Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #698: USA v Germany recap

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Sure, we lost. But what should we worry about headed into the World Cup? And what should give us confidence? Greg V joins to break it all down. Details about next week Media Mixer hosted by Sounder at Heart at Project 9 in Seattle, evening of Thursday, June 18: https://partiful.com/e/BY6NPWAb0JVUagYN2q4y?c=sF2c_4mR Matchday bash at Fast Fashion, 1723 1st Ave S, Seattle, doors open at 8 a.m. local time. Hosted by Scuffed and Sounder at Heart. Oh and check out the World Cup edition of Sounder at Heart's magazine: https://sounderatheart.bigcartel.com/product/iv-world-cup-edition Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus 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: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedCheck out our store, where you can get Scuffed hats and sweatshirts and other stuff: scuffedpodcast.com/storeAlso, 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.scuffedpodcast.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. Hello, everybody. We are finally here in the near term for our recap of the Germany match on Saturday. And then zooming out, we have finally arrived at the World Cup, World Cup 2026, which has always been, you know, Greg, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's always been sort of the North Star of our podcast. We're closing in on episode 700. Europeans are spreading out across this vast country of ours, seeing its beauty, eating Taco Bell and Chili's and Wendy's

and tweeting about it. Greg, how you doing? I'm doing awesome. It is. The party started, right? It does feel that way. All over the world are coming here for the party. And we get to be a huge part of it.

just we isn't just like the U.S. soccer program hosting, showcasing, highlighting, and God willing, looking competitive on the soccer field. I can't wait to hear, I can't wait to hear your thoughts about the team lately. The team is magic. I'll just say my thoughts right now. The team is magic. I love this team. I love the squad.

Love the players. Love that we have Maricio Pacino coaching them. Really feel good. about our chances to play decent-looking soccer and being effective, effective enough to have a chance. And that's, again, in a tournament setting, where variance is king, play well enough to give yourself a chance. Variance is God in the tournament.

Let's just go into the lineups. Let's not faf about. It's Matt Freeze and goal, Alex Freeman, Miles Robinson, Tim Ream, and Jedi Robinson. Anthony Robinson across the back line. As you all know, Chris Richards is dealing with a lingering injury. He would likely be the right centerback starter, but there's Miles Robinson for this game. Tyler Adams, West McKinney,

and Malik Tillman in the midfield, and then Sergenio Dest and Christian Pulisic on the wings and Fuller and Balligan at Stryker. Any clarifications there, Dr. Velasquez on the formation? What a journey we've been on to land on Sergenio desk as our right winger. Yeah. Love this. Love this for him.

For us. Yeah, I remember talking about it back in like the 20, like in 2019 when he was first kind of joined us. And I mean, again, he's so clean and tidy on the ball. And our wide attacking depth was was shallow at the time as it sort of is now. And there was always that current of like, would he also be our best winger? I know he's our right back. but would he be our best winger?

And now he's kind of, he's taking the Gareth Bale trajectory, and he's, uh, he's just, he's moving up in the lines. Yeah. Well,

let's get into that before we do the German lineup. You know, uh, Salerno, a long time listener, has suggested, and I don't think he's the only one, that we need des at right back

against a team like Germany to help us build out. And we need, and, but, but we do need him on the, wing against maybe a team like Paraguay to create stuff when we're parked in their defensive third, you know, presumably, hopefully. What do you think of that?

Not that Potch is necessarily going to do it that way, but just as an academic matter. I mean, I buy it a little bit. We just saw what it looked like with somebody else at right back against a Germany. And again, we didn't get punished for any of it, but Freeman was pretty messy. in possession in the buildout. I feel like it was good enough where if he was the only guy we had, I'd be all right with it.

But actually, that was one of my questions coming out of this, is did Freeman do enough for Potsch to trust him when we get to the next time we're playing a German-level team or thereabouts? So that really was my big question. I feel like everyone else pretty much did what you think they would do. and so for me

I don't want to say everyone else was fine like there were some weak performances but you know like if West and McKinney has a weak performance at this stage in in a cycle you're not I don't think you're going to panic Bench him no I don't think but let's be clear it was a weak performance from Wes

no I would agree with that and so then again I just I think it doesn't really matter you got to you got a role with if Christian Pulsoc has off days you're like, well, what are we going to do? Just like run someone out. No, you're not. You're just going to be like, cross your fingers that on the day it matters. He shows up.

So, but with Freeman, you know, because he's so inexperienced, the tape on him is still pretty short. Like, that does become a question. Like, do we trust Freeman to stand up, stand tall in, in the game where it really matters? And specifically in building out against pressure. He did some good. things. He did some, you know, he, he, he stretched his legs and created some separation now and them. But yeah, I mean, that Kroif, that little one-time Kroif pass, first time Kroif pass into to Germany at the top of their box. Oh, brother. Yeah. Yeah. And again, you're just like,

there's no guarantee that somebody else is going to jump in and be flawless in that role. We can pretty much be sure that that's not going to happen. We don't, Sir Gino Dest won't be flawless as a right back. And neither would Joe Scali. But we didn't bring Shackmore. So those are our options. And I feel like, uh, you know, it's where we are. So if, if it is Freeman, the same way we lined up against Germany, it's like we can be in the game with them. So it's not the end of the world at all. Um, but out of this, out of this group, that was a, that was the one that comes to mind. Because again, uh, there is a, there is an option there of dropping death to write back. And then you're adding a Timway or a Diorana, presumably in my mind, uh, different,

Those two are very different players. Wayo more like Dest, I think. Yeah. I mean, you'd almost say Dest is like the, he's got the speed that Waya would bring. And he's got the tidiness that Raina brings, maybe not quite as, I mean, not as strong as Raina, but in a phone booth. Yeah. But maybe, but, I mean, if you take his trickiness into account is like his just comfort with the ball, he's probably as effective in a phone booth. as rain is. I don't know. It's

kind of hard to say. Germany's lineup. Oliver Bauman in goal. He plays at Hoffenheim, Joshua Kimick, at right back in that sort of Philip Lomroll from Byron Munich. And then Jonathan Ta and Nico

Schlaudebock at Byron and Dortmund are the centerbacks. And then Nathaniel Brown, the German-American dual nat at left-back. He plays at Frankfurt. The midfield would be Felix Nemetcha, who plays at Dortmund, a really nice player, and Alexander Pavlovich, who plays at Byron, and then a front line, a front three behind

Kai Havertz of Leroy Sane, Jamal Musiala, and Florian Verz, that's Galatasarai, Bayern, and Liverpool, and then Havers, of course, plays at Arsenal. Lots of Byron Munich players on this team, so that's got to be kind of an advantage for them going to this tournament. They all play together for their club. Also because they're very, very good. They happen to be very, very good. That's one of the other advantages.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we'll get into it. But it's a good soccer team, a bunch of good soccer players. Which is awesome. Again, this is such a great game to be playing against guys who can be in, you know, match day one minus seven mode of like not totally phoning it in, not necessarily going super hard into every challenge. But again, just that just such a casual competence and ease of spacing of decision making. It's, it's fun to watch. And again,

it was fun to watch us at times match that level with certain personnel groupings in small areas. Yeah, I talked about this with Vince and Sanjay a little bit in the episode we recorded yesterday. But my big, the big thing I kept thinking as I watched this game is, man, would it be nice to have a Jonathan Ta? You know, I mean, just, you mentioned the word casual. Like what? Just casually shutting down everything. I mean, of course, there were little moments where he has to burst to block a shot or whatever. but mostly he's just trotting around like throwing wet blankets on everything he sees

and there are definitely there are levels to that to center backing and he is at a high level that it would be nice to have a centerback like that I would take it I would take it yeah let's go to the timeline so we got to start at the 45 second mark with a bit of a doyker from I would say Tyler Adams. So Nemetcha gets a pass just on the edge of Zone 14 comes in from the right side, from Germany's right side, near the arc. He takes a touch in the direction of the sideline, so away from goal, and Tyler chops him down. Free kick from 25 yards, Kimmick steps up to it, clips it onto Kai Howard's head, and he nods at home past freeze. So we're down 1-0 inside 90 seconds. Aside from Tyler, who I think,

I do think this was a silly decision to follow this guy here. Who do you blame for this? Set pieces. There's plenty to go around, I think, and it's all in like little increments that just when, when Germany hits the ball they hit to a player that they hit it to and he finishes the way he does, it's going to make you more frustrated than maybe any one of the errors really demands you be.

But first and foremost, I think the most obvious thing that could have been corrected would have been Miles Robinson's movement ahead of the kick. The man he's on, the man he starts on doesn't score the goal. The man he starts on sets the pick on Tim Riem. I think it's a pretty obvious switching situation. And what I thought was the big mistake from Miles. Miles starts out more towards the far post sideline. Tim Rheim starts on sort of the inside. Mark and his man.

When Miles's man slides over to set the pick, you know, he's moving towards the ball. And Miles doesn't track him at all. He shouldn't track him deep. Like he shouldn't go deeper than that man, like because they're trying to hold that offside line. So he shouldn't match his vertical movement. But he needs to match his horizontal movement across the field, which he doesn't. He just stays planted. So he's not able to, I mean, he's not going to be defending either guy.

He can't defend the, even if his man leaves the pick and just start, it just breaks to goal, Miles wouldn't be able to defend him, and he can't help with Tim Reamsman. So that horizontal movement, I think, is the big mistake because he doesn't even give himself the best chance to be athletic and catch up to the man. The vertical issue is where the blame starts to spread a little bit, because it's just really, really difficult for everyone to keep the discipline and hold the line exactly. So the hope is when your man breaks vertically, he's running into empty space and he's offside.

But you can see on the replay, Wes breaks a little bit early with a runner and doesn't hold the line exactly. So he's off, you know, he's a body length deep. And that creates a new offside line that Miles and Ream aren't trying to hold. Right. So where he gets into is even if Miles makes that horizontal movement

that I think there's no reason he shouldn't have made, he just kind of froze. I don't know if he'll catch the play. because the runner's going to have a half step on him the whole way because of the broken off sideline. And then it's like you said, it's a perfect ball too. And that's the thing. The ball is perfect. It's perfect in a way that Matt Fries could make a play on it, I think, but it's so perfect that you don't know for sure if he could, if he should have.

It's like in that gray area where it's not like, oh, he's got to come get this. The fact that Germany has a man all by himself from that range definitely makes it seem like you got to gamble and go for it. I hope you would in a World Cup match. It's also like a really dangerous ball to sell out for to get. Not dangerous in the sense of like you might not get to it because it's so low, but dangerous in the sense that even if you get to it, you are going to be really exposed physically. And you could be smashing head to head or face to,

I mean, scold a head like with haverts. So it could have been, I mean, like some self-preservation can enter there where you don't even, you're not even aware of that self-preservation entering your decision-making, but because it came in so low and so hot, like it's just a brilliant delivery where it would be right at the edge of whether a keeper should come try to punch it out. And,

and again, you'd probably take a huge hit if you do. So, so that's where the kind of, I feel like the blame is, is kind of spread out. But Miles is a very obvious one. There's,

like, there's no reason not to correct that. Guys are always going to, like, dip a little bit. You're always going to have, somebody dip on the line, I feel like. Right. If we're going to hold that line.

If we're going to just be completely undone on set pieces whenever they swit when they run a pick, like we might as well just, you know, cash it in. It's over. The worst part here is, not the worst part, another thing, going back and looking at other set pieces that we've conceded the teams, not even goals, just set pieces. I was just going through some of our history. And especially against Tim Rine, this is why it's bad for Tyler Adams to give these up. Like, don't give these up, please.

Yeah, man, don't do that. Ream is just really weak on them anyway. They picked him here, which was fine, and it threw us off on our marking scheme. But you watch other ones, and a lot of times, guys don't even have to set a pick on Ream. They just start, like, two yards off of the offside line and just break early. So they have the head, you know, they're running at some speed when the ball is struck. And they just get, like, a yard and a half clear to Ream. Like, you don't need a brilliant pick.

You can sort of just run past him and be in on. goal. So I hope we're working on the old school like dark arts of tussling and bodying people off on their runs. And then it's just going to kind of come down to like, you can also just cross your fingers that no one hits the perfect delivery. A lot of times guys will bust through and they might have two wide open runners and the deliveries, two yards behind him and none of it matters. Or like one and a half feet above them or something. Yeah. Yeah. It just it misses. And that's, that's pretty frequent too. So, yeah, get some better tussling,

better communication and movement on the, on the switches. And then, and then, yeah, pray to the delivery gods. All right. 100% of the blame goes to Tyler Adams.

No, I believe it. Don't give away set pieces like that. You don't need to set the tone with that kind of a, I don't think, I don't think so. Do you think that's what he's trying to do? I'm going to foul this guy,

set the tone. because he was like so late it was so pointless guys running away from the goal like what are you trying to stop him from doing I mean my I got a bias here because I do think Tyler has that like he has like a play tough he plays tough all the time

so I feel like that is him or he's going to be the tough guy and crack somebody but like plenty of places on the soccer field to crack someone you're the center you go everywhere Tyler Adams you can crack somebody on the sideline right not 25 yards from our own goal yeah Okay, so it's 1-0

Vince said he was about ready to Thought maybe he needed to put a paper bag over his head Because it was going to be just like the games in Atlanta But it wasn't to be It wasn't to be we Well, before we kind of write the ship We got cut open again In the sixth minute

This time Kimmick who's I mean he's just a good player Clips a ball over Jedi for Sanay I mean he's Kimmick's working in like the sort of, I guess you'd call it, the channel over on the right side. Just perfect first touches, probing, looking for stuff. And then he like kind of turns and just clips this gorgeous ball over for Sonny. Sonny gets to the end line, cuts it back for Havert's.

Easy money just passes it in at the far post. He's not marked very well, if at all. Fortunately, the ball had crossed the line just before Sanay cut it back. So the goal is chalked off. but this is when I guess the paper bags might have been starting to come out. Yeah, this combined with our pretty much inability to do anything with the soccer ball. I don't know if we had a possession last longer than two passes. And if we did, it had that incredible nervous energy that we play with when we're getting pressed.

Because Germany came out, I mean, Germany came out hard pressing. Which I think is great. That's exactly what we needed in this game. The first 10 minutes was not like that. being casual incompetent. It was like, we will crush you under our boot. So this sequence that Germany plays where they get this ball in behind us, I do think Jedi fell asleep a little bit,

but also I think this is a pattern that we will be vulnerable to or an area of the field that we're always going to be vulnerable to with Tim Rine playing because I think he's well aware of his limitations speed-wise. and I think his tendency is always to hug, to like hold central and deep. So the gap between him and Jedi is always going to be bigger than it would be if it was a more mobile centerback.

And there's just always going to be a little bit more room to try to exploit that. It still took a wonderful pass. And even then it wasn't quite wonderful enough because it took the guy out of bounds. But I also think Ream's reluctant to go, like, meet this ball. Like with Jedi beat, it could be Ream going out. but he doesn't like to do that.

He stays home, but he doesn't even quite stay home enough. He ends up in No Man's Land, and that's how they get the tap in because he isn't marking the shooter or the cutback. So I hope we, I mean, again, I just hope this isn't an opening that costs us dearly, but I don't know that there's a fix to it with Tim Riem on the field. Okay. Do you think, I mean, I want to talk about this more as we go, but it does seem to me like,

We are susceptible. I mean, in every game we play against every opponent, possible exception of that Paraguay game where we were pretty good defensively, maybe. But it seems like we just give up goals. Like we're going to give up goals all the time. Like, we're going to have to score a lot of goals if we're going to win games at the World Cup. Yeah, and even that you can qualify.

It doesn't mean we're going to have to win four three. even if we need two goals to win a game against Paraguay and Australia, that's a lot more goals than we're used to scoring in World Cups. We don't just banging goals in World Cups. Nobody does because teams will be so cagey and usually conservative. And I'm expecting conservative and some very gamesmanshipy group stage matches where things are going to be ugly and muddy and sluggish. But are we going to be conservative and cagey?

Or are we going to just come out guns blazing like we have been and then give up goals? I think guns blazing. I don't see Pach parking everybody back. And I honestly don't think you should. I think we should be going because we're not good at it. So why invite the other team to test it for long? longer. Yeah, yeah.

We really need the ball in their half of the field. That's our best defense. All right, nine minute mark. We hit from deep. Finally, you know, string some passes together after this. And I don't know, we didn't really string that many together in this sequence. But Jedi passes, like clips it to Pulisic, who's like flashing back to the ball. He takes a touch around, I think it was Kimik, but it might have been Pavlovich,

and sprays it long for Dest. over the back line. This is actually a pretty decent chance. He gets ahead to it, but he can't win the duel with Nathaniel Brown, and it gets cleaned up by Germany. But we threatened, I think, for the first time in the game. Yeah, this is the warning shot. And it was that panicky passing in the back,

where it was like we clearly had no real outlet to play, and Jedi found one anyway, thanks to some quickness from Christian Pulisic to get to his entry pass. and then just an outstanding ball from Pulisic. Yeah. Like actually just an outrageous ball to hit while under pressure to break a pass to even get his eyes up to know that was on. But that was a bit of a warning shot. And if that was all we had done, maybe Germany can kind of keep pressing us.

But then, like, we actually hit him a couple more times right away. And I think that was a huge deal. Like, that was a massive, it's a huge three-minute sequence for us, I think, five minutes. You mean from basically from like 9 to 12 something like that? Yeah, they're about 9 to 14. Yeah. Okay. Well, they, before we get to the other times where we hit them, they hit us again, right before the 10 minute mark.

It's, uh, we're, we're applying some pressure just inside their half and they just cut through us so easily. I don't, I've, at the timestamp I've got is 9.50. and I don't know what is going on here but basically everybody is eliminated and they're going down the left side and I think it's Verts who

skitters won across the gold mouth If Sanay you know sort of shapes his run a little differently probably he has a tap in at the back post but it does skitters all the way through is this like a bad read from Wes maybe he misses his rotation that's

it's really hard to tell so we're We're not in our 4-4-2 defense. We didn't mention that either. We're in the 4-2-3-1, which Apache has busted out a few times. So this isn't brand new, but it's very much a 4-2-3-1 defensive block with a pretty high line of confrontation. We're willing to creep up on Germany. And they do a bit of a Netherlands here where they pretty comfortably play through it. And so they have, they've built down their right side deep, you know, in front of their box.

And then it's a quick switch to the left, which pulls. desks up to defend the ball up at the corner of their box. But they get the ball up to the sideline. And Freeman then moves way upfield to meet that pass up. And Desman basically blows past him. And whether it's on desk to over that space or not, I don't know. This is where I don't know what the assignment would be. Because it could well be that, I don't think it would be McKinney.

It would be the right side of midfielder in the two, where it might be Malik. but again, I don't know. I'm not sure who is supposed to have that space to discourage that pass. Or again, it might be, Freeman might be in charge of not racing up to his man who's checking that far back. And he might be, you know,

he might supposed to pass that off someone. Not sure. I really am not, not sure. But yeah, that's fine. It's really clean from Germany. It's dealt with well enough, I think, by Miles Robinson running back at his own goal. and Tim Rie where

they don't get a clean look and Jedi too on the weak side so they don't get a clean look they don't get the tap in and it took an offside pass to get the guy in behind miles to cross it okay

all right another good chance for us at the 1145 mark which Tillman wins it in midfield like just takes it from somebody and then Pulisic gets it loses it Tillman recovers it back, and then very cleverly, he's got two defenders, you know, collapsing in front of him,

and he just kind of lifts the ball between them over to McKenny, McKenney heads it down for Pulisic. Pulisic plays it out to Balow, and then he fizzes it across the goal mouth from the left side, just misses the trajectory of Desk's run to the backpost. I mean, if Desk just runs clean at the backpost, he probably gets it. He does like a, he's trying to seal off the, he's trying to seal off Brown. and get between him and the goal and that little bit of inward movement takes him out of the path of the cross.

But good from us. We're settling it. Yeah. I mean, again, after the last bit, after that ninth minute chance we kind of, or the threatening moment we had, this is another warning shot. And this is in transition,

not building through Germany's press, but just absolute class from Malik Tillman. And, you know, that's the other thing I think was, very apparent in this game. You alluded to it with Serginio Desk, comparing him to Raina and just his ability in the phone booth.

When he has the ball, you don't just go in and take it from him. We talk about that clock that everyone has that runs once they get the ball. And for some players, it's going to run out as soon as soon as it runs out. The alarm is going off all the time for Tyler Adams.

And for so many so many of our guys now, it's not. Like, they can reset the clock. or they can basically hold the ball as long as they need to in most situations, even if they can't go forward, they can hold it until they, until something else develops to recirculate. And Malik in this moment for his,

for him to like stand on the ball and not have that panic because he stands on it for like two beats longer than you think he can with two German players right next to him. Until he can pull off that outrageous like scoop outside of the foot, flick to West, is just class. So I think we'll get into it with the subs, but I feel like our starting group has so many guys whose clock is much longer than once we bring in subs.

And that with so many of them on the field together, we have this moment and we'll get to the next one in a second here. But this is telling Germany, like, we can play against you. Like, you can't just sort of have your way here. Like we can do some things. We're here. Yeah. Tillman was excellent in this game, I would say.

And I think I saw you say somewhere, you know, he's pretty sure he's going to be the starter at the 8 on Friday. I sure hope so. Like for me, this, this cements it. Because, yeah, he was, he was very good and very committed. just a lot to a lot, he's going to add a lot of ball control and ability to sort of not just, not just, he's not just ball secure, like in the way that Eunice Musa might be in the last World Cup, but he has a lot of other dynamics that Eunice Musa did not have. Yeah, for sure.

That would make him a huge upgrade as long as, again, as long as we can maintain his defensive alertness and commitment off the ball. Yeah. It is interesting that, you know, Destin Tillman, the two guys we've highlighted the most at being comfortable and not, you know, having a long clock, as we say, both developed in other countries.

And then if Tillman is, in fact, a starter, and I think I would say he should be a starter now, four of our 11 lock starters are that, are players developed in other countries, which is not, you know, I'm just, just saying, I'm not trying to be problematic or anything. I think it's, I'm super excited about it. Just that, I guess what I'm not excited about is the possibility that we're still not developing that very well here on American soil.

But maybe that's a subject for another podcast. We will address it at some point. All right. 15 minute mark. Desk gets a shot from distance on a corner kick. It just kind of gets squared to him. I think by Pulisic. Might have been Jedi left footed, not bad, just over the bar.

Oh, so leading up to that corner, though, was a fantastic, like, two and a half minute team possession sequence. Where it was the first time, and we had it, we were like, Germany had us pinned. It was one of those where they had us all the way back to Matt Fries. passing it to him a little like hot had to get it to him quickly because the pressure was going to arrive and you know he's standing on his goal line and where it wasn't like he's got tons of room we were rondoing in our box um we eventually get out with a really nice tim ream pass after he did a little bit of hesitation to let jedi like flood up the sideline on the left side but all this to say is there was a moment at that at that point where we got it to jettie and

Jedi, again, wasn't open. That's super open when we got it, but with his first touch and movement, created some separation after he received the ball, where you see Germany actually retreat in mass, where their whole shape drops back as one to get behind us as we sort of have, like, beat their press, kept very good possession. We've got secure possession, and they just retreat into their block. And I think it was the first time in the match that you saw it, like that we actually beat them and held possession.

they retreated into their block. And you could finally see what their block shape was. And they were also in a four, two, three one at the start. But that was the first time, 13 minutes in. And I feel like from that moment on, they were less eager. And it might have just been where, you know, that could have just been almost like the, the instruction ahead of time. We're going to press for the first 10.

You know, first 15, we're going to press hard. See if they can handle it. So, but I don't know. But either way, it was notable that they dropped, sat in their block. And then we felt for the rest of the half. we were very much even or on top of the game. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting.

I did not notice that. And, I mean, it was also hot, right? And maybe, so to your point about maybe it was a pre-determined timeline, like a 15 minutes of pressing in that. I don't think you could press like full speed for the full game out there in that Chicago Sun. And rain, there was rain, too. By the way, we haven't talked about the atmosphere. It looked really fun. It looked like a party.

And I saw Vince posted a photo or a video of everybody waving flags, you know, in alternating colors around the stadium. And they were playing Welcome to the Party by Diplow. So that was kind of appropriate. Baligan gets a chance at the 1540 mark. I think he like runs in front of Ta to get to a ball and then he's off to the races. But this Jonathan Ta fella just kind of shepherds him, keeps shepherding him wider,

and then does show a little burst to get in there and block the shot, the left-footed shot. But, you know, we've seen Ballast score a lot of goals this way just with a defender on his right shoulder and then rifling it in with his left foot or, you know, in the other direction if he's on his right foot. 20 so there's sustained pressure from us this being on top of it that you were talking about but nothing is super threatening in this period of the game I don't think just we're not you know

we're not under duress and but I'll say this too this all of these moments would be super threatening I think against much worse centerbacks yeah you know like these guys from Germany are very good at making dangerous moments not look that dangerous because they just have such control of the space. And if Paraguay or Australia kind of give up these moments with the room that that that Desk created or that Balagan created here, then it would be a very different outcome. Yeah. Yeah, it's so that the quality of those centerbacks is, it's,

so much cerebral, isn't it? You know, it's like, it's all just your understanding of angles and how to, like, I don't know, not make either option look very obvious. And it's not exactly fun to watch, but it is really, it is really impressive. Impressive, exactly. 27 minute mark, I had to clock this Tyler Adams moment because he can't, he just can't receive the ball in tight space. And Pulisic is kind of striding in across from the left side. And he maybe waits a beat or too long to pass it to Adams. But Adams is in a big pocket of space

right above the arc. And it just shows you how hard, this moment shows you how hard it is to receive the ball on the half turn in a tight space like this. Because his first touch doesn't look, like in a vacuum, it doesn't look like a bad first touch. But it's just like, it's like to 20 degrees too far to the left when it should be, you know, 20 degrees further over to the right. And that that 20 degrees makes all the difference and he's immediately blown up. And then Germany's off to the races with us. Yeah. And 30.

Go ahead. Well, I was just saying the difference becomes clear when like you see that same pass go to Malik Tillman. Right. Or a Gio Raina or a player wearing a Germany jersey because they just never mess up. Yeah. Yep. 3345 mark. Freeman is struggling a bit.

This is when he tries that first time Croiff pass in our half, just inside our half, and launches a counterattack that I think Ream and Jedi do well to kind of deal with. But I will say, like I said earlier, Freeman, there's times where he's stepping inside of a guy and going forward and creating a little bit of an imbalance. But like you said earlier, pretty messy. A 36 minute mark, we work it out of the back nicely. Pulisic turns Kimick and we're off. I mean, this is really explosive from Pulisic. It brings back all the memories from, you know, the late teens and early 20s.

We went a corner. I mean, we're working up the right side. We went a corner. Pulisic takes it. Ta heads it away to the top of the box. And here is where the poetry happens. Jedi meets it with everything on that sort of. just kind of like halfway top, halfway inside of his left, or outside, I'm sorry, outside

of his left boot drives his foot through it. And it's just an unstoppable laser beam off the underside of the crossbar. As Andres Contor said, a bombazzo from another galaxy from Jedi. Yeah, I mean, there is, there exists a theoretical limit to how well a soccer ball can be struck. And that is how well Jedi struck it. So it's, one of those where there might be other players who have struck a ball as well, but no one has struck one better than that. That is the best you can strike a soccer ball. Right. Yeah. I think of like the Zinn and Dean Zadon volley off the like, you know, the sky ball. You know, you know the one I'm talking about. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And some of those,

even some of those volleys, I'm not going to, I'm not going to try to disparage the classics. So I won't name any of them. But some of those are, are less about. how well it's struck and more just about the endeavor, the attempt to hit it and the fact that it ends up going into goal. So we'll just say like the Julian Green goals of the world. When it happens in a Champions League final, when Wayne Rooney hits a bicycle off of his shin, like it's, it's magical that he did that against Man City. But it's not, he didn't strike it as well as the ball can be struck, if that makes sense. This, this is just a ball that has hit so well that you cannot have hit it better. Yeah. What a joy to watch. And I

I guess it made the rounds all over, you know, our fractured, fractious, and depressing media landscape. Well, it's nice that he coupled it with a backflip that was executed probably while the ball was still in flight. Like, he knew. He could start his backflip right away. Yeah. Because it wasn't even, it didn't even have to be top bins, right? Like, it's directly over the goalkeeper, but who cares? Yeah.

You probably, the goalkeeper probably didn't actually see the ball in flight. No, it's like if you hit it that well. you can basically hit it right at the goalkeeper. Well, maybe not right at them, but, you know, a foot off. The buildup to get there, though, is really impressive. And again, for as much as there was some concern about the fact that we haven't put our first group together very much, or ever, in this cycle, the rotations, the buildup in that possession were really nice. Because, again, Germany aren't coming really hot with the press, but because we were playing it around the back so much, we gave them enough press. triggers that they did kind of step up to us.

And in the end, Tyler Adams is dropped deep and kind of pings a pretty hot ball at Miles Robinson's feet with somebody coming at him. And Robinson collects it. And then the rotations off the ball in midfield are really good, where McKenney has rotated high, Pool Sick comes back in from sort of as that left 10, he drops back in and picks it up on the defensive midfield line. And Malik really smoothly just. slides over to the space pool pool sick has vacated as we just kind of uh cycle about and it's really

clean and and that helps even create the the room for pool stick to do his magic on the ball where you can dust a couple of guys because it's not crowded he's not going to dust a guy and run right into malik tilman he's going to dust a guy and have open field to run into uh again even against an opponent as organized as germany beautiful we get a desk change chance off a scrappy play in the 42nd minute. This is actually really, this is really nice from Sergenio. It's a little bit of head tennis going on over on our left sideline. Jedi heads it toward Ballo, who's got, who's occupying Ta.

I mean, got to give Ballo credit here. He's got a tough assignment up against this guy. And he doesn't even touch the ball here, but the fact that he is on, he is occupying him. He's got his back on him. Ta can't, like, you know, can't dart to the ball because what if, what if Balagan takes it, then he's, like, free to go in. So it goes past both of them to Dest, who kind of darts in front of Schlaugherbeck to get to it. Is it Schlaugherbeck?

I think it is, yeah. And he shimmies, he kind of shimmies past Schlaugherbeck onto his left foot, tries one, has a, it's a pretty good look, and it goes over the bar. It's a good chance, though. Yeah, really opportunistic. The pounce is great. the reed that this could sneak through to beat his man to the ball

and then the shimmy's huge to get the shot because again Germany don't just just because you beat him there doesn't mean you're going to get an open shot so he has to then create the shot and he does a great job of that and he just kind of skies it but it's a really dangerous chance for us that

it's exactly what you hope to see us be able to do in what you might be a round of 16 World Cup contest right i used to be so anti-dest at the wing and i'm i'm just ashamed of myself i'm ashamed i'm sorry everyone 43 minute mark tilman again classy uh it's headed in his direction from the right side again it's kind of a scrappy moment and the ball comes in and he just like he just so casually back heels it into open space for pool of sick um eliminates Schlaudebock, I believe, and then Poulisic's running at the back line.

I mean, you're looking at the clip right now. Is it Schlaugbeck it eliminates? I'll have to check. It doesn't really matter. I want a magnifying glass because, like, I even want to appreciate the surface of the foot and the leak uses because it's not a back heel. It's like the top front portion of his ankle ball joint.

And I don't know, it's just, yeah, he's just like, he's got some tricks, man. He does indeed. Yeah. And then Poulosk's running at Tah. Like running at a naked backline, Ta is scrambling in his casual way. And Tad just does really well to kind of shepherd him to the right and get a foot to the shot and send it over the bar. It did seem like even if he hadn't blocked it, the keeper had it covered, but maybe I'm wrong about that. So this is one of the first examples we get a Poole sick actually racing into the box kind of

on the drive and it's a perfect case of Germany's defenders being able to retreat and and like you kind of said give give pool sick uh sort of equally good options i mean we have good options it's three on two running into the box with christian pulcic on the ball so it's like this is a really great moment uh but taa manages to discourage the ball to balo so pulcic can't just be like okay well he's giving me the past to follow so i take that and he's not giving him a clear lane to the goal. So it's like, oh, I just go clearly the goal. It keeps him right in the middle where it's, it's, which one do I do? And so sort of maximizing that indecision, if you will, is, is the art, I think, in these, in these open field moments that was really on display here. And so for this one,

in most of these, Poulsick ends up choosing to keep it and shoot. And I honestly think that's usually the right choice for him in these moments, because if they're equally good, you know, equally valuable choices to try to slide it through the small window to or to dribble and shoot. I trust Poulsick more on the dribble than the slide rule pass. Yes, sure. The arena from Leak Tillman, they're going to find that pass, even though it's really difficult.

For Poulsick, I wanted to do the difficult dribble and shoot. Yeah. Yeah, there were a couple of those where he couldn't, I mean, where Tom made it hard for him to pass to Ballo and, like, you're thinking as they're going down the field, well, surely there must be some way to get it over to him, but it wasn't like a clear opportunity for it. Germany stitches together another attack through our middle,

just kind of passing it around in our third, and it gets to like the top right corner of the box and then play it across to Musiola. And Tilvin kind of jumps on Musiala's back in this sequence. It's a little scary, but no whistle and we're safe. I feel like that would be called a penalty a lot of the time, wouldn't it? I feel like we lose to the VAR

if it doesn't get called in real time. I feel like you're not going to get away with that one. That was very much a friendly decision. Yeah. So don't do that, Malik. And then right before the half, Pulisic Mug's Kimmick in midfield, one of Kimmik's rare sort of missteps in the game,

races toward goal. this is another one where Todd does extremely well and blocks the shot Schlaugherbeck also very smartly just races to try to cover the Balagan pass so there might have been a window for an early ball into that space for Balligan but it's not an open shut case

and then of course ballistic shot gets blocked out for another corner kick I think we had six corner kicks in the first half to one or two for Germany this first half this feels like the knockout the knockout game blueprint for me I know we lose the game eventually, but it's like, as we say a lot,

there isn't a blueprint that gives us the actual advantage over our top 10 team. You're looking for the one that puts you in the game, put you in the contest, keeps you in it. And then with a little bit of luck in different areas, you get to advance. I'm really curious what we can look like against an Australia or Paraguay. I don't know how Turkey is going to play either. but a team that might make it might not leave the space behind their backline as available.

Germany can do that because it's so hard to actually move into that space coherently. But I don't think Paraguay and Australia are going to. So I'm really curious what it'll look like and whether we, because we don't really have that warm-up game at this point. We played them earlier in the cycle. But it would be nice. I would love to have one game like that. Senegal was pretty wide open, too. It was, yeah.

We just got to give the rock to Jedi and let him blast it from 30 yards, you know? I'm optimistic. Like, it makes me really excited to see what they do. It's just going to be, you know, the test was very much the real-time test. It's, so that's the half. Let me just say, join the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. If you're going to Seattle, come join us at Project 9 Brewery on the night before the game.

the 18th of June. There's going to be a Sondrette-Hart hosted media mixer, but everybody's invited. I'll put the link to that, to RSVP to that in the show notes. Also, we're going to, we've ordered $1,700 worth of beer for the, for the morning of the game at Fast Fashion Brewery, which is a mere five, 10-minute walk south of Lumen Field. And we're going to be having, we're going to be meeting up there. We've got at least, like, more than 100. People have put their name down in the Google sheet.

So come and join us, have a beer on us. It'll make it easier because then everybody doesn't have to close out their tabs and do all that nonsense. That's another thing. Maybe we'll do pick up on Thursday the day before the game as well. So stay tuned for that. Bring your boots. Yeah, bring your boots.

Bring some turfs or something. Or some even sneakers probably will work. And that's it for announcements. We'll be back in a second. All right, we're back. Second half. And right away, just to, I mean, maybe my favorite moment of the game from the U.S. outside, I mean, obviously, Jedi's goal is my favorite moment from the game.

But it's a close second. 4735 mark. Tillman gets dispossessed over on the right sideline in Germany's half. And they're trying to pass it around to get forward. But he chases down Pavlovich, like, Seven seconds later. Love this from Tillman. He's given us the defensive effort,

which I think if you've been watching him over the last couple years, you know that he'll do, but it's still good to see. And he pokes it away to Ballow right across the top of the box, a little above the box, and we're going into Germany's penalty area. Ballot takes what...

I'm very curious what you think of this, but... Ballot takes what looks like a heavy touch, maybe because he expected a different sort of run from Tillman, but it freezes everyone and then Tillman darts over to it and kind of hovers on it and plays just a clever little pass around Kimmick to Pulisik. Pulisic has a shot. It's a very good shooting opportunity. It goes right at the keeper. It's saved. It comes right back to me. He has another shot. This one is also saved. And then Tillman has a shot and that one goes over the bar. I did think Pulisick on his second take or maybe or even Tillman on his take could

squared it for Ballo or clipped it to the far post for McKinney. But, you know, anyway, it turns out Tillman was offside. VAR would have taken this whole thing away anyway, but still a lot of excitement there right at the beginning of the second half. Yeah, excellent transition situation created by Malik. And this Balo touch, I do not basically give, I don't believe for a second that this was in any way intentional. What do you think he was trying to do?

I think he was flummoxed. I really think this is, again, Germany being so good at denying the angle or discouraging the angle to Pulisic, where Poolecic kind of overlapping him to the left, it never presents itself as like, oh yeah, there's the opening. I hit this now. Like that automated vision where you see the lane and hit it in, like the lane never quite opens itself. It's probably there. Like if there is a tiny window you could hit, but it's not, it doesn't. present itself obviously, though it's that paralysis of like, I have two equal choices to keep dribbling or try to feed pool sick or wait for Malik coming on the right side.

Or shoot from distance, which in this era, very few players take the really early shot, which is, I think, a positive development. If we were watching the 2010 throwback World Cup games, like everyone shoots from 25 yards. It doesn't matter. You got an open, you have side of the goal. You just lay, put your laces into it. but yeah this was just uh just balo like paralyzing himself and then just taking a really heavy touch and then malik being really uh opportunistic to not just pounce on it but to hit that outrageously

subtle uh path to pulsock like that is that's the for me that was the moment uh the sequence was just how ridiculous that touch is uh to to eliminate germany's defenders um and make it so pool sick does not have to catch up to it like the ball is basically dead by the time pool sick arrives at it yeah it could not be a better touch yeah that was like that was like what malik was doing against gold cup minnows when he was when he was just setting people up like this get excited about malik tillman america um so no goal uh and like i said it would have been i think tillman was off side it would have been chalked off anyway they chalked it off they called it we didn't even get xg out of this so when you're looking at the xg numbers remember they

correctly took this XG away from us. Okay. All right. Forty-ninth minute, Sane gets the ball off a throw-in on our left side, and we see a little bit of the defensive limitations of the team here. It's like Reams on his back. He kind of soul-rolls it around Ream on one side, spins to the other, races past him, just leaves him for dead. And then Tyler Adams comes in, takes a pretty bad angle and he gets left for dead too by Sane. So we got Sane running, just sprinting free down the right wing. He cuts it back for Havert's at the top of the box. Havers is a good player, isn't he?

And he leaves it for Nemeca, who very smartly leaves it for Nemeca, who shot to the near post from 20 yards is saved by freeze. But yeah, both Ream and Adams got cooked. I just feel like Adam, I know I've been. been criticizing Adams a lot and you're not really taking the bait. But I feel like he needs to be better if we're going to knock. I mean, we know we don't have elite centerbacks, even when Chris Richards is healthy. We need Tyler Adams to be like a lot better than he was in this game.

I mean, I think that's true. But I'm at the point where again, like, it's like saying I need Tim Rame to be faster. He's just not. He's not faster. Tyler Adams is going to like vacate areas that I wish you wouldn't vacate times where I wish you would keep keep them occupied. So, you know, we'll get to it on the goal in just a little bit. It's just, there's not a better option.

I don't think there's a scheme where you can scheme for it. I mean, with Ream at least, it's possible that if we, if he just can't keep up a different centerback could make us slightly better. But I don't see a world where. where we go, you know, Malik Roldon or Malik McKinney as our two, two players in the defensive midfield. No, you're right. And that makes us better.

No. At this point in the game, it's just, it's very entertaining. It's up and down, back and forth. We look like an exciting team, a magic team, as you said, Greg, with a pretty unstable defense. and, you know, Germany Germany also looks good. 57th minute, they score their game winner.

It's a quick passing combination starting on the right side. Pavlovich plays it into Musiala at the top of the box and he plays a one-touch pass you know, basically at a right angle, straight into Havert's inside the box. Again, Havert's so clever. I think a lot of players would

like take that, receive that with the back foot and try to like shoot at the near post right away. Instead, he just leaves it for Sane, who has made a third man run. Darts has darted past Adams as it goes into Haverts into that big pocket of space. Sane, I think, takes a touch and then shoots somewhat gingerly as Miles closes him down. Kind of like lifts his foot up as he shoots. But it goes, I think it's a little unlucky for us. the ball goes underneath Miles's shin.

So it goes through his legs, but underneath his shin, and just barely fits under there as he's like, as he's like dropping his shin to the grass. And then takes a slight deflection that way and goes right in the far corner to one. I mean, this is where we talk a lot about our center midfielders and taking the most dangerous space away. And we just didn't do it again.

And for me that this one in particular is a Tyler Adams space issue. I've seen some criticism of Malik on the play. And we'll get to that. But I think it's a very clear Tyler Adams' miss rotation, missed runner. Because he's got Sane. Like Sane is right next to him. He's looking at him. When that ball goes up to the top of the box, you can see who everyone has got assigned.

basically. It's essentially man on man. Malik is going up to the top of the box to close the guy who ends up hitting the entry pass. Reem has Avert's tracked. Miles has his guy. Freeman has his guy. And Adams has Sane. Sane runs right by Adams's back shoulders as Adams pivots to watch the entry pass.

And Adams never moves. Yeah. So again, on the entry pass, even if you don't see Sani, it shouldn't really matter. Like the ball is being hit vertically beyond you. You should just be automatic. as a defensive mid, tracking back towards the ball to provide more bodies around the ball. So to just stand and watch, to stand straight up and watch, that's like a huge, it's a miss. Malik does the same thing.

So Malik also stands and watches as that entry pass goes past him. And he shouldn't do that either. He should be as part of the pivot. He should immediately drop on that path too to help. And what he should end up doing is being like extra help in the area that Tyler should already be in. but as the experienced like veteran defensive mid versus the guy who's sort of moonlighting as a as a guy in the pivot this is already Tyler's primary responsibility it's his man and he's he's got more experience in the role he should be in here closing this out it's also one of those words like no one probably no one's going to do it perfectly every time like you're going to miss this runner sometimes that's how third man runs are so effective so I don't want to like hammer it too hard. I just mean on the tape, this is very much Tyler Adams is miss.

Yeah, it's like you need to be sort of magnetically attracted. I mean, I guess you call it the wedding cake. We call it the wedding cake. Magnetically attracted to the penalty marker in this spot in this situation and just sort of drifting back towards it. Because, yeah, you don't want Sonny to shoot from the left corner of the box if he gets the ball there. But man, would you take that over him shooting from like the direct center of the goal mouth? Yeah, we look, we look, I thought we looked very, I'm so excited about the way we're attacking in both of these last two games, but it does seem like we look, we look very porous to me. And I don't, yeah, go ahead. No, well, I'll let you finish. I'll let you finish, because I want you to, want you to get in

your, your jab at our porousness. I'm, I'm kidding, I'm with there is some porousness. No, I mean, yeah, it's, uh, it's not like, it's not like anybody from Germany in this play did anything like amazing. It's is pretty simple for them to cut us open. And I know what you just said is true. That's why third man runs are so effective is because nobody's paying attention to that third man. That's a, it's a really, it's really clever from Sane. It's clever from Havers to see him making that run and, and play it to him so efficiently.

But it does seem like we shouldn't be, we have a lot of bodies behind the ball. We have, we, it's like our shape is pretty decent. And then all of a sudden, boom, it's a goal. I don't like that. That's what I'm saying. No, for sure. And we want this taken away. But the one thing I'll say about our team defense is even with the miss,

even if Adam's missing the runner, it's still not a tapping, I guess, I mean, that small constellation as the ball goes into the goal. But in the moment you're saying, how is our team defense? We have a man there closing it down,

closing down the shot, like to take away a decent, a big portion of the goal. So from an overall, like, team defense thing, we missed the runner that we need to do better on. But if you're saying, was it like a full team breakdown? It probably isn't. You say we got to be a little.

You're right. But we didn't have it where like he could either shoot here or tap it to the next guy for a tap in. You know what I mean? So we've seen those kinds of clown shoes moments where it's like one guy alone on goal with another teammate right next to him that he could pass you for a different one on zero if wanted to. And this wasn't that and there wasn't a lot of, there weren't really any of those moments throughout this game. So overall, I think our team defense looked pretty solid. And again, I think a lot of

that is, is the overall individual ability of players we have here to control their space and not be completely outmanned combined with what I think is pretty solid organization. I think we were pretty solidly organized in this game. I mean, I kind of went to bat for our organization, even in the Portugal and Belgium window. I was like, I mean, they did score here. But we had, we had five guys behind the, like we had five guys contesting. We weren't, we weren't just like pantsed. They just hit a ball through our, through our five guys and scored and it sucks.

Yeah. Fair enough. I want more, I want more alertness. Because again, this is, this is very much like Netherlands, 22 coded, right? Like where we, we fall asleep for a moment and let a really good player have a clean, a decent look. This isn't even that clean of a look like... Well, yeah. I explained it in the description, but yeah, Miles was very close to, like, blocking this shot.

I mean, a half an inch, a quarter of an inch. Yeah, it's a clean wind-up. He's definitely looking at an obstructed goal here. So we don't want to give the guy space for a clean wind-up either. You want to not have those moments as much as you can from that spot in the box. But I do think, are, like, again, between Senegal, this game, and even Portugal and Belgium, I'm okay with our general organization defensively going into a knockout tournament. Okay.

I do think we're going to get scored on because we don't have a goalkeeper who stands on his head and our centerbacks just have some weaknesses. And Alex Freeman's are right. We have enough individual limitations that it's unlikely they're all going to put together their best games and just blank teams for five straight games. Yeah, I mean, I guess I can't be running around demanding that from the team either. A bunch of subs in the 62nd minute. Raina Burhalter, McKenzie, and Trustee come on for Pulisick, McKinney, Miles, and Jedi.

So it seems like a pre-planned raft of subs right at the hour mark. First action from Mark McKinney, McKenzie in the 63rd minute. is an errant pass up the sideline. It misses Baralter by a couple of yards and sparks a little counterattack. A poor Pavlovich shot from distance ensues, which turns out fine. But, I mean, this wasn't even like a hard pass to make, you know. It was like, it's a 10-yard pass to feet, and he misses him by enough where it just goes right to a white shirt. Got to do better there, Mark.

Yeah, and this one on the shot, this does look like we have some confusion now. And again, you're running into, Seb Berhalter doesn't control his space as well as like a Malik Tillman does. So now that it's Seb Burhalter in the pivot, Malik kind of slides up into the McKinney role as McKinney comes off. We lose that. We lose some range.

He doesn't cover as much ground in the same amount of time. And when he does get to his place, he doesn't control his space as well as Malik Tilman does. So even as we have this turnover, Seb gets back, but he can't disrupt the, their play as well as other players we have could and they end up with his shot it's not all on seb tyler adams needed to maybe give set a little more help so it's it's funny we were like

you got to you got to find the balance so on this one tyler didn't come out to help and left burhalter uh two on one at the top of the box as tyler stayed like we're glued to the penalty spot so maybe he'd got the message uh but yeah then just sort of stayed in his spot and didn't come out to meet the shooter. Like that's a whole idea. Start deep so you can come out away from it to defend. To close the space. Yeah.

I mean, as we talk about it, it occurs to me, like these little decisions are just so hard and everything's happening so fast. It's partly why a player like Jonathan Tau is so impressive, you know, because it is so hard to do that stuff and handle it and not get, exposed. And that's the whole thing, right? If it sounds like I'm being harsh on Tyler Adams, we've never had a player who's going to do this against Germany correctly the whole game.

Yeah. Like, just get it right. So Germany never gets any shots off, please. Like, that's, that is not a standard that I'm expecting anyone to meet. It's just when you're, that's what you're going to look at when you look at the tape and be like, this is what we needed on this play. Like, we needed this player to do this better or be in this space sooner. But it, it, it, is, I hope it's not coming off as like super being super critical of Tyler Adams. Well, I know I certainly am coming off that way because I have been super critical of him. But, I mean, that doesn't mean he shouldn't start. I still think he should start.

I just, I just, I mean, if he's out there primarily for his defensive midfielding, then which he is, then it needs to be better. But maybe like you said, it's just not going to be better. Anyway, 67th minute. Ballot gets a gift from Rom, the left back who had subbed on for Nathaniel Brown, and Rom misses Schlaugbeck with a back pass. It goes right to Balagan, but he can't make anything of it.

It gets dispossessed almost immediately by Schlaugbeck. And it just occurred to me in this moment. Ballow has not had his best game against Germany, which maybe that's just how it's going to be. It's going to be a slog against the team of this Calder. but we'll get more from him, I think, in most of the World Cup games than we got from him in this game. Yeah, and like you and Vince have always kind of pointed out, he's going to be, like, he makes himself a volume guy. Like he makes himself a guy who's just going to keep going and keep going, keep going, and so Tau's going to get the best of him 10 straight times, but Ball is going to be there for an 11th time later.

And he's going to, he's going to keep going. And he can do that against Paris Saint-Germont. he can do it in the World Cup. Yeah. More subs in the 72nd minutes. Roldon comes on, Scali, Aronson, Arfston, Wea and Pepe,

so we basically did a full line change in the 10 minutes since the hour mark. Tillman, Adams, Freeman, Ream, Ream, Dest, and Ballot come off. 73rd minute, Roldon gets trucked by Musiala and midfield.

I'm not exactly sure what happened here to Roldon because he was down, like he looked like he was really hurt, sort of. maybe hit his head on impact on the ground or something. But again, we struggle with the transition. Musiala drifts across the top of the arc, leaving McKenzie and Burrhalter behind with a big but smart first touch

on a ball into his feet. So he's at this point in the sequence, he's over on the left, on Germany's left side of our box. He gets a pass to feet and takes a big touch back across the middle. Burrhalter, like I said, Burrhalter and McKenzie left behind. then he slips Jamie Luelling in the really nice pass. This is one of those, maybe this is what Ballot was looking for when he did that kind of dud pass that resulted in the Tillman. In this case, the pass was there, you know, and he made it.

Slide rule pass in for Llewelling, and he tries to square it across the six. It's cut out by trustee, sliding back towards his own goal and claimed by freeze. So a nice little bit of business handling from those. two here. But this was a pretty good chance for Germany. I'm a little surprised Llewelling didn't just kind of try to roof it, you know? Maybe it's a little too far out wide. Yeah. And this is one where the whole sequence for me sort of just smacks of that that whole space control we talked about. Like Raldon going to that first ball, it's kind of a hospital wall from Pepey, who had a hospital wall served into him, so he just kind of continued the

charity. But like Roldon kind of sells out for it. But for him to sell out, Like he leaves his feet to try to like reach his foot around to get a little poke on it, you know? And by doing that, it's easy for a German player to just give him a little bit of a nudge like while he's in midair already off balance and just sends him, you know, flying across the surface of the planet. And then like he's down for a while. And this is, there's a Brendan Aronson miss here where Brenda doesn't like come fill in his space. Brennan just stays playing the 10. Like we've just lost our defensive mid. Our other guy in the pivot is Seb Burhalter.

Like don't leave those guys by themselves. go fill in and be the pivot until Raldon makes his way back into the play, but it doesn't happen. And it's not even like transition. We get all the way back and sit in our shape for a little bit, and Brenda still doesn't go fill in that space

while Roldan is still down. And Rolda is still laying on the grass, yeah. Yeah. We get a moment in this sequence where Seb is like racing back to try to help, which he should do. But then again, like, he kind of gets there,

but gets completely, like, eliminated from the play and over pursues by six yards. And like, it just looks so... different from when our grownups were playing. Like it takes them like a little puppy that overruns the play. Like the cartoon character whose feet are moving but isn't actually going anywhere. Where he like takes six yards to stop and then try to race back into the play. And again, it just, it looks like we put in the hustle squad and they're definitely hustling.

But it is a different, it's a different feel when I'm watching this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So are we really, we're back down to, like, 13 or 14 players who can actually do it at the World Cup? Well, I don't know if I'd say that, but there's five or six guys. There's just groupings you can't have all in together.

Like, it'd be fine if we have a couple of these guys in and they can sit next to the other guys. But when you have the whole team like that, like Germany starts to press us again. Like, because I don't even think it's their design. It's the way we play in our almost like our stature on the ball. Like everyone can sense it. Like shark smelling blood.

Like that guy's clock isn't the same as Blake Tillman's clock. I can I just, we just, I just creep up on him. Like we all just start creeping up. And every time we pass around the back, Germany, it would bring Germany up. They're like, nope, now we creep up. And there's no one on our team at that point, very few guys who can give us that breath. Where like we can get the ball into him, especially going around the back in the new pivot. they can be smart players,

but they just don't have the same ability to reset the clock. So we are always in this sort of just barely on the right side of panicky as we're trying to work the ball around. Okay. We finally broke it with that fantastic long ball. I don't know.

We'll get there, I'm sure. The big diagonal, I think, from McKenzie to Brenda. It leads to Brenda's shot. Like, we finally found the space against Germany's creeping up press. Well, we even had a... Yeah, but even before that, so bear with us, everybody. We got nine more items to go. But 75-minute mark, a really good sequence from Raina and Pepe.

Scali clips a ball up to Pepe. He chested down and lays it off for Raina. Raina takes a touch, slips it in for Pepey out wide, right. And then he just whips a ball across, and it sails all the way to Arfston. He squares Raina in the box. Raina tries to kind of struggle through a mass of white shirts, loses it, gets it back, kind of shoots on the swivel with his back to goal. It's actually not a bad little hit, but it goes right at the goalkeeper.

But the buildup from Raina and Pepe is really good. And I do feel like if Pepey, you know, Aronson is free at the penalty spot if Raina, I'm sorry, if Pepe, you know, kind of hits a low ball on the ground in that spot between Aronson and the keeper, maybe we get like a really good chance out of this. So anyway, good from the subs didn't do nothing well You know there was a little bit going on that was good I was I was convinced Raina was that peppy was trying to hit Aronson here just overhit it

I didn't think there was any way he'd he'd skip the wide like the wide open Aronson in that gap and choose to go all the way over to max I think he I think he overhit it too yeah I mean that was my interpretation like really good movement really good for him to collect the first ball in, bring Raina into the play. Obviously super clean from Raina. I don't know if I feel like we don't even have to say it.

We do have to ding Raina a little bit here on this next one. 77 minute mark. He gets dispossessed and absolutely manhandled by Nemeca. I mean. Can I just say on this one in real time? I saw it and I was like, come on, Brenda. I know. I was like, wait, that's rolled on, right?

Nope. It was Gio. It was Gio. Got absolutely worked physically. And then Nemeca sprays it out wide to ROM, that left back sub. He clips one to the back post, and Lleweling hooks it back into the danger area with a volley, and then Dennis Undav, another sub, heads it over. But a pretty good chance for Germany. I mean, a good half chance for Germany off of Raina in that rare occasion where he does get dispossessed in our third.

81st minute good work from Burrhalter who I thought had a nice little sequence here combining with Scali and Wea he megs somebody to pass it to Wea Waya lays it off into his path striding upfield and then he switches it for Arston with a good pass in stride for him

Arfston goes at his guy and just kind of dribbles and when I say dribble I mean and when I say dribble I mean kind of softly rolls across it falls to Scali somehow and he has a left-footed shot from the top of the box that Bowman does well to save down to his right corner kick for us.

I didn't love the, didn't love the corner or the decision from Arf to hit this cross. Like this is a great ball out there from Sebb to find Arf. But he's got he's got Brenda like he's hitting a cross into a two on four. Right. And he's got he's got Brenda like flashing right in like it's two on one at the ball. It's him and Brenda at the corner of the box two on one. and there's no one to help with that. And so anyway, just, I kind of, I mean, I get it.

People are going to hit this. They're going to be eager to hit a cross, especially Max Arston. I think he's a, he's a crossing guy, right? I don't mean, I mean, I feel like that's his. Oh, he's a crossing guy all right. Yeah. Total crossing guy. So, uh, loves a cross.

So I, but you know where I come from. I'm like, no, he playing soccer where you have the numerical advantage and get into the man city zone. So, uh, thought they had the personnel to get this. into a more dangerous spot than the whole cross. But it did end up with Joe Scali at the top of the box hitting a shot, which I really enjoy that that happened. Yeah, and it was, I do think it was goalbound. I don't think it was like in a, some kind of world-class save or anything, but it's a little bit of excitement there.

On the ensuing corner, we do get that Burrhalter Elastico, which they loved on Telemundo, and in my living room, I loved it. he did meg the guy and it immediately went out of bounds but anyway it's cool 83rd minutes still a bit messy in the back from us a fairly simple ball down the right wing and a cutback finds nadiam amiri at the top of the box he's got time to take a touch with the bottom of his foot and then whistles it past the far post i don't really understand why it's so easy here rolled on his way rolled on is really deep burrhalter is rushing to get there but still a little late.

Rain is behind the play. I don't know. I don't know who to blame exactly, but. It's Burholter. Okay. It's, uh, so this, this all started out down the left side line. Germany brought it up the left. And again, we had one of these scramble.

This is the difference. In scramble moments at this stage of the game, uh, Germany are just going to come out ahead. Uh, it reminds me of that 20, that pivoting point in the 2021 cycle where we suddenly had the guys doing this where we went with MMA and it's like, oh my God, now in any scramble, like our guys come out with the ball. They don't just clear it or like this rough the other team. They actually, we end the scramble with the ball in possession.

And that's what sort of Germany were doing here. They get a little scramble down the left side where we close them down with numbers. But none of our guys come out clean. Some of it's just going to be luck, but like more often than not now. Anyway, after that scramble on the left side, Berlter was part of it. He just sort of takes a break as Germany come out with clear possession, switch the play to the right side. starts out just taking a break, then starts trotting back, but the gap between him and Roldon is massive,

and he never really works hard enough to close that down until it's very clear that the guy he should be on and tight to is going to get a shot off. And then he slides in at the very last second, and as a fraction late on the replay, you can see the relief on him as he sees that ball go wide. Yeah. But that's something that that Jesus is going to clock, right?

I mean, they're going to clock that in the him and Potch and everybody else. I'm assuming so. I mean, I think they still would use him and just know that, I mean, I just, I don't understand the swell of opinions thinking that he should be starting. Like, that kind of blows my mind. And maybe I'll be wrong, and he trots out there next to Adams on Friday. but I would be pretty shocked, very shocked. Yeah. He's not, I don't think he's disqualifying.

I don't think he's disqualifying to like be used, but I wouldn't use him in a plus or minus one goal game. No. It is weird that so many people were calling him for him to start after this game. It was, maybe it was the Elastico, maybe it was that switch out to Arfston. Yeah, I don't know. We pass it all the way back to freeze.

on a, I don't know, somewhat anodyne moment. And, I mean, Raina starts the backward momentum. It ends up with McKenzie. He passed it all the way back to freeze. And Melissa Ortiz reported on the HBO broadcast that Potch was not happy with this. He was like, boys, we can't be waving the white flag like this. And I agree with Potch. But I think this is another sort of consequence of, you know, the personnel we have,

not really being able to control their space. Germany set, we're sitting at this point in deep like 3-4-3, where each line was on top of the other line. You know, you could say we force them back, but I don't really think that was necessarily the case. But we don't have guys who are going to be really good inside that amoeba other than Raina,

and then Raina can't sort of feed it to himself. So it's like we don't have good guys hitting entry passes into it. We don't have a lot of good players to sit in it and control it. So we don't have a lot of that separation-creating ability who can kind of work in that space. Yeah. Do you miss not that this player provides that necessarily either, but you still think it was a miss not to bring Eunice Musa? I feel like I feel like I would just feel more comfortable with him out there. I mean, reference to MMA that you discussed a moment ago.

it's like maybe just a security blanket from watching all those games in the 2022 cycle. But I mean, I do. I mean, I think it's, I think at the fringes, I would rather have Musa than several other players that are on the roster. But again, it's, we have, we have the other guys. So we've got, we've got, we've got Malik and we've got Wes and we've got, you know, surge and Balo. Like, we got, we got some, we got some guys. Yeah. Okay.

Here's that... If Sebastian Burhalter starts on Friday, I will very much be like, I wish that was Musa. Yeah. 87th minute is that good big switch from McKenzie to Aronson on the left side that you mentioned earlier. Aronson kind of skitters in towards the arc. Nobody really steps to him. And he fires from 20 yards, draws a decent save from Baum.

And the ball has a lot of dip on it. Good hit, but a little too close to the middle of the goal. Waya has a chance to shoot on a layoff from Roldon and the inside. suing scramble but sends it over, which begins a sequence of frustration for Timothy. Things start getting heated almost, you know, two and a half minutes later on our right side when Waya feels he is fouled by a player named Byer and then immediately chases down the ball and trucks Schlaugterbeck, who doesn't appreciate it and Tim gets a yellow card. One minute later, Wea goes flying through ROM, the left back, studs up, doesn't get

at him, but only because Rom, like, leaped to get out of it. And so it's time for a scrum. Schlauterbeck gets in Tim's face, pushes him sort of gently. Wes and Tim come out. I'm sorry, Wes and Tyler come out. Potch comes over, has a little conference with Schlaugherbeck and Ta. You know, centerback's union, I guess. And it does seem like Tim is somewhat promiscuously flirting with a second yellow here.

Which I never heard a ruling. If he'd pick one up here, is he suspended for Paraguay? No. Would he? I don't know. I really don't know. I was always, I was just assuming no way that could be the case, but. I would think not.

We'll have to go through and see if any World Cup teams picked up a red card in their last tune-up and find out if they're going to miss a group stage. Having some red cards in like other sanctioned events passed into the World Cup, like, I don't know, like a... Probably Suarez had some. I don't know. It's been a, it's been kind of an interesting month for Tim Wea, though, because he's kind of lost, it seems like he's lost his starting spot to Sergenio Dest. Or more, I guess more accurately, he's lost it to Alex Freeman. and then, you know, he wants to redeem himself from what happened at Copa America when he punched a guy in the head for what appeared to be not that much of a reason. And then ended up tanking Greg Burrhalter's coaching tenure.

And yet here he is in the last tune up before the World Cup getting, I mean, he should have gotten a yellow for this sliding challenge, right? should probably uh just he didn't hit he didn't make contact with the player uh it didn't look like with he didn't pull out either but he didn't know and he's showing his foot like straight leg bottom of his foot right at the ball like through the ball but uh i wouldn't want that happening i wouldn't want any german player doing that to us and then trying to claim like no i didn't hit the guy uh i'll say this buyer started it uh is that how we're saying his name byer yeah yeah And he didn't just start it like he made it he made a point to do it to do something because first he went into Scali really hard Which was fine like it was shoulder to shoulder but he like went in

I mean you could sort of say unnecessarily it's like the good kind of tone setting is what I wish if Tyler Adams is going to set the tone that's what you do like smash into a guy's your shoulder while he's looking up So you really get good contact send him flying but you can you know you're not going to hurt him and you kind of humiliate him a little right? So he does that to Scali right before then on the free kick, we play it short to Wea. And then he really makes the point and goes in kind of cheap to Wea's leg, like kind of stretches his knee out. And then you're getting into like a little dicey territory because if you get knee to knee there, then, you know, that can put a guy out for a while. Yeah. So Bayer started started some things and like made a point to start something by doing it twice. If it's just the one to Scali, you can you can be like, okay, that's he's within the lines.

but to do it to Scali and then right away hit Wea, he's like, who wants some? Like, are we doing this or not? Which is kind of what we got from Australia, and that friendly with them, where they just hit Sands over and over again. So he started it. And so, you know,

Wea was like, okay, fine, we'll do this. And so we did it. And I'm on board of the waya doing this in this game. Okay, okay. I'd say that now. The second somebody steps over the line in the group and gets sent off and we lose, they'll be like, come on, you have to know that you can do it in a friendly,

but you can't do it in the actual World Cup. Our guys, I think, have definitely learned where and when they should do those things. Let's hope. Fingers crossed. So that's the game. I want to take us, Belf, did we finish that before the 90 minutes? Was anyone watching this game in real time? No, we did not beat 90 minutes.

So it looks like we'll reconvene early next week for the Paraguay recap. I believe we're going to do a call-in show Friday night after the game. Vince, you know, Vince loves a call-in show. I love him too. His crowd works excellent. That's why he's got such good crowd work. Yeah. Yeah.

He's a very likable person. And I think that's it from us. Enjoy the game on Friday, everybody. Can't wait. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.