Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #704: USA v Türkiye recap

Episode Date: June 27, 2026

Vince and Belz recap the dead rubber, buzzer beater loss to Türkiye, and Sanjay comes on for the last 20 minutes to talk about what Poch said after the game. Clip Notes for patrons: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed/posts/clipnotes-wc-162197059?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_fan&utm_content=web_share 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. We talk about U.S. soccer. We lost 3-2 to Turkey A on Thursday night. The Turks scored with the last kick of the game, as you all know. Since we had already won the group, Greg Velazquez is resting before the round of 32. And Vince and I are going to recap this together. Vince, how are you doing? I'm doing good, man.

I'm happy to relieve Greg. You know what I'm saying? We had to get him in that hyperbaric chamber. You know what I'm saying? I'm ready. Biggest games of his life coming up. We've got to make sure we got Prime. Greg Velasquez primed and ready to go for the knockout stages.

Also. Knockout stages that have gotten much harder in the past 12 hours. Yeah. I was going to say also a man who's on a yellow card for telling me that Egypt was looking good. Because what happened last night where Egypt went into. Seattle to play Iran, all they needed to do was win to win the group and be our most likely opponent in the round of 16 if we take care of business against Bosnia and Herzegovina. And boy, did they not want to win that game. And then Iran was very unlucky at the end not to win it.

Yeah. And so Belgium, who put five up on who did they play again? New Zealand. On New Zealand. They win the group. So that's it's back to what we thought it was. when the draw happened, basically. Yeah.

We had even got a little bit of hope in like the 80th minute or something. You know, Belgium was winning 3-0, and the Egypt match is still tied. You get a New Zealand goal. Sarpreet Singh. Remember him from the Bayern Munich two days? He was Chris Richards' teammate back in the day. Listener. The answer for me is no, but the listener, maybe you all remember.

But, you know, get that goal. Everybody's like, ah, you know, we might be saved after all. And then New Zealand concedes basically right away. Yeah, they can see two more. But yeah, the fourth goal, you don't even get to celebrate much. Romalo Lukaku scores. So, so, Belgium, round of 16 in Seattle. I don't want to look, I don't want to overlook Bosnia and Herzegovina

as listeners of this pod know I got much love for Bosnia and Herzegovina. But provided that we take care of business. And Bosnia is a respectable opponent. Oh, yeah. Bosnia is a respectable opponent who knows what they are. They got a little bit of quality, not too much, and then they kind of got a shamboleg backline. But a back line that will provide some resistance.

but at the end of the day, you know, they just don't have the type of players that we can throw at them, you know, type of thing. But like I said, a respectable opponent. Respectable opponent, unless. So we have it all right in front of us, man. This is what we thought would happen before the World Cup. I know Egypt gave us some delusions of grandeur.

You know, we were smelling. We were touching the quarterfinals. It's right. You know, it was reaching our hand out. Like, quarterfinals is within our grasp. But, you know, even if Egypt topped that group, I had started to become convinced in the past two days that I'm not sure that the team that's the team that we would be seeing in Seattle. Like as it stands right now, I think Belgium must have played South Korea. Like if Egypt had to play South Korea, I think I'm taking South Korea.

Yeah, especially after last night. Boy, they look like some A word. You know, I don't want to. Yeah. I don't want to. Too early into the recording here. But yeah, man, we lost. It is what it is.

But I'm feeling good, though. And, you know, Adam Bell's, I got a, there's a theory I've been cooking up. You know, after watching this group stage kind of transpire. Yeah. with regards to regards to friendlies, right? You know, all three of these group stage opponents

somehow serendipitously. We all played within the past year or whatever in the past 14 months, maybe at this point. And, you know, we kind of downplay the value of these, which, I mean, everybody knows the values of friendlies, which are, they're just friendlies.

But I think it is, I think at the end of the day, when you play a soccer game, it's a soccer team against a soccer team. And if you play something close to like a team in these friendlies, like there's not too much more that you're going to find out about playing a team when the, when the bullets are really flying, when the match is official. You know, you're seeing it yourself. you're seeing how you match up player against player on the pitch. Now, the intensity might be a little bit lowered, like for instance, Australia. Cameron Burgess was an oath then. He's an oath now. You know what I'm saying?

Nothing's changing, nothing about the, he could talk as much as he wanted to in between those two matches about how much they desire this game and how much they are putting Mike Grella's thoughts and opinions into their head to make some type of reservoir that they can tap into. Right. You know, when this game means everything or whatever, it doesn't change much to me. And so we kind of saw that play out with Australia and Paraguay.

And then when thinking about this match coming up, the Turkey A match, I just thought to myself, thought back to that friendly. Jack McGlynn on the field. Max Arston on the field. Diego Luna on the field. Johnny Cardoso, I think Luca Deloori on the field. Man, it feels like a decade ago.

Patrick Ajima on the field. And we were respectable in that match. Matter of fact, I think, was that after the Switzerland match? I think before. It was before the Switzerland match, yeah. Either way, it was a result and a performance that we kind of felt good about. provided who was on the pitch and how we played or whatever. Okay.

And so with this hypothesis forming in my head and then thinking to the Turkey A match, despite the fact that I knew we were going to rotate, I thought we'd be good and at least put out a respectable performance. And that's mostly what we did. Yeah. I liked our energy on Friday, just like I've liked the energy. in our game, all the games at the World Cup. I don't like, I mean, should we just go ahead and get in the lineups? I don't like the, I don't like the way our attack played.

I'm assuming you don't either. But anyway, it's Turner and goal. So nine of 11 players rotated. No, 10? Is it 10 of 11? I kept seeing nine, but yeah, who would the other? Herfalter didn't start against Australia. Yeah, right.

So, yeah, he's got six. significant minutes in both of the first two games, and he started this game. But everybody else on the field, besides Wes, was getting their first significant minutes here. So Matt Turner and goal, Joe Scally, Miles Robinson, Mark McKenzie, and Austin, Trustee across the back line. Interesting thing there is trustee is a centerback. He's deputizing as a left back. this is a difference between friendlies and when the bullets flying is that all of a sudden Max Arsson doesn't play anymore. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the thing. That's the one like antithesis to my thought is just, you know, us, like the USA. You'd be like, well, USA looks a lot different. Well, that's just a factor of being healthy. Unfortunately, like you did not see our A listers. in those friendlies. No. We had them tucked away.

Once again in the hyperbaric chamber. Same one, Velasquez is in. Yeah, Arfston has, Arsson played almost every, started almost every game for Potch in the lead up to the World Cup. Now he hasn't played a minute yet in the World Cup.

Sebastian Burhalter and Weston McKinney in the midfield, also Giorina in there somewhere. And then Aronson, Brennan Aronson, Ricardo Pepe and Tim Way across the front line. I mean, interesting thing to me is we still created chances. You know, we had two kind of bangers from unlikely sources.

Well, Sebastian's not that unlikely of a source, but definitely Austin trustee scoring a goal at the World Cup is not something I think a lot of people predicted. Great goal from Burrhalter, too. We had other chances hit the post a couple times. But we did all that getting nothing. out of Tim Wea. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing out of Tim Wea. Nothing out of Ricardo Pepe. Well, almost nothing out of Pepe. He had a couple, he had a couple moments. And nothing out of Geo until Pulisic came on and there was somebody else, somebody running in the

front line. And then he had somebody to pass to and did a couple of things. But not much from Gio either. And yet we still did all right and, you know, gave up, only lost the game because of a very, very, very light goal, which was a little fortuitous for Turkey, Turkey A. Here's their lineup. Real quick before we get in the lineup, just to continue with this, how about this, you know, we kind of saw in the friendly, the Turkey A match. And I had chalked this up as them not trying very hard in that friendly, but it's,

It's like it is the case, it seems to me, where if you show them, you know, they're not the most intense team defensively, basically. And if you show a basic level of competence on the ball, they kind of will concede territory for you. You know, they kind of will just make sure they're not like cut open in behind. And they're like, okay, if you progress it from like the build out phase to like midfield, we're just going to back up a little bit. You get to the final third. We'll back up a little bit. You know, they did handle business when forced into the opportunities to, you know, kind of like, you know, mostly in the final third.

It was like when we challenged their defenders, it was like they were coming away clean with the ball a lot of the times. But other than that, it's like as long as we didn't just boot the ball away needlessly and showed it a genuine level of technical competence. You know, if we made a mistake, they were there to pounce on it. but yeah they they would concede ground so okay that that that just lends to and you know one of potch's major successes as opposed to the Greg burrhalter reign is the fact that we can do this with the backup squad I mean we couldn't did GGG we did not look like a soccer team if MMA wasn't on the pitch for example right yeah it's true um our ability

to progress from back to front, like it's just, it's cooked, really. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it is,

I mean, that's an interesting way to think of it, think of it, because this is a team, Turkey, I'll read the lineup now with guys at Roma, uh,

Real Madrid, Juventus, Dortmund, um, and then a lot of, a lot of guys in the Turkish league. But, uh,

for us to be able, for us to throw the B team out there, and be pretty good, I think, is encouraging. Here's their lineup. Ergashan Shakir in goal, he plays at Galatasarai, and one of the big Istanbul clubs. Zeki Chelik, at right back, he plays at Roma, Ozan Kabak and Abdul Karim Bardakchi,

also at centerback at Hoffenheim and Galatasarai. and then, so they, you know, I'm giving them in a three-four-three. Ogaz Aden, who plays at Fennerbachi, just absolutely pocketed Tim Wea over at right-wingback, right-wingback. Sala Oshkan, who plays at Dortmund and Orkin Kokshu, who plays at Beshiktas in the midfield, and then Aaron El-Mali, who plays at Galatas, right, he played left-wing-back. He was also pretty good in the game. Ardaguller at Rai. Real Madrid was untouchable on the night. And Beres Alperi Yilmas at Galatas where I played striker and then Kenan Yieldies,

who we know well from his Juventus playing, played left wing. To me, I mean, it's interesting to hear you say that about the conceding ground because I think you're right. But also, to me, the big thing in this, one of the big things in this game was that we just lost duel. We lost 60% of our ground duels. Guler, like I said, was, I mean, he was the best player in the field by a lot. I don't think we lose 40%

or 60% of duels if we have Tyler and Malik and Flo and Christian and Sergenio Dest out there. And Jedi. Kind of winning battles, tilting the field, taking a touch out of pressure. So this is where I, again, invoke Falasquez doesn't just say main problem for us, besides some defensive stuff we'll get into, I'm sure.

Was we just weren't grown up enough with the ball? We didn't have all the grownups out there. Got little brothered a bit. I mean, when you think about it, we have the little brother out there, number one. Okay. Brento got wrecked more than once in this match. Rico Pepe, holdup was an issue.

You know, each one of those. Those hold-up reps are a duel. I thought you were going to find a more colorful way to say hold up. It then hold-up was an issue. But, yeah, it definitely was. Talk about an understatement. Yeah. Tim Wea, well, we'll get into his issues with why he was losing the ball, but he was losing the ball.

He sucked. Oh, and last but not least, Sebastian Berhalter, who is a little bit, brotheriness in defense specifically continues to show up repeatedly as long as he's on the pitch. You know, it's not a matter of it's quintessential little brother in the fact that it's not a matter of effort whatsoever. He truly wants to prove the big bro, hey, I can hang with the big dogs. You know what I'm saying? And he continuously just gets, you know, pants, tripped, face in the mud, going crying to mom you know etc

not to take away from his performance because you know he really got to cook it and part of the the lack of pressure that Turkey it kind of puts on the ball you know Sebastian not somebody that's comfortable playing at 360 degrees necessarily

but hey when he gets that ball facing forward you know we saw some passing range we saw we saw some like worm burners on the ground progressing into the into the final third from him, like, one really nice one in the second half that I remember. I think it was the pulley. But.

Yeah, we saw. The very late one through the lines, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. We saw some stuff from him offensively. But, yeah, when it comes to defense, I mean, he just does not have the ability to walk up to somebody and say, hey, I'm taking that ball. we're going this way. And once again, like I said, it's not because of any lack of mental acuity. It's not any lack of want to. He very much wants to and he very much reads the plays as they're

happening. He's just unable to do it right now. And so, you know, when you add all those together, like, yeah, we're going to lose a lot of duels, man. Yeah, we did. Before we get to the timeline, Let me just ask you again to join the Patreon. I'm not asking you, Vince, to join the Patreon. I'm asking the listener. Here's what you get. Pre-game shows with Sanjay and a rotating cast from the press corps, including Charlie Baum, Doug McIntyre, Henry Bushnell,

that's who's been on so far. Ryan Tolman. Ryan Tolman. Yes, right. That's a shout on my dog. Yes. You also get the clip notes, which are videos of all the actions we will describe today, created by Vince.

already out. Already out. Already up on the Patreon. How long is it? 20 minutes? Yeah, this one's about 23 minutes. It's less Australia. It was like 32. Okay. Crazy. Yeah. All the episodes, including this one and everything on the public ad feed, ad free. And when we do a call-in show, which we didn't after this game, just because, you know, we're rotating. We're rotating, man. We're rotating. But you get to join the call-in shows if you join the Patreon. Anyway, lots of perks and not even mentioning that patrons are the lifeblood of the podcast, so join us. And we'll be back in a moment with the timeline. All right, we're back.

We jump all over them right away, 45 seconds in. This is kind of what we've been doing in this tournament. It's a bit of a scramble up the right side. Wes gets it on the right sideline, tries to clip the ball to the middle, and it deflects and kind of arcs up into the air. Scali strides under it, full head of hair, and pokes it over to Aronson, who gets in a tussle and it falls to Raina, stepping into the box.

Half folly for Raina, 17 yards out. He smashes it off a defender for a corner kick, but that's a pretty solid chance for us inside a minute. And Raina's pumping up the crowd. You love to see it. we're looking like we're looking like we're planning on doing something yeah yeah yeah pumping up the crowd man yeah that was uh i was like okay yeah i was like this is crazy ensuing corner it's a goldmouth scramble west gets kind of a sniff of it at the near post

gets cleared to trusty near the penalty marker he hits a soft one on target with his right foot he will redeem himself it's spilled by the keeper and then it's swept out of bounds by elmali right in front of Peppy. A lot of excitement, though. Only a minute and a half in, and on the next corner, we score. Goal USA. Burhalter takes it. It falls to trustee, he takes it from the left side, from our point of view, falls all the way to trustee on the back post. He takes a nice touch with the inside of his right foot and then just absolutely lashes it. Pass the keeper at the near post. The velocity of the ball on the angle behind the net is pretty cool to watch. The ball just kind of like appears out of, you know,

just a zooms into view. The big Celtic centerback was out of body in his celebration, which you know I love to see, and ran over to the bench. Got to be happy for him. 1-0, USA. And it is like, man, we are really the team of destiny here. Austin trustee putting us ahead.

Yeah. And like I didn't mention this earlier, but I did really want that 9.0.1. though. Mexico sealed it. Sealed a deal. I was like, bro, we got to, we got to do it. Like, you know what I'm saying?

And at this point, I'm feeling like we're going to do it. I do want to shout out, like, on the set piece design here. Another football term for y'all. Sealing the edge. Stealing the edge. All right. You're running the sweet play.

Preacher man, Mr. Mark McKenzie. Okay. Mr. Mark McKenzie himself. He seals the edge here. You can see him. He's pushing in some, some Turkish man here to give Austin Trussie the space to receive this ball and finish with the plum as he did. But yeah, we got, we got Mark and Miles. So we put both our big burly centerbacks over there. You know, they're running, they're running crack blocks. just pushing pushing two turks in there and they do an excellent job excellent block excellent movement that they got there move the two fellas

probably solid three yards you know if you wonder why Austin trustee is just sitting there on the back post all along all alone you know the linemen don't get credit bro and so here on this podcast we are offensive linemen appreciators and so shout out to Mark McKenzie and Miles

Robbins he was wide open I appreciate that. Yeah, they sealed it. We look confident and competent, I think, for the next eight minutes, a bit lacking in quality. But then there's a goal from Turkey in the 10th minute.

Big switch from left to right. Gula gets on the ball. Tries a little combination. This is, Gula was number eight for Turkey, just in case you didn't know. Tries a little combination with a teammate who cuts. cuts in on trustee. I think it was Aiden, yeah, who cuts in on trustee.

His return passes loose to Gula, but it gets past Burhalter's outstretched leg. Seb is trying to block two passing lanes. But it wrong foots Mark McKenzie because he thinks Guler's going to make a touch and he doesn't. It rolls past both of them. Yomaz is darting in behind him past Miles. Miles just kind of falls, you know, falls back to the near post. McKenzie never catches up to Gula. He gets his cut back.

He gets the cut back from Yomaz. So nice pass and a really good touch to reach back and put it in front of him. And then he just slots it under Turner's outstretched left arm, cool as you like. So nice passes play from Turkey. Turkey. This is a classic Mark McKenzie moment. You know, just Mark being just being bad and defended. Okay, first of all, that pass is played to Goulet, right?

It's between, it's between Tim, and Mark McKenzie, Tim Waya has kind of fallen into the back line as Turkey did like a little bit of interchanging there. He was following Goulier. Okay. As Mark McKenzie, when you see that past being played, regardless if you think Goulogh is going to take a touch or not, why wouldn't you just try to get your body on his body? You know, because if he does take the touch, you'll have a better chance of like blocking the ball, wherever that touch may go if you're touched tight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Mark McKenzie's first steps are, like, kind of away from Goulart? Like, like diagonally?

He kind of shapes his body. Kind of like he's heading up towards the right corner flag a little bit. Yeah. Once again, that's the thing about Mark is, you know, when directly forced into action, when he was a few times, well, a lot of times kind of in this match, whether it's like a header or like other times where it's like someone, that is predetermined that he should mark, like somebody checking back in the space in the buildup,

and he's like on their back. He did like a good job there for the most part in this match. But it's like this off ball stuff. And like when he has to make decisions that for whatever reason, he almost always makes the wrong decision, it always seems like, you know, at some point when it's like, when you always have to seem to the crown, when I turn around at this.

burglary scene or whatever and like Mark McKinsey just said like I don't know man I saw him and I was thinking about calling you but I just figured that you know maybe I had seen him over at your house before or something. It's always Mark McKenzie.

That's always Mark McKenzie. It's like damn bro. And then so that pass it's like that's not that good of a faint for you to just be looking like that. And that ball is not even hit hard enough for all the stuff that you did anyway

and then the fact that it's just it's just playing over after that you know like he never gets back into the play he never troubles Gula at all and that's the thing it's usually when he makes these decisions

or even when he like he just doesn't have the ability to get back into plays because he's he's just not He's not that great of athlete. Short burst quickness is really not good. Yeah, but just so people understand what we're talking about, because I don't know that I described it that well.

It's basically a give and go from Gula to Yomaz. But it starts with a, it's like a broken play, right? I mean, the pass to Gula is not where Gula wants it, the original one. And then it gets past both him and McKenzie, and then Gula just continues. his run to the left as Iommas collects the ball on the right and then reverse pass back to him. And Mark just never, it never really troubles anybody at all. And it's like, I mean, I guess like potentially maybe Mark could be thrown off by Sebastian

Bear Alter's leg a little bit, but it's just like, no. You know, it's like, when Mark makes a step, the step that he makes, takes him further away from the ball and further away from Goulin. Yeah. You know, it's almost like he is intentionally letting this pass through. We know he is not. Because as a man of the cloth, he, of course he has honor. He is not on the take.

He does not have, you know, one of his boys placed in a bet on Fandululah, Goulare plus, not for Mark. Plus 500, you know, to score a goal or whatever. You know, those odds can be completely wrong. wrong or not mean what I think they mean. I don't bet. But yeah, it's a, he's always just doing some peculiar, peculiar stuff. And, you know, I've laughed at it enough.

I'm tired of seeing it, you know, from his gink days. And it's just this stuff, for whatever reason, has just not gotten any better. You've played like 15,000 minutes in her back in Europe, brother. Yeah. Maybe 10,000 conservatively. He's not a young centerback anymore. And it does seem like this is who he is. I be really surprised if he plays in anything besides this friendly that we're talking about right now.

World Cup friendly. I mean, it's weird. Yeah, it's weird that we, yeah, we're going to get Sanjay on at the end of the show to talk about Pach's reaction to the game and stuff. but and so it was sort of more big picture things but we get into that a little bit how odd it was to play a game where we had already wrapped up the group and you know FIFA's rule change that went from goal difference to being the first tiebreaker to head to head which sort of completely changed the dynamic of our group it's not good no it's not you have a group for a reason like you play a group right it really did take a lot of the meaning out of the the third games and the groups including ours um 13th minute, we get a chance. So, I mean, it's just back and forth. Haymaker after Haymaker, throw into Wes, and he comes away with it and beats a guy up the line,

cuts into the box, lays it off for Aronson. So Wes just starting off with the same dynamism he's had all in both of the first two games of the World Cup. Aronson's left-footed shot from the edge of the box is blocked. I mean, I'll be honest, I see the ball go to Aronson in this spot. I'm like, man, we're not scoring. There's no way we're going to score a goal here. But, you know, Hope springs the turn. He takes a left-footed shot, blocked right back to him.

And then he had this, now he has actually a really good chance with his right foot. I mean, this ball sits up nice for him. He gets to take a full wind up. And he just, he scuffs it at the keeper. I don't think there's a better way to describe it. He does not make good contact. This is not like Burrhalter, you know, just slamming it off the turf. This is, he hits it softly with a full windup, a ball sitting up a little bit off the air, off the ground.

That's why he's a butter knife, man. That's why he's a butter knife right there. He needs to take ball striking lessons from Austin Trustee. That's right. I mean, you know, you would think it would filter down Philadelphia Union to Philadelphia Union. I mean, for everything I just taught about Mark McKenzie, he can strike a ball. Yeah. Austin Trussie.

He ever, yeah. Give me Mark McKinsey. that moment, man, he'll put, he'll blast it. Um, I just want to shout out the run from Weston McKinney. Yeah, you know, as he gets towards the box, you know, he starts to stumble a little bit. Gets, gets right back up. You know, there is no

comical, you know, three part fall or whatever. Gets, gets, gets right, but this is a large dude doing all this stuff. I just keep repeating this, but, you know, six foot, maybe six foot one man. coming at you with a full head of steam kind of getting pulled along the way loses his balance,

regains it immediately to the point of where he can kind of dribble inside the box a little bit and lay it off to Brindow. That's just good stuff. And yeah, we can move on. Yeah, Wes has been brilliant. I mean, I think he got a little tired in this game,

but... Yeah, but from jump and playing in the deeper role next to Sebastian just once again like you said not just the dynamism but continuing his overall form

from this World Cup every touch is clean you know passes are going where he intends them to go he was really the tone setter for this team especially in the first half yeah because you don't want

I mean any of that front three set in the tone you don't want really want Gio set in the tone. Gio was, so I mean, let's see, 17th minute, loose moment where Gio tries to tap it out wide to Tim and it just kicks it out of bounds. I don't know. It's, I don't know who wanted the ball less in this situation, Gio or Tim. But neither of them really wanted to get the ball and make the other team do something. Tim, because none of it was working, Gio just never tried.

Like, he never tried to push the issue. until he played a couple passes to pull a sick right before he came off. Tim, I don't think he wanted the ball because he knew he was going to get the ball taken from him by his dad. Not the dad who was not the dad who was up in the box,

but the dad named Aiden who was playing right wingback for Turkey. He was proud and excited to pocket him way. He was so proud and excited. go ahead well two things here i guess with the timwaya thing um you know potchino had a quote i don't know who he's talking to but i read this sometime this week he was it was in regards to the nation's league and he was saying i think somebody asked me if he was like mad or whatever by the performance of the nation's league whatever he said no i'm not mad it's like when you have a toddler and

they do something. You're not mad at them. You're mad at your self to do, like, allow this behavior. Tim Way on the left wing, you allow this behavior. You know what I'm saying? Um, look, the end result is the result. Tim got flambayed for this performance. There's been memes. There's been casuals killing the man. Understood. And it's deserved based on the performance, Tim Wea admitted as such. Me, here, I'm just saying, what did you expect? I mean, I even got a text. My boy, my quarterback from college,

he hit the group text up. He was like, hey, Vezia boy, Timwaya's ass. And, you know, I didn't get into it. The only thing I responded is he's not a left link. He was like, he responded back and said, obviously. That's funny. Yeah. I mean, that, it was pretty obvious.

Yeah, he. He's a one, he's, so I mean, I guess I'll let you finish your point. You want to make it explicit for us? Where should he be on the field? I mean, go ahead. You were going to say he's a one, what? He's a one-dimensional player. Like, or the number of dimensions that he has is less than, it's not, he's not multi-dimensional.

Right. He, he, he's good on the right. He can get over there. He can, he can get the edge. He has, he has reps and he is comfortable. Getting the edge and whipping a ball in. Sometimes he whips the ball in through your legs, through the defender's legs. He's not doing any of that with his left foot.

Right. And that's the thing. Tim Wea is not some, he doesn't roast people, even on the right. He's not roasting people. He ran past a couple Mexican defenders, but that's because, you know, Mexico. Because the ancestors are unhappy. Yeah. They felt fit to throw some Jack McGlens out there on a fullback position, which is kind of crazy.

Yeah, so Tim can use the ball, get his little half step, and then he can keep the advantage because he can run. Basically, he can get up to full speed and run towards the end line and serve a ball in without breaking stride on the right. He cannot do that on his left. He cannot break stride and hit a ball, a good ball with his left. The couple times he tried in this match, they kind of farted off his foot. Oh, man, it was sad. And there are a couple reps that we'll get to in this match where he gets that half step on Iden. One, he can only touch the ball with his right foot.

And so he brings Aiden back into the play. And then the other one, he just, he is at the end line. He basically is, he refuses to hit the ball with his left foot. You know, he just, he gets there, he gets his half step. And he's just like, ah, he just can't, he don't got the facility, don't got the capacity. He's don't got a capacity. Now, you might be asking, hey, Tim Wea, he's a professional winger.

He should be able to play on both sides. No, he's not. You know, he's a fullback now. There's a reason why he got moved back a line. And that's because of all the things we talk about as far as we know he can't beat a man one-on-one reliably. And we know he's limited as far as the direction. Because, you know, there are some interviews with Tim Wea

where they're asking them his preferred side. He's like, you know, I like to be on the left so I can cut it on my right foot. Well, you know, the thing about cutting it on your right foot, you got to have like some sauce to be able to earn your way onto your right foot from the left. You know, people aren't just going to let you come onto your right foot and come in field. And not just fetuccini Alfredo, man. Come on, give us some real sauce. Yeah. You got a, yeah.

you got to yeah you're just not going to be able to get on your right foot and just whack shots as you see fit um if you're tim way out and you know another thing is that you know he didn't have he didn't have it he didn't have it if he's going to be on the left he needs a dance partner right he needs somebody to maybe help him combine and get him to that in line to where maybe he can uh calibrate that left foot a little bit better have a little bit more more time and space to get that off. And maybe he can put in a good ball with the left foot that way. And he was quite isolated over there.

Now, you might be saying these are excuses once again. Tim, nobody, Tim Way is responsible for his performance. I'm giving you reasons. I'm giving you reasons. And if you go back, look, Senegal match, okay? Senegal match, he created the battle goal. Remember him and Wes combined. Wes plays a man.

Tim Wea, basically, we talked about it. when we did that recap, no touch, didn't even have to touch the ball. That's the Wes's ball perfectly weighted, send him towards the inline, and he puts in a trademark Timway across from the right. Balo finishes. The called off goal, Tim Wea smashes a Senegalese player in the air, powerful header that he wins, towards West. Wes has it back into Tim Wea's path.

He carries it into the final third, squares it for Ballo. everything transpires Belik tucks it or whatever and then we get the we get the bogus file call or whatever so yeah the idea that we haven't seen any evidence of him being effective

on the right recently I don't believe in that and yeah so that's just that's just what it is there and Giovanni Raina I'm going to get this out now then we can continue on this timeline bills

but there's a quote for Michael Irvin that I've quoted on this podcast many of times. Michael Irvin's recounting a moment in the, I think it's the night before a match, where I think his position coach was talking to the receivers for the Dallas Cowboys. Coach said, to all my playmakers,

to all my playmakers, we must not feel the temperature in the room. We must be a thermometer. Right. This is how Michael Irving Rieke. Now you might be saying that sounds like a thermometer to me, Vince, understood. He meant thermostat, okay? He meant thermostat.

But I referred to them as thermometers because older black people getting things wrong, whether it's adding a S to something to a noun that doesn't need an S or something like that. It's one of my favorite things in the world. So I'm going to call him a thermometer. You know what G.R. Raina is not, Adam Bills. He's not a thermometer, bro. He feels the temperature in the room. room. Gio just feels the temperature in the room. It took this match for it to really crystallize

for me. Hmm. It no longer is Gio the person that we can expect to come on the pitch and make things happen. We've seen it at Glybock. We've seen it for the United States men's national team. Now, at the end of the Paraguay match, if you give him, first of all, if you roll him up, and then you give him five steps to step into that to step into that goal, you know, he's going to make some magic happen for you. And once again, to the point of him being a, him not being a thermometer,

you know who set the temperature, everybody else with their performance leading up to that last goal, right? Everyone's feeling good. Gio's like, you know what, let me cap this off of you. Gio's a dude that comes in the party when it's already bumping. and he might add a little something to it. He might come in with a 30 rack. Like, oh, y'all was getting low on beer.

Guess what Gio's here? You know what I'm saying? But before, he's not adding nothing. You know, if the party's not doing what it's supposed to do beforehand, he's not turning the music up. He's not getting in the middle of dance floor. Like, oh, y'all ain't dancing? Let me go and set this off for y'all.

He's not setting it off. Mm-mm. Gio is feeling the temperature, and he will acclimatize from there. Yeah. And it's unfortunate, but at this point in time, over, you know, club ball and USA ball, like this is, this is flatly what it is. Now, can he, of course he has qualities, and, of course he has qualities that he can inject within the team. But when you put him out there with 10 changes and a Weston McKinney, Weston McKinney's doing all the driving

Yeah And for whatever reason G.R. Passenger is a passenger. Yeah. So. Yeah, it looked a lot like his Gladbach performances to me. And I guess the one, not an excuse,

but maybe a reason is if the party was bumping and he had Malik, you know, Serginio Flo Balagan to pass to I don't know how he would have Malik I don't think that's

I don't think they're both going to be on at the same time maybe they will Christian Pulisic from the start then maybe you get to see more of him doing what he does well but as it was man he was just passing it backwards you know

like it's too bad it's too bad that he's not a tone setter Must be a thermometer, bro. Yeah. I was going to say Yogi Berra would have been proud of that one. You know, that Michael Irvin phrase. Let's see.

I'm going to skip ahead to the 26 minute. Mark, good defensive play by Mark running down a bouncing ball in the corner just ahead of Yomaz, knocks it out of bounds, and wins a foul. Are you seeing some stuff? I mean, look, before that happens, we get loose passes from McKenzie. Burhalter gets a yellow card, raking a guy's shin, after trying to get to the McKenzie pass. We're starting to look a little bit rattled,

having a hard time stringing passes together. Yeah, this period of time, right? So Sebastian gets to yellow, which it's one of those funny yellows where the ref thinks it's just a common foul, and then he looks and sees the evidence, which was actually caught on the camera pretty well where when Sebastian rakes the dude's leg even creates a hole in the sock.

Yeah. So the ref comes over. It doesn't brand us the yellow card at first. Looks at the evidence. It was like, ah, man, you was wild. And put the yellow up. That was beautiful. So he gets the yellow there.

And then shortly thereafter, gets kind of, gets the ball tapped around them by a Turkish player. I forgot who it was. And the Turkish player is attempting to go around to go get the ball and set fouls them there too. And at that point, after those two files in like kind of quick succession, I'm like, man, we might have to, you might have to go ahead and get them out of your half, potentially. Because like, I mean, maybe at that point, it's like, you maybe got like two

files left. Two fouls in the one, and one of those files has to be just like a pretty very common type of file. Right. Right. You know? And so I was, I was worried there. And, you know, that second one that I just described is just kind of a prime example of, you know, Sebastian Burrhalter's a battleshipiness. You know, he's, we got another battleship. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, small battleship. Yeah. It's a wee ship, but, um, I thought he might was, might was going to get a, you know,

yellow card for that foul. You know, it wouldn't have been that crazy to get one. It wouldn't have been that crazy. Back to back yellow cards. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So, Way has got to play on the right. Sebastian's got to not play and Gio's got to, nah, I don't know what to do with Gio.

Well, to the Sebastian point, he's playing, brother. I know. That's the thing. And I don't know if I have any confidence

when we see Way again, if he'll be on the right. For one thing, we got the right eye dominance stuff from Potch and then, and it's so funny that Wayas says with his own mouth that he prefers to play on the left. Like, what the hell are you talking about, brother?

Come on. Anyway, he gets a big switch from West goes at Aden, Eidine, maybe is how you pronounce it in the 28th minute, but gets bodied off the ball so easily. This has to do with going at him with his to his left. Aiden was just shepherding him

to the left and then just stepping in and taking the ball. Yeah, so this is the one where Tim yeah, only touched it with his only touched the ball with his right foot. He has the step, bro. He lets bro back in, he lets, Ideen,

Aiden. Beautiful, beautiful. We let him back into the play because he touches the ball with his right foot. Inside foot, as the defender's coming out, and it kind of tails, the touch kind of tails inside just a little bit to give him that room to get into the play. Like it's just, it's frustrating to watch.

29th minute chalked off U.S. goal, another good set piece from Burhalter, and Miles heads it at the goal leaning away. It deflects to Pepey, he shoots, and then it deflects to McKenzie, and he dispatches it from point blank. Pepe was offside when Miles headed it, and McKenzie might have been offside when Pepey shot it, too. I don't know. He was. Okay. Yeah, so two off sides offenses and one. It's too bad.

It would have been nice to get both of our centerbacks a goal, and then immediately, immediately, 31st minute Turkey A scores their second. There's some head tennis in the middle. Wes loses a duel with Gula here. This is a, it's like a sky ball coming down, and West just gets kind of shrugged off by this small Turkish man, who comes away clean,

taps it out to Yieldies, and then it's all about the overlapping run from El Mali here. He goes trucking all the way around the left. Yulamus taps it back into Gula in Zone 14, and then he plays a one-touch pass to El Mali, who has circled all the way around, pinch your movement from him. He cuts it back and Kukshu stabs it home,

just barely gets a foot to it, but puts it up in the top corner. Far post. Really clever bit of movement from Amali and good attacking soccer from Turkey A. Nobody stay with Gula or Kokeshu. Oh. Then I got to say just for the record,

it took a touch off of Yil Maz. The shot did as it went up into the net. Did it? He gets credited with the goal. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it definitely took a touch off of him. Wow. Okay.

We got Yaldiz. We got O'Malley making the run. Wes acknowledges this after he loses the duel and gets out and gets out to Yodies. Him and Joe Scali seem to understand what's going on. Joe Scali sees the overlap coming. Joe points to Yildiz like, hey, Wes, you got him. Boom, I'm here. So.

but he only maintains that focus for the initial pass. You know, like if Yaldiz was going to pass it to this overlaper, Joe would have been prepared for it. But as soon as Yol D's passes it inside the Goulaire, Joe then- Watches his hands of El Mali, yeah. Yeah, he ball watches.

So he turns, and then by the time Goulare plays a passback, so if you look at Joe Scali at this point, in all his head movements, he basically makes a full 360. because he's following the ball. Then once the pass is played, he's like, oh, I got to turn my body all the way around.

And at that point, you know, you're completely out of the play. With the speed at which El Mali was making, you know, he's played into the in line, and you're just basically not going to be able to ball move faster than the man kind of thing. You're not going to be able to make up that ground. So first and probably biggest demerit here, I'm going to give to Joe Scali. Because he had the easiest assignment.

and he blew it. And an assignment he knew that he had for sure. If he tracks Almali from the point that he recognizes that he has Omali, this probably isn't a play. Secondly, when the ball's passed, when the balls passed from Yudis to Goulare, Sebastian Burrhalter steps to Goulart. He is right next to Orcan Corkshu

when Yildiz has the ball. basically. But then Yield is passes a Guller and Seb steps and Miles steps at the same time. I think Sebs should have left Miles to handle Gouler, Sebastian stay with Corkshire,

and boom, you'd be right there to cut that cut back out once it's played to the top of the six yard box or whatever. At first, I was thinking about giving a demit to Mark McKenzie, but you know, Mark McKenzie has to he has to stay between Yielders and the goal, basically, because

Austin trustee is not between yield is and the goal. So if a ball's fizz is just plainly across the box, yield is a step in that is, is, um, smashing it in, no problem if Mark McKenzie is not there. So I think Mark McKenzie's in the right place. I think this is a Joe Scali number one.

And Seb, you know, not as big as a demerit, not as easy of a read as what Joe Scalia has. but I think he gets a he gets a little bit of demerit there too so okay yeah I mean

I think you gotta you also got a I mean I feel like I got to also give Wes a demerit too for just like he really does get he loses the duel pretty decisively and it doesn't seem like it's a play

that he needs to be so decisively overrun in it seems like i don't watch this a few times because i'm trying to understand what he's doing because it's almost like he i don't i almost feel like he might have touched the ball that popped up to goulare you know he kind of for whatever reason ob's out of trying to like head this ball yeah and him and goulare both throw like a foot at it as it's coming down at the out of the sky and i almost wonder if if west touches it first instead of goulare and then goulare ends up settling it.

But for whatever reason, I don't know why he opted out of just knocking that thing with his head. I would have rather him do that, essentially. But, yeah, there's no doubt about the fact that he lost that duel. Convincingly. And, you know, Goulare is just like silky smooth, you know, put up like, you know, 15, I think like 15 and 15 for Real Madrid this season. Dang.

I want to say it's something nice like that. And the more I watch it, yeah, I think Wes did get the first contact to this ball with his foot. Okay. And ended up popping it up. But regardless, he's a good player. And sneaky sort of grown up with the ball. You know, it's hard to take it from him. All right, let's skip ahead here.

We do get a nice turn from Pepe in the 41st minute on a pass from McKenzie. And then he plays it out to West, over to Scali, cross blocked out for a corner. I mention it because Pepe, it's like the one thing Pepe did in the game that was positive against, I mean, with the ball. And he just got destroyed. I mean, we've talked a lot about Wea and Erinson being ineffective, but Pepe was totally, just totally handled with ease every time the ball came in his direction by Turkey. Yeah. And it's you can even kind of see it

in the Australia match, right? You know, we got Bello, we got Pepe on the pitch. Regardless of how messy Flo Bologan was, yeah. You know, he's just a totally different dynamic threat than RICO is.

And you know what? Regardless, however he was receiving the ball for whatever reason, he's just every time he kind of received the ball between the lines, he's like, he's taking it beyond that you know backwards yeah backwards towards that second their second defensive line you know a man who's running he's running scared from the physical content man he's just terrified he's going to lose the ball yeah like kind of just opting out of doing the tough part

of receiving it between the lines and turning and maybe trying to go forward with it yeah but somebody passed it to him between the lines and he would his first touch would take him back between the lines that the past came from. Yeah. It's like, come on, brother. At that point, the past in between the lines, brother. Well, the past was. Yeah, yeah, right.

The effect, at least. Right. You're not receiving the ball between the lines. Yeah. So. There's a real, one more point to make about Raina, which I think has to do with not being a thermometer, being a thermometer, depending on how much you.

Anyway. It's a confusing metaphor. No, official parlance is thermometer. I know, I know, I know, I know. Turn your brain off. It's a real nice combo. Wes plays a vertical pass to Raina, and he combines with Aronson.

This is the 42-minute mark. And then Aronson gives it back to Gio, and he's running into the box with a ball. And you can see, at least I felt like I could see, Gio sort of decide. I'm going to make my own shot here. I'm going to do it. I'm going to stop being,

I'm going to start being a thermometer. I'm going to start being a thermostat. And he just can't. He just can't do it. Like he tries and he just doesn't have the short range burst to get around anybody. And the Turkish defenders just crowd him out pretty comfortably on the edge of the box.

He doesn't even get that far into the box. Yeah. And once again, because he just doesn't play, we're still trying to figure out what this diminished version of Gio is. And I think it's pretty, you know, his ability to carry dynamically, which he had back in the Housian days. It's not evident anymore.

It's short-range burst to create shots. I mean, do you remember that word of Brimago? Yeah. Off the left wing. Just skipping past people. Yeah. That's gone, brother. Unfortunately, you know, it breaks my heart as much as it probably breaks yours listener.

I had I had extremely high hopes as everyone did for young Giovanni. But it's just until I see it, I don't think it's there. And, yeah. Well, yeah, I think I agree. 45th minute, Peppy just getting absolutely manhandled. Can't even receive a throw-in off the left sideline. without getting moved around. Miles heads,

so it gets cleared immediately when it gets thrown to him inside the box. Miles heads the clearance back to Wes in Zone 14. He turns and rips one for 25 yards. Actually kind of troubles the goalkeeper. Takes a little deflection. It's saved down to the goalkeeper's right, but spilled right in front of him.

Pepey tries to get to it, but gets boxed out like, boxed out like John Stockton in practice with Carl Malone, you know. It was like, hey, come on, bro. You know. Like he just is not up to the physical level. Yeah.

It breaks my heart. As much as it breaks your heart that Gio can't, you know, get his own shot. Hey, man, you got getting that gym, man. Let's go. This is, this can be fixed. Tortoise? Um, what, uh, I'm trying to think of more Mexican food. but all of it, brother.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Jimmy Chavez. Eat up. Casey to you. Yeah. We get a really good chance right in stoppage time. Trusty's, off a trusty's head on a corner.

Burrhalter puts it on his head and trustee, it's a free header from the edge of the six. Really good chance. Trusty heads it over. Yeah. That's the half. We're going to take a break back with the second half in a minute. First two minutes of the second half, I'm beating a dead horse now, but way it puts on an exhibition of left-wing ineffectiveness,

so convincing he must be running for Minneapolis City Council. First, he gets closed down. Some people will get that joke. He gets closed down immediately by Ideen, then he gets played into the cutback zone, and his left footed cutback is embarrassing. And then he gets played in Long by Raina, and Aideen beats him in a foot race.

I mean, this was just a straight-up mono-imano foot race. Yeah. And it looked like he was, it looked like Aiden had like just gotten one of the stars or the, you know, one of the mushrooms. Mario? Yeah. We just watched the Mario movie last night.

Um, yeah, it did. It didn't even, maybe he had been, because it didn't even look like Tim really ran after it. After this, like this one specifically, like he did not open up and run for real. He kind of conceded it. And, um, I don't know. I was wondering if he was tired or what was going on there. But yeah, once again, another left foot across. That's, that's stinky. And, and, and he can't also, he just doesn't have the, we saw the, the juxtaposition between him and Christian Plissick. Christian Blissick comes on. He can face up Ideen immediately, and Iden got to respect him. He can walk him down as far as, you know, that kind of surrender defensive posture you get in when you're facing a winger, especially a tricky winger that you respect. And it's like you're kind of seeding, ground, seating until you get into you get to your own line of confrontation that you kind of got to make a play.

You know, Greg Vlaska has talked about that. The line of confrontation with Timway against the ball on the left is like right here, right now. Oh, yeah. He's on. Yeah. There's no respect. Nothing. And so, yeah, man.

Yeah, play him on the right. That's it. And then we score. I mean, it's crazy. It's a corner kick that spills to Burrhalter on the edge of the box. and he just pummeles it with his laces off the grass, skips in at the near post. West Leaps, I actually love the way West Leaps to just get his legs out of the way.

Athlete. Yeah, for real. And it goes by the keeper. A lovely finish from Burrhalter who goes in and grabs the ball. He's ready to go, he's ready to go get a third. And, yeah, 2-2. Feels good. At this point in the game, it feels,

hey, if we get a draw against Turkey with the B team, this is going to be a... I mean, I want the nine-point window, but I'll take seven. I'll take seven for sure. Yeah, this is a great strike from Yon Seb. I mean, you can strike a ball, man. Yeah. He can really strike that thing.

And, like, we hadn't seen it. I talked about it earlier, but hadn't necessarily seen it and manifest with, like, his passing range and stuff. But, you know, as this half-go, goes on. He's spraying it every day. He did start off the second half by blasted one into the ad board, which was, which was funny to me.

But calibrated it, calibrated that, you know, to keep our military theme with ice flower as we've been doing. I don't know the name of a missile, but, you know, calibrated that. Crews missile. Right beyond weapon. Yeah. We got to, we'll have to bone up on our. up on our, you know, ammunition knowledge.

Waya gets caught offside again, which I don't think I've mentioned yet on the show, but he got caught offside three, four times, just like staring down the back line of Turkey. This one's off a foul, which is like a foul restart. Yeah, dead ball. Yeah. Dead ball offside call. That's weird. It's a little controversial, but he is about. like he's maybe like the same kneecap from the Eon match offside

yeah dude the the the offside call against Iran at the end of that game even with the goalkeeper I'm talking about the game last night even with the goalkeeper on a walkabout it's still like a centimeter you know it's it's got to be frustrating uh

and the on the other hand Iran might still go through I mean, that's the problem with this format. Pulisic comes on for Wea, thank goodness. Get him out of here. And immediately, immediately Aden's in a different scenario, you know? I mean, like immediately.

For sure. Pulisic is actually a threat and he's not getting buried immediately when he gets on the ball. 59 minute mark. Gio gets the ball So he manages to step by a Turk And play it over to Poulisik And then get wrecked

As he plays it over to him Pulisic drives forward, plays it over to Pippi Pepey comes backward with it Which was his custom in this game As we've discussed And then he gives it back to Gio And Pulisic makes it run in behind Geo chips it over the back line for him

Pulcic takes it down with his chest In the direction of the goal but gets crowded off the ball that touches a little heavy but this is a decent little moment from us, some actual attacking verve from Gio included. I would have liked for him to just

try and catch that thing off the volley as it's bouncing. I mean, yeah, he's getting closed down by the keeper so maybe just smashes off the keeper but you know. Yeah. So you take it off the chest, it's bouncing a little bit and, you know, as I look back at it right now, he doesn't really have the opportunity

too. The touch is just it's too heavy. And the intervention is a little bit faster I thought it was. So yeah, he doesn't really have that opportunity. He could have like really lunged at it and did something crazy, but the touch off the chest has to be a little

more elegant. We don't need Christian Polic Lunge in a dead rubber. Save that, really. Save that, save it, your your Pilotas, if you will, for when the When the matches really matter. You know, shout out to Cellemundo, bro.

Because I was like, damn, they're saying this word polota a lot. When I looked it up, I was like, oh, okay. Of course you would. Yeah. I mean, it's ball. I think if they're talking about the Pilots that belonged to Pulisic that suffered in the last World Cup, I think that, wouldn't they say huevos? I'm not a Spanish-speaking man, brother.

Okay. In English, Cuevos Grandes. There's another chance where we get a good switch wide to Pulisic. He destroys Aiden, who had misjudged it with his first touch, and he's gone. He tries to fire it left-footed from a tight angle, and it's saved right out to Aronson. I bought it the penalty marker. You know, the ball's coming at him in a kind of an unusual way, and he shanks it wide right.

I do think Pulisic probably should have tried to cut it back for Aronson to begin with, but, I mean, rather than take the pretty low percentage shot, some people might say he was trying to cross it for Pepey. I don't believe that for a second. He was going for the goal. Yeah, he's going for the goal for sure. Anyway, it's not that big of a deal, but Aronson misses the chance. Pulitzer's shot blocked, Aronson misses the chance.

It's a tough chance for Brindow. I think that thing's bouncing a little bit more wickedly. It's been funny too. Yeah, I agree. 63rd minute, Scali hooks it across. Pepey tries an overhead kick of sorts, and it skips through to Pulisick, and he kind of accidentally shins it on the bounce at the near post. Shakir leaps, tips it off the post, falls to Aronson on the right, he cuts it back for McKinney,

and he stabs it at the goal. It's blocked off the goal line by a defender. So, I mean, some pretty exciting stuff. We're knocking on the door. It looks like we're going to win three, two, and get our nine-point window. Yeah, we're giving them the business at this point. It's like chance after chance is coming.

Celebrity after celebrity sighting in the stands. Man, all those celebrities look so bored, though, don't they? I mean, like, stop showing me Leo DiCaprio taking a nap. Brad Pitt was in it. That's true. Brad Pitt was the exception. Brad Pitt was in it, brother. And I'm sad that we couldn't come, that we gave him a loss.

Because, you know, he gave us a good performance up there in that box. He did. He did. Unlike some of the other ones. Had the kid on, everything. Like, he sold out. So shout out to Brad. Shout to Brad. There is a part of me, though, watching these games and everything. It's just like, man, where were y'all at? we're in Nashville playing Ghana you know yeah it doesn't

12,000 people look this is the scenes everything keep them keep them coming I'm not necessarily complaining but it is just like damn you all just spawned like out of you just spawned like I don't know where for the World Cup them and 25 million other people it turns out it would make sense it would make sense it would say I'm saving since 2018. Like, yo, all this, all this stuff that I would spend, like, since it's been announced, they're like, you know what, I'm not going to no qualifying games, not going to no friendlies. I'm saving for this World Cup. That would, that would be an acceptable excuse for me.

But other than that, welcome, though. Yeah, welcome. The Scuff podcast, we're talking about you. You should have been there in Nashville, though. We lost 40 to Switzerland. You would have enjoyed it. I mean, we get a hydration break here. And it's the first time the tournament, for us,

I feel like the hydration break kind of killed our momentum. Not just the momentum. I was having fun watching the soccer game. Right. You know, I was just like, and then, yeah, we got to hydrate. It was this match, and I think there was one, I said maybe Ecuador or

it was a team with black people in it that I was watching and the match was absolutely going like 24 of those in this tournament the match was absolutely going crazy and hydration break came and I was just like man damn

like I mean it was it was in to end back and forth chances maybe we're getting that because brought some straight up catanaccio to the proceeding yeah yeah

it's unfortunate um so they slice up us they slice us up through the left um in the 72nd minute yield these goes at scally west comes over to help

and yield these curls at just wide of the far post this is like sort of vintage Keenan and um a little dangerous but not You know, I think we handle it pretty well. 75th minute, good stuff up the left from Raina to Pulisic. And he skips past Aiden again, plays it to Aronson.

He cuts in and sends it over to Scali. And that's just kind of like, it goes from being dangerous to not dangerous. Thank you, thanks to the actions of Aronson and Scali. And Scali, I think he slips it to West. West recycles to him. And then Scali just kind of knocks one into the box. There's nobody home. Yeah. And, and, you know, this is one of the things about to come back to the geo-thormometer thing. You say good work from Geo and Polisic. Really, he just passed the ball to Polisik out wide. You know, it's like...

Yeah, I mean, Pulisic's the one who does the good work in this situation. Yeah, yeah, this is not... It's just a drive my point. Like, yeah, his simple pass out wide looks better with Christian Poliske's out there. Yeah. type of thing but um yeah it was uh when the match started you know because we didn't necessarily have like our trademark really defined line of three in the back in possession necessarily or kind of switching a bit like trusty would get high a little bit joe scally would get high i think in the grand scheme of things joe was higher more than austin trustee was And yeah, he just wasn't able to do.

A lot of Aaron crosses in this match, a lot from Joe, a few from West too. But I mean, Alex Freeman is in another class from Joe Scali now. I mean, it seems like- Yeah. Yeah, and it brings me to another thing I was thinking watching this match. It's just like, you know, all these dudes, you see these subs. I mean, I guess it kind of goes what I was saying, but like the dynamism tradeoff is just like significant.

Alex Freeman can receive a pass in the half space, combine with somebody and help create a goal. Like what? That was a synagogue match or whatever. Something Joe Scali just can do. He can step past somebody and build up. You know, all these little actions accumulate, you know. A goal sequence is like a cascade of kind of winning.

winning opportunities and like you know Alex Freeman provides more of those like Flo Baligan provides more of those obviously Christian Polisic provides more of those Malik Tillman etc. It's just you know it's great yeah

it's really pretty simple like yeah it's the point Greg makes about being grown up because like you you know when Alex steps by somebody he can lose the ball but you feel like he's probably not gonna because even if there's a mistake he can like he can like maneuver himself into a favorable position. Joe Scali can't.

He can't do that against the teams of this caliber. And I mean, Scali was, you know, it wasn't as evident with him as it was with his attacking teammates in the starting 11. I'm just, I'm disappointed. I don't know if I can say disappointed. I'm disappointed with Brenda. Just because, I mean,

I'm not disappointed. I know who Brendan Arrison is. But it's like, damn, man. Like, if you have leveled up, if you have figured something out in regards to your application when it comes to being a dangerous attacker in games. Yeah. Show it, man. And he did not. He really did not have a single moment where I was like, ooh.

you know like he had a he had a pretty manageable and pretty simple like through ball to rico that he played that was just like just too heavy it was like one of those ones where like Rico's on the back line there is a space in between these two centerbacks just play the ball here and you know couldn't execute that there's one where he's carrying the ball into the final third um unsuselying expecting of like a person coming of a Turkish player coming behind him tries a little step over and gets absolutely wrecked it's just like kind of actions were like if you saw him from like an MLS player you'd be like ah speed of the game too much for him man speed of the game is too much yeah for whatever reason and here you are playing in the best league in the world and for

whatever reason you can't make the game slow down around you um no he still bring that genetic energy to all proceedings, whether it's defensive or offensive. Yeah, I mean, let's see. So we get a bunch of subs for the rest of the game. Raina comes off, Aronson off, Scali off, and that brings on Dest, Sendejas, who makes his first appearance of the World Cup, and Freeman. There's some stuff that happens, but I don't think we need to get into it until just mentioned two things. Trustee gets hurt rolling his ankle as he tries to whip a ball in from the left.

And that means that meant Dest had to move back to left back to deputize there while Trussie was off the field. And then he kind of just stayed over there for the rest of the game. We were in kind of a 5-4-1. Zendezas did get slammed in the Juevos and we got a good replay of it from the world feed. That's tough. There's a lovely sequence,

so really two more things. A lovely sequence where Burrhalter finds Pulisic running between the lines. You mentioned this. This is a good pass from Burrhalter, who was cooking with the ball in the second half. Pulcic slips Pepe in, and he's in.

I mean, he's in with some interference on his right shoulder, but he's in, and he takes a touch well wide, has his shot blocked off his foot. Warn-w-w-w-w-w-er. I don't know what his chances of bearing that first time were, but, I mean, maybe just try to get a tow-poke, send it through the goalkeeper's legs or something, because going horizontal like that just didn't going to work for him.

him, you know, he just can't control the space around him. Bro, it's tough, too, because, like, if you pause this play, right when the ball is approaching Rico, he is in between, I think this is Soyanchu, who had come in for Turkey. He is in between Soyonschu and the ball. Like, the ball is Ricardo Pepys, and if he is in between Soyonschu and the ball, the ball, then effectively he is in on goal, you know, just to keep it a beat. But he's unable to hold that position. Yeah.

Because of the strength deficit. I mean, if you've seen So Yanchu from like his time at Lester, I mean, you know that this is an absolute unit. Yeah. This is a big dude, bro. Strong chisel jaw line, like all this stuff. Like, you know. But that's going to be, that's going to describe every centerback we play against from now. from here on out pretty much.

Maybe not an absolute unit, but somebody who's going to be able to handle Peppy. Somebody's going to be able to put a four-arm shiver in your back, for sure. For sure. And yeah, he's just unable to maintain his line, you know. The shortest distance between two points is what? A straight line. And he has to, he's unable to take,

to take a straight line with himself and the ball because he gets his physical resistance from So yonchu, and he can't withstand it. And it ends up not really even looking that threatening the whole thing at the end. At all, at all. Like when you, the replay comes back and it's just him smashing the ball into Soyanchu. It's like, oh, well.

But this is, this is it right here, man. This is the golden opportunity to stamp your ground. Shout out, man, Miaska. Lay your claim. Like, ah, I should be the nine here. which would be a weak arguments even still. But it's your time to do something, man. It's time to score a World Cup goal for Ricardo Pepe.

I mean, we would all love to see it. Yeah. He's had his opportunities. Started two games now. And furthermore, I think Kristen Polisick is like one goal behind, one goal contribution behind Ty and Landa Donovan for All-Cup World Cup, all-time World Cup goal contributions for the United States international team.

And you know I want that record to be broken. So, uh, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, man, it's just unfortunate. This is good stuff from Seab, good stuff from Pulley. Pulley looked great. I mean, as far as like him getting in, I told everybody, people that would like ask me at work and stuff. I was like a solid 30.

I think he's getting for sure. And we got more than it. We got like 35 or whatever. Yeah. He's going to have a, I mean, Colossanac is one of the sort of most famous players from Bosnia. Pulis is going to eat him for breakfast, man. It's going to be great. Let's just talk quickly about the goal, and then we'll bring Sanjay in.

97th minute, the crowd is urging the U.S. to go get a goal, but we're just not sharp enough. Freeman kicks it out of bounds. Then trustee kicks it out of bounds. Gula gets isolated down in the corner. I mean, trust he's in pain, you can tell. Yeah, yeah. His ankles rolled. When I was watching it back, I was like, damn, Austin, you just really like kick that thing up.

But after he kicks it out, he lips very heavily. You're like, oh, yeah, you're hurt. My bad. It's okay, bro. It's okay. Now, Pulisic holds up against Gula at first and knocks it out for a throw. But then Gula goes at him. Yeah, I was proud, too.

I mean, he said, you're not going to meg me. And then Gula goes at him again and does meg him. You just don't think somebody going to go for the double meg. Yeah, I mean, Guler is, he's a player, obviously. And then he knocks it back for a cross. So it's not like, you know, it's not like he got rinsed and left for dead. And all of a sudden he's in on goal or something. But he plays it back for a cross.

And it's crossed. I forget by who. Maybe Aiden. There's nobody at the far post. and Uzun, one of the subs. To be fair to the United States of America men's national team here, a lot had to go right

for this to be a goal. You know, a lot of random stuff had to go right. So Uzun flashes it across through Turner's legs. So he just like, he waxed it through Turner's legs in the direction of the back post. Freeman,

Freeman gets a foot to it and kind of tries to stab it away. The deflection off Freeman, though, takes the ball right into the path of Ayan, another sub, who is just selling out at the back post, and he punches it home. Three, two, we lose. Kind of an unlucky goal in the way that... Go ahead. I was just thinking it's an unlucky goal in the way that the deflection comes off of Freeman right to the arrival. arriving Iranian attacker.

Yes. This is definitely the case. But I do want to say right after Christian Policcic gets maged, there is Sebastian Burrhalter trying to clean up the situation. And once again, alert to the danger and willing to try and do something about the danger.

And he just goes to ground and gets like none of the ball. Orkanda gets a little bit of the ball. to where it kind of stops Guller's momentum just a little bit. But, like, once again, not coming away with the ball whatsoever. Like, if he can continue with the ball playing, then it'll be okay. I don't know if he will be able to. Like, I don't, like, you know, he got put in in that Australia match

in a situation where you think somebody would come in to, like, settle the game and he was unable to. so I'm kind of unconvinced until he does do that but yeah the defensive stuff is just a problem he recognizes that the business needs to be handled not a business handler yet Mr. Burr-Halter is not if he gets to a point

where he can maybe we're doing something but I don't know might just be might just be a little too small like there's some physical shortcomings there as it stands right now as it stands right now but yeah

everything had to go kind of right for turkey I mean even down to you know Freeman kind of I think he kind of wins the header for the little cross that comes in to 26

I think he gets a little bit of a glancing touch to it that kind of maybe steers it towards the man who plays the ball across goal. But we had four defenders in the goal mouth. It was just like it just happened to go, not go our way. So, you know, play the starters. Play the starters on Wednesday. Brad Penn & Shambles.

Poor Brad. You know, it is tough, though. Mark McKenzie has a hand up in there calling for offside. the man wasn't off-sides. Not by a long shot. Because Alex Freeman went to the try for that header. But he probably could have marked the goal score. Martin McKenzie could have.

You know, he's never, once again, he's never sorting out these things in the box. You know, he's never, it's almost like, he never seems aware of where runners are in the box to potentially do an intervention or something. Like even on that one goal where I'm like he's in line to cut out the Yoda's ball across. Like maybe he is, but he probably just decided he needed to drop in that moment.

I don't know. Either way, Brad Pitt's and shambles at this moment, I assume he's in his suite on hands and knees. Like, damn, we lost this match. Talk to that. And, And, you know, Brad Pitt seems like he's locked in. He was probably watching that England, I mean, Egypt-I-D-A.

And, you know, I would just say, hey, Brad, don't worry about it. We're going to be back in L.A. in three matches. I can't make that guarantee, right? No, we'll see. But we do need to start. I think what we learned here is we've got to start all the starters. We got the Jimmy's and Joe's for up to, like, player 11 or 12. maybe 13, which is not so different from last

World Cup. I think our next men in are better than they were in 2022, but still a pretty significant step down from the starters. So going to be a lot of games coming up one after the other for us. You know, four more. Yeah. Let's take a break. We'll come back.

I'll come back with Sanjay in a moment. So what does it mean? And what did Potch say about it afterward? Let's bring in Sanjay Sujongha Kumar, with whom I have been making a substantive pregame show each time the U.S. plays for the Patreon. So consider that as you weigh whether it become a patron. Links in the show notes. Sanjay, what would Pots say after this 3-2 loss? Yeah, it was a surprisingly tense presser from start to finish.

Potch wanted to be congratulated about the fact that they had won the group now it was, it just struck us as a bit odd because they won the group a week ago, right? And that happened after they beat Australia

so it wasn't really like addressed in the moment and maybe you guys didn't get to line up and shake his hand. for it. The press score. I mean, everything's happening so fast, there's so much excitement.

It feels like after that, you know, everyone's just mapping out where this tournament can go. And, you know, there's been attention on Bosnia for a few days now, as that looked increasingly likely. Sure. And even tonight, you know, we're going to watch how the Belgium-Egypt group finishes. and think ahead to that game. That's just what we do, right, in the media and his fans.

And obviously the team is focused on what's in front of them. But they know that I'll read you a quote from Chris after the game. Chris Richards. Yes. He said, you go into a game with confidence but not arrogance. I think that's exactly what we do. Obviously, it's a good Bosnia side, and they also deserve their place in the knockout round.

But ultimately, we're on home. soil. We want to continue to go on in this tournament. So we have to go into the game and prove why we're the top dog. So, you know, Chris, who's always giving, you know, genuine, thoughtful answers and real answers. Like, that just sums it up, right? Like, like, he sounds like someone who knows that the expectation is that they keep going that they get to the round of 16. And depending on this evening, we all know if, you know, it's Egypt or the, or the, you know, it's Egypt or top of that group instead of Belgium. The expectation is the quarterfinal.

We talked about it with Charlie before the game, and now it's really being emphasized in light of this Potch presser. So, yeah, Potch, I mean, the presser just started off. You just know right away when it's going to be kind of tense. Doug had the first question, Doug McIntyre from Fox, a good friend of the pod. Friend of the pot, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and Doug's come on recently.

And he asked him about the fight back in the, the second half. And Potch responded, you know, very seriously and, in a curt way about how they fought the whole game, right, which is almost 100 minutes. Then I get the next question, and, you know, I'm always going to try in Spanish sometimes a bit cleaner than others. But I started my question with now a new tournament begins, and Potch cut me off saying, you know, but it's still the World Cup. And I thought, you know, maybe he understood what I meant. Maybe he didn't.

But this is a new tournament, right? So I then said a new part of the tournament. And I see a couple of it. Nervous as he was clearly, you know, not following what I was saying for a bit, but I got to talking about expectations and dealing with competitive pressure that we talked about after the draw and how this country is dreaming of getting to a semi-final, right quarter-final. So it's like how.

do you manage that pressure from the public? And he basically said, you know, we managed it well. Like, it's not a problem. But he referenced more than once Germany losing despite playing their starters. Right. And his whole thing was like later he was asked about momentum. And I agree with him about this. Like that to me doesn't really matter as long as you escape from this game healthy.

Yeah. So what was, what do you think was his end game? Like, why was he, I looked back at the Uruguay press conference, which was the last time he got really testy. And it seemed like he had, it seemed like he was in there itching for a fight, you know? Yes. He had a point to make. Sometimes, exactly. Sometimes he has something he wants to say.

And no matter what he's, like, later on in this presser, Alex Adnos asked him about lessons from the game. and the first thing he said was, this is about midway through the presser, he said that, you know, no one congratulated them for winning the group. And he ended the presser on that note, too. So he clearly, like, like, look, we've been praising them deservedly so for about a week.

We've been praising Posh, a lot of us who are skeptical about how, you know, he's prioritized culture, but in doing so, it shuffled a lot with the lineup in the squad for a long time now. Like all of us who were critical of how that could impact how they do with this World Cup, we've put our hands up and said he's getting it right.

He did the right thing. Things are clicking. This is looking great. But again, he was hired to take this team to a quarterfinal or a semifinal. He said as much. There was a clip online the other day about where he was speaking at some, I think it was some UEFA thing. And he mentioned, you know, the expectation was quarterfinal.

He said even in that clip, maybe we can go further. And maybe we'll drop that link, Bell, in the show notes. But look, like, it's no secret. The expectation was to win the group. It's great that they did it the way they did. But now looking at the way they're all shaking out, even if it is Belgium, the expectation, is to come, we expect to be,

we want to be back here in LA, right? On July 10th. Like, we think the U.S. should be there. And, and, yeah, that's what he was hard to do, is to get over the hump. If there even is a hump, if it's Bosnia and Egypt, like, it would be disappointing to not get there.

But POTCH wasn't really, like, yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I agree with that. maybe, yeah, the questions were, like my question, and others were like forward looking and Potch was fixated on, on the group thing. I am to your point, to your question, like, I'm wondering was there something else he was trying to do here,

manipulating the media and the narrative, the discourse coming out of this. But, you know, coaches sometimes do that, but it's hard to understand why he would have done that anyway. He might have been just, he might have just been really frustrated with how that game went. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, it's frustrating to end like that,

and you don't want that to hang over. Yeah. I mean, it snapped me out of my sort of dreamy cultural ruminations, you know, about how does the American spirit meet up with the global game, and maybe that happened in Seattle. I'm like, all right, now it's everything that matters is Bosnia. That's it. It's the only thing that matters.

We just got a, we just got to crank now. And I do think, like, I don't know exactly what Pach said about momentum, but I do think we'll come out with that, the same magic we played with against Paraguay, the same energy we played with against Australia. I thought the energy was actually pretty good against Turkey. Yep. Turkey.

Very encouraging. Yeah, not bad at all. I mean, we got, like, excellent goals from Austin Trustee and Sebastian Burhalter. Like who had that in their prediction for World Cup goals? And we just don't have the Jimmy's and Joe's, man. I mean, I've been saying it over and over, but we don't have the Jimmy's and Joe's to play our 15th through 19th players against a decent team.

And Turkey is a decent team. They're a good team. And dominate them. You know, they were cracks. They have good players, yeah. Yeah, maybe by 2030, you know, we'll be in a situation where you can rotate the team for a dead rubber game and still go. Still dominate. Yeah.

I mean, we definitely went toe to toe, right? I mean, it's not like it was a pretty, it was a fairly even game. Yeah. But that's definitely, like you didn't feel like a dead rubber game. It was funny, Joe Lowry and I said to each other before the game, like how casual it felt for a World Cup game. even just, you know, our routine before the game, like everything. It kind of felt like Nations League are friendly. And then the game started and it's like, wait a second, no matter who's out there.

Like these guys are playing like it's the World Cup. Turkey did too. They celebrated like they won a World Cup. That was scored too. That first goal. Yeah, that was really cool. Well, also the last one, the final goal. I mean, it was like.

Oh, Turkey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Austin did. I loved his celebration. You know, I love an out-of-body. a large out-of-body man running across the field.

Yeah, and the slow-mo shot of the quote-unquote starters regular is celebrating and being genuinely pumped for him. I can't believe you said that. I can't believe. How would you just throw that in there like that? No, that was cool to see. While I'm on here, I just got to say, you know, obviously not Tim Weyer's best game last night. but he could still have a role in this tournament later on, hopefully on the right side. So I've seen a lot of Slanner.

I've also seen people who know ball coming to his defense. Oh, I love the framing there. That's interesting. I mean, it's hard to imagine where this team would have been last cycle without Tim Wea. That's totally true. That iconic moment that the U.S. had arrived again with that first. goal at the last World Cup. And I think, you know, under Posh, obviously, with the system and Serginio being pushed

up and Freeman starting, like, it's been tougher for Tim. But, and he's going through a bit of a positional evolution, right, at the club level, too. He's been moved around and moved deeper there. So not where he was at the last World Cup, but he's still a good player. And people should not be too down on him. And I know this is going to, I haven't rewatched the game yet. So I know there's going to be plenty of criticism headed towards Mark McKenzie. But looking at the centerback situation, Mark McKenzie is also a player that this team will probably need next cycle.

Like there's not many options. Prayers up, maybe. Prayers up. There's not. I mean, that's a position that requires maturity. So no matter what the prospects are looking like, like, Mark has also sharp. shown enough quality, in my opinion, in Europe, where he can get more chances there. Miles Robinson should not, though.

I don't know why he's in the squad between fitness and his level for a while with the U.S. I don't get it. But yeah. Yeah, I don't particularly want to see either of them in a difficult game. But you're right. We might have to lean on them. Yeah, I thought Mark, Mark was, you know, he's well on his way to a full-time chaplaincy. And let's see, Brenda, just absolute butter knife performance from him.

I mean, like, just no cut, no thrust, no danger created. Attacks would die at his feet. Pepe also really, like, we got nothing out of him. and as you mentioned, we did get, we got nothing out of way. I think he'd be a little better on the right, but I'm still disappointed that he got that whole opportunity to make some stuff happen and he did nothing. Like he got, he was completely dominated by Aden, their right wing back. Like, I don't, I don't think way I won a single duel against that guy.

Yeah, he's, he was, he was definitely uncomfortable on the left. It's also anyone who's, who's played sports in any, level, like, and has maybe been in this situation, it's a weird one when, like, one second, you're a starter with the A team, and then, and then you're playing with the B team, and you're expected to bowl out. You know what I mean? Like, that's psychologically not, not an easy thing. So I just hope if and when he's playing with the A team again later in this tournament, he doesn't lose some confidence. Yeah, he can get back in a rhythm because we've seen the quality he can bring on the right side. Brenda, we've had this conversation before. Like, I don't, uh,

I don't think he's in the team to do the things you just said. That's not why he's in the squad. And then Peppy, yeah, I mean, I need to watch it back, but I don't think his teammates were putting him in a position to succeed. Yeah. I mean, that's probably true to some extent, but also he just, I mean, it was just a clear physical mismatch. I mean, he just got moved like a toy by those centerbacks from,

Turkey. But, you know, he's not the starting striker. It was an odd game, though. I mean, you know, FIFA changed the rules from goal differential being the first tiebreaker to head-to-head.

And that's why it was such a dead rubber because Turkey couldn't advance, even if they won the game, because they lost both Paraguay and Australia. I don't know that. That I think makes, it weird.

And how with this format? Let's go to 64 teams. Let's get back to that clean, two out of a group advancing. And let's bring the tournament back here as soon as we can, by the way. I tweeted something yesterday and then the next day, Andrew Giuliani, shout out. Pages, no, that's my guy, not actually, but he said something about hosting as soon as 2038, which I think it's going to be really... It's funny, man.

If Trump can get three World Cups while he's president, like that's ridiculous. That's so crazy. Got to tip your cap at that point. Kind of like after the draw, when I said, like, you know, whatever you think about him and the whole spectacle of that,

like getting this group, you know, tip your cap. So, yeah, get us another World Cup, man, before you're out of here. It's funny how that stuff spreads. So that was Andrew Giuliani who floated 2038 as a date. Because I was talking to some neighbor who came over here for some reason the other day. And he was like, when do you think we're going to get another one?

And I was like, oh, we'll be 60 by that time. You know, it'll be 30 years from now. Well, for me, by that time, I'll be 70. But anyway, but anyway, forget about that. And he was like, oh, I thought somebody was saying I was going to start, we were going to get one in 2038. So I'm like, I'm connecting the dots over here. my very limited news diet. It's funny because

Tannenwald and I had this conversation at the start of the summer and, you know, I've talked to a few people about it. It's like, who's going to write this story? Because it's people are going to wonder this as soon as it's done. Like, technically, per the rotation policy, 2038 would be the soonest time

if I'm not mistaken. Because, you know, South America is getting thrown into the next one, right, with a few games. You're throwing them a bone. So, and then you have technically Asia getting it in, so you have Africa getting it too with Morocco, and then you have Asia getting a piece,

Asia getting the whole thing in 2034. So it's not that crazy. I mean, you know FIFA's going to want to come back. They want to. Yeah. It's the most lucrative place to have a World Cup. It's probably the easiest place to have a World Cup. I don't know.

It reminds me, I don't know how many cricket listeners we have cricket fans, but India hosted the 2011 World Cup, like the main World Cup, and with other subcontinent countries. And then they somehow got the 2023 one, like 12 years later, because, I mean, they just kind of dominate that sport. on the pitch right now, but also, like, politically, commercially. But it's the same, I look at it the same kind of way. Like, FIFA's going to step back and be like, wow, look at what we just did there.

We can sell tickets to low-grade group stage games in 2038 for $7,000. Like, done. Yeah, like the other day before the Jordan Algeria game, I saw someone tweet, like, there's no way this game is going to be sold out. And then you get like, you know, and then you see what happens. So, yeah, not that the U.S. is analogous to India and cricket, but I could see us being like, look at what we just did, just give us the whole thing.

Like forever, just always have the World Cup in America. Let's go all in on these football stadiums. Let's really cash out. And obviously the terms of that might be, different, right? Like this whole conversation with the 2013 Women's Tournament is like, you know, host that he's being more aware of

being wary of not getting fleeced in quite the same way. But surely they can work something out. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, basically, Potch is saying if we win the next game, this won't mean anything. And if we don't win, you can say whatever you want.

The story tonight is not winning another game. The story is getting to the next game in the best conditions and making history is winning a World Cup. It's not winning three games in a World Cup. What's the point of winning three games if you lose the next one and don't win the World Cup? Yeah, I agree. I agree.

And, yeah, I think that's all I got. Anything else on your mind, Sanjay? Not really, just expecting to be back here. Yeah, me too. Me too. I mean, it would be a big disappointment if we'd lose in the round of 16. Or next week. Yeah, I mean, that would be a, I think you said disaster.

Yeah. Last time we talked, and I agree with that. A lot of people paying attention, man. Got to deliver. This is just, like, can't stress this enough. Just winning this next game and being alive past July 4th, what that would do for the game is priceless. You know, they haven't been alive on July 4th in the World Cup since 94.

when they played Brazil and lost that day. So to be through to the next round and have the whole country buzzing about this, this is what it's about. Yeah. I mean, everything's set up really well, like I've said in the past couple episodes, like just a perfect way to start the tournament.

Excellent way to continue it in Seattle. And so now we have a little hiccup, and what matters is Wednesday. Great to see all the scuffians. scuff fam on the west coast look forward to seeing people uh in the next few weeks to keep it rolling yep thank you sanjay thanks everybody for listening we'll see you