Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #627: USA v S. Korea recap

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Belz and Vince talk through the action, the contrast in minutes at striker, the problems we caused ourselves with our defensive shape, and our inability to adjust in-game, and whether a better list of call-ups solves anything (we think it does). 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 lost two zero to the Republic of Korea on Saturday in Harrison, New Jersey. As you all know, joining me to recap it as a man who was there and suffered through it. Vince, how are you? I'm doing all right, man. A little tired. You know, I had a good time in New York slash New Jersey over this weekend. Quick turnaround, though.

You know, I got to get back to my kids. interview with Sebastian Burrhalter, son of hashtag the coach. You know, all that. So great job. Great job on that. Thanks, man. Thanks, man. There were some ups.

There were some downs. We're here to talk about the downs. And, you know, Adam, I've talked about the fact that I like breaking down losses like this. And I'm getting tired of it. I'm getting tired of this specific type of like, and it's like, it's, like, it's different where we have a loss like where we got the good players man it's like okay these guys should be better than this well what's happening here these losses we've been taken lately it's like well the son and hashtag the coach is doing is doing as good as he can you know that's right

like what's the solution i'll get a better player in there ultimately yes that that is the solution whereas you just look at different solutions and and in the situation like this a solution becomes quite basic and that that is not to say that you know the assiness was shared amongst the entirety you know i'm not here to just point out certain individuals but some of the problems can be fixed with getting certain individuals i think that's true of course i agree that's true uh if potch doesn't call up jett i wes malik unis johnny and if he's healthy geo big health big if he's healthy, but Gio in October, it's what are we doing time? We're seriously in trouble.

But I think he will. He said this was the last camp for experimentation. I'm choosing to believe that. I'm also choosing to believe he's not stupid and he wants to win games. And I also think even within the context of these players in this game, that first half in particular, I don't know how many students there are of Alexander the Great's camp, pain in Persia in the 4th century BC, but this was some King Darius at Galgamela level tactical disaster class from Potch. This was nasty. Our defensive shape and the instructions

for the particularly Luna and Pulisic, we got shredded. And it was not necessary. It wasn't necessary. The instructions were not right. And then what's really disappointed to me is there was nobody out there who took charge and said, look, we got to get pressure on these wide centerbacks when they're carrying the ball into our half or else we're going to be toast. Nobody, nobody, nobody did anything. Nobody said anything. Tim Ream didn't do anything. Tyler Adams was just running back and forth, sideline to sideline. We need, we need the fellas. to take charge of the situation out there a little bit, a lot of bit, actually. A lot of bit, a lot of bit.

And so it didn't get taken, it didn't get addressed until halftime in the locker room. And it was basically okay. But you can't go 45 minutes like that. No, not like that. You can't just be looking raggedy. You know what I'm saying? It was so raggedy. There's a difference between, hey, we need a talent upgrade here and there.

but we can see the structures in place the blah blah blah blah blah blah no really because if somebody wanted to make the argument that hey you know Sebastian Burrhalter what chance does he have he's not giving the right instructions out there

I can't I can't necessarily dismiss that out of hand I don't know I'm kind of tired of blame a Podge just because I mean I'm tired of it just because I've said it too much I think it's probably getting stale you know it's both It's both.

It's Pachia and the players. It's definitely both. But, I mean, this is something we've talked about for a long time with this group of players. Either they don't have the capacity to or they don't have the figure who wants to do it. But when something's going wrong, I mean, have we ever seen these dudes like change and adjust on their own mid-half or something like that? Like, it just hasn't happened. This is why Tyler Adams specifically has come into my crosshairs just a little bit because everybody wants to act like you missed a leader, man. But it's like, man, where?

when? No, no. How? You didn't get it down. Talk a huge game, big game. You know, everything you say sounds good. You know what I'm saying? You got a bright future as a pundit, Mr. Tyler Adams. But when it comes to putting those words in the practice or like organizing your troops or whatever.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm disappointed in him. I'm going to play a clip from him right now because I think it does, he does describe, like he said, he has a bright future as a pundit. I think he explains the point. problem quite well in the mix zone with with sanjay after the game let's let's just listen to it's very brief we knew the idea i think our rules got a little bit twisted they found solutions pretty easily in the first half we talked about at that half time we said that if they build up a three in the bat Diego stepped out josh go man-a-man-man Christian go man-a-man and i think we just missed our triggers

on a lot of them and we were a little bit too late to jump and we're too late to jump chasing shadows that's what it felt like at times that they were just finding a third-man solution in a lot of situations. So we talked about a half time. I think the second half was better. We talked about it half time. I think the second half was better. I mean,

I wish you would have talked about it 10 minutes in, you know, because it was starting to be really obvious. That when one of the wide centerbacks would bring the ball forward for Korea, I mean, you can go through the game and watch, get screenshot after screenshot,

after screenshot of Luna, Pulisic, and Sergeant basically occupying the same centerback. Essentially. And they're just being giant corridors up the side where you, it's not just the centerback could come up, could dribble up uncontested, but then a midfielder could pop out and receive the ball uncontested from a simple pass. And this is what happened on the first goal.

Yeah. At a walk-in speed. Totally at a walking speed. I mean, there was. And so you got, and then you got, I mean, we're going to get into the timeline, but then you you got Black, you know, Blackman is clearly full of anxiety about what's happening in front of him. But he can't, he doesn't, maybe he doesn't have the authority or maybe he just didn't know what to do. But he's like kind of, should I go get this guy? Is Tyler going to get him?

Tyler doesn't really go for him. Blackman's like, he's kind of aware of saw him behind him. Ream, Ream recognizes absolutely nothing, at least on the, on the evidence of the tape. He's just letting, he can see everything in front of him. He's just letting Son be there, like, unattended to. And then by the time the ball is played and some makes the run in, I mean, Reams not in a position to do anything about it. Only person anywhere close is Blackman. And obviously, as you saw, he didn't get there in time. Saw it scores.

You can't just let the other team walk the ball into your attacking third and then have no pressure. You ever seen that type of AVP? The walking variety. They're on the back line and we haven't, I mean, you know usually usually it's like somebody receives a pass they turn and they're aggressively running and so like one of my friends in japan texting me like hey uh asia showed america how to play soccer last night and i was like well i guess yeah but he's like yeah those goals were so clinical i mean they were clinical but it's tough man and and yeah the idea that we can't we can't

fix that that problem like with a couple shouts is crazy to me because i mean it's like it's like I can see what they were doing. They were playing the three centerbacks, but it's almost like they were running it in like a back four almost, you know, where there would be two centerbacks like you would think that they were being like a back four build out type of thing, a D-mid, then the other centerback way out in like a fullback spot.

You could see that Christian, Diego, and Josh were trying to take away those two centerbacks in like the D-Mid. There should be some type of rotation. And it's like, okay, if we come out in the match doing this from the very start, the exact shape that we were playing is up for debate. They're contesting this hotly. You know, Bob Morocco says 4-2-3-1. Greg Velasquez, 4-321, me.

I look he saw a 4-4-2. Anyway. I'm going to go with a 4-2-3-1, I think. But a lot of... It was a mess because... It was a mess. But a lot of times you'll see teams just let the fullback have that whole touchline type thing.

And it's like the back line just ends up road. tating over. You know, fullback will come all the way up, get that third center back. Tristan Blackman move over and get the winger or whatever. And then Tim Ream basically marking Sunny. Some situation like that, I don't know. Or conversely, we could have the midfield just shift over. Sebastian take whoever the midfielder is. It's like sitting in the pocket waiting to receive the ball, whatever that Tyler tended to follow. Tyler getting out to the fullback's spot anyway. But yeah, let's go ahead and get to line up some time. Yeah, I would prefer for Pulisic and Luna to just step and then we'll have somebody applying pressure when they bring the ball in our half.

But any, I mean, yeah, we should get to the lineups and timeline. But I guess what I want to say is this problem seems so fixable. And it was fixed at halftime, largely, that I don't want to be too troubled by it. You know, I mean, it's ridiculous that it went on for 45 minutes. They scored two goals off of it. very clearly both goals were a result of this but it's fixable and even with the line up we had we probably play them even or better if we just have a sensible defensive shape and and people make a little bit of in-game adjustment in real time but brother this is um this isn't just pop up

for this match our defensive issues have have been there since potch took over maybe somebody will say since you know gregg whatever i i don't know i'm just about Pocch. Remember in the Panama match, the Nation's League one, whenever Panama got the ball, we couldn't, I mean, if they wanted to keep it, they could have kept it for a very long time. We couldn't get close to them. They were cooking us to get down the field. You know, I'm not saying that they were cooking us on XG or nothing. I think their one shot on target was the one that won the game or something. But the disorganization in the press and in our defensive shape, that's been present and has been exposed by like any half decent team we play.

Yeah, okay. I'm not trying to be Pollyanna about it. It just feels like what specifically happened in this game could have been solved pretty fast. And then it was. The game was already 2-0 at that point. And I do want to say before we get to the lineups and the timeline, my other big takeaway from this game is Josh Sargent's not good enough. He's not good enough. He's not good enough.

At this point, the way he's playing right now for the national team, it's not getting it done and we saw the contrast and people will say when ballo came on it people will say oh game state ah game state shmame state it was uh it was still a pretty good career lineup those guys fighting for minutes or even spots at the world cup the same centerbacks the same defense was out there basically until the 83rd minute yeah so still facing kim minjai and he was uh ballo was way better and sergey is just not playing with confidence. He's not the same player

for the national team that he is for Norwich City. And I don't think it's just a matter of the level being higher. I think he's also anxious and uncomfortable in the shirt because he hasn't scored for a long time. And I mean, we'll get to it in time. But the big tell for me

was that one time when Diego won it in the press, played it to sergeant's feet just outside of the top of the box, back to goal. If he turns and drives at the goal, We have a 3V2 with him, Pulisic, and Wea. He had almost, I mean, a very similar situation for North City a couple weeks ago. Turned and drove and smash an absolute banger top pins, you know,

a guy playing with confidence for his club, except when he plays it for the national team, the ball comes to him at the top of the box. He doesn't even look. He doesn't even look. He doesn't hesitate. Just a one touch, sort of out of rhythm layoff for Pulisic, which is not a terrible soccer decision. but I think for sergeant right now, I want him to be a little more greedy, and he's just not giving it to us.

And there's other things that we can get into. Yeah. Pains me to say it. We'll add some color within the timeline. Okay, all right. Lineups. Freeze in goal. Sergenio Des makes his return at right back,

which is wonderful to see. Tristan Blackman and Tim Ream are the pairing at centerback and then Maximilian Arfston written in Penn over there at left back. Tyler Adams and Sebastian Burrhal. were the two in two deepest midfielders. And then we had essentially Pulisic on the right wing, Luna at the 10, and way at left wing, although there was some interchange there.

And then Josh Sargent at Stryker. I mean, really the only surprise here is Blackman starting over Richards. And I think it's pretty obvious that was an experiment. Potch said in the press conference that Chris was dealing with some things. Coming back from Crystal Palace, you know, the infamous word, maybe a niggle here or there. So, yeah, that's why, that's why Tristan Blackman started, as far as I could tell, from, yeah, Potch was asked about it in the press comics. To be clear, he didn't say niggle. No, that's not a, it's not a Potch word, I don't think.

Korea, their lineup was Cho Hung Wu and Goal, had a nice, double save on ballot late in the game. A back five of Shoyang Wu, Ihan Bum, Kim Minjai, Kim Jusung and Yitasehuk, and then the four would be Yadongyongy, Kim Jin Q, Pak Singh Ho, and IJ Sung, and then San, the superstar at Stryker. Let's get right to the timeline.

2-15 mark. We get our first Adams' error on the ball. Blackman heads a long ball down to him. He kind of takes it down with his abdomen and thigh, and he doesn't realize someone is coming behind him. He gets mugged on the spot, fouls the guy smartly as he strides past him, but he still plays a good pass behind for sign.

I think this was Lee number 10. Yeah, it was. It was Lee. Okay. It still plays a good pass through the centerbacks for Son who ref can't swallow his whistle to give advantage, which if I was a creative fan, I'd be irate about that. Son is 1v1 with Freeze. Freeze makes a heroic, but ultimately irrelevant save because it was whistled for the foul on Adams.

Adams somewhat redeems himself on the set piece because Son gets it on the far post and tries to go out of him 1V1, and Adams does well defending him and actually takes the ball from him, so that's good. Uh, we'll take it. Yeah. It's just tough, man. This isn't the only Tyler Adams area we're going to talk about in this match. And, you know, he's the senior of the two. Well, once again, I don't know.

I've said enough about Tyler. Well, separate from the defensive shape, which did make Tyler and Berhalter look like they were chasing shadows. I mean, Adams even said they were chasing shadows. Right. But aside from that, they can't, neither of the two of them. can progress the ball in anything resembling a sort of a plus way. They can't. No, you know, we try to do different things to get Tyler going or to get the most out of him or whatever.

We talked about a lot in the Monday review how, you know, he just can't play on the half turn, really, like, at all. So it's like, we'll have him split the centerbacks. And when he does that, he's basically like Walker Zimmerman out there. Like, you know, we're not getting nothing there. And then also, and when he's not putting the centerbacks, of course, he'll, if he comes back to the ball, if he's in like a regular pivot spot. It's just nothing happening, man, nothing going. It's like, bro, he is the most basic of soccer players, man. He's at a run around and kick you and blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, man, to get the most out of you, utility-wise, you know, it would be nice if you could organize a defense as well. But it's like, you can't do that. I asked the question about if we had any concerns about it. him in a block last Monday review or whatever and it's like we we'll get to the timeline item soon but it's like we see him leave a leave a gap in our defensive shape that immediately gets exploited and gets us a 1v1 was son against tim Rheam was a son against Tim Rheam but it wasn't some but it was against Tim Riem it's the kind of one V1 we do not want yeah right and it's just like I said the gold cup performance made me remember while we were looking for

Tyler Adams replacements a lot of people acted like we were crazy though No, we weren't, damn it. I don't want to slender the man too much because it's like he had an excellent World Cup performance. He's had excellent matches for the U.S. Mm-hmm. But damn. I guess the only rejoinder I'd have is he needs better instructions

from the beginning and then maybe he'll look a lot better defensively. But that doesn't argue against the point you made of why can't he organize a defense, you know, which, I mean, we covered it. some length at the top of the show. But, yeah, it's a little bit tough to defend Tyler right now. And then, so furthermore, no plus moments really on the ball. And then you're giving us negative moments.

Like, he's giving us Cardoso's. Yeah. Cardoso's with the ball and really, really some bad moments against the ball, too. Come on, bro. And these are manageable situations we talk about the Cardos are. And let's not let Burhalter off the hook completely either. Even though he gave us a slick KG interview on Friday, the man tried to do a diagonal a few times.

Never comes off. Never comes close to coming off. And outside of that, he's back past Billy, you know? I mean, sideways, backwards. Nothing of note to test the opponent. He tries hard. You got to give him that. He does try hard.

So we're going to talk about this match, right? Match isn't all bad. Okay, we had some decent moments, especially, you know, the 60 third minute on or whatever. And even in the first half, we had some good moments where we get the ball to our attacker's feet with the ability to do something. None of those moments are predicated by any type of good play in the midfield. It's mostly Serginio D'S doing something crazy. And then we get Diego Luna doing a one-two in our defensive theory of Max Arfston at some point. But, like, as far as the pivot, no progression.

No progression, but furthermore, we could have put like anybody out there and got that performance from those two in the midfield. Okay, seventh minute we get something kind of nice from Pulisick and Desk combining on the right side off a throw-in and Dest plays it to Sargent, whose back hill return pass is a little hasty and off, but Pulisic wins it anyway, striding toward the box and tries to slip Sargent into the right side of the box, but it's just cut out. ball pings around a bit and we're pushing it, but we can't get through. A little bit encouraging. And then in the eighth minute, something similar. Good turn from Pulisik just on our inside our half, and he slips Destin to the space down the line. He's racing forward, tries to play Sergeant in behind Kim In Jai, but Kim gets there first

and hooks it away with the sliding challenge. You and I may disagree on this, but I'm not sure this one's on Sergeant. I'd have liked us to make Kim commit to him first. But, you know, even if it was a perfect pass, there's no guarantee Sergeant gets to it. Yeah. And so this is where I'm getting into, I guess my main issues with job sergeant,

just because it's like we got Flo Bally and sit on the bench. We talked about how he's going to fit to be able to do the Big Pat stuff. And we're talking about, about two moments here. Really two moments. Because even the back heel that John Sargent tries to play for Christian, it's like he's kind of getting tussled by Kim and Jay a little bit. You know,

and he's kind of stumbling forward as he tries to play the back heel and everything. And it's like, man, okay. So he's not handling that situation well, first of all. And then second of all, this play right here where he gets set up from Surge, I think Ballo gets there. I think Ballo gets there. Surge plays a decent ball. If Serge carries it far enough for Kim to commit to Serge,

I think at this point you kind of run out of area to play like a ball in behind for the strike. Yeah, that's fair. I think he plays a decent ball here, and it kind of curls into Josh's path. But he's like two steps behind, man. Like, I think, because with Balow, not only does he make it like a pure sprint to the ball,

he's also going to handle the center back and get them off their path to the ball. Right. And he gets there and receives it. I mean, and we saw it like as soon as he comes on the pitch. He gets like a ball in behind from Christian. Well, Christian kind of slips him in. And, you know, we are able to cause chaos in the box starting that way. But given that this is how the squad plays and this is how we use our strikers.

It's no contest, really. Yeah, it's no contest. And you can say people respond, I kind of like tweeted it or whatever. And people respond like, oh, Josh didn't get any service or these were speculative long balls or whatever. It's not the case. Most of them were pretty nice, to be honest, and getable. Yeah, he's just unable to take advantage of those situations. Yeah, they're getable if you're extra good at operating in the channel the way Ballo is.

but Josh is not and I mean to your point that this is how we want our strikers to play Josh I can't remember a single time when Josh dropped into the pocket between the midfield and the strikers to play ball with our midfielders once again the same point I made in the damn Panama match

yeah it didn't happen then it didn't happen now it sure seems like he's instructed not to do it because that is his game to come into that pocket and backboard with people. But he's not doing it. He's just maybe instructed to stand and Kim Min Gai's cover shadow the whole time.

I don't know. That's the thing, man. I wonder because, well, we'll get to that moment later. Good defending from Dest after Blackmunover commits on our right side, and there's a clever little give-and-go to get him behind us. Desk gets back and slides and knocks it out for a corner kick. So good recovery from him. It was a nice recovery.

Good job. Serge, I just want to say he lost the header that started this move. It was basically, I think we fouled South Korea. They had a free kick that their keeper took probably like 10 yards outside of their defensive box. And, you know, kicks it all the way to about 10 yards outside of our defensive box. You know, Serge loses the header. Loses a header convincingly, which really gets soft career on their way. And so they basically, like, end zone 14 with the ability to play a 1-2 as Serge is trying to get up from challenging the header, you know, interest in 1V1.

I mean, 1V2, kind of. He does overcommit, but he kind of was putting a tough spot. You can't lose the header that bad, the way Surge did in that situation, I would say. Okay. I just clocked a heavy touch from Pulisic at the 1220 mark on a pass from Blackman. I think he got maybe the Korean defender got a foot to it, but it's like he tries to receive it with his back to a defender and it goes five yards away. And I just want to say, I don't think it was his night.

I've seen different points of view on how Pulisic played, but his set pieces were mostly garbage, including the one that he took from 30 yards out, just dead set on taking that and like I don't know anybody in the universe who thought this is going to be on frame did you think that? Hell no.

I thought no there's no chance he is testing the goalkeeper here and sure enough goes 10 feet over and then the other thing is like he did have some nice moments in the attacking third but other than when he backboarded with Tim Wea for that chance right at the end of the

towards the end of the first half Nothing really plus, including the time when he shoots and it gets blocked and then Ballo gets his triple chance off of that. That was like he was in slow motion trying to get his feet set to strike that ball. You have got to shoot faster than that, Christian. You cannot take three steps with two defenders around you. Yeah. Lord knows I know it's hard. I mean, I couldn't do it, but he is a

Cazillionaire playing for A-C-M-Lon. Shut up and dribble in it. I was about to say maybe it was all the screaming Koreans in the stands, which I just want to make the point real quick, that the pop in the stadium, look, if a Korean

player lined up their foot to pass the ball to song, like, like you can hear it while the ball is traveling to the man. You know, he didn't even touch it. Yeah. Incredible atmosphere. I just wanted to get that.

Was it like 75% Korea fans in there? Without or doubt, bro. At least 75% Korea fans. At least. Yes. Hmm. I mean, good on them. We get some, we get a chance off some decent pressing.

E. Dongyang makes a bad backpass that puts Minjai Kim and Jai into a pickle, and he exacerbates the problem by dribbling across the gold mouth and then passing it up the gut directly to Burrhalter just above the arc. He strikes it from like 22 yards and forces a good save down to his right from Cho. 15th minute, Korea starts figuring out that we're chasing shadows in the middle. This is when we start to see this pressure issue of ours rear its head. They're moving the ball around from left to right. Adams is way over on the far touchline

after slowing something down there a few moments earlier. Burhalter runs all the way toward the near touchline to account for somebody, and the entire middle of the field opens up. Ijung Yu passes to Paxhongho as he drifts into that large vacancy, and the pass eliminates Sergeant Luna and Wea. Adams doesn't get over in time to trouble

because he hasn't been moving over fast, which I think is kind of a point you've been make him, Vince. And then Pock takes a touch and plays Yodong into a running 1v1 with Tim Riem. This is the one you mentioned earlier. He cuts Tim and he shoots. Only a heroic last-ditch effort from Arfston puts his shot off and sends it tamely to freeze. But this is what we're talking about here.

Nobody's putting pressure on the sides. And so the midfielders are running out there to apply that pressure themselves. And then there's nobody in the middle. So, which that's that. Which if we are playing a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-1, whatever, I mean, that's just going to be part of it, brother. You know, you got to get over there and then you got to get in. And like, when you look at the two, when you look at the pivot, right, the two main midfielders we got and their reaction to once we get the play slowed down that is on. South Korea's left touchline, our right touchline.

They end up passing it back and resetting completely. Like you said, Sebastian starts moving towards the near touchline to like get in position and to cut out whatever progressive opportunity they had there. They had somebody popping up in a pocket right there. He cuts it out. Tyler Adams is jogging to the point to where Christian Polisic turns back, points at Tyler. And it's like, bro, you need to be here.

And that's exactly where bro receives the pass. And then he plays in the dude that's 1V1 with Tim Rie. And Tyler's loafing. He gets a loaf on this play, man. Yeah. My only message to Pulisic would be, well, you need to do, you need to recognize what's going on here too. And we're 15 minutes in.

You can't just expect Tyler to go over and cover your side of the field and then come back in the middle, maybe pitch in a little bit, you know, go over there, apply pressure on that wide, that wide Korean player in the buildout, which is what happened in the second half. But yeah, no, no excusing Tyler's loafing here.

It's tough, man. Yeah. I feel like we covered that. So, starting at the 1530 mark, we get three positive things in a row from the U.S. right before the Sun goal. so it's a little bit of fools gold. Pulisic and Desk combined to good effect.

Basically, Pulisik's sending Desk striding forward with a little horizontal slip pass in our half. Desk gets tackled outside the box and it falls to Sargent. He's in the box and he dribbles sort of away from the goal to the top of the box and has to lay it off because there's nothing on. Just maybe I'm over interpreting here but again just looks not like a confident striker.

I don't... Well, first of all, I feel like, he made the wrong run in the first place. Like, he has surge streaking down the middle of the field. Josh has kind of peeled off to the right. And he kind of makes a run like he's going to cross his face and then comes back out to receive the ball kind of at the right corner of the box. I feel like he should have committed and try to cross that centerback's face.

Right there. Gone right to left. Gone right to left. receive that thing, maybe kill it, left foot a shot, on goal. I feel like that's what a confidence I sergeant would do. It's like, you're pulling out to the wing for what? To do what? I don't know.

I mean, a whole bunch of nothing. Yeah, that's what it amounted to. And if he just, I don't even care if he takes a shot and has it blocked out for a corner or something. Like, that's better than what we end up with. Just pull the trigger, you know? Yeah. And it's like when he tried, when I guess he was setting up his return back out wide, when he acted like he was going to cross centerback's face.

Centerback had it kind of tracked, but it's like he has the leverage in that situation. He would have been between the centerback and the ball. You know, Serge would have passed it to him. Josh Sargent, you know, you got the very large derrier, put it on the man. Let's get to work, man. You know, like, bro, use your physicality. You know, like, do we ever? Right.

You know, like Josh, Josh ain't no, it's a big dude, man. Yeah, he is. You can see it out there too. I mean, he looks like a big dude. So right after this, Pulisik dribbles into the corner of the box from the right past two guys. So a nice moment from him. He tries to backboard with Sargent, but Sarge's leaning toward a run behind the back line, slips as he tries to get back to the pass, which is behind him at this point.

I'm not going to beat up on him too much. It seems like an honest mistake. I'd like the backboarding here, though. It seems like it has to be a perfect pass and a perfect run. and a perfect finish for that behind the lines thing to work. And then 20 seconds later, a good sequence from Wea and Luna

in Arfston with his movement to clear the space. Luna springs Wea to the cutbacks on. It's kind of a one-two. And he aims for Pulisik who's coming open between the penalty marker and the six, but it gets cut out. Trickles to the keeper. And then almost immediately after that,

South Korea scores. and we described this a lot at the top of the show but basically they're moving the ball from right to left son has taken up a spot between Ream and Blackman he's even calling for the ball over the top earlier in the sequence I mean I watched this thing at 30% speed over and over again to try to figure out what's going on but he settles in a spot a step or two on side

but roughly equidistant from the two centerbacks and as the ball goes over to I teesuk I guess the left back nominally in a comfortable acreage over on our right side there's nobody even thinking about applying pressure Pulisic is jogging back from further upfield in a more central position sergeant is in the center circle

Luna is in the middle Adams is marking E.J. Tsung and Blackman is worried about E.J.S.ung but he's pointing in different directions and like I said earlier, Riem is not getting close to Sun so EJ. Sung moves out to the sideline to make himself available. Adams doesn't even chase him. He faces Ita Suq from 10 yards away and watches him pass it to IJ Sung,

and Blackman is confused about what to do. He steps a little bit to E.J. Sung when he gets the simple little uncontested pass, but then backtracks to the back line. Adams doesn't step with any sort of authority, and Pulisic isn't even in the play. Sun is just standing there in the same spot. Ream is letting him have a big cushion of space. Once E.J. Sung turns with the ball, he sees that Sun is about to make a run, And he plays immediate.

He plays a pass. It's perfect. Not an exceptionally difficult pass, mind you. And Sun is in. Blackman can't recover. It's 1-0. And I don't really blame Freeze for this either. I think it's a good finish.

I was happy for all the South Koreans around me. You know, who got to see Sun's score. Yeah. It was hard to be mad at the situation, man. I was just like, well. That's what they paid for. That's what they paid for, man. least we can uh at least for providing somebody some joy uh today you know what i'm saying but man

this is so tough because like we said earlier they do they did this whole thing at a walk and pace um and so the initial defensive issue that we're having right in our mid block or whatever if we hustle back and reset our defensive shape maybe we have it again but also maybe we don't you know, because part of the reason I feel like is, is that we're not necessarily compact enough in our shape in the first place. And as we back up into goal, you know, as we get into South Korea's half, if we reset our defensive shape again, I don't know if they're going to pose the same problems to us

just because of the fact that, you know, the space would be more condensed. You know, because we got Tyler, who's basically being held by whoever that midfielder is that Tyler just doesn't want to leave. Right. Like all these, maybe it's possible. It's possible that all of these problems in South Korea are posing to us become slightly less difficult, you know, with less space for our entire defensive shape to cover, man.

But it's just we don't seem interested in somebody getting to the ball and making him pass it backwards and forced South Korea to reset. They would have been happy to do so. They were almost asking us to, you know, but there just, there was no urge. Anywhere on the field now Is that because the players don't want to? Is it because they're thoroughly confused?

You know, I'm taking bets for both directions. I don't know. But all I know is we had more than enough time For somebody to get to, everybody just like, look, worried about the next past bro's going to play. Like, how about you just get to the ball, man? And then we'll figure it out from there.

But, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we have the screenshot. front of us and it's it's it's just the opposite of what a well-organized well-drilled defense looks like it's like people are all over the place nobody is uh i mean there's there's it's four on eight in our defense in our defensive third you know four on seven i guess if you count way yeah and it's not like they didn't there's no overloads there's no there's nothing complicated going on here it's just we are not doing the basic accounting of what needs to be taken care of.

And I think it's a lot on Adams and Ream, but it's also on Pulisic. You know, it's on his side. Yeah. He needs to take responsibility too. And, you know, they pick that side over there to play a lot, you know, like our right side. And you have to think a big part of it is because, you know, you got Christian Polisic over there as opposed to, you know, defender at club, Tim Wea.

Right. Who's going to put, who's, you know, known to put in more of a shift defensively, regardless if he's playing wing or defender or whatever. He's going to track back. He's going to try and make things difficult for you. Chris of Polisic, not necessarily. No. And he needs to, though.

He needs to. All right. What else? Let's see. So what do we have to say about? about our centerbacks here right blackman ream i think blackman's in a really tough spot i do think he needs to drop like he and ream both need to drop and um and take care of the main thing which is that

the best player on the field is standing between them and there neither of them is really particularly close to him right um so yeah they they're both they're both in trouble on that And then Reem is the one who actually holds him on side By not stepping with enough authority If my reading of the instant replay is correct So Ream gets an extra ding for that I think I think because Blackman has more to think about

It's kind of on Ream to slide over to Sun Earlier in the sequence Yeah like what else is he worried about Tell Arfston to come in and take care of the I can't tell which player it is But take care of the player that's sort of between them Yeah And then you slide over to sun.

But Reem doesn't do it. That's what I was saying earlier. Ream doesn't do any of this stuff. He doesn't address the problem in any sort of authoritative way. Dude's my age. Come on now. And that might be part of the thing because it's like, like I said, South Korea has chosen to play down their left side quite a bit. And so the weak side is our left side.

You know, you look at these screenshots of what we have from Korea's buildup. And people who pay $5 a month to the scuff Patreon and get the clip notes. Every timeline item from this discussion will be on a video. Come straight to your email. Sign up to the scuff Patreon today. But yeah, if you're looking at this clip, it's like, well, what's the weak side? Who has the resources, all right, to be able to lend to our right side? You know, that's kind of getting overran right now.

The left side does. And it's like, okay, we got Tim Ream over there. there. I mean, if you're going to be old as hell, you got to be, you know, master delegator. You know, hey, hey, young weapon snapper, get your, get over here. You know, that's the whole thing about having kids, bells.

That's why, that's a great thing about having kids. Pick us up, man. Hey, clean this, pick this up for me, etc. That's what Tim Reams should be doing. Did you do your chores today? Max Arfson, Sebastian Burrhalter? Hey, go take the trash out. Taking the trash out would be

going over there to relieve Tyler Adams from covering whoever he's covering so we can get somebody out here to this left back or whatever like somebody please help yeah yeah so we can blame potch but I think it's it's it's really on the it's really on the team too this is not right this is not rocket science and once again I just cannot say this enough it's not happening fast at all just okay so we can right 22nd minute We get a clip ball over the top from Diego Luna and Josh Sargent. Diego had like dropped in, I think received it from like Tristan Blackman or something.

We had a, you know, we were in our half and, you know, South Korea was kind of in their block. So there was a little space behind to play a ball over the top for Josh Sargent. Luna plays a good, I think a pretty good ball. And Josh is beating to it easily. Once again, that's a big pat. That's a Balo special. I'm not here to argue with you about if Big Pat is good as soccer or not. All I'm saying is, once again, that's how we're using the striker baby.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I want to read a comment from a listener about Sergeant. This is Alex from Philadelphia who wrote this. We were about 12 rows up behind the goal at the game. The U.S. was attacking in the first half. We had a perfect view of sergeant's play. He started off pretty lively, but there were about three or four times where it looked like he had a half chance, but then got stuffed by Kim Minjai. And every time he tried hold-up play, Kim would body him off the ball or beat him to it.

After about 20 minutes, he either physically or mentally ran out of steam. His head went down, and he just stopped making runs or pressing. And then here's a little editorializing. Champo is his level, and he knows it. Man, you know, I didn't want to say too much earlier, but now I think about it, you know, It tells you something about somebody when they Turned down a Bundesliga offered to stay in the chair Put my hands up

I saw what I'm saying I saw what I'm saying I mean you know A real A real professional that's about his business I'm not trying to get into his personal life But hey You know

When when you are the professional athlete and putting your family first, you usually are the outlier. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. So anyway. It's true. Not that there's anything wrong with being an outlier, but yeah.

Hey, good fella. Good, good man. You know, I put my family first all the time. Yeah. But I'm not a professional athlete. It's a little different. 26 minute. Yeah, 26.

Oh, go ahead, go ahead. 26 minute. from a left back Taesook Lee after Tyler and Josh win the ball initially along our left touchline but Tyler gives it away

with the pass behind Josh once he sees that Josh, once Josh sees that Tyler has a ball he starts running like Tyler's gonna like play him in behind or something Tyler just tries to lay it off and Josh had already started running and so couldn't get to it

Tyler was like I'm not going to do any of that complicated stuff Let me just pass it to you. That's a little square pass two yards away. Yeah. It, so South Korea, get the ball back. One of their midfielers are able to find, able to find Son in a pocket. He lays it back off, and then the left back is streaking down the left side.

Gets it in the box. Pretty much free. He has Sergenio Des, running at him, but takes a shot that goes wide of the goal with his foot. I think Perhalter lost a, duel in the middle of that sequence. Oh, yes. Yes, he did.

Because Sons' touch was heavy. And he got into it and then, yeah. But he just, some was like, shrugged Burhalter off. He took the trash out. But anyway. And then, Sergeant actually does well. I thought a few minutes, a few seconds later to win a throw, come back to it and pass it to Adams under some pressure.

I mean, I'm just giving him his due. there. It's nothing like incredible, but he does well. Adams, Dilly Dally's on the ball. This is a really unforced error. Dillie Dallies gets wrecked, and it's another break at our back line. This is Cardoso level stuff again. Ream does well to cut out an attempted slip pass and send it

the other way. Yeah. What more can you say about Tyler? This is the second Cardoso in the match. South Korea doesn't get a shot off yet. But the other thing I want to say is that when Tim Reams sent this ball away, he didn't just aimlessly chuck it with his left foot. He put a nice little culture ball, has some backspin on it. It sat up quite well, just inviting John Sargent to run onto it.

And he doesn't get to it. Surprise, surprise. He doesn't get to it. No, I know. And in the ensuing sequence, we win it in the press. Luna does, and that's when he plays it to sergeant's feet, which I described earlier. He does not turn and smash it and smash it top bins like he would if he was at Blackpool or whatever. Instead, he lays it off almost gingerly for Pulisic.

Pulisic goes at the back line. Sergeant tries to drag some defenders out to the right with his movement, which is I guess I'm fine with. But then Pulisic slips Wea in for a decent chance. Tries with the outside of his boot. Not a very good finish. He was offside anyway, offside by a step. I would have loved to see Sergeant just turn,

use the runs of Pulisick and Wea to keep the defenders in front of him off balance. and just have one. He can strike the ball so well. His best, outside of maybe Tim Way, best striker of the ball in the box that we have. And, I mean,

he's up there top five, whatever. He can hit the ball. He hit the cover off the ball. No, I don't disagree. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm just really disappointed that he plays with, he doesn't have the confidence to do that for the national team. It's a damn shame. And 33rd minute. Again, simple Korean ball movement from right to left. Somebody pops up on the sideline with no pressure or very little and is able to place son him behind. Blackman, this one's not as dangerous as the first one, but we're just not able to account for this. If you slow it down and watch it again, Pulisic is streaming forward to press, I guess,

and Burrhalter doesn't get to the guy who plays the passing behind because he's kind of just following Pulisic forward. It doesn't make any sense. We're getting cooked, brother. Yeah. We're getting cooked, but yeah, I mean, that's, Sebastian should have, that was Sebastian's man for sure. Yeah, I don't know what Sebastian's doing there. I do want to say, I mean, it does seem like we're beating a dead horse, but I do want to say in the 37th minute, another sort of promising moment keyed by Luna. He beats a, this is nice from Diego.

He beats a guy under pressure in our half. Then he won two's with Arfston. Arfston croifs him into a runway down the left line, and he carries it. Sargent just starts drifting away from him. and it does seem to me like Luna is saying come back, come back, come back, come play with me, you know, but he just keeps going. He keeps drifting further and further into the distance.

And, you know, the whole thing just kind of peters out. We recycle it to Arfston, and then he plays it to Luna, and he just hits a big switch out to Dest, which is behind him. So, like, we're hard on the defense here, but it's like we had opportunities in the final third to do stuff. We just didn't really do much. Correct. We didn't do much of anything.

And yeah, so that's why I want to say there's, there's ass to go around. There's ass to go around amongst everybody. And, you know, Andre on the Discord, I got a shout out Andre, who rarely makes good points, but made a good point. It said, you know, we need to put some hit, we need to put a little bit of heat on Tim Wea, man. Yeah. Agreed. I don't want to do the whole Pots got him playing on the left thing right now. Although that's a fair point, don't you think?

I mean, he's better on the right. It is a fair point. I'm just tired of saying it. It's like, you got to figure out a way to be better. You know, he did have that moment when, what, Luna played him in with a little one, two. Yeah. Like, you know, he's going to come to life once he has somebody play with. But that was like the whole key to the fun side thing, right?

It was like, okay, Serge and Tim can go over here and have a good time. And Tim can do all the cool, wavy stuff, you know. And that kind of papers over the fact that he's maybe not that good as an attacker because he can just, because, you know, if you do some flicks and tricks, be like, everybody, oh, Timway is so good. And he is good at the sport of soccer. But is he the attacker that we need? and, you know, keeping them on the right, allows him just to simplify his game, right, and just do something very simply to where we can kind of create a consistent attacker

out of Tim Ware, which he really hasn't been in his European travel so far. But he has an elite, he has a very narrow elite skill set, I think. Like, his movement off the ball is good, and he likes to combine, like you just said. And he has, and the thing, the key to it all, we've talked about this on the podcast before, too, is he can get a good cross off with his right foot from the right side in almost any situation. Right. He'll put it through your legs. He'll just get enough. He'll just get that extra quarter of an inch of space to send it across. Right. And it's always a good ball and it always creates danger. That's it. Remember, if you remember, that's how we, how Pulisick scored the, the, the, first goal against Mexico in Cincinnati, game we were at,

we were both at. That's right. He came off of a way across. So he is, for me, he is elite at that. He's not really elite at anything else. Nope.

But if you put him on the left side, you, you take away the one thing that he's special at. Yeah, because, I mean, I've seen it enough throughout,

I don't know, Lil when he, like, played left back, but he was like, left attacker, um, the time with Pocitino,

you know, right out dominance, et cetera. He, look, man. Right at dominance is a laughable rationale. That's not it. You know,

Timway on the left wing, it's not it. You put, you invert players and put them on their strong foot, you know, when they're like that guy. You know?

Yeah. Um, and Tim, Tim, he did try one, well, we'll get, we'll get to it.

All right. So the 40 minute mark, the US records a second shot of the game. The first one was that Burhalter strike off the press. This one we kind of earned, starts with a good ream past Pulisick in the pocket. He settles it and turns, plays Desd out wide, Desroats his guy, gets the end line, tries to cut it back, he gets deflected, but Wea collects it. Then he plays kind of a backboard with Pulisic. Pulisic just plays it right back to him in a really tight space. Wea takes a touch and rips one. Diego Luna does well to jump out of the way so he

doesn't deflect it, you know, with the friendly fire, and it curls wide of the far post, just wide. It's a good chance, though, and easily our best of the game so far. As with last time, there was something positive to report, it was immediately followed by a goal from South Korea. And this was the same old story. We just not applying pressure in our defensive third to the person with the ball. It starts with a long ball that gets knocked down, but Burrhalter does well to disrupt the arriving attacker.

It gets recycled, and then it gets passed in the pocket to Kim Jong-Q. Sergeant Luna kind of closed from behind, but then they back off. Adams and Berhalter make like they're going to close from in front of him, but then they back off. And so he's just kind of standing in the middle of four blue shirts and has all the time in the world to pick out a pass to Sun, who is in roughly the same spot he was in for the first goal, except he's between Dest and Blackman now,

and nobody's accounting for him. Just a lot of room. He takes the pass, turns, settles it, and then plays a quick one, too, with Li J. Sung. And he's an on goal. And Fries comes out and wrecks him as he touches it past him, but the ball's already gone, trickles over towards. Lee Dongyong, and he crofts it in past Arfston into the empty net.

Even if it hadn't been a goal, it would have been a penalty for sure. Yep. And we go into the half down two zero. So, number one, the first thing I noticed, even in the stadium with this play, I'm like, why is Tim Ream on the right and Tristan Blackman on the left in the specific one? Oh, yeah, you're right. That's true. So the sun was between Ream and. Yeah, between Ream.

human dust and I go back and watch it you know watching it earlier today or whatever South Korea has a ball on their right side the son kind of runs over into a pocket to to get the ball and black men's trailing him it's is not a very dangerous situation at all Tristan Blackman's trailing him a son gets the ball and like just kind of lays it off and for the rest of the and this is like early in the sequence this is like maybe a minute before the goal scored but when Tristan follows him and he lays it off

Tim just walks over to the right side he's like you know what Tristan stay over there and there was I don't really like that like they didn't necessarily force us to switch centerbacks right there And then from the rest of it is just like, you know, you can kind of see, it kind of seems to me that Tim's uncomfortable over there.

And the whole situation that unfolds after it, it kind of comes from Tim's uncomfortability. I don't know. I would just like for us to be aligned. Yeah. And it's nice from Korea too. I mean, the one, two is real slick. But that's, you know, put yourself in a tough situation when you allow Sun to received the ball and the edge of your box with no pressure.

And he's going to do good stuff there, generally speaking. So that's the half. Let's kind of hustle along, get as quickly as we can to the end of this game. Because really, I think the first 15 minutes of the second half, what happens is we get a lot more serious about our defensive shape. So there's not, I don't think any examples like the ones that led to the goals or the other ones we've highlighted in the second half. And, you know, way it goes down with a cramp, cutting him from the left and taking a shot, sends it into the upper deck. Yeah, to be clear, Pocitino said it was cramp in the press conference.

The great Ron Blum asked as Pach. Ask Posh what happened with Tim Weas injury. He said, oh, no, no injury. It was cramp. It was cram. Oh, that's good. That's good. Because it looked like, I was like, man, did he do his hammy again?

Nope. No. Pachino was very demonstrative. Mauricio Pachino was very demonstrative. It was not a cram. I mean, not an injury. Not an injury. Just a really bad shot, too.

Although I like him to do that shot. That thing hit the Statue of Liberty. Yeah, yeah. So then we get some subs. Oh, we get another, like a truly terrible corner kick from Pulisic. There's a funny video posted by, probably by a Korean fan somewhere of him. Like, he's doing, like, his jogging in place before he hits it. And he hits it, it doesn't, not only does not clear the first defender,

the first defender clears it off a short hop, you know, like it bounces before it gets to the first defender. Yeah. And then all the Korea fans in the foreground all that were like, yay. That's kind of funny. So real quick, before we get to the subs, I just want to point out, you said our defensive oils were much less, which they were. But I don't think our press was necessarily any better. So maybe we defended better out of our mid-block or whatever. But in the 57 minute, they have a goal kick where, you know, they take it short.

they're running their offensive press break, right? They beat our press with ease. I mean, like, I want to say like five passes. And I're running at our back line. They decide, they kind of decide against it, recycle possession for quite a bit. And then at some point, it ends up all the way back to their keeper again. And we extend out and be ready to press again.

And they basically beat our press again. And the only reason they give the ball back to us is they try to hit a streaking. Korea attacker that's making a run in between our two centerbacks. But they didn't have to take that pass. You know, if they just wanted to keep the ball, they probably could have kept Olai in us until I got back on the path to go to New York. Yeah.

Yeah, we got to do something about that. The press has to be a little more difficult to navigate. So the subs in the 60, around the 62 minute mark are Richards comes on for Waya. So we go with three centerbacks. Ballo comes on for Sergeant. Christian Rildon comes on for Adams. And Freeman comes on for Dest at right back. So Ballo makes an immediate impact.

I mean, 65th minute, Pulisig plays a good ball into the channel, which I think you described earlier. Ballo runs onto it. Cuts Kim Minjai. Plays it back to the edge of the box for an arriving Diego Luna. And he takes it first time nicely, I think. His shot is just blocked. But it looked like it was headed on frame if it had gotten past the defender

And I would say Korea made some subs were you gonna say something about that? Well, just well, I guess the Tim Wayo one counts but I was gonna say our first actual dangerous Shot of the match but but you know the the Timwaya one counts yeah never found Yeah Korea made some subs when we brought all those guys on but on their but on but on but not on their back line and one of the subs was Ikongin, who just won a Champions League with PSG. And like I said earlier, I think everybody on the field for them is fighting for minutes

or a spot at the World Cup next summer. So, sure, the energy dropped a little when you're up to zero. But I just don't think it was that much. I think the change in the game was more due to us coming up with a sensible approach to defense. You say that, but the Korean manager was asked specifically if he was upset about this period of the match. And he said no. We were up two nil.

And the time for attacking is over. It was time to defend. And so I'm not saying he meant to, I'm not saying that they executed it perfectly. But what I am saying is that they did take their foot off the gas. But it wasn't like they needed their foot on the gas to attack us earlier. Yeah, fair enough. And it wasn't like they were getting chances off the press.

Yeah. Their press was causing us a little bit of trouble, but it was almost, what we were really struggling with offensively was how to break down that 5-4-1. Because they would press, and then they would, I'm talking about in the first half, they would press, and they'd drop into a stout 5-4-1. Luna comes off for Sendejas. He draws a questionable foul 10 yards outside Korea's box in the 73rd minute. Burhalter takes the set piece, curls it in wonderfully.

It's kind of deja vu from the Gold Cup because Richards meets it. But he meets it with his thigh. And it's from point blank and it just pops it straight to the keeper. But it's a really big chance. how different would we have felt if this had gone in? Probably somewhat. Yeah, sure. Is Roldon better than Adams right now?

I mean, I'm not willing to say that right now. I didn't think it was like, I didn't think it was that big of a difference, really. But look, there's a debate to be had with, like, like a lot of people at this current point of time. Like we're back, we're back, we're back, baby. We're back here, you know. Which at first, it used to just be Johnny in that rarefied air. But, yeah, Tyler's performance as I brought it down, I mean, Aidan Morris?

Edmores, Taylor Adams in this match. Who are you taking, Adam Bell, since you recently have, you know, struck up in affection for Aid Mores. So you know, you might have a butterfly as in your stomach right now yet. Aden, the way Aden's been playing for Millsboro, I'd take him. But I am, I do have some pause

about the championship translation effect thanks to Josh Sargent's performances. Fair. But, I mean, Morris deserves a shot. I'd take him over Burrhalter, for sure. I've said that. Boy.

I've said that before. And it's tough, man, because he's such a, he's such a personable dude, good guy. Likeable guy, yeah. Son of hashtag the coach, et cetera. But, yeah, I mean, if Burrhalter did, like, one thing that I see, well, one of the many things that I see Aiden Morris do on, like, a weekly basis, you know, I'd be over the moon. Yeah. Aidan Morris is Bousquet's compared to Burrhalter when it comes to Ball. Ball progression.

Yeah. I'd take, speaking of ball progression, I'd take, I'd take McGlynn over Burrhalter, too. I thought he was, I thought he brought a lot of something in the game, especially against,

against, you know, what the South Korea coach called, sitting back and defending. It's just the, the ball pops off his foot, man. There's ideas. He's trying to make things happen. Can he win a duel

at the international level remains to be seen. See, this is where I got some intel from being in, I can say this now, Morristown, New Jersey at the team hotel and not being a part of the mixed zone, etc.

I didn't notice. Jack McGlynn is my height, Adam Bells. Did you know that? He's six, what, you six, three? With shoes on, yeah. Six two without shoes. But is he really that tall?

Bro, I'm telling you, I stood next to the man. I stood next to him and looked at him for like 15 seconds. I was like, hold on. He's my height, bro. And so I've been thinking about that since. Like, I was at lunch with other reporters or whatever. I was like, did you know Jack McLeod was this tall? Like, I was kind of losing it.

So I'm saying all that to say that maybe I didn't necessarily rate him before. But knowing that he has just a small bit of physical projection, you know, he got something. The fact that he has the height and maybe he can learn to use it, maybe he can beef up a little bit, something, anything that gives him just a semblance of like some ability to be a defensive presence. I think he got a shot because of that. Before, like, where it's like, okay, he can't really move and he's like if he's like five, ten. Or 5.9.11. He's listed at 511. It would be different. But now knowing that he's 6, too, I'm like, hmm. Okay. Interesting.

Verify. Vince verified, by the way. Okay. By an actual tall man. Not somebody who says, that there. Anyway. Not somebody who's 59 and sometimes says that he's 511. Yeah. Sevent. 4th minute, nice little bit of creation from Freeman, cutting him from the right. and then slipping Zendahas into the box. Shots deflected out of bounds.

Arfson gets a sirewinder volley off the ensuing corner that flashes wide. But I just thought Freeman, he had some cutbacks that got cut out by the first defender. But he also looked okay. And I think it would be nice. I don't think Arfston was a big problem in this game either, just aside from being a little bit too safe, maybe. But Freeman was, I think Freeman was pretty good. 77th minute, Pulisic backboards with Balow and gets foul trying to skip into the box.

He demands and takes the free kick from 25 yards. And like I said earlier, there was never a chance. This was troubling the goalkeeper. And sure enough, goes 10 feet over the bar. Yeah. He is our best player, but he has got to stop taking set pieces. He is our best player, but I do wonder about, I think, something, I think it's been Bob Morocco talking about this. it's like does he have a force multiplier effect no you know you know you talk about star players

or whatever you know it makes everyone around him better you know for anybody that watched the NFL last night watched the game bills ravens I did not watch it but uh you know those are two guys Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, make the guys around them better. Does Christian Politic do that? He just kind of does his own thing out there. Yeah, I think Jack McGlynn has, he makes people around him better with just like perfect passes in rhythm. They managed to be in rhythm and surprising at the same time as a television viewer at least.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll get to see a little more McGlynn. On this backboard, I just want to say, uh, flow, I mean, basically almost engulfs the South Korean centerback that's on his back, despite being a strong 5-9, who might say he's 5-11 or something. Like, I mean, it's just... He's a leverage king, baby. Yeah, man. You know?

He gets played into the channel again, carrals it, and manages to get a little reverse pass and for Pusset coming into the box. Nothing comes of it, but again, his ability to control the space around him, as Greg Velazquez would say, it makes us a better team and makes him close. clearly better than Sergeant for me. And then we get these big chances at the end. Baligan gets his three bites at the apple, as they say, in the 92nd minute. It's good back to front move, starting with a little entry pass from Richards to Roldon, to McGlynn, over to Pulisic on the left.

He steps past his guy into the middle and hits a hot pass that Zendayaas brings down. And then it goes over to Freeman, and he cuts it back for Roldan, again to McGlynn, on. again to McGlynn on the edge of the box. The key pass here is his little clip pass between two defenders to Zenddaas, who gathers it and pokes it along for Pulisik, who, like I said earlier, can't get his feet sorted,

takes two touches when he should have taken, you know, one and a half at the most. And the shot is late, deflects over to the back post perfectly for Ballo, who meets it with a volley, hits it well but right at Cho. And then he gets a second,

chance comes right back to him and hits it well again down to chose right he makes a good save down to his right and then it goes back to bellow ballo again takes it on his chest hits it with his left foot for a third chance and this one tings off the crossbar from a tight angle so a little excitement to end the game ballo announcing himself at least to me as very clearly i mean i probably would have put him number one on the depth chart anyway but i was still holding out hope for sarj Sergeant. Now it's like Ballo's got to start any game we want to win. And Sergeant can, you know, Sergeant can stay around, but he needs to pick up his game. Yeah. And, you know, when you talk about, when you talk about the fact that we, like, got into the attacking third a lot in the first half, weren't able to execute. Right. A lot is maybe an exaggeration, but.

Right, right, right. But we got there enough times. Right. And probably. as many times as do we want to say as many times South Korea? I don't know. But we got there enough times in the match

to be able to produce at least equal XG with South Korea. You know, the first half XG was like 0.28 to like 0.78. We could have fashioned some 0.3,

0.4, 0.5, et cetera, chances. We had that type of momentum going towards our end a few times in the first half. You look at And, and like our good players got the ball and they weren't able to execute.

Plissick, Timwaya, you're going to throw Diego Luna in there. They had the ball in the second, third, unable to execute. But the thing is, we don't have, in that first half, you don't got anybody threatening the defensive line. Nobody that the defense truly has to account for that's occupying dudes that is, that is making their presence known, right? And it's like, Balo changes all of that. And then all of a sudden...

It's true. Yeah. I'm glad you made this point. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, boom, we are creating these... I don't know if you're familiar with X threat. Expected threat positions or whatever into actual XG. You know, in the first half, we got a lot of expected threat probably. But we now was able to be cashed in and translated into XG because, you know, it's like when you have... somebody who can control the space around them, as you said, in the attacking third, you know, that changes the whole game.

And where like in the old Burrhalter and, you know, in the Erbil Burrhalter regime, that wasn't the striker. That was more like Tim Wea, right? Who was the person that like defensive lines really had to be worried about and who was stretching defensive lines of pulling them in and unbalancing defenses, et cetera. Yeah, there's knock on effects. I mean, soccer's an interlinked game. So if you don't have, if the back line for Korea has no concern at all about getting stretched or getting beaten in behind, then it compresses the game for everybody else.

Yeah, I mean, you look at every time Flo ran onto a ball in that second half. it's like even those ones where like he runs onto but you got to like turn your back immediately to like keep the ball um there's two two south korean defenders coming over to him and so you collect that ball you get it out of your feet to somebody who's looking over the box or whatever y'all can recirculate it or get it over you know if it's the right side get it over to the left before that second defenders have the chance to get back to their spot well like it just it starts the whole thing for you it kind of kicks off the whole attack in the way where like we didn't have that in the first half.

Because it's like, yes, we were troubling them. We'd get there. Maybe we do like a nice, like Timwaya, and Diego Luna did that one, two, or whatever. Then the cutback was like blocked. Like, because people are still, they're not really, uh, hairy for real. You know, it's like, you, like, you beat a person,

but it's like, yeah, there's, they're still, um, they're not that pulled apart. still in position to make plays. Yeah. Where when you... Yeah. Well, when you play that ball into the channel for Ballot and then he collects it, he's got two defenders on him, he's able to turn and face the field.

There's, as everybody comes up the field to join him, there is, there are opportunities, you know? There's things happening, right? There's, right. There's, now it's like Christians join in the, Christians running the box and maybe grabs a center back with him and he takes him he takes that center back to the back post and then Diego comes in and he gets that uh you know that first time shot or whatever like you know it's just now uh something's flowing something's flowing there's attackers moving there are defenders being

pulled different places making do different things make it having to be uh they are being made to make decisions etc and we got none of that really out of sergeant right So that's the truth. It makes me sad that the sergeant hasn't been a better national team player. I still remember fondly when he was scoring hat tricks against the Mexico U-17s. But it's a tough game. It's a tough game. So, Serge being back, it's nice.

Yeah. I mean, who knows? what that first half would it look like without Sergenio does. Gio Vani, you know, you know I'm going to bring him up even when he's not even in camp. He's got an assist in a friendly for Gladbach over the weekend. It's pretty nice. So we can, you know, I'll keep our fingers crossed on that. And you know we'll have Jedi the next time we play.

You know, I mean, I'd be shocked if Wes is trying. truly exiled from this team, despite all the words that Pachitino says. Pachsh says all kinds of stuff. It's like you can't even take, you can't take any of it seriously. But not very much of it. I mean, he says all type of stuff.

In the press conference, I'll give you three quotes real quick. Number one was, we need to win when the World Cup starts. Word. Number two was, oh, yeah, he thought the U.S. was a better. a team on a night.

Three. Well, you know what? I'm gonna leave three alone. I'm a leave three alone. He thought Tristan Blackman had a good game. Which I don't think Blackman was that bad. I mean, we glossed over a couple of his errors, like the diving header at midfield that almost led to some one v1 on the goal.

But he wasn't good. I'll tell you that. Yeah, I'm out. Yeah, fine. And, you know, I had watched, I have a. Was he worse than Ream? But see, that's the question. I don't know.

And probably not. But he had a few errors with a ball at his feet. And that's what he's supposed to be good at. I even watched some Tristan Blackman film. And, you know, he was dropping dimes and what I saw. But yeah, he had more than two passes, I guess, straight to South Koreans that, you know. Or did we just call him Koreans now? It's a Korean Republic.

I had this conversation with Steve. They just call themselves Korea. Okay. They see their northern neighbors as a rogue state, you know. Understood. Yeah. All right. Hey, check out the link in the show notes if you want to join the Patreon and skip the ads.

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