Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 121: USA v Costa Rica, and Berhalter plays some kids!

Episode Date: February 2, 2020

An 18-yr-old got a USMNT goal on his debut, another young attacker played quite well, and the U.S. beat an experienced Costa Rica side 1-0. We’ve been pleased with January Camp. We talk about all of that, plus Olympic qualifying. 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 Scufft podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Hey, thanks for downloading Scuffed. The U.S. defeated Costa Rica 1 to 0 in Carson, California this afternoon. And while it was hardly a serious match, much of it was slow of pace and Costa Rica probably had the better chances in the game. I was encouraged. How about you, Greg? Bells, I was very encouraged. I believe we are now the most optimistic U.S. men's national team blog. in existence, blog podcast. Blog slash podcast. We don't have a blog just for the record.

And no plans for one. But yeah, I mean, it was, from our perspective, just a very pleasant and positive January camp. Right. Like everything about it, the call-ups, the player selected, the lineup trotted out, and then for the most part, the actual product on the field. Yeah, it was pretty good. But the lineups and the roster call-ups. were kind of a departure. It felt like a departure from obviously January camp last year,

but even a departure from the vibe of the camps that we had in 2019 kind of throughout the year. Right. And I know it comes with the sort of Olympic caveat where you can easily just sort of say, well, this was mostly an Olympic U23 camp. I just choose to take it at face value and say, this is a perfect use of a January camp, regardless of whether it's an Olympic year or not.

Right. It did feel like the U-23 preparation for Olympic qualifying, which is in March. A big tournament in Guadalajara was top of mind for Burrhalter, but, you know, even so, even so. Great to see these young guys with the national team. So let's start with the lineups. You ready to move right into that? Yeah, let's get into these 11s. Great 11 for the U.S.

As soon as I saw it, very pleased. Yeah, same here. Why don't you give the US 11? I'll do the Costa Rica one. All right. Sean Johnson had already been announced as a starting goalkeeper, so that was no surprise. We went with Zimmerman Long as our two very senior centerbacks. But then it was Sam Bines and Reggie candidate fullbacks, and both of those gentlemen are Olympic eligible.

I think that was exactly the way to go. I'd seen people saying Gasper had more experience, so Berlter might go with him. But Gasper has like one extra camp. He got called into camp last year, that like pre-pre-camp before the November window after MLS had closed. And Vines actually has more MLS minutes to his name as far as I know. So it's not like there's really, I mean, Gaspers is a couple years older by way of being a college graduate. Gasper has more life experience. Anyway, midfield three of Jackson Ewell, Sebastian Leggett and Brendan Aronson.

And so I really like that because we all wanted to see what Ewell could do about unlocking what we expected to be a pretty defensive-oriented Costa Rica side. Sebastian Leggett because to date, he has not looked bad in the U.S. men's national team uniform. He kept that up. And he hasn't played poorly either. Yeah. And then Brennan Aronson. No, it took me a second, but I get it. I get it.

Yeah, yeah. Very good looking man. Very good looking man. He's so handsome. Brendan Aronson, who I was, I didn't care if it was going to be him. If it was Cappy, Cappas, I believe it's been revealed that as Christian Cappus. His dad calls him Cappy on Twitter. Right.

Cappy is the nickname that he would have gotten playing, which makes a ton of sense. Or if it had been Brayna Sarania, any of those three, but I'm glad we got to see, I mean, it wouldn't have mattered. We got one of the Olympic eligible guys in Aronson. And then the front line, which I think was the big deal. We got to see Ferreira playing as a nine, and we got to see Ulliana's playing on the wing. Left wing. Paul Ariala, the elder statesman playing on the right wing. Yep.

So we have a lot to talk about there. I'll go ahead and give the Costa Rica lineup. They had a more experienced side, obviously, largely in their late 20s and early 30s, some familiar names, at least for me, Johann Vanegas. Marco Serena up top, at least according to Google. I don't think that's exactly how it played out. And then Ariel Lasseter, David Guzman, Yeltsin Tejada, and Ulysses Segura across the midfield. And then Ronald Matarita, Giancarlo, Gonzalez, Caner Brown, and Keisha Fuller across the back with Esteban, Alvarado, and Goal. So this is a mostly domestic and MLS roster, I think, in.

Yeah, it's entirely domestic and MLS roster. And by domestic, I mean Costa Rican League. And so it's not close to a first choice Tico squad, but a lot of bunch of players with hundreds of professional reps. Right. They're seasoned. Yeah. And three of them, Urena, Guzman and Vanegas were on the field when the Ticos down

the U.S. in September 2017 to drive one of the first nails into the coffin of our 2018 World Cup qualification hopes. So, you know, this is Costa Rica. This is a real Costa Rica team, if not first choice. And we beat them one to zero. Yeah, the kids beat them. I mean, the kids with a couple of the grownups, we didn't just beat them. And I know there's a lot to say about who controlled a game by way of who's attempting

to control the game. And Costa Rica very clearly, we're not attempting to control the game as far as controlling possession. but to be fair, I think we still did a very good job of sort of finding little seams and little gaps in Costa Rica's defense. So it wasn't just,

we didn't just possess in areas where Costa Rica wanted us to possess. Am I getting too far ahead? No, no, no. I think that's a good thing to talk about. Don't you think that our ability to possess in places that Costa Rica didn't want us to possess the ball started to diminish after, say, the 15th, 20th minute?

I think it did, then I think it sort of swung back after even even towards the end of the first half. I thought we started to get a hang of it. Should we talk about how Costa Rica set up to kind of frame that? Yeah, absolutely. I need you to talk about that. So it looked like they set up originally in like a 4-4-2 passive. They weren't pressing.

They were kind of just going to sit back and absorb pressure. And we exploited that almost instantly by hitting Ferreira coming back from his position. as a nine to end up being kind of like another central midfielder. Yeah. And it was exactly the example of what I thought Jazi's artist has been so inefficient at doing, so ineffective at doing. And I don't think that's on him. He's never been that kind of player.

So all of 2019, we were sort of asking him to do that and building a system around a forward doing that. And he hasn't been very good at that. He's never been good at that. Right. That's, you're putting it, you're not putting him in a position to succeed for And in within like eight minutes had three or four like three or four clips that we could put together where he's now sort of already eclips jazzi as a player who can who can play that role who can do that role for the team. Yeah.

There was one in particular where Jackson Ewell found Ferreira. I don't know at the top of the center circle. And then Ferreira turned and quickly played Legat and then Legat hit it wide to Janus. where it was just, you know, there's nothing, it was nothing like majestic about it. It was just very clean and efficient. And he found that little pocket. You will found him. And we're off.

Right. And that's exactly why we've spent so much time and energy sort of harping on the Zarda selections. It's because it doesn't take anything incredible to vastly improve on that particular trait in the player pool. So you don't have to have Josie Altor. It doesn't have to be Elthor. And I know Ferreira has just. come eligible for the U.S., but, like, it was just hard to believe that the options were Altador or Zardez, and those were only two for that role.

If you wanted to have your striker do a bunch of other stuff, there's stuff that Zardez would be good at for that, but in this particular sort of scheme that Burholt has been trying to run to install Ferreira, like made us look instantly more effective. Yeah, at least more effective at getting into the attacking third, right? Yes, yes, very much so. So did they change their shape? Did Costa Rica change their shape as the game by? Like around 25th, 26 minute, they started sagging into a 4-5-1, a very deep, like super-deep 4-5-1.

And this is where, for me, like the game, I was worried we were going to kind of completely go full January. I'd kind of stress this ahead of the game talking with you guys that my worry was if Costa Rica just clogged the middle and denied us access into that central midfield. channels, we would end up just sort of keeping the ball, but just going Zimmerman to Long to Zimmerman to Long and never really accomplishing anything. There was a lot of Zimmerman to Long going on. Yeah, Zimmerman to Long to Yule. So Yule would kind of sit back and you just had that three-player triangle. Cannon and Vines both got high up the pitch.

And so you just had that sort of build out three plus Sean Johnson, but we didn't have to go back to Sean Johnson very often. That's true. because Costa Rica again sat incredibly deep. But the difference here is when Coast Rica got in that 4-5-1, after several passes in that triangle, I feel like what we used to see is we'd get impatient and maybe like just lump a ball forward

or hit something that was too ambitious. What we saw today was after a while, Jackson Yule would actually hit a really nice threaded ball on the floor just up to like Sebastian Leggett or just up to Ulliana's sort of in a scene. and we used to not really get that pass. I don't think we got that pass very often from Will Trap, but Ewell could disguise it. He could sort of shift the defense with his hips,

and then he's able to just sort of hit that subtle pass. It's not a super flashy pass, but it's enough to unlock that first line of defense, and then it at least gives us chances to get into some attacking patterns. Right, and Legette and Yon and Yon. has both had a good game at receiving the ball in that space and being able to turn and into the teeth of the defense, you know, which is a skill that is not sort of universally present in the player pool.

Right. And it's one of the reasons we've also on this podcast kept wondering why Leggett hasn't gotten more minutes because he is actually done this very frequently when he's been in the game. He has not been games very frequently. Yeah. I mean, more recently he was, you know, he was a starter in the win over Canada, the important win over Canada by Concaf Nations League standards important. But, you know, before that, he struggled for consistent runouts.

And kind of while we're on that point of the point being Jackson Ewell finding that pass that prevented us from slipping into centerback to center back to Jackson Ewell, infinity passes. I saw a lot of people saying Jackson, Yule looked really good today, but I still want to know how he looks against, like, real pressure. And I agree that's important, but I think it's also super important to see what Jackson Ewell looks like against no, like, on the ball pressure, but picking out passes against a really set parked defense.

Like, I think that is probably going to actually be more important in qualifying than seeing how Jackson Ewell does against a high press or against, you know, a more aggressive defense. Because I think that has always been our issue with qualifying is that we can't actually break down teams that are parked. So for Ewell to do that, I think, is actually the most important skill that we need to see from him. If he can't do it against teams that are pressing really high,

that's fine. We have other players who can beat teams that press high and we can beat them in other ways. But we haven't consistently been able to beat teams that sit deep. And so Ewell is showing off that sort of repertoire. and Legit and, you know, maybe Yana is showing off that they can do something once they get the ball. That, for me, goes actually a really long way. Yeah, I agree.

I mean, I guess the point about is you going to be able to handle like a faster-paced game? You can still have a team sitting way deep and playing at a faster pace, right? I mean, where the game is just more intense and everybody's closing faster, there's more desperation from the other team, the sort of thing you might see in a World Cup qualifier. So I think, yes, I agree. with you, but I also think it's still legitimate question to ask whether Ewell can handle, you know, the intensity of like a World Cup qualifier. Yeah, that's fair to say, too. If this were actually Costa Rica in the hex, maybe they are a little more urgent in closing down some of those lanes that Ewell is picking out. Anything else tactically you want to talk about, about what the U.S. was doing or about how Costa Rica responded?

Well, let's just hit one thing right away that defensively the U.S. was still in the 433 that we'd kind of played in Orlando against Canada. We were not in our passive 442 block that we played for most of 2019. That is a very positive step. Very positive sign. A sign that our hopes that that would be a permanent thing may be realized. That's really what we are hoping for. here because it does it makes it makes such a difference like coast rica had almost no real control the ball like they never would pass through us they hit us on the counter several times which we'll

get into in the scoring summary uh but there weren't a lot of like extended costa rica possessions yeah that we were we'll get into it i guess but it did did seem like we were pretty susceptible on the counter a more a more clinical team probably would have scored several times but yeah we can get into that all right let's do the scoring summary I'll start with this in the second minute we are almost hit on the counter after a corner kick I think it was

Urania sprinting down the left wing is that right and then he tried to play a ball across the middle and only a like a desperate ariola track back and intervention saved us on what I think was a 3V2 for Costa Rica. Yeah, they should have done more with that.

On that one, if you're going to like watch the tape, it's probably Jackson Ewell's job to end the counterattack with a cynical foul like 75 yards up the field. It was kind of, it was kind of Rol Dhanish against Uruguay where he ends up like on a player's back, on a Costa Rica player's back who receives the ball. Yeah. And then sort of just plays like legitimate. defense on him like honest defense Too honest. Yeah and it's

like that's not your job your job is to actually like stop the play at all costs and that almost always means fouling there so you know just hopefully a good learning experience assuming that we sort of have the right analysis of the situation maybe Burlter and them are watching it saying

here's where we screwed up but I thought it was Ewell's job to to break it up okay yeah that's a good at least a good note to make because you did have a pretty good performance, as you talked about earlier, but there were maybe a couple of defensive things that we should be worried about. First 10 minutes, we were creating a little danger.

I liked the way we were playing. Ferreira was finding those pockets of space in the attacking half and combining efficiently, often with Legette or Aronson. And Janice was creating a little danger too. Ullianas. Hate to say I told you so. What a big day for the scuffed podcast. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to be like,

I don't want to be annoying about it, but like he, he looked pretty good, right? Right. And just to just to sort of beat this drum one more time, and I'll be done with it for at least the duration of this recording. Because we take so much flack for overrating the kids and so much flack about he hasn't even played for the first,

team. He has zero professional minutes like he's playing against 19 year olds. If you if if if if that's really what you think, then it should have been easy to tell who which one of our players had never played a professional minute before, but that sure wouldn't be the case if you were watching that video you if if ulyanus's performance had come from Dwayne Holmes or Paxton Pamacall or Tyler Boyd, nobody would leave this game saying that was pretty good. But We can't call him up again unless he really changes his club situation. Everyone should be excited for seeing that guy's next game in U.S. Men's National Team shirt.

So that shouldn't change just because Ulianez doesn't have first team minutes with Wolfsburg. Right. You know, the thing that impressed me most, I mean, we've known that he's, you know, he's a clever attacking player for some time. But the other thing that kind of surprised me is how physically up to it he looked. didn't you think i mean he looked he didn't look smaller than anybody he didn't look like he was easy to knock off the ball he won some physical battles he won a kind of a kind of an important physical battle with david guzman veteran mLS destroyer i was surprised and pleased by just how

physically up for the the contest he was yeah totally held his own and came out came out on top in a couple of different sort of scrums yeah i know i know you were big on winning wrestling matches bells and he I'm from Iowa he had he had a bunch of times I don't think he got into a ton of like actual grappling shirt pulling uh types of matches wrestling matches like that but he did get his body through plenty of times where he ended up you know positioning himself between maybe a bigger certainly older player in the ball so yeah I don't I don't think I don't think yeah I don't think that was a liability at all for Uyana's it might have been a liability in a couple other areas of the field for us, but not for Janus.

Right. Yeah, I mean, we could talk about him some more. Let's talk about him some more. We don't have to. We'll do it later. 14th minute was the first big U.S. chance. It was Cannon to Ferreira in Zone 14, so the aforementioned Hazes Ferreira.

And he just kind of turned and played a nicely weighted ball in behind for Areola. And Ariola took a shot from not a terrible angle, a pretty decent angle, and it was saved. I think he hit it right at the keeper pretty much. Maybe could have slid it across for Yanez on the back post. I don't know. I guess I'm kind of agnostic on that.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with Aurella shooting there. I feel like he was trying to hit that through the five hole, trying to find the keeper vulnerable right under his right under his legs. But the important thing is the tidiness of Ferreira in that situation. It's a good run from Ariola. It's a good ball in from Cannon. nothing terribly difficult about the ball in Tram Cannon, but it's still, you know, just a good entry pass to pick out that

instead of doing something safer. And then again, just really tidy from Ferreira. Especially the ball, the pass. I mean, you know, the first touch was fine and everything, but the pass sort of sat up nicely for Ariola as he galloped into the box. 23rd minute Costa Rica almost scores. This is like the best chance of the first half, think on a on a set piece I can't remember what the foul was but it was a set piece from about 35

yards out maybe and it was played diagonally towards the the right post our left post um you know right of it or left of it if you're us oh this is horrible left of it from our from the defenses from the goalkeepers vantage point and then it's headed across for Giancarlo Gonzalez the the center back and he he misses from point blank rage just hammers it off the crossbar and it goes straight down, somehow doesn't go in, and it remains zero zero. Have we identified who was on Gonzalez and who just sort of just spaced because he is all alone five yards from the goal? Well, it's got to be one of the centerbacks, right?

It's got to be longer. I'd hope so. Yeah. Yeah, hopefully somebody's done the crime scene analysis. I think Leggett was trying to chase down, was it Laal who was? or was it Guzman? I don't know who it was who headed it across. Whoever it was,

legit, I think felt like he had to get to him and couldn't quite. So it was a training ground thing, right? Yes, that's what I would definitely say is it's a training ground thing. I don't think it's going to change my assessment of Longer Zimmerman. I think we'll just have to, it's just one of those for the lock of the video review in the locker room

and it gets ironed out pretty quickly. Yeah. I noticed that this. point in the game that we were looking susceptible on the counter. And Costa Rica did start to kind of impose themselves and possess the ball a little more after the 20th minute it looked like to me. Could it be wrong. No, I think I was just late to realize it because I had like the 27th minute.

I was like, man, things are really starting to get a little bogged down for us. Yeah. We got a, we had a corner kick in the 34th minute that Aaron Long headed. It was a legit corner corner kick. Long got up and hit it pretty well but flashed it a couple yards wide of the back post. Forty-fourth minute Brendan Aronson got his shot from the top

of the box. It was a nice little combination from Ferreira and Yanez and I think Legat was involved in the middle of the field to get Vines the ball on the wing. Vines' cross kind of pings around and falls to Aronson at the top of the box. His shot is I don't know a yard wide, pretty good take

there. So I really like that. exchange from Yannes and Leget, I'm pretty sure this is one we're thinking of. It just kind of showcased the composure and control the situation that Yannes has because he gets it, I think, on like the corner of the box, faces a guy up and then actually doesn't force anything.

I know a lot of times when you think of Yannis, you might think that he just wants to like take people one to be one and go. But here, he was really patient and he let Legit's run develop and then it was just a really subtle touch from Yanez to just put it in Lajette's path. And I think those two guys had a really good

connection and just understanding of what the correct play should be, what the correct movement should be, and then both are capable of sort of executing it in tight spaces. So that was one of those where if you're watching Anulianez all touches video, that's one where he just looks the part. There was a point earlier in the play where I think Ferreira, Ferreira played like kind of a blooped ball to Janez out on the wing. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Janice took it down in stride with the outside of his right boot. That's a technical display of technical ability and facility that was really encouraging to me. Because, you know, he's, it's not an easy ball to handle coming at you sort of at a 45 degree angle as you're running forward.

And basically falling right in front of you and you're where your feet are. And he took it in stride and sort of maximize the advantage that we had in the moment. despite a difficult ball coming at him, you know. Yeah, and we have a bunch of, we have a bunch of evidence of him doing that with the U-20s too. So it's just, we know Yanis has all this in his, in his locker, and then we got to see it against grown men

because that's always been the Yonaz caveat is can he do it against grownups? And we got to see a lot of that happen tonight. Aronson should mention Aronson had, so that shot was probably, you know, hit the high point of the night for him. He also played a pretty nice pass him for inferrera i believe that was just a tad too heavy um what did you think of aronson in general

uh so my my uh initial take on arson in his what 65 minutes tonight uh was that i like him i still think of him as sort of a really busy player in a good way like i think he's a busy player who is constantly trying to help facilitate things uh but i don't have a lot of confidence in him and i feel like I'm kind of breaking from the pack here. I don't have a lot of confidence in him when he's actually got the ball at his feet running. So when we find him in space and he gets it and he's going forward, like, I don't think he's going to be particularly dangerous with it. And I know in the first half, this happened once, and he earned a foul.

And I felt like that was basically the only good thing that could have happened from it. Like I never thought he was going to pick out the, like slip somebody in the way Ledesma does when he plays France in the U-20s. I didn't think he was going to separate himself from the defenders the way we just saw Dwayne Holmes do it in the championship. Like it doesn't ever seem like Aronson's going to make the right sort of play in that situation. And I'm sure that's harsh because this is 65 minutes of sample size. But that was sort of my read on it. So when he's being super busy and just being available and then connecting one more pass, I think that was where I was most appreciative of what he was doing. I don't know that he's going to be a guy who's going to, or I don't know that he was today,

a guy who's really going to like solve the problem. Make the difference, as they say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that one time where he drew the foul, it did look like, at least from the, you know, from the camera angle that we have, it looked like he had an opportunity to slip Yanez in. You know what I'm talking about? Right.

And he just, he kind of, he didn't want to try it, I guess. But, yeah, I think you're. Your assessment is pretty much where I fall on him. 47th minute. This is right before halftime. A clearance falls to Zimmerman way out in, I guess, Zome 14. He taps it to Legette, and Leggett takes a shot that's deflected and is heading off the deflection pretty much upper 90 and well saved by Alvarado, I thought.

Yeah. Legit, I just really like everything Legit does. So half time came and went and no changes were made by Burrhalter, which I was happy to see because I was, I was afraid Uli was, you know, the dream, the dream couldn't be real, right? Uli is not going to continue to play after halftime. Surely he's going to come off at halftime. No, he didn't. He kept playing. And in the 50th minute, he got his goal from the penalty marker, a goal on his debut.

It starts with Zimmerman winning a Costa Rica goal kick in the air and just pop. punching it down the line for Ariola who hustles and fights to track it down. Hits it across with his left foot for Ferreira. Ferreira taps it back. It does well to bring it down. Yeah, because Ariola fires that ball into Ferreira. It just smokes it. And then, so it's back to Legette from Ferreira.

And then Legett plays it back to Ariola on the wing. And then Ariola does something clever here. He kind of pauses for a second. Reggie Cannon's overlapping. and ariola you know clips it in behind for him and canning gets goalside on randall and can it gets brought down and it's a penalty seems like a pretty clear penalty to me yep clear pen hey since we're talking about ariola's involvement here uh i just want to point out that was i thought that was a really good uh whole scenario for ariola a whole sequence uh because

i'd been a little bit harsh on him at half time when we were kind of just discussing things i was like, you know, for being the guy who's never played a first team in it, Yana sure looks as good or better than Paul Ariola, who hasn't seemed to do much of anything incisive. But that from Ariola in the second half, and then several other times in the second half, actually, Ariola looked pretty incisive there. Yeah. I mean, definitely hardworking as usual. And there was that little moment of incision with the pass to with the past canon. Uliberi is a penalty, bottom right corner. celebrates with a fadeaway jumper in honor of Kobe.

So I couldn't be, couldn't be happier about that. What a moment for Ullianas. In front of his friends and family, you know? Yes. It looked like his dad put some pictures on Twitter. Look like he had like 40, 50 people there. That's awesome.

That's awesome. I know I said I was only going to say this once, talk about this once, but I'm already talking about it again. Another thing that people always bring up, because I don't care, the fact that he made the penalty doesn't really, it's awesome for him, doesn't really have any effect on sort of my assessment of him in the game or how he'll perform in the future. But one of the sort of things that people will bring up when you talk about guys playing for the national team who have little or no first team experience with their club is that it'll like wreck the locker room.

It'll ruin the culture. And it just doesn't seem, it didn't seem like there was any ill will to Oulianas being there. I mean, he gets to step up and take the penalty. It's not like guys weren't celebrating. So it's just I feel like another sort of argument that should be falling by the wayside For for guys like OOLE, not necessarily not just OOLEE, not every single player who's ever played for a who's playing in a Bundes League Academy But sort of the good ones Yeah, we should be taking more guys into consideration

It's not going to wreck the culture like If they can play, they can play and people will see it when they when they get their chance I don't know, man. To see him step up and hit that and just like bury it like that, that was encouraging to me, you know, like in an objective way. I have always been more mystical than you are. Yeah, Bell's people convert penalties like 70% of the time. So he hit a high percentage play. Yeah.

I mean, Pulisic missed some penalties. We don't have like a stone cold penalty taker on the national team, do we? I don't think so, no It was it was Donovan I feel like our last good one was Donovan Yeah so I mean not that Yannes is like even going to be in the next camp But but um

I didn't see Burholter's comments after I did anyone ask him If because a lot of times penalty kick takers are selected in advance by the manager I wonder if if yannes was already named as a penalty taker or if it was just decided in the moment I don't know because he he was going after the ball. He was demanding the ball from the, from the ball boy. Ballboy threw it over the goal, and he had to go track it down, and he did. So I don't know, I don't know if it was a, if it was something that was something that Uli was dead set on in the moment. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's, I was, I was scared he was going to miss it and that people would laugh at us. And he,

and he didn't. So I was happy about that. Yeah, yes, that vindicates us. His conversion of the penalties would indicate us. 66 minute Sam Vines plays a great ball in behind for Yanez kind of a curving ball from the left wing into the box Yannes tries to toe poke it either

at the back post or at a crashing Zardis I guess I'm not sure what does it look like to you? My initial read was that he was trying to do a cheeky little like toe outside of the foot little touch to Zardaz almost like where he's going to try to like put some English on it

sort of bounces away from the keeper and then spins into Zardaz's path, if I'm going to get very specific. Yeah, get about what I thought was going to happen. He could have also been trying to sort of hit that same kind of ball with English into the, into the far post, so to score himself. So I'm not sure what he was attempting. As soon as it hit the keeper's body and hands, Yannis's arms went out in apology to Zimmerman,

or I'm sorry, Desartez it looked like. Yeah. Like, okay, I see you. Yeah, I could have found you, but I don't know. We need We need to answer that one. Yeah. I mean,

it's a better thing if he was trying to pass it to Zardis, try to trick the keeper, but I don't know. Should have done better there. 77th minute, another chance. Legette corner,

a legit corner skips through to Zimmerman on the back post, and his shot is saved by a kick save from Alvarado. And then 85th minute, Legette crosses it after his own corner falls back to him And there's a lovely Zardis glancing header

To the to the far post But Zardis was offside There were several chances There were several Costa Rican chances in here I don't know, did you record any of those And want to talk about them? Absolutely not I told you guys I barely care about the defense in this game

Yeah, why do you not care about the defense? The reason I don't care about the defense is because I should because Vines is a new defender And because Jackson, ability to like help protect our back line is still an open question and a big deal but mostly mostly I just cared about the attack the Zimmerman long known commodity so it's not like anything that happened this game was going to change too much of our assessments of them they're pretty they're like they're good last-ditch defenders right

right right and and as far as like yanez goes and even to an extent erinson I mean we know ariola is going to do defensively too so it was just like as long as yonaz doesn't completely look like Kenny Seff against Columbia, then he can be coached. Like you can coach a guy to get in position. If our defense is just going to be to get in position, he didn't get thrown around like a rag doll. That's really all. I mean, he wasn't disinterested in defending. So if Coast Rica had stolen one on a set piece or hit us on the counter once, I would have just been living with that.

I wouldn't have changed too much of my opinion. I was looking for how we could connect and how we could build and how we could be incisive. Yeah, more than anything. Well, how do you grade our incisiveness overall? Probably like a B. I thought it was pretty good. I think it's almost unreasonable to against a competent opponent. This isn't Guyana.

You know, this isn't Cuba, against a competent opponent of grownups. Like you, the heart with a new group of players thrown together. Like it's just, it's basically too difficult to get everything right all the way into the 18 to goal. and we still did a couple of times and then maybe just the last touch was off so I'd say it's a bead the game that actually reminded me a lot of was from the Saracan era when we played Paraguay

and really controlled the game really controlled the ball and possession but basically controlled it around the box the attacking 18 and never really could find guys in there in super dangerous positions where all they have to do is apply the finishing touch And I think we won that game on a penalty as well. So that's for me what it was.

I would for sure take this game and know that it's something that we're going to build off of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do, I do, I'll tell you what my biggest concern is from this game. And it's like, it's a concern that sort of extends to the rest of our games, any game that's coming up, is that our centerbacks just are not that good in possession. I know John Brooks is good in possession, but there's always a question of like, is he going to play? Is he going to be able to play? And Zimmerman and Long are, it just sort of reinforced today.

Like, they're not going to break lines. They're not comfortable, not super comfortable under pressure. Then it just don't make passes that unsettle the opponent by and large. And, you know, Zimmerman even had a pretty bad giveaway and got an earful from Burrull. halter about it. So, and I don't know who's, who's better is, I don't, I don't know that Miyazga is noticeably better than, than these guys at passing the ball. So what year after here isn't necessarily just like a safe guy you can play it to.

He doesn't have stone feet, but you want a guy who actually will, uh, give us another, so it's not just Jackson Ewell's job to, right, to thread the pass. Another way to progress the ball. Right. Uh, whether it's advancing it on, on their own or, whether it's hitting the pass. I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

No player immediately comes to mind. That's supposed to be sort of McKenzie's MO, right? Is that he can hit the pass? Yeah. And maybe Miles Robinson has a bit of the advance the ball at his feet. Yeah. And, you know, there's great hopes about Richards, but I don't know that that's quite there with him either.

Maybe we can buy a centerback from France for $10 million or something. Does Tim Ream, is he a placeholder in that position then? I think he's above average for the pool on that, in that respect, wouldn't you say? So if Tim Ream had been there and it was Tim Ream and Aaron Long as our two centerbacks with Ewellis, the other guy breaking lines, you'd think we'd maybe are, we just got 33% better at passing out of that back triangle? Yes. Yeah.

Ream, the indispensable man. I don't mean, I don't disagree with that. I do think that can be an issue. And we want to have as many avenues to move. that ball forward as possible. Sergenio Dest makes a big difference too because he's so dynamic in progressing the ball from fullback.

Yeah, but Cannon's not bad either in my opinion. Canon had a really solid game for me. Yeah, I saw some people saying he was like the best player for the U.S. on the night, on the afternoon. I'm not sure I saw that, but I thought he was pretty good. Yeah, I did too. It's tough because I thought the way we were moving the ball

around really freed anyone up from having to be the best player on the pitch. I'd honestly probably end up giving mine to Ewell just because of that pass that he was providing that we've been starved for. I mean, again, it's nothing flashy. It's just somebody has to actually be brave enough to do it and we haven't had that in so long that I think that's what can sort of set us apart. That's what's going to be the key. And then we still need the attackers to do their sexy attacking stuff. So if Ewell is settling into that role and becoming a really good at it, does that mean when we see Tyler Adams back with the national team, he's going to be an eight?

I suppose we should talk about that too, shouldn't we? I mean, I don't know, does Adams have that? Can Adams disguise that pass? I know you're a big fan of Adams' passing. I don't, to be, I think he could. I think Adams can play that pass. And I don't think it's all about the disguise. I think Adams just does it, everything so quickly.

And I don't want to say Yule's like a slow player, but Yul, even today, even when he's hitting that pass, and you could say that it's intentional. But he's sort of very deliberate. So maybe you'd say, well, he's deliberate because he wants to give the defenders an extra beat to read his hips because he knows he's going to go somewhere else with it. And that's totally fair. But I think Adams is super quick to release the ball. So it might be where he releases it before the defenders have set to where his hips are going to go. I don't know. We're just going kind of streaming.

Go ahead. You finish what you're going to say. I'm just saying it's going to be an interesting March, June, July, September with all the games and all of the splintering of the rosters to see sort of who fits what roles and who complements who. Yeah, it's a little bit dizzying to think about because there's so many different moving parts. I was going to say one thing you said made me think of something that I noticed in the game, and that is that in general we did not move the ball fast enough. I bet Burhalter said that in the post game, which I have not seen yet. But like you're talking about you will maybe being a little bit slow.

Maybe it's because he's disguising his intentions and deliberately deceiving, therefore he has to take a beat. But I just thought in general the way we move the ball out of the back could have been faster, It could have been CRISPR. And Adams does bring that just sort of urgency, you know. So that would be, that's a, that's a strong argument to continue with Adams at the six, not to mention all the defensive stuff that's going to come into play when we are, you know, when a game really, really matters.

Do we want to keep going with the Adams-Ewell implications? Yes. The implications. So if Yule becomes that line-breaking six, that puts Adams probably in the spot that Sebastian Leggett was occupying. Yeah, that's not his strong suit. And then does Legette move over to the spot that Aronson was occupying? Or does Leggett once again drop to the bench?

And is Weston McKinney on the field in this scenario anywhere? And what about Dwayne Holmes? What about Dwayne Holmes? Yeah, well, Aronson's not. I don't think Aronson's going to be involved with the senior team in March. No, I don't think that's, I don't think he's really pushing that right now. So we can take him out of the equation. Yeah, I don't know, man.

I don't know what, I don't know what Burrhalter's going to do. I think what I think I still want, yeah, no, I don't think I know. I still want Adams at the six. And then probably, I think I'm going to, I'm going to say Holmes and Legette. I'm going to say Holmes and Legat at the moment. Okay, so Ewell falls off. But my other question is going to be, is you will have to. to be in that deep lying role to hit those incisive passes,

or could he be hitting him from the spot that Legit was in? Could he be hitting him from the spot that Aronson was in? I don't know. I mean, does the system allow the Legett to come back deep the way Ewell does? I mean, you'd think that against a sophisticated team, or even against an unsophisticated one that decides to sit on Ewell, you want to have some variability there on, like, who comes back to get the ball.

into the attacking half, you know? Right, some kind of rotations in mind. I don't feel like we saw that much of today, did we? No, we didn't have to because Costa Rica just had the one player high. And then honestly, like a band of five. So their band of five almost looked like sort of a flying V where the guy in the middle would step up to Ewell, but he wasn't trying to deny Ewell the ball. He wasn't trying to really make life difficult for Ewell.

His job was basically just to start to put. some pressure on Ewell as he was receiving it is sort of what it looked like to me yeah yeah if somebody if you went in Uruguay style and actually were like okay Eul has been controlling the tempo of this game for the first 25 minutes let's eliminate him from the game altogether then I don't then I think you would have to add somebody else to the mix because I don't think Ewell's going to somehow break that down himself right he's not just going to evade the the sort of shadow that he'd be assigned yeah he he you know he's clever He can be clever, but he's not going to take that responsibility on his shoulders.

Do we need to say anything else about Canon, Legette, Ewell? I don't think so. Ariola? I mean, the... He had that good moment that we talked about. Otherwise, he kind of, he was who he is. You talking to Ariola there? Yeah.

Yeah, and I think what was good about those guys was that they were a nice, stable group for the youths to bounce off of. Yeah, and to be compared with in some ways. Right. Yeah. So that was their job. And you might have noticed a bunch of them didn't come off. A lot of the long, I think, was the only veteran to get subbed out. McIntyreola, Ewell, Cannon, Zerman, Legette, all played 90 minutes. Yeah.

How did you, what did you think of McKenzie? Did you notice anything from him? No, not really at all. And it was just, I don't know, maybe it was just a, all of the subs sort of got, got a little, the game kind of dissolved, but did you, I mean, did you see a lot? I didn't. So we're going to have to do it. We're going to have to do a rewatch, a rewatch episode. Let's see, we should talk more about Ferreira. Where does he fit into, where does he fit into the pecking order at this point? All right. So here's the question I had lined up for you about Ferreira. Like, just take all Olympic considerations aside. Who, who, who, who, Who would you rather see suit up for the men's national team in the next game as the number nine, Ferreira or Sergeant? Ah. Like, did Ferreira do enough here? And I'm not saying we have to draw any full conclusions about who's better right now.

But you've got 90 minutes to get more data in a friendly situation. Who would you rather see get that, who would you rather get that data on at the moment? Ferreira, yeah. Here's why. I mean, we've gotten some data on Sergeant, right? and we know that he is a he is a player with a lot of potential um but ferrera looks like he's a lot smarter at playing this the striker position don't you think uh i i mean certainly intelligence quotient i'm i'm like i'm trying to dance around it but yeah he just looked completely at

home didn't he i mean he looked like a total natural in this uh setup today he looked like he knew what he was he knew what he was doing at every moment of the game and he it looked like he knew where all the other pieces were too um which is a huge deal now i want to say we've seen sergeant look like that for the u.s at times uh back way back in 2018 i don't think he's looked like that in 2019 but for for uh Greg burhalter but some of that has been where he's playing in games where no one on the team looks like they know what they're doing yeah so it's tough it's a real small sample size of Sargent in the Burr-Alter era, and a lot of that sample size has to be thrown out because it was against Cuba or because it was, everyone was made to look bad.

I'm not saying you don't throw it out completely. It's not all meaningless, but it's hard, again, it's just really hard to draw any real conclusion so far. The thing is, Sergeant has looked, he's gotten to play as a nine for Verde Bremen. He started the first two games of the second half of the season for them and didn't look good in either of those. And then, you know, he was benched. I mean, benched is a strong word, but they brought in a new striker,

Davy Selka. They played up 2002 in the starting lineup today, in fact. And then Sergeant came on for, like, the last three minutes. I think he touched the ball once. So, you know, it's not just the way he's been playing with the U.S. The way he's been playing with Verde Bremen is similarly sort of lethargic and, I don't know, foggy just looks a little foggy

I'm not trying to be harsh I want everything I want sergeant to become that ruthless striker we hope he can be but he's just not that right now I don't even want him to be the ruthless one I mean I would take that I just wanted to be the one who looks like he's like carefree

like you just keep going back to that that game he played for the US against Bolivia or whoever it was where he just was having fun and he was just combining with a coffee and Amen and Wea and it was just everything was clicking. Yeah. And it's like you just want to see that fluidity and that sort of attitude and that sort of style.

Yeah. It hasn't. It looks like he's had all that hammered out of him in Germany. I mean, he has moments of style. It's just like he has a lot of moments where he's just he's just sort of like marking the centerback. That's to steal a phrase of yours. where he's just like sort of walking with the centerback or walking with whoever's marking him and um there doesn't seem to be like an urgency to make to create separation forera just

ferrera seemed to be moving with a lot of purpose today and yes and i i i like that no i i i agree with you if if we had 90 minutes to use in march uh where it was going to be one of those two that's who was available uh i would i would probably give the lion's share of it to ferre Not to say, at least for me, not to say that I think Ferreira is a better player than Sargent. I'm not saying that. I just am more curious at the moment. Let's see. Should we sing Ullianas's praises anymore?

I think they've been well sung. Okay. Again, all of these things about would you take him in March for the senior team? Probably going to be moot, but I'll say for Uli, he needs to be in a U.S. national team uniform in March. So if he doesn't get released for the Olympics, like he needs to be on the senior team then against Wales and the Netherlands. And maybe that means you bring five wingers because I think we could probably come up with five wingers

who should probably be there then. But he should be, we should be getting more data on Ullianas in March, one way or another. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, check out the All Touches video that Sanjif put together, Sanjeev. Did you already put one out?

Yeah. Of course he did. It's, you know, he has his Twitter cut, which is two minutes, 20 seconds, by law. But there's also the, he, in the thread, he also posts the YouTube, a YouTube video of all the touches. And this one isn't going to get taken down for copyright reasons. Nobody really cares about the U.S. Men's National Team Games in that respect. And, um, I'm telling you, man, the, all touches is almost as flattering as the, as the 220 cut. It's, he did a lot of good stuff.

Yeah, and just the way, again, he just looks in total control of the situation when he has the ball. I think it was less than two minutes in on our own half, like a ball got floated to him, and he brought it down and then just drove a ball 45 yards across the field to the right wing. I was just like, okay. Yeah. On, like on Reggie Cannon's foot. Yeah, and it's kind of a nothing play. It's a professional soccer player. That's what they do.

But still, I mean, it's still his very first touch. in a national team uniform. And it's just like, okay, he's just out here messing around. Yeah, hopefully that doesn't get beaten out of him, Josh Sargent style. But yeah, I mean, he could have been better in the attacking third if we're going to be, you know, completely rigorous about this whole thing. He should, he, he, his final third decisions slash connections were,

we're not, we're not quite there. Not quite there, but you could see how almost where there they were. And that happened really early too. I think the first time he got the ball like at the corner of the box, one of the first times. Like this is one where he totally shook a guy cutting into his right foot. And then he did not connect. He attempted a shot, I'm pretty sure, did not connect on it.

Kind of like topped it and it just rolled harmlessly into the box, into the goalkeeper area. But like just the way he shook that dude is his touch to shake him was a little too heavy to get his own shot off. Yeah. But like you could see. He took himself into another defender a little bit. Yeah. But again, you basically see like right there like, oh, this is a guy who will be able to create his own shot. Yeah. He also crossed the ball with his left foot that there was like just a desperate stab by the centerback to prevent it going to Ariola, I think it was at the near post.

So, I mean, the goals will come in the run of play. I think goals slash assists. All right. I mean, Sean Johnson, I don't really have anything to say about him. Do you? No. No. No. Goals. goalkeepers were not needed very much. We never, we didn't, well, we went back to him a few times and like, we're playing possession all the way back into our own end line and corner flag, which I actually think is very nice to see in a January friendly. Yeah, there was one time where we got pressed and, oh, you know, we haven't, we haven't

talked about is Sam Vines. We haven't talked about him at all. Sure, Sam. What did you think? I think Vines, all, I think all of Daniel Lovitz's minutes from 2018. could have gone to San Vines. Is that fair? I mean, maybe Vines has matured in the last 12 months

in ways that we are not aware of. Half of Lovett's 2019 minutes could have gone to San Vines. I know a lot of people, a lot of people were pretty impressed with Vines, and I was too. I thought, particularly that one time where he chopped the ball around the defender,

and then he drew it, he got a corner kick out of it. He didn't get a cross off. Oh, this is the one where Let's say it. He had a bit of a whiff on the actual cross Yes, but the touch before that to get around the defender was I love seeing that from a defender And then they play that ball to Yanez

And then he's just like he's just solid He's just solid defensively and kind of in possession Doesn't see we'll have to see if he's solid defensively because we didn't really get No one really got to show how solid defensively they were today Yeah, that's true but he's he's solid defensively in major League Soccer. Okay. And I've seen him play.

I saw him play here in Minnesota one time and was just really impressed with his athleticism and his sort of alertness and connectedness to the other defenders. He's a guy who wants to stop the other team from scoring goals. Would A.C. Milan have paid $10 million for him? I can't believe that whole thing, man. Can you believe that? That is the craziest thing. no it was wild that was a wild uh sequence of events um so it's too bad it didn't work out for

anthony robinson but man i was not i did not see that coming it's too bad it didn't work out for a wig and what are they going to do when they go when they get relegated and have to sell them for one and a half million to lootin town yeah yeah yeah no i i don't think he's yeah i don't know I want to see more vines, I guess, is what my takeaway from it. You think he put himself in a really good spot, though, for Olympic qualifying at the very least, right? For sure, for sure, yeah. Because I doubt Anthony Robinson gets released for that, and who are the other left-back contenders? I guess, you know, Gaspers not eligible.

Uh-uh. Kobe Hernandez Foster, who hasn't even gotten a look from the U-23s and is very young. Yeah, there's not really, uh, there's not really much competition. think. Okay. Well, Vine's definitely like, I mean, he gave Jason Christ every reason to believe that he could do it. He could do the job in March. Yep. And do it with, oh, that's interesting. Probably he's going to be doing it with Ulliana's on his side of the field. Right. Isn't that what it seems like? Yeah. So that'll actually be pretty fun because, like, there isn't actually a ton of urgency to get these guys into the national team march because the priority now is Olympic qualifying.

I always wanted guys to skip U23 camps, if it was just U23 camp, if they were good enough to play for the senior team. But once you're in this actual qualifying, like get vines there, get Ullianas there if we can get him. And then we get to watch them hopefully, fingers crossed, like do it again in Tokyo. and then we'll have a really good idea of who among that group should maybe be included in September, if anyone. Yeah. There's going to be a lot of guys who are going to be, who are going to emerge, I think, for World Cup qualifying. In the whole Olympic situation? I think so.

I mean, there's because. Think about who's, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. Well, I was just basically saying when we talk about the group, which is who you're trying to beat out, like the, there are a lot. of low bars in that group, I think. So, you know, the spots are there. And so if guys get in front of the U.S. staff and do the job,

I just, I feel like there could be a decent amount of turnover between now and September. I forget who all Brian Shoretta had in his projected Olympic qualifying roster, but he had, he did have Ladezma in there. So let's say that's true. And then we got Canada. and death's not going to get released for Olympic qualifying. So we got Cannon on the right side, vines on the left side, probably McKenzie and Richards, maybe, maybe glad at Center.

Miles Robinson. Oh, yeah, Miles Robinson. If he's released, Atlanta doesn't, Atlanta don't play ball no more. And then we'll have Yule at the six. Cervania, maybe. Cervanya, maybe, yeah. Aronson will probably be in the mix, Ledesma. Yonnas on one wing.

Raina's not going to probably get released for this, even if they wanted him. Now, and this is the other reason I thought it was interesting that Areola started. Not interesting because I expected it, but it never really even occurred to me that that Burrhalter would start Janice and Jonathan Lewis in the same game. I feel like you can't do that. I don't know why Yannas actually seemed pretty up for it defensively today. Lewis did not seem terribly up for it defensively. But it just seemed like that would be too reckless to throw both of those guys on as you're. wingers and expect that you'd get enough defensive work out of them.

Maybe I'm being too conservative. But I feel like it'd be more like a Janice on the left, like a Brooks Lennon, Paul Ariole, a clone on the right. Brooks Lennon. You don't know, man. Atlantic tournament to Julian Gressel in less than a year. Yeah, Frank DeBore has been really skyrocketing players' careers in Atlanta since he arrived. You brought up Jonathan Lewis and said, you know, he didn't give a lot of effort on the defensive end.

I didn't think he was effective with the ball either in his limited minutes. Did you? No, it was a clear step down from Janus. And that could have just been on the day. Maybe Lewis would have looked cleaner if we'd play this game again. But on the day, no, it looked nothing close to as comfortable as Ullianas out there. There you go, Matt Doyle. First team minutes be damned.

And Jana's a clearly superior option there. On the day. On the day. Just to be safe. Ferreira, Ferreira is going to be the striker for the U-23s? Is he eligible? Do we know that? I think he has to be, right?

I don't think he could have played in this. This is an official FIFA game. I mean, this counts on the, this counts on the ELO rankings. That's true. That's true. Okay. So Ferreira's probably the striker. Brooks Lennon is the right winger.

Maybe Sebastian South. Leto. Ullianus can play right wing if he needs to. That's true. So, man, Olympic qualifying is starting to get excited about that. Yeah, did we even say Paxton Pomacall or Keith? No, we didn't. But is he going to be healthy?

I don't know. Is Pomacol going to be healthy? I thought your surgeon was taking care of him. I know. Myers, I was so full of praise for Dr. Myers, who rejected my request for an interview. And now I'm going to have to give him the old NYCFC. All right. This is spiraling out of control.

Anything else we should talk about? The women play. I think the women have already advanced into the Olympic semifinal. Didn't they win their last game like 8-0 or something? Yes, they did. They're really good. I mean, they're historically talented. So they should have no issues qualifying.

They'll win their last game. It's more or less. No, it's not technically dead rubber because if they lose the game, they're ahead on gold difference, but if they lose their last group stage game, they'd probably have to play Canada in the do-or-die, which is a big deal. So they need to win their next game and then they'll coast into the Olympics. Would you say it's kind of like Hillary Clinton in 2016? It probably is, yes.

No, no, it's much higher percentage of winning. I think Hillary was down to like 70% by Election Day in 2016. Yeah. Yeah, no politics on this podcast, Greg. Stop that. I was just going by the percentages. I was just doing the math. I was just telling you what the math was.

Good, good. I think we're good. I think we've done everything we can do here. We've got to do a top 40. We got a top 40. We got Olympic qualifying rosters. There's so much going on. It's going to be a pretty exciting month and a half of speculation.

Yeah, it's fair. February 1st already, so I mean, Olympic qualifiers start in 50 days. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks, Greg, for making this work. We'll see you.