Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 165: Friendly — USA v Jamaica

Episode Date: March 26, 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. Hey everyone. The USA defeated Jamaica 4 to 1 yesterday. And I got to say, I'm buzzing. Greg, how are you doing? Bell's additional banter. Let's talk about this soccer game. This was a lot of fun for a soccer game. Yeah, it really was. Should we go right into the lineups in the timeline just to get after it? No pream. Yes, please. Let's do it. We're not pressed for time. I'm just genuinely excited to talk about what I was watching on that television. Yeah, me too. We'll get into all of it. So U.S. lineup was Zach Stephan, Reggie Cannon, Aaron Long, John Brooks and Sergenio Dest. So Cannon at right back, Dest at left back, Brooks at left center back, Long at right center back. And then Kellan Acosta as the six, which was sort of predicted by Joe Lowry on the total soccer show. And, Yeah, I think we were we were kind of sitting at like 70% it would be Acosta there, 30% it'll be a back three. Actually, like 28% back three and then 2% other. 28% back three. Acosta was at the 6. Eunice Musa and Sebastian Leggett as the pressing eights.

And across the front line, Pulisick on the left, Sergeant Et Stryker and Giovanni Raina at right wing. Jamaica's lineup was, and it bears mentioning, this is. pretty much a B team for Jamaica, maybe B plus. A lot of championship caliber players, especially towards the back. Andre Gray, okay, let's do the lineup. Jadine White at goalkeeper, he's a Jamaican league guy. And then Adrian Mariapa, I think I might have this wrong, but Adrian Mariup at right back, Liam Moore and Ethan Pinnock is the centerbacks.

Amari Bell is the left back. Is that what you had? Yeah, that's what I had. and then Hector and Isaacs as the holding mids. That's right. Michael Hector and Kavanae Isis. And then so it was a 4, 2, 3, 1. And then you had Jamal Lowe, Casey Palmer, and Ricardo Morris across that band of three. And then Andre Gray, number 11 as the striker, a really physical and pretty decent player, it looked like to me.

Same with Lowe. Yeah. And then Ricardo Morris, the sort of right-sided holding mid, was. or the right-sided player on the 4-2-3-1 in the attacking band was, I think, the clear weak point of the Jamaica team. Yeah, he was a weak link. And if that's Leon Bailey or, you know, the West Ham guy. Mikhail Antonio is how I'm saying it for now.

Okay, okay. If it's one of those guys, it might be a little bit of a different game. A little bit, yeah. Keep him in this, I'm not trying to drag Ricardo Morris. He plays in the Jamaican Domestic League, and he is probably what, going on like a year and a half now without actually playing a competitive game because I believe the Jamaican Domestic League is still on COVID hiatus. So let's jump right into the timeline. I thought the U.S. came out looking pretty good, like right from the start. What do you think? Yeah, no, I totally

agree. I think as we get into it, I think the big difference between this game and the Wales game, which I think is sort of our last real opponent to compare to, because the games in between that were very amateurish in the opponent lineups. I thought it was similar in that. against Wales we could get to the box, I thought. We could get to the last 20 yards. But then I felt like it sort of immediately broke down there, and that's how we didn't create any shots. And part of that was because whales was very good and organized,

very good to stretch, but they were very organized. I thought the huge difference in this game was we still got to the box pretty simply, but then once we were there, like we had the next two or three steps ready. So we actually like our combinations in the box, around the box were much cleaner. Part of that is because we upgraded from Conrad de la Fuente and Sebastian, Legit as our forward to Christian Pulisick and Josh Sargent as our, as two of our attacking players. That's a pretty big deal. But even the big one for me, and I know I'm delaying the actual chronology here, but was Gio Raina. And I feel like there's mixed reactions to him.

And I think this is just what we're going to see with Gio Raina. I feel like he's going to be a very polarizing figure, maybe more of just like a lightning rod for criticism. And I think a lot of that goes into sort of his mannerisms. He's got kind of like a pouty face sometimes and he'll like throw his arms up and exasperation at like little things. Petulant remonstrance is how I put it. So there's this like divanish to him. And I think like that goes, I think that affects some of the some of the sort of assessments

that people make of his actual play. I thought he was very good in this game and I thought he was really tidy and clean on the ball, which I don't think he was against whales. He tried some things against whales, but it was mostly like a lot of like jamming the ball into opponent's shins. And here, in what felt like roughly the same size like windows in really tight spaces, things were really, I think, coming off combination-wise. So I was really encouraged by Raina's performance here on the right wing as more like that free-flowing tucked-in winger. And again, that's going to, I think, play out in the chronology.

Yeah, I think, you know, he missed some big chances to score, and he missed some chances, as Matt Doyle pointed out in his column last night, missed some chances to play the ball on the overlap or the underlap to Cannon or Acosta. But, yeah, I very much agree. The rewatch shows that Raina was a huge asset in this game, a difference maker, you might say. Right. And again, his ability to bring, he was bringing other people into combinations, although he did miss. I counted, I think, three Reggie Cannon misses, maybe two Canon misses and one at cost a miss that were pretty egregious. And I don't want to read too much into those as like deliberately ignoring those players. Whatever, you totally do want to read too much into those. You're starting like Raina versus Canon conspiracy. Right. Like, what? Would he have given the ball to Sergenio deaths there, Bells?

You think maybe, but, you know, it could be just he doesn't, he didn't see it. Yeah, I mean, that's a little bit of a weakness. It's a weakness for Raina. He's his passing vision and his decisions to release the ball. His passing vision isn't so great, it seems to me, and his decisions to release the ball are slow. So there is a little bit of rhythm disruption around him. But, I'm sticking with deliberate. it continue okay but i you know we'll just get into it here i think um you know his his ability on

the ball and his his ability in the cage match you know sort of one of our terms is so so good he's so so is such an asset like he bullies the opponent what did you say you you were saying something about him coming back to the ball and taking it off of people so he's able to uh knife in between the defender in the ball and he's got such a wide like frame. He's kind of just this like monster of a of of an athlete, uh, that players can't get around him. And so he's just in total control of the situation right away. And so, uh, you know, it's, it's these, he essentially gains us possessions and prevents, uh, counter attacks. Uh, so, right, that, so that cage match element that he brings shouldn't be underestimated. Yeah. And Musa also has that, um,

to a very large extent. And that, that's, that's a huge difference between, this national team and you know national then say the national team we had three years ago I mean we've got 18 year olds who are playing at the highest level in Europe who are just absolute assets in in a in a cage match and boy that matters and I feel like it's going to matter a lot in World Cup qualifying should we get into the timeline yes all right the timeline you've you've got you said you've got a few oh I got I got I got something in the fifth minute

I'm way I got one right I got one give me let me get one earlier than that Okay, go for it. Just because, you know, we've been watching the kids down in Guadalajara, and a big issue has been centerback play. And so it was just nice, even 45 seconds into the game, to see the ball go over to John Brooks and to see him casually just sort of lumber, 10 yards up the field with the ball to, you know, ease past the first line of pressure, and then hit a nice, easy ball to Christian Pulsook's feet.

Like, just simple stuff, but it just felt good to watch that. And then it was nice to see Pulcic immediately, like, pants the first guy at him, which was Ricardo Morris, who's one of the weaker players on the field. And then it wasn't quite so nice to see Pool Sick then give the ball away immediately. And I feel like all of those things were trends in the game. Yeah, yeah. He panced Morris a lot, and he often gave the ball away after panting Morris. Okay, fifth minute, Stefan kind of flaps at a corner,

which happens right after he croifted it out of bounds. Brooks played it back to him, and he put it out of bounds, kind of a boneheaded sequence, followed by a not all that reassuring venture out of the goal. So not a great sequence for Stefan. And I think, you know, he, I don't think he had a great game. Yeah, it's one of those where I feel like, I feel like Stefan needs to be, you know, fighting for his spot. I don't know if Greg Berhalter feels that way. If Greg Berhalter has Stefan as, you know, written in permanent marker because he's Manchester City's backup.

board just because Berhalter really thinks he's that good of a player. But for me it feels like out of this group of 11 there are a few guys who have someone sort of coming up behind him that they need to be worried about. And I think Stefan's in that boat. And one of his strengths

I think relative to a Matt Turner is allegedly that he's better with his feet. And so a moment like that where he really poorly mishandles a ball coming in that should be pretty easy to play. is going to counter against him, I think. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's not like he had a ton of bad moments. It's just there's that moment and then, of course, a goal, which we'll get into a little bit. Okay, I've got several decent attacking sequences in the first half hour, but I'm not sure any of them deserves a full entry in the timeline. I've got a few that I want to give full entries to. I know I'm stepping on the bell's chronology. No, no, man, the chronology, it's the people's chronology. seventh minute Serginio Desk gets the ball pinned in in our own corner on the left side and he just and he just looks completely at ease like carving up the defender who's right on him with and then another defender comes over to help and he does that guy too and then plays his way out and we end up breaking free down the left side.

Oh, he combines with Legette in that one right? And then legit semi-springs pool sick I think. So it was just that affirmation that Serginio. Dest is the player we hoped he would be and then he went on to do more silly things throughout the game. Yeah, press resistance. Everybody's talking about it, but Dess, I mean, the Dest brings it in spades. Anything else before? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me, I'll run through them quick. Ninth and 10th minute because this went on for a long time because again, we were, we had this sort of easy like competence. That's how I want to describe it. I almost want to say we were

Mexico like in our competence. It's what I feel like. when I watched them play, it just looks like no one's, no one looks out of their element, and that's how we looked, I think, in this game. But it was a long sequence. It was, but it started with that same Brooks' ability to just break lines. So it was Brooks to Sargent, which I think we're going to see a lot of in the next year and a half, two years. Sergeant lays it off to Musa.

Musa hits Raina, and that's when Raina misses the really obvious underlap. But what he does instead is he, like, cuts in, which, is a strength of his and has that nice little like tidy slip to legit who's who's uh taking the space that sergeant vacated when sergeant checked back for uh brooks and so it was all these little patterns that i think all add up to being like yes we are getting it and remember this is only the second time any of these guys really played together and for a lot of them like sergeant and pool sick it's the first time they've all played together uh so it was just really cool to see that uh that part petered out but uh no i'm sorry so after after

After we do all this stuff and we miss Canon's underlap, we hit Leggett, Legette actually then finds Cannon whose cross is blocked, we recover the cross, work it around again, and we basically run the same sequence, and Raina misses Cannon again this time on the overlap. Still connects the pass, but it kind of just leads to nothing. But it's just those patterns in that sort of ability to play really tidy stuff that that's going to translate. And again, this is game one or game two, depending on how you look at it for this group.

So it's all going to be cleaned up and fine-tuned throughout the next six months, a year and a half. Yeah. And you've got to think even with Raina, he'll see the tape on that, probably, and he'll see that that overlap, underlap, no matter how he's feeling on the day, needs to be brought to fruition.

And you think he would improve on that front, I guess, is what I'm saying. Yeah, it's coming. And that's what I mean. He already improved a ton from the Wales performance to this performance. It's not like he doesn't learn, even though there is sort of that narrative about him being selfish or whatever else. He was way better, way better today. Or yesterday. So again, just all those things working together in harmony, it was just great to see even though they're not always going to get all the way into the goal.

Yeah. Anything else you got in this collection of stray timeline items? Yeah, we got a, we have the 12th minute where we have a nice set piece. The set piece wasn't great, but it gets half cleared out towards the sideline near the 18. Sargent chases it all the way down, and he does a really good job of getting squared up, facing the field, and then slipping Raina in to the end line,

and Raina has the cutback blocked out for a corner. But it was one of those early moments for Sergeant to show that he really contributes. And it was very similar, actually, to what ended up leading to Erinson's goal with his ability to shake a guy and then make a good pass. Yeah. And that was a good run from Raina and a good decision to cross.

It just didn't come off. You know, I mean, it was, I think everything was kind of right in that situation. All right. Give me, give me a couple more. Fourteenth minute we have Kellyn Acosta with, I think, his first big sort of moment of the game, and it was a nice little dribble, like, from the 18 of our defensive end, passed several Jamaican players. Slaloming, a slaloming run, yeah.

It eventually builds to a Pool Sick who skins another guy and then hits his low cross out for a corner But It was just again When you're looking at what we want from that six Eventually

That was I think a good audition for Kellan Acosta In a good moment to be like this guy can give us something here This guy is one of those things where I'm kind of looking for those interchangeable center mids And Acosta showed there that he could potentially be one of those guys And that's going to be a huge deal Because we don't have a lot of options behind Tyler Adams, certainly not like for like.

And so if Acosta can give us a little bit of that and provide depth at one of the other center mid positions, he's going to be a really valuable player over the next two years. Yeah. I mean, that was one of the big questions. Maybe we should run through some of the questions. At least I'll run through some of the questions I had from, like once this game was about to start, was can Acosta play the six? Is he any good at that?

How good is Sargent going to be with like, you know, sort of a full strength attacking Corb around him? almost full strength. We were missing McKinney. I guess those were kind of the big ones, really. Once the lineup came out, yeah. I still had questions about Dest on the left and Canon on the right, because Canon hasn't played a lot of games against real opponents.

Yeah. And I guess the sort of the bigger question is, was there going to be improvement in the sort of the making ideas into reality under Burrhalter? There you go. Those were the big questions. Yeah. And so in this case, we got a good look at Acosta and what he can bring. And it was very Musa-ish.

And we see that from McKinney too, that sort of just drive past a guy, give a little shoulder faint, and then you're past the next guy and you're into open field with your head up. That's really promising. And, you know, it basically just like that alone, given the pool, kind of vaults Acosta into the picture for the 23. Yeah, totally. I totally agree. I thought he was, I thought great is probably too strong of a word, but he was pretty good as the six. He can pass with both feet. Defensively, he was, I thought, adequate.

There was one moment, I think, in the second half, no, yeah, the second half where Richards gets, like, eliminated by a back heel from the left wing, and Acosta just, Acosta is just on it. Like, he runs 30 yards to knock that ball out of bounds and clear the danger. And in that moment, I thought, you know, that's exactly what we need him to be able to do on occasion. And you add to that what you were talking about, which is his ability to glide by people on the dribble. He has a little bit of set piece ability. I mean, he's right in the mix for that backup six job.

And, you know. Yeah. And, you know, before the game, when his name was in the lineup, there was a lot of, like, a lot of people saying it's such a nice story to see him sort of come back. And I really still think that he hasn't really come back. like all through 2018 when he was in a staple in the lineup in the Sarekine days. It was like here was Acosta's World Line moving and here was the U.S. Men's National Team World Line moving and they were right next to each other. And then in 2019, Burrhalter and the U.S. Men's National Team World Line moved a different direction.

Acosta just kept going the way he was going. And now in 2020 and 2021, the U.S. men's national team has arched back to Acosta. So it's less Acosta arcing and more the team has sort of found its way back to him. him. Yeah. I guess he could use it as a space analogy. He's on a rocket ship heading out, and the orbit of the national team just coincided with him again. That's exactly what it is, Bell. Anything else you got in the early minutes, first 20 minutes or so? Let's see. So I really liked the 15th minute where this came right after Acosta had like what would have been a killer through ball to legit, but the referee cut it out.

And then on the drop ball, we just kind of moved it from Acosta to Sargent back to Acosta. Acosta finds Raina. And again, this is all a little like ping, ping, ping stuff, which is great to see from guys without a lot of time to build chemistry. And that's when Raina did his shoulder dip to the middle and had that really good slip into Sargent who had to deal with. I mean, it's a little hot to deal with in that type of a space. But he still set himself up for a shot. And then the shot was blocked at the last second for a corner. But that's that kind of move where we weren't getting this.

that kind of play against Wales. Yeah. It's not, it wasn't quite there for Sergeant in the box, you know, getting to those, getting on the end of those, those moves. But, but it's all there except for the final touch, really. Yep. I'm going to keep going, Bells. I'm sorry, I got a few more that I got to hit.

No, no apology necessary. Get after it. You know, you might have thought like, oh, well, this isn't a very great start for the U.S. It's all a little bit sleepy. But, again, I just thought there were a lot of pieces that were there. In the 16th minute, there was like a two-minute buildup where we're just fizzing the ball around

and ends up again, slipping Cannon into that Manchester City assist zone. And Cannon's cut back in that case is blocked by the first defender when maybe he probably should have picked out either Raina trailing or Leget actually coming back in. I think it was Legit who put Cannon in with a really great ball. And then Leggett would have been available towards the top of the box, but we just missed him.

But again, you see. all the pieces there and you see how easy it would be to correct the one thing that went wrong. Canon, let me jump in and say Canon. If one of the questions is how is Canon look against, you know, decent to semi-decent competition, he didn't have a great game, I don't think. He was, so like you, like that example shows, he did, he struggled to, to, to make anything happen from wide, right? Like his crosses, his crosses never really found the mark.

And I don't know, he looked, he looked to me almost like tentative or scared or something. Like he wasn't entirely comfortable. But, you know, that's an issue. And he had some defensive issues to which we'll get into later. I really wish that Raina would have found him on those times where he was definitely wide open in the correct option because it would have been good to see what Cannon did with those chances. I feel like he missed out on a couple of those opportunities. Yeah.

All right. I got a couple more 20th minute. we had sergeant chasing down another ball like the camera work was weird so we cut to it right as sergeant was getting to the ball wide towards the edge of the box and he just hit a simple ball to pool sick pool sick simple ball to a jet

curling ball just wide but again we're there like we're at the point where we're taking the shot which we had a really hard time doing against whales yeah 22nd minute was one of those instances of Raina in the middle third like sneaking up on somebody from the back cutting them out of the play with just knifing that body in. And then he and Dest combined really well down the left side.

He brought it down to the left side of the field after taking the ball. Because, again, he's so versatile and fluid, Raina. So Raina gets Dest in, Desk connects with Raina. Again, Raina has that nice little back heel to Dest. And then Dest finds maybe a Costa in the middle, maybe Moose, I don't remember who. And it doesn't quite pan out. Yeah. A lot of not quite panning out stuff in the first half hour.

You jumped ahead of one of my items. Oh, did I skip one? It was the 21st minute. Okay. Because Jamaica's, Jamaica. I skipped because I didn't want to talk about Jamaica stuff. Jamaica did create some danger. And this was probably the most dangerous moment early on.

Long, there's a pretty much a clearance to beat the press from their left center back. And it goes to Andre Gray, right? at the half line and he boxes out Aaron Long for 10 yards. I mean, he really pushes him back. Kind of manhandles him. Kind of fathers him, as Joseph Martinez would say. And so 10 yards, they're moving back for 10 yards. Gray collects the ball, 10 yards inside our half, and then lays it off for Jamal Roe. I'm sorry, it's Jamal Lowe. And Lowe plays Ricardo Morrison, which wrong foot's John Brooks and it kind of surprises Dest. Dest looks a little flat-footed about it. But Morris, like we mentioned, was not the strongest player on the field for Jamaica. And he didn't look like

he was going to score, especially in retrospect. And he didn't. He cuts onto his left foot. As Dest is closing him down, Brooks was just eliminated by the pass completely. The pass and his inability to quickly, like, pivot his hips. Yeah. He got, yeah, he got kind of wrong-footed and kind of battleship. I'm not sure. Which verb to use exactly. But Morris cuts onto his left foot and then hits it way wide. You know, he doesn't really connect cleanly with it. But like we said earlier, if that's Bailey, Leon Bailey or Michaela Antonio or even Shamar Nicholson, you know, I think the outcome could be very different.

That's the 21st minute. Yeah, and that's going to be an issue with Brooks. So if we do allow these sort of transition moments where there's a lot of open space that Brooks has to defend it, in, that is going to be a problem. And it's not that it's like, oh, Brooks is a bad player. It's like we just have to really protect him in this situation. And mostly it's like prevent these situations from occurring. So it would have been tough and it's something where like, does Long just need to drag the guy down as the guy's backing into him to prevent them from running at us?

And we can get our guys back to defend the free kick. But that's, I'm really curious how we're going to address those situations because we do not. want Brooks in a counterattack situation defending in 50 yards of open green. Yeah. Recipe for a 1-0 game at that time. Yeah, it's maybe Dest, you know, Desd needs to be a little more, a little more helpful, a little bit more in a supporting role there. I don't know.

Maybe, but what I'm kind of feeling like is it's almost like where we were lucky Desd was even in that picture to begin with. A lot of times Desk by design is going to be way upfield. So if we're going to be leaving back Brooks, you know, long or whoever the other centerback is, and then whoever the six is at that at the given time, like we have to make sure that teams can't just get out and race at John Brooks. Yeah. Well, and that raises the whole centerback question, like who should be his partner? And we've talked about this before.

Everybody has. But you need somebody who compliments Brooks. You need somebody who is fast and mobile and a mess cleaner upper. and I think that's why Long is the, you know, long is those things. You know, I had somebody I respect, you know, really, really dragging Long for the way he got handled by Gray on that play. He's like, you can't let, he's basically saying you can't let that happen and be, you know, like it's almost a disqualifying moment for him as a centerback.

And I just don't, I don't know. I don't know if that's, I agree with that. I mean, I don't agree with that. I think, I think Gray is really, gray is really strong. And I think there's, Long's not the only centerback. that he's going to manhandle. And Long is pretty good at covering ground, and we need a centerback like that next to Brooks.

Like it's absolutely necessary. Richards could be that. And that's why I've been so excited about Richards, because I think he has some of the same qualities as long in that way and add to that more comfort on the ball and better distribution. That's the hope is that we can fill that Brooks protector, and by protector we just mean the ability to be fast enough, quick enough, change direction quickly enough,

that we can make up for any, any, like, moments or prevent moments that would leave Brooks exposed. And yes, like if Richards can offer that and be a much better distributor, then we're cooking. Yeah. But I think it's still fair to question whether Richards offers that as much as long does,

that sort of sweeper role. So that's how I'm really, I'm willing to question it. It's questioned. Okay. I got something at the 29th minute. Do you have anything before that? I don't want to step on you here.

All right. I'm going back to Raina. Raina had another situation in the 26th where he gets the ball facing up. That was another big deal. Like I felt like we constantly were finding our guys facing up the defenders. Like we didn't have to, they weren't always having to come back to play. Like they could just kind of find a seam or a pocket and sit in it and we could play them the ball. Raina would get it and he's already just looking at the defense.

defenders. But once again, looking at the defender, he's very strong and he had another one of those little slip three-yard passes that set Sergeant up running onto it to have a strike. And Legette, who at that point was more advanced than Sergeant, came back to it and sort of took it off sergeant's feet and had the shot himself, sort of off-balance facing the wrong way. It was still a decent chance, just not quite as good as if Sergeant had been the guy to strike it. I mean, at this point, a lot of these timeline items are telling me that, you know, Raina and Pulisic, we haven't talked about Pulisic much yet, but Raina and Pulisic both are, we're cooking, you know? I mean, they weren't cooking all the way to, like, setting the table and putting the food out,

but they were cooking from both sides. And that's a lot to handle for a team, to have two 1V1 merchants coming at you from either side. And, like, you know, that's sort of been the. dream for a long time for a lot of U.S. men's national team fans. And I think we got to see, we got to see at least a pretty good glimpse of it. Yep, that was a good taste. I feel like there's, there definitely is some aroma coming from the kitchen. Okay, 29th minute, I'm calling this a rough moment for Reggie Cannon. Long clears, it's just kind of a weird scramble right in front of our box and long clears it

off a Jamaican attacker and it falls to Lowe, Jamal Lowe, right in front of Cannon. And he, sort of does canon by going wide left of him and cannon just stabs and fouls him straight up right outside the box like right on the line very close to being a penalty set piece blocked by the wall and then a shot from distance goes straight at stephen and he he scoops it up but i thought you know this was a this was a chance for canon to do the thing that he's you know i think he's supposed to be good at which is straight up defending and he didn't do it all right so i think i think i'm I'm going to fight this one hard. I think that that was an optical illusion.

And Canon was really hung out to dry here. And we're going to do the Foles of Pruder on this one, the whole sequence. I'm going to go farther back in the play. And you can stop jumping any time if you're like, no, no, no, the Canon just needs to solve this. But it's just a ridiculous confluence of events. And Canon just ends up being the last guy holding the bag. but going even further back

there was a scramble in the right half space at the bottom of our circle like around midfield and Musa commits to trying to win the ball and then a cost of commits right after him so both of our sort of deep lying or both of our center mids on that side of the field commit and the ball sort of sneaks past them

so they are now out of the play and that we have Jamaica running at sort of our naked back four which you don't want to have very often obviously and we didn't see that happen too much. But we can still deal with that. So Brooks commits to the ball and he, you know, steps or at least just changes his weight. So he's now leaning forward to stop Jamaica from just advancing freely. The Jamaica player tries to then slip a through ball in centrally, like a

vertical through ball to get the guy in running between Brooks and Long. Long is positioned fine to cut that out, which he does, but he does it awkwardly. And he does it by moving towards Brooks's side of the field. So now he's moving to the left side. He cuts out. He's kind of like stumbling as he clears it and just tries to like flick it with the outside of the right foot. It flicks, it pinballs off of one Jamaica player and then

hits Brooks and then goes right into another of the Jamaican attacker's paths. This is low, right? Yeah, so this is where it finally gets to low and I think that's where you started it. So now Brooks hasn't gotten back in the play from when he's stopped to commit to stop

the advancing dribbler. Long is now out of the play drifting left with his momentum from making the play on the through ball. And the ball has fallen to low. And there are actually three Jamaica players and the ball with nobody between them and the goal. Cannon is shaded out slightly to the right, which is where he would be. But both our centerbacks are now out of the play. So there's no one between these three Jamaica players and the ball. And it's now just about who can react the quickest and move, whether it's going to be Jamaica or whether basically it's going to be Reggie Cannon.

Long kind of reacts, but the choice he makes is to actually jump upfield to try to play the advanced Jamaican attacker offside, which isn't a terrible idea, but the problem is Lowe can just dribble straight at the field. He doesn't need to pass to that guy. Right, right. So Cannon races to the goal to cut off the dribble because, duh, that's the only thing he can do.

Of course, he overcommits because he's in such a terrible numerical situation and positional situation, be impossible not to. So the guy loops around Cannon who's overcommitted and Cannon sticks the leg out and trips the guy. But what I'm saying is, if anything, like, this foul outside the box is the best possible outcome we could have had given that entire scenario. Okay. Yeah, I don't, I don't, we don't need to fight about it.

I think that's, I think you make a strong case. It was, it was a very clear foul and there was a set piece, like I said, and a couple shots resulted from it, but no goal. And it looks bad. Like the, the, the Star Ocean replay, Canon's the guy who looks bad in the moment. But, you know, there was nothing for him to do. But that lingers in your head. And that's how these things can kind of guide narratives of like Canon had a shocker.

And, oh, there's another howler foul, like giving them their best chance of the game right there at the edge of the box. But I just wanted to point out that probably nothing that Canon necessarily did wrong. And, you know, also, I did say Cannon had a rough night. And I stand by that more or less. But it's also kind of tough on him that he's compared with Sergenio Dest in this. game, which is a nice segue into the next few moments in the game. 31st minute, we get that zigzag run from Dest from, I don't know, maybe 30 yards into our half, and then he just saucily back heels Pulisick into space and Pulisik drives

at the goal and slips Sergeant in behind, but the ball is nicked away by sliding center back. I think it was Pinnock, but I'm not sure. but that run from Dest to get out of pressure. I mean, he beats like three guys. One of them was Ricardo Morris. But it's just so nice to see, so fun to watch. And then, you know, Dest came up big with the opening goal a few minutes later. 34th minute, a Dest curler from outside the box, which you've all seen.

Very well-taking goal, obviously. But I'm going to rewind a lot on this one, not full Zap Rooter, but maybe a half-Zap Ruter. A few moments earlier, Jamaica had hit a diagonal that caught Dest out a little bit. And Mariapa, the right back ran onto it and fizzed the ball across. It was just missed by Andre Gray. So there was this, you know, this constant sense that Jamaica could make us pay. And in this one, Gray just missed it and it trickles all the way through and cannon shields it and plays it up the line a little ways to Raina. And here's where I have to, you know, sort of give more appreciation for Raina's ball security because he is developing.

and young in a lot of ways, but one thing he's fantastic at is winning those 1 v1 battles. He uses his body so well, like you said earlier, and he's in this really tight space over on the right sideline, which would, I think,

a lesser man would wilt in that situation. And he, you know, he just holds onto the ball and he manages to turn his guy and go upfield and wins a throw in when he starts with like his back to his back, you know, facing his own goal. So I think that's, that's just so valuable. It's so valuable, that little

moment of calm that he can bring and, and instead of it being like a turnover and then, you know, Jamaica coming down our throat after almost, you know, meeting the ball in front of our goal. So then there's a throw in. Cannon throws it in to, uh, upfield to sergeant who comes back at the, comes back to the ball, brings it down and lays it off neatly from Musa. And then Musa's got all kinds of space and he he sort of takes a couple touches towards the center of the field and then sprays it wide to Dest who is all alone on the left side and then Desk does the rest he drives forward he cuts in as I think it was legit swinging wide was it legit running wide I want to say it was pool sick in this situation okay okay that's probably right pool sick probably pool sick going wide

with which yeah it was pool of sick for sure has that poolsock has that gravity to him so yeah pool sick goes out Someone's going out with him. Yeah. So it dragged attention that way and then desk cut in, like sort of took a hop step to gather his feet and then curled it in. Really nice goal. Really nice goal. It ends up being a very good assist for Eunice Musa.

Yeah, right. So I think there's a lot to be encouraged about there. But that ability of our fullback to be dangerous, boy, that's different. That's a different level of national team. team, I think. And, you know, I honestly think there was a lot made of Dest and Pulisick playing together out there in their combination. And I honestly, there wasn't actually that much combination of the ball going between them. When the ball was going between them, it was usually just sort of simple standing eight feet away from each other, just kind of pinging it back and

forth. But it was, it was in their movement around each other where when Pulisick goes, and Dest is so willing and able to cut in when Pulisick goes wide. There were a lot of times where Poulosick would stay wide and death would actually cut into the half space. And then, you know, after the, he didn't get the ball there, then he circles his run out wide and Pouselcic can cut in. So there's just going to be this cycle of motion between the two of them. And I think that's going to, if death stays on the left, that could be where we see more of like the actual combination is just how they open the game up for each other with their movement and the respect that the opponent has to pay to them. Yeah. And it does seem like they're still working it out.

They're still working out how to do that, how to play together on that wing. And it's only going to get better. And it's going to be a nightmare. It's going to be a nightmare for opponents to face that. So, man, I'm just really excited about that. And it was in the next passage of play that I started to feel really, really good about this game. You know, you had a lot of items in the first 20 minutes. I had almost none.

but from the goal to the half was just a dominant spell of play from the U.S. And it was a lot of the stuff you've been talking about, but also it was Musa and Acosta, but mostly Musa, just cleaning up everything that sprayed out off of the box. Yeah, Musa and Acosta just cleaning things up, just sweeping it up. Yeah, we were dominant from then till the half. I do want to mention the 38th minute. There's a Pulisic crossed to the backpost for Raina.

Raina didn't move for it. And Pulisic looked at Raina and Raina looked sheepish. It was one of the few times where the shoe was on the other foot for Raina. It takes Christian Pulisick to be able to humble Gio Raina. Right. 42nd minute, Raina drives at the goal and slips Sergeant in behind and Sergeant takes it wide and kind of rounds his guy, sort of a harbend, of things to come and crosses it with his left foot it's cut out and then uh you know there's some

other stuff that happens before the half including that pulisic free kick which he why did he take the free kick instead of rena so i'm i'm sure that pulcic and rain are standing over that free kick and rena is probably the designated taker and pulick's like hey come on like i'm i'm getting pulled at half just let me have this one and rena's like okay sure you take it you take it christian yeah a lot of Aosta disrespect in that equation, you know. I feel like he's probably the best of the three at set pieces. He took one or two of those shots. Yeah.

All right. At the half, Aronson and Richards come on for Pulisic and Long. And that's a big deal for me. I mean, not for me personally, but just watching and what I was hoping to see, because we all wanted to see what Richards could do. And so we got to see 45 minutes of him next to Brooks. But for me, the bigger development was seeing Aronson, inserted as that tucked in left winger for Pulisick because to date he has only played for

Burrhalter as one of the dual pressing eights and I think he is underwhelmed in that space but I think he could be extremely useful as that sort of chaos creating and capitalizing on left winger. Yep and we saw it immediately almost in the 52nd minute Legette dispossesses a guy underrated ability of his and plays. He's Erinson down the left wing in transition. Aronson cuts in on a guy and then weights a perfect throughball to Raina. Raina's touch takes him a little wide and he misses the chance, but, you know, I'm not getting too tied up and knots about that.

Yeah, his touch was suboptimal, but he still managed to actually catch back up to it and get a decent chance on goal. Try to scoop it over the onrushing goalkeeper. Goalkeeper made a nice play on it. And then Raina stayed alive to the play, like in the ensuing scramble, like heads the ball away from the keeper's hands, takes a crack out of it which is left through a bunch of bodies

with no goalkeeper in the frame but misses wide. Potentially deflected. Yeah, I think it was deflected. I think it was a corner, wasn't it? And then we get our goal. We get our second goal. It's Eunice Musa diagonal to Aronson.

You know, we talked to, I should mention this, we talked a lot about Acosta as the 6 and how that seemed to work pretty well. Musa, Musa seems to me like also an option in that role. which is weird because he's a winger for Valencia. It's interchangeable center mids, and there were times in that,

plenty of times in that game where Acosta was upfield, and Musa pretty seamlessly rotated back to hold for him. And it didn't feel like, oh, we're at risk of being exploited because Musa's the six, there's no problem with that happening. And I don't see any situation where McKinney being back there would be an issue either. if it's Tyler Adams starting in that spot and going forward, it really does just feel like we are going to have this committee of central midfielders who might all have some specific individual tendencies,

but overall can basically paper over, patch over any situation that gets thrown at them. Yeah. Yeah, and it's going to be tough to choose. And we have Jackson Ewell. Yeah. It doesn't really fit into that at all. Well, yeah, if you, even setting Jackson Ewell aside, which I'm sure Burrhalter is not doing.

It's going to be tough. It's going to be tough to decide who plays if everybody's healthy. You know, you've got to drop one of Leggett or Musa, you would think. Or Adams? You got to drop one of them. No, I'm the big, I feel like we are, the scuffed pot is the, like, leading legit party. And I think Leget's the guy who gets dropped. But again, like, they're all going to play.

It's three game windows, it's injuries. As soon as we get McKinney and Adams back, I'm sure a couple other guys are going to drop out with, you know, injuries or family weddings or what have you. So it's going to be all of them playing and it's going to be nice to see. Yeah. I'm enjoying looking at my World Cup qualifying 3D roster at the moment. Yeah, I bet you are. It's a musa diagonal to Aronson. Aronson nods it in behind for Sargent, who takes it wide and then shakes his guy, a championship level defender, not one of the Jamaican League.

the dormant Jamaican league guys and curves a left-footed pass into the six for Aronson who's crashing the goal Aronson megs the keeper off the inside of his right shin into the net, lovely goal really and just dessert for Sargent to get that assist because he'd been really good in the game. Yeah and this

I'm gonna, since you already highlighted Sargent's contribution, Erringson does well here and this sort of fits with his pattern at Salzberg which is he flicks the ball forward with his head and then he's not just like, okay now I just wait and watch it and see what Sargent does. Like he's back into the play immediately, which is very much a Salzberg thing, like play forward, run forward, play forward, run forward. So he gets that ball moving and then he has

really good movement in the box first. He flashes towards Sergeant, but as soon as Sergeant has that sort of shake, shake and bake to get around the guy, he flares across the goal to set himself up really nicely to tap in. Yeah. He's been, you know, there was some debate about like, I think Paul Tenorio tweeted it's crazy how Brennan Aronson just became a good player when he moved to Europe. You know, sort of the point being like he was already good when he was at Philadelphia. And I think he actually is better than he was when he was at Philadelphia. Now, he looks better. I mean, you would say it's just because of the role he has on the field?

Well, I think the role he played in yesterday is the optimal role for him. And he's playing roughly the same thing for Salzburg. I mean, I don't know. Again, I thought he was generally underwhelming as an eight because he doesn't dominate the space around him the way that we are seeing Musa and Acosta and obviously Adams McKinney and Legette do. That's not Aronson's game. He's there for, he's there to essentially be jittery. Like we want him being his jittery self. And that's sort of what I'm seeing him be able to do from that left wing spot.

I didn't see enough Philadelphia or his role. wasn't that specific for Philadelphia where I think I could comfortably say that he was the same player, or at least that he was being used in a way that sort of played to that strength. Yeah. Well, he says himself that he's getting better every day, which is kind of a thing that people say. So I guess you take that with a grain of salt. But he says he's learned a ton in Salzburg, and he's gotten better.

And to me, he looks like a more decisive, more dangerous player now than he was three or four months ago, which is not, you know, it's not crazy that that could have actually happened in reality, you know, things change, especially for young players. Yep. Yeah. He did get little brothered a little bit in that game yesterday a couple of times, which I think is going to be a theme with him. He's not the strongest guy.

He doesn't have the best, like, balance when he's up against someone in a physical battle. But, you know, oh, the other thing I'd say then is that unlike Raina, who a lot of times collected the ball sort of looking at Jamaica's set defense, he'd get to face them up. and then do his thing. Aronson didn't have a lot of those moments where he was dangerous. His dangerous moments in that game were in those transition opportunities. And that's where I think he's going to make his living for the U.S. Yeah.

And he passes the ball quickly and accurately and to the right places as well. Okay, nice. So that's how we got our second goal. We had in the 58th minute, Raina, dribbling 70, yards after picking up an errant pass and having a shot. I didn't hate the decision to go it alone, but it was off target. Yeah, I'll highlight sergeant's movement then because it was good from Sergeant. Again, we're looking for this kind of nuance from him.

Raina driving at goal, Sergeant initially sort of flares out to his left in a 2v2, but then makes a decision at some point to cut across Raina's face and doing that dragged his defender with him, which is what leads to that open area for Raina to drive into for the shot. The shot was there. There's some discussion about whether or not the optimal play

would have been to try to slip Sergeant in, which I'm sort of agnostic on the decision. I think that probably could have happened. It would have essentially been, it would have taken the same level of skill and execution to slip him in as it may have to score the goal.

But if he had managed to find that pass, then Sergeant gets to tap in. Yeah. It was a decent shot, not to be redundant with what you just said. So 59th minute, really nice bit of press breaking from the U.S., which is good to see because we've been watching the U-23s in Guadalajara and we watched them against Mexico. They weren't completely hopeless against Mexico's press. They had some decent moments, but they struggled.

And to see us, you know, Richards plays at 30 yards on the ground to Raina, who comes back and makes a deft little touch to Musa. who's surging forward and then Musa swings it wide to cannon. What happened in the attack I don't think was much after that, but we were out of the back despite the back. And again, races on running the other way. Right. 63rd minute Brooks passed it out of bounds.

Just want to mention that to say he did that a couple times and he had that like you mentioned off air, that like 40-yard diagonal right to a Jamaica player. So it wasn't his sharpest game, even though he was really good. I mentioned that one as like the actual one that could have been costly. The ones out of bounds are harmless and just kind of look strange, especially given what we know about John Brooks' ability to play that.

But I still think that people are underappreciating all of the ways that he made it routine, even in that game yesterday, of driving sort of past that first pressuring defender and hitting a nice simple for him, 15 or 20-yard ball through defensive bodies to feet. Like he's not just going to play it around the edge every time to make the safe pass. Like he's getting it into guys who are then able to take it on the half turn and initiate meaningful attack. So if you think he had a bad game, like it may have been a bad game for John Brooks in what we're used to. But he was still vital in our ability to, again, to initiate those attacks in good situations. And it will continue to be vital, like absolutely vital.

65th minute, a bad pass from Richards, gave it away cheaply in Zone 14. I think Long had a similar one earlier in the game, so it's just kind of a wash on those two at the moment. Do you have a strong feeling after this game that it should be Long or Richards starting next to Brooks? No, I don't particularly, and I'm at a point where I don't think there's any real urgency to settle that question. Even with World Cup qualifiers sort of looming, we have the one more window before World Cup qualifiers. because I think both of those players, I think Richards and Long, are going to be totally fine next to Brooks or next to each other to win us World Cup qualifying games.

Yeah. Robinson came on, played a good cross. I thought it was pretty good in the attack, played a good cross. And then on the ensuing corner kick, we see Jamaica's goal. Should I lay it all out? Yeah, let's hear how. how it happened. So on the corner kick, after some kind of quarrel between Sargent and Curtis Tilt from Wigan Athletic, which led to seem like an interminable delay, it's headed away from Jamaica's

goal and held up by Casey Palmer, their number 10, with Anthony on his back. Palmer does just enough to get it past a sliding Eunice Musa, and it goes to Lowe, who gets to it just before Robinson and sprays it nicely to gray into the corner with Canon giving chase. Cannon stands gray up at the corner of the box as Acosta and Richards sprint back and Robinson kind of three quarters runs back. The important things are that Canon gives gray room and time to sort of survey the moment in peace and nobody really takes responsibility to pick up low. You could argue that Acosta Cannon and Richards each should have picked him up and maybe that contributed to the confusion why nobody did because they were all like within the

frame but nobody did and uh and gray megged cannon to play low in accostal lunges forward and misses and low goes wide and chips stephen from a very very tight angle i think the xg on the shot was under 1.1 5 okay uh well taken finish uh really well taken to scoop that ball over over stephen reminiscent of what uh reyna was trying to do on the time he got played in. But yes, I know you have a very mathematical breakdown of the blame and who gets what percentage. I want to take it way further back and say that it was Anthony Robinson's job to make sure no one had any of these situations to deal with.

And this isn't, I don't want to like, again, hit too hard on him, but this is just like an assignment. He basically has the assignment. And I'm talking about the very first ball that gets cleared out of Jamaica's box on our corner kick. Robinson gets on the guy's back. Who was it that it came to? Casey Palmer.

Yeah, he gets on Casey Palmer's back and he's just too honest. Like your job there isn't to try to win the ball cleanly to try to extend our attack and see if we can make something happen. That's not your assignment. Your assignment in that situation for almost everybody on set pieces, every team, is to simply deny your opponent the chance to start running the other way at full speed. And what that almost always means is foul the guy. You foul the guy and if the referee doesn't call it, great.

That's how you get your extra attack in. But it's your job to wrap the guy up like a big bear hug, American football tackle style and pull him down so that no play can continue. Because we just have committed too many bodies forward. John Brooks is up there. He's not going to run anybody down going the other way. It's all about just ending the play so everyone can jog back lightly to set up for the next sequence. I can accept that.

Once that failure was set in motion, I think you can split up the blame in precisely this way. 35% for Stefan. I thought he was hesitant the way he came out at low. 35% for Canon for giving Gray the space and then 10% each for the other three guys, Robinson, Richards and Acosta. That's fair. I will take no further questions. Canaan Acosta could have combined to do better Like once Acosta is back deep

Because Acosta ran behind Cannon to like cover him At that point Cannon is now free to go in And try to take the ball away Or to at least not just let Gray quarterback the way he did And just watch everyone run And then slip the pass in that he wants to slip in Yeah

So yeah I think that's probably about right Richard is I think you have too high I think Richard is only like 6%. Okay so 12 12 each for Acosta and in Robinson. All right, I'm not going to give the timestamps on all these, but there wasn't a cost of giveaway in the center circle

just to show that he didn't have a perfect game. A beautiful Brooks ball to Robinson in the corner in the 75th minute. Robinson plays a square ball right across the box for Jal Kini, who arrives at the spot for it and then kind of skies it into the stands. But you see there what Robinson can give you, and obviously we know what Brooks can give you to find Robinson in that situation. I would say you see that, Joe Keeney is pretty good, pretty active off the ball too.

You know, he's, but, but yeah, he didn't do very well. Is this, is this where I can say that I hate that G.O. Keeney is taking wing minutes in this friendly when Dwayne Holmes exists. Fair enough. Fair enough. I knew it was coming. Kenny, Seth, could have been in there playing right wing for those minutes. Yeah. Yeah, Joe Keeney's not a great fit on the wing.

I thought he, you know, he had, he, he was okay. he did get the assist on Lajette's first goal. Can't argue with his fists. And he did get into two good spots, you know, for someone who doesn't care about finishing, you're sure hard on Nico, you know. It wasn't for missing that. It's just like, I don't, I'm sorry,

I don't think Nico Keeney is going to rack up a lot of minutes at Winger in World Cup qualifying. Yeah, probably not. He might end up with more than Kenny Seth in World Cup qualifying. but I don't think it's going to be a high number. Probably so, yeah. 77th minute Legette wins the ball and breaks forward, slips Joaquin into space, and he hits that early ball across for Sargent, who's just a beat late for it.

I do think a tad more commitment to the run a moment earlier, and Sergeant gets a toe to it. I watched the replay like 80 times. See, I thought switching to a true number nine away from the false number nine was supposed to solve this problem. I thought now that we have Sergeant in there, instead of Legette or Ferreira, we don't have to worry about the forward getting to that ball. Well, you act like I can even remember what I said on the last episode.

No, I just love that Sergeant is going to be asked to do all the same things that Ferreira was asked to do, but it's not a false nine anymore because it's Sergeant doing it and not Ferreira. Yeah. Or Legget. I think Legat was the one that really keyed that controversy. Joe Aquini got another big chance Legette corner and he headed it over in the 79th

83rd minute goal USA Right after Sibichu comes on for his US debut Acosta goes on a ramble And takes a couple loose touches And collides with somebody And it's clear to Delatore And who knocks it to Joe Aquini

Who turns and plays it square across the top of the box For Legette to arrive And tuck it in at the near post Oh so tiredly So it was a nice finish, but also got to mention on this goal and the next one, Legette's box arrival, unsurprisingly, just to master it arriving in a box. Late in games, right? I feel like I kind of see what you're saying, but yes, he does.

It kind of looked like he had a couple of those in the Panama friendly way back when. Well, he just holds his run, holds his run in both cases. And then he made it when the ball comes across, he's just. hits it in stride. And he's got good technique here because, again, that's the same kind of ball that Giochini skied over moments ago coming from the other way. And, yeah, Lejet has shown the technique to take that ball and keep it on target. Yeah.

I think he actually has finishing skill. Yeah, I think so. 89th minute, got to mention this because we had some set piece blues in the game. A Jamaican free kick skitters across the face of goal untouched before it meets an unmarked Curtis Tilt, he who once was in a dispute with Josh Sargent. And Tilt scuffed it right at Stefan. We got lucky there, I think. Joe Keeney lost his mark.

Acosta kind of dove at the ball and missed it, which kind of obscured it from everybody's view before it skipped past them. I think Burrhalter, after the game said we've got to be better on set pieces, and I think that's pretty true. Yep, and I think some of that is going to be assignment-wise. I do think we might be glossing over a bit there how good of a save that was, from from Zach Steffen. Really?

Oh yeah. That wasn't right at him. You're given not enough credit to his footwork to move across as the ball traveled because he doesn't know that it's going to get by everyone either. So he has to react to it late. And then he has to decide what part of his body he's going to admit try to make that save with because it didn't go into his body. He moved his foot out to get it.

Really good save. Not hit well, though, I guess is my point. There were definitely unstoppable shots. available to Curtis Tilt. Yeah. 90th minute, we get our fourth goal. It's Richards heading it forward to Sibichu on, I think it was a goal kick or a long clearance. Seabichu knocks it down, Delatorra pick, Deletore.

This is Luca Deletori. We haven't even mentioned him by full name. Picks it up and dribbles forward. He slows down and then he rolls it across the top of the box for Legette. Again. Legit again holds his run and arrives at the ball. Again, in stride. 4-1 USA.

There you go. Legette is vindicated. So yeah, I do think the game, the game lost a lot of its VIM after the Jamaica goal. Weirdly, Jamaica took low off. And the shift from a sort of championship level squad to a dormant Jamaica League level squad was sort of underway at that point. But still, I mean, I find not very much to complain about. this game.

You? Let's start with things to complain about. No, I've got nothing. I was really, I mean, we kind of went through some of the questions that we had earlier in the episode. And again, when I talk about it like our World Cup qualifying 3-deep, I like adding names to that list because I don't put him on there until I'm like, yes, I'm confident this guy could do a job in qualifying.

So it's nice to like take a Kellyn Acosta and be like, yes, we haven't seen him for the national team in years, but he is, he's right there. Yeah, that's that's that's the big one. I think sergeant's quality in this game answered a big question like can he play real soccer if he's surrounded by quality? And the answer is yes.

Oh, go on, go on. No, that's it. That's it. You go ahead. Sergeant, Sergeant locked in a spot as the number one choice, the first choice striker. Barring a great outing from D.K. This weekend.

Yeah. That was it. I was convinced after 45 minutes. And I was expecting to be convinced. I didn't think Sargent would have a shock or anything. But it was just he hadn't played since the loss to Canada for the national. That's not technically true. He played in the Cuba victory.

Probably scored a goal after the Canada win, after we came back and beat Canada. But I don't really count that game. So his last real meaningful action with US was a nothing performance against Canada. So he hadn't played in sort of our new look style. And so I was really excited to see what he could do in it. And he is going to be good. Yeah, it'll work out, I think. Now, Jamaica's going to be tougher when we face them in World Cup qualifying, for sure.

Like I said, at the top, Bailey, Antonio, Nicholson, and the attack, or probably their best attackers. Andre Gray may be making a claim here. And so also is Jamal Lowe. But then you got to also add Kamar Lawrence at left back, Bobby de Cordova, Reed, and Daniel Johnson, and then Andre Blake in goal. So, you know, good, I don't think this was a bad Jamaica team we played, but it's going to be good. It was a wide range of talent on that Jamaica team.

But it was good to take on a coherent, competent defense. That was, that was for me the best part about this game. Yeah. Because we hadn't seen one of those in a while. And they were, you know, they were sort of bend but don't break until the Sergenio Dest curler. Yeah, they were definitely there to absorb pressure. I'm more excited.

I said this at the top, but I'm more excited about Rain and Mousa after this game than I definitely was before, just because I can see that that cage matchability is going to be a big, big, big asset. Yep, it's huge, again, in those transition moments where we're losing possession, and haven't quite lost it. The other team hasn't quite gotten clear possession. It's huge. And then you pointed out a couple of times

where we played playing out of the back against a little bit of pressure and Raina's ability to win those situations that might seem like nothing plays in the moment. But if you don't have that, then it can be surprising how long the chaos can sort of last and how much of a game can turn into a scramble that you may or may not come out the other side of.

And with Raina, you know you're going to have a big edge in the number of situations you're going to win. Yeah. Yep. Like we said, Acosta was pretty good at the 6th. I guess we covered that. And anything else? I'll add one more thing to the Acosta that I don't think I've mentioned yet,

in that he's good at the 6, but he's also good at the 8. So he could be on your roster build, even for a tournament. He could be your fourth number 8 on the depth chart. And then he could also be a Tyler Adams backup. So that means that if you want to carry like a Jackson-Ule-type player who has a completely different profile than Tyler Adams, you can do that. And then in a game that Adams might not be available for for some reason, you could try to play a more Adams-like player with Acosta. Or you could situationally be like, okay, in this game, no, we want the diagonal specialist, I guess, if kind of that's how we're talking about it. But Acosta kind of gives you that flexibility.

It does make you wonder, like, what does you will do better than Acosta exactly? The diagonal? It'd be the disguised passes. I mean, even the line-breaking passes and probably that range. Yeah, the ball spraying range. Yeah. It's pretty debatable, I think, but yeah. Quick Northern Ireland preview, right?

Yeah, yeah, we can breeze through this. Burrhalter strongly hinting that we'll go three in the back in this game, which makes sense given the personnel we have and also the limits of human biology. Still, even knowing that, though, there's still quite a few questions about who's going to start, mostly on that, based on that human biology part. I guess I'm in the minority, but I feel like anyone who went 65 minutes in the Jamaica game shouldn't be starting in this game against Northern Ireland. It's just too much on their bodies.

And then we know Brooks, Cannon, and Nico are gone. They went back to their clubs. So should we run through what a possible 11 could look like? Yeah. I mean, probably Stefan at the back, right? Stephen in goal. Yeah, because goalkeeper fitness is not a real thing. So he can just play as many games as he wants.

So run him again. I mean, there'll be people out there who want to see Horvath as like a curiosity, but I just would rather have Stefan get the minutes. Agreed. Centerback, it already gets interesting. Brooks and Cannon have gone home, but all of the other defenders are still around. and with the centerbacks since Long and Richard split halves,

I'd say you could start either or both of them still. So all of the centerbacks who are there are available, I'd say. Who do you want to see? I don't really care that much as long as Long and Richards are in the, if it's a back three in the starting lineup. But I guess, I guess Miyazka. I don't know. All right.

As long as Richards is starting, I don't really care about the rest. but I kind of am hoping that we see Ream. I'm the only one who's going to want to see Ream as sort of the John Brooks stand-in at the centerback spot. And then give me long and right centerback because again, I think he's going to be a big part of our qualifying campaign.

I think that's pretty obvious. And I would rather just have them build the consistency in the chemistry rather than giving Eric Palmer Brown a look. Yeah. I've not been super impressed with Eric Palmer Brown from what I've seen, and that's not everything, but, you know, checked in a few games in Austria. He's not clamoring in my mind. He's not demanding a start in this game with his performances. I think for Paul Mouran, maybe quite a few other names who ended up being on this roster,

this might be more of like an Olympic tryout, to be honest, where they get them in camp, get a look at them and see if they'd be worth bringing to a pre-Tokio camp, guys like Cappington, and Otisoe. I don't know how to pronounce it. So I'm just switching it to Cappington. I'm going with the full formal last name. His dad always spells it C-A-P-B-Y

on Twitter so we can just call him Cappy. Okay. All right. That's what the kids call him all he's playing. So yeah, so I don't again, not two-plused. Whoever we see as long as Richard's name is on that first 11, then I'm going to be good. Wingbacks. What about wingback?

I'll break from you and say I want to see Dest and Robinson because like let's just let's just see what it looks like because that's why we're doing this right more or less yeah I think I think maybe we can get away with starting desk you went like 60 in that game against Jamaica so if not Dest then it I'd be fine with Reynolds yeah and it just seems like that'd be too much right to just throw Reynolds on right now you mean it's a meaningless friendly but still just feels like you might not be setting setting the guy up for success to give him the start so more like a 10 minute curve courtesy cameo.

Yeah. If he starts, I'll just trust that Burrhalter thinks he's ready and we'll be excited for it. I mean, this is going to be a pretty weakened Northern Ireland side too, right? They have two World Cup qual-this is in the middle of two World Cup qualifiers. And, yeah, you've got to imagine they're going to be trotting out some kind of experimental roster. Yeah, it's true. But this game's on big, big fox. This is, everyone's going to be watching this.

The whole country is getting behind us for this game. Yeah, right. I wish, you know, we got some work to do on that front. Center mids, so this is a really tough one because Legette and Acosta both went 90 minutes. And they are out of season totally and counterintuitively, like some people are like, oh, well, they aren't tired then. They're fresh. But I don't think it works that way at all.

Like their bodies are absolutely not ready to go another 90 minutes or to start, I don't think, in this game. So I'd be a little worried to see either of them in the starting lineup. Musa went 70, so he's cutting it really close on my super scientific, arbitrary minutes counter. Who do you go with for your two center mids here? I'm also, I should also say, I'm banking on it being a 3-2-4-1 and not like a 352. Okay.

I think you got to have you got to have Musa in there. That's my feeling on it. Musa and who partners with him? Boy, I don't know. I don't know. I kind of want, if Luca Deletore is going to get a start here, I'd rather it be on the wing. There are no wingers. We got Reynolds and Deaths doing that.

But if it's a 3, 4, 2, 1, like sort of a tucked-in winger, you know? If it's a 3, 4-2-1, he's like an attacking mid, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's what I mean. What worries me or what I feel like would be really risky, kind of the same as with Reynolds starting would be to give the keys to Cappington or O'Dosoe, because I feel like the game could get very Guadalajara Z very quickly, and we just wouldn't be able to link from,

back to front, but, you know, I'd be happy to be proven wrong by anybody who I have doubts about. Yeah, you have doubts about, you should be clear about you having doubts about Otisoui, because this is a thing that I think a lot of people on Twitter maybe don't, aren't totally keyed into, they see that he plays for wolves occasionally, and they're like, well, you know, he must be awesome. And it's, to me, it seems like it's a little bit more of a, more analogous to like an Indiana Vasselov situation than, uh, then, uh, then, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, Raina at Dortmund situation, you know.

Yeah, and Otis Owe was one where we didn't really have any footage of him going into his Wolves debut, so it's not like we could build anything up on how he played. With some of the other guys, we get to see him playing for their three league a team or their, you know, young Iax or young PSV, and it was just going in blind. And so you're kind of relying fully on the eye test and how wolves, how much wolves seem to trust him. and he's never passed the eye test for me. I thought he was real shaky, even before his spectacular shakiness

in his most recent appearances for Wolves. But any game he's played in, he doesn't look like a natural central midfielder at all. So I've been really reluctant to think of him as a guy who's ready right now. It doesn't mean he can't turn a corner or flip a switch at some point development-wise, but very, very dicey as just a general soccer player.

I mean, maybe we should root for him to play just so we can, you know, A, watch him turn that corner in real time, or B, get the information we need to say, like, hey, chill, chill out about O and O to So 8 for just a little while. I wouldn't hate it. And, again, hopefully he gets in the game regardless and has a good, has a good run at it, good experience. How old is he, like 19? He would have been U20 eligible, but for the tournament being canceled. So, again, he's a child. Let's I just that's that's one of the reasons I don't want to start him before he's ready and then Sort of wreck the entire game model in game plan and right and we can't accomplish what we want to accomplish

Yeah yeah so I I guess I'm kind of agnostic on that I I Musa slash Acosta would probably be my favorite but you know costa did go 90 so Musa and whoever Greg Berhalter deems the appropriate choice. All right. So let's talk about the dual tens then. I'm calling them dual tens in the 3-2-4-1 or the 3-4-2-1. Yeah.

I mean, Pulisic we know is going to be on the left, right? And then D.K. Up top. Hopefully. So D.K. was left out of the Jamaica game with an injury is kind of what the report was. So I think the best case is that that was like extra precautionary since they knew they were starting sergeant anyway to just let D.K. get to full full strength and then hopefully we see him start.

But that's certainly not a given. Right. And if it's not him, it's going to be probably Sibichu, maybe Joe Keeney. Joe Kini's gone. Joe Keelef's left. Oh, okay. It'd be Cibichu or sorry. And that might be why Burrhalter gave him those minutes on the wing yesterday

because once we brought Siaabichu in, maybe Joe Kini was no longer in the plans at all. So you wanted to give him something. That's, it could, it, it, there's a lot of things. Yeah. Okay. So, so, so it's, so it's probably going to be, it's going to be D.K. or Siebichu starting. And then that right, that right wing, that right tucked in attacking mid, whatever you want to call it, I guess I'd like it for it to be Aronson. Yeah, Aronson and Poulousex split half.

So they both have, they both qualify by my, by my assumption. So let's see those two play together. Raina can come on for the last 30. take Poulosik out. They're both going to get little brothered a lot, unlike Raina. But that's okay. Poulisick doesn't get little brother, man. Poulisic gets either chopped down or he blows past you.

I feel like those are usually the outcomes with Poulosick. He sometimes gets little brothered. It happened once or twice. So let's wrap this up. Are you good? I mean, do any closing thoughts? I mean, I just want to say I'm super excited now about the, and totally unironically.

really excited about the national team. I think things are on a good trajectory. Good trajectory. I think so even our chronology today, the fact that it went so long and had so many events and entries, I think it's kind of a sign that like little things are working. And I think as we get used to that,

our chronology will start cutting out some of that because it'll just be like good noise and the big moments will actually be the only ones that make it instead of, oh, we connected two passes in the box and got a shot off. What an incredible thing to see happen in a U.S. soccer game. Right.

Yeah, because it hasn't been the case. The ideas have not become reality under Barraltar yet, but I feel like we saw that a little bit more consistently for the first time yesterday. Turning the corner. All right. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll see you.