Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #702: USA v Australia recap

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Velasquez and Belz recap the 2-0 win in Seattle. A vibesy, workmanlike victory. Without Pulisic, and with an off night from Balo, we still got a comfortable win, a "Country Roads" serenade, and thanks to Turkiye's loss to Paraguay, we've won the group. 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, where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody, we are here to recap the USA's 2-0 win over Australia in Seattle on Friday. Lots to discuss before we head to this dead rubber on Thursday against Turkey. Turkey A. Greg Velazquez is here with me. Greg, how are you? Bells, I don't know what to do with myself. It's a World Cup dead rubber. I know.

It's very odd. It's very odd that we're in this situation. We're so good we've already won the group. And I guess we can talk about all the potential lineup implications that has. But what did you think of? What were your high-level thoughts on the game Friday? My high-level thoughts were that, again, this is just an absolute magical time. It's a magical event.

We are on the most magical side of it at the moment. And, you know, it's not just that it's a simple. World Cup that happens every four years, which already carries all of that drama, but it said it's happening on U.S. soil. And the, you know, part of the community we become a part of is celebrating that in mass, in person, on the ground where the games are happening. And there's just an incredible, I mean, it's an incredible energy. Like, again, the World Cup always comes with this energy that comes over TV, you know.

And now to have it, like, in our backyard. where we are living, uh, it's, it's amazing. So, so that, that first and foremost,

and again, the performance of the team and the outcomes we're getting, uh, all these things kind of working together in this perfect harmony at the moment, uh, overshadows all of the soccer being played, which we'll get to because we're a super geeky, nerdy podcast.

Uh, and we'll talk about how, how, like, you have to grade things, uh, in multiple spheres. I know,

I, I, after rewatching the game. Now I watched from the, the behind the goal that we were defending in the first half, which, as I've talked about multiple times on this podcast, it's hard for me to understand what's happening in a game when I am looking vertically at it, you know, like... The end zone cam.

Yeah, the end zone cam. It's really, it's really tricky to know what's happening in the game. I mean, you can tell when there's a chance, you can tell when the ball goes in the net, and that's awesome. but as I rewatched it I thought we might be in for a little Velazquez wet blanketing I can I can feel it coming when it comes to the performance I will say like I agree 100% about the magical journey we're on it's it felt in Seattle like I mean the crowd was just totally behind the team you can tell it means so much to the players and singing Country Roads at the end altogether, which I think almost everybody's seen at least some

footage of that. But I don't care what the song is. But Country Roads was the song and the entire stadium sang that chorus at the top of their lungs. And that was, that was pretty cool. It felt like, hmm, maybe we have something here, you know? We absolutely have something here. We have, it's incredible. It is incredible. And there's, I mean, whatever wet blanketing we're doing here, it's just the chalkboard stuff. And I even want to caveat that by saying, it didn't matter and it doesn't really matter.

It's fun to do because, again, we're such nerds. But like the issues we're going to be talking about here really just had to do with beating this one boss in this level, the Australia low block boss, right? And so it's not really, we're like, oh, man, this is going to really come back and bite us. in a knockout game. It just, it doesn't really feel like it is.

It's just fun to talk about like, oh, what was actually happening between the lines where we are, you know, are we really playing in a way where we're just the best we've ever been and it's clear every time we possess a soccer ball? Or is it, no, not really, but again, the energy of the moment is just washing over all of that. And it's probably a lot of the first thing combined with, again, this is a tournament and you're going for outcomes and the outcome we had in hand because of some of the, you know,

the balances we got early on meant that this is all that mattered. It only, it mattered that we were up one zero and then two zero and against a very toothless Australia opponent and it didn't matter that we can't break their block down consistently and reliably. Like that doesn't really, it doesn't really matter.

No, no. Yeah. It, the big insight I think I have from re-watching it is that Balagan actually had a pretty rough performance by his standards. Like first touch wasn't calibrated very well and it killed a lot of promising stuff. I would say, I mean, he still obviously forced the own goal with that run and that, ball across the six. But I would say he's going to play better almost certainly the rest of the tournament than he did

in this game. And that would have made a difference, I think, on the scoreboard if he had. It's fine. It's okay. I'm not mad at Ballot. I'm not criticizing him really that much. Just saying, like, by his standards, not a great performance. And that had, I think, a big effect on our ability to capitalize on our advantages in this game.

Yeah. I mean, it was probably three times that we had him in on goal behind their back line with pretty simple, like very quick transition play. Right. It wasn't like, oh, we beat their block because of all this combination and we slipped by the way. It was just like three instances, like you blink and we just had the ball up and he just ran behind their centerbacks. Because like we'll talk about Australia. And I'm going to frame this really specifically too. Australia, not as good as us.

I want to be really careful not to like downplay our opponents because I think there's again a tendency to do that when you make sort of easy work of teams to be like oh well they must not be that good in the U.S. community soccer community I think has a tendency to do that a lot where it's like oh well they can't be good because we beat them so easily and now that we won the group you know we were talking early about how this group is so balanced and it's really tough

there's no absolute pushover and now we've won it with a game to spare but that in my mind that doesn't really diminish the fact that these are good teams and they just look really bad compared to us. Like we are just much better position for position than our opponents in both the matches we played so far and we've just bossed them. And so these moments that Balagan had in this game, including the one where he got in and created the own goal, he just bosses his matchup very quickly, very easily. and he gets around the edge or he just gets behind. And then in three of the cases, he wastes it with poor touch. And we either don't get a shot off or we get a much poorer, low percentage of shot, then we would definitely hope for.

Speaking of bossing people, I did have a friend who's pretty good at soccer, text me in the middle of the game. Is Serginio Dest the best American soccer player ever? And I was like, well, no. he's up there, he's up there. The way he, the joy he brings to the field, the way he can actually, it's not just, it's not just a much of party tricks either.

I mean, it is party tricks, but it's party tricks with a purpose. And, man, what a performance he had. And Weston, again, was outstanding. I will get into a lot of it in the timeline. But, yeah, we're better than Australia. And I'll hit on that too again, because of the psychology of the game and the psychology of a tournament.

And because the bounce broke for us in the first 15 minutes and we get the own goal, then we can just, then all those surge moments are pure joy. You know, like if he's doing that and he's on Ecuador and there's zero zero in the 80th minute against Curacao, like it's not going to feel the same. No, even though Curacao or Ecuador absolutely, you know, demolished Curacao. and the strength of chances created. It doesn't matter. Like the magic and the terror of small sample sizes in tournament play are full effect

and on full demonstration in this World Cup. Because for Belgium, for Ecuador, for Uruguay, like... Uruguay. What the heck? Yeah. I mean, they're creating these chances. They run into a goalkeeper standing on their head. We had two shots on target against Australia and we win two zero and we are flying in these other countries that had 30 shots just miraculously kept out of the goal.

They are all in crisis. Right. It is crazy how thin the line is between, you know, celebration and crisis. Golden generation when you get the own goals. I mean, you know, I don't apologize for that own goal at all. I feel like, I mean, I know you don't either, but I just feel like we, it was a great example of us breaking them down. And then, I mean, if Burgess doesn't, if Burgess's left foot doesn't put it in, then it slips through to Pepey and he probably puts it away. So should we, I'm, I'll, I'd like to do the lineups, but I kind of want you to do the U.S. lineup so that you can shed some light on the shape here.

because everybody's talking about it being, you know, like a three, I don't know. I'm confused about what our actual shape was, and I want you to clarify it. Okay, sure. I mean, I'd say it was freezing goal. We'll call our back for Freeman, Richard, Reem, and Jedi, and I'll just give our sort of defensive block shape. I think our midfield four, you know, 442 was surge on the right, then Adams, then McKinney in the middle, and then Tillman kind of slot it out to the left.

Okay. And then Peppy and Baligan up top. So McKinney playing more as an eight in a two-man midfield in defense. But then in possession, we get our base three of Freeman, Richards, and Ream that we're all accompanied accustomed to now. And then Tyler ahead of them, and it's like a, then it's just like a three-one-six. And it's, yeah, it's super fluid. McKenney and Dest.

tended to be the partners working on the right side. Malik and Jedi on the left with Bolligan kind of flaring out with them. Pepe mostly staying central up high. Okay. Okay. So that's our starting 11. Not a classic three-back formation, despite everything you may be hearing. I'll give the Australia lineup.

Patrick Beach, the 22-year-old goalkeeper in goal. He plays at Melbourne City. I'll give everybody's clubs to their back front. I mean, I think it was very clear they were in a 5-4-1. Jacob Italiano from Grazer A.K. in Austria played right back. Alessandro Chircati, who plays at Parma. He was one of the centerbacks. Harry Souter, Souter, the big, big, big center back for them. He plays at Leicester City. He was in the center. Cameron Burgess, who plays at Swansea and scored the own goal and was hooked at halftime. He's the other centerback. And then Jordan Boss, who plays at Fine Ord and is a fine young player.

Out at wide left, he did have a rough afternoon up against Sergenio Dest. And then their bank of four would be Matthew Lecky, who plays at Melbourne City. Aidan O'Neill, who plays at NYCFC. Paul O'Conn, Engstler, who plays at Sydney FC. And then Nishon Velipulai, who plays at Melbourne. victory. That's their bank of four. And then the striker was Mohammed Ture, who plays at Norwich City. Now, some notable omissions for Australia were Connor Metcalf, the St. Pauley midfielder who scored against Turkey and Nestorri and Irankunda from Watford who scored against Turkey.

This was a little bit confusing, I think, to the Australian press and Australian fans that I talked to why did these guys not start the game i don't know that the explanation from popovich the coach really made a lot of sense but that was his call uh they both came on at half and iran kunda was i think i don't know that he like transformed the game but he definitely made his impact uh anyway that's the that's the australian lineup yeah iran kund in the second half made us nervous in a way that we never were in the first half i mean they had like one decent look in the first half that they kind of got in a broken play situation. But Aaron Kunda made us nervous for several sequences.

Even when our stars were still out there, even before it got into really like stretched soccer time. So I think that one will definitely, I think, I think the coach will regret that one. He'll regret it less if they get, you know, a result against Paraguay in advance or advance without a result against Paraguay. but I think he'll feel like he left some threat on the table there. Definitely. I know, like, no, I talked to a few Australia fans after the game. I didn't talk to any Australia fans before the game. I'm going to tell you that.

I was not fraternizing at all. But after the game, I was very friendly. And they were like, this is crazy that he didn't start. Before we get to the timeline, I do want to, I've got two things. One, just thank you to everybody who came out in Seattle. It's so much fun and it's really fun to meet some of you for the first time or some of you for, you know, the third or fourth time. It's always a blast. And we do appreciate everybody coming out to fast fashion and joining us.

Thank you. And number two, I'll ask you again to join the Patreon. Here's what you get. Pre-game shows with Sanjay and a rotating cast from the press corps, including the USMNT press corps, including Charlie Baum. You get clip notes, which are videos. of all the actions we will describe today. In fact, the one for this game is already up on the Patreon. But people don't even need to listen to the episode.

Y'all are doing amazing work with those clips, man. Yeah, Vince is grinding away at that. And then you get all the episodes, including the ones on the public feed, ad-free. And you get to join call-in shows after games, and you just support our work, which is almost entirely listener-funded. So the Patreon link is in the show notes. Please join. Now, to the timeline. Let's start 30 seconds in, just like against some parallels between this and the Paraguay game.

Just like against Paraguay, we kind of give up an early half chance. It's an errant square pass from Freeman to Richards, which gives Tourette the ball kind of heading into our box. But Richard smartly shepherds him wide, and he just kind of surrenders and takes a low percentage shot that freeze claims pretty easily. But that's a little messy from us. And, you know, not as clean in some ways as the performance was against Paraguay, despite the incredible energy from the crowd, the, you know, like the total commitment from the players. There was no shortage of that, just maybe a little shortage of tidiness. Yeah, this one was, I mean, I don't know if, I don't know if we were surprised that Australia actually came at us a little bit.

So they're in their 5-4-1, but they would very readily, selectively, but readily have their two, wide players in that four burst forward. And so suddenly they're pressing three against our three. So this was one of those where it was a loose pass either way. It's not like the pass was a good pass and they just arrived to put the pressure on as a good trigger. They were coming at Freeman with the ball at his feet. And he's got Richards easily, you know, it's just a simple pass. And Richard starts dropping, maybe recognizing that the press is coming. And Freeman just doesn't clock that he's dropping. So he passes it to where Richards was. But Australia were on the front foot already. before the miss pass, so they were right there to pounce on it.

But then again, Richards bottles it up so easily because, again, man for man, they just had, until Iry Kuna came on in second half, they had nothing anywhere. They looked like a team with a bunch of players who were several leagues below our players from a competitive standpoint. And that's just how it kind of played. And it's also true, you know, I mean, as you hear from the lineup, the Australia lineup, Ture is, I mean, I think he causes some problems like with hold up and so forth, but not a player of the quality of Yeruncunda.

A minute and 30 mark, our press almost buries them. So we're, I mean, we're also coming out and pressing. No surprise there. Beach kicks the ball in haste right to Tyler Adams above the arc. And he tries to kind of just one touch it over to Malik and that passes loose and it's cut out. but I just mentioned it to say that where our pressure is going to probably cause Australia some problems. Through the next three minutes, we're trying to combine into the attack, just too untidy from a few guys, basically until we get to almost the five-minute mark.

Freeman gets on the ball after some probing passing around their low block. He lifts it into the channel for McKenny, so again, shades of the Paraguay match, and he receives it perfectly, takes a touch or two, and whips a ball at Ricardo Pepi's head. It actually gets to him. It's a difficult header to steer into the net from that distance, and he gets bodied off the trajectory of it anyway. But, I mean, a little bit of a chance there, just off of that West running the channel and getting a clipped ball over the top.

Yeah, this whole possession sequence, all these sequences, they're a little untidy. And again, Australia are just really, really committed. So even though we're kind of being busy and moving around, especially McKinney, wanting the ball, and we can get it into guys who can control it. We basically never get it in a place that has broken their block where even if we hit McKinney in this little pocket,

they have the numbers. They're not really, I want to say they're not really troubled. So the fact that it takes this long just to even kind of bloop a cross-in that is almost in the perfect spot, it is a credit to what Australia can do with their organization. Let's see. Right at the end of the sixth minute, and it's again loose from us, freeze, plays.

a horizontal pass along the end line for Richards as the pressure arrives to him and it's a hospital ball. Richard gets beaten to it. But then he chases the guy and wins it back up, wins it back up the sideline. Which the crowd, I mean the crowd just loved this kind of stuff. Like, um, this is actually a really nice challenge from Richards. Like he, he really mugs this guy. And then he plays it a firm pass into Ballo's feet. Ballo flicks it on for Pepe, Pepe just gets blown up and loses it again for a counter going the other way, which Reem and Freeman do well to sort out at the edge of the box. They sort of converge on, I think it was Touré, I can't remember for sure, and take the

ball from him and it's over. And that's the thing. Australia, we're just never good enough in the first half to take any of these moments. There weren't that many of them, but there's just no time where there's like a loose ball and it's like Australia come out with it and then look like they can punish us in any real way. Yeah, I mean, really that first one in the first minute was, if I'm remembering correctly, the best one,

the best chance they had in the first half. They'll get the G.O. Raina where they try to copy them. They try to do a reasonable fast. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's outside the boot. And that actually is, I mean, it's there. And again, it's a similar scramble broken play

where we kind of lost our, matchups. But that will be it. Yeah. That would have been a joy of a goal to watch had it, you know, taking their context completely away from it. Seventh-minute Adams hooks a ball at Ballo

in the middle after some more head tennis. I mean, it's a pretty choppy opening, five, six, seven minutes, as is often the case. And Ballet just flicks it to a yellow shirt instead of taking it down, which he had time for. that's at the $650 mark.

Yeah, that was a miss. I mean, that's a bad miss from Bala. It would have been three on three in a lot of space against players that were better than. So, yeah, I'm not sure what the decision making was there. In some ways, you're like,

it would have been really cool because it's a cool flick. But yeah, it's a brilliant McKinney ball upfield to him. Oh, it was McKinney who played it? Yeah, this one was McKinney. It was just like, again, in the middle of head tennis.

This is something we've loved about McKinney since he was 18 at Shulka, where it's, it's, you know, just nothing, nothing scramble, and then suddenly he just hits this brilliant pass out of traffic upfield to create danger. And he did exactly that, and he just kind of squandered it. Not the last squandering by Ballo in this game, as we discussed earlier. But Adams draws a bad challenge from, I believe, was it Shikadi? Number seven.

No yellow card, though. No, but the important thing is that Adam sells it. Like, it's really important that Adam sells us in a big way. I've, you know, criticized Adams a little bit sometimes for being, like, performative. But that's usually when he's being, like, performatively tough, often during a play or immediately after he gets called for a foul where the other team can, you know, restart. In this case, he does it when we get the foul, or we have the total control of the pace. And he is communicating to the referee, like, these guys are going after us.

And this is an important part. These aren't really the dark arts. These are kind of like the gray arts. But it's important to help set a tone. Because if you don't react and it just becomes a common foul, then Australia will push the line further and push the line further on the severity of the fouls they're going to commit.

So this is an important moment for Adams. And we'll get to the next one too. But this is key and this is like a, this is smart tournament stuff. There was more smart tournament stuff in this game too, wasn't there? Eight-minute mark, West starts really cooking, and I think this is, this gets us going in a way that we hadn't up to this point in the game. I just love this sequence from him. It's so, like, because we're doing a lot of probing around and not really penetrating that amoeba.

But he comes back for the ball. He's really demanding it from Freeman, and it doesn't get it. And so he flashes out wide a little bit and gets a pass. Back to goal. He plays a little surprise outside of the boot square pass to Tyler first time to the inside and spins off his defender headed toward the channel with purpose. I just love this from him because it kind of creates everything. Adam zips it out to Dest on the sideline.

I mean, it's like the game just immediately speeds up when it comes to his foot, you know? He just like pushes the acceleration button. Tyler zips it out to Dest on the sideline. he plays a one-touch pass to Wes who's already streaming down the channel with that purposeful movement I just noted and now he's going full speed 1 v1

with the O'Conn-Angstler guy and what happens next he tries to pass to Adams he cuts in on him he tries to pass it to Adams at the top of the box but it sort of trickles through and Adams recycles it to Freeman

who plays it back wide to Dest. West runs the channel again. Dest slips him toward the end line. West then cuts it back for Serge, who is like darting inside him at the near post. He gathers it and shoots well with his left foot. It looks to me like this is going into the top corner of the goal, except for a very good block by Cameron Burgess, who lined up that far post and covered it with his silhouette, which I know you appreciate it, Greg, on a technical level. Absolutely. State Square. These Australians have big silhouettes. They're a bit o-fish, but their silhouettes are large. Yes. But so no goal, I don't think it even counts as a shot on target, right? Because it doesn't get to the goalkeeper.

That's correct, but it's a shot. This is a shot. And it's going to be low percentage again, because of the models now take into account that there is a giant defender. Well, it takes into account that there's a defender. I don't know if it calculates their silhouette or not. But it has in there, and it's a narrow angle. So, but this is one of the first times we actually sort of break Australia's shape. And it is just a result of Wes's endeavor over and over for that whole sequence. It's easy to get lost in which action he was doing because he did like nine actions in this 12 second sequence.

Yeah, it was a lovely, a lovely little combination from him and desk too. We keep probing and knocking it around for the next minute or so. I mean, we're totally dominating at this point in the game. and then we get the goal. Ten minute mark. It starts with Australia, pressing with four. Something must have been triggered for them in their press because the yellow shirts starts swarming at Ream.

So Jedi checks back down the left side line. Reem plays him on the ground. Jedi plays... And then Jedi picks up his head and just plays Balogin in behind. And he beats Chikadi easily around the corner. Pepe makes a run into the goal mouth. Death flashes to the penalty spot. Ballo clips it with outside of his boot.

Pepey and Burgess just steps in front of it. Can't get his feet right. Puts it in the roof of the net with the top of his left foot. I think he was trying to get his foot up to push it out wide. The goal, just not quite dexterous enough. 1-0.USA. Bit o'-fish. Yeah, this is, you're exactly right.

Australia saw something that triggered their selective press because they come flying at Freeman, so I wonder if Freeman is the trigger. But this time, Freeman correctly hits Richards as Richards as a drop him back. Australia are pressing Richards. Their next wide man up in that four is coming at Tim Ream, which leaves Jedi more space to operate because that wide player in the four is no longer tied to him. Australia's wide man in the five then tries to read it and tries to race out at Jedi, but it's a lot of ground to cover because Jedi's dropped.

He's way too late to get there, so he can't apply any pressure to Jedi. Jedi doesn't even have to put his head down. He can receive it and look at the space that that dude just emptied out. Bolligan reads it correctly and moves into that space. And the thing is, even though we can hit Bolligan in this space, this still isn't necessarily a super dangerous moment for Australia, or it doesn't have to be. They have a bank of four to defend pretty comfortably

against R3 of Balo, Pepe, and Dest. Malik joins them as well, but Malik is flanked by two retreating Australians. So there's still six on four. Australia's got the numbers here. And the reason it's dangerous is simply because Bolo can just outrun his dude. Like the past doesn't put Bala behind the guy. Bolo puts himself behind the guy

because he's just a much better athlete and soccer player than this guy. Better angle, better touch, controls himself, gets around. And then again, Australia, a little bit too O-Fish, their cover defender who can come out and meet Bolo next. Can't quite commit because it's like watching Tim Riem. I mean, it's honestly like watching Riem who has to be so safe and careful about where he commits and where he doesn't.

So this dude stays home and lets Bolo get all the way to the edge of the his six-yard box, and then the next guy can't get his feet set because he's not quite the athlete that we saw against Germany and Portugal, so he can't do anything about it, and he puts a ball on his own net, under duress from, you know, a crashing Ricardo Pepi and Sergenio Dest. Yeah. Having watched the replay like 430,000 times, I do, I do think there are some centerbacks who wouldn't put that in the goal. There are some middle ground actions between letting it go to Pepe for the tap in and putting it into your own goal that, again, I trust Chris Richards and Tim Ream to execute.

Yeah. Get nervous with Mark McKenzie. We're going to get to the thing about Ream here immediately. But anyway, 1-0 USA. I love the, it felt to me like just pandemonium in the stadium when that goal was scored. I've never seen anything like that at a USMNT game. the limbs and like everybody just going bananas totally deafening pretty cool well it's all this momentum right again it's this energy carrying over from the best world cup performance uh relative to its opponent that we've

ever had against paraguay um and then to lean on australia the way we were leaning on them again we weren't creating a ton of clear-cut chances just the desk shot was all we really created uh so far but we're leaning on them. We have the energy. You know, McKenny is doing stuff that's fun to watch. Chris Richards is bossing people. And so to get the ball into the net, that's the psychology in play there where it feels like we are untouchable at this point.

Right. We are winning the whole World Cup. We'll get into that. We'll get into that in a little bit. 12th minute, almost immediately after the goal, a pretty decent chance for Australia. the one we mentioned earlier. Italiano gets played into the corner and Ream has to step out to him. This is not a situation that is ideal. You know, Ream goes out and puts a shoulder into him, but Italiano cuts onto his left and passes to Ture at the corner of the box.

Ture has a second to kind of pick up his head just inside the box and finds the La Pulae above the penalty spot. He's got his back to goal. He lays it off for Lecky. I don't know that he meant to lay it off. It might have just been a rough first touch. But as soon as he sees Lecky arriving, he backs away. And Lecky tries to travella it passed Richards into the left side of the goal. Like Gio Raina. They've been studying Gio all week, I'm sure.

He hits it well, but it's a yard or too wide. But this is dangerous. It does not feel to me in the stadium. You know, I'm kind of a worry wart, but it does not feel to me like it is inevitable. at this point. Yeah, no, that's fair, and this is very dangerous. It's that broken play because Reem had kind of chased it all the way out. Freeman had already been upfield, so Adams is kind of now filling in as Tim Ream as our

centerback momentarily. And we end up in a situation where Ream, Adams, Jedi, Freeman, and Weston McKinney, are nominal helping center mid, are all sort of on the wrong side of the ball as it gets played into their target man. And it's a good movement from who ends up taking the shot. Lecky, Matthew Lecky. Okay. So it's good movement from Lecky to recognize it.

It's kind of reminiscent of Germany's goal against us with that sort of underlapping run off the target man. And Richards, if we want to really nitpick, Richards sort of reads the layoff wrong and gets caught on the wrong side of the layoff man so that he gets sort of boxed out by him. because he had I mean all of his help is over on that side but it's tough it's not like he can just be like well let I'll let this guy maybe turn and shoot himself so he just kind of overplays it a little bit but the the travail is on

like this this is this is there Fries doesn't move at all because he's screened a shot on frame here probably beats us thank goodness but yeah that's all you got Australia for the rest of the half I don't think they I don't think they put a shot towards freeze the rest of the way. 13th minute,

Burgess plays an errant pass straight to Adams in their half. He finds ballow between the lines and again his first touches a little, just a little bit off instead of sort of like receiving on the half turn, it takes him like three or four yards back towards his own goal.

He ends up squaring it for Tillman. Tillman tries to play like a pass to surge darting past Baws into the penalty area. tries to do it with the outside of his boot, but it's just cut out by suitor for a corner kick. Very good idea from Tillman, and it could have been a real chance for beauty and a goal.

Yep, and again, just needs to be a little bit cleaner. We can get away with it against Australia. We're going to have to clean up a little bit as we get to knockouts. Certainly, once we get to the semi-final, to get to the final, we're going to have to clean this up. We're going to have to clean it up at the final, for sure. Yeah, it's something that kept occurring to me throughout the game.

Like, not that, not to go so far as to say Australia is bad. You know, they had a very impressive World Cup win over Turkey, just, you know, nine days ago. But it did occur to me. Like, if we don't play a little tidier against a team like Argentina or France, we're going to struggle. A lot tidier. The ensuing corner after Suter intervenes to cut out that pass from Tillman to Dest,

it's a great look on a set piece for McKinney. It sails just over Suter's head, and Wes flashes it toward the far post. I think it might have been a mishit and completely off frame. I'm not sure about that, but in any case, Boss blocks it. Wes Was, you know, was clapping his hands together in frustration as he ran back to midfield. Yeah, just kind of glanced off his head. This is kind of interesting because for all the Zeproodring we did of our own set piece defense

and in the different screens that, you know, Germany ran against us in the two-nut match. This is just like zero, zero misdirection or movement. Wes is just standing at the top of the six as we line up to kick, keep standing at the top of the six, and then just gives this man like a tiny little push with one arm, and then he's just wide open for a header. Like he never moves from the space he's in. There's no screens, no picks. It's just hit it at Weston McKinney,

and he'll just go up and have, it looks like he's unmarked. Right. We do it with Chris Richards later on. Same thing, just like Australia for as tall as they are. Again, just not quite the same quickness that we've got here. I mean, set piece delivery, to me, seems like a bit of a slot machine. You know, you never know, like, who it's going to land on. And I don't know.

It all just seems a little random sometimes. But any, I do think Wes, five times out of ten, he steers that back against the grain towards the near post and it's two zero. He's very good in the air. That's why I'm giving it. This is not science. This is not science. 1550 mark he sails past a defender up the right side and then pushes it down the line around boss boss puts a hand in his face as he runs by and the yellow card comes out for this one thank you tyler adams for selling the earlier file yeah he sold the first one he got clipped Adams gets clipped again on the sideline right in front of potchino so we get a great slow motion reaction from potchitino looking for all the world like russell crow uh and so we get the we get the we get the

that in the archives. And then, again, brings to the referee's attention. Like, it really are kind of, Australia is really kind of getting after it here. So when West sells the hand of the face, easy yellow. And now Australia have to start behaving a little bit because they know they're going to be, you know, they're pinned back. They know they're pinned back. That's their plan, is to be pinned back.

So they're going to be spending all this time defending. They can't just start picking up yellows like they're candy. Yeah. And Boss has to deal with death. the rest of the game. Yeah, Destin McKinney, combining around him. Yeah. Yeah, Desk causing all kinds of problems up that right side.

I mean, not extreme cutting edge type problems, but problems. 21st minute, a lovely ball over the top from Adams to Balagan. He's in. He's in with this. I mean, this is a floated ball that he, if he makes a clean touch with his left foot, he brings it down and he's like he's got time to shoot. His touch is not clean. Beach comes out to claim it.

Tillman immediately wins it back, lays it off to McKinney. McKinney finds Ballot's feet and he turns and shoot, but it's blocked quite easily. Yeah, that Adams ball to ball again, this is basically the Malik ball to Baligan from Paraguay, where it's a nothing play. Everyone's just kind of standing up and down. But Australia are caught in like a high line mid-block, like with no pressure on Adam, so he can just receive it, look up. And again, it's just like, it's just, okay, I can hit Boligan into a foot race with these

o'fish centerbacks with a lot of real estate. And it's easy. It's no-brainer and we're in. But that's still a step up from, I know Balogan wasted. But we have spent so many games early on in Balagin's when he transitioned to the U.S., just not hitting him, just ignoring these runs or looking them off and circulating the ball, that this is still the fact that we get ball in four chances behind that he can waste. I'm still chalking this up as a positive indicator for us.

Yeah, Adam, like a surprisingly delicate ball from Adams, too, in my opinion. Let's take a break. We'll be back in a second. All right, we're back. 22 minute mark, Australia gets another chance. They don't actually get a shot from it, but they combine nicely to spring Lecky 1V1 with Ream on our left side. Once again, not an ideal situation. And he whips one across the six under no pressure from Ream.

And Alex Freeman is just alert to velopilize run and slides to stab it out for a corner. This happened right in front of me, so I remember it quite well. And then the slow motion replay, just a really impressive defensive play from Freezes. and he can make place. Yeah, it is. It's really good execution, not just the alertness, but that is difficult. As we saw, some people might hit this ball into their own net. Right.

In the warm-up game, I know Austin Trustee had a play where he broke up a play in front of the goal, and it sort of goes down as like, oh, good job he was there to make the safe. And I'm watching it as a goalkeeper, like, that is not great execution from Austin trustee. He kind of kills the ball directly on the goal line rather than getting better. contact to play it out of the danger zone. So anyway, just the ex-I'm not trying to, Austin Trussie doesn't need to catch a stray here, but

just eliminating chaos. I remember the play. There you go. Vince, Vince is going to say, like, he was handling business here. This is business handling right there. Yeah. We will definitely have to handle more business in the semifinal. Yeah, there's going to be,

have to be a lot of plays like that, I would imagine, in the semifinal. The ensuing corner goes to, Souter, and he nods it down toward Burgess, but West clips it away for another corner. Next corner is a foul in Australia, so we go to the water break and, you know, in pretty good shape. 28th minute, good combination from Tillman and Jedi up the left, and Jedi's in, and he just shanks his cross over the far end line. It did feel a little bit like Ballow and Pepe were interfering with each other's runs in the final 12 here. a lot of people were talking about how it was the genius of the two striker formation that allowed for that first chance where balla were the first goal where bala was able to make the run into the channel because peppy was occupying the two centerbacks what do you make of that whole conversation i mean that was a lot there was a lot about that on yeah i know they jumped on it right away like this is why you play two strikers it doesn't really make any sense to me i mean balo

was doing exactly the kinds of things that anyone, like if Pulisik was in, he, Pulisik would have made that balancing runoff Jedi to the left line. So if you're saying Ball is the only other guy besides Pulcic who can beat the guy around the edge, then it's like, that's why you put Balo there. But it's not necessarily like,

that's why you have two strikers. I don't think there was anything necessarily about this that this whole game that screamed like the two strikers are being uniquely effective as two strikers. And in fact, like you said, Pepe was kind of just, I don't want, I mean, he was basically invisible. He wasn't doing nothing, but I don't think he had a lot of effects on the proceedings. So we'll just have to see where.

Maybe his pressing, maybe his pressing, like the vigorousness of his pressure was his effect on proceedings. Because on the ball, he got little brothered over and over again. So, yeah. So I'm curious what that's going to do for. future iterations of our 11 and even adjustments we make throughout matches. I'm curious about that for a lot of players. How Pat Patchitino's assessments throughout the World Cup will affect what his plans might have been going into the tournament, personnel-wise.

Yeah. Okay. 30-second minute, we get an incredibly silky sequence from Malik to Ballo and back to Malik up the left side and he touches it around Chikadi who rakes his studs on Tillman's calf Chikati gets a yellow and I don't know

did you notice this play just the beauty of it yeah and this is exactly what I mean about like there's joy in this because of the momentum that we have going in right this doesn't feel aimless even though you know we're not getting behind Australia's shape we're not breaking down their shape

but there's still just like so much like you can just just like glee. You just get to appreciate the aesthetics of what our players can do, whether it's leading to chances or not. Because we're 1-0-up in Australia don't have much coming back at us. And we know that if this doesn't work out, we'll just recycle and come at them again. And the guys who are going to come at them again are all capable of doing something pretty cool.

I hadn't really thought of how different that would feel if we were down 1-0, all of it. Yeah, it would be different. A rousing bit of scrapping for the ball here from Dest to McKinney and Desk gets a foul, gets fouled. And I just can't emphasize enough how much that sort of the work rate that everybody is bringing to these games is appreciated by the fans in the stadium. I'm sure by fans everywhere. It's great.

This is the game. We're going to hammer on it over and over, like, until we can't do it anymore. We just control the space. All of these guys in our 11, except for basically Tim Rame, just control their space. And Australia, Paraguay, we'll see who we'd get in the round of 32,

but it's very likely that it'll be a team at about that level or even a little bit below. And so we, I think, are going to get another matchup where we just will, we're just going to bully them. What happens if we play turkey A and don't bring our A game and lose, even though it doesn't matter for the group, you know, the group results, isn't that kind of, doesn't that kind of hurt our momentum? Or, I mean, I wonder how Pach is thinking about it. He's probably thinking he wants to, like, go out and give it everything we have, but. I'm curious.

What would you do, Greg? I don't think it hurts. moment at all. And I feel like we definitely have examples of Pachitino not particularly caring about outcomes in games where the outcomes don't matter. You know, where he'll

happily trot out the reserves in a camp where we already called in our reserves to begin with and then he throws out the bottom half of those reserves to just get absolutely slaughtered against Turkey. So he's literally done it against Turkey before.

You know, this is the last game in the NFL season when you've already clinched home field like you just you're not going to you don't have to put your quarterback out there and no one really is going to be upset that that that you're that you're sort of treating it like an exhibition okay that's my estimation and again potches punted entire camps like entire windows you know that is true all the hand wringing about like uh he's coming in we've already wasted half the cycle now potch is is he going to have time to fix anything?

And then he has a whole camp where he's like, ah, we don't need, we don't need Wes here. He's, you know, he's getting, his season's just getting underway. Let's just, let's leave him. And it just, like, at some point, he's got to figure it out. He's got the guys ready, and he's just like, you guys go out there to do your thing. They're all putting in positions to do what they can do well. And they're just bossing.

So I don't think that them having a day off against Turkey or even going half speed, like, I just don't think it will matter. matter when it comes to a knockout game in the World Cup. I'm not worried about their focus or their effort or anything else. Right. In the 35th minute, we get Sergenio cooking on the right again. He slips it around boss and then wins the race to it, then Crofts it back to Freeman and the crowd loves it, even though nothing comes of it. 36 minute, we'll go ahead. Oh, just again, just to take the time to enjoy what we get to watch in a World Cup. Like casuals watching this being like,

is Sir Gino, they're watching like the guy doing Globetrotter nonsense, right, in a World Cup game. So it's fair to be like, is he the best? We haven't seen, no US player does this. This is like when we were watching Namar do stuff, when Namar brought us into the game, you know, in Brazil.

Like, it's like watching him do stuff. And now it's a guy in the US jersey. Yeah. It is new, isn't it? I mean, we didn't do that kind of stuff so much back in 2010. Maybe a Dempsey a little bit, but come on, Greg. Be a prisoner of the moment. We didn't have the camera angles that we have now.

We didn't have the social media edits that you know Death is going to be releasing within hours of the final whistle. There's a nice pass from Tillman to balance. in the 36th minute. Balo is a little messy with his first touch again, but we're just suffocating them with the counterpress. We cut through them from Jedi Ballo, Peppy Tyler, and Dest. In the 27th, and Dest floats a ball in, and it's dealt with. There's a clash of heads between Freeman and O'Conn, Engstler, in the 38th minute, which gives a bit of a break.

And then I would say from, if you're going to go back and rewatch, just portions of the game from 41, 25 to 4520 is must watch stuff. Tillman plays a long switch over to Dest. Dest to McKinney toy with him a bit. And West tries to slip one in for Peppy, but it gets punch right back to Wes, and he ends up recirculating it. But then it comes back to Dest. He megs boss to Tillman, and then Tillman Meg's Okon Engsler back to Dest I mean none of these these aren't like intentional passes that just happen

to be like moving with a lot of energy and and getting to it first uh desd dances around I think it's Burgess who sticks a leg out and they said in the broadcast desk could have you know gone down and maybe gotten a penalty here

he didn't he was a he was an honorable man and he kept going he eventually loses it to Ocon Engsler and then Tillman wins it back from Okon-Angsler and draws a foul at the edge of the box. I don't know if it's lovely stuff, but it sure is fun to watch those two and Wes go to work.

It's the desk. Just, again, it's totally like watching Tobin Heath where it never occurs to Desk to go over this man because going over him and getting a penalty would mean he's not on the ball to do another trick. Like there's no way you make that trade-off. You've got to get to the ball and see if you can maybe rinse the same guy again.

so it's never in his calculus and then Malik again he's just so grown up in the actual cage where he can be playing on one knee and he can take three touches and be in total control from the ground and it's just it's a joy to watch and then suddenly we get our set piece right

now the thing I was going to say is again if you're Australia watching all this or you know during that clash of heads when everyone can get the teams together you're probably telling them like hey this is all fine Like it's fine. Let them do all their tricks. Let them do the fancy stuff.

Just keep your shape. Keep them to the outside. It doesn't matter. They can be as cute as they want. We're doing great, fellas. Like, this is exactly what we want to be doing. So it's fun that immediately after this break, we get our second goal. Yeah.

So on the ensuing free kick, it's Jedi who gets on it. He just plays a simple kind of fizzed pass to Dest at the top of the box. He takes a touch and has a hit, which I think was all by design. Again, it's probably goalbound, but gets deflected up and over the back line. Freeman is the first to see it and react, and he's moving to get under it like a pop fly. As Beach, the goalkeeper who has already dove to his right, is getting up and trying to get to the ball. Freeman's just a little quicker, and he heads it into the net just as Beach's fist rises toward his face. As Vince and others have pointed out, this is a black man named Freeman,

who's really been the revelation of the Potch era, scoring a World Cup goal on Juneteenth. It's pretty sick. Now, there was some back and forth on the offside call, but Var got it right, and then we got this wonderful clip of the ref explaining what was happening. I'll play it real quick. After factual review, the goal scara was not an offside position.

I just love the way the crowd, you know, the din descended before he could even finish what he was saying. And then he points at the center circle. And you could tell on his face, the wave of noise made him want to smile. But he, you know, he can't smile. You've got to fight that. Yeah. He's got to fight that. So he purses his lips and looks in the other direction as he points at the center circle.

It's really a thing of beauty. Okay. So we get more set piece of pruder, right? because this is fantastic, and it just again shows how ridiculously small margins are on set pieces, because we have to execute this thing perfectly, and it still results in basically just a super contested block shot, and then we get the goal via scramble. Because this, I am 99% sure, is totally designed the whole way. So we must have known that Australia will sit with all 11 players inside their own six-yard box to defend.

And so Jedi has to hammer this ball out to Sergenio Dest. Like you can't hit a nice easy pass because if you do that, Australia will close drowned the entire time and he'll be even more closed down. So he has to smash this ball to get it to Dest. Dest has to take like a perfect desk touch, which isn't surprising that he does to control it perfectly and very efficiently get a shot off. And he still just doesn't have any goal to hit at because it's a seat of bodies. But what's really fun to watch just from the like set piece coaching standpoint is we've designed this because Tim Ream and Chris Richards and Alex Freeman and Tyler Adams.

So we got four guys. They start off marked where their man's goal side of them. So none of them are looking, none of them are like setting screens for each other or making runs. They all set up Vince would be proud as like punt protectors. They're basically doing like max protect for Sergenio Dest as the punter. So his ball gets hammered out to them, and they all pick up a block and keep Australia from closing Serginio Dest any more than they already do. So it's just kind of a fun wrinkle to see that we've definitely cooked up some plays, and we get a goal off of this one despite it being not exactly how you draw it up, but you draw up a look to try to get an open shot, and that's what we got. Yeah.

It's maybe Pach's time at Ohio Stadium wasn't completely wasted, you know. You got some ideas. And I just love the, you know, the sort of grit narrative you get from a goal like that. You know, the people love it. Like, he's getting punched. Alex is getting punched in the face as he heads it in. He's like, he's the most resourceful and on the spot of anybody on the field. And then, like I said, in a past recording, there's a great photograph through the net of the goal of him as he's hitting the ball, which was on the cover of the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, which I know nobody else cares about me, but I think it's cool.

He didn't get up super high for it, but he did leave his feet just a little, and he needed to because that fist is like right at his forehead where if he's any lower, the keeper gets a little, gets to it first. Yeah. Which speaks to the tremendous effort the goal he made to actually get to. this what looked like the ball could have just gone in on its own and he very nearly gets there but he's a good goalkeeper isn't he that beach kid um so we get another chance in the 52nd minute i mean this is still stoppage time of the first half adams wins another errant pass over to tilman on the sideline and he croiss it on to peppy who plays it back to tillman who rambles into their half and across toward the center circle, tries a knife a reverse pass in for

Dest, that gets cut out. But the ball kind of hurdles over toward Freeman, who's like striding forward on the right side. Freeman carries it into the box, steps on it, slides it to Dest to the inside. Again, Desk making an interior run. And he takes a shot with his left foot from near the top of the box. This one he doesn't get a great connection with and the keeper claims it comfortably. Yeah, maybe he was being more careful to make sure he got this one on frame and found a window to not get it blocked. Right. His last rifle got blocked. But it's a slit combination.

I want to give Pepey a little love because while he was kind of definitely felt invisible, there are a number of sequences where he is involved in like the buildup with just, you know, little passes with back to goal that keep the play moving, keep things in rhythm. So he wasn't he wasn't just like totally Turtling up and he wasn't he wasn't just like a A constant barrage of mistakes He just wasn't particularly involved No yeah I mean he also had one involved he got he got kind of dispossessed or was sloppy He just looked over like physically overwhelmed by those oafish centerbacks in general But he did also have that one which I don't know if I made the timeline but he had that one play where he touched it around the left side

and saved it from going out of bounds and then we got a little something something out of that. So that's the half. Australia brings on three subs at the half. Midfielder named Garilla from the J League, Metcalf

and Aaron Kunda. They come on for Burgess, Velupilai and Toure. And the second half is different than the first half from Australia. We're knocking it around in the 51st minute until a Jedi gives it away And there's a little tiny bit of threat from Australia

Until Tyler strides out of zone 14 So there's a pass across I think across the top of our box And it doesn't quite connect And Tyler just steps into the path of it strides forward And sends Fuller and Balagan in behind I mean it's a pretty well-weighted pass from Tyler balligan's in on goal because he starts from inside our half so he's not he's not offside but he just takes i think a poor touch as he goes into the box and the ball kind of gets caught underneath him

long enough for shikadi the guy who he left in the dust earlier in the game to reach in get a foot in and block his shot out for a corner kick it's a big um big letoff honestly yeah i mean at three zero that is that is definitely it in australia would have known it uh just totally the opposite So what do you expect from Australia? They get caught with 11 players on the wrong side of the center circle all the way past the edge of the circle. And then they get their angles all wrong. I don't think they're used to being in that position. So instead of retreating dead away, they let Balagan get behind.

And then Balgan takes himself out of the scoring play because he slows up way too early. It is always difficult to maintain that kind of a breakaway. Yeah. But like, yeah, he, he, he, he was sort of like hearing something in his head because he started to slow down earlier than he should have like twice like he kind of staggered his slowing down where he started to slow down a little bit and then he slowed down a ton once he got to the box and that was it yeah i mean probably the premier example of like ballo will probably give us more in other games than he

gave us in this game but this would be exhibit a of that probably 53rd minute west chips one into the channel for Ballo and he earns a corner. There's another corner after that. And then Balagan and Shakati clash heads. I'm starting to understand why they don't let little kids head the ball in soccer. Yeah, I mean, not because the ball. It's because of the other people's heads, you know? Yeah, and they'll have just horrendous body control.

Just the contrast here for Baligan, because all these big squandered chances are him when he's just sort of in by himself, he actually did really well for the most part when he was embodying somebody up. Like when he's just in there to be like to win a little physical battle and control ball, I thought he was pretty solid. Again, just he's such a good leverage player. So I thought he showed all of those characteristics and quality despite those times where he was easy or it should have been easier where there's no one around him. That's where he was letting himself down. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he put in an absolute shift against Souter and took a beating at it, too. Pappy gets on an interception from Adams and plays an errant pass in the 56th minute that launches a little

Australian 4A. Jedi ends up going flying through Italiano to try to get to that pass and gets a delayed yellow card. Nothing really comes of the 4A, but except for the yellow card for Jedi, which means by the logic you outlined earlier, he should be sitting on Thursday. 100%. That is the one thing. There's tons of other ways I think you can go about the turkey game, but the one thing I absolutely do not want

is for Pachitino to play any guy who's got a yellow card. There's just too much variation in how referees handle things. You got a Barton out there. You just do not want to let anybody have any other say in whether a player, one of your key players, is eligible for a knockout game. Not that we won't win our round of 32 game, no matter who's suspended, but I just think the math is, don't let Barton suspend your guy. Okay.

Yeah, so that means Richards sits and Peppy, I mean, not Peppy, Richards and Jedi and Tyler Adams. Baligan. And Baligan, yeah, okay. Do not let them on the field. Don't even let them on the bench because you can get cards on the bench too. So maybe put them three rows up in the seating and they've got to be on mute. How about they just go in the press box in one of the boxes with Jill Ellis and Alex Morgan?

Yeah, watch the game with Trinity Rodman. Yeah, I mean, doesn't seem like such a bad thing. Sounds wonderful. 62nd minute we get a decent chance from Peppy bringing a ball down with his chest, playing it over to McKinney, there is a little more space in Australia's half in the second half, though I don't think we exploited it the way we maybe could have. And then West plays a good pass through a gap to Balligan.

I mean, this is Ballion again. He's in. He's in. He's in on goal. And if he can just corral this ball roughly into the space in front of him, he's the next touch is a shot and probably a goal. And he just gets it all wrong. Now, this, I want to say to,

This one is more disappointing. That Tyler Adams one, that's tough because it's so vertical. Like it's vertical going over your shoulder that you have to control and keep track of like, you can't get it where the keeper's going to get it. So that one was tougher. We do have some players who can catch a, can catch a ball like a fade, you know, like an over-the-shoulder fade pattern. But this one is just like, man, that's just too sloppy.

We got a, we need, we're going to need that in the semifinal. We're going to need that cleaner. Yeah, those openings don't just grow on trees. And then there's a period here, I don't know, roughly 60th minute to, I don't know, 73rd or something, where Australia is the better team. So right after Balligan loses that pass from Wes, which he probably should have brought down. they connect a couple passes in spring irancunda who just races past ream and richard's races to stand

him up irancunda kind of cuts back onto his left foot or at least steps on it and then slides it over for volpada who had just come on and he skies his shot but this is from a really good spot and it's a really good look i mean it's like the kind of like if it's lino messy on the end of this pass it's a goal. You know, it's that, I don't mean, maybe I'm overstating it a little bit, but that was a really, really good chance for Australia. Yeah, and again, you get the Ream limitations in full display here. I mean, Iricuna can run by lots of guys,

but Reem knows he's so rinsed that he tries like a desperation freeze to try to let Aaron Kunda run off side. That doesn't come off. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. If Ream had run full speed the whole time, Ian Kundo would still gain 12 yards on him over 50 yards. so whatever Reem does, he's out of the picture as soon as this play develops, and I think he probably just knows that.

Richards does really well to get back. I want to say Reem does get back in the play here, and I just want to give him credit, because as this ball gets cut back from Aaron Cooner to the shooter, Ream does square himself up with perfect blocking technique as he's demonstrated in the past. He knows. No, he's at the far post.

He's got a decent chunk of the par post covered. Body squared up, shoulder square. Makes it harder for the shooter. Maybe that's why he skies it. Good job, Tim Riem. Yeah, it just felt like a chance. We don't want to be giving up a lot of. 64 minute mark.

So a couple minutes later, they get another chance. When Metcalf tries to spring, Aaron Kunda up the middle, with like a sweeping first time pass from the far right side line. And it's the weight is a little heavy, so it's ahead of Aaron Kunda. But for some reason, he is like kind of standing on his own in the middle of the field, ready to run out of that. And then we can't build out because Freeman slams it off a pressing Australian and then kind of dinks it over to Richards toward our goal, toward the near post of our goal.

And Richards tries to hook it away. I mean, Richard does hook it away towards Tyler Adams, who does have plenty of time to turn and sort of like calm this down. Instead, he immediately, I guess he doesn't want to mess with the possibility that somebody snuck up on him. He just hooks it away himself right back to Australia. And, I don't, Metcalf ends up with a decent look from the edge of the box. This is the guy who scored against Turkey A. So this whole sequence is keyed by Matt Fries in the negative way.

Oh. They have that ball that they missed Aaron Cooner that rolls all the way to Fries. Yeah. who keeps it his feet in a two zero game again, like, just stand on it. Like, he stands on it and waits a while. But, I mean, it's little stuff. But one of the things you can do is you can make that striker run all the way to you. Iran Kunda, he could force to come all the way to him, which besides the time wasting

and just kind of being a dick, which is always a nice privilege to have in these games, it pulls Irankunda out a position. Like, he's not in his correct, no strikers in the correct pressing shape if the goalkeeper has the ball in their hands and the striker is right next to that goalkeeper. So you can pull him out of position and create more room in the middle of the field and the interior for your midfielder's to operate in. But he picks it up too early while Australia is just still in their shape. And then he rolls it directly past Chris Richards out to Alex Freeman on the right,

which is a longer outlet, even though Australia is already set up marking him. And the whole reason that the goal kick rule change has been such a, revelation for the ability to play out is because in the old way, to pass it out to the guy outside of the box took so much time that the defense could just, while the ball's traveling, could race in and press the crap out of you and make it difficult. Like, the shorter pass is so much better because by the time the ball rolls three yards, they can't travel very far.

So this was a, it was a shocking decision from Matt Fries. As much as it might have seemed like a nothing play. Like this was just in real time, I was like, what are you doing here, buddy? You just rolled it directly to Freeman who's going to get closed down by a now pressing Australia who's in great pressing shape to hit him. He has no option. Aaron Kund is taking away Richards

and Fries simultaneously. So Matt Fries really botched this thing pretty badly. I mean, we had chances to fix it for him. But this was just really, really poor decision-making from Fries, poor play from him. Hmm. Interesting.

Okay. I'd say the last five minutes. minutes have been troubling from us. We get, there's some good box-to-box midfield work from Wes sliding to poke the ball away in the middle. He and Tillman again, I mean, it's hard to overstate how much of a shift those two put in in both of these games. Tillman's shift is, is now wearing on him, though.

Like, he starts to, he starts to be done, uh, in that Malik Tillman way, uh, around like the 70th minute where he kind of, I mean, he kind of checks out, uh, in plays where we really need him checked in like defensively. Really? Just kind of, yeah, just kind of standing straight up and down,

staying out of the play. And we just need him even more as this, as we're losing hold of the game. That's where we need Malik Tillman badly to be that grown up and that composed player on the ball. Yeah,

and we brought Sebastian Burhalter in in the 74th minute for Pepey. Sebastian Berlter is not a, not a grown-up on the ball. No. Yeah, his first touch an errant pass to desk. Wide launching sort of a slick back-to-front Australian possession sequence. And, I mean, a few dangerous crosses, some scrambles in the box. I mean, to blame all this on

Burrhalter would be a little crazy, but it was his giveaway that sort of started this period of time. And there's one point where Berhalter handles the ball as it's like dropping between him and a defender, he's an opponent he's pushing. He doesn't get whistled for it. They call that an natural position as he kind of pushes iran kunda they got a couple corner kicks up to the 80th minute and uh and that's when trusty and scaly come on for jetti and desk and i don't think either of these changes really add any composure to our to our proceedings either uh so we are we are kind of scrambling and i don't i don't like i would be more critical of pochtino if we weren't to zero up in the 80th minute of a game.

So I'm almost like giving him a little leeway to be like, ah, we can afford to put in players and let them kind of stretch their legs a little bit. I have no idea if that's what he's doing. If he's like, nope, these were the players we need to settle this game down and put it to bed. But I don't, I'm curious if he still thinks that would be the case today. You wonder, yeah. And I love the Sebastian Burrhalter story. I think it's incredible that he has made the World Cup only with the coach who replaced his father after his father was fired.

Like it probably wouldn't have happened under his dad. So it's like such a, it's a great story. And he's obviously really valuable to that team in lots of ways. But he just doesn't look like he's quite. I mean, he's just not. on the level of the starting 11, and you can see the difference when he comes on. Yeah, that's where I'm at,

and I feel like we have players that are much closer to that level on the bench that we could play and then shift other players around. Like, I don't think he's so good at his role or that other players couldn't shift into that role. I mean, obviously McKinney played the pivot in that center midfield in this game. Malik played it in the last game,

so we've got two guys you can sit next to Adams that you know of. It does not have to. to be Sebastian Berhalter. And I am, again, very curious if Pocitino believes that in a more competitive match, and maybe I'm reaching, because this is a competitive, I mean, it wasn't decided, it wasn't 5-0, in the 90th, you know, I'm really curious where his evaluations are going to end up falling. Yeah, so 84-minute mark, an Australian corner kick goes over everybody.

Italian collects it on the right side, stands it up to the backpost on the left side from the Australian perspective. Somebody knocks it back across toward the penalty spot and Richards beats Souter to it, pokes it away, pays the price as Souter just comes crashing through him.

What an oaf. And then it falls to Gerea and he shoots from inside, like, I don't know, roughly near the penalty mark. And Adams blocks it with a sloth. lighting challenge was a nice, nice bit of defending there. And then there's a foul call, I think, on Souter for crashing into Richards,

although there might have been a foul from the guy who sort of knocked it back across the face of the goal, too. Yeah, and this was all just, I feel like a culmination of not good business handling. Like the scramble and the play before it that led to these corners, like you get, you get guys crashing into the ground, you get Austin trusty, like smashing a ball directly into people's legs when it falls to him in the box after the scramble, he's the guy who has a time to, like, hit the clearance. No one else could really hit their put on our foot and hit a clearance. Trust he does. He's got the window. But instead of hitting the clearance through

an open window, he just sort of has a panic clearance and just tries to kick it as hard as he can directly into somebody's like hamstring that's not even facing him. That's two yards in front of him. You know what I mean? And that's where it's like, that's the business handling that just isn't up to par where it just feels like he's not ready. So instead of shaping his body towards the sideline and clearing it out, he extends the scramble and while Australia doesn't make anything of it, I don't want that decision made against Germany. I don't want that decision made against Belgium.

Right. Egypt. Egypt's look good, man. Yeah. Let's see. Ballow and Souter start really getting into it around this time of the game. Souter puts a hand to Ballow's face. and pulls him down.

Ballo is on the ground. No whistle, no even recognition from the ref. We give up another decent look when a ball gets looped him from the right. Richards heads it away, and Metcalf kind of gets the volley all wrong, half volley, sidewinder. A Suter and Ballo clash again. I think Ballo's really been taking a beating from him, and so he runs up on him, tries to put Suter into a headlock.

Suter sees it come in, puts his shoulder into him. I mean, he's huge. He has to lean down, right? To put his shoulder into him. Yeah. And then, Ball, I think, very quickly realizes this is not going to turn out well. And also, he doesn't want to get sent off. So he kind of, like, pretends that he wasn't trying to put him in a headlock.

And suitors got him around, like, in a bear hug from behind. Turns out it's yellows for both guys. But that kind of ended the scrap between. him, I think. Yeah. Kind of, Ballo kind of had to do like a, just, just joking. I'm just joking, buddy. Yeah. I'm just joking around.

Right. And I do want to say trusty extended the delay here by running to the corner to grab the ball and just going down in a heap when Italiano pushed him. So, I mean, we're working the gray arts a little bit. Yeah. The key to these arts is you cannot be afraid to be embarrassing. you have to be willing to be a little bit embarrassing. Like trust you doing that?

Like, oh, that's kind of, maybe, maybe you got to be tougher. Like, in hockey that wouldn't fly. But it's not hockey. Like, you got to slow things down. Get some of the, like, just let everyone kind of work through the anger calmly and just, yeah, be willing to kind of crumple. I think another 30, 40 seconds probably ticked off the clock, you know, even adjusting for the amount of stoppage time.

Thanks to trustee's embarrassing behavior. Ninety-second minute, Baralter plays a quick pass up to Balagan's chest. This was a nice pass from Seb. Like this was maybe the moment of the game for him. Ballard takes a touch and dinks it over to Malik, who heads it toward the near post and runs onto it. So very nice work from all three players at this point. And then he kind of goes into.

to a sliding pass to flash it across the edge of the six for Balagan, but the pass is just a little too hot. Maybe partly because he was just getting tired. But Ballot couldn't have gotten there any faster without being offside. I watched it very carefully. There was no hesitation in Ballo's run. It was just he couldn't go any further without being offside. And so, like I really wondered, Malik and Balo having this almost come off,

even as a, like, by no right, they shouldn't be in the game anymore. Like, Bollos, Bonnie Yellow, it's 2-0, it's 87th minute. Like, we could easily have these guys off of the field. And so, again, I wonder if Pachitino is like, yeah, we could, that'd be the thing to do in a knockout game or by one.

But this isn't. We are so in control of this and in control of the, you know, advancing in the World Cup, that I want these guys to suffer through it a little bit. Like, I want them to get this World Cup lesson because there might come a game where I can't take them off. I need them to stay on and deliver something. And this is the lesson.

It's not about maintaining their fitness. It's about you have to be willing to stay in this game and pull something out in the 92nd minute. I mean, I don't know. Massive speculation. But when the camera cuts to Timuea and you've got Giorina who've performed at high levels for Pachino, certainly in ways that you could see out a game.

or you could throw Haji right on there to just, you know, occupy some guys and run the clock out. And choosing not to do that when you have these available subs. Like there is, there's got to be some kind of rationale that for Pachitino. Yeah. And I was just struck by if this pass is just a tad lighter, it's 3-0 here, you know? Well, you know, it's a really high XG chance. Thank you. Then the ref has his cramp and that whole saga, you know, he gets stretched by an Australian player,

and I think by an American player too, different points. Everybody's all hands on deck to help the ref get back on his feet. That takes a while. And then Gio and Haji come on in the 96th minute for Wes and Ballo, who both get a good and deserved ovation from the crowd. I do think, just again, Ballot was messy on the day, but he also, you know, He's giving it everything he can. And what more can you ask from a player?

98th minute, the last thing on the timeline is geo, you know, even when he barely out there, he gets a little mention from me. He just clears a ball down the line from midfield, from Malik, who, I don't know, you go back and watch this replay. He just casually receives it over the shoulder, like on a sky ball.

and his touch with his left foot takes him immediately toward the goal and he's in after 90 minutes of running. Pretty remarkable. And he tries to play it across for Haji, who couldn't quite make up his mind if you want to make a hard run to the near post or a sort of flash to the far post. And he just gets beaten to the ball and then he gets kind of little brothered over in the corner. but that's pretty much the last action of the game. 2-0. Q Country Roads. We're going back to L.A.

I mean, we're going back in the semifinal. The ball's bouncing our way. It's not only bouncing our way on our field. It's bouncing our way on other fields too. Like, again, for as fun as this is, the fact that Turkey have lost both their games is, is it, like Turkey's been desperately unlucky. We can revel in their misfortune,

but it's not like they've been horrendous, and they just got really unlucky, and they got really unlucky in a way that Coet, like, fits in perfectly with the way we've performed to put us as group winners with a game in hand, rather than, you know, if they get any other result against Ecuador, or I'm sorry, against Paraguay, we have to at least, like, you know,

it makes us play things honestly. I'm sorry, if they beat Paraguay short-handed after Elmeron's red card, Right. Then we've got to play it straight up, which, you know, adds tremendous stress and pressure and nerves. And instead it's just like, this is, it's, we're on vacation now for a week. We get to just enjoy ourselves for the next week and a half. That definitely did break our way. I do not.

I didn't watch Turkey A versus Paraguay because I had dinner at Jeremiah O'Shan's house and fell immediately. to sleep. But, but I watched them against Australia. And I know I've said this before, but the really big difference between, at least to my eyes, between the way we played against Australia and the way they played against Australia, is that Weston McKinney moment where he makes the quick pass and immediately makes a third man run, you know? Like, they're just, they, I mean, they were unlucky because they took a lot of shots, but all their shots were from far away and they were not running off the ball the way we were and it made me kind of mad watching turkey i'm like you you boys need to like you know wake up and start moving around

start exchanging with each other and running into the channels because they weren't they're just standing they were very static so i don't want to i don't want to put it all up to luck no and that's all fair uh just i just want to you know point out like we had mckenny doing that and and And, you know, Malik doing that at times. And we didn't get any close-in shots either. Like, our shots were searched from the corner of the box a couple of times and searched from the top of the box. And then, you know, Freeman on the goal line on the, on the deflection.

So we also weren't breaking through this block other than the Bolligan squandered chances. Like, we just, we didn't do it either. We just didn't have to care because we weren't desperation zero, zero. Like, how have we not done this yet? We were just, we could coast. cruise control. Yeah, those early goals. Those early own goals really set the tone, don't they?

All right, Greg. So you want everybody, all the guys with yellow cards to sit versus Turkey. Any other lineup wishes for Thursday? Basically, there's so many ways you can go about this. You pretty much just have to make sure everyone hits their cardiometrics, right? Like, I think it's good to give Matt Fries more reps in zero-stakes situation, just let him play in the World Cup longer because he's been a little bit dicey with the ball at his feet. He hasn't had a lot of shots to deal with.

So I never think it's bad to give a goalkeeper more of the reps. But after that, I would just give reps to guys that you do plan on using in knockouts. Timway Giorana. Matt Turner. I'm sort of gathering what you're saying here. Did I say Turner that whole time? I meant freeze. No, you said freeze.

Okay. So your point being that if you were in charge, Matt Turner, would be the goalkeeper. I mean, I would play Turner, but at this point, you don't. At this point, you play Matt Fries and you're in with him. You won't learn your lesson. I mean, you won't know you were wrong unless he has a howler that cost you a game, and then you're out anyway.

So it's Fries's his job. It's his tournament run. So, but I would get the guys, your key subs minutes, and I would make sure your starters get to stretch their legs a little bit, run a little bit. But it could be in any configuration. they could start, like you'd split the starters up and they sub for each other at half time. It really doesn't, I mean, it doesn't matter.

To use it however you want, just don't let anyone on a yellow get suspended for a knockout match. So Mark McKenzie at right centerback, Austin trustee at left back? Are we going, are we going to go with the full Arfston? I would not, I mean, I don't trust Austin trustee at centerback that much, much less left back. So I would let Arston run a little bit and see what he's got again. You can have as much fun with this as you want, and if a guy just clearly isn't up to it, that's your takeaway going into the knockouts. Like, okay, we will not put him back there.

Now we know that it'll be Timway as if something happens to Jedi, or it'll be Weston McKinney if something happens to Jedi. And you just, you find that out. I don't think there's any real chance that Arston is going to play minutes anyway. in the knockouts Tim Wea or? I just I just think that the drop off is so steep from the from the ballers to the to the hustle squad

as I'm affectionately calling them. God bless every one of them. Yeah. God bless them everyone. Yeah. It would be nice to see Raina start on Thursday. He seems to me he's among those who need he's among those who need minutes

as a key sub Yeah, find him 45 at least And again, if Turkey just look like, I don't expect it, I expect that they'll kind of be professional about it They are out, they are eliminated, but if they are, for whatever reason, just out for blood,

which may be playing like a Sergenio Desm makes, does that to you. You know, if he's doing tricks on you and you're already eliminated, maybe you're like, okay, I've got an answer for that. then you just get the key players out drop into a 4-4-2 and just kind of jog out the clock letting turkey have the ball stay out of challenges yeah okay we'll hit our we'll hit our uh cardio metrics after the game run some sprints call it a day this has been a lot of fun this world cup so far hasn't it it changes how you see the other games too right like it's so fun to

enjoy the, I mean, you can really just experience these other games for the drama they have without any residual despair from your own team. Yeah, we get to see France versus Iraq in about an hour here, and Argentina already beat Austria. It's a privilege to watch the U.S. play this way. It's also a privilege to watch Lino Messi in his last World Cup, just to name some of the many privileges we're all enjoying. Greg, thank you.

Thanks, everybody, for listening. We'll see it.