Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 86: Gold Cup — USA v Jamaica, plus a look ahead to Mexico

Episode Date: July 5, 2019

Easily the most pleasing to the eye performance from the USMNT in the Berhalter era. We break it down and look ahead to Mexico on Sunday. Thank you to Away Days Football for being our first sponsor! Check out awaydaysfootball.com and their very cool Mystery Kit product. You pay $25, you pick your jersey size, and a few days later you receive an official club jersey in your size from somewhere in the world. You don’t know where, or what club, until you open the package. It’s a mystery! And they have lots of other cool stuff too. Use the promo code "Scuffed" for 15 percent off your entire purchase. awaydaysfootball.com Scuffed is on Patreon and we're trying to ramp up the patron-only content to make patronage even more worthwhile. It only costs $2 per month to support the podcast at the base level: https://patreon.com/scuffed 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 Belles in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. The USA beat Jamaica 3-1 in the Gold Cup semis, and in a lot of ways it was the kind of performance we've been waiting for from Burrhalter and the boys, wasn't it, Greg? Bells, it was exactly the kind of performance I've been waiting for.

It was not perfect. It was messy at times, but it was a real comfortable, I shouldn't go that far. It felt like it was going to be a very comfortable victory for Greg Burhalter, our boys, and the system. Yeah, particularly, I mean, there's much to talk about in this game, but one big thing is the weather delay. The first 15 minutes were electric from the U.S.

It wasn't always wonderful in the attacking third, and that's going to be, I think, probably a bit of an issue for this group of players. in perpetuity, but, but it was, you know, we had three really good chances in the first 10 minutes, one of them resulting in a goal, two really good chances in the first four minutes. It was, we came, we came flying out of the gate. Yeah, flying out of the gate. And that's, that's where I think it's such a good, like a perfect demonstration of what,

of what we wanted from a Greg Berhalter team. And that is, we know the quality isn't always going to be. Perfect. It's not going to be always ruthlessly executed once we create certain chances, but we created those chances. And I think the movement and the interchange and the system, if I'm just going to keep referring to that, was large part responsible. Yeah. Okay. So let's get into it. Let's start with the lineups. How did the USA line up and what were the surprises? All right, so the lineup that was tasked with implementing the system for the U.S., and it's an asymmetrical sort of a system that we're running, so I'm going to kind of give it front to back based on our shape in possession, Zach Steffin and goal, and then sort of the three-man back line left to right, Tim Ream, who's been doing that job all tournament, Aaron Long, sort of in the middle,

and then Matt Miazga, somewhat surprisingly, gets the nod over Walker Zimmerman, as a sort of right centerback. And again, this is what our shape is in possession. Yep, yep. Yeah, and I thought, I thought Miyazga played very well. I think we said this on the last podcast, or at least I did. Miaska was very good against, was it Panama? Yeah, against Panama.

Probably our best player on the field that night. So I was happy to see him rewarded with that. Even though Zimmerman's had far from a bad tournament, I think he's been mostly okay too. Is it fair to say, though, you don't have any strong feelings one way or the other if it's Miazga or Zimmerman right now on the hierarchy? I guess my only strong feeling is to reject the idea that there should be a strong feeling in favor of Zimmerman.

That's fair. That's fair. I maybe slightly prefer Miazga. Yeah. Here's why. I feel like he's a little more. Zimmerman's just a little wild in possession. That's my opinion.

That's right. That's what you've said about him, right? Like you're excited about something good happening, but you're also excited that something bad could happen. Yeah, exactly. And with Miazga, mostly just kind of good normal stuff happens, you know? Okay. All right. Is long ahead of, is long ahead of all of them then for you? Yeah, we can get into this too later, but I thought he was outstanding, outstanding against Jamaica on Wednesday night. And it's probably the second centerback on the team sheet when John Brooks is healthy. And he's the first one for me when Brooks is not healthy, which

probably is going to be the case for a fair amount of the time. Okay. We'll get into some of the individual sort of assessments later. Keeping up with the lineup then, I'm saying that we're, I'm describing it as a box midfield in sort of our conversations where we have two players sort of at the base of the midfield. And this is a slight wrinkle compared to what it was in January and March. But I think it's been fairly consistent through the tournament.

Michael Bradley and Weston McKenney sort of dropping from that 8-10 role into more of an six roll, I'd say. Yeah. For the Gold Cup. Yeah. Maybe no surprise. This was his best performance in a U.S. shirt because he had a little more of the field in front of him and he was able to get on the ball more from that deeper position.

So who are the front two corners of the box? So this is a little counter-tuitary, but it's Christian Pulisick, which I think everyone recognizes is one of those tens. And then it's Jordan Morris and Tyler Boyd was kind of doing the same shift. even when he was starting, but it's, I mean, we were kind of programmed to think of that as the right winger, but they've been coming well inside and operating more as a 10 or at times even like a second striker. But mostly I'd say they're filling that central, or did you refer to it as an inverted right wing? Yeah, that's my, that's what I was going to say.

It's rather than having an inverted right back, you have an inverted right wing and you achieve the same shape simply by pushing the right back very far forward, which is... So there we go, yeah. Reggie Cannon nominally... Reggie Cannon takes over from Nick Lima in this game. You could... Most people would probably list him as a right back, but in possession, he's very much sort of a right winger. He's high and he's wide,

and he's definitely doing a different job than Tim Rima's the left back. Yeah, and a different job than Nick Lima did in January camp, or Tyler Adams did in his one, you know, his one appearance in the Burrhalter system in March before he got hit with the injury bug. Right. So Cannon doing a different job than Nick Lima, so he's definitely not a mirror image of Ream. I'm sorry, Canon doing a different job than Ream,

not a mirror image. And then obviously doing a very different job from Paul Ariola, who was our left winger. So Cannon is still, the right back still plays a hybrid role, but it's a right back right wing spot. Paul Areola very much just sort of a left wing. Yeah.

It's kind of cool to think that we can do it. We can, we, we, we now have all these sort of different looks within this framework, depending on personnel, like DeAndre Yedlin could play the role that Reggie Cannon played on Wednesday. We're recording. Sergino, Dest could play the role that Reggie Cannon is playing. Yeah, Desk could do either role, right? I mean, Des, desks would probably be comfortable with either role. You can imagine different, different types of right-wingers could be that inverted right-

wing. It doesn't seem like a role especially well suited for Jordan Morris to tuck inside and create, but I know a player whose last name rhymes with Folezma. Amazing.

Very, very bad. I'm not editing this podcast at all, so this is just we're going with it. Who could be that sort of a right winger who tucks in and functions as a 10 And a lot of – I actually had – I had no idea you were going to go to Ledzman route there because I thought you were going to, like, cater to me and named Tim Way. I thought it was going to be Tim Way. I was going to be the guy because I've been the one who's been like, I think Tim Way I could be a 10. Timway could do that job for sure. Yeah, he could – it's sort of a – sometimes you find yourself wide, sometimes you find yourself central. And because of the change up in the target striker in this game, Josie Altador, instead of –

Jaziz artists. Sometimes when Altador comes back to the ball, you find yourself attacking beyond him and becoming a nine, which I think everyone agrees Tim Waya is capable of. Yeah. So just to round out the lineup, yeah. That's, yeah, that's the line of. Arioa on the left wing, Altador up top. Big, big difference. If we can just get right into it. I know Cannon, Morris and Miyazga are all different, sort of, they're not exactly like for like with the guys that came in for. But I'd say the, the most dramatic difference between starter and replacement was Altador and Zardos. No doubt.

I mean, it changed the way we played. It changed the way we could play, changed the way we did play. And it was nice to see. It's sort of exactly what you've been saying for months that without a hold-up striker who can come back to the ball and receive it and lay it off in stride for the midfielders streaming forward. the whole system sort of grinds to a halt and that's what's what's been doing with sardis at striker now we got out we had we got this one chance to see altador in there against a pretty good team not an amazing team but a pretty good team and it just clicked right out of the gate let's yeah we've been getting we've been getting dinged for being a little bit negative and i just feel

like this is the game that sort of uh shows why at least i was being so negative for the past i mean Zardos has played seven in the last eight games or whatever it is for Burr-Alter. And this is why, because we saw all these potential positives that the U.S. could have been, you know, playing. And I just felt like so many of them were unrealized or they couldn't, nothing could materialize beyond the first three or four passes of any sequence because it would just collapse around Giazzi's touch. And so I was so excited to see Altador stepping in here with the first team. And then, again, I feel like Altador, I didn't even think Altador had a perfect game. And that's another reason that I'm really optimistic about the system is Altador wasn't spectacular.

He was a little loose at times too. I would say it was a very run-of-the-mill game for Josie Altador. And even then, the difference in quality, the difference in what the players around him could do and how dangerous they could be, it was just night and day. And that's what's really encouraging to me for the big picture of this program. Right, right. We were overwhelming to Jamaica in the first 15 minutes before the thunderstorm hit. Let me give the Jamaica lineup real quick before we move into the action.

Andre Blake, the Philadelphia Union goalkeeper in goal. He's a well-regarded MLS goalkeeper. And then across the backline, Elvis Powell. He plays at FC Cincinnati, Michael Hector at centerback, who plays in the championship, I think, at Sheffield Wednesday. Sean Francis, the other centerback, he's at Louisville City FC in USL. Kamar Lawrence, he plays left back for the Red Bulls and is widely considered one of the better leftbacks in Major League Soccer. Then you got Junior Fleming's and Leon Bailey as the attackers, and I think they switched places, they switched wings throughout the game and kind of all over the front three.

Leon Bailey, of course, is kind of a star at Bayer-Levacuz and didn't have his best season last year, season before that he was outstanding and you know was linked was linked with all kinds of clubs um fleming's plays in us l too usel as well i should say and then giovon watson um devon williams in the midfield and uh pete lee vassel and darren maddox were the attack the strikers sort of um maddox of course plays at fc cincinnati along with powell that's the worst team in major League soccer. And then Vassel is a bench option, who hasn't even gotten any minutes lately for MLS juggernaut, L-AFC. So, you know, before we get too carried away with what undoubtedly was the most pleasing to the eye performance from the U.S. at this Gold Cup, it should be mentioned that four of

Jamaica starters are playing in U.S.L, two play for the worst team in MLS. One, isn't getting minutes for his MLS club. And then, you know, you got a guy in the championship. Two very good major league soccer players and then Leon Bailey at Byr-Levacuzin. So it's not like this is not, this is not a world-class opponent, of course. It's not even, you know, it's a, it's a low-level opponent in a lot of ways. It is, it is. And this is, yeah, absolutely. And this isn't us trying to be a wet blanket.

This is very much more of, you know, what I heard people talking about with the Curacao game, which was, oh, it was we didn't play well, but we found a way to win. Like, this is more what I want to see. don't play perfectly, but we find a way to win comfortably. I mean, we're playing Jamaica at home. We got to win these games. And this is more like it shouldn't take a perfect performance or finishing our one chance, or both, you know, our two chances to beat Jamaica at home.

We should dominate the game. We should have a bunch of chances. And then even if we get a little bit unlucky in Jamaica breakthrough once or twice, we still comfortably win. Yep, yep. So let's get into the scoring. Yeah, let's get into all these chances. So right in the second minute, Pulisic receives a ball from Ariel on the left side,

roasts two guys, and then fizzes a ball at Altador that was a little too hot for Altador to handle right inside the six. Pulisic was dynamic, especially to start the game. He was in top form, dribbling at people and just beating people. his quickness and his athleticism really on display. Third minute, Jamaica had a chance. Real quick, just because I want to highlight this one too, because I want to give Jordan Morris his due for the chances he was helping with because I didn't think he had a great game,

but I want to make sure I balance that out. After that ball went off Altador's Sye from Pulisick, Jordan Morris did an excellent job of chasing it down before it crossed the end line and actually had like an overhead kick to put it back across. And Altaur and Ariola, either of them would have scored if they were the only person there, but because they were both there, they sort of held up their attempts thinking the other guy was going to hit it. Or Ariola just simply put Altador off, which strangely Aureola is like, does commonly, interferes with other players who are about to score.

So that one chance was actually two really good chances. And Morris, if we finish that, everyone's talking about Jordan Morris, overhead cross. Yeah. Well, one thing you can't gain safe about either Morris or Areola is their work rate and their physical intensity. They both bring a lot of that. But we'll get into them more.

Jamaica Chance in the third minute, a free kick that flashes just past Darren Maddox. That was a little scary right there to start the game. But that was really the last time we would hear from Jamaica before. The rain fell in Nashville. Fourth minute. This one I really enjoyed. Stefan, a long kick from Stefan. I can't remember if it was a goal kick or just.

Goal kick. Yep, it was a goal kick where they were denying us the short options. Okay. And he puts it right on Altador's head. And Altador nods it expertly to Morris wide. And all of a sudden it's a three on two. Morris dribbles into the box and then hits a cross. across the six-yard box, it slips past Altador, who's kind of crashing on goal and falls to

Ariola, who takes what can only be described as a heavy touch and thrashes it into André Blake, probably should have scored there. But Ariola's first touch failed him quite a few times in this game and canceled out a lot of the danger we were creating, I thought. Yeah, yeah, it was one of those things where Ariola, did a lot of good things right to get himself into those dangerous positions, then somehow just not kind of lacks just that last bit of quality to capitalize on his own work. And I don't think he had a good game.

I am going to have some praise for Areola here. So, you know, before you fire up the iTunes review and accuse us of being too negative, I do think Ariel does some good things. And there's a conversation to be had about whether he, maybe we should just have it right now. Let's do it. Let's have the ariola conversation if that's what it's going to be.

Yeah, because his touch was heavy. But, but, and he didn't have the quality to finish plays like he just mentioned. But, you know, he had a couple of nice passes. He was getting into good spots to be an outlet for the centerbacks when Jamaica started manmarking McKinney and Bradley. I thought he helped solve that problem. And there was one in particular where he drew a foul that ultimately preceded the McKinney goal, I believe, or no, preceded the Morris goal. Morris didn't score a goal, folks. Preceded the Pulisic goal that followed the Morris hit on frame.

Here's why this is Austin Bells, because all of those people were heavily involved in that goal and Pulisic's second goal. And that's why you're like almost subconsciously. crediting McKinney, crediting Morris, and then ultimately Pulisik scores it. Because that's how we're playing now, where multiple players are vital to any sequence that creates a chance. Yeah, I mean, so the point about Ariel, I guess my question about Ariel is he has a problem finishing plays. He's not great in the attacking third. But do we need him? The other thing he did really well is he blocked Leon Bailey's shot.

So he tracks back, he works his butt off. and you know nothing's going to come easy down his side. So do we need, can you have another sort of Cadillac attacker, Pulisic-like attacker, lining up at left wing if you have Pulisic in this, in this drifting 10 spot on the left side of the box of the midfield box? You know what I'm saying? Right.

Or is Ariola a key part of that, and then whatever we do get from him in the final third is just kind of gravy? Exactly. Yeah. I think we're going to have to find that out. Unless he, I mean, I think we have to test that. I don't think we should just sit with Ariola and say, well, he hasn't played himself out. And in fact, he's been, I mean, he was very involved in the third goal as well,

seen as how he had the shot on target. So it's not like, and the other real strength for Ariola is his, currently is his movement with pool sick. Their dynamic that they've sort of established in their easy rhythm. and rotating and creating those lanes and seams for each other, whoever takes his spot, even if they're a slightly more polished player in the box, will have to also offer those other qualities. I mean, he's like, one way to think about it is he's pool six sidekick,

and he's happy to be the sidekick, you know. He doesn't have to be the main man, and he does the dirty work, and he moves off the ball, and he helps solve problems. but I'm with you I want to test it out I mean I would love to see what like a player like Ullianez obviously Yanez is a ways out from this

he needs to get first 10 minutes first but how would a player like Ollianez fit next to Pulisic it would certainly be more dangerous in the attacking third you know if he comes if he comes good but it's really hard to imagine a player like Ullianez running all the way back into the box

and sliding to block a Leon Bailey shot. Just can't see that right now. I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. And it will be very difficult for someone to displace Paul Ariola, much as we might not think of him as sort of a world class or international caliber player or a key international caliber player. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. That was in the fourth minute, the Areola chance that didn't, that he missed or he, that was blocked. or that was blocked by Blake. Six minute, two minutes later, Pulisic fires up the roaster again and pulls one, beats a couple guys, pulls one across the box, Morris and Altador make the same run,

and Bradley and McKinney don't arrive in the box, and the ball just kind of skitters through. A minute after that, another U.S. chance, a long, clever passing sequence that leads to the Reggie Cannon miss on the far post. It's keyed by a really good person,

pass from Areola on the left wing to Altador in the middle of the field. That was kind of the moment that broke it open. And then Altador is some nice interplay with Bradley, and I think McKinney may have been involved too. And then there's a really bad pass from Jordan Morris. He tries to chip it over the back line and kind of gets it all wrong. But the Jamaican defenders also get it wrong, and I think collide with each other.

and it falls to Cannon and he just blasted into the side netting I'm not expecting him to be clinical in that spot and he wasn't no no the best the best part of that sequence for me and again it's because we've just gone seven games

with watching Zardez was Altador's just composure on the ball I believe it was Altador who played the ball to Morris and then Morris did try to hit try to hit like a one touch on like a one two that didn't exist no one was running And he just sort of, yeah, he clipped his first touchover. But it was, it's Altador having the strength and composure on the ball because he didn't play it immediately.

He was on the ball for, you know, some finite amount of time that we couldn't get from Giazzi's Ardas. And he picks out Morris, Morris's feet and then, and then Morris did his, made his poor decision. But yes, definitely qualifying is a good chance. Yeah. And then the goal came. And it was, it was a beauty. I was really, really pleased with this goal. It was almost cathartic for me in the Bell's household.

Bradley plays a diagonal to Cannon, and it was a good ball from Michael Bradley, credit where credits do. Cannon hits it first time right across the box, and Altador is in position to receive it with his back to goal. We don't know if Altador heard McKinney yell at him to leave it, or if Altador miscontrolled. it or if he just decided to leave it on his own.

But it slips through to McKinney, who's running full tilt right at the goal. And he takes a touch that kind of kills the ball into his path. And it sort of spins up, takes a bounce, and he just strokes it on the half folly inside of his foot. Passed Andre Blake, who is leaning to the near post. And it's a goal. One zero USA. And I loved it. I thought it was a, man, what a good.

great first touch from McKinney. Nice finish, too. And we were really flying at that point. Yeah, and with this goal, I've seen this pointed out in other places, too, like this is, this seems to be like a repeatable pattern for the U.S. because we had nearly identical situations. You'll have to remind me which game it was, but on one of them, it was a McKinney ball over diagonal ball to Zardez.

Zardaz then headed back across the six, and I think Ariola met the goalkeeper, and we didn't score. But then in the same game, Bradley hit that same ball to Nick Lima, who nodded across the six-yard box, and Zardaz did get there to score. Yeah, that was both of those chances were against Trinidad. There we go. So, I mean, this looks identical, right? This is a carbon copy. It's Bradley, with that nice diagonal floated ball to the wide player, the weak side wide player, who first times it just back across the six, trusting that somebody will be attacking that space.

and we happen to have two people attacking the space really well. Yeah, and it seems like the whole team is really keying into that now and moving quickly to attack that space. 12th minute, 12th minute, three minutes after this, USA got another chance, and this was a Pulisic free kick. I forget the foul that led to it, but I think it was Pulisic who was fouled. It often is in the other teams attacking third. Yeah, it was.

I think they stepped on Pulisic's foot as he was attacking in space. space. Okay, okay. And his free kick was pretty close, saved by Blake at the near post. Oh, you know what happened? Poulsook took it off a bad pass, right? Or a bad touch from Jamaica? Yeah, it was a somewhat toothful press from the U.S. Cohesive. It was a cohesive press. Yeah, that's what happened. McKinney was running at the goalkeeper, forced a quick pass to one of the defenders, and then the defender was under some duress

and Pulisic nicked it off him and then it was Sean Francis and then Francis fouled Pulisic immediately. And you know it's cohesive because it was on the, it was on like the right half of the, right at the corner of the 18 yard box on the right side of the field and Pulisick plays on the left. I mean, so Pulisic was, we were all anticipating what was happening.

And Pulisick had shifted 35 yards over to the ball side to, just in case, you know, we can get on it and he got on it. encouraging to see a little bit of sharpness in that respect, given how little sharpness there was in our press of Curisle. I think to your point last week, it's because we weren't really pressing at all, right? Right, right. Yeah.

Okay, so then the referee looks at his iPhone watch and sees that thunderstorms are coming in. And the game was delayed for what felt like forever. It was, what, an hour and a half, something like that? Yeah, 90-minute delay. So then we come back 90 minutes later in the 16th minute to resume the game. And it was a different game at this point. Jamaica came out.

What did you see from Jamaica that was different after the break? So they basically, their line of confrontation, instead of running like a normal one-man target or one-man sort of up to dictate play, they basically didn't bring anybody up in their line of conference. confrontation was four players in like a four-man spread-out wall that was sort of almost like marked up with Bradley, McKinney, Ariola, and Cannon. So they basically just marked our first line of players beyond the back three. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So they had just had a four-person wall from sideline to sideline. So why weren't we able to find Poulosick and Morris in

that second line and they're just too difficult to make that pass. Yeah, it was really clogged up. And I think it was hard to see. I don't know if you saw that, if you felt this way, but the actual camera angle on TV didn't go beyond those guys. So you just saw sort of Bradley McKinney and then the everyone else was out of the frame. I assumed that they were also, and I've seen some things saying that they were also tight on Josie Altador because they were sick of him coming back to just

received a ball so easily. My thought was, even watching it, was that there had to have been space for us to sort of float balls into the channels. Like, I know that gets into like, it looks like more direct soccer rather than the clean, tidy stuff that we want to play. But if a team's going to take away one thing, they're giving you something else and you've got to start taking what they give you. And I think we did start to hit some of those sort of lofted balls into, I mean, into, like,

wide open spaces in the channel. Because Jamaica's sort of four-man line of confrontation there is not, is a pretty unorthodox way of defending. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe Jamaica added a couple players. Like, maybe they're playing with 13. Yeah.

I mean, there's a reason you don't see teams running a four-man line of confrontation is because you can play beyond that line. And then again, it turns into that race of once you've played it over him, can McKinney outrun his man marker into the space? and I'm sure we'll get into it one of those chances here in a little bit. Well, okay, 21st minute was, it took us a little while to get back into it, but we got a chance. Ariello won a free kick on the left wing,

and then Pulisic took the free kick. And he, it was a good, it was a well-hit free kick, and Aaron Long met it well and flicked it, you know, a snap header sort of flicked it on and missed the far post by just a yard or two at the most. It was nicely done by him. And man, he was solid all night, which we talked about earlier. 23rd minute, Jamaica got a chance. And this is the point where I'm going to introduce the wart on Weston McKinney,

who I thought, I don't want to use the word masterclass, because that's a word with a lot of freight. But he was excellent on Wednesday night. He played the game that I've been waiting for him to play, with the exception of this wart, which in the 10th, Ten minutes after the weather break, he did have two pretty bad giveaways, both in our defensive third. And, you know, like I've been saying for months, for now, that's just part of the package with McKinney. You're going to get a couple of bad giveaways every game.

And these two were bad, and one of them led to this chance I'm about to describe. He tried to dribble past Devon Williams, and he was punished. It fell to Junior Fleming's, and Junior Flammings took a touch and ripped one from 20 yards. It drew a credible save from Zach Steffen diving to his left. And I thought, go ahead. Do we, is this sort of loose play from McKenney? Is that something that you think is going to get cleaned up? Or do you think we'll just always, or does he, is that just, do we, does he, do we have to

accept that level of sort of looseness to get the good stuff too? And I don't mean like, it's just because that's, he, he's a player who has both of those traits. I mean, are they connected? Are the quality moments connected to his willingness to take whatever the risk was that he took there? Or do you think we can be like, no, you don't need to take that risk right there? And that's not going to – cleaning that up isn't going to eliminate the strengths that you also bring. Yeah, I think they are sort of the yin and the yang of West McKinney to some extent. Like, he does – he is a little bit reckless because he is just more confident.

he's a more confident player on the ball than than any of our other midfielder's except for maybe Pulisic and he's certainly a more confident passer than Pulisic I mean he tries passes that nobody else tries um right pool six confidence takes the shape of like him trying to dribble around that defender taking a short touch around himself to try to beat somebody right

is that you're thinking and pulisic can do it he can just he can just push it past the guy and he's he's passed him before the defender has even sort of considered the possibility and McKinney doesn't have have that electrifying quickness that Pulisic has. But I think, you know, I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. It seems to me, McKinney can, over time, he's only 20 years old, can over time learn to like calculate the risks and rewards a little better in every situation.

And maybe one day, maybe Sunday night. We'll see him play a game where he does all the good things we like to see. And there are zero giveaways. because this was striking to me because it was just these two moments. It was two moments that he did not, that he was not excellent tonight. Not tonight, Wednesday night. Sure. I'm mostly with you.

I think at 20, you know, he's basically played, I mean, he was a rotation guy two years ago for Shalka, and then he was a main starting player last year. So one and a half professional seasons under his belt, I think it's very likely that we'll see him sort of improve his calculations because I don't want to be like too down I'm not going to be super negative but you give you make those two mistakes against Mexico in a game and that's that's like two more mistakes than you're sort of allowed to make quite you know I mean like in games in in championship games

against the other regional power you you probably can't get away with making that mistake even once yeah yeah they were so bad they were really bad giveaways like put the whole team at risk. Okay. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. 30th minute, we got another U.S. chance. A long entry pass to Altador, long being Aaron Long, in this case. And I note that because he was the one more than Miyazka, I thought, playing the passes through the lines that sort of got things going. Josie lays it off for Bradley In the way we talked about last week

Where Zardis isn't capable of this But he lays it off for Bradley Bradley plays a clever ball behind for McKinney And McKinney takes a touch around the keeper And tries to chip it across Ariola met it with his head and hit it well wide I don't know that McKinney meant to hit it at Ariola I feel like maybe he was going for Morris or Altador

Further behind But Do you think McKinney should have just shot the ball in that case? Yeah. I mean, I think one replay McKinney will feel that way too because he was under no pressure and the angle wasn't super sharp. I mean, it's not a great angle if you're dealing with a goalkeeper.

But the goalkeeper was on the ground still at the penalty spot. You fire that ball at the roof of the net. Yeah. You don't even do the curled chip, Giota Santos. Like, you just smash it into the roof and you score there. Yeah. But the buildup, though, bells. Yeah, talk to me about it.

Tell me more. So even just before that game, before the lineup was announced, I'd posted the thread of, I actually put it together of Zardez's inability to reliably connect with the midfielders and find that layoff when he's playing back to goal that Josie Altador found to Michael Bradley. And it put Bradley in stride and it let Bradley pick out the exact pass. And Bradley could hit it with the weight that Bradley's capable of. And Bradley hit a really well-weighted ball in that sort of was in the exact right spot to tease the goalkeeper into thinking he can come get it and still allow McKinney to beat him to it. So we have to be able to have somebody who can do that.

I don't even know if Josie Altador is the only striker who can do it, but Zardez is not that striker. But yes, it also is a good example of how we can beat Jamaica's man marking system. because when the ball goes into Altador, Bradley is able to race past his man Marker, who is sort of on the, you know, he's ball watching Aaron Long. So when the ball goes into Altador, Bradley can run in behind him as he turns to watch the ball into Josie.

And then McKinney beats his man as well. So you have both our midfielder's beating their man markers to join the attack as that ball's being fed into Altador. Yeah. Yeah, it's a little like, it's a little bit like the Mexico goal against Germany on the counterattack, you know, Cheecher Retail comes running back into the center circle and then lays it off and then boom, everybody's off to the races.

Right. Yep. And it's just a foot race at that point. And we are facing the right way when the foot race starts and Jamaica's players are facing the wrong way. Yeah. All right. So that was our last really good chance of the first half. We started to get a little more traction, like started to get a little more hold of the game.

my thought in the last five minutes. I think credit to Landon Donovan for mentioning that in the halftime show. But yeah, I thought we made some progress. And part of it was, part of it was Paul Areola and I don't know who else, but definitely Areola coming back

and finding pockets of space to receive passes from the centerbacks when McKinney and Bradley weren't available. Before we move to the second half, so now we're to halftime. Anything more than the first? first half. No, I think that's, I think that was, I mean, think of how many chances we listed off for the first half, and that's despite Jamaica being able to try to change their tactics with the

benefit of the weather break, without that weather break. It would have been a, it would have been just an onslaught. I don't think it ever would have stopped. Yeah, they wouldn't have had time to sort it out at all. So before we get to the second half, today's sponsor is awaydaysfootball.com. They're the first ever scuffed sponsor, an independent soccer clothing brand based in Boston, high quality products and a very cool company. We get all kinds of, we get tweets from people all the time saying that they've done the mystery kit and they like it. And it seems like the feedback is always good. So they do several different things if you click around on their website. But the hook is the mystery kits, which work like this.

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And check them out, please. There's plenty of other interesting stuff there in addition to the mystery kits. All right. Second half, 51st minute, we come right out and we score a goal. Why don't you describe this one? All right. So this came off of that restart, the polyureal draws a foul around midfield, you described sort of earlier. We just play it simply back to, I believe, Tim Ream.

And then Michael Bradley, so it's on the left. side. Michael Bradley is on that side, but he sort of moves upfield four or five yards to draw his man marker up with him. And that just left Weston McKinney in like the entire center circle by himself. So Ream finds Weston McKinney. And then again, I don't know if this is because of Jamaica's sort of alternative tactics, but as McKinney gets it in space, he's able to pick out Jordan Morris, who is also in a ton of space. So he just feels the ball to Jordan Morris, who just has one centerback between him and the goal, he's able to sort of put it on the outside of Jordan Morris away from the defender, and Morris is able to, easy as you like, run onto it, takes a touch to create a little bit more separation, and then fires a decently powerful shot at Andre Blake. Blake makes the first save, a little loose. He can't hang on to it, and he doesn't make a great parry. So he actually just leaves it right on the doorstep for Christian Pulisick, who's following him.

up, Poulsick scores it with ease. Yeah. I thought it was a pretty good finish from Poulissick. You know, that ball's kind of hanging in the air, and he has to find a way to side foot it with some power underneath, underneath Blake. That's the kind of shot that shows up in my scoring opportunity that shows up in my nightmares because I will, I'll fluff that every time. I'll find a way to get it wrong.

Bells, I'm sure you, like, there aren't often, it's not often that I say he has. to score that but once he's there he has to score that uh he's something pool of sick yeah yeah one of the one of the details though in in pool six uh movement ahead of the goal was he had to he had to kind of fight somebody off before like as the shot was being taken like he once he recognized that morris was going to take that shot he was whatever at the top of the box he starts crashing the goal which is not something everyone does a lot of times players even professional players will kind of disengage and they'll just watch the shot being taken or they'll uh be angry that the player isn't trying to connect to their feet instead of shooting, which blows my mind when pros do that. But no,

Poulosick starts moving right away and his marker actually tries, I wouldn't say half hardly, he tries to like muscle him off. And Poulosick fights the guy off with his arm. And this is all ahead of the rebound. This is before the rebound even exists. This little battle's going on. So Poulisick wins that battle as the shot is sort of being lined up and taken by Morris. and then once it's deflected, or once the rebound is actually there, pool six already won, and all he has to do is score the easiest goal of the night. You love to see it. You love to see it. Yeah, and needless to say, a great ball from McKinney, I thought.

The weight on his passes and the weight on this one is just so nice. It's so easy for the receiver of the ball to do what he wants to do with it. Yeah. No argument here. No argument here. He was afforded a ton of space to pick that ball out, and there was a ton of space to put the ball. But yes, he made it as comfortable as possible for Jordan Morris.

And credit goes to Jordan Morris for, you know, he kind of slowed up a little bit as he received it, and then he exploded forward. Not rocket science, but he did, like you said, he did something to create that window. It wasn't, the window wasn't just dropped in his lap. No, as it was in the next chance. we're going to talk about. Well, Zard is, I mean,

Blake, you mentioned this already, but does a better goalkeeper catch that shot? Because it wasn't smoked. It wasn't smoked. So here's the thing. It's easy to also forget

that it's been pouring down rain for however long it was pouring down rain. I don't think that it's, that I'm going to put too much on Blake for not holding onto it, but a ton of blame goes on Blake for putting the rebound where he did. Goalkeepers are very like,

they work on directing rebounds. So the rebound just has to be put far away from where he put it. You can't just leave it right on the goal line for anybody to tow poke home. Okay. All right. Six minutes later, another USA chance. This is after Zardis has come on for Altador, which happened almost immediately after the, I think it happened right after the second goal, right?

Right. It was like a race to get him in because I think. You know, Burrhalter knows that Josie Altador has injury issues. And so if we have a final to win and it looked at that point for all the world, like two zero up, we are into the final. Let's get Josie Altador off and save him for Sunday. So Zardis is on. And here's another somewhat similar pass from McKinney into about the same spot. But in this case, it's in a window between the centerbacks.

It's a square ball from Bradley to McKinney And then McKinney just one touches it Kind of at a right angle, right at the goal And Zardis is running onto it He's got, you can go on Twitter and see all You can see the GIF, you can see the GIF from multiple angles You can see, you can see screenshots of the window He had to shoot

It was basically a penalty kick With him and the goalkeeper Only only people really in the frame and he just absolutely shanks it. I mean, it's a good, it's a good six yards wide and, and he falls down in the process. And you could tell. It was kind of a parody of a Giazzi-Zardez miss is what it felt like watching you. Like I, I've been one of the vocal Giazzi-Zardez critics.

And even I was like, oh, no, that's just, it's almost too bad that that just had to happen. Yeah, you could tell on the replay that Burrhalter was frustrated, or at least he was, maybe Berthelter had the same reaction as you. It was too bad that that had to happen. But it was a little bit comical. It was. It's not, I don't think it's overly mean to say that. But that's not the biggest problem with Zardis in this game.

And we know he's not, you know, he's not the guy you call to be clinical in front of goal. that wasn't a huge surprise. The bigger problem was in the buildup play. We immediately saw a change in the way the U.S. played when he came on the field, didn't we? Yeah, I mean, we just lost all of that composure on the ball. We lost all of that physical, like the way Altador can just impose himself. I mean, Althro at one point, literally on the ball, two-handed, shoved the defender out of his way to connect his next pass.

And then I think at that point he drew a foul and got into a little scuffle, a little Josie Altador, Concafcalf scuffle. But yeah, I mean, you lose all of that. You lose any strength on the ball's gone, and it's just like hold your breath and hope something like neutral happens when Jazzy Zardos gets the ball. So Shamar Nicholson came on.

He plays his soccer in Slovenia. He came on for Junior Fleming's in the 65th minute, and things started to go a little south for the U.S. at this point, not long after the Zardis missed. Jamaica got a chance where Darren Maddox won a physical battle with Bradley to recover a headed clearance, and then he dribbled in the box, and he shanked a left-footed shot. A better player would have put that on frame.

68th minute, Zardt was classic Zardis inability to lay it off to McKinney streaming forward through the midfield. This isn't a chance, just a moment I noticed, where he, he, Zardis is coming back to the ball, and instead of laying it off to the midfield, like you talked about. He plays it all the way back to the centerback,

and the play just sort of starts all over again. Whatever we had done up to that point, gets canceled out. And then a minute later, Zardis appears again. Starts with a good defensive play by Tim Riem and Long to suffocate a Bailey ball over the top to Maddox, but then Long plays it forward to Zardis coming back to the ball, and Zardis tries to turn, and that's red easily,

and he's tackled out of the play. and it falls to Bailey, who dribbles straight ahead, down the right channel, and lifts a right-footed ball across the box to Nicholson to head it in. So it's a hardest giveaway and a Jamaica goal, for those of you keeping track. Good ball from Bailey. I'm curious how much you blame Matt Miaska, who's marking Nicholson there for this goal. I think less than what most people are blaming Matt Mioska for. on it. For me, it's one that it's, it's just a really tough ball for Miazga to do much on.

Like, you know, people are saying, well, why didn't he, he stepped forward. He stepped forward to try to almost like cut it off, but didn't get there. This, the service that Bailey puts in, I think, is a really underrated sneaky good service. It's almost like a, in American football, it's almost like a back shoulder throw to a wide receiver going down the sideline where the cornerback actually has good coverage, but because the ball is unexpectedly put behind the runner, and they come back and get it, it sort of throws the cornerbacker. Like there's almost no spot for Miazga to stop this header from taking place. So he either has to do.

And I think the decision he has to make is, can he go win it with his head and actually intercept it? And if he can't, can he disrupt the header enough that it's going to be a weak header? And he maybe he sort of picked the wrong one and he thought maybe he could get to it. And when he couldn't, Nick, Nicholson is able to sort of just nodded in. Because it's not even a powerful header. It's just like a looping, deflected, glancing header that, you know, the trajectory of it means that Zach Stephan has no chance to get to. Okay. What about the Zardis giveaway?

Like, what's your, does he deserve all the blame he's getting for that? I mean, he deserves the blame for giving it away, but that's, there's no new information there. Zardas gives the ball away a lot. I say all the time how goals drive narrative. Zardaz's giveaway isn't somehow worse because, Jamaica came down and scored a goal after it. We had a bunch of giveaways and similar. Josie Altador had had some bad giveaways.

Pulisic had some. We talked about McCannies. The chance right before this one was Bradley losing a little battle there. So it's not like that was the only bad giveaway in the central zone of like danger where, you know, you're going to look at Zardazas after because they scored a goal and say, you just can't give the ball away there. We had like five people give the ball away there. So that's not entirely, that's not like somehow more meaningful in the assessment just because Jamaica scored. It's just another example of Zardust just isn't very good on the ball.

And then there was a, I don't think we're going to get to this in the scoring summary, but Ream had a really poor touch that led to sort of a half chance, right? Yeah, innocent ball, harmless ball just got floated in directly at Tim Ream under no pressure. And maybe because there was no pressure, he decided that he would just control it with his strong left foot. And he just actually settled it directly to the Jamaica player who sat four or five yards off of him. Yeah, I think it was Bailey. For me, that's a bigger mistake than Miazgas, even though Jamaica scored on Miazkas. If you're assessing defensive performances.

Between that touch from Riem and also in the first half, when Riem held a guy on side like four yards behind our other. wise perfect defensive line and then just stood there and held his hand up hoping to get bailed out by the assistant referee like those are those mistakes just get swept under the rug because jamaica didn't capitalize on them right okay well rolled on comes on for morris in the 70th minute and it's a it's a nervy it's a nervy time in nashville uh jamaica got another chance nicholson with some clever footwork forces a desperate tackle from roll don on the left side of the and then Kamar Lawrence, you know, recovers a ball on the touchline and pumps a ball across for Stefan to punch away. It falls to Leon Bailey, who tries to beat Paul Areola, but Areola blocks his shot in sort of a last-ditch fashion.

Yeah, yeah, like three, three desperation attempts all in that one sequence, three desperate attempts from the U.S. to defend, I should say. that kind of reminded me of the Chile game where when you have better teams they punish you when they force you into those desperate moments they're better at punishing you they're better at like exploiting how desperate you are and actually finding like the next pass that you've left open and and ending up with a really high percentage shot Jamaica not good enough to do that and like in that case Paul ariola's really hard work is rewarded with the block yeah yeah credit to him for that

And then the last 15 minutes things did calm down a little bit. We got our third goal in the 87th minute, and it comes from some messiness in our defensive third, including another Zardis giveaway. But it ends with Roldon, winning a duel for the ball, and then tapping it wide to Cannon. Cannon takes a couple touches, looks around, and then feeds it to Pulisick down the right wing.

Pulisic turns and faces his guy, beats him to the inside. very easily, very, very easily. And then gets into the box and plays up kind of a poor cutback pass to nobody, even though he had some options there. And Ariel goes and retrieves it on the other side of the box, takes a rip from 20 yards or so, draws another Andre Blake Perry that doesn't parry well enough, I guess he'd say.

I would definitely say that. I've already said it once. I could repeat the exact same thing for this one. Okay. Needed to just direct the rebound much farther away from goal. And should be able to. He's good enough to. Yeah, right.

And instead it goes into the path of Pulisic, who is just getting up after his jaunt down the right side of the field. And Pulisic taps it into the side netting. It's a nice finish, I thought. Kind of wrong foot's Blake. Blake's again leaning near post and he goes far post. Yeah, same thing as the first one. He managed to keep it really low, right?

So it's not that comfortable height for a goalkeeper to just tip over and save. It's 3-1 USA. And at that point, the game is essentially over. So any quick thoughts on what we've learned or what we learned in this game? So my biggest thing is that the U.S., I consider it a victory for the Greg Burhalter system, so long as we are willing to play a forward who we can actually play soccer. with. But that's a big, that's a big thing to learn. So I see this as a very positive data point for the U.S. Positive, positive in the sense of we learn a lot. Sometimes negative data points you

can still learn a lot from what we learned a lot from this one and we learned a lot of good things about what we're capable of doing. I'll take through some more. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I'll take through some more. I thought Reggie Cannon had a really strong performance. at least he was at least as good as as nick Lima last night didn't get any trouble defending that I could see and it was pretty comfortable in the ball did some stuff in possession that was meaningful I thought including the assist

I think it was an assist unless Altador touched it on McKinney's goal. Technicality either way I mean either way right? Yeah, right. Like I said earlier, I thought Aaron Long was outstanding and sort of solidified his spot as probably a starting centerback for the men's national team for now. Breakout performance from Weston McKinney. We've already talked about that, but he was awesome.

He was really good outside of those two bad moments. Now, I'm with you. And I think we've highlighted basically every Gold Cup game, at least three balls at West McKinney's hit that are arguably like the best passes of the game. and his streak continues. Yeah. I mean, Bradley would be his closest competitor in this game because Bradley had that ball to McKinney

and then he had the diagonal to Cannon. But even with those, I think McKinney wins the day. Yeah, we didn't even talk about, so I think in the first 15 minutes, McKinney had a similar Bradley diagonal ball out to Ariola lofted. And then he also had that outrageous, like, sidewinder blind volley to ariola that one that's when when stew holden goes he's really feeling it

out there how it looks i was watched i didn't have the commentary on but it looked like uh it looked like a like a cg it looked like cg i looked like cg i and things looked really unnatural like nothing about that made sense uh from the decision to play it to the to the body movement but man is it cool yeah oh there was one i jiffed this earlier and put it on twitter but there was one where there's he recovers a ball in the center circle that's that it bounces right in front of him instead of trying to control it because he has a defender right next to him he just steps on it you know uses the sole of his foot oh yeah on the short hop yeah just to short hop it right to roll on

just calm as you like so a lot of a lot of really nice moments from him and he solves problems in possession sometimes he loses the ball and hopefully he can stop doing that but really good game from him and you could see Burrhalter's been saying for months that one of McKenny's greatest attributes is his late arrivals in the box and we really saw that today or not today

Wednesday on the goal on the goal in particular yeah it seems like that this shift away from the inverted right back to the inverted right wing is what's freed McKenny up to kind of do those things because he doesn't just have to sit high on the line

like he would is that second number 10 he kind of comes back into that Bradley's line and then really seems comfortable there one or two giveaways notwithstanding you know that that ball de Zarades comes from somebody from Bradley playing it square to him so he's on Bradley's line there the ball to Morris was the same so he seems really comfortable there and then yeah you buy that once the ball goes wide suddenly McKenney gets to run from that lane and he's just this wrecking ball coming into the box it does it does make

me pine for the day when we can see Tyler Adams, West McKinney, double pivot, because it seems to suit them both those roles. Yeah, a hybrid double pivot, right? Because McKinney's not quite a full-out, he's not full-out on Bradley's line. Are we saying at this point he's basically, I mean, he's a little bit shifted higher. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. He's definitely a little bit shifted higher, but that could be the same with Adams, right?

Right. Oh, yeah, it'd be Adams taking Bradley's spot, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then Sergino does taking Reggie Kahnons. And then Richie LaDesma taking Jordan Morris's. In some time in the future. I wouldn't hate it like tomorrow.

Right. Okay, and then Pulisix Brace felt like Just Reward for one of his best games in a while. He was electric, like I said earlier. Still not as good in the final third with his decisions as I think. most of us would like him to be. No, that's exactly right. I think he literally made that comment of it wasn't his best game.

Like he needs to be cleaner. And that's another sign. Like, that's another thing that's really encouraging for me is, he didn't have any assist. Like, he was skinning people left and right. That movie pulled on the sideline where he,

like, had the Kroif and then spun off of it and did that dude super dirty. Like, we didn't get an assist out of that. So, imagine what happens when he cleans up in the final third and he does all of these other things that he's doing plus those those moves and those one-v-one take-ons turn into shooting chances for guys in the middle. Yeah, I notice.

I'm imagining it. I'm imagining it. I'm imagining him just tapping that ball after the Kroif, you know, tapping that ball to either Ariola or Altador who are running in acres of space in the middle of the field and, you know, just let them, let them, even though, neither of them is as good as pool. It's like, let them make a decision there and keep moving, force the defenders to make some choices. But he didn't do that. Instead, he dribbled, kind of dribbled out of bounds in that case, didn't he?

He got it across where he did play it back into a, into the sort of danger area. No, no, he didn't. He hit it off, he hit it into the side netting very, very gently. All right. Kind of ran out of steam. I blacked out after I saw that movie. All right. And then Michael Bradley was solid.

It seems like he's, I mean, it doesn't seem like it. He is the best option on this roster for that job, the job that he's been doing. But is he playing his way into keeping Tyler Adams at right back? We sort of have discussed this. I don't think so. And the reason I don't think so is because of the knock-on effects everywhere else on the field. So if you're going to play that inverted right back, then you're going to suddenly lose all this ground you've gained with Weston McKenney.

More importantly, for all the good things Bradley does, there's still that issue of he can't catch up with guys on the run. There were times in this game. There have been times in every game where on sort of a counter or a transition moment, Jamaica guy will pick up the ball right next to Bradley, and he'll actually dribble 50 yards with Bradley chasing behind him the whole time, and Bradley can't catch the guy who's dribbling. I mean, like, so a guy with the ball is still faster than Michael Bradley running without a ball.

And I just don't think that against, against a Mexico or really anyone from Mexico's level or above, that that's sustainable. Or I worry about it. I know we have three centerbacks instead of two. So it's, you might, you might say, well, we're a little bit more protected. But it's a trend. And I don't think that Bradley's going to somehow fix it. You know, he's already an intelligent player with spacing an angle. so it's not like he's just taking poor angles.

He just doesn't have that step. Yeah. He doesn't have the ammo. Last thought for me is Areola and Morris. I don't think either of them had a good game. We had the Ariola discussion already, but it'll be nice to see wingers who are a little bit more dangerous

with the ball at their feet, even though these guys clearly are bought into the system. They work their butt. off and I think they do find themselves in good positions regularly. We just need a little bit better player at those spots, I think, long term. Yeah, I think I called them the JV players who like get called up because of their work rate and their attitudes and get their chance. And they're, you know, they're not going to let anything like, I mean, they're going to give

it everything they've got and that's what they've been doing. But yeah, for all the good things they do, like even immediately following that good thing, there's something that's just a little bit off and that sort of breaks everything down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what about Pomacall? So what if you had Pomacall on the left wing and Pulisic as the 10 or vice versa? I mean, they could be totally interchangeable. That could work, right?

I assume so. Like, I like the idea of now. I'm pretty bought into this experiment continuing of Pulisic in the 10 because of how natural he can float out or or just simply stay sort of in that half space where he's neither wide nor central and find a seam. Anything that gets him one be one with players is good. So I guess then it would just come down to can Pomacall, could Pomacall have the same relationship and could Pomacall be effective when he stays wide finding his feet?

I mean, I guess we're assuming that he'd be effective coming in and playing in that central area, right? Yeah, I think he could be wide. could he could get crosses in with his left foot and he could come inside and and create probably better than ariola certainly better than ariola yeah and could and would he find the same chances and and dangerous spots because ariola seems like this whole tournament ariola has constantly been like meeting the ball just outside the six yard box as the goal he's closing him down doesn't it seem like that's like you can just that image he's there's burned into my brain yeah uh you have to be doing a lot of things right to even get to that spot so pomacol

would have to be doing all those things as well. Yeah. I'm not saying you couldn't. I mean, there's going to be a lot of cool things to build off of from this last sort of game and a half. All right. Well, I'm excited for the future, even if we do lose on Sunday. Because we do it. This roster has weaknesses.

It does. Tim Reams, a weakness. We talked about Morrison, Ariola. And, you know, if Zardis, for some reason, starts at Stryker, then we're, we're not. where we're probably not going to create a ton of chances. Let's do a quick Mexico preview. Yeah, hey, real quick. Even, it's not even just the weaknesses.

Even some of the strengths or the things that we've seen as strengths are still untested. Because as he said, Jamaica, you know, a USL team with some strong pieces around it. You know, Bailey's class and then Darren Maddox is your second best attacker. That's not a serious threatening attack. Mexico's going to have, I mean, Mexico's missing a lot of guys, but, you know, as good as Aaron Long's been, we have to now see what he looks like against a fully capable attack that scored exactly one goal against Haiti. Did they score two goals against Haiti? No, they scored one and it came on a soft penalty.

So they've, they have not breezed through. the Gold Cup since the opening games of the group the way I think a lot of us expected them to. They battled through their last two games. They beat Costa Rica on penalties in the quarterfinals and then went to extra time with Haiti and won on what was a very soft penalty. I thought Raul Jimenez and another guy were both kicking at a ball that was about five feet high and their feet touched each other. And that was the call.

it's a good penalty it just hurts the heart to see Haiti's like heroic performance decided on that yeah Haiti gave him a real game they almost scored at the end of regulation hit the top of the crossbar and you know even though Mexico had plenty of chances it was it was not a there wasn't a clear like oh Mexico's dominating the run

of the run of play kind of thing it was a it was a pretty even game to my eye yeah it was pretty even it was it was frankly like astounding that it was still zero-zero because both teams had a bunch of like, I don't want to say wide open chances, but just wide open play like all the way up to

the last touch or the, you know, one pass away to somebody who was like wide open to score and neither team could really pull it off. Yeah, that's wide open scenarios, I guess, but not actual chances in many cases. So Martino, Tata Martino, will be back from suspension for this game. He spent the last

the Haiti game up in the press box. Not the press box, you know, the special box for coaches. He has run out nearly the same starting 11 both of the last two games. Against Haiti, he made two changes, replacing Nester Arajo at centerback with Hector Moreno and starting youngster Roberto Alvarado, who has a nickname that I can't remember

over Ariel Antuna, the LA Galaxy right winger. So it was against Haiti, it was Memo Ochoa and goal, a back line of Chaka Rodriguez, Carlos Salsado, Hector Moreno, and Jesus Gallardo from right to left, and then rumored IAC sine Eudson Alvarez, Alvarez, who has had a really good tournament, I think, at Holding Mid with Jonah Dos Santos and Andres Gordado

sort of nominally ahead of him, and then a front line from left to right of Rodolfo Pizarro, Raul Jimenez up top and then Alvarado on the right. Did you watch this game? I got to see spells of it. And yeah, it just seemed like everything was, I don't want to say it was frantic,

because Mexico didn't look frantic. Haiti looked kind of like frantic, like running and chasing and really like trying to put Mexico under a ton of pressure. Mexico never really felt, looked pressured, even though at times, like, Haiti's pressure would pay off. Does that make sense? So Mexico didn't look bothered, but without looking bothered, they still gave the ball away a few times in areas where I thought Haiti could do more with it.

But Mexico were in Haiti's, like in the final 25 yards, a lot of that game. That's true. Yeah, they were. But they just couldn't get any, they couldn't really get anything clear going. And it did seem to me like they lost, Mexico was losing a lot of physical battles in the middle of the field. um guardado you know guardado was getting bullied a little bit i don't know that dos Santos was he he's not one to get bullied too often so i get i don't have i'm anxious to hear what you have to say

about what you what you think the u.s needs to do to beat mexico but i i guess i have a couple more thoughts about what mexico's been doing a lot of the creative energy uh comes from guardado dos Santos and pizarro a player i really enjoy watching he's at montmartre he drifts inside from the left to pick up the ball and create i think more so than the right wing does definitely more than antona did and even more than alvarado did so it's so it gets a little asymmetrical and then and then both both fullbacks get forward pretty regularly gaiardo and rodriguez and then um himinez is of course the great hope of the west mid mid midlands Wolverhampton striker who scored 13 goals in the Premier League last year

handling him will be like you said earlier a real challenge for Long and Miazga or Zimmerman got to assume it'll be Miaska and Long again I don't know what to think man like I with our changes that we made I don't know how much of it was because Burrhalter wasn't happy with the job that the guys were doing or because Burrhalter just has enough faith in our depth or at least enough faith in the the narrow gap between starter and backup that he was just like, okay, well,

we rotate now because it's short rest and, you know, a final on Sunday. So this is just how you play a tournament. Like, even if it's not your best 11 in your mind, you still have to play, you know,

you have to trust the science and say, this guy won't be able to play at the high, you know, he won't be able to operate at the highest efficiency. Yeah. It could be. It totally could be. And I would not be super disappointed if Zimmerman started over at Miyazka.

You've got to imagine long as going to start again, though. Yes, I don't think that'll have changed. So Alvarez is a true six in this system, and he has some experience as a centerback. So he drops in and forms a back three, forms a back three with Moreno and, I guess, Moreno Oraroaaho and Salcedo. He's the guy, if you'll remember, who rushed to Diego Linaz's defense when Matt Miaska

height shamed Linaz a few months ago. So he's kind of a natural leader. He's tough and smart. And he's emerging as somebody who's probably going to be starting for Mexico for a long time, at least after Hector Herrera passes on to retirement. Do we need to, does Matt Miaska, need to start in this game just for his, uh,

just to be our Concaf villain? Yeah, you know, that would be fun. There'd be some storylines there. Um, and then of course, Guardado and Dos Santos are both class and, and will be a big international test for, first big international test for McKinney and Bradley sort of as our midfield

pairing. That's, that's what I've got. Solid experience, centerbacks. a legend and goal for Mexico, nothing easy back there. They're also dangerous on set pieces.

What do you think? What do you think the U.S. needs to do? First of all, do you think Tyler Boyd is going to start or Jordan Morris? I kind of hope it's Morris, just because I think Boyd isn't good enough to do it all himself, and I don't trust that Boyd won't try to do it all himself.

Just, you know, we have tiny sample size on Boyd. but he's very much a look for his own shot kind of guy. I don't think that's, I don't think that's, am I going overboard there? No, I don't. That's what it appears to be in this small sample size we have, yes. So I don't think Morris is necessarily that guy. I think Morris is sort of a good soldier and just wants to give the team what it needs in that sense. And so I feel like Morris might be a slightly better fit to be able to play off guys like Altadour and Poulsick.

yeah i i i guess i'm willing to forego that better fit for the the higher level of quality that boyd brings i think he's a better passer when he decides to pass than morris is and um i know he's rested morris is not i guess i'd like i'd like to see boyd i won't be i won't hate i won't hate boyd i wouldn't hate if leman or can't it's a pickum for me between lima and canon i don't think either one of them is going to give us something that the other one can't possibly give us. That's fair, yeah. All right. I hope Altador starts.

If anyone was wondering about my position, I would like Josie Altador to be our starting striker. Yeah. 100%. I agree with that. So anything else we should be watching for on Sunday? 8 p.m. Central Time. Like I'm going to kind of just watch and enjoy this like full-blooded test now.

Like this is the test. Everything else has been sort of build up and this is the first test. It's not like the end of everything, but this is the first real test for the guys. And with Alcador being healthy and probably now at this point even sharper, he should be even a little sharper than he was against Jamaica. Like I feel good about our chances in this test. I feel like we've spent a lot of time studying and we're well rested and we're going to come in and dominate. I don't want to say dominate.

We're going to come in and like I think we're going to look good. That'll be nice. Our pencils are sharp. All those tests with the bubbles with the bubbles to fill out or laid out in front of us. Yeah. We're going to very like we have a good chance at getting a like decent Scantron grade here. Is it going to be, is this the ACT or is it Iowa Basic Skills? This is ITBS.

Okay. All right. The ACT, the big one's coming, uh, 2021 qualifying. Yeah, that's for sure. All right. Looking forward to Sunday night. Uh, first real test for the U.S. It'll be, should be a really fun game to watch.

Looking forward to Sunday morning too, right? Yeah. That's an even bigger game. Obviously, the U.S. women face the Netherlands who squeaked by Sweden the other day and I gotta imagine we're heavy favorites right we should win this we should win this final and be

World Cup champions once again 4-1 4-1 bells we win this game 4-1 and the and the Netherlands goal is like a late consolation like this game's in hand by half time all right yeah I mean we already beat Sweden

early in the tournament in the group so it wouldn't have been any fun to face them again I'm glad to this is a great great one because Holland bring their, Holland travel well. So it's going to be a cool atmosphere all day in Leone. And then, uh,

I just, I just think we're going to bully them everywhere on the field. Yeah. They didn't look, they didn't look all that dangerous against Sweden. Um, did they? Did you watch that game? Yeah,

it did. Yeah, neither team looked super dangerous. Uh, it looked like a game that, uh, if the U.S. were watching, they'd be,

they'd be very, very happy. with playing either of those teams to win a World Cup trophy. So 4-1, who are the goal scorers, Nostradamus? All right, Julie Earts on a set piece. Alex Morgan's going to get one. And then let's say, Haran, and I'm just going to say right now, Becky Sauerbrun scores her first ever goal for the U.S.

35-yard scream, I confirmed. It's going to be like the ugliest, scrappiest goal. on a corner kick scramble. Like she isn't going to know anything about it. It's going to go off of her shin and in. All right. It doesn't matter. World Cup final. Becky Sauer runs scores her first goal ever.

It'll be awesome. Should be a good day, a day full of celebration for U.S. soccer. All right. Thanks, Greg. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll see you.