Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #578: Post-Panama Soundoff (A call-in show hosted by Vince last night)

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Two and a half hours of Vince holding court and agendas flying like a swarm of mosquitoes. Totally unabridged, might be a little language here and there. The first real test of the Poch era. Failure. Justified frustration after another bad loss.Detailed, more responsible game recap coming later today. 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 Panama Post Game Call-In Show. Tea Boy Vince here. And if you're hearing this, you know that the USMNT have crashed out of the Nations League in just in Taylor Tollman fashion. You know what I mean by Taylor Tollman fashion is Taylor Twelman's fashion choices. Terribly. We have crashed out of the Nation's League terribly to Panama. Nill at the death. Waterman.

My man's jumped over the, jumped over the board, jumped up to Tierra Henri. I think he gave him a kiss something. I mean, Terry Rhee was, it was spooked. Anyway, yeah, here we are. We don't lost, man. We aren't lost in the Nations League for the first time ever, and we did it once again, to Panama. Once again to Panama. There's a lot of things to go over here, a lot of things to get into.

I got Adam Bell's here on the stage. Adam Bell's, how are you feeling? I feel it. I'm feeling sick, man. Tieri was just talking about how Waterman said, "'Eres me idol, you're my idol. That's what he was screaming into his face. And Tieri is odd on stage over there right now

because Tierra is pleased about that whole thing. And Clint is sick right now. he just said probably a lot of you are watching this right now but he just said you want to feel like we're building something for the World Cup in 2026

and he's like look at the crowd here tonight and how can we expect people to get behind this team there's only the gold cup left and what if we don't do well in the gold cup he said that and meanwhile Tieri's like this is one of the greatest

experiences of my life I have Waterman jump over the Over the boards and call me his idol So it's there's some There's some discord up there Adam Bells I don't know if you I don't know if you felt like me But I think it's because of watching a lot of

Juventus But the longer that YuVA goes and they don't score I'm like man they're going to some The opponent is going to pull something out And Yeah I know that feeling. Yeah.

And, like, as soon as, like, that header went backwards or whatever and, like, that Panama attack got going, I was like, ah. Yeah. And the ball hit the back of the net. I was like, ah, yep. Yeah, man. That was a pulic header. That was a pulic header.

That was right. Christian had a terrible game. Brother was ass. A lot of terrible games out there, man. A lot of terrible games out there. Who else do you think had a terrible game? Well, terrible. To me, I'm thinking Weston McKinney.

Yeah, not great. Y'all know I love my boy. But there were opportunities to get stuff cracking, and it wasn't cracking. He did play the ball for Big Pat. For one of our better chances of the match, obviously. But, yeah, I mean, there were a lot of touches. you know, in the final third for Weston McKinney and he wasn't good enough in him.

And, and. He looked off all over the field. Yeah. The key to this being, if that was Gio Raina getting those touches, I think we probably see a different outcome there. I was fully prepared for Gio to come in and save us in this, in extra time,

you know? Yeah. They put Jack McGlynn in there. I thought Jack was all right. didn't. I mean. Yeah. I mean, he's not going to.

Well, I mean, he could single-handedly do it, but. That's a Daniel Lovitz. Not that he's Daniel Lovitz, but the fact that, you know, it's like, we need to go, bro. And you, uh, I guess he thought he can get his deep line playmaker bag. And I'm not saying, I mean.

Yeah, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear, bro. No, I mean, I know you don't. It's not time for no damn nuance. I, what we needed was. yeah, some way to break down that Lovelock and

yeah, we need somebody to beat somebody 1B1 and do something special and we just didn't really get it. That's what Tieri said. That's the thing, man. It's like, you know, you're going to halftime and we know what's going on. It was a sleepy half, whatever.

And I don't know. I'm seeing kind of, like I hop in the Discord, everybody's like, yeah, Gigi. Triple G balls, back, the horseshoe with death, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this is like the same points we've been trying to make. It's like, bro. Like, first of all, that's just going to happen when you play a block. And especially when, like, I can give you multiple screenshots at that match where it's like those three centerbacks are basically, you know, the middle one is in like the middle of the, you know, the half circle.

The half circle that tippies the box, you know, the tip, if you will. like the center the middle center back is like in the middle of that and the other two are like probably like two steps outside of the arcs you know and it's like they're real tight and there's a midfield band of three

that are real tight six players right there congestion up the whole middle man and it's like bro it would be it's hard to penetrate man it's so hard man so hard yeah we need to get the people And once again, you just moose on the wing.

Man, come on, man, I don't told y'all. I don't told y'all. And this time, you know, other times it's like, okay, yeah, he played on the wing, but he's like a, he comes inside. He's like a midfielder, blah, blah, blah. In a low block situation here, you got to play, especially since we, never mind, I'm not going to go there. But, but, yeah, he has to play on the outside, you know?

Yeah. there's not a lot of room for doing all this moving and interchanging the stuff and like it's just not even that type of game in the first place and that pitch man that's a narrow ass pitch so it's like the ball was on but it's like shit you can you can play that ball and they can be there by the time the ball gets to you i'm not really accepting that excuse though i mean sure but I mean, what's the excuse? The excuse for, I'm not saying, yeah, but, you know, that was something they were talking about the broadcast, too. Like, Pachitino was concerned about the size of the pitch.

I mean, come on. Come on, bro. Yeah, I'm not saying that's an excuse. I'm not saying you are standing out there in the wide areas. I, you know, I'll give you a little bit of nuance. The Tyler Adams experience tonight, amazing to watch him defend in transition, you know. It's a drink of cold water The way he tracks back

And covers all that ground And the tackles are so precise But We don't get much forward thrust from him, man There's a few times Those little transition moments When you're playing a team that's like That well organized defensively

Those little transition moments You've got to take advantage You got to turn And go forward with the ball Find a forward pass Brother we saw it time and time again And qualify And that's the thing about, like, you know, when the Tyler stuff got to the fever pitch from, I guess, me at least, and maybe you bills.

But, like, you know, it was during qualifying when we were playing in these types of games all the time. And I was like, man, Tyler just, I mean, he's good to have out there. But, man, we're not getting too much. But anyway, you got anything else you want to bring up bills? I'm going to get, we got Jamal in here. He's requested to speak. everybody that's in here. We got 93 people in the audience.

We need you to raise your hand. You can literally say anything. I mean, we're in full disaster mode. And you know what's crazy is in the computer that I'm looking at right now, in there, I have the file for like my sad Copa America solo pod that I did. and I keep thinking I'm just going to like randomly drop it one day.

And it's like, you know, obviously we're not sad no more, but you can listen to me, be sad if you want to. Well, I get some use, baby. But anyway, let's get Jamal in here. Jamal been chilling for a little bit. Jamal? Okay, okay. Jamal, how you doing, bro? And where are you calling from?

Right now I'm in Austin for South by Southwest. I took time out to come home with my grandparents and watch the game. but here I am I don't waste my goddamn time. That's right. What the hell even was, anyways, that's not the point. The point is, what was it that we just watched? I don't even know, man. I don't know.

Why are we putting away on the same side? Why are they at opposite sides? Why are we putting attacking players and we're concentrating on one place? I can get it in theory, but it's like, man, if you got two good attacking players, put them on opposite side so they can cook and, like, imbalance. that out because they were looking really on top of each other at first half to me. Yeah. That sounds good to me.

And any alternative to having unismoser plan. No, don't get me, sir. I don't know, man. I think while I'm not going to get into coaching, because I see a lot of people talking to chats about coaching and like, well, you know, what do I feel like this is a bad coaching from Podge

and stuff like that? And I'm like, dude, at this point, you had Greg who did whatever you say he did, you know, as a coach. You know, we got Podge. type of coach he is, and we're still talking about coaches. This point is players. It really is. I love the players, dude.

But at this point, it's the players. I might talk about no damn coaching, except for one thing I will say. I think the way to do the best coaching is putting players, I think it was Jimmy Johnson, old Cowboys coach said, put players in the best positions, you know, to show their talents, you know, put them in the best positions that they can do what they do. I think putting Musa out wide, like you be saying, that's not, that's not. not putting it to do what he do. I don't think Moose out. Why was it?

That's one coaching thing where I'm going to be like, come on, man. Like, why are you doing that? Yeah, man. And another thing we got to bring up, bro. I mean, it's an uncomfortable fact. And it's an uncomfortable thing for me to even bring up. But, I mean, you know, they might be on to something with the DEI stuff. They're quite.

Too many. Too many colors on the pitch, man. Come on. We're the grit and grind at, man. I mean Max Max Arfston on the wing I don't know I think it just

It has absolutely nothing to do with that But I do think We play in the first half As if Just sort of the inexorable Force of our You know Our badge FC superiority

Was going to eventually win the game for us And that's just not how it works You have to like Try hard to score Not that we weren't trying hard You know There has to be like an urgency to score, like, from the beginning, you know? And it felt like the first half was, the first half was sleepy.

And it's not just going to work out, you know? This is why I think everyone calling for Gio to come in and stuff. I understand, like, hey, you want to see Gio ran up. You want to see Gio Rana out there, you know, and I get it. We all kind of expected him to be there before, Jack McGlynn, who I'll be honest. We own daddy saying he don't know. or don't think you're going to make the roster. Why are you out there?

That's just me, though. But Jack McGlynn aside. I'm sorry, Jack McGinniside. I get you all want Joe out there. We shouldn't need Gio to come save up. But yeah, he can help, man, I get it. A lot of us probably would have put Gio out there first instead of Jack McGlynn. But man, when we think we need one person to come out and save us,

who wouldn't even plan all the time for Dorman, then what are we doing? You know, we have to count on the players who are actually out there, who pot, just trusted. to be out there and do what to do. To go out there and do what to do, to go out there and score goals and to finish chances and then create more chances. And when they're not doing that,

and when we're not seeing Pully for the whole game, and I don't really think I saw him out there a lot, to be honest, what are we doing really out there? That's just, I don't know, I think we have to rely on the players more. We have got to start putting a little, I think a lot of bit more of failures on them, the team's failures on the players.

That's good. That's right. That's right. player says she has a hot take and maybe you can get her up here but Vince it seems like people in the chat are alternating between blaming the players and

blaming this game at least specifically on Posh. Any thoughts on that? Oh, you in an opera hall? No, in an echoey room. Okay. First of all, I'm just messing with you joy. But, of course it's both.

You know, and this is the same nuanced stance that Scufft has had for a long time. As far as, like, you can, it's not all on the players. It's not all on, it's not all on Triple G. But it's an amalgamation of the two, in it? And you can change what, who's less, who's more responsible, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, players got to execute at some point, you know, I think we were, you know what. But, but yes, I agree. You know, you can't put anyone loss on all people or, or anyone loss on, like, one person or whatever, one coach or whatever.

But for this specific match, I will say, it's, it's, I'm going to give it 65% potch, bro. we didn't need we didn't need a we didn't need a we didn't need a we didn't need a we didn't need a let's go ahead and get that started right there we didn't need Tyler and Tanner Tanner didn't do what he would he

what I was hoping he would do in the game which was you know be really clean with his distribution and open things up it just wasn't just wasn't clean I know he can be I'm saying he's a bad player but

he just wasn't tonight even then it's like man we just he's not a deep line playmaker you know he's just a classy like can be classy six you know what I'm saying it's not like he's not about to unlock the the ting uh with just a ball over time something you know you know that's just not coming but um I mean even his vintage diagonals weren't on tonight you know like he would they were he was short with all of them so it is what it is But anyway, Jamal, thanks for the call. We got Claire up here.

Claire, what you got? Hey, I'm on my AirPods. Can you hear me? Yeah, you sound great. Thank you, thank you. Well, I was coming back from a birthday dinner watching the game in the bar kind of optimistic until you all started talking.

First of all, take Tyler's name out of your explicative mouth until our backline doesn't need to be cleaned up for. Just saying, Chris Richards could have had it down to zero if he wasn't out there doing mopping work. But that's my, that's my mean negative take. And I feel like it's fair to say. That's optimistic. I'm interested in this. I think, like, sometimes I think it's important to take a loss.

I think Potch might have needed to. I think he was a little high on his own supply. You know what? You might be right. Potch specifically, dog. You know, Eunice Musa at right wing again when we needed somebody creative out there. I'm sorry, like, we talk about Tyler not being creative. You got Testament out there who's supposed to be doing that for him.

He's not. You got Eunice Musa on the wing, who I love. But, you know, if I were Mr. Pachitino, I would have maybe, like, put somebody who had a little more juice there, you know? A little more, a little better at that. Yeah. Like, you got Adams out there mop and put somebody who's a little more. a little more attacking-minded out there maybe. A little better on the outside.

Jack McGlynn off the bench. Like, what are we doing here? I've watched Jack McGlynn with Houston. He hasn't been able to do basically Jack, except, you know, turn the ball over and cost us goals. No offense to him, but like that is the Houston experience for him, which I thought it was too big of a step for him. He's a young guy.

I'm so optimistic on him, all that jazz. But it's like if you had been watching him in Houston, you would have known he was asked to replace either Coco Carasquia or Hector Herrera and he has not been able to in any way, shape, or form. Which, like, you know, a 19-20-year-old versus a full-grown adult player, like, you know, he deserves time, he deserves, like, an environment to learn or whatever. We have other guys missing that are causing the problems, but, like, for all I dog, Gio about his athleticism and his willingness to defend and this and this,

Jack McGlin over him is a fundamentally unsurious decision and maybe this is a learning opportunity for number one Potch to learn to enjoy being serious number two us to realize that like anything short of our best is not good enough I think we get a little high on like our players our players our players I can say in a week like Panama is a problem like they are a good well put together team and like a low block being annoying to break down it's one thing this kind of defensive problems, which we have had the entire Pocera, I would just like to say, is another thing, you know?

So, like, we're going to learn. We're going to make decisions. Like, you don't get data points in a big win. If this was a 30W, we wouldn't have said, you know, Tim Rame, I'm sorry. You got to keep starting because Richard McKenzie just does not seem like it's going to be it, you know? We wouldn't have had that information to go, oh, dear God, what are you doing? we wouldn't have said Tanner it may not be time

it may not be time I have some stocks I'm pleased to see him in France I'm pleased to see him doing it with Leo but like it ain't time yet you know and sometimes you gotta blood some guys

so maybe touch in his lack of enjoying being serious truly was like I'm sorry this is my chance to see if Tanner can do it long the big stage he can't check mark I want to see if Jack can be a backup option

Nope, checkmark, you know? So we learned a lot. You don't learn when you have a big win. So I hope we learned a lot. And like we take Canada or Mexico, whoever we're going to play in the expletive third place game on Sunday seriously, because that'll be another chance to learn. The goal is the World Cup. The Gold Cup is still the big tournament for our region.

And we come in into the Gold Cup, Angry as All Get Out. You know, that's all we can do. But Potch does need to learn to enjoy being serious, because I'm sorry, I would have rather seen Brenda Narensen than Jack McGowan. Claire? Mm-hmm. Yeah, you was cooking right there. I have to say, what a performance. What a performance from you.

If we could have got some of that passion, desire on the pitch tonight, wouldn't be having this. We wouldn't, the tenor of this call would be totally different. Yeah. everyone on this call should go have a couple of mojitos with their friends because it puts them in a much better mood about this. Yeah. Everybody in this call got friends? I hope so. 101 people in here.

I mean, law averages are you saying. But anyway, yeah, Claire. I agree with everything you're saying. The one thing, the one little. I guess disagreement I would have. But like I said, I feel like some people were set up to fail. Not fail, but, you know. Like, Tanner.

But like I said, I just don't think. I don't know. It wasn't. I think. It wasn't great from Mr. Pajitino. But the big thing is Potch has been kind of taken the piss for, for, I've noticed it during January camp. Yeah. And I just think he's not, he's not entirely.

He's not entirely locked in like he should be. Maybe it's the green car situation. You know what I'm saying? I don't know what's going on all, but, but yeah, he's not, he's not locked in the way I would like for him to be. I mean, I'm sorry. I was saying bring back for us to get rid. Because at least Greg took it seriously.

But that's a whole other thing I don't want to get into. Look, man, if Greg Burrothamate some of these moves that Pajitino made, Oh, boy. Well, also, like, Burrell Tanner was set up to fail. We learned, I'm sorry, we can't rely on you to be the creative crowd in a big moment. Next man, you know? So.

Yeah, but I would say that would be a situation of misprofiling, the player here. Hmm. You know, but anyway, we can debate this, but Claire, thank you for bringing it. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you all for running this. And, you know, I'm sorry, put Gio there.

That's all I would rather see. Tyler can clean up for Gio. That's fine, you know? That's right. Yeah, we didn't, we didn't need two of them. Anyway, oh, thank you. Thank you. Let's get, let's get a little ice in here.

All right, little ice. Where are you calling from? Can you all hear me? Yep. In Atlanta. And, uh, I mean, out of, where the players play. They did not play very well here last. time, unfortunately.

That's right. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I have really anything new to say other than just like, I'm just so confused with the lineup decisions. I mean, moves out wide. I know that's something that like we've all beat to death. I feel like it doesn't make any sense. And then having Tanner and Tyler out there also just doesn't make any sense. And it's just like, is he so, is Potch like so just not locked in where did he not think

that they were going to park? the busts the whole time. Like, I just, I just really don't understand any of it, and it's just incredibly frustrating. Yeah. I mean... Panama has been more... Panama has been more expansive the last couple of times we played them than they were tonight. Isn't that fair?

Does anybody disagree with that? Is it? I mean, could we even tell what Panama was doing before a way of punch old dude? Yeah, maybe not. Well, I think that's the point, right? that like when that happens, the game state just completely changes and who really knows what the plan was going to be, you know?

But yeah, they were really sitting back tonight for sure. Yeah, I mean, it was crazy. Like they weren't really even trying to do anything up until the very end. It's just like, I don't know, man, the lineup roster decisions, a lot of it in the subs. None of it just really made any sense to me. And then, you know, we had a handful of chances and just couldn't bury them.

And that just feel like whenever that happens, you know it's only going to end in one other way, which is what happened. Yeah, man, we haven't said anything about a... Mr. Parabola on this call. Yeah. I mean, it was a nice finish on the one, the one that was called back, but, you know, doesn't count, right? So what did you think about the first one? I missed it.

I missed the first 20 minutes. I had U8 soccer practice. is still 715 Eastern Time. So I still have to watch the first 20 minutes of the game. I thought the first one was like, I mean, it was just kind of unlucky to take a bad deflection, but... Probably, probably where I went to.

I don't know. What was it? Can you guys describe the play for me? Just indulging it here. I forgot who played, I think it might have been Tanner that played West to the end line. Tanner was involved in it somehow. I remember him receiving the ball to tight.

area, play something with the stuff. Anyway, basically, Man City's on, Weston, cut back to Josh. Josh met it with his in-step, kind of hit it into the ground, and it hit a Panama defender, his like outside of his left leg, I want to say, and then hit the near post and didn't go in the goal. He looked like he was celebrating like he thought it had gone in before it bounced out also for like a brief second, which is unfortunate. Not that he could have done anything after the fact, but. Which I'm going to have to look at this one more time and, you know, 0.25 speed, but I feel like maybe he could have caught it better.

But that's just like, I'm not necessarily sure about that. And then he had the one that was called back and basically did he touch the ball outside of those two moments? Not really. I don't think so. I don't think so. But the one thing I would say is, like, does Pat, because Pat, on that one chance, he actually had to make up, like, a deficit.

Like, the centerback. I've wanted to bring this up since we started talking. Yeah. Uh-huh. Well, go ahead. Well, I mean, just, like, most, most strikers, most strikers, most strikers, period, don't even get a shot out of that moment

because he had to get his shoulder inside the other guy. And, man, did he big brother him. Like, yeah, like the centerback had the position. Yes. And that was amazing that he even got a shot out of that. And maybe he could have done better with the shot, but playing with house money at that point. But like, to me. The second one, I think, was a little more frustrating because he just looked like he just kind of scoffed it off his plant leg, right?

Yeah, I thought it did. I didn't get that much of a, speaking of a man, let's get to the production team. Oh, brother. Boy. Come on, be right of it. Get things together. When you talk about the fact that, like, Lindsay Horan, American fans don't know ball or whatever,

I think the place where that shows up the most is with the production team. Like, on that offside, that Josh Sargent goal, the first replay that we get. Is Tim crossing the ball in? And you know that they thought that was the offside because they did the little pause when Tim's hitting the ball. You know, Tim's about to swing through it. Everybody's like six yards, six yards in front of the last defender,

and even close. Tony Miolo was about to pop its top. You know what I'm saying? We ain't get a replay. I mean, it was obvious that the dude was a attempt was very offside, to me at least. They did eventually show the replay. Yeah, they eventually showed it like a minute later or whatever, but it was just like, yo, we just do not see that in like other leagues.

Like, surely you can give me a ton of. examples to the contrary or whatever, but I'm talking about, like, like, I mean, just from watching these last few women's national team games and men's national team games, like production. As, boy.

I mean ass. I mean bottom of the barrel. Put me in the director's room. Like, put me in the truck, bro. Put me in the truck. I can whip you like. Because the second Ajumang chance, which is what brought this all up,

we never got to see close up of how he struck the ball, you know? Yeah, and right. And that's why I brought it up. Because I was like, I think it hit his plant leg, but I'm like, I don't know for sure. But yeah, if I had to guess, I would have said it hit his plant leg. But I wonder how everybody else feels. Is that like a, like how bad of a miss is that?

Because I see that. It's a bouncing ball. It's like, I think it's tough, but it's also like one that, like, I have. I would just expect a little bit better. But, I don't know. I mean, it is, like, his first, like, competitive match for us. But, like, I don't know. You're out there to score goals, man.

Like, at least, like, put it on the frame. That one is kind of Sergeant's bread and butter. Sergeant never gets that first chance that Ajamon gets. Like, he's never getting to that ball. But that one with the near post kind of concentration hit, that's like his port. happy, probably, or sergeant, but would all score that one

more times than not. But I don't know. That's all that I really had. Well, I appreciate you, a little ice. Yeah, of course. I get to call. So, the one thing I would say about that, well, I guess after that chance, right?

A little blurb popped up on the screen and said, Pat had 1.34xG. I don't know if they were, I was confused. I was like, Seems a little high. Those with some decent chances,

especially that first one, that first one is like, bro, that first one is like probably 0.25 or something? 1-5, yeah, something like that. Anyway, let's get sold up here. Need more calls, man. Our national team's falling apart. Raise your hand.

Anyway, so how you doing? Where are you calling from? Calling from Miami. I have several thoughts. about this game. Not going to put all of them out there, but first off, I wanted Sargent to score so badly.

Like, that's where I'm at with him. It's just like, he has been cursed, who has put a voodoo doll of Sargent that he can't score when he plays in the red, white, and blue. I don't understand it. But I guess that is what it is. I was also calling,

it's sad. I was also calling for Geo to come in, but I think I got to agree with Jamal. We shouldn't rely on one player to solve our problems for us. We need more players to step up. And, like, I hate that I feel this way about the team, but it honestly feels like a majority of them kind of like are playing without heart. Like, it shouldn't feel like we care more about the results of the game than they do.

And, like, that's not all of them. Like, Tyler Adams definitely cares. Or when we lost to Mexico and Mexico, like, Zendaya, not asking for him to start or even be a part of the squad, but like he was showing that he cared about what was going on on the pitch. But like, I don't know. It feels like every single one of them like doesn't really give a shit. And like I haven't felt this way about the U.S.

And I have never felt this way about when like the women are playing. But at the end of the Greg era and throughout the entirety of the poach era, it feels like a lot of them are just skating by. It's like, oh, let me go to camp, hang out with my buds, have a little fun in the U.S., go get some food that I can't get in Europe, like, have some fun, and then we'll play a few games, and that's it. We'll go back and, like, actually, we'll care about our actual seasons when we go back to Europe. And that's what it feels like. Elite take, so elite take. That's the type of energy we need right now.

When your squad is down in the dumps like this, it's time to question motivation. It's time to question, you know, all these different. intangible things that you can't quite quantify because you know what the team's performance has brought that upon them now

now it's time to question their heart do they want to be here you know what I'm saying do you love your country I do whatever whatever people be saying you know how it goes I don't really have

It was so electrifying to watch four nations and that fight that broke out the first game against Canada and like the Cachec brothers getting into a fight and like each player it felt like they gave a shit when they're playing in the red, white, and blue in hockey. And I want to feel that way about the U.S. men's national team. So me, for hashtag reasons, wanted to stay away from a lot of the things that charged up that four nations.

You know what I'm saying? but, hey, it's, uh, particularly when you have a, uh, 20% filled SoFi Stadium, 15%, maybe 10% 10% filled SoFi Stadium. You need like, like, uh, what Clint was saying, you got to make your own, we got to make your own motivation, you got to make your own hype. We used to, in football, like, in college, we said, we used to, like, the coaches just used to like, yell it. They'd be like, fake hype.

fake height and we would just we would just yell like you know what I'm saying because like we know like there's an acknowledgement like yo what's going on right now sucks um and I think I've had this take about I don't know if I've said this out loud but I've had this take about Wes for a while that Wes is kind of so I when I played sports I was like an externally motivated person you know if the crowd was big if people are around We're around. We're into it. Boom.

I'm locked in. If I got a dead crowd, if there's nobody in the stands, you know, I played like NIA football. NIA football. Like some of these wrote, like at home, we were, we had nice turnouts, whatever. But on the road, but sometimes you go into places, like I played in Marshall's, I played at Marshall University Stadium with like 20 people there, you know, a very large stadium with not a big crowd.

And it's like, man, like you could just like, my performance would drop off a cliff. just because I couldn't bring it. I can't bring it without all that other stuff. And I think West in particular, I think he's that type of guy as well. But yeah, so I also brought this original point up to say, if we did have some of the stuff that was charging that Nation's League, maybe we would see a better performance from the players. But once again, you know, Bells, y'all talked to.

about this in the pod that came out today, you know, like, Eunice Musa isn't going to get charged up by a whole bunch of F Canada or F Panama stuff. You know what I'm saying? I mean, he's a... Right. Eunice is a world citizen.

It's a totally different, totally different demographic hockey players and the U.S. national team to say the least. To say the least. But, yeah. Like I said, so that was the perfect time to do all that stuff.

All the stuff that like, you know, the quants, like me and Bells to an extent, Bells is a romantic. But me and me and Greg would throw out and be like, ah, you know, we can't necessarily say that. No, they've earned it now. They've earned it at this point. Do you want to be here? So. It feels like Tyler.

Tyler is dead serious about these games. And so I think Christian is too. I think Christian had a terrible game, but he is. like really, really He really cares if we win or not. It seems to me. Yeah, Wes is a little more iffy. I don't know.

I thought, I've heard a lot of stuff tonight on this call, but I thought, I thought Richards and Ream were both pretty good. Is there a consensus that Richards was bad, or one of them was bad? I thought they were pretty good. There was something, can't think of the moment exactly, but Chris got,

wait, you got caught on the ball or something? Tyler had to clean up for him once. Tyler cleaned up a lot, for sure, for everybody, for everybody. But, there was a time in particular or something, but I thought Chris, for the most part, was handling this business.

I wasn't mad at the performance. I don't know, we just didn't have any cutting edge. I, um. I'm not discounting the softness part. I mean, it's sure. And I'll probably say it some other time. But like we just didn't have any magic to the score of goal, you know?

That's right. A B-O-B song just popped up in my head. A terrible one. I got the magic in me. Anyway. B-O-B was doing some bullshit. Let's get somebody up here. Nizus.

Nizus, how you doing, brother? Doing well. How are you? Jordan and Atlanta. How are we doing? I'm doing great, bro. I'm just more disappointed, like, with the outside backs. Like, the Eunice on right back.

Just, no, I'm good. Put Scali there, and then, I guess, work rem at left back. I know we don't want him against wingers, but it just shows how desperate we are when Jedi is there. Like, he's our best player. I'm just going to say it now.

I'm sorry, he's our best player. But, like, I just, we, we had nothing going on the wings. It was so disappointing. Like, we had some of that, like, combination play later in the second half where, like, Musa and Pooley, but it's just the left side

and Scali is just afraid to even touch his left foot, which he's not a left back, of course. But, yeah, I was just disappointed with how he set up the team with the, outside backs. Like, I don't know, McKenzie and Richards,

but I just, yeah, that was my thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, for sure, would have rather had Tim at,

you know, the nominal right back, which was wide right situation. Have Tim out there. I mean, Tim has made his entire USM&T career of playing

off plan wide right. Yeah. Yeah. Now that you say that, that's a really big miss from Potch. Because how many times did Eunice get the ball with his feet on the chalk? Many times? I mean, a lot of times, bro. A lot, but it went backwards.

Yeah. Right. And it's like, bro, all this metaphysical, uh, mumbo-jumbo-jumbo, Pach is talking like, it was, it was cool. for the pot, bro, and it was cute. It all. Just really just one. Them way of being right-eyed

dominant or whatever, blah, blah, hey. Put the man on the right, put the man on the right, have him with the ball. Put the fries in the bag, Potts. We don't want to hear all yet. Put the fries in the damn bag.

Bro. We don't want to, you know, I don't want to call you now for your free reading, for my free reading. But with y'all kids, don't know about that. Ms. Cleo infomercials. Jordan, you know anything about Miss Cleo?

You remember Miss Cleo? I do. Oh, do you? Yeah. Okay. I'm 32. Yeah. Oh, same age.

All right. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. I fully don't have no idea who that is, but I will say, this is not an original take, but I think it says something that, you know, in order for our team to have the best performances that we've had, that we basically need to have every single person playing in exactly their correct position.

Like we have zero margin for error in terms of player selection. And I think that's what really, you know, separates great teams and, you know, good teams, but not, you know, world champions, right? Like, if you can adapt when one or two players go down, no matter how important they are, and your level can fall so dramatically that you're losing the Panama at home, I mean, what's the expectation? Can we really be so surprised? I don't know.

I think we've seen this story before and always ends the same way. It is the recurring theme from like 2019 on. You know what I'm saying? Like, I was hoping we'd be able to build some depth, something that we felt good about going into the World Cup. And I thought maybe, I was hoping maybe Patras the guy to do it, but I'm not saying he's not.

I mean, it just occurred to me. I wonder who Claudio's emailing right now. Who is he firing off an email to? Hey, hey. Who is Claudio? Who is Claudio yelling at right now? Yeah.

He's got a restraining order. When Potsch decides to step foot back in Argentina, Claudio going to have them boys waiting for him. He's probably, the email, Potch's fourth in command. Pottes' fourth in command is taking those emails, probably. And Claudio don't call ICE.

As a fact, they better pull up the sofa. Dude, Danielle's already called ice. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Sorry, yeah, we should have a joke about that. Pottes is a green car situation, though. I mean, hey, I wouldn't put it past, Claudio. That's all I'm saying. But anyway, Jordan, you got anything else left?

mostly when like we're just the depth like you said um just it's tough like no jedi've just really really hurt us like considerably it really did like it's it's night and day i mean we all know that obviously watching it like and the one thing bro just doesn't miss games like he really didn't like all of 22 and 23 yeah right like crazy Like, just, yeah, he was a tag. He really is. Just to expand the point, Jordan, I'll quote Greg Burhalter and say, our fullbacks are our superpower.

Man. Because Surge is just, I mean, we miss Surge so much. Like, peak surge, his abilities. Who would have been getting at Cracket? Create chances. Yeah. It would have been, it would have been different.

Yeah. Just one of the two, I'll take. Like, both is a luxury, but, man, even just Jedi. But, yeah, thanks, guys. But unfortunately, Dan Galveston. Thank you, Jordan. Appreciate the call. Let me get, okay, HDJ.

If you're in line, stay in line. You're getting up here. HDJ, how you doing? Where are you calling from? Unmute yourself. I can unmute you. Maybe I can't. Yeah, I don't think you can.

You hear us, HDJ. You just got to unmute yourself. All right, H-T-J, then drop it out. El Ron Hubba-Hubba. All right. You know, we're in the home of the Scientologist. Home, is it? L.A.?

We were there. What you got for? There's an El-Rond, burgundy in the chat, too. I thought I mention that. Vince, if you ever walked down Hollywood Boulevard, I mean, maybe a block down from the Dolby Theater is a scientist.

college. So you may need to take a visit someday. That's probably what Potch has been doing this whole time instead of coaching the team. El Ron Hover Hover, Hove, Hove, unmute yourself and talk to us. All right, what's going on here? Okay. It's Jackie time. Jackie, you can accept the invite to speak.

I have sent it to you. All right. Jackie, can you unmute yourself? Hello, loud in SOFi. Can you hear me? Oh, I forgot you on the ground. Yeah, well, you know, I wish the game had gotten different. That's right.

So how did it feel in the stadium? Well, okay, so currently the group that's still here and definitely going through it is me for Justin Chels, whatever name Gorlock has right now and Josh. and all of us have been just like coping mostly, just staring blankly into space. The game was terrible to watch, honestly. I feel like, so like I kept saying in the chat that the only players that seemed like they were trying were Tyler and Josh.

I'm not saying they're the players that did the best, but I'm saying they're the players that seem to try the hardest. Also, can you hear me at all? It's really loud. I hear you super well. You can hear me? that's right yes oh damn iphone sound canceling is better than i thought um yeah also oh joe too like paul and i kept turning to each other when joe was cooking it was it was nice i just as for joe scally

you know uh but it did feel like the lineup was all wrong like i feel like like i feel like the team played better when christian was out wide it felt like we were trying to play out wide but like the field is skinny we can't play out wide you know what i mean Yeah. Like, how are we going to get space out wide on a field that is too small? And I think this is a good, this is good practice for the World Cup because we're going to play not one but two games here, right? Here we are. Yeah.

So I'm just saying, the other thing that I found interesting was, like, I've never seen the U.S. fans actively curse and flip off and boo players as they were watching. off and that is what happened today. Like Tyler and Wes kind of came over to us to try to give like a half-hearted clap. And straight up people were like people in the A.O. section were like cursing and flipping them off. So then obviously they walked into the tunnel and none of the other plays were over, which I think is kind of a bummer. Like me and Turtlet and we're trying to like clap and be supportive, but like we are just two people.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Me and Turtlet. we're trying to be supportive is a crazy sentence. I know, I know. Wait, Jackie, did you say, you know, people were flipping off Tyler and Christian? Tyler and Wes, sorry. It was them, too, that came over to try to, like, kind of half-heartedly clap towards us.

They were the first ones off the field, but everyone else pretty much rushed off. I found it very interesting. Immediately Potch went over to Eunice after the game, so, like, comfort him. So I wonder what that was about But like Eunice had his right Kind of in Pascha's shoulder And Fox was kind of like cradling his head and like talking to him

Like it looked like he was giving him a pet off. So my guess is Eunice kind of felt like He didn't play that well But like to be fair Unis is playing out of position and he hasn't eaten in 12 hours So like I feel really bad for him. True, true. Yeah A 4 o'clock local start time

Brutal for the man brutal for the minute yeah Jackie did they boo at half time too I thought I heard some booed There was a little bit of booing at half time Yeah Okay

So like the vibes in the stadium were not great Like even Even like even the AO section People were kind of like booing It wasn't that great It's like and like Normally the AO section Like people

If they paid a billion dollars to be up here they'll like stand and chant right but towards the end like the a.O guys were fighting for their lives trying to get anyone a chant the thing that i found interesting was like again other than tyler josh and sometimes joe scally and like occasionally timene truly it felt like no one was trying that far west did have a couple of sprints that made me happy but like didn't feel like he's doing all that much and like like you know what do you remember like woke up qualifying like the middle of wasn't qualifying when Christian would get all floppy arms and look really exasperated.

We got that Christian. Like floppy fishing. Man, so speaking of Christian, do you all remember that time in the second half where it was a little transition moment and, yeah, got the ball like out wide and he just kind of dribbled it in field a little bit and just kind of hit like a limp

ball to the, like a limp little cross to his right foot. I don't remember me. I don't remember the exact moment, but he was hitting a lot of, like, random ball. He was doing, again, he was doing the, we got like 20, 2021 local firefighter system. We were trying to do the thing. Like, he was trying to be that guy, and he just wasn't that guy today. Like, me and, me and a couple of people kept turning to each other being like, should we be subbing off-vision, which is crazy.

But, like, maybe. I mean, no. The answer is no, but, yeah, doesn't change. I mean, yeah, obviously, the answer is no, because. like he is the most talented person on the field at that at that point. However, like, it was so clear he was so frustrated and he was so upset. Like, I didn't, I don't know what to make of that. He, um, he did have the one good moment, the really nice McKenzie ball, him putting it back for

Ajamong, but. Ah, yeah, the chested down and the, yeah. Dude, the way, the way all of us crumbled when Adjamong's miss happened, like, first of all, everybody threw their beers when we thought Josh Sargent had scored. Like, it was clear everyone wanted Josh to get his goal. Like, everyone loves Josh Sargent. And then the other thing is, like, everyone was so sad.

Like, it happened to his offense. Like, more sad than, like, the, you know, the couple of chances at the end of the game because, like, we really thought it was that. Also, it seemed like the team just turned up the energy after Panama scored their goal, which is, like, why does this team have to be under pressure to be good?

I can't really hear y'all that well so sorry if I'm like yelling but one last thing is I keep seeing takes on both on Twitter primarily sometimes this sport that like Tim Rhyme shouldn't be starting and I know that I've been the Tim Rine gal but I'm just saying Chris didn't play better than him like Tim Riem is clearly still starting for a reason like I feel like Tim Rhyme is fine Tim Rheem was not the problem tonight. Yeah. And like all over Twitter, I'm seeing people be like, how is Tim Rink so starting? Why is he even in the 23? Why is he even in the 26? And I just want to be like, well, who is taking his place?

That has been more solid. Oh. Yeah. It doesn't matter that he's 37. Like, there were a couple of times where he like, well, Tim Reams printed. So like he ran and got the ball, you know? Like, he's slow, but he's not like.

He's not like untenable as a centerback and you also gain like some of the ball knowledge that he seems to have. But yeah, far and away, the MVP of this match

on the U.S. I'm really, we're very lucky to have him and it's such a bummer that he lost in despite him having pretty soon. We haven't talked yet about it. That's a nasty MVP to have

when you play against a low block. Yeah. Yeah, that's so good. We haven't talked about his almost banger yet i mean he just about did it right at the death i mean was that like a foot over the bar got all of that too um i'm gonna hop off unless i'm gonna see if anyone else wants to hop on actually uh from our group uh justin just just shook his head just just shook his head uh josh is down on his phone so well well jack there's other people we got to get to

oh okay no hop on you got to call back okay okay This is Elron. I figured out how to unmute myself. Oh, okay. I'll raise my hair again and we'll put you back to you back to you. All right. See you. All right.

See you, Jack. All right. El Ron. Elron is here. Yeah. Well, real name, real name, Andrew, calling in from Seattle. So, main point I wanted to make, and I'm not sure if anybody brought this up yet, but I hate to rehash an old burr-haltorism.

But I felt like, especially in the first half, probably for the first 60 minutes, we were lacking some real verticality. There was a lot of, you know, Panama played with a high line and a low block. They kind of constricted the field. All their players were packed into a, you know, a very small kind of section of the pitch. And especially when we were playing kind of Weston as a right-sided midfield during the half space and Musa as right-back. absolutely no verticality on that right side. And then same thing on the left hand side in the first half with Christian and in Waya kind of occupying the same space.

We were missing the ability to stretch the field and kind of, you know, expand that space for our players to play. And a lot of balls rolled the feet and, you know, people close down on quickly. So I hate to bring up the verticality conversation again, but I think it's just like a a major blind spot in the player pool is wingers who can really stretch the field. Well, it shouldn't be if Tim weighs on the pitch.

Well, and you know, if Tim, if Tim's playing on the right, he's a much more vertical player, right? He loves to get to the end line and cross. On the left, it's a good point.

Yeah. And then we didn't get the service, we didn't get any vertical service either, you know? Yeah, absolutely. You know, Yeah He was the only guy out there who can hit that ball Like the ball over the top

He got that one when Josh got tripped We got the foul, the free kick Right Yeah But other than that Who hit the ball to Tim when he was offside That would have been a half

I think that might have been Tim Ream If I remember correctly And that's You know that's something that I I know Jack McGlynn has got a lot of heat for his substitution into the game, especially since he was, you know, an emergency roster, Phil. But when Tanner isn't able to, you know, hit vertical balls, that's something Jack can at least do.

And he did do it a couple times, you know, maybe not to massive effect. But he gets the ball off his foot really quickly. He hits precise passes. Yeah. I thought he was really. thought it was really nice, probably should have come on earlier to do, because he's protected in the way we're playing by Tyler, you know, his decision. He absolutely occupied the same space as this Tyler, which is super redundant, but he, he's a plus passer where Tyler just really isn't. And when we're, you know, we're throwing stuff at the Wallenstein with Dix, I thought that that was, that was a small benefit.

I mean, yeah, but Yeah, I mean, yes But, you know We're hitting the balls out wide To, you know, Joe Scali and Eunice Musa Yep And asking them to cook Also, we got a

We got a tweet from a Chicago fire Pyong gang Oh, let's hear it Oh, let's hear it Oh, hold on. Tactical manager tweeted Pocitino is officially on fraud watch and Chicago Fire Pyongyang

tweeted a picture of Greg Burrhalter in the North Korea military garb and he's smiling and the caption just says okay okay okay which they typed in Korean characters

per usual but man what an account what an account Chicago Fire Pyongyang is Yeah, also, one thing we haven't talked about The smile in Burlters' face in that video is hilarious Yeah, that's a good ass account right there, man This good old-fashioned shit posting, you know Really, really getting back to the grit and grind

Posting for posting's sake, but also We haven't talked about this. Matt Turner on the goal That was ass. I'm going to go ahead and say it. Yeah, yeah. When we ask Greg at some point, he's going to bring up all the, he's going to bring his protractor out.

I don't want to hear it, bro. I don't want to hear it. That was asked, that should not have been a goal, and USMNT only has posted some type of post that shows his positioning on the goal. It wasn't good, bro. And that was not,

that was not a shot that should have went to the back of the net. I will die on that hill. Greg Velasquez, I don't care what you say. I love you, but. Well, you can see when he's striking the ball that this is something Greg has talked about. So I'm totally just learned this from him. But you can see when he's striking the ball, when Waterman is striking the ball, the Turner's heels aren't on the ground, you know?

He's like bouncing up a little bit. He's not ready to explode. And man, that ball was hit well, but not that well. No, it wasn't fizz that hard. And he missed it by, you know, what, five one-hundredths of a second with his arm. So just a little bit more explosion, and he tips that around the far post pretty easily, I think.

Hate to see it. I hate to see it. I also thought both Ream and Scali were a little late to identify him there. And I know we've, I think we can all agree that Tim is a really good problem. solver and generally played really well today. But I can't help but feel like with his 37-year-old body in the 95th minute when the goal was scored, like he's potentially just not as quick to respond, like just physically with his body getting over and maybe getting over there quick enough to take away the far post

as a younger player, especially like the first half of the game when Panama was launching a lot of long balls and they were bouncing and there was a lot of jockeying, a lot of chasing stuff down. That was a physically taxing period of the game for a centerback. And I don't know, I just got the sense

from his body language and kind of that whole sequence that he was a little bit worn at that part of the game, a little bit knackard. Yeah. We have to look back at it. Also, there was a, there was, some softness from Jack McGlynn there in that sequence too.

Oh, yeah. I'm not saying he's the reason necessarily, but I mean, he could have He threw a leg out and He threw a leg out when he could have. Yeah. Right, he could have brought his body to the, you know, he could have brought something

to the party there and maybe slowed it down. I'm not getting on them too crazy. Not saying he should have fouled or anything. Like, it wouldn't that dangerous of a situation to where you give somebody a free kick or anything like that. But, and I'm not too sure. somebody else would, well, I'm not too sure

Tandotas, specifically, would do something different. So anyway, Elron, I'm happy you figured out your mic situation. Appreciate the call, man. Yeah, take it easy, guys. Yeah, you too. Yeah, two notes from the chat. It looks like we have the XG battle at about 0.68 to 0.1 to the United States, which is just obviously not good enough.

I mean 0.68xG as a Panama team that was in the low block the entire game. That's not good at all. And then Doug McIntyre has a poach quote. He says, we are USA, but you cannot win with your shirt. You need to come here and be better and suffer and win the duels and work hard. If not, it's not going to be enough. Okay. So this is something that I was thinking about with regards to why Gio Rainer didn't play.

It had popped At my head While somebody was saying something else But you know Bells, you still got Some sources in the USM&T training room I never had to get out of that In the USM&T training room

That was never me I was not I had to get that sports broad day Oh wait Yeah yeah yeah yeah Okay I know it should that long Um Yeah I don't

I don't think it's a big mystery on GEO I think he I would have started him anybody who listens to the podcast over the last week would know that that's what I thought because I think we just

we need his we need his magic but I think it's not hard to imagine that Potch watches the way he plays at Dortmund and

um sees he's not with it yeah he's not into that level of effort or whatever it is whether it's effort or lack of capacity

Yeah, it might be something like that Because at the same time, he put Jack McGlynn on the pitch Right So it is what it is But also I have a tweet I need to read real quick And this is the type of like I was going to say incredulosity But the type of hysteria that you get

When you have this type of spiral You know, this is two competitions in a row We've went out in shame this is from Tommy Smith or is it Smyth I can't remember the one dude that be calling games Anyway

Tommy Smith Did at USM&T really post during the game That we play Canada or Mexico on Sunday The person who put that headline Should be ashamed and be fired You have to respect the team you are playing It doesn't matter who they are

That headline doesn't go up until you win And uh You know Obviously that The statement is true, no matter if we win or lose. We do play Canada or Mexico. Right. I mean.

I'm not going to get worked up over that. So somebody posted that we did, Panama won 32 ground duels. We won 23. You know, that's a pretty resounding victory for the Camerinos. I don't know. I'm going to rewatch this game. I'm ready for the recap. Big Papa Limp.

accept the invite and come up on the stage unmutris, okay, here we go. Big Papa Limp. Where are you calling from? I'm calling from Tarrant County, Texas. Yeah, but I'm from Memphis, yeah. Are you from where? Memphis.

Memphis, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. I think all of my thoughts have been said mostly, I think the biggest problem that we just didn't want to be fast enough. I think the biggest culprings in that is probably Tessman, especially in the first half, bro, looks so lost. And I think the wars are going to expect that when you got Tyler Adams in your midfield,

you're going to move the ball a little bit smaller than usually. Well, I don't know. Well, compared to him in the middle finger, she wasn't off the slope. But today, I think he won the ball fast than Tessman did. And then I think on the left side, who was that? Gil Scally, especially in the first half. He just didn't look comfortable. Pass him all in the left foot.

He always cut back to his right. And that very, that slows him on the way too. And having Polic and way on the same side in the first half, I don't know when the last time I've seen, like, Polic being the left side. I think he's really important than the last night. I think people on, like, I think a lot of, like, coaches want to put their best player and the best playmaker, like, in the inside. But, like, I don't know, police that just isn't, he doesn't really put himself in the game that much when he's, like, playing in an inside position.

That's why I thought he played his best when he moved towards the right side in the beginning of the second half. And him and Musa would have come out on the right side. And I think a lot of these problems could have been solved. Well, I think a lot of the problems just that we didn't have injury. We didn't have Anthony. We didn't have any of the strikers for, like, verticality. The last guy said, we didn't have any verticality. Also, like, I think we couldn't want it if, like, maybe McAllenell Brown.

I don't know if he's that. Every time I'm really watching them, but the only thing I've seen is, like, highlights. And, like, he's high. I don't know if he has, like, verticality, per se. And he's like a 1-1. He can be people 1-1 or like, he's like that dynamic. But like, he's an attacking left back. So I would like have one on the left side and have way on the right side.

You really wanted to have like ballistic in the inside. But I think Potch just, I don't know, it's just he made some bottom moves, man. So and they didn't let me get back. So like, I don't know what to say. I don't know. It's just kind of a bad look. when like when you say like

we're not gonna, we're not gonna like, you know, pursue these players per se. And like, it's kind of like, Anthony Robinson on that. It's kind of like,

hey, bro. Like, instead of like, you know, messing with actual speed and shit and like playing. Like, you share the games.

Like, go to the ground, bro. Like, go talk to them. Like, I think he doesn't get it yet. I think hopefully this loss

really keeps him like that. He was like, okay. Maybe I just, doing it to maybe do more then I think especially like like when you think of international

coaching you think of an ace layback compared to like Chelsea man like the all the confessions is nice to me man I'm just chilling I'm not even in the country for a I haven't been a green car like he probably he lives here like he's probably just chill he does not like I don't know

I don't hate him for it I understand like it's the United States is bro bro what hopefully he wakes He was like, oh, it's not really walking the park that I thought it was. And he actually puts the boots on her. Yeah. I think I generally agree with that. I generally agree with that.

And that's one thing I agreed with Claire about is like maybe a loss is good for Potch. So he can, you know, get serious. Not that he hasn't been serious, but whatever. Yeah, Bells, we don't got to see it from both sides in this situation. somebody well I'm not having to read that up but I will say that from Potch

so far I've seen a lot of I've seen a lot of Instagram story posts I've seen them coaching on the sidelines of whatever YouTube or charity matches He's like you know he's actually he's mentor nowadays I don't know what's going on

yeah and big popper are you are you holding your phone are you using your phone to do this? Yeah. You hold it like you're talking to us on the phone.

Okay, hold up. I think I can just change the audio output to my headphone because I think I'm using my Is this better? Yeah, so it's better. I think it's helpful. You were coming in and out at first.

But, but yeah, I mean, like I said, when stuff like this goes wrong, then we can we can, you know, it's fair game to question and all that stuff. I don't want to see no more pictures of your dog on Instagram, Podge. I don't want to see no pictures of your feet.

This man, but he'd be relaxing a lot, okay? He'd be relaxing a lot. He lives in Spain, right? Taking him siestas. I don't want to see no more siestas, man. Like Big Popple-Limp said. Get your boots on the ground, bro. We don't got time for tapas.

Yeah, I don't know if he has what, I don't know. I don't know what his situation is like, like U.S. soccer is like agreement where he has to be. But like, I don't know. I know Greg Burrhocks was like, we knew his personality.

He was like obsessed kind of. I don't know. And I feel like he talked about like data and stuff like that. Like he knew. I feel like he knew what he was talking about. I think maybe U.S. soccer needs to like, you know, lock down.

Hey man, you need to be in Chicago or something like that. We need to be in Atlanta. Five days a week, bro. you know, treat them like, not like Doge, but like, hey man, you want to, no, no remote, no remote, we need to see what you're doing, dog.

So we need to, like, we need to see, hey, right, right down five things you did this week. Who did you scout? And then email me back. And then maybe we'll decide what we'll do with you. But I don't know, it's just outrageous to me.

I don't know. I don't know. Maybe we didn't know what you do. I can't do nothing. I'm just a fan. but I don't know I'll just call it this weekend yeah

that's facts though that's facts Adam Bells you need to keep getting on the press conferences ask them I don't know if you I don't know if you've been watching

the games Podge I don't know if you've been watching West or low but Brian Reynolds is yeah yeah that's the thing

I don't it does not seem like he has truly Doug, he hasn't, this is crazy to say, but I'm going to say it. I don't think he's got on our level yet, Bells. I don't think he, I don't,

do y'all think Pottches is a sickle? Y'all let me know in the chat, but I don't think, I don't think Pach's a Cickel. He's what? He's outside way too much to be a Ciceman. He's outside too much, right? He's trying to be, he's out here like Eric Adams, real.

Yeah, man. Too much. Exactly like Eric Adams. He's out here like Eric? Yeah. He's out of him. being Turkey too probably has like a probably got like a deal with Turkey too to you know to deny the Armenian genocide that's why that's what happened to Eric Adams he got all this free stuff from Turkey to deny the Armenian genocide it's kind of crazy hey look it up

Eric Adams and he got he got off because you know Trump he need more permission about that it's kind of crazy oh yeah but yeah potch I don't know man I don't know what to do like he's making six million dollars it's like it's kind of too late it's kind of like we're kind of close to like 2026. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's got too late. I don't know what you do. I'm kind of screwed, but I don't know. Either he locks in or like, I don't know.

Yeah. But he. It was desperate. Go ahead, Bill. Well, he was, I don't know if you all saw this, but I did, at halftime, I went back and I was looking for the beginning of the game. And I landed on the interview between Terry Omri and Potch, you know, which is actually kind of fun to watch.

Because those two guys really respect each other a lot. as they should, I think. And they were talking about, you know, this idea of winning the World Cup, and Posh said, like, why not, you know? You know, why can't we, you know, in front of this nation, surprise everybody? And it's got to feel ridiculous for him to do all that, you know, gum flapping and then lose to Panama in the semifinals, you know?

I mean, even he would have to, anybody would feel. ashamed about that, I would think. So it's got a light of fire under him. Got to if he's a human being. I think he was kind of set up. I'm not going to lie. I don't know what we expected from

I don't know. From the last Gigi camp to now, I think we have worse players. Like overall, we didn't have Johnny. Well, surgery hurt tooth. I don't know. I don't know.

know. I just think nothing really changed. I think the only difference I see him is that he's on more interviews or more relevant. Good PR. He has great PR compared to Greg, but like, that's about it. I think

he's treating this job, like, I don't know, like he's like a influencer almost. I don't know. I see it. I see it. And I, I've kept it. I think I've mentioned that a couple times, but maybe on the pod or something, I don't know. But, but yes,

I see it and I agree. Big Papa Limb. So, so thanks for calling me. Appreciate it. Let's get, yo, I gotta go, Vince. Oh, man. All right, bro. Good night. Good night. Everybody. We're still going, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm still going. Simlack. Going to come up? I've sent the invite. Right. them like I'll meet yourself yeah what's good

what's good where you calling from the Bronx the Bronx baby BX all day yeah oh god I'll keep it short

and I was yeah I mean what else they'll say it's been said but a few things it seems like the crowd let us down

with the fans didn't seem like it was much there for that and I don't even we were talking about players who played at a fan. Well,

that didn't work out too well. I only caught the game from like 60 minutes on or so, so it can't come. It sounds like we had a goal that was called back. That's too bad, obviously. It felt good to me, like watching that game, we were going to win it. I felt up until we conceded,

we were going to win it, like, Hannah was getting worn down. Like, we take them to the 120, we're just going to win this game. I didn't, I mean, I didn't feel it's as a person.

I was a fan. you know, you see, you didn't feel nervous? No, obviously. Yeah, yeah, I didn't even. I mean, like, it felt like we were going to win. And then obviously that goal was just a gut coach. You know, and people will criticize whoever for, but it seemed a bit foolish a little.

Although, I mean, I was like, I mean, it's not the only time they got forward, but it still generally felt like you were. So it was their only shot on target. Yeah, that's right. Now, the one we got I'll have, remember that, so Hajiman looked kind of good, and I like what I thought about. Remember that shot that he had that was parried? And that ball trickled, like, just slowly across the face of the goal all day.

No Panama defenders are on it. And, like, I was thinking, God, like, where is some... The one that Christian had to run down. yeah like where is somebody running that like landed donovan to just slam it in like where was that that's right without a doubt

you know that was what that was the biggest to me it was like you know I don't know if there should have been somebody there but seems like yeah that that that was my big regret just thinking about that like god damn

that shit was course yeah I mean I mean, so West passed the ball. Yeah. So West, it was a little bit of a transition moment. I'm not sure I mean people we actually had up, but West passes the ball. And if Wes keeps, if Wes bust it, you know, he would be there. Yeah.

I would have to, like I said, we got to rewatch it again. Me and Bells are doing the recap tomorrow. Greg's on spring break. But, yeah, I don't. know who was available to do it, but I know Wes could have did it. Yeah, it just felt like if he followed the play, though.

If they were given max effort, there would have been somebody else there. And, you know, they didn't. So, that was, it was just such a gut punch, you know.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't think at all we were not going to at least take it to 120 minutes. And that goal just came at the worst time. Yeah. So it was me either.

You know, I didn't really have like a ominous feeling or anything. I was just like, man, I'm bored as hell. Like, I mean, I pulled my phone out and, uh, went on FB. Ref and started looking at some stuff for, uh, boots on the ground. I was looking at some NWSL stats during the match, man. And I was like, man, this is, man. but I uh

yeah but I didn't have the ominous feeling it just it did come over me once that that little attack started uh yeah it's one of those attacks that felt like it didn't get dealt with and you know kind of like

right and then it just this quirky shot that didn't look dangerous when it was shot dude it's a very similar to the other Panama goal but that yeah But that first one in Atlanta? You know, like an attack that just doesn't get dealt with, you know,

we have multiple chances to kind of clear our lines and then all of a sudden they hit this shot and it just squeaks in. And it's just one goal. I mean, I know there's a lot of analysis on that. I mean, frankly, maybe is at fault. but like if there was somebody better where where would that I mean like I just don't yeah it sounds like we're just not we're not deep at that and I don't know who the all turns are but there's been a discussion about Matt turned before so I don't I mean but yeah just I mean there's like a lot of people said I mean when you have one goal like that it just there's always there were multiple people who could have stepped up and stopped on it with that, but it was a cut

I put that a fortune I don't know what else to say I think it's getting late so I'm then I'll leave it to anybody else but

I mean I'm not gonna take it you know like it's Nations League you know it's too bad I don't it's on it to me you know

Potch has got to just respond to this but it's I'm not like I'm not like I'm not saying Potch I mean, we can't be Pach out, you know, at this point. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But, I mean, maybe nobody's saying it, seriously. There's criticism of his coaching, put it that way. Yeah. And maybe that's just. Like, look, either way, this is just one game. We're going to get Canada or Mexico. And that's going to be another game worth playing. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. So it's going to be another day to point. It's going to be another game worth playing. And so it just is what it is. So we got another game in this window. We're not going home with the trophy. But my final verdict is I don't like these NFL teams. Yeah, we should be playing.

I don't know. Can we, can we withdraw from hosting the World Cup? Sorry, I shouldn't say. But like, I just like, we can't. why can't we I don't know I mean it's not NFL per se it's just that they're not properly

sized yeah I mean that's a Carcaf thing but you know it's properly sized for a Mexico crowd but you know anybody else and we'll see

well I'm not even watching the game right now what's the Mexico crowd like I'm like chat let me know I'm not watch but uh something like thanks man yeah yeah yeah

Take all over, buddy. Up up. Mr. Producer, Joey, anytime you want to hop in and let me, just let me know whenever you get worried about the Mexican crowd. Sure, I got you. Jordan's up here.

Jordan, what's good? You got something to say? I just want to say on this whole this poach taking it seriously thing. That's been my concern since the beginning. Like, I even went back and one of my posts and bad vibes only and I got a no with four laugh emojis in response but like

like you think about it like for Greg this job was like the pinnacle of his career and for posh this job is a sabbatical like he has no like real incentive to like treat this like it's a big deal and like yeah I just I don't know and I wish I could get six million dollars to treat it to treat something like it's not a big deal Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what was the first thing that sent you down that path? Honestly, like, I don't even remember.

Like, I was just thinking, like, why is he coming here? Like, this guy coached Chelsea, this guy coach PSG, Spurs, and then he's going to come manage the U.S. men's national team. Like, something's up. And, like, clearly, like, most of the time, when you hear these big-name managers talk about managing at international level. They talk about it like it's like a time to lay back and chill. Like Julian Nagelsman and Thomas Tuchel like, oh, it's less of a day-to-day grind and you're not on the training field all day.

And you get to chill out. And it's like, yeah, but I don't want you to chill out. I want you to be grinding film and whatnot. Yeah. And I don't care what anybody says. So one thing that killed me that Greg did not say on the pot, I mean Greg, Bells did not say on the pod. He told us after Monday. So when he asked, when he asked Potch that question about G.O. And he was like, I don't know if you watch the games, blah, blah, blah.

Michael Cameron, the U.S. press dude, he emailed, he emailed Adam, said, by the way, Potch does watch the games. which is which is hilarious bro especially if you know Michael Cameron too Michael Cameron is just like an asshole like that like he wasn't he wasn't being like rude or anything

like that's just the type of dude he is like I love Michael um he he's a cool dude but uh but yeah he that's probably the hardest I laughed in a minute when when Bells told us that

and we were like Bells why did you say that on the pot and he was like He was like, I don't know. I just didn't. And, well, as y'all can tell, you know, Bell's a serious fellow. I don't know how Bell's felt about that email, but I thought it was hilarious. But look, and I would say this to, next time I see Michael Masea to his face, I mean, look, give me the evidence. You don't got no evidence either.

You should be watching these games, Mike. Maybe he is. I mean, really, that's the least he can do. while he's been sitting these hammocks and anything, bro, wearing these. Like, I mean,

I mean, selfie to game-watch ratio. I'm going to say, it's, it's higher than it needs to be, I have to say. Yeah. You wouldn't see Greg Burrhalter coach

in a celebrity match with Kai Sinat or whoever. Yeah, bro. I mean, did we ever see a social media post from Greg until the scandal? I think he literally made that Twitter account just to post that letter.

that's a thing and for like 10, 15 minutes until like, I think like Stephen Gough or Carlisle somebody had to like confirm and be like, this is Greg Barthal to y'all. You know what I'm saying?

We couldn't even believe it because we were like, great, on social media? What? What is this? It, uh, but you're busy on White Scouts to be on Twitter.

Potch on Instagram more to me, bro. You know what I'm saying? Like, I haven't posted an Instagram story and I've posted one in the past seven years or something. You know what I'm saying?

Anyway, we'll keep it moving. Let me get HDJ up here. Jordan, you can stay. Well, Jordan's out. I feel it. HDJ, I've sent the invite to you. Go and accept that and get on up here. Man, this is crazy.

Last year, I, last year, you know, the Nation's League was in the middle of March Bandis once again. And I was watching us. Matter of fact, it was the Jamaica match, yeah. I watched us scrape the, scrape out the win against Jamaica while Kentucky was losing to a 13 seed or whatever. This time, hopefully, it's flipped and USA loses. And USA's already lost.

That's why I say hopefully. And Kentucky takes care of business tomorrow. We shall see. well maybe the good news is we won't have any uh conflicts between uh paramount you know having a game that runs late on sunday and and possibly you know cutting into the pregame so maybe a silver lining there yeah uh yeah uh good old us and tv ethnicity well hey i'll um man i'm calling from raleigh north carolina and i'll i'll keep this fairly quick but i just one of the things i think i've noticed just through

years of following all the kind of ebbs and flows is it seems like there's a pattern with our team um you know and and because i i kind of came into this thinking like man i really just want to like i want to rip on pots a little bit not not rip on them but just like you know i felt like earlier on when i couldn't get my mic to work i felt like he deserved some shade because i didn't know about some of the choices he made and it seemed like there were some contradictions and i guess let me say what I was going to say, and then I'll kind of bring it back to our team, which is just like with Potch, it seems like, earlier, there's some talk about verticality, right? And, I mean, he put a pat on, and Pat got at least two chances.

One of them was that great shot that didn't come off. And part of that was just through playing vertical. It was quick transition moments where the look wasn't to swing it wide, right, or left, and then maybe, you know, play it up the channel. but it was truly just to put it over the top or put it through the back line. But then it seemed like in the first half, especially, man, we, like, it was like the team was playing.

There were two separate teams. One of the teams was trying to, like, pass it around kind of in that old, like, you know, disrupt the defense style that Burrhalter had us in. And then occasionally there would be these moments of verticality. And so, like, it just wasn't joined up. It wasn't like they were on the same page. And so that's one of those things that, like, I just kind of look at Potschner.

I'm like, man, why? Like, you know, if we, if we're going to play vertical, then let's play vertical because, like, I don't know what Panama's population is, maybe 10, 12, 15 million, something like that. That might even be high. But, like, I will take our population of soccer playing athletes versus theirs. Let's go vertical. Let's get in a cage match. Like, let's play a basketball game.

We're just going back and forth, back and forth. I will do that, especially. And, and again, going back to pot. So, like, if he's questioning a mentality or if he said, like, hey, I want to see mentality, then let's put us in a game like that where we are, it is a hyperphysical game into end. There's tons of challenges. Everything's happening in the middle of the field. But instead, we ended up playing this kind of like somewhat slow plotting kind of possession-based game that occasionally flickers into life.

Once we get it into the final third and we're kind of looking down the wings and then try to put a lot of crops. in. It just didn't seem joined up. It didn't seem like there was a really cohesive game plan. And then I think the thing that really set me off was then, so if Testman's the guy who's, you know, he's back there and Adams is supposed to be the disruptor and destroyer and Testament is going to be the deeper lying midfielder who's going to make some of those more advanced passes, the progressive passes, you know, those big long switches or try to play balls over the top, it hadn't really worked. We had some chances, but it wasn't like we were just absolutely dominating in the offensive third.

and so then to make the McGlynn sub and no knock on McGlynn at all but to make him as a like for like and it's like yeah but that tactic didn't seem to be working so why are we making that same tactic and so like kind of just all of that makes me just question potch and then the more I've kind of thought about it

you know we've had two coaches in a row where it just seemed like from the outside and now obviously everything is easier from an armchair but it just seems like there's some obvious deficiencies that maybe, and it could be for different reasons, maybe with Burrhalter, you know, he cared too much and, you know, judgment was clouded or, you know, it just wasn't up to it. And maybe with Pocci's not taking it serious enough, but all of that kind of harkens back to this idea that, you know, it might be that there's this giant global game that we're trying to fit our player pool into.

and it, I just, I guess part of me wondered about our player pool. And then it's like, man, are we not, are we not cut from the cloth that legitimate coaches? Because like all your, you know, questions about Burrhalter aside, like, he's a decent coach. He's a smart soccer mind. He can, you know, he could handle himself in a conversation about it. And he could, you know, he can put a game playing forth. Is there something about our player pool that didn't cut out to be, like, are we just not cut from a cloth that's, ready to scrap. It's ready to find

those solutions. Are we too soft? Are we too molly goddled? Um, look, I'll say this. Weston is significantly softer than, uh, he used to be. Um, I don't know if it's

because if it, I, I, and I can't keep giving him the shoulder excuse. I just can't do it. Like, he does not, hold on, let me, let me look at a real quick. He just doesn't, he actively avoids

getting the duels nowadays. West does. One out of ten that's ground duels according to foot mob which I have

big issues with how footmob counts duels in the first place but I'll tell you this if the one thing they won't get they get the number

of duels wrong a lot of times but if you're one out of ten in opt-accounted duels and then you just weren't and these are just ground duels. He was one out of three in aerial duels,

so we talked about two, new for 13 in duels from Weston McKinney. And, yeah, that's been a consistent, I mean, even in this play with YuVe, he's not out there winning a ton of duels. He's, he's not the physical monster he once was, as far as, like, using the actual physicality. He can still cover the ground and all that stuff.

but it's it hasn't been there man it hasn't been there and and y'all know that's my boy it's the whole reason i'm here talking to y'all on this podcast but do you think that's because his mentality has changed or do you think that's the way he's being put out there i mean part of me wonders if you know because back in the day he was he was an absolute Swiss army knife for shalka and then you know so he was he was scrapping for everything he's younger he's hungrier so i guess that would lean towards mentality but now he's a little bit more more established. And it seems like, other than the obvious right-back cameos aside, he's more of an 8-10. And so, like, he's not getting put in that defensive-minded position of a 6 as much.

So, I mean... I don't know. Even then, you are still in cage matches. As evidenced by this dual number, I just brought up, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like, you don't got to be a 6 to get in cage matches. And the boy is losing them. The boy's losing them.

It really, it's almost like Ever since he made that, he runs I play comment before the World Cup, I feel like that, like, that's really been him. You know? Like if you go, you can go on FB Ref and look up, you know, Wes's World Cup bars, you know, you're familiar with FB Ref, HG, J.

I assume. But, yeah, you can look up. his World Cup bars and like, you know, all the ball playing stuff looks great. Everything. Progressive passes, the progressive passes received, blah, blah, blah, whatever, whatever. The defensive stuff, nasty. Nasty. And now he was at the World Cup with an injury.

Not reported injury, but I think. But look, man, we can't be saying this about Weston every damn time. It's like, bro, if you're on the pitch, you got a job to do, bro. and you're not it's it's been a while so I've seen a vintage

Western performance he's doing he's doing his good things whatever you know Jamaica the Jamaica match when Pully hit the dance

he hit the west hit the ball to him for the for the goal etc etc but anyway well I mean it sounds like

I mean his his talent his involvement in the field is never really lacking except on the defensive stuff but like a lot of that defensive stuff

of stuff. I mean, coming back to what Jackie was saying about Tyler being the clear standout best player, you know, on the pitch tonight, a lot of that's mentality because I don't think anybody would ever question Tyler's mentality. So, you know, what, what is it then about our guys and their mentality that isn't, you know, I don't want to, I'm not trying to get too deep in terms of like, you know, socioeconomic or stuff or anything like that, but just like, you know, it just seems like when they set out, when it's a game against Mexico, with a couple of obvious exceptions excluded, I mean, it is a scrap and everybody brings it. They are out to fight. And then we show up tonight and it's not, it's not flat, but it's just like we took the game for granted. You know,

it's like the, the USSF social media guy who tweeted that, kind of had that same idea that was just like, okay, so we're going to go to the final, who we're going to play, you know? I don't know. I just, it seems a lot like, you know, the older have gotten, the more of, of realize that things are just always more complicated than they initially appeared.

And I just can't get over the fact that it, you know, there's two coaches in a row that just seem to put out. And obviously we have a small sample size with, with Pocino, but it just, it seems like slightly lackluster performances. And I do have some questions about,

about Pocitino, I think legitimate ones, but also like, you know, if two different carpenters are using the same tools and getting questionable results, you know, is it the carpenters, tools, is it some combination thereof? That's right. Well, HGJ appreciate you. Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Vince. No problem. Vince, you asked about the, the Mexico crowd, right? Yeah, yes, sir, you're sorry.

it well i mean take a guess because it looks like every mexico crowd in the united states ever in there um we got a immediate help from the chat when we said it uh phil sock eight said mexico uh just scored

like there's where like two minutes in and the 50,000 people there and look very happy so no problems for Mexico yeah yeah so eh

Looks like they're going to be, it looks like they might be happy. I mean, what was the last time Mexico had a triumph? They won the gold cup? Yeah. On the last gold cup? In So far, I was supposed to go to that match. If we would have beat, you guessed it, Panama.

Yeah, we lost in the Snapdragon Stadium, right, in San Diego. That's right. That's right. Okay, we got Zip up here, Z-P. man sounds like going going good man where you call it from you you know the game are you at the game no I'm in Austin

I couldn't make it this weekend unfortunately um okay I don't want to start off like I this isn't a coaching thing it's a player thing they have to show that they care and none of them did tonight I think the only one that showed that he cared is tighter but he can do that in his sleep I look at the guys that have been there

Chris Richards has been there every single camp he was horrible sight Wes we just talked about West he just hadn't been showing up in camp for the last year and a half. And then our so-called best player, and, like, I hate doing this because, like, we've brought this up before, and he usually will show us. But Christian was awful. And it's just an effort thing. I think that's all it is.

And I just look at the last Nations League that we had, you know, look back to 21. That was the hardest this team has played in, what, four or five years, that last game. That was amazing. The second game, you know, same thing. I want someone to go back, pull up behind the crest from the last Nation's, from the last nation's, like you can win and look at the celebration from that one versus the first one. These guys just don't care anymore. It's getting to a point where like almost like USA basketball, like you kind of need to

get stocked in the mouth, but we just did that at Copeland. It didn't change. And I think we were hoping that like, oh, this is going to write the shit, but it happened to get. It's the guys that have been there have to show that they can make it work. And I know that we're maybe 24 hours away from Christian Polisic complaining about the crowd because I saw there was already that one about him kind of like looking around and you know smiling but it's like give people a reason to show up you know it's he's got it's I know

it's it's not his personality so it's kind of hard to like really put it on him but like you have to find a way and so I'm just really just pointing the guys up like been there and just did show up tonight because we had a lot of guys that were kind of filling in and were newer to camp and they're going to look to those guys to kind of be you know set the example about like what it takes to win this tournament, and they just didn't do that tonight. And so that's, like, what I'm the most kind of frustrated at. I don't think it's a coaching thing at all. It's just, like, the core of the team didn't show up tonight.

I like the USA basketball comparison. Like, I think that's a good comparison, but it's almost like USA basketball, if they had one tournament that everyone really, really cared about, and then, like, everything else was just complete garbage. But, like, let's say they had a World Cup, but then they just, didn't care about the Olympics. And you're like, what, this is still the Olympics. Like, these are still good teams and, you know, we want to see you win trophies. And it's, it's unbelievable that I think this team, like you said, you know, put all that effort in the first

one because it was novelty. And, and now it's very much just like kind of, it's like, it's like maybe slightly glorified gold cup. But I mean, I don't know if there's too much of an effort difference between this team now and this team, say, at the last Gold Cup, you know? Yeah, I mean, like, it was this and what the next Gold Cup, which it sounds like I would expect us to take that very seriously coming out of this, but, like, how many opportunities do we have before the World Cup for this team to show the fans what they're made of? Like, that's just, like, what I can't get my head around is, like, what is it going to take? Like, we just got embarrassed by this same team at Copa America,

and then our core guys just showed up flat. Christian can hang a hat trick on the team in his sleep, and he did that in qualifying against the same team in the World Cup, or in World Cup qualifying. And so that's where, like, I'm looking at, like, you know, Wes, again, like we kind of talked about, like, I don't know where he's been, but, like, I look at Christian, like, this should be embarrassing for you personally.

Like, you owned this team. when you were 17, 18 years old. And now you're in the best form of your career and you don't show up against them. Like, I just, I don't get it with him sometimes. Yeah, all good points. All good points, man. I mean, go ahead, Joe.

No, no, you guys. Oh, well, I let the thought escape my mind. But, yeah, I don't get anything. Go ahead, Joy. I apologize. No, but, yeah, Z-P, you were saying that. And I was thinking you said something the first time. too.

And it got me thinking, like, why is it, you know, because, you know, every national team's fans, you know, complain about certain players that, you know, don't show up for their national team or whatever. Maybe they have a bad tournament. But I feel like it's much more so, oh, this player is in bad form. They're just not on a good moment in their career. It really seems, and this seems to be a repetitive thing with us, is that no matter what form our players are in, they all come in and we know what we're getting.

Tyler can be in whatever form of his career, he's going to come in and play hard. Pauline could be in whatever form of his career. He's going to come in and, you know, put out some decent performances, but probably not produced against the low block. So, like, it's almost like no matter what or no matter where these players are in the ups and downs of normal soccer, we know exactly what they're bringing to the table, and it's generally not been good enough. yeah and that's where it just comes down like it's a mentality thing like i would have loved to have

brennan out there because he would have been running around trying hard like even if he's getting fouled like you know that's why i've always been more of a brendo guy than like a lot of people in here just because like he's the one person i think with tighter that like try hard every single game even though 90% of the time he's getting thrown around the field but i don't know it's just like it's inexcusable to me for some of the guys that have been there like You need to make the fans want to be there. Like, who was watching that game tonight? He's like, yeah, I'm going to the next game.

I'm going to Nashville. Nope. Yeah, man. I mean, yeah. And one thing about, you know, you mentioned the fact that there's been police team since he was 17, 18. And, you know, he's not that type of guy, whatever, whatever. But it's like, man, sometimes. You have to be.

You don't get to choose to be that guy or not. Yeah. You don't get to choose to that guy or not. Yeah, you get chosen. And so every, I can't say everything that happens with the national team is on, is on him. But like, bro, a lot of this stuff, like, the fact that, uh, the country is not juiced about what's going on and they're not following. You know, it's not a big of birthday. I mean, do you think density is up to you and be able to being like,

Oh, man, the fans don't want to be here tonight, whatever. Like, he would take that so personally. We are a cloutless outfit. Yes. And a lot of this falls on Christian because he's the one, you know, I mean, especially after the World Cup and everything, you know, the Captain America stuff was super heavy, especially because of, you know, the unfortunate nature in which he scored that goal.

You know, it was like, it was a, those are America's balls etc you know you heard that stuff a lot but like man I mean he has the profile and all we're getting out of it is you know five episodes of the policy documentary that you can watch on

that you can watch on Paramount comment from him about the crowd after this window I'm like sending a howlour to Milan like dude like I'm like you cannot do that

when I said there's that one tweet about him like looking around like don't even start with that right now. Like, they came out so flat. You could tell from the, from the anthem, people were saying they don't look like they're ready to go. That's from the locker room. That's from the guys in there.

Like, the coach is one thing. You know, Potch is a new coach. Sometimes you need to kind of take it on yourself. We should be able to beat Panama without a head coach, honestly. Like, it's Panama. We used to hang seven on the seat every time we played that. I don't know just, like, what happened to the guys, I think? Maybe it's like, they've gotten better in their roles in Europe.

and it's almost like coming over here, not with like a World Cup qualifying. Like it just didn't seem like it holds the same weight as it used to where they could kind of come over here to like show out on the world stage. Whereas like a lot of them are doing that now. And so I think it's just kind of, it's in a different spot in their minds right now that I don't think they're fully like rectified on how to get the most out of themselves

if like that's the way that it's going to be. Strong stuff from you Zeepe. I'm thanks I'll see y'all I appreciate you man yeah everyone got to take it to heart Potch the players etc

I mean whole system failure we got PC up here you see unmute yourself sorry about the unmute hey Vince thanks for running the show it's as good to commiserate after a loss like that

I just wanted to bring I think a little bit of optimism I mean and maybe this is just excuses, but I mean, it's not only that, the, it's fun to say it's like just the team that doesn't care, but, you know, FIFA, FIFA doesn't really care about this tournament either.

I mean, like, there's, the players were, I thought, you know, Wes had, you know, a really lackluster game and Tim started out well, but, you know, tailed off pretty quickly. They just looked so tired. And I got to imagine that a lot of that is, you know, them arriving late to camp. With the window being so brief this time. I think you could say Panama has a lot of more players playing, you know, in playing, you know, in the new world where they're sticking with their time zones.

There's the time zone issue. There's the travel issue. And, I mean, I just feel like, like we were watching, you know. know, the NBA back when it was an 82 game schedule and used to get those nights where it was, you know, a travel back to back or travel back to back to back, where you could just ring up a loss before you even like flipped on the television. And you couple that with like, it's hard playing against a low block. I mean, our team really isn't built for that.

Christian Polisic isn't that type of a winger who can muscle people around. Tim Wea really, you know, he's kind of that player. but I mean, he's not really doing much in the air. I just thought it was like, okay, this is a confluence of things that are making this game really tough. And then, you know, on luck, you know, strike a bad luck hits. And they get one shot on goal. And I mean, it wasn't a great game. It wasn't a great setup by potch.

There's obviously a lot to complain about. But I also think, like, the biggest factor here, like, it's not a fart. It's just, you know, it felt like it felt like there was a lot of things that made this game particularly tough for this team. And so I don't know if that's a more positive note. I mean, it just, this one felt different to me than Copa America, where, you know, where it was a series of some really bad performances. I'm more willing to, I guess, write this one off is just this is bad scheduling. and this is against the wrong team at the wrong moment. So to your point, I have just thought about the fact

just of like just international ball period. You know what I'm saying? For whatever reason, this has been a lot in my head this week, this week in particular. Whereas just like, man, these dudes have been playing a lot of ball and then they get to, they get the privilege of flying across the country and coming here and playing more ball, you know, in an actual competition.

Not saying that to excuse them, because the thing is, it's like, yes, it could be a confluence of things that led to this result. Now, what about when we go to the Gold Cup this summer and we're missing if everyone, you know, if we don't get releases or whatever,

it doesn't seem like we're even going to try for releases for teams that are in the Club World Cup. So if we don't get a West, a Tim, Gio and I feel like it might be somebody else I can't remember

but anyway we don't we are also missing some players in this Gold Cup too you know are we gonna are we gonna also

make excuses for the team and you know excuse some people it can be like a loaded word everybody's like oh

you know I'm not I'm not saying like you know I'm not using and excuses as a majority of I'm just saying

it's a weird thing being a fan of the national team right it's just a weird thing because I don't know you take that camp cupcake roster you send it down or you have them play Panama

and maybe the result is is completely different because they're at it from the get-go and you know I look at that last World Cup and how Greg was able to put together a team with some very new pieces

just in that, you know, week and a half and how different they looked. You know, I mean, they had been playing all through qualifying together, but I mean, I thought they came out much more cohesive just after having a week and a half of focus training before the World Cup. And I just wonder if it's like the same thing. Like we have these reference points.

We have Gold Cup. We have Nations League. But they just don't really matter in the end. And that we're really not going to know what this team is all about until we actually get to the World Cup. Yeah, but I cannot live like that. You know, I cannot accept these. I can't accept that. I can't accept it, that it don't matter.

It matters to me, damn it. You know what I'm saying? And I'm not saying that necessarily should, well, it should matter to them. Yes, I am saying that. It should matter to them. It matters to me. It should matter to them. But I do understand how, you know, they're in the dog days of the season,

now and they're flying here to play to play a match to play two matches um and so i do understand how that could creep into the thing and you get on the pitch and there's 10,000 people there it's a that's a very juiceless environment uh without a doubt with that being said you just got to go get it done i go get it done it is what it is and yeah the the fact the The idea that like, you know, stuff just doesn't, well, it's the thing. Greg, you say that about the team and all that stuff. And like, I do kind of agree because, like, that one window was a train wreck, right? The Japan, Saudi Arabia window.

And, but I had faith. The air along window. The air long window, exactly. Exactly. I had faith because I'm like, bro, if we just get errolong out here. And I had had had faith in Tin Ream because I'd watched quite a bit of him. I'm like, bro, he's playing well.

And he's playing in a team that employs a higher line than you think. He's covering space and behind. He's running with people. I saw him run with Bakaya Soxata. So I had faith that if we got Aaron Long out of there and replaced him with Tim Ream, that things would look a lot better, and they did. But with that being said, Greg Barthalta was winning.

Okay? you know we won the nation's league we won a gold cup with the B team etc like Greg was so it's it's not like we were just total complete ass until the World Cup back here that I guess that's my point but yeah that's fair I just wonder if this team would have done better against Mexico or Canada today you know I mean like obviously there's there's a talent there's a talent differential but man just playing against a low back

after that travel it's a mess I mean yeah it would it would low you to sleep especially if you don't got a crowd like egging you on I can see it I'm not totally against it as a as a

reason for why the performance might have been what it was but it can't be an excuse in it nope that's true I have a very kind of like big brain take, which I think, you know, could be somewhat unsubstantiated. But, you know, I think there might, like, because we were talking about generations, you know, get Clint out there, get, you know, whoever out there. I think it really might be that this team is a representation of the kind of, like, national

identity or kind of a representation of what we value, I think. like I think very much the United States, unlike some of these European countries, like very much values like the acquisition of like wealth and capital, which is I think more represented by club ball instead of like the identity of labor and kind of like valuing what you do. And I think so for most of these players, they've grown up in a mentality that to be considered as a successful soccer player, I have to, you know, get material things, which I think it's much more substantiated by, you know, club ball. But I think that kind of the pride of the national team, I think is kind of represented in that

we as a nation don't really value our national pride in our athletics or really any of that. And I think it's kind of represented by this generation of players. be wrong about that, but that's what I feel in my generation, in this generation of players. It's just my opinion. It would be the case. But it's kind of, it's kind of taken

a broader stance, you know, maybe unfairly applying it to these guys. I still think they play hard. I just, I'm not sure if they're coming into that with a mentality like certain generations have previously.

But I don't know. Any, how? hypothesis is a good hypothesis at this point. PC, appreciate you. Thanks so much. All right. Let's get Sammy up here. Sammy.

Can you hear me? I can. I can. Hey, what's up, Ben? What's up, Joey? Calling from Jacksonville, Florida. Hmm. I don't know.

I have to watch on delay, so I just got through the game. I hope everyone's hanging in there sanity-wise. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree. I thought the team looked listless, which I think has really been echoed by a lot of people. The thing that was interesting to me was, like, how Jack McGlynn came in.

Well, first of all, Jack McGlynn coming in at all, and that early is like unto itself wild. But I thought it was interesting how he was just on the ball constantly. And, like, I can't decide, is that a credit to McGlynn for being brave? Or is that, do you want to take that as an indictment of the rest of the team that all these guys who are supposed to be, you know, like, dozen plus cap vets are just kind of giving the ball to this kid who just showed up as an injury replacement? Like, I don't know, it just, I know that's a really cynical way to look at it. I just feel like on a team. and when you have a team where you have the same guys getting called in,

there's supposed to be this kind of hierarchy where when you're a leader of the team, you bear more of the load. And whether that's the good load, like the phrase, or the bad load, like being the guy who has to be an asshole in the weight room, excuse my French. But I just, I don't know, it just seemed like a certain abdication of responsibility but either way like Tyler and Wes are just giving the ball

to Jack McGlynn say, oh hey, figure this out for us. And like, he did all right. But, yeah, that just annoyed me.

I feel you. He was on the ball a lot. And, but it was like, I don't know. It's like, hey, Jackie, I mean,

you're in here to spray these balls. And so spray these balls. You know what I'm saying? It's not like he was, it's not like it would be. different if he was playing in like tight spaces or something. You know what I'm saying?

Where it was like, okay, we are feeding this ball to Jack in these corridors of uncertainty. And we are saying, hey, Jack, you you come on the pitch and receive these balls in places that nobody else wanted to receive them and do something with them. But in the situation where we were, where we were facing that low block and it's like, well, I mean, Jack's the ball sprayer, man.

Yeah, that's true. And I guess maybe it's just more of a, you know, symptom of being stuck in neutral, which we were for, you know, the entire match. Well, you are the Pod's resident defender of Tanner Tessman when the people who do not appreciate the intrinsic value and the equity of having a grown-ass man on the field. So how did you feel about the change in the way the team played

from when Tessman was on the field to when McGuin came on? Did you feel like Jack was executing the same role more effectively? Did you feel like Tanner did well? So I feel like Tanner's just, I said this earlier. Tanner and Tyler shouldn't have been on the pitch at the same time against this opponent and this game. because like I was saying the bills he's not he's not some like deep line playmaker for real you know he's just like a six with like a little class to him so like it works when he plays

for leone and him and matich like handle like build out situations together and they matriculate the ball of the pitch etc but like that's what he's good at so it's like we're in this situation facing this low block and it's like man I mean what the hell do you want Tanner to do here for real and like yeah he didn't have his he didn't have his long ball calibrated and Jack was doing better at hitting you know

hitting those balls out to the wing yeah I think I think Jack is more of a a deep line playmaker than Tanner is like Tanner that's just not that that's not what Tanner is and and even the idea of the fact that we need to have like Tyler Adams on the pitch

and some type of deep-line playmaker, I don't totally... Like, Gio could have did that, bro. Oh, for sure. He could give you both. You know, he could spray that thing, and he could get up in the teeth of the block and receive the ball in some tight spots

and potentially make something happen or whatever. So I just don't like the... Yeah, I don't... think, I'm not excusing Tanner's performance. I'm not fully excusing Tanner's performance. And I don't think he was like horrific or anything, but it's like, that's just

not, that's not him. He's not a final third operator or something like that. No, he's a first phase, second phase guy. You also, with Tyler and Tanner together, you've got two guys who really are kind of get the ball first, decide what to do with the

ball second. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if that's necessarily great. Yeah, Tanner, the difference is Tanner has that kind of a, I don't know enough about golf, but he has that kind of long ball club in his bag, but he slows playdown, and you have to live with the times he does that

because he's bringing other rare traits to the table, for sure. Yeah. Oh. Uh, yeah. Got anything else, man? Nah, I'm good. I hope you guys all, find a way to cope with this

massive L that is healthy and constructive. It's a massive L, no doubt about it. I mean, the fact that Panama got us in a headlock like this is crazy. Hey, maybe in a couple of decades, they'll name it the Greg Burrhalter trophy. That's right.

They should. All right. They should carry off. All right. Sammy. I'm going to go to K Flood. Claire. Claire's back in the request, but I'm going to go to K Flo Good first.

Claire, I'm coming to you, though. That's the last one. If anybody else wants to raise their hand because I'm feeling generous, you can, I'll let you end up here at some point. But if you don't raise your hand in the next minute, then I'm going to say Claire is the last one. But anyway, Kay Flo Good, how you doing? Where are you calling from? My name's Kenny.

I'm from L.A. I was boots on the ground in the stadium. It was pretty empty. Yeah. But there was a, you know, it was funny. As time was passing on, you could see more and more Mexico fans coming in. Good amount of Panama fans. But every now and again, you'd see, you know, some USA.

I saw a guy with like a shirt, a custom shirt with the Giorina kind of like, oh, really, face, like, patterned all over it. That was pretty cool. trying to find highlights for the you know for the evening but um i think that's kind of where i'm at now because like there were so many points that i was thinking that somebody said um throughout you know all these all these calls but uh so at this point i'm kind of like well let's let's find some silver linings and i think that um you know overall like the positives are like you know we dominated all the game like you know we can say yes we were list list yes there was like a lot of uh confusion about

the lineup and the way we were set up but we dominated the game all game long and their goal was It wasn't like that they worked us. It was a scramble at the back. It was a couple of errors, I mean, where Joe could have done better, Tim Ream could have done better, and Matt could have done better. It was kind of a fluke, if you ask me. We had some great opportunities on goal. Yeah.

So I'm like, there's an overall pretty good performance. I think what also is kind of cool is that Potch was able to evaluate some people. So that's really useful. I mean, being able to see McGlynn out there, being able to see, just like you're saying, like, you know, does the idea. he of Testament and Adam's work, you know, he gets an answer. So I think there's positives to take out of this. Yeah.

Well, we have to see if he can learn the lesson, right? You know, like that was a feature of Greg. Greg had to be, sometimes he had to be like bashed over the head with something. But eventually, Greg went to learn the lesson. Yeah, like we were just talking about the Aaron Long thing. And, you know, it came to a head. that Japan, Saudi Arabia window, it's like, yo, this is not tenable.

He can't pass the ball out to the left wing because he, it takes too long for him to play the ball across his body, across his body with his right foot. The wing being, I'm at the left back. But, yeah. So, we'll see how Pach adjusts.

This is his first moment of adversity. This is what his third window. So we'll see. and like I said, all is not lost because we have a game, I mean, we have a game worth playing coming up. Absolutely. As it stands right now, it's looking like we're about to be playing Jesse Marsh. Yeah, exactly.

But either way it would be a huge game, right? Like, whether it's Jesse Marsh or it's Mexico, it's going to be loaded one way or another. So, you know, there was some talk in the chat of just like, you know, benching these dudes who, you know, are big dudes who didn't bring it tonight. But I think that there's kind of like a, you know, they have to play this third place game. Like this is the bed you made. Like, you got to go out there and play it.

Like, it is up to Pooley to go out there and show Potch. Like, is this how you're really going to be? Like, you got to go earn this because we're going to have the A team ostensibly. That's what it seems like based on, I don't know, it seems like we should have the A team because we need every bit of practice, tournament practice we can get before next year. So for the Gold Cup, you know? So it should be the guys. It should be the big guys, you know. evaluating so.

Sorry, go out. I just want to say, if you saw Anthony Robinson's Instagram post today, it might have been on the story. Yeah, yeah, it was implied that he would be here for the summer. So I think everyone that's available that's not at the Club World Cup will be here.

They should be here. And, yeah, so we get to, we get to, I'm losing words. I'm low on sleep. Redeem. That's it. We get a chance to, sense of redeem ourselves, so we'll see.

Well, that's just it, right? That's got to be Pach's challenge to the guys. Like, you know, I think everybody, I mean, you know, I think we can say, like, well, he just didn't bring it tonight, but he knows that. Like, he's tough on himself, you know, like, he's not the one purposefully. I know he's involved with the Polisic show or whatever, but he's not just, like, out there, like, as soon as the game's over, like, ensuring that the ad goes up. Like, he's, he's pissed.

I'm sure he's pissed at himself. Um, Potch saw it, you know, so I think that there's positives. And as long as we go out there and like a high stakes, like, I mean, I don't know that it's high stakes, but like in terms of a third place, fourth place game, like there's a little bit of dignity on the line here to make sure we get third place or to completely get trounced. Like, we can't get fourth place. Like that's absolutely not a possibility. I mean, we could, it's in the realm of things that could happen for sure. But like these guys can't allow that to happen. Yeah.

Without doubt, it's going to be, it's going to be a big game. It's going to be a big game. I hope we are playing Jesse Marsh. But, yeah, is there anything else you want to say about your experience at the match, Kenny? Well, geez, you know, there was a lot of security. I was able to, like, sneak past some people here and there. I was up in the, you know, my ticket was for, like, the 500s, like, really high section, but I was able to stay down to the 300s.

But, yeah, the stadium was cool. It was breezy on a relatively hot day. So, you know, if you're going to be coming to L.A. and next year for the World Cup, you know, it's a cool stadium. But, yeah, a lot of security. A lot of, a lot of mixed-exam. Yeah. Did you, did they boo at halftime?

They blew the team at halftime? I heard some booing, you know, like, and at that point, I was, like, starting to walk around to see if I could get to even better seats. So, like, I didn't see what specifically they were booing. But I, and, and to be fair, you know, I'm not sure. I wasn't with the American Outlaws. I don't know if it was the outlaws. booing the U.S. performance, or it could have also just been that there was enough Mexico fans being there just like take the piss on the, you know, like on the U.S. players.

So it was hard to tell what the nature of it was. Okay. It wasn't like a full stadium, you know, like this shit sucks. All right. Understood. You got anything else? Yeah. Last thing, you know, I've seen it before too in sports.

Like, you know, the college I went to, um, made it to, you know, D2 basketball finals, lost in the final and you're just like, oh, this will never happen again, you know, the next year they won it. It's like one of those losses, those heartbreaking losses is one of those things that you need. And even like in the run up to like, you know, like in the NCAA playoffs or something like that, like sometimes that early loss like before you can get eliminated, like a loss right before that is the kind of thing to, you know, put the fire under you. So that's the best case scenario. I don't know if that's going to happen. Are they going to be just as listless, you know, like, I mean, again, We dominated all game, but we could have done better.

We know our guys can do better. Is it going to be like that on Sunday? I don't know. But hopefully this lights a fire under them. And it doesn't stop burning to the end of next year. Hopefully. But, man, running out of chances in it. There's not a lot of time left.

You said there still is? I mean, there's not a lot of time left. I mean, like. Yeah, there is not. There is not. Yeah. Anyway, I appreciate it. Thanks, Vince.

No problem. See up. No problem. All right. Hold on. Let me. I've shut the request down. We got Claire in here, and we got Bizzle.

Those are the last two. I got to get to sleep. Or I got to rewatch the game. Either one of those. Sorry, Vince. I just wanted to hop in and bring some positivity, although Floga did. Just, you know, feel however you want to feel for the next 24 hours it sucks like whatever but we have a fun rivalry

game coming up on sunday no matter who we play it will be fun it's a rivalry game we're gonna feel some type of way about it and you know for all we've hyped the nation's league because we're good at it the gold cup is the real championship of our region we have the opportunity to win it this summer food in for that you know all right yeah yeah um i'm all in on the gold cup now nothing else left. Yeah, I'm all in on the Gold Cup. I'm really just waiting for them to list the sights, man. Where are we playing at? I need to know.

Finally, Houston come through. That's the real like, oh, Inter-Miamy won the U.S. Open Cup, so it was a successful year, you know what I mean? Again, Joey, Inter-Miami never won the U.S. Open Cup. They lost to the Houston Dynamo. Oh, yeah, whatever. But congratulations. Remember that. But, again,

it'll be fun. like anybody that wants to come through Houston, hit me up. So, but there's still fun games to play. It'll be okay. Yep. It's, there's still fun games to play.

Claire's right. Claire's gone, but Claire's right. Yeah, I don't know. As far as, I don't know. I'm,

I think I'm pretty down. Not of them, not that I'm sitting here feeling, feeling my emotions. Of course. It sucks. I was kind of like, I was kind of like incredulous when it happened. I was just like, oh, well, I scored.

You see the celebration and everything? But yeah, this does suck. This doesn't hurt as much as the other Panama match. But, Jesus, Panama, you are inflicting a lot of pain on you, boy. Let up. Anyway, we got Bizzle to close this thing out. Hey, Vince, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Where are you calling from, bro?

I'm in southwest Colorado. Southwest Colorado. What you're doing in Colorado? Man, I'm bunkering down for the first, what, 60 days of this change of power in the United States, so Trump doesn't come out and accidentally deport me or something. So I came out here thinking if they went full night of the long knives, I didn't want to be in D.C. with him. me on a list right but i'm going i'm probably going back to dc the end of next week unless they do something crazy but man this was i'm like you now like on it because the problem i think vince is time

right we only have what we have uh summer window and then what do you got like september and november yeah yeah there's a september noctuary and then march and then world cup so You have four windows after this. So that means you have on three of those windows, you're going to have two games each at six. Then over the summer, you only have a guaranteed five as of right now. So that's 11 games to get this put together.

Like, I agree with Pocitino and some of those things about heart because with the players, because that's like a running theme of them, uh, shit in the bed and underperforming against teams they conceivably shall perform. I don't know what fixes that because I think that's endemic to the pool

because we've seen that now under two different managers, right? Or multiple managers. It actually makes me wonder what the hell BJ Callahan got in these guys when he was managing the team because I don't understand how he had them actually playing hard, right? It's the football coach in them. Yeah, I think part of it is.

Because that's like fucking working class like American sports team energy when you got that vibe, right? And that's literally why I think this fucking team, I agree with all these, some of this about like, you know, you need to play with like your life depends on it. This is like the one sport because of fucking pay to play where it's fucking lacking. And all these other sports, I'd say, I mean, baseball is kind of similar. Baseball is kind of in a similar place as soccer in America right now. and ice hockey but ice hockey's like violent right so you get it another way but like man this

fucking lack of umph and get up and like represent the colors i don't know what to make of that that that i think should be the one thing that's most troubling the other things that we're all on potch you can see that he is not putting enough effort in this job and it isn't the fucking going off to saudi and hanging out with ice hockey and hanging out with ice hockey and show speed and the sideman and all that bullshit. It's the fact that he is ignorant of the Confederation. He's ignorant of his opponents within the Confederation. We know that today because he set our team up like we were playing against Jamaica,

who actually will play us somewhat straight up, right? And had to in the second game of the last window because they were down goals, right? And he rolled out with the same basic setup. He just flipped the full backs in effect. We didn't have Jedi on the left. We had Mousa on the right. And then the other issue is he sat there not studying the opponent when you could go back to the Copa America loss or how Panama played us in that friendly where they bunkered and weren't a five back. And he didn't have any type of central creator.

It's like he's just watching the games of our guys in Europe or the highlights and thinking that, you know, in our system, West is like a 10, which, you know, you. You know what, you know what, Uvei suffers from? They don't fucking score goals. And I love Wes, like, I love him to death. I think he's like our, probably our second best player, fine Christian, like, talent-wise. And, but he is not, he, at Uvei, he's not having to face, like, blocks because people aren't afraid of them. Like, people play Uve straight up, even in the lower half of the Syria table. And so he's not used to doing it.

and he's more he's better as a fucking deep line playmaker that's what he's good is a box to box d lp literally a regista over in italy right and instead of his best low block performances have been that you know i mean this wasn't necessarily uh him being deep line but like the the um edon match yeah yeah when he dip across all the way across that's a that's an expert deep playing playmaker move of controlling the match and the tempo, right? And Tanner didn't do that today. The Costa Rica

match too. Yeah. The one at home, the home qualifying Costa Rica match. I thought West was great at that. But yeah, and I didn't do it. He did not do it. And then the problem is, yeah.

That's not him. Yeah. And you put players in the wrong position for the context of the opponent. That's a sign of a coach you didn't put effort. And then you don't correct it at half time and you do like for like subs. And then our strikers have no service in the center, the whole match. And the service is reliant on Christian Pulisic, who all these coaches want to put as a 10. The problem is when he actually

plays as a 10, he is not as incisive a passer as they want to believe he is. He is better when he's cutting in an isolation play on the wings, and then he's not immediately double-team. When he gets double-teamed, right, in the center, or three or gets under pressure, he doesn't perform as well because he's frankly not big enough to operate in that space. He's a light dude.

You know, he's light and agile and fast, and you're not taking advantage of that. I thought Potts did a good job moving them back to the right, and I thought we looked better. But you needed someone else from the playoff. At freaking Milan, he has in the center, he has Reinders to play off, right? And even Milan's playing like shit lately,

but those two are the whole engine of the team right now, unless layout decides to show up, right? Right. But this game, you didn't have any interaction right there. There was no attacking midfielder in the center. You didn't, you have Diego Luna. You have Gio on the bench. Like, either one of those would have been like a,

I wish Luna had gone it because I don't think it's good rewarding Gio for not getting minutes. and thinking you just show up and then play on the team, right? But, like, Gio has shown up and done it. It's not the best and needs to be fixed for the next year, but he didn't do it. And that's where that's solely on Potch. I don't understand where he thought the game stay was

that you could just roll out another pair of, like, you know, wide-crossing sixes in a festival. And, like, think it was going to change things because it didn't. So. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the biggest mistake. is just not playing an attacking midfielder. Yeah, yeah.

Like, I mean, like, and to your point about Pully as a 10, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he can be a decent 10 in a different game. You know, where, where somebody is playing us. Yeah, but like, yeah. Yeah. But, like, yeah. Where, like, really. Were you swarming with three or four people all at once?

He, he, he doesn't hold up well in that. When there's, really, he can operate. Like, what have you ever seen? fully like really eliminate somebody of like a slick like reception or something, you know? Or just really like truly like receiving the ball and turning someone in the middle of the pit, you know, back to goal type of thing or just even like, you know, just anything, letting the ball run across your body and receive it with like a different foot than like you, then that opponent might think you would, like, you know, just real slick stuff, you know,

that you see like an attacking midfiel, you know, attack of midfiel or, you know, attacking midfiel of 10 type stuff You know And when it's that congested As it was Yeah, that's just not That's just not him, man. No.

And we had Eunice Moose out there Wide right and it's just say, yeah. Totally in that environment is better as a runner. He's always better as a runner. And you see that set in Milan A lot of his goals are actually Jumping into a pocket of space, right? But when that doesn't exist,

he suffers in play. And I don't know why you're, that to me shows a coaching staff not doing the work to understand their players. And actually, to Burhalter's credit, he understood this and wouldn't put him in that position, even though like, you know, way back at the beginning of the Burrall's era, when Pulitzer was frankly younger, there were times he'd run in that. But like went away from that because I think he understood against these Concord Cap teams. He couldn't play on the half turn with guys who outweigh him by like 40 or 50, pounds, right? And two of them at the same time. It's just not, you know, it's not, it's not possible

from them to do, I think. So, yeah, and too, I see LCT Dan saying, Gigi knew the pool, no doubt, yeah, to his credit, he did. And he, he built up this pool, frankly. So. Yeah. And I think, well, well, go ahead. I think, though, to your, the reason I'm to spawned Vince is the lack of time we have to fix this. And also the lack of initiative, it seems, that Potch cares. So, you know, that's got to change. Yeah. So hopefully, this was a strong end to it.

This is a strong end to it. So I knew you would bring it. I know you bring it. You always do. Yeah, that's right. I care. We're both. We're both victims of giving a damn about it, right, Vince?

That's right, brother. That's right, brother. So, yeah, that's it. I guess I would leave us with my last thought, which is just the fact that what Bells brought up earlier about us not having our fullbacks, I mean, it's a big, it's a big effing deal. Yep.

Right. A lot creativity from that. Power, guys. Yeah, yeah. Walk creativity and what? Think about a lot of games like this, that, you know, we get saved, you know, that El Salvador match in Columbus, Jedi with the goal.

Or the Jamaica qualifier with surge cutting in. That was Costa Rica. Costa Rica. Oh, sorry. Yeah. But yes. Exactly. I was just about to bring that one up.

Exactly. Low block. A moment of magic. Who provided it? Sergenio does. So, yeah. And he provided the other moment of magic too, the ball of Tim Wea. Yeah.

He got off the post and then off the backup keeper's rear end until the goal. So anyway, that's it. That's it. We went for about two hours. And I think we needed it. I needed it. The 38 people that are still on the audience, I'm assuming that y'all needed it. It is what it is.

And like I said, we got a big game coming up on Sunday. And it's going to be either against Mexico or Canada, what is the score of the game right now? It is 1-0 Mexico. Mexico's up. We're in the 50th minute, so anything can happen. It seems like it's, yeah, it seems like it's been a pretty even match. So I'm not watching, but hopefully we see Jesse Marsh's bitch ass. I can't wait.

Well, maybe I can wait. I don't know. If we lose to him, again, yeah, I'm going to have to rethink my whole position on everything, right? Because we could have had Jesse Marsh. So hopefully I don't have to go through that. So anyway, we'll see you.