Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 164: Olympic Qualifying — USA v the Dominican Republic

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

Second group game in Guadalajara for the U23s. Full timeline and analysis. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Thanks for downloading this episode of scuffed USA4, the Dominican Republic Zero. We are qualified for the, not the Olympics. We're not qualified for the Olympics. We're qualified for the semifinal game, which is a play-in for the Olympics. So pretty good. Pretty good. Six points out of two games. No complaints here about the outcomes. The outcomes went our way. We got our three points. Mexico took care of their business. We are officially into the real do-or-die game now. I know we've just been talking about every game is do-or-die, but that's kind of the way the order of games worked. So officially into the Dew-or-Dye game coming up on Sunday.

Yeah, and then Mexico happens on Wednesday, a game against Mexico who trounced Costa Rica last night, late last night. I think the argument is, I assume your argument would be, just use it to rest people and prepare for the semifinal play in? Yeah, for me, this entire tournament comes down to that semifinal. So everything should be geared towards winning that game. So if it doesn't help you win that game, don't do it. If it does help you, then do it.

And then for me, the argument about like, but beating Mexico so important only matters for the final, which is when it should really matter anyway, even if this were, even if the semifinal wasn't all important and it was just about winning the final. I would still say don't go nuts in the dead rubber game against Mexico in a regional youth competition. Like, no one is going to care about those bragging rights. I'm as competitive as anyone,

but come on, let's appreciate some context here. Yeah. Not to mention, this Mexico team is, I think, quite a bit stronger than our team. It appears to be.

So let's not tilt at windmills on Wednesday. I'm not conceding that, Bells. I'm not conceding that they're stronger than us. We'll find out in the final. The final is where we give them what we got. Okay. Well, let's do the lineups. The U.S. lineup was J.T. Markankowski,

Marsankowski in goal, replaced David Ochoa, the hero of the first game in the group. I didn't really mind that. Just give Marzenkowski a chance. I'd imagine Ochoa will get the nod. in that's how my final game or the next game that matters. Anyway, across the back line, Julian Araujo, Henry Kessler, Justin Glad, and Sammy Vines. Two replacements there, Herrera out for Raho and Paneda out for Kessler.

Glad moves to the left centerback position. And then Andres Pira, Jackson Yule and Johnny Cardoso in the midfield. that's two replacements. Ewell starts again. I guess Cardoso replaced Mahalovich. Perea replaced Ewell and Ewell replaced who was the Dotson. There we go. And then across the front line, we had Lewis at right wing,

Jesus Ferreira at Stryker and Sebastian Salcedo at left wing. I just didn't think there was anything too crazy here. You know, it all kind of made sense to me. Yeah. And there weren't going to be any real surprise, because you knew rotation was going to be forced upon the roster. So we knew we were going to see a lot of rotation. It doesn't necessarily mean that it was because a guy had poor game,

a poor first game. Obviously with Ochoa, he was already man to the match. Gets a little less clear when it's like Paneda dropping or even dropping Georgie, who was not terribly effective in game one. But again, you know, when Dotson's out, it's clearly because we were expecting to be able to not trot out our very best lineup. still win this game, which was, you know, effectively a must-win game or we needed points from it. So I think the idea was we were confident that any lineup we put out there would win the game.

Yeah. And then that confidence may have diminished over the first 30 to 40 minutes of the game. Yeah. I, yeah, we'll get into that for sure. I was not, you know, it wasn't, it was not an inspiring half of football, that's for sure. But, you know, we did get some chances. We got into some dangerous areas. we just couldn't, you know, convert anything in the final third, which may be, you know,

may just be a lack of quality in this, in this attacking roster selection, which is something we've been talking about for weeks now, you know. Right. I think it's a combination of all of it. I think it's a combination of the quality. There's definitely a ceiling on the quality, and not too many of the guys in these games so far have sort of played above the expected ceiling. A couple have, and I'm sure we'll talk about them more.

But then it's also a combination of getting the tactics right. And it's a combination of, to a fairly large degree probably, the amount of time spent playing together and just the amount of time between these games and their actual last matches, which we've been talking about it for a long time. But a lot of these guys have been off since November. And that matters. Yeah. Totally. Dominican Republic lineup is It was I think a 3-4-3

We're not going to spend a ton of time Talking about these players But here's their lineup Guzman and gold De La Cruz Jimenez and Brian Lopez As the back three Castillo Mangas LeVernier And Reyes

Across the middle And then Mata Cabrera And Ascona Edison Ascona Across the front line They didn't really threatened to score at all. There was one moment, which I have in the timeline, where it looked like they could have

scored, but they didn't even get a shot off. The key thing for the U.S. was just to break down their low block, and we obviously had some trouble with that, especially in the first half. That's fair. I'd say their big storyline of this game was Guzman's distribution with his arm. I thought he was outstanding. Yeah. We talked about expressive players.

We happen to have an expressive goalkeeper on our roster. I thought Guzman was of a kind, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, he threw one bomb very early on that got him behind Glad. And I was really, we won't talk about it at length, but I was really impressed with Ascona. He's only 17 years old. He wasn't perfect or anything, but he had a comfort on the ball and a brightness that I think sort of stood out on the pitch for both teams, really. And do I have it right? Is Ascona the kid who could potentially one day down the line wear U.S. colors? Yeah. It seems a little mean to root for that at this point. We're going to take their best player to, you know, future best player. But yeah, he plays for Inter Miami. He was just signed to a homegrown deal pretty recently, I think. And right-footed, very tricky.

Seemed really comfortable in tight space. Do you think this is kind of like what Byron Munich fans feel like when they're watching good players on other Bundesliga teams? That kid was pretty good. We should just come play for us. Yeah, that's what they've been doing to Shaka for the last decade. He's really good. Let's have him on a free. Should we get into the timeline?

Let's do the Bell's Chronology. We need theme music for that, by the way. I know our production value isn't like crazy, but I feel like there's room in the budget for some Bell's chronology theme music. I'll get the little piano out, fire up garage band. All right. The Bell's chronology. Begin to compose. Brought you by Mountain Dew.

Why don't you do the first one in the timeline since you put it in there? I snuck this one in. It happened so quickly, like, and turned into nothing so quickly that I feel like we just forgot about it. But in the third minute, like two and a half minutes into the game, it really resembled what we saw in the friendlies against El Salvador specifically, which was just, a nice easy ball played out to O'Rahoe on the wing, and he, under no pressure, just hits, like, a super easy ball down the sideline corridor, and it puts Jonathan Lewis in behind the defense with, like, 10 yards to spare. It's crazy, and it was just because there was some disastrous backline discipline

from Dominican Republic where their weak side centerback, you know, isn't even in the frame of the TV because he's that much deeper than the rest of the defensive line. And so Lewis is in, and he cuts in well, like, goes to goal. and in this situation he had Jesus Ferreira all by himself for a tap-in and there was very much definitely room to play that ball into his feet just slide it on the floor for a tap-in and instead Lewis chose the cutback trying to hit like Cardoso arriving late at the top of the box

and his cutback went directly into the defender who blocked it out for a corner. Okay, yeah, this is interesting because a lot of people were talking on Twitter about how they thought Lewis had a good game when I posted my preferred lineup for the next meaningful one, which didn't include Lewis. And people were like, well, I thought Lewis was really good. I did not think Lewis was good.

And I think this is an example of it. Another example in the eighth minute, he's sprung in behind by Ferreira kind of haltingly after doing well to win a loose ball and motor passed a couple guys. He plays it to Ferreira. Ferreira tries to play it to Lewis in behind it, bounces back to him, to flex back to him. And then on the second try, he does spring Lewis.

in behind, again, because the back line is ragged as all get out. There's people all over the place for the Dominican players all over the place. Then we have Lewis, you know, coming into the box on the right side and he's got Ferreira kind of there for the on the near post, coming at the near post. Salcedo coming alone at the far post, just absolutely alone. And I'm not sure what Lewis was trying to do, but he basically just hits a a waist-high, tame ball right at the goalkeeper, right at Guzma. Right.

Somewhere again, no matter how much you wish we had a true striker, for those of you who don't rate Ferreira as that sort of false nine, no one was going to like make that run to get to that ball that was essentially a shot pass directly to the goalkeeper. Yeah, not a dangerous shot if it was a shot. And then I noticed some slop. I didn't have a time stamp on this, but I noticed some sloppiness in the buildup from Ferreira, maybe two or three times and then our midfield was kind of easy to pass through a couple of times. Do you have anything very sophisticated to say about our midfield shape?

So our midfield shape was a, it's hard to know because, again, we don't have the assignments, but it was very different from what our midfield shape usually is. And I don't necessarily want to put it all on Johnny Cardoso, but watching in real time, I very much was putting it mostly on Johnny Cardoso. And we'll get into him later. the sloppiness that you're talking about, that seemed to be like an entire team-wide first half thing. I started to almost like just have to attribute it to the field,

like assuming that the field must have been really choppy because so many guys just had like a ball rolling into them and their first touch like constantly kept popping up to waist or shoulder high. And it wasn't just one guy, so it wasn't just one person doing it. It was happening all over the place. So I don't know. I mean, you know, generously, I'm going to say maybe the field was not what we were hoping it would be.

But it could be tired legs. It could be true. It could be that. It could be rust. I just noticed it with Ferreira in that little stretch, I don't know, from the eighth to the 15th minute. Because I think of him as somebody who's good at combining, good at intricate combination play. And there were a couple times where he had a chance to, you know, play somebody in behind or do a little one-touch pass and he didn't, he couldn't pull it off. just gave it away because of sloppiness.

There's more, like you said, there's more sloppiness to note in this game. It's not just him. 15th minute, nice flowing move from right to left to right and, you know, starts at the back right, goes to the midfield left, and then Vines kind of brings it across and it goes through Dotson, I think. It wouldn't have been, I'm going to say it probably wasn't Dotson. No, you're right. It wasn't Dotson.

It was Perea. It was Perea and Cardoso. And then all the way over to Lewis, and he cuts in on his left foot, gets a chance, and scuffs it. Trademark, scuffed it. But it was a good bit of movement, and there was a little bit of attacking. You know, the system was producing some stuff there, I thought. 18th minute, nice little moment of class from Salcedo. He scoops Yule in behind.

You remember this one? And Yule fires a low ball across that is cut out just barely by the outstretched foot of Dominican centerback, Brian Lopez, just in front of a lurking Jesus Ferreira. So I liked it. I liked what was going on there. Did you? Yeah, there were a lot of like, I don't know what you'd say, like intriguing moments from Salcedo. Yeah, a lot of intriguing moments from Salcedo, a lot of sloppiness from him too.

Just tons of messiness. I thought two times right after that good moment where he combined with Yule. So it's like there's two things going on with Saucato in this game. One, for me, he's the most creative player on the field for the U.S., definitely the one through whom attacking moves were most likely to flow. Also, some really bad moments, like particularly the one where he gets a Yule diagonal over the top later in the first half and just doesn't bring it down. Yeah. Like he had a one-on-one with the keeper. All alone.

That was like the trademark Yule moment, too, for me, for like what you're hoping he can eventually bring to the senior team is to all. have that long diagonal to do all the little things that we needed that player to do and then also add that diagonal. But going back to Saucato, totally agree. I thought he had the best ideas out of everyone. And even when they didn't come off here, like, oh, I could see what the idea was there. That's just really poor execution. And there were a lot of those where the execution was just, you know, off. And again, you can chalk it up to he's barely played a match in the last six months, almost like nine months now, which is nuts to think about.

But yes, it definitely seemed like he was the guy with the ideas, him and Ewell. So I'll let you keep going to the chronology so we can hit Ewell a couple of times here coming up. Quick restart from Ewell in the 22nd minute to Vines down the left wing, vines fires it across. We had Lewis at the backpost and Ferreira running, also running at the backpost. Love that quick restart, by the way. Yeah.

Yeah, I love the quick restart. I didn't love Ferreira's movement in this in this moment. And I think you, did you? Yeah, it was bad. I said something right away to people who don't appreciate Ferreira in this position necessarily. Yeah. But yeah, really, really poor recognition in that moment from Ferreira to get to the near post because that run in this situation was definitely on. And someone had to make it and no one did.

And he was just duplicating Lewis's movement at the back. post by running straight at the backpost sort of a la Josh sergeant 12 months ago you know so yeah so this was a bad one it definitely goes into the catalog of anyone who does not want frere to be in that position 20 25 minute short corner to yule and he he has a hit from 20 yards out hits it pretty tamely at the keeper but not a terrible idea from salcedo there I thought to go with the short corner probably they had it drawn up I would yeah you can tell they've drawn up a lot of set piece things and very few of them have come off. That one, I think technically you'd say, came off and Ewell made enough contact to hit it on frame first time, which is

difficult, but not troubling the goalkeeper too much. Didn't trouble Guzman. I can't remember exactly, but he probably turned and just threw a 100-mile-an-hour fastball with that southpaw, his 26-minute, nice diagonal from Ewell over the top, which I mentioned earlier to South Sato, and he handles it very badly. he did have a one-on-one with the keeper if he can bring it down. And again, Ferreira is lurking in front of goal. I mean, he could have one-time did it across to Ferreira. That would have been a nice play.

I mean, he could have done anything. He literally could have brought it down and then just stood there and, like, waited for Guzman to commit or whatever. He had everything to do other than shoulder it directly out of bounds. It was a perfect ball from that from Yule. And I just want to mention, too, on this Yule bit. Because even though we've talked about how there were a couple of good chances in this game, In between those chances, it wasn't just like nice prodding fluid soccer that just like kind of petered out.

Like it was pretty frustrating like bordering on abysmal sequences of soccer. And Ewell in this situation almost like was taking it on himself. He kind of reminded me of like a Weston McKinney in this game where, you know, there are games for the U.S. where it felt like Weston McKenney realizes that nothing's coming off. And he's just like, all right, I'm just going to do it myself then. and I'll go where I need to go to make something happen. And this is what it felt like for Ewell, the way he just like came all the way back

kind of into Perea's space. And it was like, guys, what is taking us so long to create chances? Fine, just give me the ball. I'm going to do it. And so this is where I sort of saw that mentality of you will sort of separating himself from the other American players and just being like, I will make something happen here.

And he absolutely just hit a dime to Sebastian Salcedo. Good run from South Sato. You know, I don't want to be too hard on him, but it was a terrible technique in the moment. 27th minute, well, I was just in response to what you said about it being abysmal, I wonder how much of it, I'm not saying it's more than 25%, but it's some percentage. How much of a percentage was just they were being cautious because they didn't want to have a bunch of bad mistakes like they had in the game against Costa Rica. So maybe like the centerbacks in particular, but also the full backs were just thinking, all right, I'm going to play it safe here because there was a lot of playing it safe. So I mean, if you want to give them a pass, I guess you can, but I didn't really think the centerbacks were really at issue for pretty much anything. We weren't in the same Dominican Republic did not defend even close to the way Costa Rica did.

Like Costa Rica sat off of us and put their striker on Yule and let the centerbacks have the run of the game. This wasn't like that. This was a much more orthodox defense from Dominican Republic where the striker would go up and put like, you know, leisurely pressure on the centerbacks with the ball. And you'd notice right away, Perea then had more opportunities that's the sixth

to sort of like flare out just off of that pressure to receive the ball and pick it up. And we had no problem beating that first line of pressure. Like it was very simple, which is what you'd expect because it was half-hearted pressure from Dominican Republic. But it was farther up the field that we just looked a complete mess. Like it was, it was, I don't want to put all of it on Johnny Cardoso, but it was a lot of

Johnny Cardoso being really poor. And then it was a combination of that. And I still think our shape wasn't quite right for how to attack this, this defense. Yeah. Well, speaking of Cardoso, which we will do more later, in the 27th minute, the biggest US chance of the first half, Saucedo combines with fines, again, pretty nicely. slips him in behind and Vine scoops a ball over to the back post.

A really nice cross, by the way, where Cardoso has a free header and hits it right at the keeper from point blank range. It happens, so I won't be too hard on him for that, but maybe here's where we should talk about Cardoso. Who has been hyped, I think, is fair to say.

He plays in Brazil. He plays for Internacional. He didn't look, very good in this game, did he? No, and it was almost like suspiciously quiet if I was, you know, following along. Like, there was no one really saying it, and I don't know if it was because he was sort of so obviously bad that it would have just felt like piling on.

You know, it was one game. This doesn't mean that Cardoso has no future as a U.S. soccer player. He, as far as we can tell, he was not in the Guadalajara camp. He came in late because he was still playing with his club team and played up until the weekend and then

joined. But he's also in season, so you'd expect him to be a little sharper. And he was just really bad. Essentially like zero positive moments up until that header. And then even that header comes with like the caveat that he had all the time in the world to decide how he wanted to score the header and hit it straight at the goalkeeper. I don't know, man. What was your, what was your read on him? Yeah, I thought he would, ponderous is a word that comes to mind.

Like he just moved slow. It seemed to be moving slowly and thinking slowly. And, you know, maybe that has to do with him not being familiar with the system. That's an out for him. But, you know, technically didn't look real great. Physically didn't look real great. His best moment easily of the game was when he brought down that Arajo cross in the second half and slammed it off the crossbar.

That was a nice bit of technique to bring that down and then just pummel it. And it was, you know, two inches from being a really nice goal. Right. So he's very close to having two goals on the day, which would have been great. but it's still a different situation than a guy having like a quiet game and then the one chance he gets he puts away and a guy being like involved constantly and constantly doing poorly and then also popping up especially when you again take into account the level of competition and saying inevitably in a game like this you're going to get looks at goal so you know coming in with like oh but he got in good position twice to score goals doesn't mean quite as much especially when you sort of of contrast it with how he did everywhere else on the field. His defense, I thought, was a mess as well. So if we can talk about that shape now for a little bit.

Yeah, please, please, please. So the senior team has been defending in the 433 high press for over a year now, and it's basically like two banks of three ahead of a backboard, and those two banks of three set themselves up in like a V shape. And Cardoso in this case was playing as one of the eights with Ewell, and then Perea behind them. So you would expect to see like a V-Shape. and it was like noticeable because it was such a departure from what we usually do.

When Dominican Republic would build from the back, they'd play out. And as the camera shifted over to look, there was just this giant hole up ahead of Perea on the right side where you'd expect Cardoso to be to apply pressure. And when the camera caught up to our sort of back six, it was Perea sitting back with, I'm sorry, it was Cardoso sitting back with Perea rather than be in advance. So he just wasn't up there applying pressure, which totally. negates all of the energy that the front three are expelling to try to like shape play and contain things because they always just had this super easy play into the the spot that Cardoso should have been in. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed that. And I know, I noticed Christ said in the postgame press conference that Cardoso and Eul were both dropping too deep to in possession too.

Okay. So it's kind of a dropping too deep theme in both ways. Well, and that's not terribly unexpected because Cardoso's other out here is that he doesn't usually play as an eight for his club. He plays as a guy who sits right in front of the two centerbacks and is usually under very little pressure and usually gets to collect the ball looking up the field. He's not even like the guy they need to play out of pressure with his back to goal to connect. Like he's, he just collects the ball for free by dropping between the centerbacks or by having the ball dropped to him from higher up and he's facing forward. So that could be his other out here is that he's just in a completely uncomfortable spot and it was just a bad, you know, managerial movement.

to put him in that place. Yeah. Yeah, that could be. I mean, there's several outs for Cardoso. The two biggest ones being like, does he know the system? And two, was he played out of position? But even with those caveats, I think we got to,

if you're like, if you're calling for Johnny Cardoso to be the backup to Tyler Adams at the six, you probably ought to slow your role a little bit. For a while, for sure. For now, at least. halftime came and went and then in the 48th minute for me this was the most dangerous moment for the U.S.

The most dangerous moment provided by the Dominican Republic it started with a Cardoso giveaway. This is another thing about Cardoso. He was not very good in combination. No, that's what I mean. He was a turnover machine. Yeah. So Soto played a nice little layoff to him

and then Cardoso just kind of like did not know how to deal with it and it gives it away, falls over. and then it's a Dominican Republic chance as Noend Cabrera beats Kessler for pace to a hopeful ball lumped forward. Now this is a moment to acknowledge Kessler who had a pretty solid game. I think he and Glad were both fine. They didn't get tested too much. But this was a moment where Kessler's limitations showed up because he just got outspeeded to this ball. after having a bit of an advantage, you know, in space.

So that's, that was a, I made a mental note of that. And I didn't, I didn't tweet it at Jamie Hill that this happened. But Jamie Hill was like, you know, complaining that nobody was praising Kessler on Twitter. I think he's a Revs fan. And I guess I, I noted that. And I thought, Kessler was okay, but that was kind of a scary moment. Anyway, it ended in nothing. Cabrera tried to play it across.

and couldn't really. And I think Kessler did get a foot on it and then glad cleared it. But that was not an ideal moment. Can we just, can we just very quickly go back to the disdain in your voice when you said New England Revolution fan? Because it was apparent. It's like how I talked about baseball fans.

I felt no disdain. I said he's a revs fan. I mean, you know, I'm still kind of mad at Bruce Arena. I'm not going to lie, but. No, no, no, you said he was a res fan. Those were definitely the words you used. It's the tone. I think it's the tone.

comes through. Hey, let's not, let's not read too many tea leaves here, Greg. 51st minute, Jonathan Lewis combines nicely to get Cardoso in behind. And then another nice moment from Cardoso, I think. He cuts it back to Lewis at the penalty marker. And Lewis just misconnects badly. Scuffed it would be generous, I think, pretty much missed it. Now, a good, good decision from Cardoso to pick his head up and find Lewis. But it did seem like, He looked like a battleship turning with the ball to get, you know, there was nothing quick about it. Yeah, it's just,

it's one where we're really going to have to reach here because we want to give Cardoso some, some like appreciation for that moment. Because again, he had his two chances to score, and then he set this up, set up this very good scoring chance, which on another day might be considered a good outing. It just, it just doesn't,

still doesn't feel like it was a great outing. No. And I was kind of frustrated with Lewis at this point because he, you know, he was having trouble connecting with the ball at his feet from wide. And then he gets a chance to, you know, a pretty guilt-edged chance right in front of goal and he can't connect on it. But a minute later, not to be outdone, Sebastian Salcedo misses on a nearly identical sequence. Uh, you will diagonal to Araujo out wide and then a good low cut back to Salcedo, even. a better pass than Cardoso is because it's just it's just rolling along the ground and Saucato does make solid contact but his shot swings just wide of the far post and again this is

where like I get into split the splitting of hairs of mischances because you know I'm a big uh finishing isn't necessarily as a repeatable skill guy um yeah but like there is a total difference between what Lewis has done there and what Saucato does on this one where you can a very like you can easily see what Saucato was trying to do. He's very intentionally like trying to clip it to that far post on the ground. And he misses it by, you know, 14 inches. Two feet. Compared to what sort of Lewis has done where you have to ask whether Lewis has a history of being in that position.

Yeah. Lewis played a pass in the air back to Cardoso when he tried to take that shot. So there are differences. And then again, I don't want to rag too much. Lewis actually has like a ridiculous conversion rate compared to his expected goals in MLS player. At least he did going into last season. Maybe that's starting to catch back up to itself. Yeah.

He knows how to get his foot on the ball, it seems to me, but he didn't in that situation. So with those three chances Cardoso's header, Lewis and Salcedo, I'm guessing we had more than one XG at that point in the game. And so the 60th minute goal was deserved. That's how it works. That's how it works. Justice is always served in the XG tables. Good buildup starts with a glad entry pass to Lewis. He then, Lewis then rolls it to the corner for Arauj.

Good Araho ball across. Cardoso, like we mentioned earlier, does well to bring it down, bring down kind of a hot, thigh high pass and then snap a shot on the half-five. that would have been a lovely goal if it had been in a couple inches lower. And then the rebound falls to Perea, outside of the box, who heads it wide first time for Salcedo, who kind of does enough 1V1 to get a window to slide it across for an onrushing Yule, who redirects it to the far post. I think with the outside of his boot, Keeper has no chance, 1-0 USA.

Do you think Ewell meant to do that? Like, it doesn't look like it, right? When you watch it even real-time or slow motion, it almost looks like he doesn't. think he can score and is trying to move his boot out of the way. But I'd be very... I honestly don't know. Like the dummy? I'd be very interested in the polygraph results on this one.

It was the game winner. And like I said, deserved at that point. Georgie on for Sousaido and Dotson on for Cardoso immediately after the goal. And Dotson looked good again, even before the goal. The goals, just a calm presence. a little forward thrust. Yeah, I'm going to keep calling Dotson the legit of this bunch because it does. He just looked like such a grown-up.

It's something I always go back to is especially in games like this against, again, lower-level competition and next. That's not just because Dominican Republic isn't a good team. I mean, even age group competition because we're judging these guys against youth players when we're hoping that they can compete against adults. Something that Dotson seems to never do is to he never gives away the advantage he has. So no matter what the situation is, Dotson always has total control of it, and he doesn't put the ball in a position where he could even lose it against a good player.

Because we see that from basically everyone else on this roster at this point where they take a heavy touch, but because it's Dominican Republic U23s, it's not going to cost them. Dotson did everything so cleanly, so efficiently. And this is where I say I did not expect that Hassani Dotson was going to be this. player for us? Yeah, I don't think anybody did really. Maybe West Burdine. But it's fantastic because, you know, I had kind of like even a hard time with

his inclusion because I was under the impression. I kind of assumed that he was just being included for his versatility where he would be, okay, well, we can use him as the backup here, the back up here and the back up here. And he can be our third string right back or, you know, whatever. And I was like, that seems like a waste of a roster spot if you're just using it on a total utility guy when instead he, is very much our most important player on the roster at the moment. It sure seems that way.

You know, he's the one who connects defense to attack the most effectively and good physical presence. And best finisher on the team, too, it turns out. Because of, yeah, neither of those goals, talk, tell us about this first goal. Yeah, well, you were going to say, neither of these goals, what? Neither of these were gimmies. Like, these weren't, we had better, we had several better chances in the game. And Dodson's just like, F it.

I'm just going to barely even take a back swing. He's going to bury it in the side netting. Yeah. And that'll be that. And he didn't have a lot of room to even create the shot. So yeah, you're right. Start him up top. 73rd minute. First goal from Dotson, a nice little sequence.

Kessler interception to Perea just inside our half. Perea hits it wide to vines, vines into Yule, Yule wide to Georgian space. And he cuts in and rambles across. the top of the box and pokes it to Dotson. Dotson takes a touch that kind of rises up on him and then he just rifles it home at the far post. Keeper had no chance.

That's the one you're talking about was like he didn't have a lot of room to, yeah. Not a lot of room, not a lot of room to step into a shot and he just has, I mean, that technique is excellent to hit it, what, four inches off the ground, it might even skipped in off that near post. I'm sorry, off the far post, but low away from the goalkeeper. Totally unstoppable. I mean, he scored a lot of nice goals for Minnesota United over the last couple seasons. A lot is an exaggeration, but he has scored some nice goals for Minnesota.

And then five minutes later, 78th minute, Dotson again. This was Gregie Ball at its finest, no? Yeah. It was like, I'm glad you have it here because as soon as it happened, I was like, man, where did that start? Because I was kind of watching it on like times two for a lot of this game to catch up, which is nice to do for tactical reasons too. but like just watching the ball zip around at two-time speed forever. I was just like that.

We had that ball for a long time. And we basically had like two attacks out of it that led to the goal. Yeah, yeah. It was a- Take us through the whole thing, because I'm sure you have it. I have it, yeah. The sequence starts when Kessler wins a Guzman goal kick and Dodson collects it and plays it back to Arawa.

A good example of like the little things that Dodson does well. You know, it's kind of a, the ball, it's a loose ball situation. Dotson brings it down and finds Zaraho's feet in a little bit of traffic. Those are the first two passes of a 20-pass sequence that included every U.S. player on the field, including the goalkeeper. Benjamin Michelle almost gave it away, but he did. That's exactly the moment I'm talking about of Benjamin Michelle gives away the advantage in that moment. You know what I mean? The ball comes into him and he takes this touch like three yards away from his body that,

You know, anyone better than the Dominican Republic U23 player who was defending him at that point just steps in and has the ball easily. And that's what you're like looking for is those moments and who essentially never has those moments when you're when you're saying Dotson doesn't have those moments. Yeah, it feels like he never gives the ball away. Anytime that there's ever a question, he is in he is in full control. So it's let's see touch every U.S. player's feet until Georgie made the decisive pass into. of vines in behind. So Georgie takes a little touch and then slips it in behind for vines. Who slides it across to Soto, who lays it off for Georgie who's coming in at the top of the box, who then rolls it wide to Dotson.

I mean, watch the replay on this. A very nice first touch. You know, the first touch clears the defender who's marking him and puts it right out in front of him so he can just like tee it up. And then he just pounds it past the goalkeeper at the far post. makes it 3-0. Yeah, that touch was a defender-eliminating touch. And it was crucial because we hadn't actually eliminated enough defenders yet to really have a shot on target through that whole passing sequence, which was very nice. Everything was like coming in hot to players' feet.

So there was never a time where Soto was going to get that ball that came into him from Vines and have a shot, which means that the Dominican Republic doesn't have to like scramble into last ditch defending. They all just like maintain their discipline, keep their shape, and they can stop it. and then Soto hits it back right into Georgie's feet. So it's not like Georgie can fake a shot on that. He has to just collect it and shifted along to Dotson, and even that ball was coming into Dotson pretty hot. So it very much was like Dotson's touch was the shot creating touch all by itself there. And just really well done.

Yeah, I love to see it, as they say. And then. Before we get to the board goal, can I also just point out that I think part of the first, fact that we could have this 90 second passing sequence to create this goal, you know, we kind of talk about how we ground them down and maybe they were getting tired and that's probably part of it. I also think there was probably a total light switch moment after the second goal because don't forget, up until that point, the Dominican Republic was still alive to advance in this tournament. We were always talking about Costa Rica as a team to beat and it was Mexico's for sure going to go

through. Then it's us or Costa Rica. But the Dominican Republic doesn't, isn't just giving up. So a draw for the Dominican Republic and then a win against Costa Rica would put them into a chance to advance on goal difference. So when at zero zero, they're obviously still very much alive in the tournament. Even at zero one, they're still going to be totally dialed in because it would just take one moment and they were, you know, still have that chance. They would still be alive. And then once we scored the second goal, then it's just like, that's it. They're done. They can no longer advance. Their tournament is now over. And that's like a huge mental shift. And we see that a lot.

And youth tournaments, we even see it in like senior tournaments in Conccaf. Like that's like the backbreaker. Our tournament is now over. At this point, nothing matters. Yeah, that goal was, there definitely was a change in the game after that first Dotson goal. And maybe, yeah. Yeah, it could have been tiredness, but like you're saying, it's probably just as much, if not more, the realization that it's over.

And they weren't getting anywhere near our goal throughout the game. So like the idea that they were going to score two goals in the last 15 minutes, I think probably didn't occur to anybody. No, it was curtains at that point. And then it was just like, it's good on us to take that, you know, shift in their mentality and punish it like crazy for potential goal difference in our own favor. Yeah. Okay.

90th minute. 90th minute. 90th minute. Mahalovich goal he gets he gets the last one it's a 12 pass sequence with Perea doing a lot of the tough work

in the middle third and then Dotson springing Aroho wide on the half turn and then it comes back to Dotson who plays Michelle in behind Michelle drives forward just manages to keep his feet

and flashes it across to face a goal Soto has a beat late to it but Georgie is just waiting at the back post behind him and side foots it in four zero And so I'm going to go back to Dotson again because it was it was like the nothing pass, I think from Puraea to Dotson that Dotson, I think, turned negative and hit it out to O'Rahoe.

But he did that as the Dominican Republic defender was like arriving at him. Yeah, it was close. Yeah, so it's Dotson being really tidy and really efficient and not wasting any time or energy that would have forced him to either change his mind or turn the ball over. And in the first half, we saw it probably would have just been a turnover for some of the guys who were in the game. but his ability to just do that so cleanly he obviously knew where he wanted to go with it before it got to him those are just those little things that like i'm always trying to be grading out as we're watching youth competitions yeah and then uh yeah it's good to see michelette get a little something to you know to build off of because he's had a he's had a rough tournament i think it's fair to say

and uh he gets he gets the assist here mahalovitch also had you know two assists and a goal after he came on. So, I mean, I think, I'm going to agree with you what you would generally say and say those numbers, those statistics are noisy. I don't, I don't know that Mihailovich is, uh, made a persuasive case here, even though some people are talking about the, the Georgie redemption arc. But I wouldn't hate to see him play on the wing, uh, in a, in, you know, the, in the game that really matters.

Yeah. I just would rather see South Sato. I'd be good with either of them. I definitely don't want to see Georgie play at one of the dual eight spots. I feel like that needs to be off at the table. He needs to be tucked in left winger or a backup tucked in left winger. Yeah, yeah. And then like we said, Mexico beat Costa Rica later that night.

So that qualifies us for the semifinal, regardless of what happens against Mexico on Wednesday. And yeah, do you want me to give? you have anything else you want to say about the game? So should we talk, how about if I give my, my ideal situation for how we handle the Mexico game, and then you tell us how we're going to win the semifinal?

Sure. Yeah. All right. So like I said, I feel like everything needs to be geared towards how do we win the semifinal. And I would say right now we're very much a team that isn't necessarily ready to win a do or die semifinal. We certainly could just because it's, you know,

anything that happened in 90 minutes. And we probably have, I don't even know if we'll say we have better players because I haven't done a decent job scouting either. Honduras or Canada, who are the prohibitive favorites to get out of the other side of the bracket. But I still think, like, we can't just throw this whole game away. I think we could use it to improve a little bit.

So I'm hoping that Christ has an idea of how he wants to play in the semi and runs more or less that lineup out there. Against Mexico? Against Mexico. But, like, subs every, subs makes five changes at halftime, effectively. and just bring those. So you give them essentially treating like a 30 or 30 or 45 minute training session with some decent intensity. And then you bring all the guys off regardless of what the score is, doesn't matter.

Like you bring the guys out who are going to be starting that game and run the reserves out the rest of the way. Interesting. Yeah. You definitely sit the two guys on yellows and that's Justin Glad and Jesus Ferreira because whether you plan on starting them or not, you don't want to go into a game with one of your two strikers suspended. or your most important so far centerback suspended. I think Glad become is like the nailed on centerback for the semifinal, would you say? It seems that way, yeah.

So the last. And he's on a yellow. So is Ferreira. So the last thing you want to do is have him suspended for that game. And again, even if you don't plan on starting Jesus Ferreira, you don't want to just not have the option to bring in another striker in a, in a soccer game. So keep those guys out of the lineup entirely. Don't even put them on the field. Everyone else you set up to get some.

reps in in a I'm calling it like a semi competitive environment yeah so so then you could do you want to say what the lineup will be if we do that well I would start Ochoa because if he's going to restart in the semi like you want to build that the lines of communication you want to just build that familiarity as much as you can Kessler and Padeta then would be your other centerbacks to run out there I would probably run Herrera on the left in O'Raho on the the right for my fullbacks regardless of your intent for the semi because vines has played both full games so far and so I don't want to run them another 90 and then have to run them again in the semifinal and so bring vines in at like the 60th minute for herrera because I'm kind of assuming

it'll be vines in herrera in the semi or bring vines in for rajo if raha is your guy but give him like 60 minutes to start are you kind of ambivalent on whether it's arra or herrera in the semifinal yeah no no no no preference whatsoever. I think they're both capable. Yeah. And then I'd run a midfield with, this gets a little, like, there's a little hedging here where I'd go like Yule as the holding mid. I like Yule there better than Perea.

I'd rather have Perea ahead of him. He plays the six. I don't know if Christ would agree with that at all or even entertain it. Or if Christ just sees Perea as the six. But I'd go Yule, Dotson, and Testman. And you have to start Tesman here, even if you don't plan on using him in the semi because otherwise you like run out of subs. There's no good way to do this. Sudoku

between the two games. So you run those three out there. And then you bring Perea for Dotson after 45 minutes. So they both are limited. You're capping both those guys minutes at 45. Bring Cardoso in for Yule at 45 minutes. So you finish the second half with Tasman and Cardoso out there. Okay.

And then what's your front line look like? So I'm going with like Georgie as the left tucked in winger and Saucato is the right tucked in winger. And I just don't know if Saucato can do that. the right side. But I like it, I just at this point like it better than either of Lewis or Michelle as the tucked in wingers. Because I just don't think it is, it fits either of them intuitively. And I don't think it, we've seen it fit very well in the actual games either.

So it's not like they're beating our expectations for how they'll fit into those roles. I think it's been really messy without even like the idea pieces that Salcedo at least brings and that I think Georgie brings as well. So I would run Georgie and Salcedo as the wingers tuck them both in and swap them both out at half time. So at halftime, then you bring in Lewis and Benji and run them the rest of the way. And then you start Soto up top because Ferreira's not not even shouldn't even be on the field. Yeah. Okay.

That's what I like that. Okay. And then after all that against either Honduras or Canada or maybe another team, they still have to play the second game of their group tonight. I would do a Cho and goal, Glad and Kessler, as a centerbacks, unless Paneda, you know, works out as yips against Mexico and we see something special from him. Because I'm not, I wasn't like, like I said earlier, I wasn't blown away by Kessler. That's a good point. Paneda's not sort of considered because of how shambolic he was, but if he puts in like a master class of breaking lines with passing, which that was supposed to be his role, right? Everyone expected him to be the distribution centerback.

Yeah. So if he has that kind of a game against Mexico, then it's like, okay, that was an aberration in game one. Let's toss him out there for the semi. Yeah. I think we should be open to that possibility. Vines at left back. I'm the same as you. It's a toss-up between Araujo and Herrera.

I think they're both capable. They both have their weaknesses. Ewell at the 6. I'm saying Perea and Dotson as the dual-ates. because I guess I've liked what I've seen from Perea more than most people have I just like the physical presence he brings and the the athleticism and he seems to he seems to impose himself on a midfield testament can do I'm sure Testament can do all that stuff and he did he did some nice stuff

when he came on I just just haven't seen it from Testament in this tournament so if it's Tesman and Dotson as the dual eight's fine with me and then Salcedo on the left wing Hazes-Ferara on the right wing I know it's not his position, but I think he can, you know, he could get into that half space and cook a little bit and he's smart enough to figure it out. He's not going to beat anybody around the corner as, you know, as much as somebody like Jonathan Lewis is supposed to be able to do. But also Jonathan Lewis hasn't really done it.

I was a very carefully phrased sentence right there for Jonathan Lewis. Well, you know, you think of Lewis as the guy who's going to burn somebody around the corner and then put a cross across. But he hasn't really done that that much. He's doing it by making smart runs in behind and getting fed by Ferreira. And I think Ferreira can do that too. And then Soto as a striker. Okay.

All right. So then Tessman and Paneda would be the guys in the Mexico game who could potentially, like, play their way. And do you think Tassman could play his way ahead of Perea if he looks pretty clean? I mean, if he looks like a superhero, of course, like anyone could take a superhero performance against Mexico, and that could lead him to starting in the semifinal, the same way Ochoa did in the first game. It seems clear that you run with Ochoa in the semi just because he was a superhero in game one.

So what would it take, I guess? How good of a game from Tasman against Mexico do you think he would take to start him in the semi? It would take a lot because Perea is, one thing about Perea is he hasn't really been caught in possession much in this tournament. So he's got that. sort of baseline level of sharpness where he he can win the ball and then he can keep it and he's not getting he's not it's not getting little brothered he's not getting like snuck up on and and caught

by quickness he's uh he's keeping the ball he's keeping it moving and he's winning the ball and he's winning the ball and i i would like to see that sort of defensive reliability from testament i don't know that you know how to how he could prove that in one game i'm not sure just a little uneasy a little easy with that, I'd be a little bit uneasy with that shift. All right. And that's totally fair because, you know, coming in, obviously, Perea has a higher starting point in Christ's eyes for sure as Testament wasn't even included on the roster.

Yeah. All right. But Testament did, you know, Testament did get to the end line one time and play the ball across late in that game last night. And, you know, I saw a little bit of attacking verve from him that maybe we won't see from Perea ever. But. Yeah.

In a youth tournament, it sure seems like Testament is a guy who can get like a little inch of shoulder beyond a guy. And then in a youth tournament, that guy is not getting back around Tanner Testament. Like he could, he could for sure leverage some folks. Johnny leverage. Johnny leverage. I think your Soto shout with Ferreira as the right wing just won't come to pass. I feel like that'd be too dramatic of a, I'm just like shitting all over your guess. This is terrible.

No, that's fine. I think that'd just be too much of a leap. If you haven't been training it, this whole camp to then throw Ferreira into that spot. I could see Soto just straight starting over Ferreira. I just think it'd be too big of a jump to take the guy who's only been training as a nine and then throw him in over three other choices, Louis, Michelle, and potentially Salcedo as that right winger. But I wouldn't hate it.

It seems like it could be fairly intuitive. Imagine having a wing. who's coming who's arriving in the box with Ferreira's chops at arriving in the box. I mean, notwithstanding his, his, the poor run he made in the first half against the Dominican Republic. But like, you know, if you got Soto making a run and then Ferreira making a run, it's going to be a little different than as Vine, you know, as Vines or Herrera or whoever comes into that into the corner with a ball at his feet.

No, I don't hate it on. I certainly don't hate it on paper. I really like Ferreira. And again, you're, you're asking him to be in the half space. he can definitely do a job there. Okay. It's probably not going to happen. You're right.

It's going to be Lewis. We started this podcast. We're saying like, oh, yeah, we could do like 30 minutes on the Dominican Republic game. And we're north of the 50 minute mark. Let's quickly talk about the senior roster changes. Oh, yeah. We had senior roster news. Okay, so it's been a busy week with announcements.

First, we had Tyler Adams being dropped from the roster. entirely, and this is almost all, as far as I know, COVID-related. Tyler Adams dropped entirely. Nico Joaquini, oh, Adams, Nico, and Weaa all dropped entirely from the roster. Right. That was announced over the weekend, right? Yeah. Then to replace them in the same announcement, Jordan Sibichu, which is kind of cool because he's never appeared for the U.S. before.

In and Christian Kappi and Kappis. Capis. We do a different way. Never did find out. We haven't been talking about it much. He's in Denmark's second division. because Hobro was relegated. And it sounds like they might be relegated again.

A simple Google search would verify that, but I haven't done that yet. But it won't matter because Cappy's on his way out of there headed to Bronby, which is top of the table in the Danish division. Or competes for the top of the table every year. Yeah, they're up there. Central midfielder and a forward,

then replacing our forward central midfielder and winger. Then in a new development, Nico Jalcini has added back. and it might be because he was, he picked up a caution in his last match and so we'll be suspended for his next club match. So he's now available. Very well done from Nico, very clever.

And then, importantly, Chris Richards, Giorina and Josh Sargent, who we're going to go home after game one, are now available for the second game against Northern Ireland. Helps at least give us some bench to play with. And I don't know if all three of those guys will start in game one now or if we might see a little mix and match. It sure seems like Sergeant and Raina should be started. game one.

Sergeant should be starting game one. Well, with way out, I have, I have Raina as pretty close to a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had Richards as a lock with John Brooks because he wasn't going to play in game two, so we need to see him. So now that is kind of up in the air, I guess,

but with Adams out, I'm going to just do a quick one. I know we're running out of time, but with Adams being out, is this now the game? Is game one where we run three in the back? because there's no obvious Tyler Adams replacement in this roster or in the pool generally. So who is going to take his spot against Jamaica? I don't know.

Has Burrhalter ever indicated a willingness to go three at the back? No. I mean, he's indicated in that he's run it a couple of times. He ran it in that one friendly though, and it was a disaster and it was bad and it was almost none of our first choice players anyway. And I'm really curious. I think we could definitely do it in our possession. I think it would be pretty seamless if we, you know, with Adams out, if you had Brooks, Richards and, say, Aaron Long, in, it would look pretty similar to how we often run with like

a three and then Musa and McKinney ahead of them as two midfielders or McKenny and Leggett, if Legit's your preference, to those two midfielder's in front and then sort of our front five, which would include the fullbacks. But I don't know exactly how it would press. I'm not sure exactly how we would get to our sort of 433 double V press without Adams in there, because it would have to be like one of the centerbacks, right, stepping up as sort of the fulcrum of that midfield V? I guess, yeah. It's not going to be John Brooks, I don't think.

Yeah. I mean, I guess it could be Richards. I don't know. I don't know. I haven't given it that much thought. Okay. Just something to ponder. Yeah, definitely.

I mean, and, you know, speaking of the 343, one of the reasons people, say we should go to the three at the back is because it maximizes the capabilities of Sergenio Dest and Anthony Robinson, both more comfortable as wingbacks than normal, like regular fullbacks. I've always been kind of, I don't know about that, but Desk did score two goals as a wingback yesterday. Oh, no, I, like, I think it's just not nonsense. I don't want to say it's nonsense. I don't, I think it's totally unnecessary because we already have them up there. There's no, there's no freeing them any more than Burrhalter already frees them in my mind. So because, you know, when you're holding Adams back with the two centerbacks, that's no different.

And it might even be more effective in like a counterpressed scenario than if you drop Adams or, you know, move Adams somewhere else and replace that extra center mid with a centerback. I don't think there's any difference. So I think we already have totally free attacking fullbacks. We just don't have any depth behind Adams at the six. And all the guys who are even close to that are in Guadalajara right now. Yep. So you will. And then, oh, Cardoso Yule Pereja.

Yeah. And I was going to say, you know, keep your eye on Moses Nyman and Aidan Morris this season. Hopefully. Hopefully one of them becomes a superstar. That's MLS champion, Aidan Morris. Yeah. I mean, he already, already did. It went to full 90 in that game.

A 3-0 beating of the Seattle Senate. I'm sure we'll talk about this after the game, but Jamaica's roster is actually a little bit disappointing. They have, they have, it's interesting in that, can I go into Jamaica's roster? Yeah, please, I don't think we're going to get another chance to do it. Right, we'll talk about after the game. It's interesting in that they have recruited, similar to what we're doing. They've recruited a bunch of guys who play in England who have Jamaican citizenship, who have never appeared for them before.

but then their attack is just a complete shell of what they're actually capable of. None of their sort of real first choice attackers that we're all excited about now with this new look are coming. But their defense is going to be really interesting. It'll be like five guys with no Jamaican caps to their names, but who are like pretty seasoned championship or, yeah, mostly championship level defenders. We're not getting the striker from West Ham or Leon Bailey. No. No. Bummer.

We don't even have like I don't want to say even have. Like Shamar Nicholson's not going to be there. It's going to be a really inexperienced front line and a very professionally experienced backline so it'll still be interesting to see if we can crack. It'll kind of be like a whales-ish backline.

Okay. All right. We got to get out of here. Let's do it. Thanks. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll record we'll record after the Mexico game

and then we're going to try to record the day after the Jamaica game so lots more to come here. Thanks for listening. We'll see you.