think I'm holding that much testament stock. Okay. I mean, he's definitely the safer bet at this point than McGlynn. I don't know. Has he gotten on the field today for Leon? They're playing in Europa League.

Let's double-check that. He was not in the starting lineup. No, he's not in, I don't think. He had this big chance a few a couple weeks ago, and he didn't do very well. all in it and he hasn't played since. So,

Ajermont comes on for white. I noticed that Arfston and Potch were really, you know, cozying up to each other on the sideline. A lot of warm physical contact there. That's good to see. Potch heads to the restroom real quick, right after Ajumon comes on for White in the 75th minute. So Potch heads of the restroom,

which we know because the broadcast cut to him. You were not helping. them out both directions. Both ways. Trotting down the hallway. But this is good lore. Again, this is exactly what you want from a January camp. You want fun, fun stuff.

Good anecdotes. Yeah. Contor goes, Donde was Pochettino! And then his partner goes, I don't want to know. You know, I have a good laugh about it. And then, so he, as a result,

he misses the next goal, which happened around the 77 minute mark. This is a little bit of a light in the darkness of I thought was kind of a struggle of a half. And Nelly wins the ball off a guy deep, just picks off a pass from a wide defender. So deep in Costa Rica territory, that is, after we'd been trying to play around their box. And then he just poaches it, gets behind him on the wing, picks his head up, sees Clark, Maybe he sees Miljavik, I don't know, sees somebody free at the top of the box,

fires it back across there with his left foot. It's a good pass for Clark, and he just meets it on a low bounce about as sweetly as you can, hammers it into the near top corner from 18 yards out. Perfect technique. You can see the way, I mean, just the whole, like you could make a statue of the way his feet end up.

And perfect, in that as he spins to hit this, it also sets him in motion to wheel around to celebrate. It's like the hit and the celebration are all one big wheeling around, which I appreciate. I don't know that Anneli would have even picked anyone out. He basically just hit it between the two defenders, the only place he could hit it. That's true.

And then there's a huge space in there because Costa Rica, again, are not a deep block team anymore. There's no wedding cake here for Costa Rica. They are. Their midfielers have abandoned the game. But this is a good one, good aesthetics on all of this. Yeah. I mean, to be fair to them and their lack of wedding cake,

they were, you know, it was a giveaway by a fullback in a really, really dumb spot to give the ball away. I think it was a fullback. It might have been a centerback. And we have some nice attacking impetus the last 15 minutes or so. Fun to see. And then we get our third goal in the 90th minute. It's Ajamang, who had been, I think, pretty rough.

up to this point in the game. But we get a lovely curling outside of the boot pass from DeWan Jones to him running into out from right to left. It's a sexy pass from Jones, honestly. And he takes a touch. He's still in a ridiculous place to shoot from. I mean, he's like 15 yards away from the near post, and he just smashes it with his left foot.

Fantastic finish. Shout out the Eastern Connecticut State University Warriors. That's two goals and two appearances for Big Pat. Three-zero. Yeah, this is awesome, right? Again, you're just adding to the things that you're now allowed to enjoy for the U.S. national team, which is a D-3 kid showing up in a camp and scoring a goal, two goals, knowing that all of these guys could sort of go the way of Chris Mueller,

where they show up to a game, three goals, two assists. Doesn't matter. You just never hear from a game for the national team. But if you just kind of enjoy the, it's like watching the Olympics. It's like, oh, I enjoy this for a second. And I'm the biggest fan of this person that there has ever been. And then you kind of might forget about them a couple hours later. This is just fun.

And we'll get to kind of keep watching if any of them do really break through. Big Pat gets a move. Or if he just starts dominating the league, then they'll stay in the picture. But, I mean, do you want to talk about who you see making it into the March roster? I do. I mostly want to hear your take on that. And, you know, it's okay to be wrong. I'm wrong all the time. Well, I'm going to, I don't want to go super safe, but we'll just start with the safe ones. And I think Zach Stephan is there. I think Posh likes him as a guy.

And again, he's a professional goalkeeper. So, Stefan, I think is there. I think Riem is there. I think one of Miles or Zimmerman are going to be there. Those are my safe ones. Are you okay with those being? All right. But yeah. Okay.

Stefan, I guess, wouldn't have been considered a safe one like a week ago. Well, he's been in the camps. That's true. That's true. So I feel like Zach Stephan at the least is Pottes Sean Johnson, where he's just, he likes having him around. Yeah. Okay. So give me a risky, give me one or two risky ones.

So my risky one is going to be Duan Jones. I like him You know Caleb why the other the other options to be the backup left back Really are just our other right backs With Dest maybe coming back then it's like okay Well now we could use Scali as a backup to either or I mean we don't know exactly what Potch is going to do

With the full backs when Dest comes back But obviously in the past Potsch was just comfortable saying I'll just use McKinney or Way or Musa there If I have to use a backup now it's going to be like he's seen some things and I'm just I'm kind of thinking maybe Dewan Jones gets a look okay I wouldn't I wouldn't hate that and then part of that part of what goes into that I know uh you know Sanjay might want John Tolkien there Tolkien now has a job

to do right he's moving and now he's got actually like play and play okay for Holstein keel to to stay ahead of what botch got to see from DeWan Jones on a soccer field right yeah i mean that's the one thing potch said is it's up to it's now up to these guys they have to go and perform you know they have to go and perform and push themselves um token's got to perform at hosting keel he's got to stay off social media and um it seems like he probably will uh so who are mine i've you know it's tempting to say ajemong i think that's what we that's one thing we talked about on Monday. But I just don't think the quality is there, is quite there yet in the rest of the game

for him. You know, I mean, but maybe he gets called up. I mean, who knows? Yeah, because we're looking, again, the spots are, it's tough, tough sledding, because you've got Peppy, who's already scoring for the national team and obviously putting up stupid numbers for club. You've got Sergeant Back playing. and then it's

Bolligan's Clarend's Club is playing absolute crap right now but it's not really his fault what are you going to say? Well so then you've got Baligan's going to be close I don't know if he's already ruled out for March

or if it's just going to be like no sense rushing him back but I mean you kind of would these are going to be intense games against the best competition potches had so far so if he's fit in playing for club I'd expect him to be here and then it just sort of

comes down, like, is Vosquez going to be the Vosca's going to be the guy? Yeah, Ajamong's not going to get called up. That's, I think that sort of wraps it up. I would like to think that Potch could take on Jack McGlynn

as like a, as a project. Because the upside is so high, you know? If he can if he can become not a liability out there, the upside of what he, you know, what he's capable of, The set pieces, the shots from distance, you know, surround him with a really good team.

Maybe, maybe it works. Would I put money on him getting called up in March? No. But I'd like it. Do you kind of feel like you hear yourself just saying all these things and then at the last second, switching out Mendez from McGlynn? Yeah, call him up from Tijuana. Where is he? Where is he right now?

I don't know Where he is But yeah I got a soft spot for the I got a spot Soft spot for the true footballer But you don't want to use that spot for Luna I feel like

I feel like you would have gone with Luna For that soft spot Just needed to show you more with that broken nose Like put a mask on and Circulate them a little bit Luna I'd be thrilled if Luna gets called up Okay I think

I think it's most likely that none of them does, you know, outside of the one centerback and Stefan. That really does seem like it, right? One and a half centerback, Stefan, and then probably just Motko, because I think, I think Pachitino just really likes having, like, that Argentinian presence there with him. Not just an Argentinian, but Newell's old boys, alums. Like, that could really be a thing that a coach likes to have. And I would just be like, cool, that's great.

There's nothing wrong with the total vibe. pick. Yeah. Just don't try to take a penalty from Christian Pulisic, please, Mocko. No, he'll make his next one. Missing a penalty doesn't tell you anything. Like, stepping up to take it tells you something.

Whether he makes it or not doesn't really tell you anything. Okay, but he shouldn't take it. You shouldn't show up Christian Pulisick. No. All right. Would Pulisick give it away? Would Pulisick force it, or would Pulisick eventually just retreat? That's a good question.

I think, I mean, it depends on how psychopathic Miljavik is about it. But it's not out of the question for Pulisic to back down. I'm sad to say. I don't think he would, though. I think, I think, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, I think Milhevik would also, everybody would be like, yo. That's what I think. I think everybody else would be like, you know, stop, stop, stop, stop, I really do think,

like, like, no one's going to, no one else on the team is going to, like, move in to give, make him give the ball to McGlynn. That's right. If we're playing Mexico and Mokko is trying to hold on. to a ball because he's in the game for some reason when we were in a penalty and we're level. Like, people are going to come in and intervene. Pool sick won't even have to do it. Pool sick will actually just stand and wait.

Almost like royalty while the guard will do it. While the guard comes in and like takes it from him. Yeah, I think that's for sure what plays out. Yeah. I'm glad we figured that out. Yeah, that is exactly what's going to happen if there happen to be on the field at the same time, which I think is also unlikely. Hey, thanks Greg. Thanks, everybody for listening.

We'll see you.