Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 163: Olympic Qualifying — USA v Costa Rica

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

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Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Ah, it feels nice. Winning. Getting it done. We saw some bad performances, but by golly, we did it. Ferreira got the winner. David Ochoa was a monster in goal, and we took a huge step toward the Olympic playing game on March 28. Greg, speak to us. Bells is over. Nothing can go wrong now. We are going to Tokyo. It is, I mean, there is actually quite a plausible path for things to go wrong, right? If Costa Rica beats Mexico, that throws a wrench in things. Of course, we have to beat the Dominican Republic or Mexico. I mean, there's different ways this can go. But this was a big step. It was a big step. Right.

It's just we built that game up so much to be like, win this game and we're in because we had to win this game any other result. Oh, I'll draw would have made things interesting. but, you know, a loss would have felt like it basically knocked us out of the tournament. Again, none of those things would have actually been the case, but that's just how it, everyone was sort of approaching this game. That, you know, great job winning it. We actually now have another must-win game coming up on Sunday. Yeah.

We just should, I mean, expect to win that one. Right. And none of them is a must-win. None of these games is a must-win, it turns out. But they're all must-wins. What a pair of it. So the lineup. Let's do the lineup. U.S. lineup was David Ochoa and goal. A bit of a surprise there. The youngest of the trio of goalkeepers in this camp. Aaron Herrera, Justin Glad, Mauricio Paneda, and Sam Vines along the back line. Jackson Ewell. At the six, Hassani Dodson and Georgi Mahlivich as the nominal eights. And Benji Michelle, Hazes Ferreira, and Jonathan Lewis across the... front line. There we go. The Ochoa selection was a pretty big surprise to me because I feel

like that is going out on a limb even if you're even if you like him the most through a camp. You know, he's definitely the guy with the least match experience. And you know, I said, I said yesterday like evaluating goalkeeper shot stopping can be pretty difficult at times because, you know, it's a really tiny sample size with with shots and matches. And so you're really banking a lot on what you're seeing and training. to go with Ochoa. Obviously, Ochoa validated that selection. Yes, he did.

And that was, for me, the most exciting thing about the game. It may be hard to evaluate shot stopping, not hard to evaluate swagger. And that could be it, honestly. Like, I was asking if Ochoa, I was asking some of these Slack experts we have, whether Ochoa is much better with his feet, because that's another thing that you'd could pretty easily tell through training. And if he is, then that gives a reason to include him if you're going to be using your goalkeeper a lot.

But communication is another big one. And if he's better at organizing a line, when you're bringing in a bunch of guys who aren't used to playing together, you need that voice to control things in the back. So if that's a strength of his, and I know you might be referring to slightly different kind of swagger. No, I'm referring to all of it. Yeah. Just, yeah, to just sort of own, to essentially just sort of own the organization of the team.

Yeah. poses himself on the game in a lot of different ways that I really appreciate. So otherwise, any surprises in the lineup for you? I guess Dotson was a little bit of a surprise that he started. Yeah, I didn't expect that necessarily. I didn't even really expect for sure, like Benji Michelle to play. But obviously, Janice left camp either the day before the game or the day of the game, depending.

It was announced the day of the match. So he's the other Michelle's the other sort of right-sided winger So it makes sense that he'd play Dodson I think was a surprise I think most people would have expected Cardoso or Perea to double up with Ewell Cardoso arrived in camp late So that may have played into it

Or it might just be that Dodson Is the guy that has established himself in camp And he definitely was a positive contributor In that match yesterday Yep Yeah we'll get into that for sure And then I think Ferreira at Stryker Lewis at left wing is that was sort of par for the course. That was expected.

And I think Mahalovich and Yule, no big surprise there. And yeah, Herrera and Vines did not, was not surprised that they started at fullback. A little surprised Kessler didn't start at centerback, but I don't know why I'm surprised about that. I don't have a reason that I was surprised. Don't ask me to explain my surprise. You have this meter that just like keeps fluctuating as you read down the lineup. You might have just talked yourself into Kessler because he was a full on starter for a very, you know, good New England Revolution team, whereas Glad was sort of in and out of a rail salt lake side.

That's, I mean, that's a decent connection to make right there. Yeah, sure. and Glad has been, you know, some of the shine has come off him a little bit from a national team perspective over the last few years. I believe, I believe, was he your very first scuffed player interview? Yes, it was. It was. The first time I ever interviewed somebody was Justin Glad. Thank you, Justin.

Costa Rica's lineup is a little bit interesting. They came out in, I guess it's a 451 in defense and kind of a 4-2-3-1 in possession, something like that. they had Kevin Chomoro their backup he's the backup in this group in goal in goal uh

Secaira the guy who I think is better than him is a late arrival to camp so late in fact that he missed the first game correct um not available and Chomorro was was he looked like a backup I thought especially in distribution uh they had across the back line

Ian Smith at right back for non Firon and Aaron Salazar as the centerbacks, Yergan Roman as the left back, and then that five-man midfield be Alonzo Martinez, Bernard Bernad Alfaro, Jefferson Brennaz, Rondo, Leao, Luis Diaz, and Manfred Ugaldi at Stryker. They were not as good as I talked them up to being.

Mea culpa here. They were kind of what I expected in that, they were professional. Like they were organized. Like they didn't, they weren't necessarily like easy to break down. And that's a huge departure from what we've seen, even the senior team up against for the last several friendlies. So in that sense,

this is kind of like exactly the kind of test I like to see. It'd be nice if they had a little bit more threat going forward that we would have to deal with rather than, you know, providing them the threat as we did in that game. But I think that is kind of what to expect. You know, they're not superheroes. Everyone was kind of talking them up as, oh, they're all like season pros, a ton of them play together on the same team. But again, they're not all playing together at Real Madrid.

They're all playing together on a solid team in Costa Rica. So, yeah, you just have to sort of remember that these are all still young professionals who are not playing at the highest level. They're just sort of have that baseline competence. Yeah, I thought Gerson Torres off the bench definitely provided a spark for that. them. And so maybe he should have started over Alonzo Martinez. I mean, if we're going to, I'm not going to spend the whole episode, you know, litigating the lineup decisions from Costa Rica. But, but Alonza Martinez was the guy who ended up in on goal against Ochoa in the two biggest moments of the first 15 minutes. And I think we're a little lucky it was him and not like

Laos or Diaz or maybe even Gerson Torres. But let's not dwell on that too much. Credit to Jason Christ for setting up our defense in a way that when we hand-picked opportunities for them, we gave it to their weakest players. Yeah, right. Let's talk about 5D chess, you know? Yeah. Yeah, they were too, they were pretty toothless. I thought Laos was dangerous when he was on the ball.

I mean, he had that feel of danger when he got on the ball. But Diaz was a lot of sizzle and not too much steak in my. opinion and I didn't see anything threatening from anybody else. And maybe some credit, I mean, should go to, you know, our defensive setup, our organization. Let me let me just real quick kind of run through what I appreciated about our defense. If you're okay with that. Yeah, please do. Or I guess the effect of it.

We stayed with our 433 press. And I thought it was extremely effective at basically not letting Costa Rica have any kind of game that they wanted to have. it was a lot of them sort of knocking the ball around the back and then as any bit of pressure got onto them they'd sort of just float a ball up field and it would almost always just go directly to a US player so you know it might not have been quite as sexy as like creating a ton of turnover

I know there were a couple of notable turnovers we created that did lead directly to chances but Costa Rica after that kind of adapted and just sort of wouldn't let us have that but in exchange they just gave us the ball really cheaply to our you know deeper underlying players. Yeah.

Yeah, the press did, the press did make them pretty uncomfortable, didn't it? Yeah, it really did. It kind of mirrored how our centerbacks looked when they had a bunch of time and that they were just almost like too happy to give the ball away or not, they weren't willing to try anything particularly dangerous, so it was either safe or a turnover. Firon, the right centerback, had a shocker of a game. He's right up there with Paneda.

could have easily been sent off too, I think. Okay, so let's go into the timeline. Are you good with that? Yeah, the Bell's Chronology. Let's have it. The Bell's Chronology coming right at you. Second minute. By Schick.

All right, what are we doing? Schick, is that our new sponsor? I don't know. Okay, before we get into the timeline, I should just make official that we are an ad-free podcast. We're patron-supported. So, Schick is not the sponsor. Okay.

I guess just every once in a while we'll throw out some free, some free publicity. The sponsor is you, dear listener. All right. Timeline. Second minute. Glad hits a nice diagonal to Vines who pumps a chest high ball across and Ferrer. It's like a little bit beyond Ferreira's reach. Do you remember this one?

Yep, I know you're talking about. Would you have liked to see a little more backpost ruthlessness from Mr. Ferreira? I guess no, not necessarily. I don't think he had like a particularly intentional run there, particularly intentional movement. So it's one of those where because the ball went back post, you're like, oh, I wish he would have done that. That would have been great.

But it would have been just as good to have seen some ruthless near post run. In any event, whatever run he was going to make, there was certainly no one to make the opposing run. So if he'd gone near post, there was no one up there to make the far post run and vice versa. Okay. Yeah. It would have been, yeah. It would have been some prescience there.

Some clairvoyance. Also in the second minute, Ferreira picks Firon's pocket. So kind of a mirror image of what happened to Pineda a little bit later. And then he's one-on-one with the goalkeeper and tries to go near a post. I think he made the right choice trying to go near post because he totally wrong-footed the keeper. But it hit the post. bounced out to Benji Michelle, who couldn't quite get his feet right. And the chance petered out.

But that was a big, big chance. Yep, and it's nice that he created it for himself. He misses his placement by seven or eight inches. Or, again, it would have been a banner start. Yeah. Some bright play from the U.S. in the third minute, too. Up the right wing, you will kind of pinging the ball into that next level from deep. Not much quality from the U.S. in the final third, but the system I thought, you know,

It kind of looked like it was starting to work a little bit right at the beginning. That proved not to be true. And that was one of Ewell's opportunities to kind of show what he does well. And maybe I'll have to find that and clip it out and post it. It is one of those where are sort of, the Costa Rica was probably a little bit shook after that turnover to Ferreira. So this is one of those times where under not much pressure, they elected to just hit a long ball, you know, to no one really. And it went directly to Ewell, and Ewell collects it. And this is one of the few times he could get on the ball because of how Costa Rica

were defending him, was to get it in transition or to intercept it. And he hit a really kind of disguised vertical pass up to, did he find Michelle's feet? I can't remember whose feet he found. Yeah, probably Michelle, yeah. But this is one of those few times he was able to do it, but it was one of those where, you know, it's, it's a minor thing. It's a little detail, but just having the way his hips are facing and it might, it was a bit of an unexpected vertical pass. And we didn't get a ton of those, but that is what Ewell is going to be there to offer if he's going to offer anything. Yeah. He didn't get to offer that too much because they shadowed him pretty much.

It was pretty much Ugalde in his back pocket the whole time Ewell was out there, which was the whole game, I guess. Yule didn't come off, did he? And he couldn't get on the ball. So anyway, then Costa Rica starts getting some chances. Achoa has to come off his line three times before the 10 minute mark. including once in the seventh minute after Vines and Mahalovich. I see you're disputing this.

You think it was Eul? I thought it was Ewell. Are you talking about where the feed cuts out for a second? I'm pretty sure that's Eul, but we'll verify. We'll say, well, we won't verify, but we'll just say that. I'll concede that it's Ewell. And they don't connect on a pass in the defensive third. The feed cuts out, and it goes into that like multicolored rainbow thing.

And then Alonzo Martin, next thing we see, Alonzo Martinez is in on goal and Ochoa is coming out and getting big and snuffing it, snuffing it out. First sign that this is going to be a nice performance from Ochoa. Yeah, we're hoping there that Vines and Mahalavit, or Yule, I'm sorry, that that's just a bit of like rust and not playing together. So not quite being on the same page because it's a pass. We need Vines to make, right?

If we're going to build out of there, that Vines is under a little bit of pressure, almost I think maybe is like back to goal as he's receiving the ball. and so he clips it square to Ewell and Ewell had like started to take a step deeper to drop and maybe give Vines a better angle for that layoff and Vines hits it where Ewell was and that's how he lose it and then Ewell and this is going to be the issue or the question is is not quick enough in his change of direction

to make up for that mistake and that's always going to be kind of the question and the test for Ewell is is that lack of quickness too much like if If everything always has to be perfect going into Ewell, then is he a good enough option for us to be able to relieve pressure the way that you might be able to with a Tyler Adams, who if the ball is not perfect, he can adjust very quickly and smother a counter before it really turns into anything or just win it outright and continue play. Yeah, very well said. I think that is a big question about you. I mean, and the answer to the question is he's not quick enough and it is going to be a problem. So it's not to let vines off the hook for the pass.

Like the past needs to be better. But again, if you're going to require flawlessness to play your way out of trouble, then that might be too difficult of an ask, and then you might have to change your math on how you advance the ball off the field. Yeah. Because if, you know, Vines isn't flawless as evidenced by that play, and I can guarantee you Anthony Robinson isn't going to be flawless either. So there you have it.

Moving right along, some shakiness at the back from Paneda and Glad early, but Paneda most glaringly, they were asked to be passed the ball into the midfield because Ugaldi was shadowing Ewell and not allowing him to get on the ball. 17th minute, Paneda gives it up, and this is that big, big moment where Achoa has to come out and get real big. It was Alonzo Martinez, and he cuts to his left to, I think, eliminate Glad. And then he's one-on-one with, he's one-on-one with Achoa. Natchoa got really, really big.

Makes a big save of the game. Capital B, capital S. Huge moment. Yeah, just inexplicable, like, casualness from Paneda there. And I don't know if it's, like, the heat and the, you know, the, but, you know, they've been down there for three weeks. Like, you know it's hot. Like, we need a little bit more quick, like, it has to be crisp, you know? Everything, and it's a game, like, I'm actually surprised at how casual he was all the time.

not just on that giveaway, but there were a lot of times where, like, he's just taking forever to shift his body little ways, like, like, change your body shape and make the next thing happen. And it was, it was, uh, most apparent on that sequence. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, Paneda, there's no disputing the fact that Paneda had a really bad game. And I don't, and I think, but we should distinguish between Panetta and Glad. Glad, I think had a pretty good game defensively. Like he did a lot of, he did a lot of, he did a lot of last ditch stuff. and defending that was good. But glad, you know, they both had trouble

passing the ball out of the back, and not just in the first half, like, throughout the game. So I don't know if that's rough. How much of that is just who they are as players, how much of it is rust from being out off-season for so long, but it's going to have to get better in the next few days. Otherwise, we're going to pay for that, I think. Yeah, and I'm sure I'll come back in touch.

on again, as we get a little bit later and talk about one Jackson, Yule, in his, in his performance. Yeah. Can't wait for that. Seriously, because I don't know what you're going to say. 35th minute, Ferreira. So I'm going to start in the goals, this is the goal sequence. I'm going to start way back. There's a short corner from Costa Rica and Ferreira defends Luis Diaz 1 v.1. Do you remember this? I actually don't. Yeah. So it's Ferreira 1v1 against Diaz. in the corner and he takes the ball right off of him. And then he tries to play it long to Michelle, I think.

Might have been, yeah, it was Michelle. And it gets cut out of bounds by a Costa Rican player. And that's the throw-in that starts the goal sequence. It's a throw-in from Herrera, I think, to Glad, glad to Paneda. And Paneda plays a diagonal to Vines. It's a little hot and high, but Vines plucks it from the air with his outstretched left foot. I think that touch right there is why people say Vines had a good game.

The people who do say Vines had a good game. It's because of that touch and the eventual goal that followed him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it was a nice touch. But it's worth noting that he takes an awkward touch after that one. Yeah, it has to like get his feet all set right afterwards. Almost trips over the ball. And then takes a really heavy touch that like, you know, like 15 yards out in front of him

and gets to it, though. thankfully, and then skims the ball across the area. Hassani Dotson is crashing near post on this play, which we had a little discussion of this earlier. It's, which is cool. I'm glad to see him doing that. How that happened, I don't know. Why is Dotson crashing near post and Ferreira waiting in the wings out behind him?

Right, because they basically started at the, I mean, shoulder to shoulder when sort of the sequence started with the ball going wide to vines. Yeah. So it was very much like, I don't know if it was just more natural for Dotson, like mentally to make that run, like identifying it and going, whereas Ferreira is just more likely to hang back. Because remember, after the January camp, this most recent one, Ferreira emphasized how much Burrhalter was asking him to really attack and get in the box and definitely not on display in that particular sequence. Right. Right. And then so, yeah, so Ferreira just wait. outside the box as as Dodson goes near post and Michelle kind of drifts far post and you know this is one of the rare times where we had three people attacking the goal in this game and the ball comes the ball comes

to Dodson who's like challenges a centerback for it and it just kind of uh lightly caroms backward toward the penalty marker right into the path of Ferreira and he tucks it in uh at the far post a pretty nice finish near post near post near post near post Near post for him. Near post finish as far as I could tell. Well, yeah, it's near post for him. Oh, I got you. I got you.

From the perspective of the cross from Vines. I gotcha. Yeah. You're right. You're right. It is a near post. I wasn't letting the goalkeeper off the hook for the near post finish. There was nothing really the goalkeeper is going to be their backup or not.

Right. 1-0 USA. And that was the ultimate game winner. I think that's... When you have David Ochoa and goal, you only need one goal. That's how it works. Oh, yeah. That 17th minute save from Ochoa and then the 35th,

minute goal from Ferreira were the sort of decisive moments of the game because there was a lot of there was there was a flurry of action from Costa Rica in early in the second half that could have gone wrong you know soccer's a funny game but there wasn't anything that was uh I don't know what the XG would be on all those chances there were no sitters right there were no missed sitters yeah if anything uh Ferreira had the biggest of the sitters from then on yeah 47 let's go 47th minute Glad plays Herrera into the corner, overlapping Herrera. Glad did have a couple nice moments of distribution after that 30-minute drought where he and Panetta could not complete a pass, complete a forward pass.

And then Herrera rolls it across the top of the six. Ferreira is flaring near post, which I think is fine. You know, he's like he's trying to open himself up for a little bit of a cutback. But why don't you take over here? Because I think you have opinions on this. Lewis and Mihailovich are in the frame. They're in the frame, but they're just absolute spectators for the whole thing. Yeah.

Like neither of them breaks anywhere. They didn't like, they weren't like intentionally, intelligently hanging back the way Ferreira kind of did once Dotson made the near post run on the goal sequence. They're literally just watching other people play soccer, which is devastating to see when you're, you're already running like a false nine. So everyone should already be like looking for those chances to get forward and get in the box. Like that should just be your default mode when you're playing with Hesu's Ferrer as your nine. And even though Ferreira was in the box in this case, like how are you not thinking I'm basically a forward in this situation need to be in this play to attack? And it's not in your chronology, but the same thing, kind of a similar thing happened like four minutes before. It just wasn't a ball all the way to the end line.

It was like one of the few times we got the ball into Ferreira's feet. And then as the camera like pans down to Ferreira who has the ball just off center, you know, just outside the 18, you see Mahalovich and Lewis basically now behind the play just spectators. And that's, again, I don't know if it's the heat, but this is the, because it's been 40 minutes, but like that's just, we just can't have that. That can't be the movement and the attacking instinct from the players in those positions when you're playing with Jesus Ferrer as your striker. Yeah. Send Mahalovich to the Frank Lampert school of big box arrival. No, yeah, it was frustrating because the ball, and some people blamed Ferreira for not making the right run, like immediately on the internet.

But it was frustrating to see that ball roll across the top of the six because the Costa Rican goalkeeper kind of misjudges it and he sort of takes himself out of the play. And now we have the ball rolling in front of an open goal. And Mihailovich and Lewis just kind of like, like you said, spectating from about 10 yards away. and then like, oh, no, I should have been there. And by then it's too late. Right. And that's totally different than like making an intentional run early that, you know, the ball ends up going to a different place.

That happens. Like you can't know for sure where the ball's going to go. You went to a dangerous area to lose a mark or just in case the ball goes here. But that just wasn't what was happening. They were, you know, quite literally just maybe trotting, maybe kind of half walking, watching the rest of the action take place. Yeah. Not good.

Not good guys. Ferreira, Ferreira was, is an example of somebody who made, who did something intentional and the ball happened to go somewhere else. He was trying to create space for himself near the corner of the six. Okay, half time. And then this, the early in the second half, we, looked okay right at first, and then we had a lot, we gave up a lot of chances. But none of, like I said earlier, none of them like a clear-cut golden opportunity, just kind of half-chances. So, 48th minute, Laal is given a lot of space by Paneda. He receives the ball in the box. Paneda kind of falls back and then a nice little bit of quality from Laos to sort of, you know,

pretend like he's going away from goal and then come back towards it. And he just lashes one from a tight angle, a difficult angle. And you get a good reaction from Achoa, a good reaction. save from a Choa. I'm not sure it was going on frame anyway. I couldn't tell from the replay. It looked like it was drifting a little wide, but still a good reaction.

Good reaction, and that's just one to sort of put a nice spotlight on the poetry of goalkeeper's technique in motion because I think it's just so, I really enjoy seeing goalkeepers move and dive and make saves. Like to get into the aesthetics of the thing. Talk about it. Get deep. Like the, you know, just the rotation of the body

and movie like how you how you maintain your like your balance or sacrifice your balance to get your body in the right shape to redirect a ball that's hit as hard as possible at you they say like those are the ones for the cameras but like that's awesome we should really enjoy those yeah they're just gorgeous to watch yeah i have a whole bit on a choa coming up later here but i do one thing i don't have in there is just that he's is that he's fun to watch you know he's fun to watch not just because of his personality, but, well, part of his personality is, like, he's just so expressive. Like, we'll talk about it in a moment, but that Diaz shot, that, that flash is wide, you can, in the replay, you can see him. He dives.

He doesn't get to it, but it's going well wide. And he has it covered, like his hands covered the post from the angle you see. Yeah, you see that. And you see him, like, crane his neck around and watch with his eyes as he, as the ball goes around the post. It's just kind of fun. It's just good television. You know? Exactly. Exactly. It's not all about like just worrying about the U.S. national team in its future. It's like just also you get to enjoy the soccer. Yeah. Well, I can imagine neutrals or casuals turning on the TV to watch a game with David Ochoa and being like, this is kind of fun to watch. It's kind of fun to watch. All right.

The rest of the soccer wasn't quite as fun to watch. No. But there were moments. Yeah. 59th minute, Michelle and Mihailovich make way for Sebastian South San. and Andres Perea, it seemed to me like these were good substitutions. Did you agree? Yeah, we can get into Michelle a little bit. Like, I'm sure we'll talk, I'll talk about Mihailovich. Well, I'll talk kind of about both of them, because everything kind of centers around the Yule debate. Okay.

Well, we'll wait. We'll put a pin in that. I thought Perea brought some just simple ball security to the midfield. And then Saucato brought a little bit of threatening. action. As soon as he comes on, he hits a probing pass in the box that draws a sliding challenge from a centerback and it falls to Ferreira inside of eight yards, I think. He tries to outside of the boot it, but doesn't quite connect. But just as a quick note on that, Ferreira got to that shot and attempted the shot, but like breaking onto the ball at the same

time was Sebastian Sosato. Like after he had made the initial pass, unlike what we saw a lot of, from Lewis and Mahalovich, he then burst forward to continue the play and get into a new dangerous space and very possibly could have actually scored that if Ferreira had left it to him. Yeah, totally. And then they kind of hugged each other because Ferreira realized that, I think. And I don't know if he would have gotten there. Like, I think the keeper was coming. So, uh, or whoever was a goalkeeper or defender, someone might, they might have actually

been able to get there before, Saucato. So it might have just been one of those, uh, no way. one had a great chance to score and we didn't convert it. Ferreira could have laid it back to Salceda. That could have been it. That would have been it if you just sort of rolled it a yard away from where the goalkeeper was coming. That was the play. You're right. You're totally right.

And those were our first real attacking. And then Salceda also hit a speculative one from distance that flashed wide. But it was at that point in the game I was watching on the TUDDN broadcast and maybe it's just the announcer getting excited when a shot like that is hit. That makes me think it like means something, but the announcers definitely did get excited.

So, those were our first real attacking option, actions of the second half, as I, if I remember correctly. Am I wrong about that? That feels right. Okay. I'm going to go with my feels here. Okay. 64th minute, big chance missed by Ferreira.

And this is a chance to talk about Hassani Dotson. Dotson takes a ball from two Costa Rica players in a row in our defensive third and then combines with Jonathan, Lewis pretty nicely up the right sideline and then hits a lovely first-time ball in behind for Ferreira who is in on goal, heavy, heavy first touch from the goal score and he doesn't have room to dink it over the keeper who closes, closes it down David Ochoa style. And then Ferreira hobbles off with a strain or a cramp, not sure which, and Soto comes on. So that moment for Dotson, that series of moments for Dotson for me was like the,

the Sebastian Legit moment. Like that felt very legitish or even like very Weston McKinneyish to sort of boss the game in the way he did there and to release an attacking player. And so when we talk, you know, a lot about the kind of center midfielder we like to see and we talk about how we want players who can drive the game forward. Like that, that's the example right there. Yeah. And I think Dotson had a pretty good game all in all, you know. He was a good physical presence. Like the two clips that Joe Lowry put on Twitter?

I was just going to bring those up. Oh, okay. Go ahead. I'll shut up and you go ahead. No, no. I mean, you're spot on. Like those were exactly like those legit moments I'm talking about where he was able to sort of overpower a guy in the space. So he has a total control of his space.

Combines well. So, you know, it's like a little pass and then a little movement afterwards. And we didn't have a lot of those sort of tight combinations throughout the game. And I really think that the way the U.S. plays, that is going to be our big advantage, our big, our, the biggest way that we unbalanced teams in possession. I think the press is going to generate a lot of chances for us going forward. But I think those small, tight combinations are going to be the way we unbalanced teams the most. With our central midfield play, I think we're going to shift away from like the long diagonals. And I think it's going to be those kinds of sequences.

And Dotson had a couple of them. I wish he had more. And I'm not necessarily putting that on him. I'm hoping we see more of that from him in these coming games. I think that's sort of going to be the big challenge of the coaching staff and the players to incorporate is to emphasize that kind of play and recognize those patterns when they're on and really play for those patterns. I feel like I saw some of those patterns starting in the game. You know, you'd have like one pass into a dropping winger and then one layoff.

and oftentimes that would be it you know and then the next pass would be not so good or something you know either yeah it'd either be like a full retreat and go all the way back or it would be like that that player would usually like

dribble into problems is what I kind of noticed is it felt like then it would just be like okay now I'm just going to go one of you one until I lose it yeah and even when we did switch it from side to side like one of those clips from from Lowry of Dodson doing one of those combinations it

We tried to move the ball from side to side, and the side to side movement wasn't quite crisp enough. And it was like it got over to Salcedo, and by the time the ball was at Salcedo's feet, Costa Rica was getting its defense set. Right. And that's how precise you see it has to be. Like if the pass is even a little bit behind where it slows the next guy down, then the chance is gone. And the defense is no longer unbalanced. And that's where you really just want to hope to chalk it up to rust and lack of playing time together. and hope that even over the course of a tournament,

that that gets a little more fluid, a little slicker. A little more viscous. 84th minute is the last thing I have on my timeline. Somebody lost his man on a corner kick. And you mentioned Achoa's organizational abilities. This would be one tiny mark maybe against him or somebody else because Yergan's Montenegro, the forward sub, he just walked away from the centerbacks before the kick and nobody followed him and then he's just

standing there just outside the six and he has an absolutely free header on a corner. Luckily it hits the post and the aforementioned Fernon Firon was he tried to touch it with his chest and he was offside. Another moment for him in this game to forget. But it went off the post, no goal and then we saw the game out. Costa Rica just couldn't draw any blood. And it was a little nerve-wracking towards the end there, but they didn't get close, I don't think, to scoring.

I think that's about right. I'm really glad that their player chose to go down in the box at the very end instead of trying to play through and see if they could turn it into an actual chance. Yeah. And I'm glad the referee was having none of it. But yeah, I would mostly agree with that. I felt like it was very much the case that the wounds we had were self-inflicted. and we mostly,

we mostly sort of solved that over the last 40 minutes. The game kind of went really poorly for the last 35 minutes. Yeah. But again, you know, I'm not going to be too worried about that. I'm mostly going to focus on like, what did we see that we can improve on? Because that's the aim here.

The aim is just to continue to earn points to advance out of the group. So what worked and what can we, what can we, or how do we bring that into the next game? Yeah. I think I have a bit on Costa Rica here, but I think I've mostly said it all already.

They weren't as good as I thought they'd be. U.S. players, let's talk about, can we talk about it choa? Let's talk about him. We've said a lot about him. Yeah, we have. There was a lot to say. I think he also, we've talked about the saves. I think he also had a good game distributing the ball,

both with his arm and with his feet. That clipped ball to the flank. One time he did a, what do you call it when you, when you, like, it's like a, drop kick kind of what do you call that yeah like either a drop kick or a half volley where yeah he had a couple of those the sliced variety out to the out to the fullbacks I mean he was I don't I haven't seen the stats but I think he was 100% you know like passing the ball out of the back uh when he wasn't just like just lumping it you know yeah right um and then uh you know he so he

he looks comfortable with the ball at his feet and the shit housing was first class we got to talk about that a little bit. It's a big deal, right? You need that in a tournament. He has a big personality, and he's been that way for a while. I mean, there's some famous clips, famous in our little world, clips of him in the USL championship game a year or two ago, two years ago, where he, you know, he's just talk and talk and talking, talking to the opponent and, like, you know, jawing with the fans.

So it's not just a time wasting in the sort of theatrics, because that, you know, he's just a time. because those were important. But, you know, he's talking to his defense a lot, talking to the opponent, talking to himself, running in people's way unnecessarily. As the ball's, like, going out of bounds, one time he threw a ball on the field to set up a goal kick as Costa Rica was setting up a corner kick,

forcing a Costa Rica player to run up and kick the ball off the field, you know, giving his team a little bit of time. He's just like, he's just a constant presence. He's in, he's like sort of, putting his stamp on the on the match constantly in all of these weird and sort of fun to watch ways and I just love it so much a second ball on the field by the way is a very underrated stall tactic is it yeah that's a great that is a great way to do it whether just throw in situations to

deny quick restarts anytime you can get another ball on the field you do it yeah yeah I think he also like you know like I don't know if it's trash talking or if he's just being a weirdo but he like the one time when Le Al took that shot and he saved it the one from a tight angle he's up and he's like he's got his fingers together like so close so close you know

he was the most exciting thing about this game and I you know I don't know what's going on with RSL I'm sure they've got some Oklahoma City Thunder reserve on tap to start all their games this year instead of instead of a Choa but I sure hope he gets to gets that full-time job in RSL and can work his way into the senior national team.

Because he does, of all the players in this team, perhaps with the exception of Ferreira, he seems like one who could actually be a national team contributor pretty soon, in my opinion. Yeah, it's interesting. So, you know, obviously it's a position where you kind of just need the one guy for the most part. Yeah. You know, we carry three. So that third goalkeeper spot, I'd say, is very much. up for grabs.

Not that we're going to give it to a kid who's playing for the Rayall Monarchs. But it's also interesting because Stefan is actually starting so much earlier than basically any of our other goalkeepers have. In the past, they'd always be running up against another legendary goalkeeper in that chain, that line of succession we'd had. Whereas now Stefan could be the goal keep. If Stefan is really playing at the high level that we all hope he is, he's going to be out there until 2030 at least at, I think I did the math, and in the 2030 World Cup, Stefan would be the same age as Tim Howard was in the Belgium game in the World Cup. So Stefan has a long time ahead of him.

So is Matt Turner. So I think David Ochoa Bells is the guy we pencil in when we do our 2034 World Cup lineups. Oh, come on. You don't think, like, is it inconceivable to you that Ochoa is better with his feet than Stefan already? Oh, I have no. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, we're like even for scuffed, like getting Ochoa in the senior team mix right now, I think is a big ass.

Okay. Even for scuffed. Yeah, fair enough. Okay. Let's move on. Ferreira, what did you think of his overall performance? I was a little bit frustrated, and it wasn't necessarily with Ferreira. Again, it's all going to center around Jackson Ewell.

I was frustrated that he couldn't be involved. Like the whole idea is you bring him in there to help orchestrate things. coming back into midfield and then it is very much incumbent on players around him and their movement like everything has to flow to get much of anything out of Jesus Ferre so

credit to him for the goal credit to him for his pressure which maybe is a little bit deceiving but also just a you know a Costa Rica shocker on his shot off the post and then you know you'll probably focus on his poor touch on the ball

from Dotson you know, which happens players don't always take the optimal touch. I don't know. I think he's a guy that I don't think we do much to shift that around if he's healthy going into the next knockout game. I think I'm kind of hoping we sit on them until the semifinal. Oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I definitely hope Soto starts just on Sunday just to preserve Ferreira. I mean, I guess we don't know how serious is. injury is, but, or even if it is an injury, right. Yeah, I mean, he does seem like a leader in this group. You know, he's very active, drops deep, moves intelligently, does a lot of things that I really like. And I, you know, I know you've been sort of joking about this, but I don't know that we

have another striker in the player pool who's like him, you know? I mean, Sargent's a little bit like him, but not all the way like him. And he's not nearly as smart as Ferreira, at least in terms of, of the way he moves on the field. So, I don't know, just got to slightly over perform XG, Jesus. Please. That's all I ask. I bet he was about right on.

I bet he had out of those three chances because he got that, no, he wouldn't be right on. If he gets credit for that last one where he hurt himself, that's probably going to get a pretty high XG chance. So I bet he was responsible for about 1,16, 1.6 in the game. I bet it's not that much. But, but. Because XG is kind of, it's always less than you think it's going to be, right? Yeah. All right, let's get to this Jackson Ewell bit.

We've kept everybody in suspense long enough. Well, it's just because this is the entryway into, I feel like, our entire team tactics. And I'm going to dissent a little bit from, I think, what the common frustration with Ewell was from yesterday. And say that his being man marked out of the game, which was very clearly what Costa Rica decided to do, was not really a Jackson in Ewell problem. I feel like he was sort of an easy scapegoat because, you know, we weren't playing very fluidly. And so when he comes in, it's sort of that with the reputation of being a line-breaking passer, and we're not doing that, then it's easy to say, well, he's not doing enough to get himself open or he's not doing enough to lose his man or whatever else. But, you know, for the U.S.

men's national team in possession, the job of whoever's in Ewell's role plus the two centerbacks is to break and unbalance that first line of pressure, and that can be with a pass, which is what you usually expect from you, or it can be advancing the ball past that first line on the dribble and forcing someone from the second line of defense to step up to it and commit. And when a team decides to man mark Jackson Ewell off of the ball with their lone striker,

you've basically achieved this like immediately. You don't have to do anything else like you've done it. Functionally, it's not too much different than if the striker had decided to manmark Paneda or Glad off of the ball. Like whichever guy he marks, you still have the other two guys then to just walk up the field with the ball directly to the second line of pressure and release once someone from that line commits. And so I think the reason Yule was taking a ton of the heat is because Paneda and Glad sort

of went, especially early on, went almost like full deer and headlights and didn't realize or weren't capable of becoming Jackson Yule once Yule was manmarked. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't think there was a problem with his movement, like with Ewell's movement, like he wasn't, you know, think he was failing to do something he should have done? No, I don't think so. So if they were manmarking him with like a central midfielder and there was additional players

stepping up to press Paneda and Glad on the ball, then he probably has to move to create space for the next, like you get the rotations where he moves, maybe he then takes that guy upfield and Mahalovich or Dotson drops in into the space. to see if their defenders are coordinated enough to pick up both guys. Usually the guy who drops him next will be available and you play it into him. And that's how you break that first line of defense. But there wasn't really a first line of defense. The guy marking Yule was usually the first line of defense.

And they're just saying like they're giving Paneda and Glad total free pass to walk the ball of the field and hit any pass that they want to hit. So it could be coaching where we weren't prepared for that. It could be like poor recognition from Paneda and Glad. And to an extent you will, I'd say like needs to help communicate that. But it's, you know, pretty easily. It's an easy fix, in my opinion. And barring a case of like Paneda just having full on yips where he just cannot connect that pass.

If another team does it, I'd expect us to look a lot cleaner in how we, and how we handle it. Yeah. It didn't look like they were Paneda and Glad were prepared to do that job, you know. It looked like they were like there was a little bit of a. an OSH-I-T vibe about them. You know, I don't, I get the way, the pushback, I'll give there, is it wasn't like an OSH-I-T, like there was panic. It was just like, complete like, oh, well, what do I do?

I want to give the ball to Jackson Ewell. That's what we do in training all the time. We, you know, we hand the ball off to him and then he hits the next pass. So there wasn't like this panic. And maybe that led to how casual and lackadaisical Paneda was on the ball, especially that time he had taken from him, is. It's like, oh, now I have to be the distributing midfield or the distributing deep player, and I have to do this. I saw on video a couple of times Sasani Dodson, like, frantically, like, waving Justin Glad up the field when Glad was on the ball.

Like, come on, like, just bring it up towards us, and then we can play. But that kind of leads me to sort of the next issue that we ran into, besides Glad and Panetta, at least early on, just not really realizing that it was now their job to do that, was that our front front front. five shape kind of like sucked in my opinion. Say more about that, please. So it was a bit of like a hybrid of what we kind of usually do where I don't, it wasn't like the wings tucked in and the fullbacks got really high right away to have our initial shape, even though we could have done that because there was no real pressure on the ball.

So we have plenty of time to do that. It takes time. So if you, if you don't have time to do that, that can throw you off. But that was an issue. We had plenty of time to set up exactly how we wanted to set up once we were building. And, you know, we didn't have that. and Herrera kind of stayed, I guess I'll say, shallower. Like they sat closer to Yule's line or closer, yeah, basically on Jackson Yule's line,

which we kind of saw in some of the friendlies. We kind of saw that in the El Salvador friendly down in Orlando in December. But Pineda, I'm sorry, but Lewis and Michelle mostly stayed wide. So they were occupying the wide channels. And then Dots and Mihailovich were the guys who were in the half space, But they weren't quite, they weren't all the way up. So they were kind of in this like no man's land or this middle ground where we couldn't really hit them as like those tucked in winger, in those tucked in winger spaces.

And they weren't coming back for those tight combinations that we could play to try to unbalance. So it was just this very like static. Everyone was kind of in a recognizable position space-wise the way Burrhalter likes to play. But there was just no interchange. There were no like, there was no movement in opposition where one guy checks back and then the next guy runs into his space. and what you end up with is like Ferreira then has to cover his central channel

and he has to try to move into the windows in the half spaces for the centerbacks to hit and we couldn't I mean that's just asking him to do too much and I think that was a big problem and I think that was one of the big reasons that we were so stagnant interesting I had a hard time picking up on that partly because of the camera angle you can't always see what's going on with the with Mahalovich or or Dodson when the ball is at Panadas or Glad's feet. But I believe it, I believe that there was not enough movement or not enough finding that right window of space from those guys.

And part of that too is player selection for me. Like Jonathan Lewis and Benji Michelle are not going to come into the half space and be super comfortable playing as like the tens. Michelle had some bright moments, but they weren't in that vein. It was like he had a good spin where a ball came in. into him and he sealed a guy off and was able to run upfield with it. But, you know, that's not going to be their position. Whereas if you switch, if it had been Ulyanis, and that's probably how we were preparing,

I'm assuming, that Yannes would have been that player. And if it were Sebastian Sosato on the left side pinching into that half space, like suddenly you have two, that becomes a much more comfortable fit for the players involved. Georgie, Georgie is another one who just, for me, does not, and we kind of anticipated this, And I was hoping we wouldn't see him having this role. But he does, you almost like take away all of his strengths and accentuate his weaknesses by having him play as like a number eight. He doesn't come and find the ball. He doesn't drive the game forward with the ball at his feet.

Like he should be the guy in the half space high up the field playing right off of Ferreira for those combinations. And instead, like, I mean, he was, did you, do you see him do anything really? No, no. And he was the first, you know, he's the first guy to come off. too or he and I guess he and Michelle both were the first to come off and it's one of those where like it's almost unfair to be super critical of Georgie because it's just not being put in that position to like I don't think that's a good position for him to succeed I'm very curious how I'm curious about a lot of things for the next couple of games one is what kind of like

rotation we feel like we're forced to do you know we've got a Thursday Sunday situation coming up it's 90 degrees. I'd be surprised if there weren't significant player rotations. We're already going to be doing that. But two is going, so basically if we can beat Dominican Republic, the next big question would be, how do we set up for that must-win semifinal? The Mexico game will be in my,

if everything sort of shakes out the way we expect, the Mexico game will be a wash and it's not for a trophy. So even the people who are like, well, you can't, you can't, you know, like rest against Mexico, you have to try to beat Mexico. No, absolutely not. This is the dead rubber group stage game. Both teams would be trotting out their reserves in this one.

So then it becomes, all right, what does Christ think about the Costa Rica game versus how he sets up for this hypothetical must-win semifinal? Yeah. So just so everyone knows, if we beat the Dominican Republic and Mexico beats Costa Rica, we are into the semifinal game. If those things both happen on Sunday. Then the Mexico game would just determine first in the United States. second in the group, which I'm guessing we wouldn't really care to try to win.

Like, there'd be no incentive. There'd be no rational for wanting to be first rather than second because I don't know who in the other group is going to be on top. Yeah. Could be can't. I mean, it could be anybody. I actually, somebody asked me on Twitter if I know who the, who's likely to win that group and I just don't.

You know, they get those games start later today. It is worth noting. And I don't know that. Oh, it's just worth noting that the other games we have, the one on Sunday is going to be, if not after dark, certainly after the shadow covers the Estadio, Halisco. And then the one against Mexico, three days later than that is even later at night, like definitely after dark. So we're not going to have another one where we're like in full sunshine. Okay. And again, if it shakes out the way, if we beat Dominican Republic, which is not certainly not given,

And if Mexico beats Costa Rica, both the U.S. and Mexico should be playing like 30%. And gentlemen's agreement, just relax on the pitch, get some sun, and go home. Marsinkowski and Freeze at centerback. Marsencowski and Freeze as a double pivot. There might be rules against that. To prevent people from trying to game it and sneaking outfield players on as goalkeepers. So in your ridiculous hypothetical bells, it would be against the rules.

Well, you can't play a goalkeeper as an outfield player? player? It's just, you know, like a roster rule? I think there might be a rule about it. Otherwise, you would just bring an extra outfield player and call them one of your three goalkeepers and then be like, oh, no, it's our goalkeeper. But you'd be buying yourself an extra. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Okay. Maybe, maybe you're right. Uh, I think, I think that's all we have on that, right? I mean, Mexico defeated the Dominican Republic four to one. It was one zero at the half. I don't think it was like I mean Mexico definitely the stronger team

but it wasn't like a totally totally dominant performance I thought Inter-Miamis Edison Ascuna I mean full disclosure I watched very little of that game but Inter-Miamis Edison Ascuna did some things that looked nice to me for the Dominican Republic

I was barely able to watch the US game so I certainly wasn't able to watch the Mexico game did you know did Mexico play its strongest lineup, or did they do like a little bit of pre-rotations where they actually played a hybrid because they're going to play their strongest against customers? It was a hybrid. Well,

Macias wasn't in the starting lineup. Okay. That makes sense. Again, that's the kind of like game theory stuff. We're going to get into a lot come World Cup qualifying with the triple windows of like, right. I'm actually, yeah. So I was just curious whether we could take too much away from that game or should we have even watched it, which we didn't.

Well, there just wasn't time to watch it. You know, it's like, we got to do it. We had to do other stuff, like watch the U.S. game. I will say, I thought Salcedo had a nice influence on the game. I don't know if we've already said that, but he seemed like a calming presence ability to get on the ball. I said he had some attacking moments, didn't I? Vines, we should probably talk about a little bit

since he's sort of in the senior team conversation. I thought he was, he's good at defending. He doesn't get beat. And, you know, that's important. In possession, I thought he was, he of course had the nearly had the assist on the goal, but he was, he also had that big mistake early on that we talked about. And there were some other moments of kind of messiness, I thought. So I don't know.

I don't know what to think about vines. I'm going to basically reserve judgment there because I really am hoping that we clean up, I'm going to, we're just going to half joking and call it the system. I'm hoping that Vines benefits from the ability of players to move more fluidly in and out of those spaces where you can pick out passes. I felt like it was so static ahead of him that when we would hit that ball to him. And that was a ball that was on, by the way. The one that obviously was on, it led to the first goal.

Because of those fullback staying a little bit deeper, they were off in the outlet where we could float a ball from the centerbacks to the fullback in space. and then they could get up the field a little bit before somebody from Costa Rica would come meet them. But the hope is that Vines has more options in front of him to pick out passes that showcase his passing because I don't think he had a lot of those. I don't think he had a lot of those opportunities. Yeah.

And maybe it would help to have Georgie as a tucked-in winger instead of Lewis because he will actually tuck in and become something of a fulcrum there. Same with Salcedo. Yep. I'm hoping that we see a little bit of Salcedo in that role. And then, you know, it's hard to make any judgments on Johnny Cardoso and even a little bit Perea. I know you thought that Prea helped a little bit.

I actually thought Perea was a little bit messy in defense, which if he's coming in, you're hoping that he shores things up defensively. I feel like there was still a bit of like lunging. It was a bit lungy while he was in there. I didn't notice that. But I believe it. And I just thought he was good. He was somewhat comforting in possession compared to Ewell. Like you could get on the ball and step.

past a guy. He definitely offers that. He can hold a guy in his shoulder for a while. So we'll be back on, well, no, we should talk about the senior roster a little bit. Senior roster. We will be back a bit. Do you want me to read it real quick or you want to read it? All right.

So senior roster came out and as we expected the first 10 or 12 guys picked themselves. The lineup came out as Stefan Horvath-Oduncei, Robinson, Dest, Cannon, and Reynolds. the centerbacks were Brooks Richards Long, Tim Ream, Matt Miazga, and Eric Palmer Brown gets a bit of a surprise inclusion. Tyler Adams and Ono de Soti, I guess is who I'm designating as sort of the defensive mids. Eunice Musa, Sebastian Leggett, Kellan Acosta, and Luca De La Torre listed as the other midfielder. Aronson also listed as a midfielder, but I'm insisting that he goes in with the winger's with

Pulisigua and Raina. And then up top, we've got Sergeant D.K. Joe Keeney. I have no complaints. The snubs would be Jordan Sibichu, Matthew Hoppe, DeAndre Yedlin, Dwayne Holm. And well, Burrhalter said for those three guys, I think specifically that they, for all three of them, they only would have been able to come to the first game. Keep in mind, like seven of the guys we just listed are only there for the first game

and then going back to their clubs. Siebichu Hopi and Yedlin, I think Berthelan said specifically also would have had to have left after the first game. And since he probably didn't intend on playing. them in that first game, it didn't make sense to bring them at all. So for me, like the actual snubs, if you want to call them that, I've got Dwayne Holmes, Cameron Carter Vickers, and Mark McKenzie. And again, these are less like snubs like the universe isn't just and more snubs like, all right,

so that's about where the cutoff might be. It's just kind of information. Snub information is a good way to put it. Yeah. because we did include a bit of a speculative centerback with Eric Palmer Brown. So we had, you know, there was a spot that Cameron Carter Vickers could have gotten the look. And instead, we decided that we'd go with what I would say is the other kind of centerback, which is more the distribution centerback, which Palmer Brown fits into. I guess.

I mean, I'm not sure I see that so much. But maybe that's the reputation. I guess I thought, you know, Brawolder said you shouldn't read too much into it. any of these inclusions or rejections, and maybe that's just coach speak. But, um, so I kind of, it's good,

it's a good way to diffuse it. He's got an easy, like, uh, get out of jail free card with that. Yeah, like in 2020, like in 2030 when he makes his third World Cup lineup.

Uh, you know, because of COVID, you shouldn't read too much into this. And then, oh yeah, green, Julian green,

Tyler Boyd and Kenny Seff are the, um, you know, sort of B grade snubs. Kenny Seth doesn't qualify as a sub, but I just, I can't not list him on any time we talk about roster omissions.

Green's gum, back from COVID, Boyd exists and is a winger. And again, we're super light on wingers, especially with Aronson actually being listed as a midfielder. And because we're sending seven of these guys home, including way at two of,

two of those three wingers are going home before game two, assuming Poulosick starts game one, like that second game is going to be, we're going to be going, we're going to play nine games we're going to start nine players in it it's going to be nuts i'm banking on adding players between game one and game two yeah and there's some reports that that's happening right maybe off the record who knows um yeah i think that so that game is that first game against jamaica is the 25th that's thursday yep so it's thursday sunday yep we'll go thursday

and then play northern island on sunday um the same i guess i'll just say again the same day of that semi-final play in game for the olympics oh that's right that's right that's right um um As far as rosters go, though, it's nice when it does like make things a lot easier when the top half of the roster picks itself because that's not, that has not been the case. You know, back in like 2019 for that full year, it was like every roster. And there was a lot of, you know, all roster releases are going to have a lot of people unhappy. But 2019 was crazy and that every time it was like there were six or seven guys that probably shouldn't have been on the team. And like three of those guys, you could feel comfortable we're like going to start. So we're going to be like starting guys who maybe we already knew we're going to play no part even like 12 months later.

And that's kind of how it's shaken out. But now it's like, okay, the guys on the fringe literally are on the fringe and there's not too much to get worked up about. I'm obviously a very big Dwayne Holmes fan. I hope he's added in between. If he's not, it's like, okay, well, he would have gotten 15 minutes in the second game. Like this isn't that big of a deal. we have a roster that more or less is self-selecting. Yeah.

It makes it even kind of crazier to think, like, what was going on back in 2019? Why were we doing it like that? So weird. I don't know, man. That was the weird. Bur Alder said that he wanted to give the old guys a chance for a full year, I guess. Yeah. With the veterans, I think you basically said that.

Yeah, we won't beat that dead horse anymore. This is the day of celebration. I mean, that was a big win. for the U-23s, you know, within the parameters of who they are and what this is about. That was an important win. And, you know, congrats to Christ and everybody for that. Yeah, honestly, U.S. soccer's done a good job of like, of building this sort of momentum because even the way they were releasing this news is like bang, bang, bang, bang, senior

roster release this day, the next day, the U-23s play. Like, it's been a good job of like controlling the news cycle for domestic, for, for, for soccer. Not necessarily controlling the cycle, but like amping up people's energy. No, I mean, yeah, riding the cycle in a, you know, riding the wave of the cycle in an effective way. Okay. Hey, thanks everybody for listening.

Anything else from you, Greg? No. That'll do it for me. Okay. Hey, thanks, guys. See you.