Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #601: USA v Türkiye recap

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Belz and Vince walk through the timeline and some takeaways from a loss in Hartford, but easily the best loss of the past three, and there are some positive things to take away from it.Sanjay and I are going to interview Walker Zimmerman tomorrow. I will put a form in the shownotes, at which you can submit a question if you like. We will try to ask as many as we can: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfq64C36Wv0zAUTBSPV_zgjB2BPG-p5i810Cq2EVC0fm06Exw/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=114093336505775313418 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, we had a game yesterday. USA1, Turkey 2, and Hartford, Connecticut. Lots to discuss here, I think. A pretty interesting game. Got Vince here. Vince, how are you? I'm doing great.

Adam Bells. And my favorite thing to do is a breakdown of loss. I might sound a little strange to you, listener, but yeah love getting in there it's never as bad as you think never as good as you think and uh i think i think i prefer the never as bad as you think um on that side i want to say yeah yeah there's there's it's it's nice to watch a game a loss and then sort of be encouraged about it so never as bad as you think but also um there's fun in the forensics you know of like figuring out what what did go wrong always yeah and and the thing is not a lot of

things went went wrong no just a couple things a couple big things yeah a couple moments poor johnny you know i yeah yeah i hope we stick with we got to stick with him we got we got we got to we got we got to we got to we got to stick it out hopefully get some minutes off the bench on tuesday but yeah good grief Buddy. Bells, I did get to that point. Watching it back when he makes a mistake

and just watching his face, I felt some sorrow come over me, for sure. And I'm not even like the biggest Johnny fan. I like Johnny. I think he's a good player.

I would love to see him come good for us, all that type of stuff. But I am not a stand. I don't know if you've noticed how much time you spent on Twitter lately, Bills, but Johnny does have a

a growing, it might not be growing anymore, but a growing stand base that, you know, they pray at the altar of Johnny Cardo, so Johnny Soccer. And I'm just thinking about those people today. Yeah. I'm just, I'm just thinking about them. But, yeah, when I, like, looked at his face, after he made the mistake, he's like muttering to himself. I'm like, damn. Like, just imagine being him right now. Yeah.

And then he, the problem is not just that he makes the big mistake, the goal, the goal conceding mistake. But then he also starts to play very badly after that, you know? And he falls apart. Bro, he fell all the way apart. It was, it was sad to see. Like, I've been thinking about Johnny everything. I've been thinking about it for like the last three hours, man, because I'm just, It's like, man, I hope somebody put their arm around that man.

Yeah. Well, Luca, you know, Mr. Pupo came up and kind of tried to reassure him right after the mistake. Didn't help. Didn't help one bit. Didn't help, bro, because by the end of the half, like, he hid after. So he had a big mistake, and then there was like two more mistakes right after that. And then for the last about 10, 12 minutes of the half, you wouldn't even have known he was the pitch, bro. And we had the ball quite a bit. Like, after we got through our little, our little

four-minute phase, we got right back to playing ball. But Johnny was missing at that point. It was crazy. Yeah. So it was just such an unnecessary error, too, which we'll get into. But I think there's a lot of positives to take from this game, too, not just Johnny's Johnny's meltdown isn't the only thing. But first, some announcements. So, number one, Greg will join me for the recap of the Switzerland match, which is on Tuesday. We'll recap it either Wednesday or Thursday. Tuesday, we're going to be there, you and I, at least.

Waki's a little iffy on Tuesday now. He may not make it. He said some things to come up. But we have a keg on, and I already have it in my possession. We'll tailgate on Tuesday afternoon at the northwest corner of Craighead and Bransford. I guess there's maybe some fan festival thing happened in there, but it's a big parking lot. And last time we got there, when we got there, it was early enough that they were just letting people in. I assume the same will happen.

If something changes, you know, we'll call an audible and we'll put it out on all the communications channels. But right now, that's the location. I think I'll be there by 2.30 p.m. Central time. And, yeah, it should be fun. Come join us. Have a beer. The other last announcement is Sanjay and I are going to, Sanjay Sujanta Kumar, that is, and I are going to interview Walker Zimmerman tomorrow.

I'll put a form in the show notes at which you can submit a question if you like. We'll try to ask as many as we can that are submitted by listeners. So those are the announcements. What's your overall thoughts on the game before we get into the lineups in the timeline? Well, are you encouraged, discouraged, same as you were before? I don't see any reason to be discouraged at all. I think this group of players played admirably. And I do have a overarching thought on this match that I think I'm going to save until the end of this recap

because I don't want it to cloud everything that we say. Okay. But yeah, yeah, I'm encouraged. We got out there and we played ball and we played intelligent ball. And, uh, yeah, we played, we played hard. We played hard. I mean, there was no lack of energy, I don't think. Um, sure.

But I'm, after we watching those matches in the Nation's League, uh, well, we talked about the bells, but I'm not totally sure that effort attitude had that much to do it unnecessarily, uh, Pontchino does seem to be convinced, though. Um, with a. comments on the broadcast. And I think his comments after the match kind of alluded to it. So whatever. Yeah, he said he'd rather lose on a mistake than on a lack of effort.

So in his view, things are turning in the right direction. Another quote he said is, I'm really sad because I think this group of players are working so hard and I think we deserved a better result today. I think we performed well. I think we're brave enough. Yep. I mean, one other overarching thought is I was happy to see Chris Richards start to lay his claim as, you know, the spiritual center of gravity for this team. Yeah.

By not only by being the captain, but he played really well. Yeah. I don't think he really put a foot wrong. And also did put a lot of feet right, if you will. Let's do the lineups. Matt Freezing goal. Just looking every bit the Ivy League crew captain that he is. Man, he's an impressive looking dude, huh?

Yeah, for sure, for sure. He looks like a superhero or something. And then Alex Freeman makes his debut at right back. I thought he did all right, actually. Thought he did all right. I mean, he had his mistakes. Yeah, he did all right. He was probably a little bit better than I expected.

I got in the tape. I watched me some Alex Freeman matches. because I'd been hearing a lot of praise. Hearing a lot of praise, Adam Bell's. People on the scuff Discord had reported that Joe Lowry said, the best right back in MLS, that he's current form. Alex Freeman is better than Joe Scali, a lot of things.

So I was excited to turn on the Y Scout and check him out. Then I checked him out, and I was underwhelmed. I was a little bit underwhelmed. I'll leave that. I'll go ahead and say that. He's very much a prospect, right? He's very much raw. And when you say things like better, not that Joe Scali, some super high bar, but when you say things like better than Joe Scali and best right back at MLS, I thought I was just going to turn on the tape and just see, you know, him just going crazy from minute one.

And it's like, man. And, you know, I was clipping some stuff. And, you know, usually I wait until I feel some type of, until I moved, right? Adam Bells to hit the shift command five and clip the video. And I got shockingly long into Alex Freeman clips before I felt any need to clip anything. Now, with all that being said, he played well. He didn't have a ton, you know, he played the Joe Scali roll, right? Stayed home, played the ball of the back.

But he did it admirably. And he defended admirably for the most part. So yeah, he had the one time where he he got left behind by yieldies on a run up to left, left wing. But generally speaking, 1v1 defending from him was good. He's not going to solve a bunch of problems in possession the way, say, like a Sergenio Dest or a Tim Wea would from the right back position. But, you know, that actually does matter a lot. It's a real limitation in his game. But I thought, like, considering who he is, a young person,

making his debut and playing against a pretty good turkey team. He did all right. Yeah. In a vacuum, it's like this is a plus performance. Right, right. Okay, so Chris Richards, Miles Robinson were the centerbacks. Max Arston gets the nod at left back. We'll get into him more later.

Johnny Cardoso and Luca Deletorea where I guess the nominal double pivot. And then we had Jack McGlynn. at right wing, Malik Tillman has the 10, Diego Luna as the left wing, although there, you know, Tillman and Luna are floating all over the place. And then Patrick Ajamong as the striker. A couple notes on this,

thanks to Soccer America. So this lineup had zero, this starting lineup had zero players who played in the 2022 World Cup. One, who started against Panama in March 2025. Now, who is that? Chris.

Okay, yeah, yeah, Richards. And then eight of these starters are from MLS. That was the most outside December, January camps, starting a game for the national team since 2003. Yeah. Who would have guessed? Who would have guessed Posh would usher in the MLS Renaissance on the men's national team? It's crazy. I mean, we knew Pach was going to bring some.

of the Argentinian madness in somewhere, somehow. But for it to manifest in this way is pretty incredible. It's kind of ironic, yeah. Turkey's lineup was, I think I heard on the broadcast, Dunsteth, Brian Dunsteth, who always, you know, who always does his research. And he said this was nine out of 11 of their first choice 11. They got some World Cup qualifiers.

coming up. They're in, it's business time for them. So this was a, this was a good test for us. Burke Oger and goal. A.S. Roma, Zeki Chelik was the right back. The centerbacks were Fennerbachi's Chalar, Chalar Sojunchu, and then Meridimeral, whose club is Al-Ali in the Saudi League. And then Aaron Almali was the left back.

He plays at Galatas. Galatas Ryan, and he did not do his research on Jack McGlynn. The two withdrawn midfielers were Ismail Yukshik and Orkin Kokshu. Kokeshue was number six. He's a good player. He's Benfica midfielder. And then the band of three was Keenan Yildes on the left wing, obviously familiar to a lot of us from Yuvei.

Dynamic, but a little inconsistent. Arda Guler was the 10, Central attacking midfielder. He plays at Real Madrid. Comes off the bench a lot, but also made 14 league starts this season. Oghuz Aideen was at left wing. He plays for Fenrabachi and is pretty nice, I think. And then Kareem Akhter Kalu plays as a left-sided attacker for Banfica,

but he was a striker in this game. Number seven, balding, pretty effective. Two of the goal scorers were balding. Jack and Carol. Jack, Jack got them bangs banging, bro, because if you lift the bangs up, bro, ceiling's going to be missing.

The ceiling is missing. The rain wasn't doing it many favors. To the timeline, to the timeline. It's, to my eyes, a band of five in attack, just like it's been all along,

ever since Burrhalter took over. Arfston, from left to right, Arfston Luna, Big Pat Malik, and McGlynn, Freeman is staying mostly at home in this scally roll like we're talking about. And we come out, we come out with good energy, right out.

We want to play with the ball on the floor. Obviously, we're trying to play with the ball on the floor. We're not banging it long. And we do it beautifully right out of the gate. Get cycle back to freeze. He taps it over to Richards. This is before a minute is gone. Over to Richards.

Richard slides a really nice ball through two lines of turns. he's defensive shape. Real incisive to McGlynn, who's checking back to the ball in the channel. McGlynn, a real slick one-touch pass. For Tillman, cuts out another couple defenders, and Tillman's off running at a naked back line. He returns it to McGlynn, who's running as hard as he can down the line, and McGlynn takes a few touches.

Like I said, Almolly didn't do his homework. He's recovering. He lets McGlynn cut in and wind up, and it's just a dipping, curling, beute of a goal, the type of goal we can,

honestly we can expect from Jack now. And, I noticed it was, it was tight to the crossbar, but it was, it was far enough in from the crossbar

where you're like, oh man, this man's in complete control of where he's placing this ball. You know, it wasn't like too close where it's a little lucky and it like rings in

off the post. Yeah. No, it's like a six inches in from the post. And, um, let's see.

Richards gets credit for the ball. to McGlynn's feet for sure. So a really nice pass. But the rest of this is McGlynn. McGlynn creates the, he creates the jail break with the little one-touch pass to Tillman. And then obviously he does all the rest after Tillman passes it to him. So what are your thoughts? Well, first of all, I do want to shout out just Malik on, you know, he receives the ball.

There's a recovering midfield. I want to say it was either, it was one of the two midfielderers, Koku, or. or Richel. Richemal. I mean, he kind of, not that they put in much of a challenge anyway, but if they were, he was there to shrug him off. And then he just, you know, classic Malik style, holds onto it, you know, plays to the beat of his own drum.

He can't speed him up, holds it, make sure Jack can get on his horse, accelerate, go, and then he leads him in a way to where Jack is just able to run onto the ball and then cut inside. So I did like that from Malik. It's not that it made the play or anything. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Those added details make sure the play doesn't stop, right?

So sick from Jack, of course. I mean, once you see him cut on the left, especially because he's done this like three times of the past month in MLS. So it's like, okay, he's cutting on his left like unacosted. Like, it's, you have a strong. feeling that it could happen. And it has to be nice for him because Jack, like many others, I assume, had tons of friends of family at this match, Jack being from the Northeast, I mean, from NYC proper.

His dad coaches a club at a club in Connecticut. Yeah, so, I mean, come on. Yeah. Come on. I mean, I know I had to feel great for him to do that in front of family and everything. And before we leave this goal real quick, Adam Bells, I got a question for you. If we get the same situation against Panama in the Nations League and our person, player that's playing the right wing, has this same situation running down the touchline. How does it end?

You mean if it's McGlynn against Panama? No. If it's who we played on the right wing against Panama. I forget who, was it Tim who we played? I forget who we played in the right wing against Panama. Oh. No, it doesn't end like this. No, what probably happens is it either gets crossed and there's like some kind of, some kind of goal there.

Or, you know, it gets stopped and recycled back, which is probably the more likely option. Go ahead. So you have a point to make with that. I mean, I mean, my point is just, you know, you get Eunice Moose in the same situation. We get, what, 2% chance, 1% chance that it ends up in a goal. Which goes back to my initial point of just about effort and attitude. Well, it's like it's a lot easier to look like you're trying when you get exactly. You got people in the right spots.

You get people in the right spots, man. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad you brought up percentages because I think this shot from McGlynn, I don't have an XG chart up in my room or anything, so I don't know exactly. But I'm guessing it's probably like a 0.1 at the most. but the thing is when McGlynn is shooting this from inside 20 yards cutting it on his left you have to kind of throw the XG model out because it is like I don't know what the percentage chance is but it's very likely to be a goal especially when he has this kind of time

he's able to lean into it lean over it you know he just got he just had all the he had all the time to just shape that shot exactly the way he wanted to right when he has all that it's like I don't know it's like a coin toss whether it's going in from this distance it's like a 50-50 yeah you got to shoot this like a warm-up shot yeah like so yeah at that point I would I would up the chances for sure for sure it did wake up I think turkey a little bit that they they they were they they were like okay wait a second now we got we got we got to we got to play and the rain is falling we're battling hard I clock something at the in the fifth minute where we get Pat in his best situation.

It's kind of a looped ball from Cardoso. Who's, I think, started the game in fine form, floats it down the line in Pat's direction. He runs it down, beats Demerall to it, faces Demerall up and goes at him. Demerall does get the better of the duel and wins it throwing or something. But it's a good scenario for us, I think.

This is Pat in his wheelhouse. Yeah. That's why we want him out there. Actually, I don't think Demerall won this, too. I'm pretty sure Chellick came in and helped. Yeah, and got itself in between the ball and Pat and then ended up winning a foul. Okay. Basically.

But yeah, this is definitely what we want, man. I mean, you got Big Pat out here. This is what we have to do. This is how you get production out of him and dangerous attacking moments from him. So I love to see it. And it starts from Chris heading away. a Turkish cross into the box, ball just squirts to Luca Della Torre. He squares at the Johnny, and Johnny just, I mean, barely doesn't even look up.

Like, blind balls. That's what you need. And it's like for Pat, for Ballo, when ever he gets healthy at some point, for whatever striker, I think that we play, I think that's what Potch would love to see. And I just love a blind ball just in general. It's the best way to catch a defense out. It's like they're attacking there and they're attacking posture in shape. And we know we got Ademoral Ajimong 1v 1 if you just throw it up.

Dump it. Dump it up there. Yeah. Yeah, what do we have next on the timeline? Yeah, six minute. We get a pretty good look at our defensive shape. We're basically in a, I don't know if I want to call it, it's a little bit higher than a mid block. I want to say, our line of confrontation is probably set up in the, in our half, what should I say?

The Turkish half or our half? Turkish half. I mean, it's in our offensive half, right? Yeah, it's in our offensive half. You know, halfway between the in line and the halfway line, basically is our line of demarcation there. 442, Malik and Pat up top. and Turkey is building out with basically their two centerbacks and Kuchu deep and, you know, the full backs are in a traditional fullback position. And so whichever fullback on either Malik or Pat's side has the ball, they'll go to press it.

And then the other of the two is marking, is shading Kuchu. Okay. So cutting out that ball to the middle. Yes. It's Yuczek. the one that's deep on this moment that I clock. And so we'll just shave. I think Yucick was deeper than Kokeshue in general.

Yeah. Just to be clear. Yeah. So we're shading that side to side. We got our wide people in the first line of four, Luna and McGlynn taking the wings. And so on this specific play, Turkey works a ball from side to side.

Chelek receives it on Turkey's right touchline and tries a square ball to Yuxick who's making his way over. and Malik's in his pocket and blows him up as he tries to attempt a first-time pass. He was winding up to hit that thing as he received it. Malik blows him up, gets the ball. The ball falls to Diego, who passes forward to Pat, who's basically at the left corner of our attacking box. That's right. Tries the cut inside, has a tackled away by Demerraal.

but it's just a good snapshot of what we're doing here defensively. And in the first 15 minutes, I mean, I think we turn them over three times, I want to say, at least from deep. And this was, yeah, this was good. And it was a little bit illustrates the double-edged sword of Big Pat because, like, you want him out in space facing up a centerback going one B-one on him. You want him to run down the ball in the channels. stuff, but you do not really want him playing on the half turn, you know?

Yeah. He tries to, he tries to let that ball run past him, takes a touch with his left foot towards the center of the top of the box, and, you know, it's just too heavy. He doesn't see the defender coming. He gets blown up. And playing the ball into Pat's feet in general was a strategy of diminishing returns for us throughout the game. Yes.

625 Mark Cardoso does some nice stuff on the half turn had to clock it because it felt like he's feeling a masterclass coming on we're up one zero he's not you know he's just a moustachioed nonchalance out there feeling himself he was he was doing his thing man tragic until he wasn't I mean this is middle of the eighth minute to the middle of the 10th minute, lots of patient possession from us. I mean, this is good stuff. I think it's pretty encouraging if you go back and watch this. It all culminates in a pretty lovely move. Richards plays it out to Freeman. Freeman leads Cardoso into a little pocket of space with a real finely weighted little pass from the sideline into the interior of the field.

Cardoso then just easy as you like has a one-touch pass to play McGlynn down the line. again and again he cuts in and again he has one this time from a little further out slightly less time doesn't quite get over it he hits it hard but it goes like two feet over the crossbar there were some screenshots going around on the discord and the first time ball with the right foot to play big pat in yeah does look like it's on you know i'm not mad at it man I mean, he's basically, so you're in Jack Shoes, okay? You just scored this goal in the first minute. And here you are in the 10th minute or whatever.

And you're getting basically the same exact picture that you had when you scored the goal in the first minute. And you're already feeling good, confident. He probably had blinders on at that point, bro. Yeah. So, I mean, it is what it is. Of course, you want to optimize every, we. you know, the scuffed community in particular want to optimize every single moment

in a soccer match. But I can understand Jack calling a shot right here when he's already, when he's already done it. Yeah, but I can totally understand too. But from a pure like optimizer's point of view, the first time

in step right footed pass to lead Big Pat into the box, it is, it does look like it's on. Fair enough. And Timway, I probably makes that pass. That's the kind of thing Timway loves to do. True. But that's another thing.

That's not, well, I guess it is Jack, like Jack has that capability, of course. But as a winger, like, does he fully have that decision tree vetted out in a way that Tim Weyer does? You know, like he's relatively new to the position, all these types of things. For those of you who haven't been following the Houston Dynamo closely, he started. he started the season as a midfielder. He's a midfielder by trade, but he's been moved out to right wing for what, a month and a half, two months almost?

Yeah, something like that. And he's doing exactly what he did for the U.S. yesterday for Houston, getting the ball in space, cutting in on that left foot, and just blasting away. So, but yeah, so to the possession, though, that led up to this chance.

Yeah. All the good stuff that you talked about. So by the time Johnny played the ball, like Turkey is all out of sorts. Like, so it's Chelek. And this is, this was a big thing for us. Diego, Jack, and Malik in general just there, I mean, they're popping up in a lot of different places. The full back spot. They're popping up like, they're popping up in the full back spot.

They're popping up deep, like along with Luca and Johnny. They're popping up, you know, just in the. their regular half space to receive the ball like like jack did for the to start the move for the goal right there they are all over the place and we're just pulling turkey all over so so chelick follows diego luna all the way in field like Diego comes to like try to check to receive the ball and chelik just follows him all the way i mean this is the turkish right back and he is being, he is led all the way to like the left side of the midfield by Diego Luna. When, when Johnny received the ball, so Yonchu thinks that Johnny's going to pass the ball to Malik.

So he steps up to Malik, who is in the midfield and anticipating him getting the ball. The left back has come up to pressure Freeman. So three of Turkey's back four are on adventures basically when Johnny has received the ball, which leaves nothing but space in front of Jack and a makeshift back line of Demerall and and ad deen, the right winger, to run it. Like those are the two Turkish defenders that Jack McGlynn's running at. Soyonchu recovers, he's pretty fast, well enough to get in front of Jack, but he does that little recovery where you just kind of get in front.

And Jack's already cutting to his left anyway. So unable to stop it. But yeah, just our possession, our ability to move, the ball from side to side. And then Turkey had real problems trying to figure out who to pick up. in their defensive shape. They played a 4-4-2. I don't know if we mentioned that. Playing a 4-42 defense.

Defensive shape. And unlike our front two, their front two of Guler and our turkle glue were not working very hard whatsoever. So it was easy to bypass them. They weren't shading any of our deep midfielder's, which kind of put their two in a bond. And then,

so their two, don't, that coach you and what's my boy's name? Yuxik, don't know who to pick up between McGlynn dropping in, Luna dropping in, LDLT and Johnny,

all able to receive the ball, and they're getting no help from their front too at all. Like, no, they're not shading toward that, couldn't off passing lanes, anything. So we're really outnumbering them like four, even five to two at a lot of points because Malik's in there. as well.

And that's really what made us so successful in the match. Like, they never addressed this. Really, at any point. So, yeah, we just were able to play around with them most of this match. You love to see it. You love to see people moving around, disorganizing the opponent. With the ball, bells. Without the ball.

If you don't have the ball, you still. And let that be a lesson to all of you young, strikers. If your team is pressing, you need to press too. Okay. All right, 11 minute mark. More pressure from us. Arfston fires a ball into at Luna. It kind of zips past, maybe ricochets off a defender's leg. We get it back and McGlynn tries to play Arfston in, but Max didn't make the run. This is a, I want to clock this because this is another plus moment from McGlynn where he, He hits like a one-time sort of curled ball into the box. If Arston is on his horse, this is a perfect pass.

But Arston doesn't quite see the moment developing. And I think when you go through and watch the game, McGlynn's involved in almost everything good we do. Like he's he's, he probably pulled the trigger a few too many times. I don't know if your patience for his confidence runs out on like the fifth time he hits it over. He was going crazy. But yeah, but he's actually, he's not going to beat anybody one v one. We know that.

But he's, he, his passing vision makes things happen too. It's not just, he's not just a guy who can only shoot from 20 yards out. Through 15, we're by far the better team. We look great, to be honest. Quite easily. And also about the 15-minute mark, like right on the dot, I noticed that Turkey has started to bring a midfielder down to help accompany the centerbacks and build out.

So now it kind of gives them a numerical advantage against our front two. Right? Now they have three. They had some moments where, like, if you notice, like, in the middle of first half, you start to see like I think we get a carry from So yonchu like into the midfield space where Turkey is able to progress the ball that way

and yeah this all becomes this all comes because of the angles and the space that they now have building in a three instead of which what is essentially a two one with two centerbacks in this my boy Yuxikik

D It means confusing because he has Ismail on the back of his shirt I guess they do kind of the Brazilian thing with the first names on it sometimes So we Start to show some cracks 17th minute Johnny catches Freeman a little flat-footed with a I would say a bit of a hospital ball

Right at the top of the box So Freeman is He's the stay at home right back But he's also he's shading in a little bit in possession To the middle of the field He gets tackled on that as basically as the ball arrives from Johnny. It pings around and I mean easily could have fallen to one of three white shirts in our box. It just happens luckily to trickle to Richards and he plays out.

But this is this is this is sloppy from us. Yeah. Alex Freeman is just not that type of baller. No. To be like and he inverted. quite a bit in this match. I think it only got the ball twice and like inside midfield positions. And I think both of them went bad for us.

Yeah. So this is a little bit of a ding on Podge. Like what's the idea here if we're going to... Yeah, let's just have a structure with Freeman receiving the ball in Zone 14. I don't know if that makes a lot of sense. Like we said, it only happened twice. And some of them were like we got in the second half, we got a good... I think Jack McGlynn, oh, when Jack McGlynn plays that ball up to Pat,

Pat Chester down, gets it out to Luca, and Luca plays that cross-in. Yep. He gets that space because Alex Freeman inverts and comes into the midfield, then Jack drops down. So some of it is just some window dressing to get Turkey moving around. Like I said, he only received the ball in those positions twice. So I don't know if I want to necessarily ding Podge for it, but. Fair enough. That's just not Alex Freeman.

And I do want to say that Arstyn run that he did not make. Alex Freeman makes that run. That's what he's like really good at. Like box crashing, arriving. I mean, he's a crazy athlete. I saw the sprint that he did in like the 85th minute or whatever where he finally got to show, he got to open his legs up a little bit. And it was just like jumped off the screen, kind of like a Jedi type of thing.

So. I noticed when he was doing three. He looked like the son of an NFL player, you know, when you look at him up close. Yeah. All right. 18th minute, Turkey goes long for Yieldies on the left wing. And he just, he kind of like checks back to the ball, stops on a dime, and then sprints and gets played in. And Freeman just completely gets bamboozled by this.

He's like, he's like 20 yards behind the play by the time Yieldies makes his first touch. and he squares it for Gula at the edge of the box, not the edge of the box, the edge of the six. And Gula just sails it over. But this was a really good chance. Probably should have been a goal. On his favorite left foot, seven, eight yards out at the most. This is too easy.

And, yeah. Some warning signs. It's a big letoff. I mean, Frimo was ball watching a lot of. little bit. He was watching So Yon Chu. And then he just lined it up

and played the ball over the top. Yielders is gone, man. Yeah. But this is by far the worst thing that happened for Freeman on the day. Yes. I don't want to over

index for it. 22nd minute, I noticed some good alertness from Matt Freeze to come out for an overcooked through ball. This looked like I was like, oh, no, that guy's going to get to it. And Freeze came out, so good on him. Thought he had a solid outing. 22nd minute, a decent sequence from Johnny McGlynn and Tillman to cut through the midfield.

More on the left side this time. Tillman tries to play a pat in around the edge, but the pass is a little hot. I'm sorry, this isn't on the left side. This is right up the middle. Tillman tries to play Pat in around the edge. So Pat is running kind of along the back line on the right side. And Tillman's pass is a little bit hot, but Pat's touch is just very bad. And it just the ball goes screaming towards the goalkeeper.

He claims it comfortably. You know, I think three of our other strikers would be able to corral that and they'd be, if not in on goal, at least very close to being in on goal, able to shoot with that right foot. So this is a tradeoff. This is part of the tradeoff. Yeah. It's the tradeoff. I am starting to wonder what necessarily we're getting on the other side, just against. Well, theoretically, you're getting him 1 v1 with a centerback in space, you know.

Not that it really produced anything. Right, right. Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. I do want to clock the fact that Malik wins the ball from Coach you with a sliding poke from behind that starts this move. You know, Turkey's coming forward. He pokes it away.

and then, you know, Turkey's in a state of disarray, and that gives us a space to go, Bing, Bing, Bing, and get on our way. So, Malik, overall, pretty good yesterday, I thought. Yeah, we didn't get to see him deal the way he is capable of dealing. You know, just be imperious out there on the ball. But I would say both him and Luna played pretty well without doing anything super plus plus. Yeah, even.

I think I had this same exact note somewhere in these notes at some point. But Diego, I think low-key he was pulling the strings out there for us in possession, even though he wasn't on the ball a ton. Like I said, his, I'm pretty sure he knew what he was doing every time. Like, he was dragging, dragon shellac all over the place, dragon, coax shoe all over the place, dragon, what's my man's name? Yuxik. Yuxik.

He smile. Call him Mishmile. Bro, I know the Yuxik, but for whatever reason, it leaves me every time. Dragging Yuxig all over the place and just very intelligent in his positioning and his movement on the pitch. And I think watching it back, I just gained an appreciation for it that I didn't have on the first watch. Yeah. I mean, the counter argument from the lunacritic would be that's all well and good, but he's an attacking midfielder, we need, where's the beef? You know, we need some, of course.

We need some juice. And I, and I guess I'm not totally unsympathetic to that, but I think I'm more, I'm more pleased with him than maybe the average fan. Kokeshoe tests freeze from distance in the 23rd minute. It's a really good hit up at the top. Yeah. top bins, upper 90, near post and freeze palms it over. 24th minute. Yieldies dribbles his way over to the corner. So we're seeing sort of Yieldy's not at his best here, just kind of dribbling to nowhere.

Freeman takes it off of him. But Turkey has six guys in our attacking third as Freeman plays it to Cardozo, and this is where the problem starts. Cardoso plays it back to Richards. Richard's over to freeze. Freeze is, you know, standing in front of his own goal with the ball at his feet. And Cardos is coming back to him kind of across the penalty marker. He plays it to him. He has time, seems, takes two kind of long touches.

And then he tries to use the outside of his boot to spread it out to Arfston on the left wing. Unfortunately, the ball hits Artagula's knee right off of his foot, basically. and then just bounces, trickles, pings in off the post and the goal. And you get a great behind the goal view of Johnny's face as the whole thing unfolds in slow motion. And it's, yeah, to your point really, it's pretty sad. Sad to see.

But I mean, come on, man. You can't be doing that. You just can't do this. Can't be doing it, man. And the more I thought about it, like, I was tweeting on the scuffed account yesterday, and you know as soon as this happens right everybody's like oh here we go getting excited about johnny again where's the where's the betty's johnny whatever blah blah so i hop on i hop on

twitter and was like well we're playing him as like a high touch possession controller and he's not that blah blah blah blah but we're watching this match i don't even i don't even think we really played him as like a high touch possession controller like uh yeah him and luca kind of shared the load pretty well. And we were skipping their line quite a bit because most of the problems were being created by McGlynn, Luna, and Tillman that they were really the ones that provided the overload of the Turkish two midfielders. And so it's not like he was dropping back behind the, between the centerbacks receiving the ball all the time, conducting the possession in that manner. And so I think I kind of take that back.

Like Johnny just needs to make it. He just needs to make the right play here. And if you can't, if you can't make this play when you receive the ball in your own box, like it's really like the first time it had happened in the match under pressure like this and this way. If you can't make, if you can't make the play here, then you just can't play double pivot. You can't even really play as an eight because you're going to be in that situation on occasion when we're getting pressed, even if you're an eight. Right. So figure it out.

Yeah. You know? Eight or double pivot six. You got to make it happen in your box at some point. And, yeah, he just didn't do it. I mean, he had Miles right there, bro. Could have just played that thing to Miles? Miles was mostly handling his self.

He mostly handled himself admirably on the ball, I would say. Like, there was fine. Yeah, it was fine. There was no reason to skip him or anything like that. He's play the thing back to Miles. No need. No need, Johnny. unfortunate

yeah it's a it's kind of a brain fart it seems like to me you know and um it's not probably going to happen again but

he's got a bro it's got a sort of it's happened like it's happened a lot it's happened three times but that's no right right in Kansas I say it's not probably going to happen again but yeah

I don't know I don't know in Kansas City against Canada in uh what DC or where is their stadium? It's not D.C. Columbia. Yeah. But I guess Columbia.

Somewhere in that area. So. Got a bit of a pattern here. It's getting crazy. And the thing is, I'm a shout out with somebody on Discord. Ken, Kinden, I want to say. Okay.

I saw a post on the Discord before the match, Johnny Masterclass incoming, and I said to myself, I don't think it is. I just had a feeling, bro. I don't know. I'm rooting for Johnny, but I just, I just had a feeling something was going to happen. And then it happened.

Yeah. Unfortunately. All right. So, and then Turkey scores again less than four minutes later. The bad news piles up. It's a nice bit of skill from Gula, and he finds, he kind of juggles it down in traffic. right in front of, I think, Miles.

And then he's off to the races. Finds the O'Ds out wide. Freeman, he squares up Freeman. Freeman gets the better of him, pokes it away. This is a good 1 v.1 defending from him. And then, unfortunately, El Mali just races in on the overlap and gathers it and zips it across, kind of goes right through Ahtukmolu, and then Atukmolu. These Turkish names are a little tricky.

It's up. Yeah. And it finds Iding on the other side, the other winger, and he whips it back in a second time, this time from the right side. And it short hops off of Miles Robinson's shin. I don't know how much he had, he knew about it. But he does manage to direct it away from goal. Unfortunately, knocks it down for a Turcolu.

He scuffs it, but it goes in in the rain. does a magic wand celebration of his own, which I took a little bit of offense. Two to one turkey. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, is there really anything to say about this goal?

It's tough. It's a little bit unlucky. Yeah. Yeah. I saw people like putting blame on Miles Robinson. I'm like, damn, man, that's a, that's tough, bro. He's supposed to, I mean. I mean, you got the hook at halftime.

He did get the hook at halftime. Potts said they were pre-plan. He says that, but I don't, I mean, I don't know if I believe that. Of course. But really, if anything, Chris had a decent shot to clear the El Mali cross when it initially came in. He whiffed on it before it got to Artokulc. Yeah. But really, out of that entire sequence, I mean, I guess that's it.

You know who's having a ball with those Turkish names was Nico Cantor. He was really hamming him up. He'd be like, Atikolu. Yeah. Yeah, I don't really blame anybody for this one. I mean, you could maybe even say McGlynn should have been on top of Almali a little bit more, but he was kind of shaded to the inside of Yieldees. Pretty bang, bang stuff, a little bit unlucky.

The first one is an unacceptable mistake from Johnny, and then we get this kind of like scramble goal. I still feel like we've been the better team through this point in the game. But yeah, here we go. 29th minute, Johnny gets blown up on a sliding challenge from behind just inside our half. And Kochu tries to go the whole way himself, puts the shot too close to freeze. It's a comfy save, but this is like, come on, Johnny. Spirling, man.

Yeah. Yeah. him. And the thing is, he receives the ball. He checked it. He did check his shoulder a few times, but he didn't look in the direction that the coach shoe was coming from, which was kind of like behind his left shoulder. He didn't, he didn't look that way. Unfortunately, got caught. And yeah, spiraling. Yeah. And it doesn't stop there because I think, you know, Arfstein gives it away into the center of the park a minute later. Right on top of our box.

And it looks really bad for Arsson. Actually, it is bad for Arfston. He shouldn't just, like, play this pass sort of speculatively into our own, the top of our own box. But Johnny is, like, really slow to give him a target here. We know we're under, we're under pressure. Our left back is, he's got like three players converging on him. You're the, you're the deepest midfielder. You got to show for the ball.

You got to help your teammate out here. And he's just kind of, John's just kind of like, I don't know, maybe he's thinking about the mistakes of the last few minutes, but he's just not, he's not on top of it. And this leads to another chance. The shot gets blocked, so it's a little bit less scary. But yeah, we're just conceding chances. But like, over and over now. This isn't, this isn't anything the Turkey has done in this match. Like we're just giving them stuff.

Yes. We're just giving them stuff. Like the second goal comes off like a, I want to say a second ball. Like as a transit, I think Chris wins the ball, like a goal kick. And I think it pops to Guler and then Guler does his thing, gets it to yield his, et cetera. Well, no, I think it's a, yeah, maybe it's a clearance, but then it's like a really towering header from, I think, Demerol over Luna that goes straight to Gula. Okay. Yeah. Something like that. So it's that. And then Johnny making the big money. mistake, right? And then Johnny making another mistake, which really that just comes off of a,

I want to say it's another Turkish attack that we deal with. And then the ball's coming to Johnny and Kosho, who has made the run up into the attack, is trying to get back and then just tackles Johnny. So it's, I guess I just say all to say, it's not the tactical that Turkey has done necessarily. Like, we just not play. playing well in these seven minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We suffered after conceding and, like, mentally. And I think Pach also mentioned this. Like, we just emotionally couldn't deal with it very well. We are, I think we do still continue to be a fairly fragile bunch. Like, if things start to go wrong, then we really, we have a hard time kind of getting a handle on things. 32nd minute But you know

We still continue to Create chances and stuff So 32nd minute A promising spell of possession Through Luna Slips away when it gets to Ajamang's feet He's got back to goal Top of the box

And you'd like him to be able to Sort of buy himself a moment or two And then find somebody's feet But he just gets poked away from him I think Sergeant would be better in that situation Balligan would be better in that situation Peppy probably better in that situation.

So my thing is he doesn't even have to post up like that necessarily because a lot of the times when he's in those post-up situations, especially when it's coming through Luna, like in a situation like that, like Chelek has kind of been lifted.

Right? So he has that space to where like you see Haji Wright do this, right, when you watch him for club or whatever. He never post up. He'll get in his he'll drift over to the left a little bit while still facing his, while still facing forward, facing his defender to where,

so that when he can receive the ball, he's in a, he's in a, you know, a take on position. Yeah. And I think I would like to see Pat do a little bit of that. Like he, we're attacking a little bit of a fracture backline. Like he has the space to drag demoral out there, not necessarily all the way out there. Because I think if he goes like all the way to the touchline, Chalick would be able to recover and then becomes a two on one. But just little subtle movement, probably a couple steps,

a couple yards out there to your left to where you can drag them all away a little bit and face up instead of back to goal where nothing positive is going to happen and maybe something positive can happen if you just do it that way. Yeah. I can see that. I just think, I also think there's, there is a place for the for a big striker to be kind of a fulcrum and receive the ball with his feet and then find a runner of course the runner wasn't the runners weren't really it wasn't really that much on so what we we needed from him was from him for him to step on the ball hold the guy off let things develop for a beat you know yeah and um that's just not him no no no and it's like it i've kind of been waiting for it to get to this point With Pat, not that I'm like rooting it, rooting for him to fail or anything, but it was just like, yeah, at some point, this is his, his skill level is going to be an issue.

Yeah, it is going to be an issue. And it was in this game. 34 minute mark, I just want to note passage of play from Turkey. I think you might have mentioned this earlier. This is when So Yunchu comes through to win a long ball at midfield dribbles a couple guys. Two passes later. Later, Aiden scoops it over the back line for Ahtur Kalu, who mishits the volley over his shoulder.

But this is some really sexy soccer from Turkey here, even though it is a comfortable save for freeze. Yeah. You know the one I'm not. Yeah, yeah. I'm giving a slight demerit to Luca Delatori here because he's in no man's land the whole time that So Yancho's doing all that,

and probably should be the one doing all that. He should be keyed in to Aideen being the one who's going to receive the ball here. And I think he has enough time to even pick off that pass. But if he doesn't pick off that pass, he should at least have pressure to his body as soon as he receives the ball here. And if you look at him, like Lucas just arms out, looking around. He looks like, you know, in the movies when like you lose a kid in a very crowded area. And the camera takes the kid's point of view and the kid just sees, hoping briefcases and arms and legs walking by him. And he's like, how what's going on?

Yeah, that was, that was look at Deletory right there. Yeah, that little bit of time, man. That little bit of time means everything. And Eidine made the most of it. And Ahterkelou actually didn't do too bad for an over-the-old. the shoulder volley. Yeah. Good sequence in the 35th minute with Deletore carrying it 30 yards on the half turn

and finding Arston and space out left, Arston cuts in, rifles a pass at Luna's feet. Luna wins a little cage match, side foots it wide to McGlynn and what amounted to a little duel for that ball. And McGlynn cuts in and shoots, of course. His shot is blocked by Soyun Chu. Yeah. I don't really I don't really blame him for shooting here either

Hey shoot a shoot man But at this point You saw you saw the urgency of So yonchu though To get out there He's like yeah He's like no no it's not happening again And he really like exploded To get to Jack's left foot

But to get to this point It's true Turkey once again we pulled them apart We pulled them apart Building from the back Luna shows up in the left full back spot gets the ball from miles passes it back to miles and then runs across the field he attracts and by him running across the field he attracts yuxet yuxet decides to follow him all the way

across the pitch this is their right midfielder in the double pivot uh in their defensive shape and he leaves the the camera angle like the frame completely following luna all the way over there So, Ideen, Turkish right winger, kind of comes inside to replace Yuxick, but then Malik has now popped up in their left fullback spot. So once again, they're doing all types of things, right, with the positions they're taking up and the movement that they're doing. Like the idea that Diego popped up there, passed it back, and then all of a sudden you got Malik popping up there too. Yeah, Diego gone and then Malik popping up there as well. shows that there's some very intelligent design going on here and not even just intelligent design from POTCH,

but just that the players know what's going on and they know how to manage themselves within this system. So that was pretty cool to see it. You love to see it. Yeah. I think overall, this game was better than, I mean, definitely better than both of the Nations League games. And probably the most, encouraging game of the Potch era so far, which is a pretty low bar, but...

That's a good question. I mean, we did get to cooking in some of these matches, like the early ones, Jamaica. But yeah, we're playing Turkey A. I'll take that, I'll take that for sure. Playing Turkey A with zero players who started the 2022 World Cup. Yeah, I mean... Context is king, baby. I accept.

So when Malik pops up to the fullback spot, now Idean's overloaded. He has two people. He has to make a decision between Malik Tilley and Luca Deloere. He starts to lean out towards the left touchline towards Malik. And then it's just a simple pass to Luca Deletori. And boom, he's in 30, 40 yards of space to carry the ball forward. I think the pass came from Richards too, right? And it was a little bit disguised like a lot of his.

passes are. But once again, I cannot express how little the front two of Art Turkulu and Gula were given Turkey defensively. Really? Yes. That's too bad. It's easy to do all disguising and stuff when it's like there's no pressure coming your way and you don't have to worry about the other person of the two like sticking a foot

in and picking off your pass either. They were having a great time back there serving the ball up. Not to take anything away from them, but... Okay, fair enough. It's good. It's good. We get a little wet blanketing. You're kind of serving the Velasquez role there.

Appreciate it. So last 10 minutes of the first half were not bad. Some decent possession sequences from us, but nothing really doing. There's, you know, Johnny's sort of disappearing from the picture. picture as the minutes tick by. And Asimon gets into a dust up with Demerall, which is kind of fun. They then go right at each other. And it's a good battle in the box.

I think Demerall accused Pat of diving. And he was fouling him the whole time. He was grabbing his shirt. But Big Pat's not going to get those calls unless he starts learning to flop a lot. Yeah. And nobody would believe it, even if he did fly. But look, but that was a good rep, though. That was a good rep.

I think in the 43rd minute, him and the box, him and Demerall, 1v1, and he gets the ball back to goal. Nice touch for him to turn and get on his way. Kind of trying to swim past him like a defensive end going around. Right. Tackle. Right. Receive that thing with his right foot, kind of looped it behind him. And then, yeah.

Trying to get to that quarterback. Try to get to that quarterback. And, yeah, they both had each other at each other's shirt. I think it was a good duel there. I think it was good competition. I always love moments like that in a match where it's like, yeah, either just two dudes out here compete. Yeah.

Agreed. And I think Demer all appreciated it. Pat appreciated it. You know what I'm saying? It was just like a mutual respect there. They're smiling each other. Like, yeah, I got you. but you kind of got me back.

Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Also, real quick, before we end the half, I'm clocking Malik, tracking back and dispossessing Art Turkagoooo in the 45th. This is the shoulder check. I don't know if you remember this, but he, Art Turquake blue had ball on, like, at the top of the box.

Malik gets back. Like, big, big shoulder check from Malik, removes him from the ball. And, yeah. Yeah. And yeah, we already talked about Johnny Hayden for the last 15 minutes of a match. So that's how I happened. And then there was the, Arston did the CR7 trick where he like heals it inside as he's dribbling. That drew a chuckle out of me.

What are you doing, Max a Million? Max a Million. He had, he did have what, like maybe like one or two moments towards the end of the half. where he has the ball on the left wing, he's up cutting inside, playing the ball inside. No big chances came out of these moments or anything like that. I just want to say, Max, take a page from Jack and just have a shot, man. Have a shot.

He would cut inside a little bit. They really didn't have any resistance to him cutting inside. And then once he was there, he could tell he just kind of wanted to get rid of it. He just kind of wanted to pass responsibility on. So that's the half. If you want to skip the ads, join the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. It is the $5 and $10 subscribers are the lifeblood of the podcast.

They are what make this all viable. Also appreciate those of you who do support us. Clip notes. Clip notes are coming from this match. The $5, $10 subscribers, get them right to your inbox or the Patreon. app, whatever you, whatever tickles your fancy, but all timeline moments from this match will be condensed and put into a video by yours truly. Vince is grinding.

Vince is grinding over there. Yeah. That's another thing to consider when you try to weigh whether to become a Patreon. You get those videos. Second half. Johnny and Miles get the hook. Tyler and McKenzie, Mark McKenzie, come on. I think I have to say I didn't have any big problem with Miles,

but I do prefer McKenzie back there on the ball. Now, he did have an error towards the end of the second half that causes some problems. But generally speaking, you feel like more is going to come from McKenzie's feet than Miles's in terms of progression. Yeah, fair. I mean, we got a huge switch that Mark McKenzie hit late in the second half that we don't think we necessarily get with Miles in there. Yeah. And just general silkeness, of course. I, you know, Mark got that a lot until...

Mark is silky. Yeah. Until something happens. It does happen. Yeah. Yeah. But you did get the feeling that he and Chris are both regular starters. Now, you know, that was a thing, Potch mentioned.

They have most of our centerbacks play in three centerback formations. It's going to be some time of adjustment. for them to get better at playing together in a two centerback formation. But so that maybe we should talk about a little bit more later. But McKenzie and Richards are regular starters in big boy leagues where they play centerback. And you feel like I felt like I felt better when they were both out there. You know, like they could handle anything. Yeah, Mark was looking very assured in the moments that he was called on for the most part, handling.

business. And the thing about them playing in the back three, well, at least Mark McKenzie, because he was the wide left of the three, is that when the ball, like if Turkey turns us over, right, and we're in our attacking posture, I think there was a, there was a ball down the sideline to probably Aideen, I guess that Mark handled pretty well. And I was just watching and I was like, yeah, that's what he, that's what he does at Toulouse because he's playing that like wide centerback role. And he didn't, had no issues, just handled it, knocked out for touch, easy. Yeah, he's comfortable out in those open spaces, not wide, which is an important thing. All right.

What do you got? 47 minute, Tyler Adams finds Luca Deletori in a pocket of space close to the left touchline. Luca holds off Ideen and steps past Yuxick, and he's off. passes to Pat who's running in the channel in front of Luca. Now this, this looks Haji-esque. He receives this ball as, you know, he's sprinting. Luca passes the ball to him. He's facing forward.

He's ready to go full head of steam for Big Pat. He steps, so he receives it kind of by stepping over the ball, open it up to Demerah a little bit, and he goes ahead, goes ahead, It knocks it out for a corner. We get a decent chance off the ensuing corner. Diego Luna just plays it on the ground at an angle, basically, to an arriving gluca on the left side of the box. He shoots probably about 10 yards away, 10 yards away, kind of close to the 6th, but not necessarily in the 6th. On the left side of the box, he blasts over it.

That was a decent chance. What did you think of Luca? What do you think of Luke? I mean, he misses this chance. Chances get missed sometimes. But what do you think of Luca overall? That was good. That's a Luca deletory performance. You know, if you put Luca on the field, you're hoping that he looks like that.

He did a good job receiving the ball, progressing the ball, carrying. You know, he does, he's great when he's carrying. And here, I mean, this is probably one of his better moments because it's like it's he's in a little bit of jeopardy as he receives his ball. You know, I mean, he's, he has the touchline, he has Idyne right there, and he has Yuxaq basically bracketing him, and holds off Idyn with his left arm, and then just pushes it past Yuxik, and he was gone.

So this was pretty nice for him. And I thought he turned it up in the second half in particular. Yeah. He's definitely more of a. a piano mover than a piano player when it comes to like when it comes to that metaphor you know he's the he's the guy who's going to get us into the attacking third he's not doesn't seem like he's the attacking third guy but yeah when it comes to that stuff man he was he was quite good i thought yeah and 51st minute mark nice sequence a really good chance you referenced this briefly earlier mcglin

plays a nice clip ball um i think this was the one where freeman was was inverted to give him the space to do it. Nice clipball into Ajima running the channel. He takes it down cleanly, taps it out to Delatore. Deletore crosses to the back post and Arfston meets it with his head but sends it wide. This is a pretty good chance. This is a pretty good chance. Basically a free header at the back post.

Exactly. He said, hey, I could play a little chopsticks on the piano bells, you know. Yeah. So, yeah, real nice cross from Luca, good ball from Jack to Pat. I know Kyle Martino gave Pat a lot of praise for controlling this ball. I don't think this was necessarily that difficult. But either way, he controlled it, got it out to Luca. And, yeah, Arfston, Bells, what did you think about, what did you think about Maximilian, man? I think

Well on this one He was his body Was telling him that the defender in front of him was gonna get a touch Yeah And it was gonna Fair And he is just so hard when that ball You know when the ball travels like this far over the guy in front of his head

It's really hard to just meet it with authority And so he didn't I mean people do it It is done in professional soccer To a powerful header in traffic but you know Max didn't do it this time I'm not that mad at him

I wish he put I wish he'd you know put that away but I don't know who on our team I would guarantee to put that away even among our strikers Fair enough

Overall Arfston you know you notice I haven't been making a lot of fun of him this episode so far I don't think he deserves that I think he did all right

He's not very good at defense He was he was in he we had him in the attacking third A lot of the game right Does he give us enough in the attack To sort of justify his presence out there? I don't think so I want to see John Tolkien on Tuesday and henceforth Yeah I think I would lean towards Towards what you just said bells and

Yeah Tolkien in and I would take I would take another Freeman start Tolkien in the stay at home role and let and let Freeman do his thing I would

I would be I'd be kind of excited to see that but uh Tolkien could still take set pieces he can still um still sort of help us build out I mean he's very slick at that kind of stuff yeah

but I'm not I don't I'm not just feeling derisive towards It's Arfston. I'm not making fun of him or dismissing him completely like I was a couple weeks ago. I am not feeling derisive or dismissive. But I mean, out of our starters yesterday.

Oh, no, hold on. We got to take Johnny out of it. But you take our starters minus Johnny. I think he might have been. And Big Pat. I think he might have been the worst after just as far as like impact on the match. Yeah Yeah

It's taking Johnny out of the equation It's between Big Pat and Arfston For worst player For us There isn't people so mad at us This is not to say he was like bad Or a train wreck or anything To be clear

No it wasn't No it wasn't not he was not a train wreck And he does not deserve any little pot shots For me On this beautiful Sunday afternoon You name's Maximilian Arstyn, you're going to get some, you can get some pot shots. It's going to come with the territory, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, my brother and my grandfather are named Max, but it's just Max. Not Max a Million, not Maxwell. I was about to say the Maxwell. Silver Hammer. 53rd minute, Adams and Luna's counterpressing wins it to Ajamong right at the top of the box, and he turns and shoots. He's a good chance, good chance to cement your spot, and he shoots it firmly, just right at the goalkeeper, Osier. Yeah.

Good shot. Caught it well with his right foot. It is what it is. But real quick, I think this is Diego Luna smelling blood and just going and making a play here. I'm not even totally sure he's supposed to be. where he is when he goes to ground and sweeps the ball from coxhu. But as coxswain receives the ball and lets it run past him a bit, I think he just sniffs out an opportunity and makes a play.

And this goes back to what I was talking about earlier. I think we talked about it. Not a lot of plus plus stuff from Diego, but his soccer IQ, offensively and defensively, I think really, really shown in this match. He was upset when he came off. He looked, his face was cloudy

when he was subbed off. But I agree. People said he was holding his hammy. Oh, really? And I think even when he went down for this challenge in particular, he came up a little, he came up a little gingerly.

But it wasn't his hammy in this case, right? It was like he got a knock on the ankle or something. I hope it wasn't his hammy, man. I don't want to hear about no hammies. Yeah. It would be unfortunate. But yeah, once again, just making a play, man. Ball's all the way on our right side.

And I think Amali basically passed it to Kokeshoe. Tyler's in front of Kokeshue, so he lets it run to his right. And, yeah, Diego, wasn't supposed to be there? It just comes in, boom, blows it up. That's just. That's the stuff you love to see, man. Just got out there, balling, making plays. Proactive, making stuff happen.

Also, want to note, our line of confrontation is higher this half. We're basically, you know, right on the edge of the box, ready to pounds. We're pressing pretty high. And we're back to having success on the front foot defensively. and Turkey kind of went back to the original buildout shape too, which helped us out. So 56 minute, bad giveaway in our own half from Tyler Adams. Turkey put three quick passes together to find our Turk glue in the box, but his touch is heavy when he receives it and Tyler clears it out.

I thought this is definitely a giveaway from Tyler. I did think he was actually pretty decent in possession in this game. he still has some limits there but he was pleasantly surprised 57th minute good chance for us a long passing sequence that starts with Ajaman running down a clearance into Turkey's half standing it up so that ability is a real thing that is helpful to the team on occasion eventually the ball ends up with McGlynn he dribbles at the goal and then kind of clips it out to Tillman to his right

he goes to the N-line. I mean, I skipped a bunch of passes to go from I jumped to McGlynn, but just to be clear. And then Tillman goes to the N-line, stands a ball up for Arfston at the back post, so it's his second chance to write his name in light. He chests it down and tries a side volley that just, he kind of shanks it.

Turns out LDLT was standing at the penalty marker waiting for him to lay it off. I think in this case, say he should have laid it off. At least I'm going to say that. Arston should just play the simple pass to Luca and he'll have a solid 0.5xG chance in his pocket. Yeah. I said, I mean, should have let it off?

Yeah, no, I mean, it's... So, again, the question is, is Arstin such a good attacker that we need him out there? I don't think so I'm not seeing it I'm not seeing it he's he has a lot of you know

he got some he got some good traits like with the ball he's very comfortable he can do things with it take people on dribble pass etc

but yeah as far as final third juice yeah I'm not I'm not seeing it 58th minute McGlynn's just pulling the trigger

anytime he's near the box uh he's I misses the target again. I forget the buildup, but it's not really that important. Well, just because we've been down playing Maximilian Arfson, I just want to say he did win the ball on the touchline in our on half from from Chelek, I think. I couldn't get a number. Okay. But to start this move. Okay. Good job, Arf.

59th minute. McGlynn has a terrible giveaway. I've been saying a lot of things. he's done well, but this was not good. He plays a ball basically to the chest of a Turkish player in the center circle. They don't capitalize. But, yeah, not good. 60 minute mark of really ballsy bit of possession from us. I mean, we're really trying to play out of the back. Turkey is pressing.

Perhaps not with that much vigor, but they are, they do have basically everybody forward. And when there's a point where we play it like along our end line, basically from corner flag to corner flag through the goalkeeper's feet. Eventually, Deletoree gets sprung. Oh, no, he plays it to Arfston on the end line, on the touchline at Arfston Springs Luna. So this is also nice from Arfston. And Luna slides it out to McGlynn, who tries to cut in and shoot again. So Luna's off to the races, plays it out to McClain, who tries to cut in and shoot again.

this is one where Tillman and Freeman are to McGlynn's left as he's shooting and I've seen some discussion where people are saying well he definitely should have passed the Tillman or Pat in this one so this is if you're looking for the timestamp it's like 6010 or something like that um McGlynn I don't know I think it's a little bit less clear than some of the discussion I've seen like McGlynn is winding up to shoot as he's winding up to shoot I think it's Demerall

who is shaded to Tillman he's backing up as McGlynn winds up to shoot so if McGlynn winds up to pass to Tillman I think he gets closed down almost immediately by Demerall that that little that like half a second where he's winding up to shoot Demerall moves back like three yards he moves back enough

where he can actually block the shot McGillin hits like I think a shot that was pretty clearly going to go in at the far post had it not been blocked by Demerall, so this is a nice play by Demerol. So anyway, I think the pass to Tillman, you can freeze frame it at the point when he's about to shoot and it looks like Tillman is wide open.

But I don't think he's that open. I also think he's leaning. Tillman's a little too close to the goal. So it's not like he's arriving onto a spot where he can just smash the ball. He's close to the goal and he's leaning towards the goal. So a pass to him, it's going to be a little bit awkward for him to collect his body, receive it. Shoot.

Other thing is, I'm really disapproaring this. But the other thing is, Ajamong is wide open. But that picture is a little bit muddled by the fact that Tillman is kind of between McGlynn and Ajamong. So that's a little bit muddled. And then Luna's running in front of Tillman, making a run to the near post. that models the picture for Tillman. So I think it's fair to say maybe McGlynn should have passed it here.

I don't think it's like an open shut case. I think it's a little bit more complicated. It's definitely not an open shut case. For sure. I will back you on that, Adam Bells. Okay, thanks. And I think, and I think McGlynn, this goes back to the XG numbers, the percentages,

is. McGlynn's shooting from that spot is I'm going to take that, I'm going to take the probability of that ball going in over a lot of other types of shots from a lot of different players. And obviously it didn't go in, but I don't know. I don't know if we want, I don't know if we want Big Pat getting that ball at his feet, having a couple of defenders flying at him and having to decide what he's going to do. Is he going to go far post? Is he going to go near post?

He's going to try to dribble the guy. We don't need all that. Just shoot it, Jack. You know? You're 16 yards from goal. Hey, man. So that's the case for... Go ahead.

It's just baby steps, man. You know, we've moved from Eunice to Jack McGlynn. Now we're consistently getting some goal dangerousness from the right wing. And then once we plugged him way in at that spot, like once Pach discovers this and then this is key here. When Potch does, in quotes, discover this, we got to act like he's just the most brilliant man in the world. We got we got We got a really stroke his ego Like when he puts

When he puts Tim Weyer at right wing Then it's going to be like man Wow Look at what this team can do Chance creating machine So yeah It was baby steps man We got to build it

You gotta break it down To build it back up Yeah I like the idea of McGlynn in that spot With Tim Wea Overlapping on his right side Or Serginio Dest

You know Somebody else Providing the with out there. Be nice. Yeah. Let's see. Let's try to get through the rest of this pretty fast.

65th minute, Nathan Harrile, Quinn, and Hodgiy Right come on for Arfston, McGlynn, and Luna. I don't think there's too much

to say about any of my. I thought Wright didn't have the best outing of his career. 69th minute, good patience from us and we're looking for an opening. We find Adams in a big pocket of space and he turns and he's off finds Sullivan he crosses it it doesn't really it gets kind of cleared away but Hajji nicks it off somebody over on the other touchline and he takes it to

the end line crosses it for Sullivan Sullivan collects it and miss hits it with his left foot so this was yeah yeah I just want to say you said now you said hajie didn't have howjie wasn't great don't get me wrong hajie wasn't great but I'm saying a lot of people acting like he was ass like all the way. He started off kind of hot. He got this cross at the end line and then won two corners in like his first three one v one situations. And then he was asked after that.

Okay. Yeah, fair enough. I just want to say that. I like the soccer we're playing in at this point in the game. And I thought Tyler was looking decent. Brian White comes on for Ajumong in the. in the 70, around the 74 minute mark. Just looking at the rest of my notes.

Richards was good in the air. I mean, dominant in the air. Yep. In the 77th minute, Richards hit a like 60-yard dime in the air right to Brian White's chest. I just wanted to point that out. That was very nice. 78th minute, we got a,

so Turkish sub-oxysect. Look. Chechek. Cheech, that's what it is. Akcheek. He gets the yellow card. He's a young, baby-faced, 19-year-old centerback from Finnebache, I want to say. He gets a yellow as Malik runs down a bouncing Turkish throw-in and intercepts it.

It looks like he would, I mean, he would definitely be off through the races. Akschitech clips him down, which on the replay, I don't. I think I would like to see Malik run through that. Yeah. I'm not sure how much. Was there even content? I'm not sure, bro. I'm not sure.

If I missed it, it must have been underneath one of the rain drops on the camera. Yeah. Yeah. They were having trouble with that. So you need somebody with a squeegeecloth. But yeah, like Malik, come on, man.

Anyway, 79th minute, we get a Tyler Adams giveaway on the, on the half turn. Oh, brother. He receives turns, I think he's trying to play it to Arfston, and just,

it hits, hits a Turkish player in their, in their body, I want to say, as he, he tries to play it over him. Doesn't work. Anyway, so.

Okay. 82nd minute, Tillman gives it away on a short corner, leads to a near disastrous moment of transition. It's a jail break, and Gula gets

running at Harriel draws all the attention slips it over to Boris Yilmas who had subbed on and he blasts it wide but this was this had third goal written all over it

and Yomaz just kind of bottled it bad from Tiltman Tillman I mean he's trying to he's trying to shove it over to Adams right at the corner of the box yeah and then I'll say

89th minute that big Mark McKenzie switch I was talking about earlier over to Quinn Sullivan. He receives the ball, gets into the box, drives a low Fizz cross in, drives a low Fizz cross in, but straight to the keeper.

He gestures a bit after. I think he wanted Brian White to come near post on the run. Exactly. That's exactly what he wanted. You get a little bit of that Sullivan teammate criticism. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, White's in it.

He's got to figure out which way to go, and it's not necessarily that he needs to go to the near post for me there. And it gets a little messy and disjointed at the end. Turkey gets a couple more chances. Gula blocks one of his own teammates' shots. But that's it, 2-1. That's all the action. I feel better after having rewatch this than I have about the national team in months.

I'm going to be honest. Fair. Fair. Yeah. We play really well, man. Like, I don't got any... We did. I don't got any complaints.

Now, I will drop my one overarching takeaway that I said I was going to save to the end. Yes. That is, I don't think Turkey was playing that hard. Yeah. Yeah. And now that I think about it, I'm very happy that I kept it for the end because it would have just shaded everything in just a weird way. but looking back on it first of all they never addressed the issue of

them given overrun and midfield you would have to think if this is a real match maybe they do and then when it's like when yukshik and kokesw were getting bypassed a lot of the times they were I mean they were strolling bro I mean linemen jogs as Luca deletori is running at a back line or whatever so but this takes nothing away

it takes nothing away from our performance yeah it was it does take a little bit away but yeah I was going to say it takes a little bit away but it's still a good team you know it's like a lot better than any team will play in the gold cup outside of maybe Mexico and I think that's debatable

so yeah We're creating chances. It's nice to see, I know McGlynn has all kinds of limitations, shortcomings, but at least with McGlynn, when he's out there, you feel like,

okay, there's a way we might score a goal. You know? Like, we might score a goal with Jack McGlynn. And, I mean, there's a lot of games

where you watch Pulisic for 90 minutes and it never becomes apparent. how we might have scored a goal, you know? Yeah. So it's nice to have a player out there where you're like, okay, he might do it, you know? And there's like a goal, there's a goal revenue stream in him. I want to see more from Malik and Luna, even though I liked how they played. Like we said earlier, give me Tolkien at left back.

imagine we're going to see Walker and Richards on Tuesday. I think so? Walker and Richard? I don't know. I mean, it would be nice if it was McKenzie and Richards because I think that's who we got. Those are the guys for now. But Zimmerman, I don't know why they bring him in and not play him. Anything else?

No. Mexico played Switzerland. And Switzerland beat them, what, four two? I want to say. Yeah, they played, I was wondering what type of roster they had. They got, they played the guys. And Bolo, Jacques, et cetera. Okay.

Which Jacques only played a half. But, um. Oh, they're saving him for Nashville. That's what that is. Did you see the highlights from that Spain, France game? Oh, yeah. Bro, there's a huge debate online about if Cherokee's good or not, and it's ridiculous. That man, so nice.

Yeah. All right. Hey, thanks everybody for listening. We'll be back Wednesday or Thursday with the recap of the Switzerland game. We'll see you.