Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #580: USA v Canada recap

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

The Poch-led USMNT fails magnificently in its first real test, fails to meet the standard set under Berhalter, which is all pretty ironic. Greg and Belz break it down, try to identify 2-3 intriguing plot-lines as we limp toward 2026. We need those fullbacks back. The World Cup won't be like this tournament was. No way.Clip Notes from Vince, which is video of every action we discuss in the timeline of this recap, is available on the Patreon for $5 patrons. Link below.Here's where you send a voice message for the Thursday show: https://www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcastAnd here's where you can sign up for the Rome trip. We're going! It's on. Join us if you can: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfp2O1bIr5KNSymt3ayP3ctERCooDo3ADM5Kf_kSHpmr6ITMg/viewform Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody, the USA lost two to one against Canada and in basically empty stadium in Los Angeles. Very sad. A lot of sad things about it. But I'm going to be probably more sanguine, more encouraging than you expect. I don't know about you, Greg. How do you feel? I mean, I kind of love this.

And I want to make it clear. I don't love when the U.S. loses. I want the U.S. to play like an absolute well-oiled machine and win games. Barring that, I want them to be effectively pragmatic in win games. But if we're not going to do either of those two things, then I want us to be an absolute mess for the entertainment. Like, this still needs to entertain me. If it's so boring and a slog and then we lose, like that's the worst. If we're going to lose, I want drama.

I want stories. And I feel like the way this is set up going into this World Cup for the next year, we now have that. We've got a plot line to follow. Yeah. Yeah, so many plot lines, so many emerging plot lines, like Potch doesn't, you know, he isn't really taking it seriously as one plot line. Maybe we should explore that a little bit. The Pulisic refusing to come off, which I don't think we have, you have to be a drama merchant to see some. some real, I don't know, warning signs in that, Potch was definitely exasperated with him,

maybe even a little bit humiliated by Pulisic refusing to come off when he was asked to sub off. Then Pulisic's like, no, I got to take this free kick. My free kicks, all game have been so good. We need me to take this free kick. All cycle. All cycle. Yeah. The one reliable source of danger have been set pieces.

Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess maybe those are the, maybe those are the two dramatic things. I mean, also, like, everybody's worried that are we just bad? Are we just bad at soccer? Maybe sort of, if we don't have some important players. Well, we got to, I mean, we've got to start with Greg Burolder.

So I'm sorry for all the people who are sick to death of it. But, like, we got to start there because for the, for a good portion of this cycle and even before, obviously, in last cycle, going into guitar, like, if you follow this team even as a little bit of a sicko and a lot of a lot of people listening to this podcast would be in sicko territory there are some who aren't fully in but like the u.s men's soccer ecosystem uh was was like all gregg burhalter all the time uh and the the discourse the anti berthalter discourse uh had become like so relentless and so like uh it was such pure agendizing uh like i mean it was distilled agendizing.

It was, we had gotten to the point pretty, pretty quickly where everything that he did was wrong. Like it was, it was always wrong. And it was like, it was wrong because he was doing it. So whatever he was doing,

that was the wrong thing to do. Whatever success the team might have had would have been in spite of him. Oh, it wasn't just like, it wasn't even like, okay, well, here are some things that maybe like, maybe weren't ideal. Like here's maybe what we could have done instead.

It was, he is lost. He is the worst. And anybody would be better. Completely pathetic, completely incompetent, like a joke of a coach. Yeah, anybody would be better. And so, you know, we would get savaged as apologists because I would come on and say like, he's probably like, okay.

Like, he's fine. Right. He's calling up our good players and he's putting them in spots that, you know, they make sense for those players. Like, this is, this is okay. And we could get rid of him. But I don't feel like we, you know, have, there's an urgency to get rid of him. the next coach we get isn't going to be guaranteed to like flip a switch and make us better.

We at least didn't see a ton of low hanging fruit that a new guy could come in and be like, oh, God, what were we doing? Like, obviously you've changed this and then we're much better. And then we crash out of Copa. And that's a fiasco too, right? We crash out of copa. And of course, the Burr-Halter discourse is that Burrhalter crashed this out of Copa, which was also, you know, very obviously ridiculous.

Like the very obvious main reason we lost to Panama in Copa is because Timway, I got a red card. There are plenty of other factors too that are right for discussion in a podcast like ours is going to get into them into those details. But that's the main reason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you talk about, say, the mass extinction event around the Cretaceous period, no one says like, oh, well, there's, you know, certain many species just couldn't adapt to changes in the, in the, in their environment. environment. Like you say an asteroid hit Mexico. That's what happened. Right. So, I mean, you have to

start there. And so I was still advocating to fire Burlhalter because it was such a public relations disaster and we're hosting a World Cup. And I felt like you got to just, you got to come in with something fresh at that point to sort of make it look like you're doing something. And re-energize a fan base, you know, get things looking like they're feeling like they're on the right track. But what we kept saying was like things might not, or at least, you know, I was saying things might not necessarily go better. I figured things would go better just because we're going to regress to the mean and not take a silly red card probably in our next important match against a weak team. And so we'll just win more on that later.

But, but yeah, like, I mean, it was, again, it was to the point where people wouldn't let themselves have fun when the team was successful. It was soft to enjoy the team's successes, you know, like the language that kept being tried out was like, you know, getting to the knockouts of the World Cup, was the bare minimum. Going unbeaten against Mexico in seven straight games was the bare minimum. And I'm just like, man, in what universe in soccer for the United States? Are we like not allowed to be like, oh, that was awesome?

That beating Mexico was awesome. Oh, no, no, no, no. Beating Mexico is the bare minimum. Right. Enjoying that is a sign that, you know, you're, you are okay with the same quo. Yeah. And it's just like, all right, well. I'm going to try to enjoy winning this trophy and beating Mexico.

Even the Nation's League, right? Like the Nations League took over for the Gold Cup. It basically became our regional competition that we took seriously. It's a nice abbreviated thing where you just play sort of the good teams. And we won three three in a row. Like we never won three competitive A team gold cups in a row. Like I know our B team won the A team Gold Cup in 2021. and that was awesome.

But prior to that, our last A-Team Gold Cup victory was 2007. Like, we are not a program that just wins these trophies automatically. And so even now, the greatest irony of all this is people are even, I think people are even more upset about this, which was a fiasco, of course,

but because they've been telling themselves for so long, like, we are entitled to these wins. Like these wins, winning this competition is automatic. And it's because Greg Berhalter's team won this competition three straight times, where that is now expected. And so it's like we don't know how to fathom like that we can't just win these. We aren't just going to win every competition we enter, even at the regional level. And I would say that feeling that, you know, Berhalter is completely incompetent and he's holding us back. that is not just sickos.

I think that that actually bled into the sort of the non-sicco Premier League fans who are also sort of incidentally fans of the U.S. men's national team. I think at least anecdotally, I would say that that is also true of that group. And so it was like pretty unanimous. That probably holds. And we kind of saw a little bit of that feedback already starting after the fact. So we hire Pachitino, which is awesome, right? A lot of my, you know, caveatting about we don't have to fire him was like, well, we don't have to fire him to get Patrick Vieira in.

We don't have to fire him to get Erv, Renard in. Those guys aren't like such sure things. And then we go out and we get an actual home run hire in Pachitino. And like, I don't care that we're having this experience that we're having right now. Pachitino at the time remains a home run higher. Like if U.S. soccer can hire Pachitino, you do that. Yeah. That is what you do.

And we'll get into it. I'm not saying he's a failure either. But we hire him. And everyone again, this is so sure that this is such a huge upgrade that after his first game, you know, people are looking for it. The first game he had was a friendly against Panama,

which we weren't particularly impressive soccer-wise. But we beat Panama, which we hadn't done in the Copa. And people are like looking for things. So if you're looking for things, you're going to find him like, oh, well, we had more fight. Like you could see that there was more fight.

More fluidity. Yeah. Well, at least in the first game, more fight because the fluidity was not really apparent. But then we go to Mexico three days later and just get absolutely walloped with no fight at all. And so it's like, oh, man, maybe we were a little jump to gun on the fight. But that's at altitude. He kind of ran the same group back in Mexico. So then we beat Jamaica and the next window on the road.

And then we, we, that was a historic win to win to get in. And then we destroy Jamaica. Yeah. Yeah, we destroy them at home with a lot of ball go in. And we enjoy being serious for the first half. And now it's like, look how fluid it was. We told, like, we knew this was there. All we had to do was flip a switch.

And it's like, careful, guys. Like, that's Jamaica. Jamaica's not very good. And they were kind of playing this open game. And then even in January camp, we walked through a couple of January opponents. And it's just like, we've never looked like this. This is amazing. I think Ta Bamos, like, the standard is obviously the highest has ever been.

I'm like, guys, this is January. Like it might be Potch might have might have all these magic things But this we got let's just wait let's just see what happens here And then we go into this window in that Panama game was like such a movie that we have seen over and over and over again Can't break down a low block got some chances but near not nearly dangerous enough Yeah and there were echoes both of these games had real echoes to the last regime the the Panama game for me was really similar to our second qualifier of the last cycle, Canada at home, where Canada sat in a deep block and just said, have the ball.

And we were just unwilling to even like test their shape, test their block, stretch it out, make passes into the interior and try to, you know, see how they react. It was all just like hit the high percentage pass around the outside of the amoeba and the clock just ran. And that's what it felt. I mean, that game against Panama looked like two teams who were both five. settling for a draw to advance into the next round, when obviously that is not an outcome that is possible. Then this second game against Canada, a completely different game, right?

Night and day for style of match that we're looking at. And this one, I thought, was a lot like the Mexico Gold Cup final from 2019, where they're coming to press us. I mean, he was even kind of like that friendly after that one. They're coming to press us. We are really trying to play through it on the ground, and we really did not have. the personnel to play through this Canada press on the ground.

And it looked how you'd expect it to look. Yeah. Well, then this comes to the question. So I don't want to fire potch. That's silly. No. Let's let him get to the point where he wants to be serious. Yeah, let me quickly jump it because I spent all that time on, you know, the bro.

Like, I don't think this is a potch is a fraud. I don't think it's like he's destroyed everything we've built. I think we're largely same team. The other parallel I kind of feel like for this Canada game is to Japan-friendly before the World Cup. And that has to do more with like the personnel available. Like we're missing some key guys. And just like with that Japan friendly, you insert those players. And like it can make a massive difference.

Just those changes. So I'm not really panicking here. I'm enjoying the spectacularness of the failure because you just, I feel like you have to. What else can you do other than? otherwise you're just wallowing. Yeah, I was pretty depressed last night, but, you know, listen to some music this morning, worked on some other stuff a little bit, and I'm feeling much better. And I think a lot of it is, the World Cup is such a different thing.

Well, first of all, this game, the Canada game. Yeah. We call it a competitive match, but there's a big asterisk on that. Any third place match, right? Yeah, it's not, I'm fine with Potch treating it as a friendly, like testing people out, making, you know, subbing out Wes, Tyler, and Christian all at the same time in the second

half, which is not something you do if this was like a do or die win game. Because it's not a do or die win game. We're down to one. Everybody's got a long club season to finish off. Like, let's start figuring some stuff out. I'm not sure we figured anything out, but I also

don't care that much that we didn't treat it as like a do or die win game because it's definitely not that. But the World Cup is such a different animal. You know, it's like you mentioned that Japan friendly. We were all, even I was kind of panicking after that, how badly we looked. But then we came to the World Cup, totally different performance from the team and a different mentality.

I think that the World Cup sort of solves any of those problems just by being the World Cup, you know? The other thing is we, the big thing we are missing and maybe we absolutely need them to be a good team. Vince and I talked about this in the recap of the Panama game. but we need our fullbacks. We need Serginio and we need Anthony Robinson. And without them, we're just not that good, I don't think.

I think it really limits how we can play. So this has been a big topic in the Discord now for a week. I mean, honestly, going back to Sergenio's injury, this has been a topic. And like what we saw in these two games were approaches. from both our opponent and from us where missing Serginio Dest in particular for me is massive

and that is he he's such a good skilled attacker in tight spaces that he would be a big help breaking down a low block because he adds another he adds a little combination magician which we we were

in obviously in short supply of on the field maybe maybe had a couple on the bench we didn't use but on the field we had nothing and he adding one is a lot. Like in out of 11 players, if you can add an extra magician, that matters a ton. And then against Canada,

we tried to pass through. We were trying to play out of our back through this press. And I think Sergenio is huge for that. If you don't want to do that, that's fine against the press. You at least have the option of just trying to go over the top and beating them that way. We chose not to do that.

And that's where Sergenio would have been huge. If you're going to go over the top, we did that. Vince pointed out the Mexico qualifier at home last cycle. Mexico's coming to press us. They're coming to play like they don't respect us. And we didn't have Sergenia dust for that game either. And we pummeled them in 1-20.

But we did. It was like a physical pummeling. Our game plan in that match was to clip, like pass around the back a little bit, kind of like we were in this game, just to draw them forward. And then we just clip the ball up over that first line of press, not all the way up to a target striker, but actually into the midfield. and let our MMA guys just absolutely do the business. Yeah, they won everything.

Everything. And then once you win it, go. Like, now we go. Now we get way involved. We get Rondo for what you can get involved. Like, we were going. And, you know, that just is not at all how we were trying to play against Canada yesterday. We were very, like, deliberate with the ball, trying to work it up the field.

And we have, I mean, when you're doing that with what we were running, like, I would say we had five and a half, maybe six and a half deer in the back line and Canada have very bright headlights and it's just a I mean it was never going to succeed in it and it very obviously didn't yeah one shot in the first half I think and not a lot of not a lot of uh goal area danger to speak of yeah I mean then then the first like we get half time and we're like okay maybe we'll maybe we'll get better and the first 10 minutes of the second half was just absolute we were just getting run off the pitch you know chance after chance for Canada. And yeah, I mean, do you see the lineup?

Arfston, you know, I saw a good MLS player, I think, but totally untested. And I'm thinking like, that doesn't seem like that good of an idea. And then CCV, who is, you know, a lot of people want him to play. And I think he's fine, but it's not his game to like to play through a press. I don't know that he ever even really tried to. And then, you know, Scali was okay, I guess, but yeah, there's no, I think you, we were talking about this earlier. With Dest out there, he can punish you for overcommitting by dancing past you. And then, you know, it kind of shifts.

Everybody has to sort of account for that. And it just kind of softens up the whole rest of the field for you when you're trying to play through pressure. Scali, definitely Fosse, you don't get that really. It's the opposite. Like when the ball goes out to Scali, one defender, I mean, we've, we had this discussion when it was Aaron Long playing center back. One defender knows that they can run at Scali. And as soon as they get within 10 or 15 yards, it's like start to panic time for Joe Scali.

And or he'll literally have to turn his back to the field to protect the ball. And everyone else on the field knows that that one defender will not need any help. Like, we don't have to shade over. that one defender has him totally locked down. We can all stay with our guy tight and make it extremely hard for Joe Scali to find a solution out of this. And again, and Dest is the total opposite of that. Like, Dest is like, I will stand here as you're running and I am not bothered as you're approaching me. I will keep my head up.

I can make a pass at the last second as you approach me if I need to. Or I will shift slightly, even if I don't rinse you, I will shift into a new area where your angle closing me down is no longer taking away the pass. that, you know, you were hoping to take away and I can find something. Or I will shift it enough where I get half a step on you. You'll still be pressuring me from, you know, half of my body. But another midfielder will have to come from the middle to help, you know, stop my advance. And now that opens up tons of other seams for the other players in the vicinity. So it can seem small and it can seem like it's not a huge deal in the moment.

But creating those little seams, if you're going to try to pass through an organized press. I mean, that's it. That's the ball game. And it's the difference between West McKinney or Tyler Adams receiving the ball in a big pocket of space, being able to turn and find a pass. Or West McKenny or Tyler Adams receiving the ball with somebody like all over them and having to do something kind of magical to get out of it, which they can do on occasion. I mean, Wes in particular can do that on occasion, but it's not going to do it every single time. He's not Luca Madrig. And so that's how Dest helps us against Canada. And then like you said, against Panama, he's good in a low box.

Think about if he was the wide fullback in the Moussa position. We talked about this in the recap of the Panama game. Moussa got the ball out on the chalk. I mean, I exaggerated. I said 20 times, but it's probably 10 times, you know. Just received the ball out there, and he had, it's not, I don't know if it's a full-on John Hurdman AVP, but he's out there with one defender.

Maybe he can do something. Imagine Serge, Serginio, being in that. position 10 times in that game. It's a lot different. I love to imagine that. I bet you do. So it's like, yes, we are definitely saying that Serge will help fix it. And I think we're still saying like not playing Timwaya there has been, I still think, a mistake.

I agree. I'm glad you said that. For two straight managers now. Like it basically ended up costing Burrhalter's job unrelated. I mean, in a fluke way, because Timway, we didn't lose that. game immediately because of of Waya being in the advanced role we lost because he punched through. But we get

so much more attack. I think, again, you're adding an attacker by putting Waya there. He's capable right back. And I know he was like, but he's also our best winger. He's still in the attack, especially against a low block. Like, it's not like Muso was like you just said, he got the ball so many times in outstanding

positions to do out like dangerous stuff. If that's way of doing that and it's Diego Luna in the pocket or Gio what like that's that's worse than than having having it be musa be the the keying attacker like i just i wish we'd got another way uh love it might be moot now because it seems like death is going to be back fingers crossed um before the next window but you're right he's the musa was the the wide right attacker in our band of five in the attack against panama it's not

this whole like we need him as a winger thing is just it's not it misses the point he's if you play fullback in that setup, you are the right winger in the attack against the low block. And yeah, it would have been great to see Luna in that game. I maintain and insist that he was our best player last night against Canada. Not perfect, but he was good. So let's do the lineup. Turner and goal, of course, Scali, CCV, Mark McKenzie,

and Max Arvston, the Columbus crew. wingback slash fullback across the back line. Tyler Adam. I got to jump in now because I called this back group a lot of deer. And Mark McKenzie's not a deer. Mark McKenzie can pass a ball under some pressure. Yes. He did almost gift Canada goal in the second half, though.

We'll get to that. Tyler Adams, and his defending, well, we'll get into that too. Tyler Adams and Weston McKinney, and I guess it was Christian Pulisick in the midfield. and then Tim Wea, Christian Pulisick and Diego Luna as the attacking mids. I mean, was Luna in the center or was Pulisic in the center? I don't know. Pulisic started out there clearly as the 10,

and Luna was like the wide player. But Luna, because this is the kind of player he is, was buzzing around. Like he wants the ball. So he's in there like buzzing. He was dropping back to try to pick it up as our deer stared into those headlights. Really active. And something we all appreciate.

like he did put in a shift trying to get back in those moments where like we needed a body to get back when he was the obvious player to do it and while that is a low bar not all of our players cleared that bar of Weston when they were the obvious player who needed to get back that's another plot line is Weston McKenney's huge one might be the biggest one uh but but again west absolutely phoned it in that Japan friendly before the World Cup like he was he was real bad. Vince made the point that maybe he just needs a, he's a kind of player who needs a crowd,

needs a moment. Otherwise he will phone it in. And there was no crowd and no moment for these games. Patrick Agamong was the striker. He gets the nod over Josh Sargent, who went scoreless again on Thursday. Canada was Dane St. Clair. in goal

and then Alistair Johnston who had just an incredibly effective night against our wide right attackers such as they were well because he moved over and replaced

Alfonso Davies who got injured in the first half but okay it was Johnson starting it right back Moisey Bombito Derek Cornelius and Alfonso Davies across the back line Matthew Schwanier and Ismail Coney

in the midfield I guess Ali Ahmed and Tajam Buchanan as the wide midfielders, and then Tani Oluashei and Jonathan David as the strikers both scored on the afternoon. And like I said, Davies got hurt. I don't know, 20 minutes in, got replaced by somebody who played right back and Johnston move over to left back and just bullied everybody over there for the rest of the game. Yeah, it might actually been a mistake by Big Pat. I thought it was like, all right, Big Pat contributing early when he took Davies down.

But maybe that hurt us. Maybe Canada was better without. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. All right, to the timeline. Let's see. One minute mark, there's an way a combination that's kind of errant gets a lucky bounce back into his path going down the line.

And, you know, this is actually a pretty good, especially in retrospect. How many times do we have somebody running behind the back line in this game? He's running at the goalkeeper. He's got somebody closing in on his left. He gets it caught underneath him pretty badly and then tries to cut it out directly underneath him. And it's cut out pretty easily by Bumboito. Yeah, he did have, he had Pat sort of alone.

If that gets through Bumboito, it's Pat for a similar tap-in situation that he had that he gets later in the game and kind of like the one he had. somehow managed to bundle over against Panama. Yeah. We have a very dangerous moment. And, yeah, Way it kind of bottles it. He way it makes up for it, I think, throughout the match. Yeah, we had some nice moments.

It just seems, it seemed early like Wes's, you know, Wes was a little deeper in this game than he was, or he was dropping a little deeper in this game than he was in the Panama game. And maybe a little better used in that way early. It seemed that way to me than he was higher up the pitch. because he's because he's able to like sort of navigate some situation he he is a big storyline I don't think he was like quite as bad as everybody says in every way like he was he had some decent moments in possession but um maybe we should get into his his heart and his uh I don't

know probably not now uh I mean like again it's it's really easy to if you've been watching him or following you guys' recaps of his weekends for Juventus where there are times where he just is like unplayable like he's getting on the ball and just doing like mad stuff and and it's again at times where he's the only

one for Juventus doing that kind of thing in some moments and then yeah it was I feel like at best against Panama I'd call it a vanishing act yeah yeah in a game where again we've got all these guys who can't do a job

I mean, basically, it's a job they're not capable of. Right. He's one of the ones who can. Yeah. We really needed a, uh, West to be like, okay, I'll do it. Yeah. And maybe it's, maybe it's the nature of a third place game that Wes is like, I don't need to do this.

But I mean, that's, that's us getting into real, uh, Tony meal of territory. I don't know. I don't know which of the old, the old vets were specifically calling out all of our heart. But I, I don't mind. Yeah, just to be clear, I don't mind a, don't really mind a lack of heart in game. I mean, I feel bad for the people, you know, the 100 or 200 U.S. fans who flew to L.A. for this game. But, yeah, I don't mind too much. So six minute, we have another decent attempt to combine up the right side, and it's another lucky bounce puts Ajamong in.

And he's got, I've got a screenshot here. He's got, he's receiving the ball between two defenders maybe on like three yards away on each side four yards away on each side Pulisick's way off side so maybe that confuses him a little bit but if he turns to his left he's and just I mean just manages to push the ball in that direction in any way he's got Luna and Arstyn arriving with nobody near him and um instead he kind of um gets crowded out immediately you know it takes kind of a not super positive first touch gets crowded out I I read the touch in his body language as definitely confused by Pool Sick, and I think he was, like, tapping it ahead to Pool Sick.

Like, that's what his first touch. I mean, his first touch is not the cleanest generally. But this one looked like, all right, I'm just going to tap it to the wide open best attacker on the team. And didn't quite process it. He's miles offside. Yeah. I mean, processing these situations quickly is a gift. and I don't know that he's quite there yet.

An amazing story, Pat Ajamong. Yeah, really cool. Yeah, really cool. I was not too impressed with him in this game, though. I think it's one where you can see what he can do. He's going to give you a lot in certain situations, and then he's going to be well off the standard in a lot of other situations, where we have other strikers who are just sort of more well-rounded.

but when he's posting a guy up and a ball's coming into his body like Canada was struggling a little bit to deal with him. A little bit, yeah. Yeah. He had some of those. We get diced up down the left side.

Arston shows good recovery. This is in the ninth minute to poke the cup back away. I think it was Olu who was the who the ball was coming to. I was coming from, I can't remember who.

That was Canada's left side, right? So it was down on right. Yeah, it was a, this was a, I mean, it's not all on Scali, but he gets, he gets caught with it at his feet and gets into like a duel that he didn't need to get into on the sideline. And the ball goes out of bounds. And he like appeals for the throw in while Jesse Marsh is doing a nice Burrhalter impression and like quickly flipping the ball up to Canada. And they get, they get a throw in against like a totally exposed backline. And this, I also wanted to clock. this is one where Luna

from like the center circle recognized the situation was we were in trouble and he gets all the way back into the box ends up at the top of the six yard box he didn't actually get there in time to help out with the player

but like he tried. Yeah. You like saw it and went and that's not nothing given what we saw. It's something. Yeah. And I do want to clock this positive

for Arfston because I also wasn't impressed with him. but getting in there and preventing what was probably going to be a goal here is something that I think is worth some praise. 10th minute, Way-Up plays Ajamong into space after a corner. It's a transition moment. Alistair Johnson flies into him, forearmed to the face as the ball is bouncing. So things may be getting a little chippy. Christina Uncle doesn't think it should be a yellow card.

I'm not sure she saw the forearm to the face part, but Davies comes off. with a leg knock in the 12th minute. So even earlier than I thought from a tangle with Ajamong, I think, I hope he's okay. Yeah, I think he's a class. And at the same time, you're like, okay, well, Canada have just lost one of their best players. And again, I said this before the game.

Like, on paper, given the injuries we're dealing with, we are not really like a lineup that an 11 that looked night and day ahead of Canada 11, if ahead of them at all. No, not, I mean, we were not, we looked like the worst team, like, very clearly to me. But, um, so 26 minute we get the, well, why don't you take it? The sequence starts with Canada hitting, like, a vertical pass from their own third up to, like, midfield, to a target man's feet. And Camer Carter Vickers closes that down from centerback and just wrecks the guy from behind. but in wrecking him, he actually like sets the ball for Canada to then play it forward over CCV's head.

But also, he wrecks him so hard that everyone just assumes this is like going to get called up for a foul and we kind of pause. Like everyone's just going to pause as well, this obvious foul is about to be called and play is going to reset. But referee correctly allows him to play on because Canada advanced into the gaping hole left by CCV and he paused Joe Scali. So that's how Canada gained all their territory. Scali recovers well. Gets all the way back to deny like an easy cross. We've got good numbers in the box as Canada try to make something happen quickly. They squared a cross goal and Mark McKenzie hits a weak clearance out to the corner of the box.

This is where you start to see that maybe we weren't playing with the urgency that we should have. As McKenzie clears this ball out, it goes right to a Canada player. And like the only players we have in the screen now are the four backs and Tyler Adams. Like McKinney has not made it back yet. Tim Waya is just getting back. So he gets there in time now to play defense on this ball carrier. But like you see Tyler Adams' arms go up like, where is everybody? Why is Canada just able to, you know, collect this ball for free with no urgency from our players?

So Wea gets there, but even Wayas' defense is pretty lackluster. He kind of stands off his man. He's between him and the goal, but he just stands off him enough that his guy can just just stand on the ball and like keep his head up the entire time and just watch all of his players in the middle of the field in the middle of the box and still while he's dancing for this long no midfielder's arrive to help Tyler Adams. Pulisik does finally get back but he doesn't come into the box to create what we like to call here the wedding cake where where we stack up a line of midfielders on top of the centerbacks in the most dangerous space to guard against which is

you know between the six and the penalty area um and then even Even Adams misplays this year, while he is on that line that he's supposed to be on, he's not checking where the runners are going. So Canada has two runners that start at the top of the box while they're dancing on the ball on the left side of the box. And while that guy's just watching his runners move around, Adams is staring at the ball and actually does a little hop towards the top of the 18. And he just splits a ball on the floor between Adams and the centerback line to two wide open Canada players. at the penalty spot. It's a free shot.

The centerbacks now have no choice but to come close it. There's no other help. So they both leave their line, come up to close the shooter, who just absolutely like miss hits it. And it deflects off McKenzie and goes right to one of the strikers who's on that, who was on that centerback line

that we just vacated right in front of Matt Turner. And he just gets to pass it into the pretty open goal. Yeah. Pretty lucky when it's all said and done, but it's, but maybe if we get a little bit more quality from the person who hits the shot that gets mishit, there's no luck involved at all, right? Yeah, it might be. I mean, again, the coaching point, I don't have any pointers here for the centerbacks or turner other than maybe again, like, we need a leader, right? We need someone who's barking. This play lasted a long time, and there needs to be barking the entire time.

Like get guys back into those spots Because this has been our Achilles heels since the Netherlands World Cup match Like get midfielders to be on in that in that space to protect against when the ball eventually goes there And we just have not done that it's it is kind of like the frustrating baffling thing of this program defensively at the moment and for a lot of moments So one zero Canada and Yeah McKinney trotting in late that's that's crazy and not new. If McKinney thinks like, okay, well, you know, I was ahead of Poole-Sick when that's all started,

so it's Poole-Sick's job. He's already back there. Like, maybe, but you still, again, there still needs to be barking then. Like when Poole-Sick just stops at the edge of the 18, if McKinney's not going to run past him to fill that penalty mark space, then you've got to tell Christian to do it. Like, you got to, we have, you just have to get that space covered with voices and actions. And I don't know. we just do not have urgency to cover that dangerous area.

Yeah. It's like they're standing at the edge of the fish tank. Standing outside the fish tank, just watching. Just watching things. Pretty quickly, we get a goal back. 35th minute. It's a lovely combination up the left side from Waya and Luna. It actually starts with Luna coming back to get the ball,

the thing you mentioned earlier, pretty deep, just inside our half. He plays it over to Wes, and then Wes kind of pings a ball. There's a little deflection, but pings a ball out to Wea, Wea cuts in, and Luna makes a darting run into the box. Waya fits a ball into the box for him, right in stride. He's running pretty hard. Good composure, good technique and composure from Luna to take this in stride, kind of stop on the ball, pause, instead of, you know,

like ripping one from a kind of tough angle with his left foot, But he uses the outside of his boot to shift it over to Ajamong. And Ajamong's shot, it's not the best shot in the world, but he does force it in under Dane St. Clair 1-1. But I say, I mean, wonderful from Wea, but really, like, the decisive moment comes from Diego Luna here. All right, I'll give you that because Luna's exciting and I want the lore to grow. But, man, this is awesome from Tim Wea. And this is sort of an example of what we talk about with Dest. he doesn't rinse his guy the whole way, right?

When he darts in from the sideline, his man is still able to like hang around him and he's going to pressure him from one shoulder. But because he has moved, he's cut past him just enough, it forces a midfielder who is tracking Diego Luna to leave Luna and come help cover Tim Wea. And the key thing here with Tim Wea is,

when he does this, he is often able to stay in total control of the ball. So his touch to clear that defender doesn't then sort of like force his next touch to be something else. He still has a choice of what his next touch is going to be, whether he wants to keep dribbling, whether he's going to just stop and reverse and reset and recirculate, or whether he's going to pick out the excellent movement from Diego Luna, who's now free because his man has left him and slide that precision ball into the box, which we've seen him do this with the national team from like his early debut days, the U-20s. He's got a couple of these touches. You just love that.

pass so much. And yes. Does that assist for Bobby Wood back in the back? Was that against Columbia? Yes. Come to mind. Yeah. Oh, man.

So good. So, so, yeah, so this is, I mean, again, I'm a, I'm a Timway fanatic.

The aesthetics of watching him play are great. And then Diego Luna matches it with, with his, with his touch to kill the ball immediately. Doesn't, doesn't take a touch to the end line and, like, lose all his angle or all his options. And then really good awareness.

to just move it over a yard and a half for for for a man i just don't know how many of our players have the pa have that ability to pause and compose themselves in that moment that way a lot of people seems like there's a lot of people a lot of people in the global game of soccer who just get in that spot and they're just like i'm going to rip it you know yep hit it hard at the goal at that point yeah if it gets blocked oh well um but yeah that ball from way i don't know what beat like four defenders to get to Luna's feet. Nice from Ajamon

corraling a scally free kick in the 44th minute and trying to visit across the penalty area. This one gets cut out, but mostly because there was nobody in the box at that point. There was just nobody arriving. But at least he got something positive out of it.

And that's a good example of him using his big frame to create some revenue. And then there's that really nice switch from Luna for for for for Wea another good Luna moment that sticks out for me where he's like he's combining on the right side and just you know picks his head up and all the way across the field for Wea it doesn't really come to anything but it's nice yeah we need we need again we need a little bit more from Tim Wea in that moment which we feel like we come to expect but uh between that and

his uh like second minute big space that he was attacking into the box um Just to go really nerdy on it, though, that is a really tough ball to bring under your spell, you know? I know. I know. I have such high expectations or way. I don't even know what technique you would use because it's bouncing up. So the trajectory of it is... Took it on his chest, right?

Yeah. But if you take it too far forward, you're giving it to the other guy, you know? And if you let the ball hit you, then it takes you over to the cornerflank. I don't know how you do it. Yeah. I don't know how you do it. What do you do? This is where I wouldn't do anything.

But Tim Wea like has such an awesome like catalog of different services and like this again, I just know where he's like, oh, I got this ball spinning here. I'm going to be able to spin this off of my peck on this side just on the top part of my back where it angles slightly and it's going to move it in this direction. I'll be able to keep running onto it. So I was like, oh, Tim. And it wasn't even like a horror touch or anything. No.

It's moved him slightly not towards goal. I think I figured it out. I figured out what I would do if I were Tim Wayne. No, I mean, I would do nothing too. But maybe he faints like he's going to take it to the corner flag and then just uses the left peck to pop it over the defender. Volley it from 23 yards. One-one.

I mean, I literally saw him do that against Ghana. It happened right in front of where I was sitting in that Ghana friendly. And everyone else just fell on the ground because they were so impressed by Teamway as invention. It didn't go in, did it? No, he didn't score. It was at like midfield. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

All right, that's the half. A couple of things, a couple announcements. If you want to listen to this in all episodes, add free, join the Patreon. Link is in the show notes. Another thing is we're doing a mailbag episode for Thursday And I'm going to put a link for something called a speak pipe This is one of something Wachie sort of scared up And it's like you can send us a voicemail

And we'll play it on the episode and then respond to it You know Do that hit that link send us a voicemail Give us your name and your rough location as in You know Greg in greater Des Moines You know You don't have to tell us your address or your GPS coordinates. And give us a region.

And I'm, and like I want most people to say Midwest. Basically, that's, everything is the Midwest. Yeah, I'd like you to be a little more specific than that. We'll take a break. We'll be back in a minute. And we're back. At the half, Fosse comes on for Scali. I'm like, should I bring up my Ritchie Ledesma agenda or not?

I mean, he would be. much better against this press than Fosse was. I think that, I think that's probably true. And even again, like going back to the Panama game, like maybe he would have been a better, better player against a bunker.

It still should have been Tim Way at right back. I'm not going to waver on that. But I was, I'll be honest, I was just happy for Scali. I think it's, I was like, oh, this is cool for the kid.

Like he's been toiling away. Yes, I'm sorry. He's been, he's been toiling away in Belgium now for like three years, like, never really had a camp that made sense for him to be in, I mean,

in any real sense. So to get this one, I was like, good for, good for Marlin. Yeah. I mean, totally. And that being said, he was completely ineffective.

And, you know, I think people, just to go back to your point about, that people are like, people think of, I think some people think of a fullback as like a cornerback. He's mostly there to defend.

And if he doesn't, but there's like so much, more to it and how it affects the whole game. And I don't know that Fosse did anything bad in defense. I think he was mostly fine. But in the attack, you know, he didn't really offer anything. And he got big brothered by little brothered. How does the verb go?

He got little brother. He got big brothered. Yeah. He got big brothered by Alistair Johnston many, many times. No, I don't know. I think you could use him interchangeably. It's like inflameable and inflameable. Let's not be too picky, yeah.

The first 10 minutes the second half, just straight garbage from the U.S. 50th minute Adams makes a mess on the half turn, gives it away, going into our defensive third. He makes thigh-to-thigh contact with Jonathan David, who's dribbling towards the end line. No penalty. It would have been a harsh penalty, I think. David was dribbling out of bounds anyway, but messy. But it could have been given. You know, like it would have been harsh, but like we hit him.

Yeah. So if you're Jesse Marsh, you're, you're, you're fussy about this and you remain fussy a couple of minutes later. Yeah, we'll get into that. 51 minute mark. Another mess in our defensive third. Adams passes back to Turner. It's pretty hot for a pass back to your goalkeeper. That said, Turner probably should just kill it and then send it long.

he plays it out to McKenzie's feet. McKenzie's a bit slow on it, and his long path, he's trying to clip a pass up to midfield. His pass is deflected off his foot, kind of sprays up and right into the middle of the box for O'Shea to arrive on it. And he's got a really nice opportunity here to meet this on the bounce,

get over it with some top spin, and he blazes it over from 10 yards with his left foot. But that could have easily been 2-1 right there. Well, yeah, it wouldn't have been because he was flagged for offside. Oh, I've, I didn't know that. Because it's like the deflection. You know, the pass to him is actually just the Canada player having the ball hit off their foot and deflect to him. But it is a Canada touch.

But this sequence is kind of just sort of encapsulates our passing around the back where it always felt like, yep, this is a dead end. And you knew you might not be at the dead end right at that moment, but you knew the next pass was a dead end. dead end. It was so much like passing up to Scali or Arfston and then not really having any anywhere to go with it. And you're like, okay, well, they can at least sneak it up the sideline, but whoever they sneak it to is going to be like, have literally no options and they'll just have to come up with something. They have to do something highlight real to get out of it. Yeah. And you're just like, but you're okay with it because like, well, that's at least the least dangerous thing if they just try to sneak this ball at the sideline. But there was never any like,

oh, this is how we're unlocking this Canada Press and we're finding the open space. Like it was just none of that. And it never really happened. Yeah. We're getting run through at this point of the game. This looks like we're totally outclassed. Then comes the big marsh meltdown,

54th minute. It starts with a little bit of a promising moment for us. Luna's on the ball. After a goal kick, we win it, or some kind of long ball. We win it at midfield, Luna's entering Canada's final third. He tries to play Pulisic, who's kind of curling around the farthest wide right defender, right from our perspective. And he just plays a hot pass off his heels. It's like impossible to handle this pass.

And it bounces up in the air right in front of Alistair Johnston, who was the one that Pulisic was trying to run around. And Johnson just clears it on the volley all the way into our half. We're not quite into our half, but CCV and McKenzie are bracketing Olu Oluashie at the midfield. I just gave him that nickname because it's so hard to say his last name. And he beats them, he beats CCV to it, flicks it on for David, who is, who outruns Arfston, you know, quite comfortably for what's looking like a 1V1 with Turner. but David tries to cut onto his left foot in the box as Arfston slides in front of him. So, you know, Arfston does well to kind of make this tricky.

And David slips. It does look in real time like he got brought down by Arfston. And that's obviously what Marsh is thinking. As you see enough replays, you realize he didn't touch him at all. David just slipped. But Marsh has already run past the U.S. bench way out of the way out of the, way out of the technical area. He's going crazy and he gets sent off.

And I'm sure there's residual fussiness from the previous one where I don't know if they've shown the reviews in the stadium, but they've all got their little iPads on the bench. So he's seen there was contact. So he's already feeling like justice is sort of working against him. And now, man, you owe us one and you're still not going to give us that. But this was, again, this is the Jesse Marsh stuff is also. another element of the whole drama of the U.S. Like it's not separate.

Him being a Canada is fantastic for the storylines. Yeah. Yeah. In him being videoed running through the tunnels. This is priceless stuff. Like you have, again, I really encourage people to let themselves enjoy this, even as our teams going down in flames. He sees, yeah, it's like, if you want to go back and watch it on the broadcast, it's like

the 5510 mark. through like the 60th minute goes on forever he's walking through the concourse or whatever you know the private concourse and uh he's got this guy in a powder blue suit just looking absolutely like he would rather be anywhere else in the universe and i don't know if he's talking to him or he's talking to the camera but he's like marsh is monologuing as he's walking it's really hilarious and then uh yeah you see the footage of him jogging and then he ends up in the looking like comidus in his box at the after that after he gets all that other stuff sorted out so like I wish I I could actually like believe that there was a universe where the U.S. crashes out of the Gold Cup spectacularly again

and Jesse Marsh is brought in as the U.S. coach in the run up to the World Cup but I don't think it can happen because I don't think he would do it. I feel like he would be like, no, I'm Canadian now. And he wouldn't, he would still have that sort of point to prove. I mean, he's from Racine, Wisconsin. It's not too far in Canada, you know. And then, you know, after all that, hoo-ha, then we get in the 59th minute, Canada scores. And the context for it is that we're just getting shut down like you sort of described a few minutes ago.

we're just getting shut down every time we try to connect forward passes. It's really pathetic. The first, I mean, basically the whole game, but especially this part of the game. Yeah. First 20 minutes of the second half. This is, again, this is so much to me, the back-to-back Mexico losses in 2019 of Gold Cup Final and friendly where it's just like there is no avenue and we're not missing like windows.

Nobody is open. And the guy on the ball is not capable. of solving it in his own space. And so the turnover is inevitable. It didn't feel quite, you know, that one against Mexico felt like we were just, like we could have lost 17 to zero. The friendly loss, you know, the 3-0 loss. This didn't feel like that.

It just felt like a mess, you know. And maybe that was partly because Alfonso Davies wasn't in the game. And so Canada was lacking, missing their best player. But there was no avenue, but it didn't feel like that game where it felt like Mexico was going to score every two minutes. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, Canada aren't, actually weren't super impressive coming at us.

Right, right. So Arfston, they played, a ball gets played down in the corner for Tejohn Buchanan. Arfston kind of wins the duel with him. It's like back and forth. But then there's a bad bounce. It goes straight to Schwanier, who plays it back to Tejon, as he's sort of gliding a towards the corner of the box. Tim Way is there.

Good tackle. Tackles it away from Tajan cleanly. Unfortunately, it goes straight to Ali Ahmed. And he turns, he's got Wes in front of him, and Wes tries to stab with his left foot to stop it, but he can't. Slips it into the box for Jonathan David. It's a simple pass.

David takes one touch with his left foot to stop it and sort of turn and face the goal. Tejan is darting in, behind McKinsey is marking David but Tejohn is darting in behind McKenzie to his left so he feels that and he kind of as soon as David receives the ball he drifts away from David towards Tejohn I'm doing that yeah your body right drifting yeah you're doing the McKenzie drift here and and David takes touch with his right foot to shift it onto his left he has plenty of time because McKenzie's not really playing defense on him now

and he curls it in at the far post, beats Turner comfortably. It's like, is it that easy? Is it should it be that easy? It's a really classy decision and execution from David. McKenzie's doing, again, McKenzie's doing the math that he's capable of doing here. And like, he's reading David's body. He's reading the wide open runner and saying, okay, like, this is going to happen next. I've got to take this away.

And he just gets bamboozled. have just left it because I think Tejohn ends up offside by being behind McKenzie. So the fact that McKenzie would have to go back, but McKenzie would have to be trusting that everyone behind him is in the right spots. So I do think this is a miscalculation, but it is a really classy footwork from David to exploit McKenzie's miscalculation. And then if you want to get really like nitpicky, which of course we will, waya, waya makes the first tackle, you know, to disrupt but then because Arston I mean Arston is the big giveaway here

Arston's giveaway while running himself out of position is the first domino but Way goes back and ably covers for him for a second you know and makes an intervention but he still has to be the left back yet so Tim you did good there you are still the left back you've got to tighten up with McKenzie and to be able to help with Tejohn

yeah it'd be like your guy to sort of make McKenzie live a little breathe a little easier knowing that I've got my fullback here. And then on the other side, CCV and Fosse are both also misplaying this. Because while our left side is evaporating in front of their eyes, they are both staying on the sideline side of the only attacker over there. Like neither of them shifts over. Like C-C-V,

McKenzie having to step after the entry pass into the box to David McKenzie steps, CCV is still saying on the sideline side of his other man out there and Fossy is wide of him. Like those two players are both wasted players for that stretch of time. And it's part of the reason that CCV is going to be late getting to the shooter. But they're not, I mean, if you think about, you're always trying to optimize your pieces to control as much of the pitch as you can and eventually block as much of the goal as you can for a shooting situation. CCV's playing it really poorly. And this is all like communication stuff. Like Fosse needs to recognize that he is doing absolutely nothing on this play because CCV is.

He needs to push CCV one horizontal scale over, and then he should be on the only attackers outside shoulder on the weak side. Okay. So we just kind of miss all those little things. Nobody barking. No barking. No barking. And good execution from Jonathan David after a little bit of an unfortunate, you know,

pinball from Wayas tackle. but. Yeah, two unlucky, kind of unlucky pinballs in a row. I guess it is an arfesting giveaway, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then even after all that, CTV is like just a beat late to get a foot in. So the margins are thin.

That's exactly right. Like, that's how close you can be, that last half a step or being that fraction of a second late. Because for CTV to get over there, he could take away a yard and a half of the goal from from Turner's for our post. Yeah. Yeah, it just felt at this point in the game that we were outclassed, being outclassed. And I think that's fair, isn't it? I mean...

Yes. Yeah, I think so. Like outclassed, but not against the team that was classy enough to do a ton with it until that very, very classy execution from Jonathan David. Yeah. Which, again, we had a couple of pinball moments that broke our way, and we just, in those moments didn't have the class. Nope.

I mean, Jonathan David is a different gravy from Patrick Ajumang. So I just feel like it bears repeating. Our set pieces were depressingly bad throughout the game until Pulisic came off. And we get a little bit of controversy, which we have mentioned already. At the 66 minute mark, Kone gets a yellow for trying to pull down Pulisick for like 30 yards as he's dribbling down the field. Pulisic does well to ride the challenge all the way to just outside the box, and that's where the foul is spotted.

He sets up to take the free kick. At this point, Potch wants to sub Pulisic, Tyler, and Wes off for Geo, Tesman, and Musa, which again, I think is kind of a clear signal. He didn't see this as a really important game to win. But Pulisic refuses to come off. He just says, he like just puts his hand up. Not coming off, Mauricio. And, you know, both Gio and Potch tried to backing him off.

And he said no. And Potch is clearly exasperated by this. You know, he's like, he like puts his hands out. He picks some trash up off the grass. And then he's like shaking his head and raising in his eyebrows. I don't know. kind of interesting. It's a fantastic storyline for the next window.

Yeah. I feel like it won't lead to any real, any thing of note from our vantage point, from what we can see. I have to say, I don't think, I'm not team Pulisic here. Like, the coach tells you, come off, you come off. Also, you haven't played well at all. And we have a chance to improve on the set, people. like right now. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't, I don't agree with this from Christian. But anyway. Hesman's over there just like, wait, I don't get to go in either. Like, I mean, I mean, like, I get the GEO stuck here, but like, I should get to go in. Right, right. And the ARs just like, I can't make them come off. Like, our institutions can crumble just like yours are. And that's that.

Musa, Musa is just pretty chill about it, it seems. And it does take a while, it takes a while for all that, you know, world citizen Eunice Musa, just not troubled by all this shenanigans. And it takes a while to get them on. And then, you know, I don't know that getting them on really helped anything but the set pieces, but the set pieces improved. For sure. There was one kind of classy sequence from Raina and Fossi in the 77th minute,

but it came to nothing. you know, just a nice combination up the right side, where you get to see like, okay, Gio can actually, he may not, he's clearly not fit. He's clearly not fit to the standard that Pachitino wants. Which can mean so many things. That's what I love about fitness. And we've, we've specifically Gio's fitness, which we've discussed for, for hours in accumulation. Thousands of hours.

But we're going to do it a little bit more because, like, yeah, like, what does that mean? And it's not a black and white standard fit, not fit. Like, it's like, I think Gio would be like, no, I'm fit. I can play. And then a coach might be like, okay, like, just give us a couple of sprints so we can make sure that you're fit. You know, they're wearing tracking monitors. The coaches can tell if you've hit a certain heart rate level. And I feel like Gio's just like, no, I'm good.

I don't need to do that. I'm fit, though. I can play. I can play the soccer game. There's even a moment where it might have been that combination when you're talking about. Somebody gets a pass to him and it's just like a little bit too far ahead of him, but he should still be able to, you know, accelerate slightly and get it. But you almost, I almost felt like watching one of my over the hill teammates going after ball, it's still

too far ahead of him being like, don't do it. Like, don't do it. Don't, don't accelerate. Like, we all know what happens. You got to go to work. You got to go to work on Monday. If you get to 85 to 90% of your, of your acceleration here, like the hammies go. That's, That's for sure what's going to happen. And Gio did not reach the ball in time because he did not accelerate. I don't know if it's the one, but there was one time where Luna was ready to combine with him and play him a ball in behind where he didn't even try to go for it. That was a little bit of an education for Diego, I think.

Gio's not making that run right now. Yeah, and if you see Pottes answer to the question, Jonathan Tannenwald did well to ask this question, like, what is he on a minute's restriction or what? And Potch gives a long answer, but there's a part in the middle of it where he says, you know, what matters right now is what he gives in the training sessions and what we see. And it's, he kind of stops. He's trying to figure out what he's going to say. He says, he's not, he's just not his best right now, you know. And it seemed like, I don't think it takes too much reading between the lines to see that like Potch is just not impressed with his.

I don't know if you call it effort level or physical fitness, whatever you call it in training. It's not enough for Potch. So all that said, he was, you know, he's pretty good at soccer. And even when he's playing at like whatever it is, 50%, 60%, he does some nice stuff. And then we get a nice set piece. Brian White comes on for Ajamong, which is a choice from Pach.

I mean, I guess it's fine. but um sergeant's a much better player than Brian White I think this this I think could be I mean I don't think Sargent certainly didn't do things so poorly against Panama there's like we need to send a message

but like you said this could just be Potsch being like well we're not we're not like we don't care about a third place trophy we've got the situation we're just going to run out the run out the whole roster I guess yeah really treat it like a friendly

and white comes on we get two nice setpiece chances in the one in the 85th one in the 90th one gets they're both hit by Gio one's knotted down by Mark McKenzie Luna almost gets I mean Luna does get to it and just kind of smashes it off St. Clair

who gets to it like a tenth of a second later wins a corner kick then there's a corner kick in the 80th so that was a nice set piece and then there's a corner kick in the 90th that Geo takes, it's a little lower and kind of skips through a bunch of bodies, hits White in the chest as he's in a good position to sort of receive it. Maybe kind of took him a little by surprise.

It bounces in front of him. He has a chance to volley it with his left foot, but Bumboito gets there first and pokes it away with his left foot. There was one other set piece corner where White gets a header that kind of just kind of misses wide of the post and Tim Wayo was kind of there. scrap ends, maybe you try to get a touch. Just pointed out because even to say like we got three decent set piece looks, uh, is a big improvement.

Yeah. Well, and then we didn't, um, we didn't, when Jack McGlynn came on the Panama game, he's, he hits set pieces at least as well as geo does.

Like, he's great at set pieces. He wasn't allowed to take any of them. Pulisic got to take all of them all the way to the end of the game. I'm like, what are we doing? What are we doing here? Like we got it. We got to get that sort of sorted.

Does Potsch really want Pulisic taking all the set pieces? Is it so important to keep the star happy or, you know, I don't know, feed his ego that we just sacrifice getting any danger from set pieces? It seems like something we got to get a handle on, among other things. And then there's Arfston Chance right at the end. Pretty good stuff from Wea and Luna. again, they're the kind of ones creating the danger together, what limited danger we created. And then Luna's ball across is cut back to him, cut out back to him,

and then he collects it, just lays it off for Arfston. Arferson does pretty well to sort of shift the ball onto his right foot, hits one and curls it just wide of the post. Jesse Marsh left his box, went back into the concourse with the shock of it all. Very theatrical. I know it's like the smallest of small constellations in the last 10 minutes of a constellation match that very much felt like the last 10 minutes of a friendly. But we did like, those were decent returns in the last 10 minutes. If you could follow all those qualifiers.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And I think, I mean, I think the big thing is we need our full backs back. I know Dest, I mean, I think Jedi doesn't do the same things, Dest. does, but his verticality also loosens up the opponent. You know, we saw that against Panama. And he is a grown-up.

He is like a grown-up. So he can't, he will get the ball and not just be like, he's not a deer staring at headlights. Right. Even if he's not the magician that Dest is in those small spaces, he can move the ball slightly and then have a different angle to look at. A picture looks a little different. Whereas Scali just does not, even Scali just does not give you that.

When he gets the ball, these are his passing angles. They're either on or they're not. And if they're not, that's it. He's got nowhere else to go. Yeah. Fosse and Arfston and Scali are more in the mode of like find the feat of somebody who will solve the problem. And Jedi is at least more on the continuum, somebody who will solve the problem for himself. Dest is the, you know, the ultimate problem solver.

So, yeah, we'll get those fullbacks back. Balagan and Pepe will eventually return from injury. That should help. I don't know that that is really the problem. I don't know that Sargent was really the problem in the game against Panama. I mean, I think Ajamong was a step down from Sargent with his hold-up play. But he had some good moments, like he said. So I think the problem against Panama again was, and Pach just said it.

Like, you can't just play, play, play, play, and not actually attempt to go towards the goal. And that's exactly what it was. like everyone was deferring. And if you're not going to play one of your guys who can reliably pick a lock, like a Gio who we know can do it, we've seen him do it for the U.S., or Diego Luna, who we hope could, then you have to like brute force it by trying over and over,

low percentage plays that you're not great at until you can string three of them together and get your shot. Or until one of them creates enough pinball in the tight amoeba, that it falls your way and you get a shot. But you can't just keep hitting high percentage passes around the outside. And wait. Because eventually what's going to happen is the clock is going to run out. Yeah, well said.

So, yeah, the fullbacks are a hopeful thing. And we got to, you know, Wes will show up for big games. We'll be fine, I guess. Well, we're going to be missing some of these guys for the Club World Cup for the Gold Cup. So we're going to get another sort of mixed bag of experience level of core players. It won't all be our whole core team in the summer, and who knows what injuries we'll be dealing with there. But it is no doubt going to be, like, again,

now there's a ton of drama around every single, every single game, every single action. We're going to have the U.S. soccer magnifying glass on it of, like, misery for things that don't come off. Yeah. But we will have the fullbacks for Club World Cup, I mean, for Gold Cup. and I mean, maybe Gio will still be with Dortmund for the Club World Cup. Maybe not.

I mean, why am I even talking about Gio? He might not even. Is he going to be fit? Is he going to be ready to play soccer at a high rate of speed by the summer? I don't know if I'd put any money on that. But this was just Potch sending Gio a message. Like, hey, you're not going to come in here and just, like, cruise through training and then play. because you're just because you're better than everyone else, though you may be.

You got to, I mean, I'm kind of, I have expectations. I've got baselines here. Yeah. We joked. I can't remember if it was in the recap or in the call-in show that maybe he's having trouble getting his green card because of some calls. He's some calls being made by certain famous New Yorkers. But also, that's just a joke.

That's just a joke. All right. Hey, I think that's it. Don't panic. I'm going to put the link. Go ahead. Don't panic. We're going to get good players back.

If we're missing those players in the summer of 2026, then I'd say like get right to panic in. Yeah. We're still about 15 deep, right? I mean, as much as we love on the Monday review to talk about Tanner Testman and Joe Scali, it's like. No. The core is still the core from Qatar. And we're still definitely needing them to be able to play as many minutes as we can ring from them.

A Malik Tillman breakout with the U.S. men's national team would go a long way, though, because I think he's got the juice. All right, one more thing is the trip to Rome. I'm going to put the link to that form. in the show notes, and people can still sign up. So check that out. Thanks, everybody for listening. We appreciate it.

We'll see you.