Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 106: U17 World Cup — USA v Senegal review

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

Chris Russell, aka @watke_ on Twitter, joins to recap the USA's first group stage match at the U17 World Cup. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Oh boy. The October nightmare on the men's side of U.S. soccer continues. The U-17s opened their World Cup with a frankly embarrassing 4-1 defeat to Senegal. Joining me to talk about this, unfortunately for him, is Chris Russell, aka underscore Watkey, on Twitter, who has been tracking a lot of these players in U.S.L over the past several months, making me videos. I thought it'd be fun to bring in some fresh blood and not to lean too hard on the unpaid labors of Matt Hartman and others. Welcome, Chris. Well, thanks, Adam. It's good to be here. I wish it wanted better circumstances, but you know, that's American soccer and we do the best with what we have. It's so true. Good circumstances are tough to come by these days. You know, hopefully Sergenio Dest gives us something to celebrate tomorrow. I'm not counting on it. Are you?

Oh, that's what we're all hanging on for by a thread. Yeah. So we'll be We just pray. Keep praying through the night. Big picture thoughts on this loss. Let me turn it over to you. Yeah, well, big picture from my perspective, I feel like I came into a little bit naive. I thought we would be better than Senegal.

But I've been humbled. It turns out we're not anywhere close to better than Senegal. We're much worse. I think we weren't good at passing or moving or defending. So that's basically soccer. No. And Senegal is better than us. But I don't want to be too negative because we are talking about you 17s and they're all going to progress over the course the next couple years.

But that's just where we were tonight. That's a good disclaimer to throw in there. We're not going to be super hard on any of the individual players. These are kids. And this is just a single point in time in their careers. And many of them will get better, no doubt. Yeah, I think what was most discouraging to me was we were just outfought, outfought, outfought, outquicked, physically bullied across the pitch. Obviously, Senegal was better than anyone expected, but I'd say the U.S. was worse than everyone

expected, wouldn't you say? No, absolutely. And it felt like just time and time again. Started out, we were having a turnover, and then Senegal would react much more quickly and then come straight down the center at us. And as we went on, the mistakes we were making would become much simpler as we went. And I think we lost confidence. And I think the scoreline ended up being pretty bad because of that.

Yeah, a scoreline that I think was pretty much deserved to. Yeah, we got rolled. Yeah, we got played off the pitch as the game progressed. Let's go through the normal procedure here. Start off with the lineup reaction. I thought the U.S. came out with a pretty standard lineup for Rafah Wiki, Raina, Pepey, and Yao across the front line, a midfield of Busio, Lava, and Saldania. No surprises there.

And then a back line of Ademar Moore at left back, which was really, I think, the one surprise that he started. over Bello. Yeah. And then Kobe Hernandez Foster and Tavon Gray at centerback and Joe Scali at rightback and Damian Loss at goalkeeper. Senegal's lineup was, I'm going to run through this if you don't mind. Okay. I'll take the fall for butchering the pronunciation of the names.

I appreciate that because I would have really struggled. Yeah. Coalkeeper Usman Ba, a backline of Chek Diufe, Cheku Indiaye, who was the captain at centerback, and then Mikhail. Faye, Faye is the last name you should remember, and Birami Diao at right back. And then Isaga Kane, Ibrahim Sa, and Pape, is it Pape Saar? Is that what they were saying? Pape?

I think it's Pape. And I don't want to, you know, take a cheap shot at you here, but I think it might be Faye. Faye. But I'm not confident either. Okay. So we're really in a tough spot here. I don't feel cheap shot at all. We'll go with Faye.

And Insoboje was also in the midfield, and then Samba Diallo was on the wing, and Suleiman Faye was up top. Yeah, well, in terms of the U.S. lineup, it was pretty straightforward in terms of what Raffa Wiki has been talking about doing. He's talked about staying consistent, and that's what he did. Only one change from the final against Mexico in the Concacacaps, and that was Ricardo Pepe for Alfonso Acampas. And I think that made sense to me just because I think Pepe's had a better year. And I think he actually started out as a better option. But I think it's become more obvious over time. And then the other surprise was our moreover bellow.

I was actually really surprised to see it. I don't necessarily disagree with it. Actually, I kind of like it because I have some George Bellow anxiety in terms of his defending. But I think what we saw tonight maybe I think we'll see him again coming up soon. And we should because he's a good player. Yeah. In terms of Senegal's approach, they played a 433, and they would press high at times and try to turn it over and quickly go towards goal a lot down the middle, and they,

well, we saw they were really successful at that. Yeah, their press was occasionally aggressive as kind of a 4-4-2, where they'd have, like, with two guys running around in our box or near our box. Sometimes a 4-4-2 sometimes looked like a 451 to me, but I'm not, you know, I'm not 100% sure on that stuff either. What we do know is they were effective in turning us over and then going towards the goal. Yeah, that's the key takeaway there. They got a lot of joy in transition off of that.

So let's go straight to the scoring summary. You did a lot of good work in here, which is unusual because usually I'm doing this with Greg Velasquez and his scoring summary record is spotty to say. I've actually heard he's pretty difficult to work with. So I admire all the work you're doing and kind of bring him along. And this whole scuffed, by the way, I love the podcast. Oh, thanks. So I said very exciting to be here. Yeah, cool.

Okay, so it started off well, right? Why don't you, do you want to talk about the third-minute goal from the U.S.? Sure. We were in kind of a period, but we had the ball in. Senegal was dropped off, and Adam Saldania carried the ball up. He drew a couple defenders out, dropped it back to Danny Leiva, who took a good touch with his left foot, and to kind of draw out the defenders a little bit again

and split them out to Joe Scali, who put it at a good cross, and Gianluca Busio had a really excellent header for a goal. Noted for his aerial prowess, Jean-Lucabuccio. No, it was a really good header. Attack the box from kind of a late arriving run, and it was beautiful. It was a beautiful thing, and the game could not have started better. No, the listener will know it didn't go as well from there.

But in terms of a good start, it was very positive. It was cheered by it. We were cheered. And then 11th minute, we still looked pretty good for the, I'd say for the first 10 minutes or so. 11th minute, Raina has his first chance to roll one across the 6th for Pepe after some clever work from Busio to release him into the box. Kind of a rena makes a clever run. Buccio spots him and plays a nice outside of the boot pass. to spring him and Raina's making a run on the opposite post.

I'm sorry, Pepe's making a run on the opposite post. And Raina, this is something I've criticized him before. He's obviously a talented player. He's as talented as anybody on this roster for the U.S. and has more pedigree than anybody else. But he has this tendency to not make the unselfish play. And this would have been 2-0 if he had just played it across the top of the 6th for Pepe. Instead, he takes a shot from basically an impossible angle and it's harmless. The keeper

stops it easily. A keeper who, by the way, did not look very solid in this game, the Senegalese keeper, that is. No, there was an opportunity there. But yeah, I think Gio didn't really get at it at all on that. So it isn't necessarily a matter of him being unselfish necessarily. He just didn't see the pass at all. Yeah. It would have been a very sharp pass. I mean, I know I could not have made it. But, you know, we ask a little bit more from him than, you know, from me.

Yeah. Yeah, we won't dwell on it. I think there's a good chance it could have been two zero there after 11 minutes. And, you know, it wasn't. So it remained one zero. 20th minute, Senegal is starting to exert some serious control over the game. And I'm curious, what do you think before we, you know, kind of go through bit by bit, all the rest of this, what do you attribute that to?

How was Senegal able to seize control of the game after that? I'm putting you on the spot a little bit. Well, no, no problem, you know. Basically, we were really struggling to get the ball into Buccio, to really simplify.

We were just playing it around the back five or six or so, and what would happen was Lava or Saldan. Sometimes Buseo would drop, and we could pass the ball around but there was nowhere to go and eventually we'd have to try to do something and then there'd be a mistake and that's kind of when their physicality would take over um and not just physicality just i think a better instinct for the phase of the game we were in and then they would take it over and they would quickly move toward always right down the center toward the goal just the wave of that happening and it

kind of happened pretty slowly over the first half but i think it was really before the 30th minute that they were kind of in control of the game i i think it's started, when I started to feel it was around the 16th minute, but that's very specific. It is very specific. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think, I know I'm going to just sound like your classic American here, but I just think they were more athletic than us. Like, and this is not just, this is not just something about African teams. So, you know, I'm not like.

I mean, I was avoiding saying it for that very specific reason. Yes, of course, they were far more athletic than us. I think we can kind of deal away with this thing about American teams being more athletic. It just isn't true at any level. And I think we've seen that over the cast couple years. Yeah. And I mean, it was really true in the friendly that we played against Brazil a week ago, you know, a week ago Saturday. Yeah.

They were far more athletic than us. And I don't mean like they're taller than us, which I think they were. I think both of these teams were taller than us. But they're just like individual battles, you know, individual. Scripps where you have to use your strength and your leverage and your quickness to win the ball and to better the other guy. Yeah. How many of those did we win in the whole game? I don't remember a single one.

I'm sure there was, but I don't remember it. And I don't know that it's purely a physical thing because really the guy that looked the most prepared was not a tall guy. It's our center back who we say is too short, which is Kobe and Nis Bostor. And he seemed up to it. Obviously, it's a different thing that he's doing than what the guys are having to do in the midfield. But, yeah, I don't know what it was, but we were just kidding over on. Yeah, and I don't know how Kobe would have looked in the middle of the field, but he was certainly more composed than everybody else.

And, you know, he has that little bit ability to drop his shoulder and send somebody the wrong way. And that's another part of winning individual battles. That isn't so much athleticism as it is just ability. but I looked back on that goal where Lava you know where Lava did some kind of clever work between two Senegalese opponents to play that ball out wide to Scali as you mentioned I think at that point in the game Senegal didn't quite realize how much of an advantage they had I think that's true yeah like I think that moment happens 10 minutes later and Lava doesn't get the ball off his foot.

Because they're on him as soon as he's touching it. Right. Oh, they, yeah. I couldn't understand why we were successful at the beginning. Because I watched it twice just because I knew I had to talk about it on a podcast. I wouldn't normally do something like that. But I couldn't figure out what was happening. Yeah, don't lie.

You watch all these U-17 games many times. I watched the Brazil friendly a few times. But that was also because I knew it had to be on the podcast. But I will say from that Brazil friendly, I didn't think it was as bad as I know you talked about being. realize now that was a pretty big warning sign for what happened against senegal and senegal is not brazil by the way no it wasn't it actually wasn't as bad of a game as as the the senegal one that just okay i agree with you on that i i just think that the the gap in

you know physical ability is was was similarly apparent that's all it was shocking really all right all right shocking physical limitations aside, let's move on to the 20th minute. Senegal works the ball around the top of the box. This is their first kind of clear chance. Armour intervenes, tries a back heel clearance, and

it kind of pings around and somebody pounces on it and results in a shot for Senegal. Was it Suleiman? I think it was. It was a left-footed shot, so I'm going to say Suleiman. I believe it was. Excellent save. Excellent save from loss there.

Yes. It was a very good save. And I'm generally a fan of backhill clearances, but that one didn't quite take for or more. I always say it. I always say it. And it kind of started that kind of started as, I don't want, unfortunately I don't know who the player was, but a Senegal player had it sort of out toward the left. And Yao was guarding him. And the guy kind of half beat Yao to get straight into the center and kind of a pretty dangerous spot. And yeah, we're covered enough to block it, but it ended up right in the middle of that scrum there. And that's where the back hill clearance came in, which I wish it had worked because, you know, it would have been fantastic.

But ultimately great save by loss. I think that's the big takeaway. So we nearly concede on the subsequent corner. Buccio gets caught looking and Samba Dialo runs unmarked in front of everybody. It's a corner from our right side, Senegal's left side. and Diallo gets a foot on it and hits it just over the bar. So two almost goals in the span of a couple minutes. Fair warning, the rest of this scoring summary is going to be very depressing.

So check the show notes for timestamps if you want to move past it. 33rd minute, a Senegal chance. I'm turning this over to you, Waki. Yeah, so what was going on a lot was Lava would drop at either Scali. or Armour's spot and what happened. He came into Adam Armour on the kind of the left side. Adam Armour pushed up and Laiva played him a ball. And then Armour went for kind of a, it would have been a great flick,

side-footed flick as a pass, but it just went basically to Senegal, and they very quickly pounced. And I think, I don't know, it was, I think it was either one pass or two pass. It's straight to Suleiman's feet easily turns, and he plays in Diallo. who's right on Indigo

Fortunately he goes for the near post And it hits him to the side netting But it's a very dangerous chance for them And the chances are really starting to build up for Senegal And we're feeling it as viewers Kind of this anxiety is rising At least it was for me Doom impending doom is coming down upon us

Yeah and I noticed I noticed in a couple people in my little Slack community Notice that Lava Was just a couple steps behind Diablo Diallo there, as you noted, and just didn't look like he was going to recover. It really wants a winger or attacking player with pace as a step or two on Lava, he's just not going to catch up, and that was happening some tonight, and it definitely happened here.

Which, let's be clear, that's not necessarily going to be always how Danny Lava is. He's still an adolescent, you know? His body could develop in ways in a lot of different ways. But right now, he, his... his physical limitations in terms of just quickness and speed were a real issue in this game, I thought. 36 minute, 36 minutes. Senegal right back.

Do you carries the ball essentially uncontested from the halfway line to the dead center top of our 18? Yeah, it goes past Saldania there. It's pretty light resistance. They comes across him with a left foot and gets into a very good shooting position. And I think we're pretty fortunate for Gray to have blocked it because these are ways off. It was a great scoring opportunity, really, and it came out of nothing for them. This was when we were really starting to break down in the midfield. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess we're going to continue to return to this theme, but I don't know if it's like we're just not used to this level of athleticism and quality, having gone through Caga Caff World Cup qualifying. but at this point in the game we're starting to look shell-shocked and not just shell-shocked but we looked like we were exhausted by the 36th minute didn't you think yeah well why we looked sluggish but certainly by the 36 minute but by then it was looked sluggishness at the point of no return and I don't know what was going on I'd have thought we would be pretty prepared physically at least for that part of it I don't really have an explanation for all was going on there.

Yeah, it looked like we weren't prepared physically, I guess is what I'm saying. It looked like we were just not fit enough for that level of a contest. And finally, the goal that Senegal deserved came in first half stoppage time. It was Suleiman Faye at the death, deep free kick from the Senegalese goalkeeper, Sal Dana, sorry, beaten in the air, which is not too surprising and not really any. anything you can blame him for. And then Faye is the quickest to react to it. He beats Tavon Gray to it.

And then he beats loss with a clean, very nice finish, side netting, far corner, one one at the half. We have sort of given a lot of thoughts along the way about the way the first half progressed. But do you have any quick halftime thoughts? Yeah, I guess just one thing that I noticed in the first half that we didn't talk about was it's kind of a minor moment pretty early in the game when Diollo just puts in a really hard foul on gray.

And it just struck me as something that was the right thing to do at that moment for competitively. And we really never matched anything like that. There wasn't a moment where I felt like someone was insisting themselves on the game in any way. That is such a good point. Yeah. It was, I'm going to correct you, so don't feel like this is a cheap shot. But that was Faye.

Who did that? Are you talking about the cleats through the shin of gray? Well, there was that one earlier too, but it was those two. And then the one you mentioned right after that, the way the teams react to that was also interesting. There was no reaction. That's what it was, yeah. And I, you know, there's plenty of hand-wringing about this in my sort of group chats. But you saw the same thing against Brazil and the front.

a friendly that Jan Kuto, their right back. Yeah, the knee to the back he gave Jason. Yeah, a really good player. Jan is a really good player. You got to admire how he plays soccer. But, man, it was a dirty, dirty challenge. He came in and put his knee right through the back of Jason. Jason goes to the ground screaming.

Yeah. Like, he's writhing around on the floor and Jan just trots away like nothing happened. And no foul is called it because it was pretty, I think it was pretty well hidden from the, from the ref. But there was, there was just nothing, no kind of emotional response from the US. Now we did, in that friendly, we did score a goal a couple of minutes later. Pepe had that brilliant solo effort.

But there was no, I mean, I, you can even hear through the field, Mike, Spousio's like, so how bad is it? Or is it like bad bad? Is it bad bad or like? He said no, no. They just didn't meet the challenge. And Jan went ahead and bossed Jason the rest of that game. Jason was really, really poor in that game.

And I kind of don't blame him. I think he was actually hurt by that. You know, he looked like he was hobbling around for a while. And you sort of saw the same thing tonight. Yeah. I didn't see anything super dirty like that from Senegal. I didn't at least. No, no.

I didn't either just, but they would put in the right foul at the right moment. and yeah we didn't ever do that we never did that yeah I would say physically maybe scally was the one guy who asserted himself but he's not a good enough athlete

to overcome diallo on that side of the field in a one-on-one battle so it it didn't come to much yeah outside of scally I didn't see anybody who was who was like this is our game and I'm gonna be I'm gonna like take this thing

thing by the balls, you know? No. Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, there was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, the, is that the, is that the, is the, of the, of the, of the, like, do we need to, do we need to give kids a class in the dark arts or is, maybe. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have thought to have fault them, but I, I hope they're showing this tape to all their 14 and 15 year olds is, you know, not this tape, really the, you know, show them how to put a knee in a back and a friendly before the, you know, you know, in a warm-up game. I didn't really read too much into the Brazil thing, them not reacting that because I just thought I was so friendly, but it definitely did carry over in terms of a lack of whatever that is that's, whatever that quality is that would make them react differently

in that situation. I mean, I guess I would have been like, what happened, Andres? You know, like, why are you hurt so bad from that? And he would say, dude, he stuck his knee like at 50 miles an hour into my lower back. And then I would go over and be like, what the, you know, what the F, Jan? Yeah, it was more like he was asking. It's like, are you going to have to come out of the game now? Right.

But, I mean, we're, now we're parsing some. We're getting deep. No, field on the weeds. But I think that's a big, I think that's a big part of it, though, that would, what happened in this game, there was just not a fighting spirit. And as much as that sounds like a cliche. I know, that's why I'm uncomfortable saying it. I'm worried we're just, but I think it's right.

I think that's pretty good explanation of what happened in this game. All right. Second half. Let's move on to it. 51st minute chance Senegal, a Yao turnover, Griffin Yao turnover. Yao had a tough game, I think it's fair to say. And Senegal was decisive and athletic in the middle, as we've talked about. It's a turnover, and they just drive right through the middle.

The shot sprays wide. Kind of fortunately, I think. I can't remember who put the chance. challenge in right at the end, but it was just enough to put the shot off. 54th minute, three minutes later. The U.S. got a good chance. A build-out through Armour and Raina. Armour had, you know, had his moments of quality, I think, moving forward. And then it comes to the feet of Busio inside the box. He turns and takes a shot that deflects off a defender over the bar. On the ensuing corner, Tavon Gray crashes and his shot was

cleared off the line twice. That was a big chance and could have put us up to one. You know, if you're a half glassful kind of guy, you could say that that might have changed the course of the game. It certainly did not, however. No, it didn't. And actually, right after that chance, there was a little glimpse of some of our future struggles to recover in transition.

They kind of got a half break on us, and we only barely recovered in time. So they basically carried the ball down to our 18. I think I don't remember exactly what happened, but they got a shot blocked, and we'd find out later that maybe we weren't quite prepared for a quick break the other way. Yeah, mind-boggling that we would be so susceptible to a punt from the goalkeeper after a corner kick or something. David D'Abelair came on for Griffin Yow in the 60th minute. It seemed like a good sub. I don't know that Dabalair really moved the needle too much in this game.

No, he didn't. He had one moment where, but for a little bit of a long touch, it could have been something. But other than that, he didn't really impact it much. But Yao had had a difficult game and hadn't really gotten into dangerous positions. I think what happened is Scali would push up pretty wide. I think they planned it and then Yao would come inside and he's just kind of physically overwhelmed by what was going on in the middle. that's where you had most of his giveaways anyway right in that sort of half space or like in the channel yeah he he's not he's not really a guy who's suited to to facilitate on the half turn either i don't

think that's his strong suit no um but we're not we're not too we're not too deep at wing at the wing position so i think that's an understatement we don't i don't even know i guess double air but there's not a whole lot to beyond really reign now yeah and if you put a i don't know i think some people see ocampa shavas as the winger i don't know but i yeah he could have 72nd minute uh the senegal goal

the one that makes it 2-1 and i think it kind of puts the nail in the coffin if we're being honest it was a it was a rena free kick which i'll describe how we got to that free kick it was actually a nice play by Adam R. Moore, he did up the right back for Senegal a couple of times and then was fouled. And it's a free kick from a dangerous spot. Why don't you take it from there? Raina takes the free kick. The keeper collects it and kicks it 60 or 7 d.R. and still wide open, Suleiman, who's running like a college football receiver. You've covered that on here.

He was completely wide open. it was ridiculous looking. Yeah. And then you actually pointed this out. I didn't notice it. It does seem like loss should have come out for it there. Yeah, he stays in his six-yard box pretty much. I think he briefly thought about coming out,

but was worried that the ball would hold up and he could just get chipped from 25 yards away, which, you know, don't ask me to make that kind of decision in real time. Yeah, but. In any case, loss does. make a good save. But Balday is,

he came on as a sub. He's just much quicker to the rebound than any than any of our guys. And he kind of pops it in the top of the net there. And that was pretty much, pretty much the ball game, really.

Yep, it was. I mean, a couple thoughts. Lava and Saldania are the ones responsible for covering on a goal kick there and I think are more as well. none of them was was alert to the danger at all and and and that's kind of frustrating and I do think I do think last needs to come out there I mean he's a he's supposedly the top goalkeeper in the age group and

you know you see goalkeepers in in the bundlesliga or big leagues come out way farther than that to clear the danger and that's I think this is a situation where when you when you're watching on TV you see that yeah this is something that if loss is on his 18-yard box watching the play develop, then he should easily be out there to just kick that out of bounds. Yeah, it was really his opportunity to have had a great game by making that play. But he didn't. So he had some good saves and was good.

But, yeah, that was probably the one mistake that ended up being important. It goes from bad to worse at this point. 76th minute, another Senegal goal. why don't you take this one too please Senegal piles it on in the 76th minute with a goal. What's happening is we're playing on the back and Kobe plays what I thought was a pretty good ball to Lava

but Lava lets it run past him and then doesn't go quite as hard into the tackle as the defender is closing in. There's a quick series of buildup passes that gets played to Diallo who turns and plays in Solomon who's running under goal he's in the 18 he takes it to the end line cuts it across and loss gets a touch on it but again it's

just we're slow to react to that and uh a mette mette fe another sub you know scores the goal yeah and all happened really quickly because this was just right after the previous goal yeah just thrashes it in and he's he's running if you watch the replay of that goal he's running at 60 miles an hour while everybody for the u.s in defense is running at 30 miles an hour part of partly explained by the fact that he's fresh legs off the bench. But it also sort of encapsulates what happened in this game. I mean, he's just moving with purpose and alacrity that you did not see from the U.S. I'm not sure I blame Lava too much in like a tactical sense for letting that ball run through.

I think it's just his physical limitations. And a quicker, more athletic center mid gets to that ball and, you know, takes a touch towards the sideline and can sort of survey his options from there. But Leva's just moving a little bit slow there. He looked like he was tired, too, as I mentioned, as did everyone for the U.S., which I don't really understand, but that's what it looked like. Let's see. 80th minute, the U.S. gets a chance.

Scali plays a long diagonal to Raina near the edge of the 18. Raina wins a header well. He gets up and pops it into the path of Pepe, who is kind of, behind the line at that point. Pepe takes a touch to his inside and, as you say here, is easily overtaken by the recovering defender. It just wasn't Pepe's night. And this was it for him in a nutshell.

Take a touch a little bit wide or directly in front of him and he has a huge chance on his right foot. But he takes the wrong touch and he gets nothing out of the sequence. Yeah, and he just, he kind of approached the ball pretty tentatively. Yeah, I think he needs to cut it to the right and we'll have a much easier situation. there but the way he did it just it looked like he would never score immediately he just got it looked like he got bullied off the ball that's not exactly what happened but that was kind of the effect of the play yeah i don't know if he if if he just misjudged where the defender was was going or

took the touch he didn't want to take but it would have been a lot to ask him to take that first time i think it would have been a tough a tough hit but i was going to suggest it but i thought it would be ridiculous to say yeah some people i mean i'm sure some people would say hey take it first time that's it you're a you know you're an elite striker you're an elite 16 year old striker ricardo not so not his knight and then um

to add insult to injury so then aOC and jason come on for saldania and peppy as we're trying to like push for some goals here down three one and then in the 88th minute uh synagogue it's another goal right down route one a long clearance from their goalkeeper, I believe, or maybe it was from one of the centerbacks. Tavon Gray just misjudges it.

And it goes right into the path of Suleiman again. And Gray pulls him down, red card, free kick from 30 yards, and Pape Sarr hits a kind of Golazzo free kick into the top right corner. And I think that's enough for that scoring summary. that's that's that's that was a pretty depression it's a pretty lengthy scoring summary so any um any conclusions

here before we kind of get into individual player assessments if not that's totally cool i don't i don't really have any i think we yeah we kind of sprinkled it throughout we we cataloged the uh our weaknesses throughout and i guess my conclusions i don't know what happens next in the next game or is it just try to pull something together and Yeah, I mean, maybe bunk, maybe just sit back and try to hit on the counter because Yeah. Because did Japan beat the Netherlands 3-0 tonight?

I believe so. Yeah. So that's not going to be an easy game on Wednesday. No. It was a collect, like you say here, it was a collective failure. It appears we are not that good. Now, it could be Senegal is just like really, really good and nobody knew it. I think that possibility is becoming more and more likely in my mind.

That would be great if we found that out. Do you actually think that might be the case? They look pretty good to me. Yeah, they looked really good. But I don't think, you know, I think against the Netherlands, we are going to lose if we play like that. And the Netherlands just lost to Japan 3-0. So it stands to reason we will probably lose to Japan if we play like that too.

Um, Kobe. I think Kobe, let's talk about Kobe. Let's talk about positive, some positive performances. Yeah, what did you think of, uh, Kobe's performance? I thought, I thought he was really good. And his distribution was really good at the back. He was physically able to handle it. And I don't remember a big mistake or anything.

I think he was clearly our best player. What did you think of him? Yeah, I thought it was, it was between him and Tevon Gray. I mean, Tavon Gray's night ended poorly, obviously. But up until that point, I thought he was really good. But yeah, Kobe, Kobe's the most polished player on the team. I think that's clear right now on this big stage. He was playing passes between the lines to, you know, like two or three levels deep sometimes.

We would just get crushed as soon as we take our first touch, whether that was Griffin Yao or Gianluca Busio or even Giovanni Raina. So, yes, I think he was our best player. He also, he had a few long diagonals that couple of them almost came off, and that would have really been fantastic. Yeah. And then, you know, the long diagonal to one of our wingers in the corner, like what were the chances that anything was going to come of that?

Yeah, that's a problem. Outside of that, the first two chances, we just didn't look dangerous at all. I mean, we got some chances on set pieces and stuff. but sustained chance creation was something that escaped us. Let's see. I thought, so you and I are a little bit in disagreement on this, but I thought Tavon Gray was good, bailed us out when he was isolated defensively several times. There was this phenomenon where Senegal was attacking up their left wing,

our right flank whenever Scali got forward, which was fairly often. Scali ran up and down the wing a lot in this game, as you mentioned. So that space was vacated. and it was on Gray to sort of single-handedly deal with whatever came his way over there. I thought he did really well in that respect. He was the only American other than Kobe and occasionally are more Raina and Scali. And I say that occasionally very intentionally.

So it was really just Kobe and Gray who were winning their physical battles, I thought. Or winning individual battles isn't even, I think, a better way to say it. I think I got distracted by his late red card And a couple of times he got caught with the ball early But I actually I actually do think he was pretty good Now that you've said it and I think about it I know that's a pretty weak take to have

I initially thought he was just okay Yeah And I mean he's not he's not Kobe in possession That's for sure He's not as polished or as smooth I thought his passing was a lot better In the second half He had a few really really

good ones. Okay. And I, and you thought Las was good, loss was good. I, I think, you know, he's a good shot stopper. He showed that. And even, even on the play where I thought he should have come out of his box, he made a good save. He kept that, you know, he kept that play alive. And if we had been been a little bit fitter and a little bit more committed to getting back, we would have, somebody would have cleared that rebound instead of allowing it to be punched into the net. so loss was I think above average on the night after that it starts to get yeah I don't do we really have to go through all I thought busio was okay well maybe we'll do busio he didn't create a bunch

but he had the the goal which is very good and I thought he was good in possession generally he didn't we we didn't create anything so that ends up making it look like he didn't do very well but i thought he got sloppy in the second half but you can chalk that up a little bit to just the entire team getting yeah you know demoralized so i always have a hard time knowing how much teams playing completely throw us down the middle is the fault of someone in busio's role so i mean he got beat a few times people would slip through him in sodania probably two or three or four times. So that was a recurring thing.

Yeah, I mean, Matt, Matt Doyle is gnashing his teeth right now at this, that, that midfield. You know, it's Buccio, Lava, and Saldania. You know, Saldania, I always thought it was kind of a bulldog, and I didn't think even tonight he was as soft as Lava and Buccio. But Lava and Buccio are not guys who are going to stop an attacker who's brimmy, with confidence and pace from... But the Solania really does have to do that stuff to... That's where a lot of his value comes from, I think. Right, right.

And he didn't do that tonight. And I think that really hurt us. Yeah, so we were soft in the midfield, just like the senior men's national team, just like the U-20s against Ecuador in the World Cup loss in the quarterfinals. Yeah. That's a, it's, you know, that's American soccer.

We're consistent. Again, we're going to be consistent. We're going to do our best. We're going to be a little bit soft in the midfield. We'll figure it out eventually. But in the meantime, you've got to live with it. Yeah. Yeah, so we've talked about Lava's struggles and PEPI's struggles.

I mean, one thing about Lava is he, in possession, he is where he brings his value, you know, his ability to move the ball around the field and change the point of attack. I did not think he was sharp tonight in that respect. I thought he had some pretty poor giveaways. we've already talked about. And there was no, there wasn't much, did you say verve? Yeah. Like even when he was moving the ball without mistake, he wasn't doing it with

Verve. It wasn't getting there in a way that put the other person in a good position to do the next thing. And normally he would play that ball and then be over there really fast to get it back to do whatever the next thing is. But it was all very disconnected. I don't know if his not having that is a response to the whole thing being disconnected or if that's his responsibility for not having created that connection.

Throw the game state disclaimer on everything. And if anybody out there is listening to this and saying like, who are these jackasses talking about Verve? I mean, I would say if you want to see Verve, you want to see somebody move the ball with verb, look at the way Kobe Hernandez-Foster was past the ball. There was always like a little bit of surprise and crispness to it. and the ball was zinging and I didn't see that from Lava tonight

I didn't see Zing I didn't see Verve or Pop I didn't see any of those three things Those are the three things I look for every game Yeah, I had a rough game Scali, I do appreciate Scali's assertiveness But he was He was overmatched

I thought physically And so he couldn't get to the end line And he couldn't beat a guy That was true of basically everybody Including Rayna I don't think Raina, Raina didn't really beat anybody either. And we've talked about Armour. Yeah.

Anything else we need to talk about? Or should we just, you know, cross our fingers about Sergenio Dest and look forward to Wednesday? I think we cross our fingers. I had written up the whole scenarios before the game of what are the advanced, what we need to do at advance and who we would play. But I don't think that's that important right now. Just, you know, try to play well against Japan and go from there. Yeah, I mean, we need to, really what we need to do is win these next two games. That does not seem likely at all.

But, you know, stranger things have happened. But yes, more importantly, pray for searching your desk. Yeah, that's the big one. Chris, I really appreciate you doing this. Late, late, late, late on a school night. Big school day tomorrow. Yeah. Study, study hard.

Do your home. I will. Okay, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you. Thank you.