Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #635: USA v Ecuador recap

Episode Date: October 12, 2025

Vince and Charlie Boehm carry the flag and get into the 1-1 draw with Ecuador. Balo and Tillman have a great night in Austin, they zapruder the Ecuador goal, lots to discuss. 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 when we talk about U.S. soccer. A signature draw. The U.S. ties Ecuador 1-1 in front of a full Q2 stadium. Plenty of yellow shirts in the stands, but plenty of red, white, and blue as well. This was a fun one to watch. I imagine it was a fun one to be at. And I'm excited to sink our collective teeth into it today. Greg and bells are away.

So it's me, Vince, here with MLS Soccer. com and the scuff podcast nowadays own charlie chuck charles bone how you doing charlie very well vince pleasure to be with you as always bro i was thinking about it i think i'm settling on chuck um i think so chuck b yeah chuck b instead of chuck d there's a lot of there's a lot of power in it and you know i wouldn't give you that name if you if you hadn't earned it but um i think Because, I mean, you can't, you can't just go around comparing any old person to Chuck D. You know, I was raised on a lot of public enemy. My dad was a 90s rapper.

Who was influenced quite a bit by a public enemy. So, you know, you know. I feel the power in that. I feel that I recognize the strength in power. Strong Island. Love that. So I'll take it. And, you know, there's a segment of people I've come across in my life who just, like,

you know, Chuck is one syllable. So that just simplifies things for them. So I'll take it. Thank you. Is it, it is short for Vincent, right? That's right. Yeah. But strictly Vince.

So there we go. We move. Let's do it. So how's the match got you feeling, man? I think, I think it's, you know, there's a lot of, there tends to be sort of always a backdrop of doubt about what a friendly can really do. Even a good friendly against the top team, right? It's never the same.

It's never the same. There's no replacing, you know, fully competitive matches. And that all may be true. But this was a step up from some of the friendlies I think we've seen over the last few years. This felt like, and I wrote about this in my cider about this late last night, this felt like, all right, the World Cup is almost here. This is two teams that are in the latter stages of planning, have some ambitions, and, feel that clock ticking and know that they need to perform both individually and collectively. And I thought you saw why this group has surprised, I would say most of South America by finishing

second behind only Messi's Argentina in the Conme Ball qualification cycle. That is not an easy thing to do. And they did it without scoring a ton of goals. So excellent defensive team. Really interesting, I thought, blend of technique, intelligence, athleticism in this Ecuador side. And it pushed the U.S. And they responded, which I think you have to say is encouraging. Yeah, that's the thing.

I mean, give me a common ball team any day of the week. You know, they don't understand the term friendly. They're going to get out there and they're going to go hard, man. Particularly ones that don't, you know, a Brazil might throttle it down just a little bit just because, you know, there's a level. There's a skill level difference such to where that they maybe can go at 80% and still. So, you know, keep the U.S. at bay in a way. But, yeah, Ecuador, Colombia, those types of teams, it's like, you know, they got to where they are because they just go hard and they are defensively sound and are tough to play. Not aristocrats.

Right. Not aristocrats. You know, they're at there working. Yeah, lunch pail type of guys, you know. So. I used the phrase SEC speed on Blue Sky last night. And I think it applies. I mean, you can tell, you know, high soccer IQ, but some beasts, too.

And they recognize that that's central to their game model is getting stuck in, using the pace, you know, the physicality matters. And, you know, I think it's almost a little bit of maybe what the blueprint could be for what the best version of the U.S. will sooner or later look like. Yep. Yeah, for sure. Me, I am, I am, I'm pleased. I'm pleased with the result.

I'm pleased with the performance. I'll give it a solid B. Maybe even a, I'm, I was thinking leaning towards the B minus, but I'm giving it a solid B. I think we could have done a little bit more converting our expected threat, our dominance in possession, our dominance in our ability to get to the final third. We didn't necessarily sustain pressure, I guess I would say, but we would beat the Ecuador press and be in a situation where, you know, we got a three-on-three.

We have an ability to make something happen. And too many times it just didn't come off either without a shot or with a low percentage shot. I mean, so many. I mean, I would say, what, we took 11 shots in this. this match, maybe, I mean, the majority of them were from 15 yards away or more. You know, you would like to see more guilt's edge chances, more clear cut chances created from this team. But like you just said, Ecuador, their defensive record is quite solid. I mean, quite solid as an understatement. And there was a busier goalkeeper on balance, I would say. Yeah, for sure.

For sure. So, a lot to take away from this performance, something to be happy with, and, you know, we're moving, we're slowly inching towards progress in the Pajitino era. We are here talking about actions, concepts, formations, things like this. After one year, I am so happy that we don't talk about other things like commitment, attitude, things like this that in the past we were talking about. I think that's a massive step up. So, regardless of how we got here, you know, and whether or not I believe that we needed to go through all the things that we went through to get here, we're here now. And so I'm excited to kind of see Podge start to stack things on top of each other. You know, we get this good performance. That's the optimism for me, I would say, is that we're, we get this performance against Ecuador. and I think we're just starting to actually ramp up

and focus on soccer things, as Maricio Pachitino said. And, you know, we're getting, kind of getting, the team's kind of getting healthy. You know, obviously, we missed Christian Polisic in this match. Jedi, of course, you know, etc. but, you know, the addition of,

of Balaghan, of Balo, like, you know, you can basically create a before-after, you know, like, we do it like just, a much more promising and threatening side. So anyway, let's go ahead and get into some, before we read the lineups, we're going to get into some match facts.

Before we get into the lineup and get into the timeline, before I do that, let me go and promote all the things that Adam Bells does not want to promote. Okay, number one, number one, our Patreon, all timeline items from this match. And from every recap pod that we do are condensed into a video that is shared onto our Patreon platform for $5 and up subscribers.

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Here we go. XG. The U.S. 1.09 to 0.49 for Ecuador. Possession 66% to 34% shots. 11 to 8 All the other stuff is You know

You can hop off a football But search it up But I just wanted to You got any thoughts on that Charlie? Yeah I thought I thought the The numbers

To tell one Form of the story But they also If you Go I think a step further You know The I guess the

Both encouraging And Warning sign aspect To this game Was You had so many examples and why I think it was such a good World Cup preparation game was such fine margins. These fleeting moments, these little decisions, these little individual decisions or non-decisions

were so big. And so when you look at a game where the combined XG is under two, right? And you think about the tight margins that's going to decide a match like that in a major tournament. you know, the initial pursuit angle at Aidan Morris takes on that, on that initial, that entry ball that leads to Ecuador's goal. The angle of Chris Richards hips as he, as he's trying to read Intervalencia's posture and the movement and the pace of that pass into his feet just before the goal. I mean, just and some of the little plays, even Balo, Bolo was exceptional. I thought on the night, but maybe should have had more goals and you look at just little things about, where his body position is, his awareness of defenders around him, a foot's difference on the weight of a touch.

So I thought that was, there's probably, probably hopefully some interesting conversations in the film analysis that will follow from this match for Pach and Co. Let's get to the lineups. We'll start with Ecuador first. They're in a 4-2-3-1 along their back line. We had Purvis Estupignon, William Paco, Joe Ordonez, and Alan. Franco along the back line from left to right. Pedro Vite and Jordie Alcivar in the

double pivot in the line of two. Kendriz Pais, who sickos will remember from our last U-20 World Cup, playing for Ecuador, signed to Chelsea on loan to Strasbourg. People tell me he's the next, he's the next big thing. Didn't do too much in this match, but we'll get on to it.

So Kendri's Paias left wing. John Yaboa as a 10. Angelo Preciado as the right wing and the legend in a Valencia as striker. Oh, and also Ernan Gilles in gold. There you go. The U.S., we actually did keep our three-back system that we kind of found, what in South Korea kept it through Japan. Here we are keeping it through Ecuador.

So we had Maffreys in gold. from left to right Tim Ream, Chris Richards and Miles Robinson along the back line Max Arfston, Adam Morris, Tanner Testman, and Tim Wea along the band of four and the 343 Actually Would you I call this a 3421? Yeah And you know what? And we can get into what Posh said after Apocra's even quibling

With that because he was talking about it is in defensive terms as a 4231 So I'm never know when these coaches are having fun with us or being paranoid about not lying about what they think the numbers are on the page. But I thought it was very much in keeping with the Japan game in terms of the shapes and the relationships on balance. Yeah. And so we have Malik Tillman and West McKinney as our half spacers, basically, as a and Flo

balligan up front. But I do agree with especially the defensive shape. You know, I thought, I wrote down a 4-4-2. you know because you had Wes up there with Balo and Malik Aiden Tanner way across the second line and then R. Frem, Chris Miles

is what I would see a lot of times particularly when we were oppressive specifically. And let me read the quote for Pacha after the game said about formation and so forth. The important thing is the characteristics of the players that you can do different combinations and you can animate,

which is an interesting phrase he's been using animations. You can animate in all. offensive way or have different plans or strategies. I think if you're seeing the game, I think we defend with back four, two midfielder, and three one, but four, two, three, one. But in our formation building from back, we build with three, two, and then five. I think it depends on the strategy that we want to build.

Yep. So, yeah, the two, Tant Testman, Aidan Morris, the three, obviously the centerbacks, and then Max Arfston, Malik Tillman, flow, Wes, and Tim Wea along that band of five, as what we saw in this match. So, Chuck, you won't get a started? Yeah, so both teams come out of this one pressing high. I thought there was a sit. You could call it a breakneck pace to things.

Both sides, not always, but generally playing direct. Ecuador pushing a little bit higher. I think they must have seen something in the U.S. Back three that they were pressing the same. centerbacks. And the U.S. walk the tightrope to maybe even an extreme extent in some places where they were trying to play through it, play around it. And quite frankly, I thought it was a nervy start. You had even just right off the kickoff. The U.S. play long off the kickoff. It gets thrown right back at him after the headers won. And almost immediately the back three are to get caught out of

shape, pressed up high. And it was a 2v3, I think it was. But Ream had to make. a last man type of tackle. So the pace and the athleticism, I think, gave them a little pause. I think they came to grips with it over time. But right from the jump, you had threats. And then we get the first, I would say, significant chance at the three-minute mark. Yeah, so just real quick, just in this match, yeah, a lot of Ecuador's joy that they did have is coming off of either a long goal kick, a long ball, whatever. up to one of their attackers.

I saw a lot of times they played it to Preciato early in the match. They were testing Max Arfston quite a bit. So either that when they had the ball or they were looking for turnovers in the middle of the pitch. I thought we mostly handled ourselves well outside of these first eight to ten minutes, which really did end up limiting Ecuador's chances. but yeah, that's what they were here to do. They weren't, they did not set out to possess the ball or play through our press or anything like that.

I mean, they were hitting it over our heads quite a bit. And right in the beginning of the fourth minute, like Chuck said, Ecuador get their first shot of the match. We get a giveaway from Tim Wea with a loose touch along our right touchline, deep in our own half. Pacho gets to it first and starts to carry it across the pitch. Aidan Morris gets in and gets a foot to the ball to disrupt it, kind of pokes it away a little bit. Malik has the opportunity to clean the play up, but he overruns the ball, kind of drags it with the studs a little bit, almost trips over it.

And the ball falls to Franco, who rips one from 23 yards out, but Malik gets to it with a sliding block and goes out for a corner. The ensuing corner is headed away by Chris right to Alcivar, standing outside the scrum, about 15 yards from goal. his shot goes wide left as he's being closed down. So yeah, early warning shots. Early warning shots a little bit from Ecuador. But then we sent some back as well. Right at the beginning of the sixth minute, Balo picks off a lazy square pass from Franco to Alcivar,

and he gets loose, man. Takes it 60 to 70 yards downfield, blazes past them both, and gets to the end line where his touch is heavy, turning the corner and it gets put out for a corner by our doint ordonias. The ensuing corner gets our first shot of the match as Chris gets his head on a Tullman corner. It goes over the bar. This could very easily be, you could be in a one-nill hole at this point.

I thought the set piece defending on the Al-Savar chance was a little bit dodgy. there was some good emergency defending to try and limit, but he had the goal at his mercy deep inside the box, just with so many bodies. Richard is generally strong in these areas, but he couldn't get enough height or distance on that clearance. They're walking the tightrope here early on. They are working the tightrope a little bit, but once again, you know, we're getting back at him, you know. Balo and his ability just to be one-man offense, basically, here. Just to pick off this pass and blaze pass, blaze pass people that have angles on them, you know, to get loose in that way.

It was just, we see more of it to, we see more of it in this match. And, yeah, his just, his ability to cause havoc, I think is going to translate against any team in the world. Basically. I think you, I think you saw the full skill set on this occasion. I mean, even by halftime, before he scored the goal, that was my dominant first overall first half impression was this is this is ballo's job to lose i mean he had anybody who who was worried that he's you know need rely lives and dies on service no bala was a one-man outlet play here and we'll get into another another one or two of these

moments where uh and again maybe that's part of where the the the back three came to grips with with ecuador's athleticism was uh ream had had at least a couple i think there were some a couple other plays where defender bypasses the midfield and Balo's movement. I mean, he's, he just gets on the end of things that he, you, you wouldn't think he has any business getting on the end to. And then he's, he's so confident he can turn and run at almost anybody. These are two beasts, like large, athletic, uh, centerbacks to the nasty edge. And he was right up in their teeth all, all night. I'm just, just so impressed with everything he showed, the, the full package. Yeah. In the eighth minute, we get some.

nice combination played down the left side. Malik and Bolo combine pretty little sequence of quick touches. I think it was Riem that had played the initial ball forward. And it allows the, they catch the Ecuadorian defense forward. Malik receives on the half turn, passes to Balo the second touch. And then playing that ball into space, let's Bolo open up the afterburners, turns and goes runs past Ordonez. He has space in the box, but he doesn't have the options you would love to see coming in at the backpost. So with Paco closing him down,

he opts to take a left-footed shot about 17 yards out. I thought this was a throwaway moment, really. But again, hitting it with his left foot with no other really option, he hits it so well, keeps it low on the ground, and it's headed for the side netting. So he draws a save. And it's got enough movement on it that Ordonius has to, sorry, Galindez has to parry it away. So really a chance from nothing.

And it's good work from Ream and Tillman. But this is an example of Balo, just creating his own chances. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it. And it's like, you know, Ecuador is out here. The thing is, the way we were able to control this match, control, I guess I put it in quotes, I think really comes down to Balagan and his presence on the pitch.

Like, I think Ecuador wanted to be a little bit more compact than they actually were and wanted to be able to get a little bit more pressure to our midfielers and they actually got to them. But with their centerback so preoccupied with Ballo and him continually sending these warning shots to them, them and the fact that we let them know that, you know, we're going to keep feeding them. You know, I think that put them on their on their back hills quite a bit. And yeah, I mean, it's just, there's, we can't say enough good things about, Balo and how he's kind of, I don't want to say, transformed his team because we were doing the same things before just with worse players than, than Falar and Balaga.

And so getting him in here and playing exactly to his strengths, it's just, it's just brilliant. So, yeah, through 10 minutes, I'd say we've been okay, not dominant, but in really only one instance of us finding our way down the field, actually through their press. You know, we had Balo pick off the pass and go. But this is the first back-to-front moment that we've had in this match in the first 10 minutes. So in the 12th minute, you have a patient spell of possession that gets us to the edge of the Ecuador box. Another nice one to involve in Malik, this time of Tim Wea as his dance partner, gets him into the right side of the Ecuador box. He's met by Paco. He holds it and tries a speculative cross and probably should have shot it when he first received it from Tim Wea.

This is good stuff here. Good stuff we're doing. 16th minute long goal kick by Ecuador to S. Tupinan. Chris Richards does well to handle it. It's something that we don't get contact on initially. It's bouncing. It's the type of ball that can create chaos amongst a defense. But Chris really handles it quite well.

So I wanted to note that. 17th minute. Nice move down the right side of the pitch. Richards to Testman. To Miles to Wes, who flicks it to Tim Wea, who then plays the first time to Tanner Testman, making a third man running behind. He gets to the ball right around the right corner of the box and tries to get it to Balo with his first touch, but Ardunia blocks it out for a corner.

Looking back at the replay, maybe, maybe. This would have been tough. I would have liked to see Tanner try and get it to Malik, who's making his way there. from behind. But it would have taken some vision for Tanner to see that. I mean, he has a, he has a large man closing him down. And, you know, and he has, he does have, he has balo in his vision. It would have took Tanner kind of looking behind him to see Malik.

But I think if he knew Malik was on his way to kind of the penalty spot or whatever, trailing the place. trailing the play. I do back Tanner to do something cheeky to get it to them there, but once again, it would have been next level playmaking to see that and execute. And you're seeing some understanding here, right? These guys are starting to cook now. There's a little bit of chemistry. The one that caught my attention here, this all falls together in the first place

because Weston, with his back-to-goal, pulls out a really saucy little reverse back heel flick to push and invite way of Ford into space along the touchline. And it's a great example, again, of the tight margins I'll talk about because suddenly this rhythm comes together where you're seeing an understanding, you're seeing third man runs. I mean, for Testman, again, in his first time back in the squad, in quite some time, he sees this all take place and moves down the channel to get to that ball. And yeah, you know, in a perfect world. Maybe he gets it off his foot a little quicker, but you're playing, again, a super, super quick team, and it's still early. And so I thought it was encouraging, but then literally

seconds later, everything flips on its head. That's called foreshadowing, ladies and gentlemen. The ensuing corner that we get from this sequence is cleared, and the play basically ends up with a Chris Richards yellow that I'm assigning quite a bit of blame to Aidan Morris, who the ball's cleared. Aidan has the first chance to kind of bring this ball down under a little bit of pressure and alleviate the situation here, to control the situation. Soccer is all about controlling situations, right? He doesn't really handle the bouncing ball.

Columbia kind of overtakes. Columbia gets the ball from there. because he's unable to bring it down with this touch. And then to make matters worse, once he gets faced up and sees the Colombian counter coming at it, I mean, Colombian too, Ecuadorian countercoming at him. He goes in like very, very recklessly and tries to blow up the play, but really doesn't do anything.

And it doesn't do anything except eliminate himself from the play. Ecuador still going, leaves Chris Richards in a bad place, and he just has to take the yellow. Yeah, I thought there were multiple examples of defensive jitters on this play. Now, I think in strict numerical terms, we're talking about a 2V4, right? But it's happening off a U.S. corner. So the lines are pushed way up. Fleet-footed decisions in a millisecond have to be made around the midway line. And I think Richards clearly doesn't want to have to deal.

deal with Yaboa or Valencia exploiting the acres and acres of space behind the U.S. Back three. So I thought he was maybe a little bit panicky to make the professional foul there and pick up an early yellow card, which, again, in a tournament environment, could be costly, could be difficult. But maybe that's the right read of the play. Maybe he and Morris's decisions are driven by what they're experiencing in terms of they see from their opponents in that moment and what they've been briefed to.

do in these situations. But again, fine margins that could potentially be costly. Yep. 21st minute, we get a nice ball over the top from Tim Riem to flow into the left channel and springs them in the space 1v1 with Alcivar. He's on the left side about right outside of our box, on the left wing basically. Takes a couple touches with his right foot and rips a curling shot right from the left corner of the box just high over the crossbar intended for the posted stamp on the right side of the goal. Nice hit. But go ahead, Chuck. Decent look, almost all balo, right? Smart play by Ream to see, I'm assuming he sees it, the ball over the top for Meme is decent, but you just have a Rolls Royce here that's able to track down that ball and

then the confidence to turn his defender, a few little feints and shoulder drops here and there and just real lovely cleverness to work himself onto the place he wants to be with the right foot and try and pick out that corner again and just Balo doing his thing. Yep. And then here I noted that the battle between Balo and Ordonez has been fun. Flo is not winning every hold-up rep, but is getting quite a bit of them. And, you know, as we mentioned before, Ecuador has a pretty formidable pair of centerbacks, so good signs. And Ordonias is the one that Ballo chose to playoff of versus him and Paco. Ordonia is a little bit smaller.

I mean, like by an inch than Paco. And doesn't play for PSG. He plays for Brugge for Club Bruges. He, so they're familiar. You know, Ballo started against Bruch in the Champions League. what, two, three weeks ago now. But yeah, it was a good battle to see good on good. You always love to see competition.

Right? This is why we're all sports fans, I assume. So anyway. 24th minute, Ecuador goal. West gives it away, trying to find Bello and behind Ordonez once again. But this time, he's wise to the past. This time, he collects it. immediately gets it ahead to Yaboa, who gets it to Intervalencia, who's in Chris's blind spot.

Chris, I think, from looking at his body language, I think he thinks the pass is going to lead Intervalencia a little bit to his left. You know, he kind of has those back to the play. I think he thinks the pass is going to lead Intervalencia a little bit, and then he has time to kind of turn and recover. But instead it goes right to Intervalentia's feet. He receives the ball. Boom, first touch with his right to the right of Chris Richards.

He has to flip his hips all the way, and that basically gives Intervalencia the yard that he needs to carry it into the box and tuck the ball away in the left corner of the goal from about 15 yards away. What you think, Chuck? Again, a little bit of a cascade here. So the lines are high. I thought in the end, Richards is left out on an island. maybe more than he should. But part of that too is, I think Morris sees it, right? Morse sees this, but there's an incident.

And I went back and looked at the tape. His initial angle is to step forward. And then he has to move laterally. And in just that fleeting decision, he tries to cut out the initial pass into, hold on, I want to get this right. I think it was Yaboa that played the past, right? So he sees it taking shape and he tries to intercept the past to Yoboa, but he's, I don't know, a foot off, something like that. He just, he can't get to it.

And in selling out to try and make that interception, now Yaboah has this useful pocket right around the halfway line center circle where he can turn and he can pick out Valencia. And again, as you said, it's a very interesting play because it's just this Ecuador team wants to be vertical whenever they get the opportunity. and he pings it right to his feet, but it's the kind of ball where it gives Valencia options. He could let it run. He could pick it up and turn. So tough spot for Richards to be in. And just in that moment,

again, in a little bit of a moment of brief disorganization, all three centerbacks are on paper, I guess you could say they're not necessarily out of position, but the speed of the pass, the weight of the pass, and the speed of the somehow 35-year-old inner Valencia means that they're essentially, out of it. Maybe Ream could ream backtracks to drop in to try and give cover for for Richards once he's locked in the one v1 race. Maybe he needs to drop in and try and get a touch or try and trouble

Valencia rather than than the you know the the pursuit angle type of type of instinct. I don't know and it's tough and maybe you know I have in my notes here I have was Morris gambling too much to cut out the first pass. For me, yes, but it's a bit harsh because if he gets there, if he gets just any touch to that ball, then he's, he's, he's, he's, he's killed this in before it's taking the danger of shape. And then I start to debate, maybe Tyler Adams, if he's in that position, is a little quicker, gets there in time, but we've also seen Adams get caught out on plays like this, right? Because he, he has that aggressive tendency to. So, again, in the, in, in these big boy games, you know, you live and die on inches sometimes. And it

really was that in multiple examples. And then the same thing with Freeze. Should Freeze not let that shot get across them and get into the side netting? Yeah, it could be, but it's just a ton of quality from an elite veteran in Intervalencia. It's tough. I do want to ask our resident goalkeeper expert Greg Velasquez about this. But as I kept watching it over and over, I'm thinking, freeze is hoping that Chris Richards can cut off that part of the goal right I'm thinking like with the angle to where Chris Richards is kind of trailing him uh trailing Valencia a half yard behind him or whatever I'm assuming the freeze is making the calculation that hey Chris has that part covered I can get a little bit closer to my near post here um but I think freeze did it right on

paper again, you can't, he cannot allow himself. Valencia is, is moving to the, to the right, to freezes left. So he can't, he can't cheat. He, he's got to just force the attacker to place the clinical, ideal finish into this relatively small window. And he did. Yeah. He did, man. He's a legend for a reason. I don't know how many people are familiar. 35 years old, man. I don't know how many people are familiar with intervalencia. I got familiar when they played when Ecuador played in the first match of the World Cup last time, I guess Qatar, I'm pretty sure. And yeah, just a legend of the game, man. And this is from football.

Each of Ecuador's last five goals have been scored by Valencia and wins against Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia as well as tonight. The last time someone other than the captain found the back of the net was November 4. 14th, 2024. They wrote him right to the World Cup, man. Yeah, that's sick, man. That's sick. So it just, yeah, it is what it is sometimes. I've seen some people giving Chris Richards some criticism to where, I mean, I understand it,

because at the end of the day, he got beat, you know, but tough, tough situation. Where you do have to, I mean, you see the moxie from Inter Valencia here, you know, perfectly in Chris Richards' blind spot. Like, as Chris Richards is retreating, he is right in this man's blind spot. Chris is trying to check his mirrors, you know, to see if he can find Inter Valencia. And he just can't. He just can't. And it's just, sometimes you've got to tip your hat to just a real dude making a play, you know. It's tough on Chris.

Richards, man. To be on that island like that against a striker with that type of savvy, man. This guy's played in, this guy's done it in Brazil, Turkey, League of MX, Concaf Champions League, English Premier League, like 188 career goals at the club level, just at the club level. So, come on. Yeah. It's just that amount of polish, you know, on a play like that. like I said it's just camp in the blind spot like it's just you got to respect it you got to

respect it now ada Morris I can't let you off that easily because look we talked about it we talked about him in the play before going in rash on a challenge and basically getting bypassed here the same thing happens it's the type of situation like you asked the question about tyler adams right could tyler adams get here adams got to know he's not tyler adams you know his Adam Morris does not have that type of acceleration to get to that ball

you know he I mean he just like flatly doesn't you know in the championship maybe it's a different situation maybe he reads the play faster whatever but yeah I would just like for him to realize what is going on on the play and that's the thing

I think it's like okay if he recognized what was going on and made an educated guest then I'd be like, yeah. But he was kind of on his heels. And in both of these situations that could have been handled much better by Adam Morris, I think he calculated wrong twice. And it's not just a results thing, especially the counter off the corner.

It's like, bro, just corral the situation. Like, well, you did not have to go in with a head of steam, two-footed the way you did. You know, just she'll do your job and shield the back line. You know, and I'm a fan of A&Morris. I thought he was okay live. But upon rewatch, there's too many of these situations that are handleable situations that he just didn't handle, you know. And so, yeah.

That's that. But you get a response, right? I think Potch talked about it after the game. I think as frustrating as it is to get carved like that in that fleeting moment, there's an immediate response from the U.S. We got the 26-minute corner moments later. Tillman hits an inswinger, or sorry, no, an out-swinger. It falls to Richards on the bounce.

Clean half-folly from your centerback on target. This is going to hit the net, and Galindez, Shows great technique, gets down quickly to his left, and Perry is this wide. I mean, that's, that's an equalizer, maybe half the time. Yeah, yeah, I always, once again, got to tip my hat. When a goalkeeper gets, I don't respect goalkeepers, but when a goalkeeper can get down and make a strong save like that cleanly, and, you know, he does it and he gets up like nothing happening, he's like, I do this.

You know, I just got to tip my hat, man. strong contact on it, got it away from danger, et cetera. It is what it is. I have a note here to where I'm just realizing through this match that Ecuador is really not trying to play through us whatsoever. Once again, just goal kicks galore. Gold kicks or if they win a free kick in their defensive half, everyone's pushed up and the goalkeeper's taking it. And once again, we mostly do all right. Our defense mostly does all right on these long balls.

they're pumping into us. 37th minute. We get a Weston McKinney into Outrun down the left channel that's found by Aidan Morris. The pass is a bit heavy, though, and it leads him to the end line. West does well to get to it, keep it in, and he gets it to Max Arfston.

Max Arfston turns and carries it into the box. He's a real slick turn right around our left touchline. He doesn't have much room to do it, but he's able to receive turn, and make a positive play out of this situation. His shrass that he plays from about the left corner of the box is deflected by Osavar and then Vite on target, on frame to the goal, which draws an athletic divin and save from Galendez.

I'm done tipping my cat. This was filthy, though. It really was because this was a crazy play. Again, at least half the time, maybe more. This is an equalizer because, yeah, Arson, isn't trying to do this. He's just trying to put the ball in a dangerous spot. It takes two deflections.

And Galindez gets up and stays up, right, to paw this one away from the top corner. That was on frame. So another impressive one, another moment where you can say the U.S. go close. Got to shake off the frustration and keep going, and they do. Yep.

One quick item here. It's obligatory time for me to complain about the director of the TNT broadcast. every game that I watch, men's national team, women's national team, we are missing moments of the match looking at people. You know, it's time we missed the turn, the Arston turn. Yes, we missed the Arston turns, Preciado, which was, that was a fun battle. And you could see them trying to, the Ecuadorians trying to come to grips with this Arfston dude over the course of the match. And yeah, we didn't have it. I mean, like I get the crowd shots.

I understand it. Like drop that in after. like don't cut away from live match action please like just you know yeah I hear you on that I'm not doing anything interesting you know they're just standing there shouting commands we're looking at the Ecuadorian manager right here um and Sebastian beca chese beca chese sorry beca cece this is even and hey give us a break all right because this is argentine manager even the ecuadorian media was having trouble with this name is a very italian name that's been Argentiniaz, Becca Sese, a Jorge Sampauly apostle.

Gotcha. Got you. And, you know, I mentioned this specifically because I'm pretty sure we missed a nice Tanner Testament pass diagonally through a couple of lines to Malik that I had to slow down and like look at it frame by frame to see. I'm just basing it off of we, the camera goes back to the play as Malik's receiving the ball. And it looks as if Tanner is the one that played the past. But who knows?

It's lost to history. Chuck, Chuck, you, in Columbus, at the last match, I had to put this inside the notes for Bells and Greg to read the fact that they missed. They missed Ballo's probably nicest moment of the match. Last, yeah, against Japan, he receives the ball in the box and does like a pirouette and gets a shot off at the keeper. I saw because I was in the stadium. Then I go back, I'm doing clip notes. I'm like, hold on. All we do is, you know, the camera comes back

and we get the shot, just a shot. Nothing about creating the shot. You know, we missing too many things. Anyway, and 40th minute. Kidges-Payez does Miles Robinson down our right touchline. Miles catches up to him and files him from behind. Yellow card. which Miles had a quiet half basically but yeah I feel like Miles Robinson if you're in the match here you're in the match not to get done like this by a teenager he was mad he didn't like the yellow but when you look at the replay he's he's coming through yeah he pins the ankle yeah underneath him as he follows through so that's potential ankle breaker and

interesting that Potcha dropped a hint about Robinson as a quote-unquote left or a right back, which we all know this guy's fundamentally a centerback, but I think we're getting a few breadcrumbs here in terms of him seeing Robinson as maybe a useful sort of elbow back for that when he wants to hybridize things. And if Way is going to be a wingback now, then you may see more miles because I think he likes the athleticism. but again like you said you can't be you too athletic to be to be to be leaving your feet that that early and picking up a card like that yeah i mean really he was on his way to catch them quite easily you know it's a few more steps you didn't have to go to ground baby but um yeah we saw that uh elbow back thing in uh in january camp he used miles there so he's come back to it

So, yeah, I do think we, I mean, this is obvious. We lose a little bit playing the ball, you know, with Miles is there. But he has, he was involved in a, and at least one decent move. I remember the one, I think the Tanner Testament one where he tries to get the ball over the ball. Tanner plays a little cushion past Miles. I think he gets it to Wes for the flick. Yeah, I think he, I thought he kept pace by and large. And again, when you're in a game like this, it had a lot of crunching tackles, some intensity.

I mean, there's a physical presence that Miles brings, I think is useful. And I think Potch may be maybe falling for a little bit, you know, maybe falling in love, at least in like with that aspect of it. Yeah. So in the 44th minute, we get Medina replacing a stupignon, who, I have to remind everybody, They broke Weston McKinney's foot when he was in the form of his life. I don't know if y'all remember that. At what? At the end of 2021, I want to say right in the middle of qualifying where we had to go into,

you know, our biggest window of the, of qualifying, that Panama window, Panama Mexico window and, et cetera. Without West, Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica, I think it was a three-game window. But anyway, I've never forgiven you, Purvis. All right. 44th minute. You get a Tim Way of slalom across the top of our box from right to left. He uses Malik as a backboard and gets a shot off with his left, deflected wide of the goal for a corner.

This is, we had multiple slaloms in this match where we're combining with, you know, an attacker who's moving horizontal and using different people as backboards. We saw flow to it. Malik do it. Yeah, I think mainly Flameleek as the as the backboards here. And I think this is a good example

of situations that maybe we can get more out of. You know, we get this point where we're going across the top of the box. Tim Weir receiving the ball here. You know, we're making Ecuador move a little bit. And instead of kind of pressing that advantage, You know, we let them off the hook. Let them off the hook with these long shots from the top of the box.

I'm not mad at a few of them, but I feel like we took just a little bit, a few too many, a few too many. I think Wayas gotten really comfortable with both feet, playing so much on the left side for a club level. And maybe one more pass here, maybe a couple more touches. Maybe you can really carve him open. I think he had already, he had gone on a 60-yard, John, at that point, so maybe the eyes were getting a little big. But I just love to see that the understanding, you know, cropping up, you know, these little wall passes, these little one-toos,

just feels like you're seeing more of that. I don't know if it's the formation or just the ability that individual players have to interpret the formation or what it is. But it was, there was some, there was some saucy stuff. And this was an example. Yeah, I mean, I think we just have, more players that are capable of this type of thing on the pitch right now.

You know, you got Malik, Balo, Tim, Tanner Testman, Wes, of course. Max didn't necessarily get into too many of these one-touch fess, you know, but I think Max is proven to be, at the very least,

technically competent. You know what I'm saying? So, yeah, I think we just have a lot of pieces that are able to execute these types of things. And also, if you saw Ballo's interview that he did with Sanjay, Suja, Suge after Kumar this weekend that he released for The Guardian. I think he caught up with him in Monaco. The jet sitting Sanjay, man. I saw that date line and said, what? Sanjay's in Monaco.

Damn it. I think he was going for a, I think he was going. going for a wedding and made it happen, you know, I mean, Assange, the ultimate house. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. You got a book advance or something. You got to clean a bit honest man.

Come on, no. Yeah. But Ballo said that basically, you know, underpotch, the team has a little bit more flexibility to go where they feel like they need to be, you know, in order to facilitate play for our attackers, you know. And I do think we're seeing it affect our rest defense, right? He said specifically, like, to Greg, you know, Greg has specific instructions for the attackers, whatever.

Those specific instructions, I assume, related to positioning, were because he wanted our rest defense to be solid, and we saw it be extremely solid in his tenure, particularly in the World Cup. but yeah so it's you know it's a trade-off it's a trade-off but yeah i i am i am always liking to see one-touch play and all that type of stuff so i'll take it we just need some better aiden morris pursuit angles and we're really good all right um towards the end of the first half basically the 48th minute long goal kick from

Ecuador is won by Tim Ream convincingly, straight to West, who takes it off his chest and plays it with his left foot to spring Balo and behind into the open field, 1v1 with Erdogez once again. He scurries into the left side of the box. Erdonias keeps up with him, forces Balo to kind of chop it back, and he waits for a second and plays it kind of square to an onrushing Aidan Morris right inside the box who catches it, but it's deflected by Tim Wayos foot out for a goal kick. It was a good look. It was a good look.

And again, it happened so quickly. You love to see that speed of thought for McKinney to be able to receive that ball in traffic and see everything how it was where the space was. I think it was a left-footed. It had been a left-footed curling ball into space kind of over, over-balligan shoulder. Really good stuff. Yeah. Wes, I guess nominally in this match, you would say, playing the 10.

Because he ended up being in the central areas and have spaces a little bit more than Malik, who would get there once we started to possess the ball. But you know, a situation like this where Tim Rima is winning a header. Like the person who's in the middle pulling the strings there is Wes. And you saw it on the goal as well where he's the one with the ball. was able to give it away. But who gave it away to Ordonia is there. But yeah, it's half.

It's half. Intertained to say the least, we've had the better of the play for sure. Ecuador is, like I said, barely, I guess, trying to play soccer or at least trying to possess the ball and play it around. and I think the most important thing for me at halftime when I'm thinking about the match

is that we aren't letting the Ecuador pressure force us into mistakes. We're looking after the ball quite well. I think Tessman and Ada Morris have a lot to do with this, even though I've come on to Aidan Morris for a little bit. But the fact that we're not really after that Tim Wea giveaway, we don't have any more dangerous giveaways than I have. We're really handling the press quite easily. And to the point to where I even think, you know,

Testman and Aidan have been gone for a little bit. But I think with those two, with the amount that I watch them for their clubs, you know, you have two guys that you can kind of give the ball to in any situation for the most part that I would back. And I think as they get a little bit more comfortable within the side, I don't know if they will have the ability to or whatever. But as their teammates get a little bit more comfortable with them, I think we even had the ability to get them the ball a little bit more.

You know. With Testament, I thought even just in the run of play, I saw him kind of shifting and through the gears, getting more comfortable, understanding what he could do, being a little bit more expressive when he had the opportunities. And as we'll get to in just a few minutes, it ends up being a huge factor in the equalizer. Yeah, yeah, and he, and I talked about this on the Monday review quite extensively, I guess, this past week, but just, yeah, he doesn't get caught, he doesn't get caught in possession much anymore. You know, he processes the space around him in the space that he's in very well. And I was excited to see that translate to the national team. It's like, you know, you always have the question, right? And I've been,

I guess trying to protect myself and not get too up in arms about whether or not Tanner Testament gets called up or whatever. I'm just like, you know what, it is what it is. You know, you got to control what you can control. And so I had mentioned the fact that, I think two weeks ago or so, I mentioned the fact that I wasn't totally sure

that Tent of Testament is like a floor razor for this team. But, I mean, shoot. He's made big steps, man. he's made big steps as a player and you know it isn't just form you know people love to throw the form thing out it isn't just form I think Tanner is legitimately a good

responsible um midfielder that we can play through that we can rely on you know he's not going to give us a cardoso um you know and I I think I think I'm starting

I think I'm starting to I think I'm starting to believe that he might be a floor raiser for this team, but we'll get into the rest of this match. But yeah, what were your thoughts at half time, Chuck? Yeah, so, yeah, and on Testament, like, I'm, I think I'm a convert. Because when he was in MLS, you could always see the tools, the skill set, but it was a little bit raw, a little bit relying on athleticism sometimes, but it was very raw. I mean, he's been out in the wild, man.

I mean, he went and put himself in the proverbial cleanseman cold water, right? He goes to Venetia, gets relegated, he's got a grind. in second division, Saria B, come to grips with that level, goes from, you know, functional to excellent, gets a big move to a bigger league, grinds, comes to grips with the level there. And now he's putting in bangers in Europa League. I mean, and again, I think we know Potch has a, has a Paramount Plus subscription, right? Because he definitely caught that, that game winner that Testament had the other night in Europa League. And it's just those are these little milestones and he's just he's just he's climbing and he's still young enough that I don't

know what his ceiling is going to be but I I'm I've seen enough I think that this isn't just a run of form this is a player that you can that you can use and that you want to have on the squad next summer so yeah but to my in terms of halftime yeah so my notes are this is a big boy game you know there's there's speed athleticism a lot of commitment you see there's the fact that Anytime you see injuries that force a player off before halftime and a friendly, you know, that's a little bit of a signpost, I think. And maybe the U.S. benefits from it being a warm night, still in the 80s, you know, even after dark down in Austin.

And the Ecuador couldn't or wouldn't maintain that pressing pace that they had early because they were, I mean, they were flying around in the press and the counterpress early on. And whether it was their decision or just their limitations, that helped the U.S. US, I think, down the stretch. And the question is, you know, will that be the reality in the World Cup next summer and we'll get into, you know, maybe we'll have to be reading tea leaves about what's a dome and what's air condition and what's not or what's a kickoff time and this and other. But I'm curious to see because I think, I think an opposition scout would probably see a few red flags in terms of some of the difficulties the U.S. had with that press.

So I think you'll probably see that again. But again, to find some composure, find a level, you know, get to grips with things, and then slowly, painstakingly, but relentlessly play the game on your terms by the second half. It was good. Yeah. And in order to play the game on our terms, we had to handle our business. You know, we had to handle these long balls, second balls,

and handle our business and possession. And, yeah, we did that. So now we're just looking for, some cutting edge, real cutting edge in the final third, which, you know, we're missing our best player. So anyway, we come out of the half, no changes for us. But Piaz and Yaboa leave for Kevin Rodriguez and Nilsson Angulo. So 48th minute, Ecuador free kick is headed away by an attacking free kick.

headed away by Chris Richards right to Tim Wea's feet. He pops his first touch right past Vite who is you know he's protecting his goal on their attacking free kick and Tim's off and running carries it for 50 yards

he has Ballo making the Tim Wea versus Real Madrid run The weave Yeah the weave coming around on his right side But Tim already has his head turned to his left He misses him once again another situation where I think we could have got a high probably high XG opportunity if he noticed this ballo coming around

because Ecuador wasn't really tracking them either and so we miss we miss him there he he plays it off to um arf on the left and a lot of things happened after that but the chance essentially over in the transition moment essentially over um by making the wrong decision here unfortunately Yeah, missed opportunity. Yep. Right at the beginning of the 49th minute, Aidem Morris played through once again.

He has an opportunity to stop a counter. But Angulo, I don't know if he megs him or plays the ball kind of around him, but he goes right through him in a manner to where, like, it's like, Aiden was two sheets to the win, unfortunately here. And the Ecuadorian counter doesn't really amount to anything, but yeah, I just got to, the amount of times. that this is starting to happen and this match is getting

a little bit alarming to me. Once again, it wasn't as alarming in the first watch but on rewatched, I'm like, well, because people in the scuff discord kind of brought my eye to it. And so once I started really focusing in,

I'm like, ah, for what it's worth, for what it's worth, a quarter to fought mob, Aiden won eight of 11 ground duels was fouled four times and he did not commit a foul maybe that's maybe that's a problem right there there weren't a few more fouls committed but yeah he was in the wars

but again it's part of that i think it's part of that tightrope walk where it just felt to him more than anyone else to be the fireman in those those moments where one one play one win in one direction of the other can can get those ecuadorians out out into transition which is which is not what you want yeah because essentially We're committing a six man to the attack, right? You know, Potsch talked about us playing with that 325, but we've mentioned Tanna Tessman getting forward many of times. As he foreshadowed, he's forward for that goal as well.

I mean, it comes off our high press. But, yeah, it's Aiden. Aidan's the one who's on the island, you know, essentially almost as a lone six. And whether it's fair or not, he's the one the opportunities fell to. And at least in these moments, he's not handling him. So, and I like Aidan Morris.

I think anyone listens to Money Review would know. I think he's a good player. And I think he has, he does have some kind of like athleticism deficits or whatever. But I don't think it's something he can't overcome. Like I said, just a few, just knowing what you're working with yourself, which, you know, know, well, maybe you haven't seen this type of speed on a, on a, on a, on a, on a soccer pitch before, you know, I couldn't. Might need some, a little bit of time to adjust, but I back him to, I back him to come out of this stronger. Same.

Right at the beginning of the 50th minute, another slalom across the top of the box this time from left to right by Malik. He passes to Aiden, who passes to Tanner Testman, who finds Malik continuing his run. He receives the ball with a heavier touch than he would like and is jacked up by a Paco on the right right on the edge of the top of the box both players go down in the heap

the refs says play on so we do Tim collects it gets it to Balo on the right side of the box he crosses to try and find West but it is cleared by I think I think it's Ordonez that gets his head to it But this is a potential pin. Chuck, what do you think about it?

Yeah, by this point, you're getting a few Canadian referee, Philip Dukich, who some may remember as the however referee. He'll go down in history as the however referee in the memorable MLS meme. He didn't, he was not, this was not a North American Homer performance from the referee. And there was some booze. on this occasion and a few others. And then at the final whistle, too, from the Austin Faithful, who thought that he was leaving the U.S. hard done by.

I think it's very easy to envision this going to a 10 minute or so. Yeah. VAR review in a full tournament. In the World Cup? Oh, yeah. The full undressing because it was a clatter. And there was another similar one in a similar position, I think, earlier, where Testman got cleaned out in Zone 14, and he said it was hard but fair.

And there weren't too many dangerous free kick opportunities in real gold dangerous spots for the U.S. And I think in a parallel universe, that's a very different story. Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt. I do think, yeah, it's a- Oh, and Potch. Potch was beside himself at this point. He and his staff were absolutely losing their rag over on the touchline.

I think they started watching the video of it, if I remember correctly. Maybe Dukas thought he was playing advantage, but, you know, I would question, I would question whether either a penalty or an extremely promising free kick, a foot outside the box, is not the greater advantage there. Right. For sure. For sure. So right at beginning of the 53rd minute, Timwaya plays a pass down the left touchline for a streaking.

Tanner Testman. He's beaten to the ball by Vite, but Tanner shows a little bit of that dog and counter presses and gets it back from him. Tanner gets his head up, gets the ball out in front of him with his first touch, and plays a cross for Ballot, who is 1V1 with Erdogez.

Ordonez kind of has Balo beat all the way. You know, he has the step on him, and the ball is, he gets his foot to the ball, and it's deflected off flow for a goal kick. Um, do you got anything, got anything on this show? I love it from Tess, man, because he, you know, to, to, to read the, the, the, the, I thought the awareness to, to win that ball back, a quick little counterpress. And then no farting around, man, gets his head up and, and tries to feed his informed striker at the

near post. Really well defended, but, but just a great example of, you know, put, put the ball in the area where goals are scored. Yep. Yep. I can't be mad at that one. Like, you know, scuffed, we get on cross is quite a bit. But a targeted cross, you know, right at Ballo, you know, this wasn't speculative.

This is getting the ball, two-year goal score right here. So I'll take it 100% of the time. I noted a couple of sloppy plays by Morris, Aida Morris once again. And they're leading to, you know, situations that he should handle better, that he's not. necessarily handling. I think there's a giveaway on a pass. There's a bouncing ball, maybe a second ball or something that he has the opportunity to bring down, but he doesn't.

He kind of loses online duel. And him losing these situations kind of lead to Ecuador's biggest spell of possession in the game. I think they hold the ball for about three, four minutes or something. They don't do anything with it. They don't do anything with it at all. But, yeah, noted that. Let's see.

In the 63rd minute, we get Diego Luna and Alex Freeman in the match on, and they are on for Weston McKinney and Miles Robinson. Alex Freeman comes on. I noted he's pretty messy, the first three, four times with the ball. And for that matter, Diego Luna is as well. A couple just errant passes that he plays. I mean, like, we're talking passes with. no pressure that he's playing, you know, to a defender.

And the fender has to go run for it, whatever. So maybe some jitters there. You know, the pressure has been turned up in camp. Everyone's fighting for spots. Everyone's fighting for spots. So just something to note it. In the 69th minute, we get a nice pass from Malik, from the right wing to Diego Luna, who's at the top of the box.

He settles and shoots with his left foot right at the keeper. And really, with this note, I think I'm kind of underselling the whole situation. I mean, Chuck, I don't know if you remember, but it's that real nice win that Malik, he's almost kind of by the corner flag. And he's been fighting with a couple Ecuadorian defenders. I keep saying, I keep wanting to say Colombian every time. The yellow.

The yellow's kidding. He's kind of fighting over there in the corner, kind of by the corner flag, and he finally picks his head up, finds Diego and just plays like a sexy, 15-yard pass on the ground to find Diego right there at the top of the box. I think we're entering the phase where Tillman starts to get into his bag for real.

And I had him as, you know, maybe we'll get into it more in a minute here. But again, the confidence where he's at now from where he was a year ago. And then even from minute one to minute 90, just see the belief growing. And I think we're looking at, I still don't know if he's going to be in the 11. You know, maybe he's the one that loses out just because you have to have a healthy fit, pool sick in your 11 right but um the gains that this kid has made over the past year so it's just so impressive just a very very useful piece and i'm i'll stop there because i got a little more praise we'll deliver in that for the final minutes yeah but um i've thought about this a little bit and

you know with the way this lineup was deployed with weston kind of being the nominal 10 until we get up into our attacking half and then we kind of have the dual tens or whatever it's like you know, would you rather have Weston there, have Malik there, pulling the strings? And I'm a big fan of Weston McKinney attacking midfielder. I think probably more than most, I would say. But it's a debate. It's definitely a debate. And with Malik continuing to now, now stack performances after he's finally gotten comfortable

within this national team, has the belief, the full belief of Potch and the staff. We're starting to see the real Malik come out. I was thinking about while we're watching this match. I was like, man, this is so much better than when I saw him in Austin in, I don't know, was that 2023 or something. We played Trinidad and Tobago there, scored those three goals in the last 10 minutes or whatever. Not a good match from him there. It's just, yeah, total 180. from then until now

so love to see it love to see it so 71st minute another slalom by Tim Weir from right to left this time he uses Malikimbello he gets the ball back right on the left side of the D at the top of the box

takes a shot with his left foot better contact than the last time stung it but right over the bar he was just playing the long game though He was giving him this goal kick for strategic purposes, as we're about to discover. Yeah, because almost immediately after, on the ensuing goal kick, we get our goal from the goal kick. I think it goes from Gilles over DePacho, who is under pressure from Malik Tillman. And he basically passes it directly to Timway.

I'm not sure if Malik got a foot to it to the pass or not. Timway gets his head up He squares it inside to Tanner Tussman Who's right on the Top of the box Kind of on the right side of the box Is where we're at here He takes a touch

Maybe like two and a half touches Has to kind of like drag it Into itself And plays in Malik Who's alone on the right side of the box Malik collects the ball And it's just you know This is the

The the give and take with Malik. You know, sometimes you want them to turn up the intensity a little bit. But then in these situations, it's like when you need the calm, you're loving the typical Malik Tillman demeanor. He gets the ball and he's like, it's almost like he received it. He dropped in between the centerbacks and received the ball, man. He's chilling.

He's in his happy place. I see. The potential to get a gold contribution. And he waits for flow to make his, darting run and he plays the square right across to ballo who gets to the ball about four yards out from goal has ardoinia draped all the way over over his shoulders uh ballo shows good strength here to just hold the man off with just i mean he's not knocking ordonias is not knocking balo off his spot whatsoever um he's continuing the run with ease uh he meets it i think with his

left foot, kind of his left heel. And it hits the right crossbar, I mean, the right post of the goal. And trickles on in. One one. Yeah. Yeah. I thought, I thought this is kind of a poor man's man city ball here. Because you just, they see the opening and you immediately get a little three-man game

right there along the channel. And then he doesn't, you know, Tillman doesn't get to the end line, but he's doing, he's doing that damage in that danger zone, right? The Man City zone right there, right there along that channel in the box. And just, and I liked a testman, testman, you know, sees it developing, picks the spot, and then holds the ball just that little extra second or half second that you think maybe he's, he's thinking slow, but he's drawn the defender in and then scoops it over the defender's knee to make things easy and, and uh and relaxed for tillman to to pick the spot so a couple guys doing good stuff here and i

think as you had mentioned they had i think they played short that goal kick and i'm wondering if there'll be some film sessions with um with profe beca beca cece about this one because uh they got uh it was turning the tables for sure the u s exploited a moment of imprecision and and uh and foolishness from uh latry It is interesting because what? I mean, they did that. I mean, two times of the match, maybe. Maybe three.

Yeah, what they see there. Yeah. But I don't think it was three. I mean, too, I'm going with a strong two at the most. But, yeah, to conceding that way, yeah, has to be a little tough. A little tough. But, yeah, plot is to Malik. Who's almost offside, by the way.

Just barely. And again, maybe this gets dissected to death. in a different setting with an overactive VAR because he's leaning, but I thought he was on, but it was tight. I do kind of think he was on. And if he was off, it was his shoulder barely. Like, you know, initially when you see the, when you see the clip that they show on the broadcast, he looked very off.

But then, you know, in my brain, as I kind of turned, as I kind of took the, the, the image in 3D and like turned it in my brain a little bit. You know what I'm saying? I was like, you know, I think he's, it's not egregious. It's not egregious.

I'll keep it at that. If he is offside. I'm not, I'm not totally sure that he is. I'm not totally sure that he is there. So anyway, we'll take him however we can get him. Uh,

1-1. And then in the, and another thing to note here, we don't get much of a celebration from Balo. Ballo gets the ball at the net. And he's trying to take it to the center circle, baby. Serious fella. Serious fella he is.

And then also in the stoppage for the goal celebration and everything. We get Christian Rodon, Mark McKenzie, and Christian Polisic on for Ada Morris, Tim Riem, and Tim Wea. So they are off before play resumes. We only have a few more time items. But Chuck, what do you think of the crowd here in this match? Yeah, you know, Pach, Balo, and I think maybe. and the other players who, you know, we didn't get video of that we're in the mix zone, spoke very positively about this crowd. And actually, one of the post-game questions for

Potch from Paul Kennedy of Soccer America was there was a moment, I think just before the goal, not long before the goal where the crowd strikes up a USA, USA, you know, we all know that the originality knocks that people make about U.S. supporter culture, but I think there was a tangible energy. Potch felt that. We all know Potch's studies energy from citrus and otherwise very, very carefully. And he felt it too. And he said he this, this was finally a moment for Potsch to praise the crowd at a home match rather than to, rather than to bemoan, bemoan its lack of Argentinian partisanness, right? So, so I thought, I'm sure he feels vindicated and going back to Austin. There's been a lot of games in Austin of the last couple of years.

Clearly, he likes the facilities and whatnot. I'm trying to go on. Bear Helter did before him. But yeah, a lot of journalists complaining about 90-degree heat in October. But hey, a former resident, I can understand. It has a magnetic charm, and they showed out, man. I have to give them credit. The fans turned up, and I think it was that made that little bit of difference, maybe.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think I heard some people maybe complaining about the amount of yellow shirts within the stadium. But, I mean, first of all, I don't think it was like... It's America, y'all. Come on. Yeah, it's America. But I don't think it was some sort of, like, stadium takeover. At worst, it was 50-50. Yellow sticks out, you know.

Yellow just sticks out in general when you're looking at a crowd or whatever. That's a green and black stadium. So, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I've been, I just want the stadium full in general. But also, it's nice to have a pro-US slant to the crowd. And, you know, we've had it for Columbus. And, you know, Austin, look, we had enough people in Austin to get a USA, USA chant

that the people on the field were able to recognize, you know. And to your point, Chuck, about people. talking about the originality or whatever. You come up with a chant that you can get multiple people to join in on. Okay, it's hard. It's probably maybe the hardest thing in Americans we're talking about. Americans. Like, it's a, you're fighting an uphill battle, brother.

This is culture. This is generational stuff. It takes a while. So, play resumes. I'm noting this right now. It brings me no joy to say it. 73 minute, Mark McKenzie, he has a pass straight to Rodriguez, an unforced giveaway. I think Mark was grabbing a Ecuadorian long ball that he handled, got control of the ball and tried to pass the ball back up field.

It's picked off. Rodriguez collects it and he shoots from outside the box, but it goes right to Matt Freeze's chest. collected. So that's strike one from Mark McKenzie. In the 74th minute, we get Campana on for Intervalencia. So Intervalencia out for the match for the New England Revolution striker. And in the 77th minute, Mark McKenzie loses a header from a long ball to Campana convincingly. I mean, it was almost, I watched his back like Campana was swallowing the man up.

you know like mark almost didn't have a shot in the world to get involved on this on this header and it starts an ecuador attack so he kind of flicks it back behind him uh medina ends up running onto the ball um on left on the left side left wing right outside the box plays a cross into the box directed towards campana that drew a dramatic claim for mad freeze uh you know superman really had to do you jump up in the air and grab that ball there. And it looked, I mean, that was a dangerous moment. And Mark somehow had gotten disconnected from Leo Kapana. So jitters there for sure. Tough, tough few moments there for Mark McKenzie when he comes onto the match. 81st minute we get Haji Wright on for Filar and Baligan. He comes off to an ovation.

Two and two for the man. really kind of unlucky not to be three and three really. I mean, with the way he came on him and Blitz Creek, South Korea. You know, anyway, that's that's the nine right there. That's the nine right there, ladies and gentlemen. So go ahead, Chuck. Get the next timeline out. All right.

So this is, this is Tillman. I clip this. I give this for Blue Sky. So you can go look at my timeline if you want to see. I'll bet Vince did too though so big ups to the Patreon community that gets to go in depth on this in the 86 minute Again, Tillman is still going strong Doing the little stuff he's done some big stuff so far now But helping out Alex Freeman had a few jitters himself when he comes in on the right flank

But I just love what I use a phrase understated filth here because They're you are trying to play out of the back Freeman takes the ball and he's got a couple defenders bearing down on him. Sorry, Freeman does. Tillman just perfectly picks out the angle to give Freeman a simple pass to feet to split the defenders. And then turns, Freeman to his credit, sees there's acres of space ahead if he gets on his horse. So Freeman starts to run. Tillman's seeing it all the way as the defenders are, yellow jerseys are congregating on him.

He just does this cool little drag back with a little bit of a soul role to kind of freeze a defender and by himself and Freeman a couple extra seconds. And then hits what I think was a little bit of a kind of a mini travella kind of outside of the foot pass into space for Freeman to run onto. And then they're off and running in transition. And it was just maestro matador type stuff from Tillman in his bag. Love it. And just a little background on Chuck here. I just want to let you all know, this is a real hooper. I appreciate this moment from Malik.

From what I gather, this is the best soccer player that American soccer media has to offer. From what I hear. From what I hear. Quit. Quit. Quit that. This is what, this is, look, Adam Bells does not give praise easily. People don't know this.

He can be a crotchety fellow. So when he tells me, Charlie Bohn, he's nice. That's what he told me. And so, yeah, I have no reason. I have no reason not to believe it. I don't deserve this, but I'll take it. Okay. But hey, that's a good, that's a good invite.

We got to get the small side games going again. The next scuffed gathering. We'll have to turn out in ball a little bit at some point. Yes. We have two more timeline items, but before we get to this, I was just, I just remember the point I wanted to make earlier. You know, Chuck, you talked about the fact that both teams kind of felt, you know, this friendly was charged, and it's like, okay, the World Cup is coming.

We're here on this pitch, let's get to it type of thing. I think people are starting to realize this, you know, I'm thinking these crowds. have to be a result of the World Cup incoming maybe you know it's just just something I thought about but

yeah people you know I know this is a mostly sickle audience and I mean that in the most complimentary way but there's a lot of casuals who who are just now starting to start to wake up to the full

expanse of what's coming So, and now I think you have to say, I've detected a lot of jitters among the fan base just about the state of the program, the trajectory. This team has been on in this final year before 26. But if they can, they seem to be getting their act together, if the U.S. can, you know, stay at what we call it a competent, promising level and hopefully shift into another gear or two up in the next few months, then 23 and 24 will, or sorry, I guess it's 24 and this big chunk of 25 will be in more of an afterthought maybe than it has felt like lately. Yeah. All right. 88th minute.

We get Max Arfston. He has the ball. He's inverted a little bit in field, just inside of our attack in half. He plays a pretty decent and well-weighted through ball for Haji Wright. Haji gets to it and cuts inside of Pacho. and shoots just inside of the box right at the keeper on replay. He had a square pass to Malik across the box. That was probably the better option Malik was uncovered.

Once again, another option to increase our chances of scoring a goal on any one play. So we have about three or four of these now that hopefully we get cleaned up in film review, whatever. And then the last timeline item, I have the 91st minute. We have another Maximilian Arfston ball to Haji Wright. This time, Haji collects it just inside of the box. He has Pachot Show hounding him and his touch is loose. So he kind of has to turn his back to the goal to protect the ball and gets to pass back to Max Arfston. Max gets it to Christian Polisick, who tries attacking the, you know, attacking the

the box, dribbling into the box, but it shielded off the ball by a presciato. And that's that. Final whistle blows. One one draw, signature draw, once again. So. And they were mad, right? They were upset with the result. The U.S. were pressing right to the end.

And they were, the dissatisfaction was clear. I think they, I think they knew there was more in that game for them. And all in that end of itself from where I'm standing is a good sign. So yeah, end of the match. Any final thoughts, Chuck? Yeah, so I thought one of the more interesting things, Potts said it was in Spanish after the game. I think it was an Ecuadorian journalist that had asked a question, and he said, we are in a process of development of construction, and I think it's good.

So, you know, Potch kind of lamented the lack of finishing, clinical finishing, and efficiency in front of goal, but said, we are on the right track. And I think he's right. You know, you just see, I think the floor is higher. I think the collective confidence and belief has grown. It could all go up and smoke, I suppose, if you lay an egg against Australia in Colorado on Tuesday. But I don't think that's very likely to happen at this point. Yeah, before we get out of here, I guess you teed it up for me.

Jesse Marsh's Canada team did. Did, I repeat, did. Lay an egg against Australia, they lost 1-0. I can't pass that up, baby. I cannot pass that up. That's, yeah. But yeah, that's it. Me and Greg will be doing the recap episode sometime Tuesday, Wednesday.

We'll have it out to you then. Chuck, thank you so much for being here with me. Always a pleasure. Always a joy. All right. And we'll see you next week. We'll see you.