Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - Episode 98: USA v Uruguay, the friendliest of friendlies

Episode Date: September 11, 2019

It was a hot, sleepy night in St. Louis, but by golly we learned stuff. Different challenge, different lineup. We break down the big moments of the game and assess individual performances.--Thank you to Away Days Football for sponsoring this episode! 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  Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez in Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. The USA drew Uruguay 1-1 in St. Louis at a roughly one-third full Bush Stadium. At a game that was played at roughly one-third speed. Yes, it was. It was such a different match from the one against Mexico on Friday,

not just in terms of the opponent because Mexico pressed high while Uruguay defended and countered, but also in terms of the same. setting on a baseball field. Yeah, baseball field in 90 degree heat. Yeah, the whole thing felt kind of sleepy, didn't it? Yeah, very much felt like the second game of an international window. Nobody wanted to get hurt. And it was, it looked like the field was slippery, especially, you know, where the shortstop and second baseman generally set themselves up. People were going into challenges gingerly. Definitely a friendly, definitely a friendly. Definitely a friendly. Bush Stadium was a friend zone, if you know what I mean.

100% of friend zone. It felt like a cooperative effort where both teams sort of knew the score and were working together to not have any collisions of shin guards. Yeah, it's like, you know, sometimes when you're in the friend zone, you don't want to be. I mean, the other person, you know, one person wants to love you and the other person wants you to be in the friend zone. In this case, it was a mutual friend zoning, I would say. Second.

All right. Still though, still though, Uruguay playing sort of half asleep in the friend zone, I think is still a better gauge of quality in an opponent than say Guyana playing on three pots of coffee after giving you a super like. I saw Kim McCauley on Twitter said, this was like playing a good Honduras, you know?

I think that's about right. even going into it before we sort of saw how sleepy it was, just knowing the way Uruguay play. So if you're trying to set up a good test for how we'd play against a set in opponent, you probably don't get much better than Uruguay. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to get into the lineups and the action.

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And thank you to Martin at Away Days for continuing to sponsor the podcast. Let's get to the lineups. Let's do it. Why don't you kick it off? My mouth's already dry. I've been talking too much. All right. So a partially leaked lineup a day before came out finally 45 minutes before kickoff.

And we were looking at Brad Guzon, the birthday boy in goal, Sir Gino Desk, getting a repeat start at left back. Tim Ream moved to centerback, I believe, for the first time in the Greg Berhalter era, starting alongside Aaron Long, Walker Zimmerman making way, Reggie Cannon starting again at right back. Midfield trio was completely switched up from the Mexico game. It was Jackson Ewell in nominally the Will-Trap role. Christian Raldon and Sebastian Leget sort of playing off of him in a sort of a central midfield

trio. Wide left, Jordan Morris, wide right, Tyler Boyd, up top, the young Josh Sargent. Yes. So I think this was pretty close to what you wanted to see, right? I mean, Pomacall would be the only missing link, essentially. Yeah, I wanted to see Pomacall start, which I don't think I'm alone there. And I actually wanted to see Miles Robinson start because Yeah, agreed. And, you know, these, these game, the result absolutely is not important here. So testing out a Miles Robinson versus say and Aaron Long, I thought would have been useful, like a useful data point to obtain ahead of the Nations League games. Yeah.

Especially knowing what we know about John Brooks, you know, always being a dicey proposition health-wise, Matt Miazga on the shelf at the moment as well. So we very much might be dipping into deeper into the bench for centerback options. Right. And there's been, at least on my part, some skepticism about Walker Zimmerman. He didn't have a great – well, of course, nobody had a great outing against Mexico, but he didn't either. So I would have liked to see Robinson as well.

I'll sort of lay out the Uruguay lineup. Fernando Musslera and goal, Matias Vina, Jose Jimenez, Sebastian Coates, Martin Caseras on the back line, and then Federico Valverde at the 6th. I'm going to butcher this pronunciation, but Georgian de Arraskayeta at and Rodrigo, Betancourt, Matias Vecino, and Brian Rodriguez, the new L-AFC signing along sort of the four midfielders.

Rodriguez, of course, was the eventual goal scorer and really the primary danger man for Uruguay. And then Jonathan Rodriguez up top at Stryker. A lot of big clubs in big leagues represented there, not all of them playing much right now. And again, this match had very much the feel of a dead rubber at the back end of the international window. Yeah, definitely did. Like, even going to our lineup, you look through it and Aaron Long and Serginio Dest and maybe Reggie Cannon, the only three guys that you'd say definitely in a, I don't even know if you can go that far to say definitely in a full strength 11.

Like, are there any guys that you'd say are locked in? Is Tim Ream actually the most locked in player into a full strength 11 at this point Out of the guys we started against Uruguay? If we had a qualifier tomorrow, essentially. Yeah, you got to imagine it would be Ream at that left centerback position. I mean, Ream and Cannon and Long. I'm just trying to read the Burrhalter T. Leaves. It's not necessarily what I would consider locked.

Yeah, just thinking it's a lot of guys who might well be second on the depth charted positions, playing with everyone else who's sort of second on the depth chart at positions. Yeah, or third in the case of like Ewell, I would say, or rolled on. Well, let's jump into the, why don't you see, do you have any sort of big picture besides that it was a game played in second or third gear? Any big picture thoughts on the, you know, the way the teams came out and set up? Anything, any table setting we need here? Well, I thought there was some real, uh, interesting sort of a shape changes.

from what I think we usually see under Burrhalter. And that's sort of how Ewell and Raldon and Legette were used. So I didn't think it was set up the way we've set up in the past where we end up with the double pivot, sometimes arriving at it by McKinney dropping deep alongside a Michael Bradley or Will Trap. I thought in this one we basically had Ream and Long stay deep, whereas in games past we've had three players stay deep. So Ream and Long Deep and Ewell would kind of work in between them or just to the outside. of where they set up to try to just get the ball off of their feet.

And then it seemed like one of Legette or Roldon would sort of drop off of that. So it's like you almost had this teeter-totter effect of one of those guys would drop to play with Ewell and the other one would stay high. But it would change based on the flow of the game. Yeah, I did notice that like Legette and Eul, I guess Roldon too, we're finding themselves on the sidelines a lot. Like they were covering, they were going a lot of ground horizontally, if you will. Yeah, and I think part of that was because, one, Morris and Boyd were staying wider than they had in the past.

Usually one or both of those wing players would tuck in, but I thought they were staying much wider. And Sergenio Dest, which I thought was a really cool development, and something we kind of mentioned about a possibility for his deployment, was almost playing as a left back slash 10, where he would, in the attack, find himself up above Legette on the left side, but inside of Morris. So functioning again, almost like what in the role Poulsick would play when we were attacking. Yeah, and I thought I read in the post-game or saw it in the post-game comments from Burrhalter that that was not even something they necessarily talked about. It was just sort of Sergenio feeling what was available to him, and Burrhalter spoke about it approvingly. So that's pretty cool. It makes you think about how that could work if you had switched Morris with, say, a Christian Poulsick.

Not that Morris didn't have a decent game, but I think it's fair to say Poolsick would be an upgrade in that position. Morris was a man of the match and the best American on the field, and I won't hear anything else about it. It's like what everybody was saying. Oh, okay. I thought he was pretty solid. I might defer to a, like, I think Tim Riem actually might have been the best player on the field. So, you know, that's not who I would gravitate towards normally, but I thought he was pretty solid with none of his trademark. errors. Yeah, I thought Morris was solid, too. I agree, Ream was probably the best performer on the night.

I just think the Morris praise is maybe a little bit over the top this morning, but we don't need to litigate that. All right. In a game like that, the bar is low for being the top player. When it's not like a wildly spectacular game, you don't have to do much. Morris had a couple of good plays, and that might be all you need. We'll talk more about individual performances, I'm sure. Yeah, we'll get into it for sure. Let's do the chances in scoring summary, beginning with the sixth minute. As was often the case with Uruguay's chances, it happened after what was a somewhat promising U.S. attack,

and this happened after Dest slalomed up Uruguay's right flank, and then tried to Megha Guy playing a pass to Roldon, gave it away right near the top of the box, and Uruguay hit on the counter kind of gradually. It wasn't a lightning quick counter. but Jonathan Rodriguez ended up with the balls streaming into our attacking third. He tapped it out to Brian Rodriguez, and Brian returns it to Jonathan just inside the box,

and he took a little bit of a loose touch into Guzzan. And maybe Aaron Long got a foot on it. I couldn't really tell from the replay. But Desk did get caught upfield a little bit and did not succeed in tracking Brian Rodriguez after he sprayed it, I mean Jonathan Rodriguez after he sprayed it out wide, So that was, you know, a little bit of a nick against Dest, I would say. Okay, I'm going to disagree here.

This is going to be our first discreet in the show. I don't hold that as a Nick against Dest. If you're going to play a Sergenio Dest, you're playing him in large part because of the attack he provides, that sort of attacking thrust. You can't ask him to attack on the dribble, combine. I mean, he's not there to deliver crosses and hit the ball 40 yards away from himself. He's there to attack with the ball at his feet. he had a tight little combination with Legette in that buildup that kept him on the run going forward. And then he's trying to combine again with Raldon, which means he's going to hit it to Roldon,

and his momentum is going to continue to carry him into the attacking area. At that point, when the ball is turned over, you have to have some kind of a fail-safe, like in your design, that it's not necessarily his job to be the primary guy to recover and defend. Does that make sense? Yeah, well, yeah, I know you have more to say about this, but I'll just say I agree with that concept, but Dest was there. He was running with Jonathan Rodriguez, and then Rodriguez just kind of boxed him out at the top, just outside of the box, to give himself the space to receive the ball freely from Brian Rodriguez. It's going to be really confusing talking about these attacks because they're both named Rodriguez. But you know what I mean?

I agree with the concept that it shouldn't be Dust's job to be the one responsible to track back, but he was there. He just didn't execute. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of a fun play to like break down. There's so many different parts to it. So I'm going to, I think we'll end up posting this clip because one on the attacking side, if I can just touch on that for a second. Please. You can tell we still aren't exactly sure how to attack as a team.

Like some of that needed to be patterned out in training. and it might be difficult too because you're not necessarily setting the whole team up to attack with Dest on the inside like he was doing on the dribble. But once he combined with, I think Leget, to begin with, sort of all four of the attackers, Morris, Legette, and Sergeant all just sort of stayed in their vertical lanes and moved sort of slowly towards the goal. And it just becomes very difficult to then break a defense down if that's what you're doing. Like you have to have some kind of decisive action usually horizontally to make defenders make decisions. Right. And we just, that just wasn't there in this, in this particular tech. So it's just something to sort of look at and sort of keep tabs on in the future.

Because that could be pool sick too. Whoever, whoever we have on the dribble putting pressure on somebody, what's everybody else doing? And so I thought that was just a good example of us not having a lot of good ideas for that, for that particular segment. Totally agree. Totally agree. then the defensive bit once we lose it is just sort of comedy like it almost looks like a kung fu movie

where our defenders just go in one at a time at the Uruguay player on a ball and sort of take turns getting sort of just tossed aside I think sergeant goes in once or twice Legette might get in there Jordan Morris takes a turn eventually Roldon sort of sticks a leg in and then quickly pulls it out because that's just sort of the game

the kind of game it was so it was an example where the counter never should have happened because at least four guys had opportunities to just halt the play. You might not even have taken a foul in that situation since we had so many guys surrounding them. It doesn't even look as much like a clear tactical foul, but somebody just, any of you, any of those five guys just drag him down and let's just jog back and play defense. Yeah. A problem that rears its head later in the game too, or inability to sort of just make a tactical or semi-tactical foul. Yeah, Sargent actually tried.

He actually grabbed the guy and pulled him just too half-heartedly. Yeah. But then, so then in that same sequence, again, this is just chock full of good lessons. Once Uruguay actually get out and are on the run, I don't think we handled it well with our back three. And I'd actually put most of the blame on Reggie Cannon because he's the weak side defender. And so in my mind, it's sort of his job to organize everyone else. Since he can see the play develop, you see him take a quick peek over his shoulder to see what's coming on. the weak side and there actually isn't anything coming on the weak side in this sequence. So it sort of,

it should be his job then to push Aaron Long over towards closer to Tim Ream so that he can tighten up with Aaron Long since he doesn't have anyone else to defend. Instead, he sort of stays far enough on the weak side where he ends up defending nobody. And so he takes what should have been a three on three and he actually turns it into a three on two for Ream and Long to deal with. And Long ends up kind of maybe looking like he made the wrong choice, but really he was put in a tough spot and did everything he could to eventually kind of intervene with the shot at the last second. Okay, yeah.

That's a lot of breakdown for one and 30-second clip. I was just going to say that. Yeah, we really did it. We really did it up on a chance that didn't even seem like that big of a chance when it happened. but it was. It was a goal scoring chance. It is, though. That's a really cool clip,

and it's really important for the kind of game that we're expecting. If we're talking about this being the kind of Honduras-type team, this is exactly the sequence. You know, how do we actually attack to break them down when we get Dest or Pulisick on the run at them? And then when those fail, because they're going to fail a lot,

how do we prevent them from coming at us, either eliminate the transition or if they do get out in transition, how do we defend in those transition moments? So I think this is honestly like the clip of the game for how we play against a lot of teams in Conca Caff. Yeah, and, you know, Berthelter said in the postgame that he was not happy with the way we defended in transition. And you can see that. I guess this is a good example of why he shouldn't have been happy.

Let's move to the next big moment. 11th minute USA chance, our first good shot on goal. Jackson Ewell playing at the six as the ball spraying six of the Burrhalter era sprays it out to Morris on the left wing. Morris taps it to the end line for Leggett, who's kind of making a run on the inside channel. Legette collects it and makes like he's going to circulate possession back down the sideline.

Instead, does a clever little turn and hits a left-footed ball right at the penalty marker met by Christian Rodon, who heads it hard at the goal line. you know, down, draws a really good save from Musselaura. And I would say all credit to Leggett and rolled on there. They were the ones who sort of created the moment that was special. Yeah, it was great. And it's an example of what we've been missing for so long. It's what we sort of talk about all the time with our attacking players and what we've lacked.

And it's that sort of ability to do something unexpected. So Leggett gets that ball with us back to the goal. And so often in this, even in the Burr-Alter area, we've played. so safe and we've played two touch and he receives it and we'll go back out and we'll reset back to the back to the centerbacks or go all the way back to a guzahn from that position. And instead here, Legette, you know, feigns like he's going to go back. And then with a quick touch and pivot is able to hit a really dangerous ball in. And because he did that so unexpectedly, it was 3V2 from 10 yards out.

We had Boyd, Sergeant, and Roll Don against two defenders from 10 yards. And Rodon was the free man. he did very well to time is run, get everything right, other than hit the shot maybe a yard and a half closer to the post. Right. Not, I'm not, that's not, I'm not criticizing Roldon there. He basically did everything right, and sometimes that gets saved. Right, yeah, you can't.

Chechorito scores it. Roldon will score it less often. Right. All right, 22nd minute, another USA chance. This was the big Tyler Boyd Miss that's going to be in all the highlights. It came on, it came on a restart, so it didn't really, it didn't really come from, and he built out. Ream was foul, challenging, for Muslera clearance at midfield.

And there was a kind of, you know, typical post-fowl shuffle. He stood over the ball for a few beats, and he just passed it to a wide open Morris down the left wing who'd been lost by Uruguay in the shuffle, I suppose. Morris took on Casares, who plays at Fiorentina, but hasn't played yet this season, just a little bit of context. And then Morris whipped in a left-footed cross that skipped across the top of the six.

Boyd was crashing backpost and couldn't quite steer it on frame, bounced it just over the post. Do you hold that against him? I mean a little, in that it's his job to finish it, but no one's going to, he's not going to finish it every time. He was pretty unlucky in that he didn't like, he didn't smash it over. He just hit, if the field's a little bit mushyer,

if they'd watered it a little bit better, that bounce dies a little bit. And he's celebrating a goal. But he did well to work to the backside. And honestly, what I sort of get the most out of that is, in contrast, we had four or five other balls that got hit across into that similar area where actually Boyd was nowhere to be found for some reason. So he did a good job getting himself into that space on this chance, which sort of stands out because he didn't always get into that spot for other balls. And he found himself like central more in like where sergeant should have been. He was stepping on sergeant's runs a lot, it seemed like.

Yeah, yeah, so we don't have as many sort of shots as we should have. I feel like our list of chances should be longer, but a lot of them sort of fizzled to nothing because we didn't have anybody on that back post run. Yeah. All right. Another chance for the USA. Ream wins the ball at midfield to desk, des to roll down and roll don, wide to you. Well, kind of a pleasant little one touch.

What's the word? Transition moment where we're going from like converting a goal kick or something into calm possession. I was pleased to watch that. And then Ewell plays it down the wing to Legette. Desd overlaps kind of slowly. And Leggett taps it to him. And Desk just stands up his guy, takes a touch on his right foot and curls a ball into the box, right onto Sargent's head.

And Sargent's header might have gone on frame, might not have, but was from just outside the six, and it was handled, obviously, sort of hand-of-god style by Jose Jimenez. Yeah, very John O'Brien-ish. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I don't want to blame only other nations for that stuff. But Jimenez is a starting centerback for Athletico, Madrid, just another bit of context.

So he's a big-time player. But the St. Louis Cardinals don't use Farr, so we didn't get a penalty there right before halftime. Got jobbed, man. Would it change the whole narrative? Kind of. Kind of would have. But that's okay.

Should I move on to the next one? Why don't you take the Uruguay goal? All right. So Uruguay scores early in the second half. Another time where Sergenio Dest has come forward. another good combination with Roldan. He hits it out wide to Cannon, who plays it to Boyd, and Boyd's cross is cut out. The ball falls to a Uruguay player.

You could probably tell me who it is. Arraskayeta. Okay. So Roldon is in perfect position to deny this counter. And I don't know if this is like because of the Roldon-Loget-Yule midfield trio where if there's like confusion about what people's roles are. Because I feel like if you're named sort of the midfield distrower, then you know exactly what to do in this situation. If sometimes you're the destroyer, sometimes you're a risk-taking number 10,

then maybe you gamble on something like this. And Rodin gambled. Like he was in perfect position goalside to just make Araskayeta go backwards. And instead, he like ran around the guy's body, very Kenny Siaf-esque, and allowed him to just turn and play into the massive open area of the field that we'd we vacated in our attack. So it's just knowing what your role is and then executing it. And Rodon's role there is at all costs, eliminate a counterattack opportunity. Yeah.

All costs being take your yellow card if you have to. Yeah, because Canon is basically like standing next to the goal post at this point. Because he hit a cross and his momentum carried him right towards the goal. we were vulnerable to say the least. And this is something you don't always think of when you're watching on TV. It's sort of that video game effect where you don't think about the actual human conditions. The fact that it's 90 degrees also plays into this. When you know that it's 90 degrees and guys just don't have the lungs or they're just breathing in a sauna,

like it's even more important to whenever possible eliminate 75-yard sprints. So even if it weren't like a huge numbers-down situation, Like foul the guy anyway. So your whole team can jog back instead of giving them any semblance of an open field to run into where five guys have to sprint full speed. Those full speed sprints in 90 degree weather just take their toll. Yeah, Christian Rodon is just too honest, man. He's too honest of a guy. Yes, very.

Did you see like Reggie Cannon started to get back? And I'm not going to say that he doesn't need to because it's hot out. but that's going to affect that's going to affect it he might he might like choose to just assume that he won't be needed this time this time the other guys will handle it uh and i can i can just sort of half jog back and and we probably won't get burned on this sequence okay well so how much how much valverdi arraskayeta turns and springs valverde and then valverdei plays it to brian rodriguez on the left wing who's one v one with erin long i guess the question i have and then of course As everyone knows, Rodriguez thrashes it past Guzan at the Near Post after kind of skinning Long.

How much do you blame Long? How much do you blame Guzan here? Probably, I kind of want to go equal parts. So Aaron Long gets embarrassed in an and one sense where he gets all turned around and has to like spin himself back to try to recover. But the way he got spun forced Rodriguez wide and at least narrowed, shooting angle. And then, you know, Rodriguez just smashed a ridiculous shot. So Rodriguez took, didn't, didn't need much of a window to hit.

But it's hard to tell from the camera angles we saw, but it seemed like Guzon wasn't shaded close enough to his near post. And I'm not a, I'm not like a never get beat at the near post goalkeeper. Like I think you just never, you should never get beat and then make it really hard to score on either the near post or the far post. but here it felt like Guzan was shaded too far to the far post already and then when you take into the fact that Aaron Long was pursuing from the far post side and might have been able to take away some of that far post with his recovery run

it seems like Guzan may have been able to set up closer to his near post anyway I don't know if any of that would put him in a spot where he could make the save but I think he would have been better positioned for it yeah I mean Rodriguez did absolutely smash it and yeah the shot itself might just be where you tip your hat and say, okay, okay then. We gave him 1 v1 in 50 yards of space. We forced him to a wide area of the field. So in other words, if you were to not watch the video,

but just sort of graph it and say, all right, this is where he picked up the ball, 1V1 against Aaron Long. This is where he took the shot, and this is where Aaron Long was defensively when he took the shot. You might actually say, Aaron, that's fine. Like, that's a fine defensive job.

It's hard to do much more than that in that situation. Okay, that works for me. You might also say Miles Robinson is shown to be acceptable. in those situations and he might actually provide more. Yeah. Yeah, we'll get into that. I think that's a question worth asking. We didn't look too good at this point in the game, and I don't know if I was just imagining it,

or if it's because I'm texting with Matt Hartman throughout the game, and he's such a downer. Cheer up, Matt. Cheer up. I don't have anything to base that on. I don't have any reason to give you to cheer up, just in general. Yeah. But it did maybe feel like the heads were dropping a little bit. We didn't, we didn't, we didn't look full of belief after the goal. It looked like we were going to have another loss. And Desk came off in the 70th minute. And at that point, our attacking shape, at least to my eyes, changed completely. Instead of working the ball down the left wing with those, in those combinations with Dest and Morris and rolled on and Legette, we started working the ball down the right wing more. consistently. And then Nick Lima came on five minutes later with his fresh legs in the 75th minute. And I thought he really introduced a new element, again, with the caveat that this game

was played in the friend zone. But Lima was ultimately the guy who helped the U.S. dig out a draw because, I mean, he got the ball in behind, I don't know, five or six times in the last 15 minutes, something like that, which leads us to the U.S. goal. It starts, can I take it? Yeah, go ahead and take this one. This is our joy right here. It starts with Miles, Miles Robinson passing to Corey Baird, and then Baird tapping it behind for Lima for a cross. That was cut out. And then, you know, a few moments later, we recirculate Ream to Roldon on in the channel, and then Roldon plays Lima in behind again. Lima's cutback pass is blocked, you know, a couple feet from his feet. But he chases it to the end line and the, and the clearance from

Jimenez just rockets off of Lima, rainbows over Fernando Muslera right on the goal line, and there's Jordan Morris to chest it in from point-blank range. Not a pretty goal, but it was the result. I mean, in fairness to everyone involved, it was the result of a nice little pattern of play that the U.S. did establish late in the game. That we repeatedly went to Lima on the right wing

and did finally get something out of it. Yeah, it was one of Reams many lines splitting passes. It's not like Reams passes carved Uruguay open, but he consistently didn't just play like a safe pass across over to Aaron Long. He kept hitting midfielders who would have at least some open space to play in. And Raldon did very well, I believe, with two touches to settle and sort of flick around the corner to Lima. So you keep building off those. Those are the bench.

Those are sort of the foundation stones to build off of. And then we need to clean up and tidy up the next two actions so that we're not relying on some lucky deflections. Right, right. Yeah, we didn't have a lot of clean service into the box. That one Jordan Morris Cross was pretty much the only, and the desk cross to Sergeant were the only examples that I can think of. Oh, there was one other that we haven't mentioned,

but there was a pretty good chance in the 57th minute. So just to go back in time a little bit, where Tyler Boyd crossed it to Jordan Morris on the back post on the left side. Morris, I don't know if he was trying to nod it back across for Sergeant or if he was going for goal, but he hit it right at Moslera and it was stamped out pretty easily. But if he had been able to get it across to Sergeant, it would have been a tap-in and that would have been a goal. Yeah, so another another again example of building enough to create a dangerous chance. And then we just, yeah, we just need those last, we need to solve those last two touches. Yep, absolutely. Which is I understand it are the easiest two touches in soccer.

They're super easy, yeah. Anything else before we sort of move on to talking about what we learned about the players? I'm kind of surprised that you left out the Serginio death shot in the 39th minute, I believe. Why don't you take it? Why don't you take it? It was a great long ball. The ball that only Michael Bradley and Will Trap can hit to put Sergeant in. I don't even remember who hit it, to be honest.

I think it was a centerback. It might have been Jackson Yule. To put Sergeant in behind the back line. So Sergeant stretches the back line, which is something I'd been informed that only a few, that he was not able to do and other strikers could do better. So Sergeant gets the ball in behind a Uruguay's back line, not in on goal, but enough behind them that they were forced to recover all the way back into the 18. And then this is something that I think Sergeant does really well that, again, is not offered by a Giazzi Zardez, for example,

is that he's then able to actually manipulate the situation. I think that's a huge distinction for me is that Zardaz can basically not manipulate the situation with the ball at his feet. He can only play sort of in the situation that's already been created. Sergeant pins two and a half defenders with him with feints and with attempts at goal. and drives them back again to create a nice little window to Sergenio Dest arriving late. So Sergeant buys the time, creates the window, desk arrives late to the top of the box, and Desk gets a not terribly threatening shot off from 22 out.

But it's not just that he got the shot off. It's that we found a player arriving in with time and space at the top of the box. That is a very valuable piece to the Greg Berhalter system. Okay, two things. One, that's really well said, being able to manipulate the situation. It kind of reminds me of Steve Jobs and his, you know, his thing about bending reality. So just think of it that way. Sergeant is Steve Jobs.

Jazzis' artist is whoever founded Microsoft. That's a terrible analogy, but we'll just go with it. And the second thing is I hate to do this to you, Greg, but I think it would, I'm pretty sure it was Sebastian Legette who took that shot. Okay. I'm good at that too. Yeah, you're probably right. I had a hard, the hardest time, I was watching on a smaller screen than usual. And so legit and Raldon and even Dest at times looked so familiar.

It was really hard to tell guys apart. They need to wear color-coded boots. Maybe they do that too. But in any event, just to be able to buy that time for him to arrive, because when you play a 60-yard long ball like we hit to Sergeant, like he's way ahead everybody else. He's either going to have to go it alone or he's going to have to hold it long enough for everyone else to get there. And in this case, again, he didn't just hold it.

He held it and threatened at the same time, which is why. Legette is able to arrive late and get that shot off. Yeah, it took one touch and then drew a diving save, but like you said, it wasn't super threatening. You know what that moment also made me think of was what if that's Alex Mendez arriving?

You know, it's perfectly on his left foot. He's just like going to hit a screamer somewhere on frame from that exact spot. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming about the future, as usual. Okay, let's talk about what we learned about the players. I have them sort of categorized in my own goofy little way, but do you want to start? No, no, no, no.

I want you to start with your categories. I like them. I've seen them. I've seen a little preview of your categories, and I'm on board. Okay. Well, the first category is the two who finally got their chance and looked good. And there are others who got their chance and looked pretty good, but you'll see later that I have a special category for them. I'm putting Sergeant in Dest in this category.

Why don't you say what you thought of sergeant's performance? So honestly, the chance I just sort of described is a big part of the sergeant performance for me. It's because he offers us that in buildup play. And I don't think Zardaz does. There might be other guys in the pool who do. I don't know. I mean, I think Altador does as well. And I'd say Altador still are number one until somebody else really forces it.

issue. But I think what we see from Sergeant there is that he is the guy who deserves to have the chance to force that issue. He gives us consistently in these games, uh, tidy play, uh, in the attacking third where when the ball comes to his feet, you can trust that he won't show it. He'll be able to manage it and, uh, oftentimes put other guys in good spots. And so we saw that, uh, more than once. It wasn't just the sequence. Uh, one of my favorite balls was his little flick on on the right side line. It might even been off like a throw-in where he just has the subtlest little flick over to Tyler Boyd who tries to match his flick with another flick and promptly turns it over.

But Sargent just has a lot of those. I think you've picked out a ball that comes into his feet on a split that he then sort of flicks on to Christian Raldon on one touch. Just stuff that Jazi Zardez is never going to offer. And again, I'm not trying to hammer on Zardaz, but he's gotten all of the minutes so far. and we don't get to see any of this combination play when he's in the game. So by putting Sargent in, we get to see some of this progress in the attack, and we get to see how other guys could play off of a good forward who can do these things. Sargent's not a world-beater right now,

but even now he's good enough to actively involve other players in a way that Zardaz can't, and that makes us better overall. Yeah, totally agree. He could have been more involved, I think, would be the main criticism you could level against him. But then again, Raguay was, you know, they were in a low block or a mid-block the whole time. They had the forward surrounded by centerbacks and defensive midfielders. He, when Sergeant did get involved, like that one little flick, that little flick on to

Sergenio Desk that resulted in, I think, Leggett losing the ball on the left wing, it was a result of Sergeant dropping very deep, almost Chichorito style, like what Chichorito was doing for Mexico. in the game on Friday. So Sergeant was moving around to try to find the ball. It just wasn't a game where the striker is going to touch the ball, you know, 40 times. And not only, I think I might have said he flicked it on to Roldon, but you just, you're talking about the same one.

I think he flicks it to desk, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So not only does he get the flick on, but you can see his sort of speed of thought is he flicks that on and then has already burst past the defender who had checked up onto his back. So he flicks it on to take that defender out of the play, but then also, adds himself back into the attacking equation. So again, it's a subtle thing.

And it's, you know, people are like joking about how everyone's going to read too much into this sergeant performance and like lionize him. But the bar set so low that I'm not lionizing the guy as like some all-star. It's just that he gives us a lot more than what we've been seeing for the past nine months. And that's enough for right now. Does he have a lot of potential as well? Yes. But I'm still mostly just interested in what he offers right now.

what he could provide the guys around him. And we're seeing, I think, pretty clearly that he should be getting these minutes if they're not going to Josie Altador. Yeah. He's so much more of a like-for-like replacement for Josie, too. It's, I mean, they do a lot of similar things. All right. The other guy, the other guy who I thought got his chance and looked good was Sergenio Dest.

Obviously, he's gotten two chances in this window, but taken as a whole, these two starts were his chance. And, you know, let's start with the bad, because that's, everybody's talking about, a lot of people are talking about it. There's a sort of desk can't play defense take that has proliferated. And I feel like a certain schadenfreude with which it's proffered by a large contingent of the punditry. But he's now been beaten 1v1 in both games.

He got, he got beaten by Brian Rodriguez, who kind of pushed the ball around him and then, and then went around the other side. It looks, you know, it's kind of. of a highlight real own and then he like i said early earlier he was napping a little on that early chance for uruguay i mean we can we can disagree about it to some extent but there's there's some culpability there right um sorry maybe okay you could argue that there was uh so defensively i'll admit you know he's not he's not a lockdown fullback but he's 18 years old and who for the national team right now is a lockdown defender.

Right. It's just this weird, it's just this incredible sort of double standard of saying he just has a long way to go before he's, before he's that defender, as though, as though like our 25-year-olds in the pool have eliminated those mistakes from their game or just are completely impervious to getting beat 1V1 or falling asleep on the backpost. There's no one who exists. Tim Ream is our, you know, most seasoned veteran on the roster. And he's got a pretty lengthy the highlight reel of getting of getting sort of burned and in high profile situation so over the past six months and we're not talking about two years ago like yeah yeah right sort of a per game uh uh uh like flub so so yeah so yeah so b expected burns so yes sir desk is going to have these

and even if he sort of continues to have one per game um that's not that much different than what other guys have had reggie cannon has not had that many kids for the U.S. national team. But he's had some very, like in the England game, he got absolutely destroyed and had to take what should have been his second yellow card by slashing a guy down. In the Mexico Gold Cup friendly,

there were a couple of times where Mexico absolutely, like, panced him going down the left sideline, but it's not that big of a deal because the chance doesn't end in a goal. So there isn't anybody we have that I know of that can offer absolute shutdown defending. And then on the other side, I would say there's nobody we have who who's sort of shown us the attacking verve that

Death has shown in his limited minutes. Yeah, it's totally. I mean, he changes the way we can play. Like, it's very obvious at this point. Is it not? I think so, but I'm going to, I still want to say we got to wait a few more games. Just like I wanted to, I liked what Anthony Robinson gave us in the attack, and I still think he could offer things in the attack.

But I want to see Desk do it in two, three more games. games. Okay. I think that should be starting until sort of he proves he shouldn't be. Don't get me wrong. Well, I think the thing that really sticks out to me about the way he plays is the, you know, the nice combination play. And to paraphrase Johann Krofe, he passes the ball with one touch, with the right speed

at the right foot of his teammate. And, and paraphrase, I don't think that's true of a lot of the players on the field last night. I think he sticks out in that. I think he sticks out in that way. And a lot of what we, a lot of what we were able to put together in the first half came up the left side through him. His ability to play, you know, in the interior of the field or on the wing, his ability to dribble, his ability to pick out a quick pass in close quarters. He's, I think he's a special player. Yeah, it was Sergenio Destin. It was Tim Rie. So we found a way to get both of them on the field. and I think that's just what we've got to stick with.

Okay. I'm only half kidding. Are we going to get to Ream in our individual performances? Do you want to just go to him right now? So I thought as a ball playing centerback, he's probably the best we've seen outside of John Brooks. And I mean, I'd even have to compare like a Brooks passing compilation from his U.S. minutes. Ream was really good passing the ball.

It's one game, but I mean, that's a very good centerback distributing. And it's, again, in sharp contrast, Aaron Long, who had a few passes that went directly to the Uruguay player eight yards in front of him. So if we're going to be up against teams in Conccaf that sit back and one of the jobs of the biggest job of the centerback is to be able to at least pick out somewhat brave passes through the midfield lines, Tim Ream made a decent shout for that. Yeah. Stock up, Tim Ream, stock down Aaron Long, wouldn't you say? I think so for for ball playing situations I don't know about if we're going to be under the gosh defensively whether that holds up but certainly if we're if if the job of the centerbacks is to open up a packed in defense ream outplayed Aaron Long by a pretty wide margin and he is

he is there's you know a lot of people are saying and I think it's somewhat reasonable that we might not get John Brooks we can't depend on him to be there for all these World Cup qualifiers, we certainly couldn't in the last cycle. So, you know, for Tim Riem to be sort of a like-for-like replacement, whatever you want the word to be for Brooks is a nice little revelation, I think. Can I move on to my next category here? Yes, let's get to your next category. I'm calling these guys the dribblers, and you'll see what I mean in a second.

Jackson Ewell and Miles Robinson. They were players who got their chance in this window, and they have a refreshing instinct, in my opinion, to be proactive with the ball at their feet. So you... Two new Christian pool sticks. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, not that much of a dribbler. But just that, you know, what we lacked against Mexico, I think you made this point is our centerbacks and Will Trapp in particular just were unwilling to dip their

shoulder and step past a guy and create a little bit of unbalance and a little bit of time for themselves. and obviously this is a different situation. This is a totally different kind of game, nowhere near the pressure, both spiritual, neither is both spiritual or, and, you know, literal. But you got to start,

and he did have a ton of time on the ball, but he looked pretty good. And he had that willingness to take space with the ball at his feet that you just don't see from Will Trapp. I don't think, even when it's not against Mexico. You know, right. That's the thing. Everyone's right to say, well, you can't compare this game to the Mexico game where we were under it. We're looking at an eight-man press, whereas Uruguay was sitting with, you know, nine guys behind the ball. That's 100% true. But we also have a ton of minutes from Will Trap against in the January camps and in the Gold Cup and in the friendlies leading up to the Gold Cup. So it's not like you have to only just compare him to what he did against Mexico. I don't think there are too many examples in any of those other games of Will Trap driving forward with the ball at his feet. and Uruguay is a more competent side, whether they were 100% invested in the game or not.

Right. So I'm not going to sing a hymn of praise to Ewell. I thought he was pretty good and perhaps better than Trap. Do you have a stronger take on it than that? I think that he can offer you. I think what he showed was that there are more guys in the pool than Bradley and Trap who can hit a diagonal ball 40. yards or 50 yards to their teammates' chest.

And I think Ewell offers that plus. So he offers that plus that ability to, without hesitation, know that he can receive a ball on a half turn and drive 18 yards forward to force a Mexico player to step to him and then release it wherever he's going to release it. Just to poke and prod against that defense. Did I say Mexico? Yeah. But just whoever the defense is, just to sort of test.

to test them out and see if you can, again, see if you can pull them somewhere, whereas Trapp's almost default mode, if that 45-yard ball isn't on, is to take a touch, look forward, turn back, and go too long or, I mean, there's just no testing when you play Will Traff there. You're never testing the opposition. It's a little bit like you're the manipulating the situation concept you brought up with Sargent. Right. So rarely does Trapp actually manipulate it. If he doesn't, if that pass isn't already on, then the ball's, going back to Stefan. Yeah. Okay. And then the other one is Miles Robinson. Got only cameos in this window, but I thought he looked solid defensively and found some passes between the lines. I think

he passed between the lines better than Aaron Long did in his brief time on the field. And like Yule, he at least on one occasion, maybe on two, he was able to take space with the ball at his feet, which is just, it's just refreshing to see. And I think that will be, I actually think think that will be the bigger game changer. Like hitting brave passes between the lines is good. But I think, like, we've, I think we've had that in the past. Like Jeff Cameron, Matt Beasler, those guys would try to hit those passes when we'd be playing Concaf, sort of weaker teams who sat back. Like, we would try to do that. Those guys were never guys who would actually drive forward with the ball because it just wasn't really in vogue for centerbacks for the past 10 years. Whereas the young

guys coming up, you know, Chris Richards has made that point. They're expressly told, like if you're, if you get it with space in front of you, you have to go forward. And that could really, that could really open up weak teams in Conca Calfe, who would, who are very happy to just sort of sit back and let us play around the outside of them. This could really be the sort of the wrinkle we need more than anything else that we're kind of testing out. As we, as we get to these World Cup qualifiers. Yeah, okay. All right.

So fingers, fingers crossed Miles Robinson changes, changes the game for us. He'll be, he'll be the game changer. excited about desk and all the young up-and-comers, but it's going to be Miles Robinson who changes everything. Well, just one little note on that. People who watch MLS a lot more than we do say that Miles Robinson has been a better centerback this season than Aaron Long has.

So take that for what it's worth. Next category for me is staying alive. I think Bobby Warshaw made the point on club and country last night that it's kind of annoying that we have players who play four bad games and then all of a sudden they play one and it gets confusing because you're like, are they still in the pool or not? And I think Christian Roldon and Jordan Morris both kind of raised their stock a little bit last night. All the caveats apply, but I think they're going to stick around under Burrhalter in the near future.

That seems very clear. And it's now kind of hard for me to argue they don't deserve to be, you know, in the top 30 of the player pool. So generally with a couple of injuries here or there, you're going to get called in. you know yeah and i don't i don't even disagree with that i'm i'm one who's who's ready to sort of cut bait on a lot of guys but once we're down uh once we're we're already down with injuries we sort of have this injury crisis for a lot of the new guys we wanted to see uh and then you're on the second game of the window where even you know a half dozen of your starters who are healthy sort of elect to go back to their club yes i'm i'm not going to raise too much of a fuss

uh when raldon and morris are in the starting lineup. I'll raise a little bit of a fuss that Paxton Pomacall isn't given that chance in a 100% meaningless game or isn't given more than four minutes. But no, I agree. I think top 30 is a good way of putting it for Roldon and Morris. Just to get into some detail on their night, I'd say Roldon had a mixed night. He had some good moments early and he had some really good moments late. He had a head-on goal in the first half that we've already discussed. He had some rough moments early in the second half where it was just kind of keystone cops in the midfield a little bit. And he, of course, deserves some blame for the goal, as we discussed.

Got to take a yellow there, Christian. But his best moments were after the goal was scored, started really facilitating things. I just went through and looked. In the last 10 minutes of the game, he sprang, Baird in behind, Lima again, Zardis in behind. And then he played a ball, a nice ball to Legette. that Leget kind of tried to take down with his chest but couldn't quite do it. It would have been quite a play from Legit, but it was a nice ball from Rodon. Yeah, and just because that could, you know, if you're listening, you're not sure,

that was a ball into Legit, like on the dead run entering the box in the air over the entire Uruguay defense, right? So that was Legit in on goal. This wasn't just like, oh, he kind of sprung Legit near the center circle. No, this was like a goal scoring opportunity. Yeah, I mean, if Legit takes a first class, first touch there, he scores. It was that nice of a ball. If he had gone Robin Van Percy World Cup 2014, he would have had some kind of a salmon-like header into the top one.

Salmon-like. And then he also slipped Lima in behind again, right, before the end of the game. So doing a lot of good facilitating there in the right channel. I don't know. I liked it. Are there mitigating factors? I'm sure.

I mean, only in the sense that, Not really. Again, you can talk about how it's friendly at half speed, but again, like, well, we're comparing it to what we've seen from other guys against lesser competition. So that's the, that's, you've got to go by what they did on the field. And I think maybe it was a matter of getting rolled on into a spot that he was much more comfortable in rather than being sort of expressly a 10 as he sort of played in a lot of Burrhalter games. He was given a lot, almost like that McKinney style freedom to come back as, as he felt necessary, as the game. decided he would come back into a role he was more comfortable with and then he could sort of go forward when it was on rather than always being forward and having to like just solve it

rolled on even though that's not really his game yeah he does seem like the one the one guy that dest was most comfortable doing like quick combinations with maybe maybe legit but uh he seemed the one most most able to sort of match match dest in close quarters I won't praise sergenio Desk anymore the rest of the podcast, I promise. And then the other guy staying alive is Jordan Morris. He got the goal, of course, served up a goal on a platter for Boyd to miss, combined with some effectiveness down the left wing with Dest. And I don't know, what else?

He was okay. He was better than okay. Yeah, his role was kind of changed a little bit with Dest bombing past him. So a lot of times he would almost then sort of sag back into support. So it wasn't like, again, Morris wasn't tasked with generating all of the offense. He generated a fair amount of it. But it didn't all fall on his shoulders on that side of the field, which I think is what has to happen. When he's on the right side, a lot of times he has to be all of the offense over there.

And it was sort of pool sick doing all of it on the left. And now you just add in those extra little pieces and take some of the pressure off the role players. and they're in much better spaces to succeed. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's, Morris is going to be around. He's going to be with us for a while. I think there's no doubt about it. And there's two players we haven't really talked about.

Reggie Cannon and Tyler Boyd. You have any thoughts on Cannon? I don't. No, not really, right? I thought he's somewhat misplayed that chance in the sixth minute. Not too sort of worked up about that. It's something you just talk about once in film and then see how it looks later.

But otherwise, no, he didn't really add a lot to the attack. Is that fair? I think it's fair, yeah. I don't think he was quite precise enough. And neither were the people playing him in behind. It always felt like the weight was a little bit off on the passes to cannon. So then you have to slow down or, you know,

he couldn't just meet it in full stride. It's also going to be different because I think his role in this game was different. He wasn't sort of the side line hugging right back because Tyler Boyd was out there most of the time. So Cannon again, just kind of had to sit behind him in support. So he's going to be in position less often

to do anything dynamic. So I think when Lima came in, it was sort of a different situation because Lima was very much getting forward towards the end line. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. Because the emphasis was to attack up the left side for most of the game, really.

All right. Well, Tyler Boyd. Tyler Boyd, I thought he had probably the worst game out of any national league player. He looked like a guy who was at tryouts, like trying too hard to try to impress. That's how I feel when I watch him a lot of the time, not just in this game. And to be honest, like, I think this was kind of the same sense we got his first game out. with the national team in the gold cup against Guyana, even though he scored two goals,

like the way he played never really seemed to mesh with everyone else. And so if he's good enough to constantly dominate teams the way he sort of did against Guyana to create his own shot, then he might be worth playing. But if he's not that, if he's not good enough to do it against real teams, then suddenly he's a huge sort of hole in the lineup. Yeah.

He's goal dangerous. I mean, I guess he showed that in the Turkish league last year and against Guyana and the Gold Cup. Like, he can score goals, so that's kind of a nice thing. He can beat people occasionally. He did have a nice cutback pass that didn't find anybody, but it was a good idea. He got to the end line once and he crossed it into a dangerous area another time. And then he hit that cross for Morris, that Morris could have nodded back across to Sargent. Yep.

So it wasn't like there was nothing to show for it for his evening. but generally I agree. I don't like the way he sort of plays with his head down and the blinders on. You know, he's not looking to combine quickly. Right. And it's one of those things where I think people could almost say that his propensity to take people on,

like the fact that he's so willing to do it, could be a positive. I think you and I just happen to sort of be in the boat that a lot of times in 2000, in the game of soccer in 2019, taking people on is actually a suboptimal decision and if that's your first, second, third choice, you're going to hurt the team more than you're going to help it.

Yeah, I'm totally in that boat. We're sort of the past move types. Yeah. Unless you're Christian pool sick and you can do it like you're one of the 10 best players in the world doing, not 10's a stretch, but... Top 30 probably. Yeah, then yes, you lean on that

and you ride that until the wheels fall off. But if you're not, then suddenly you are, you're becoming a very inefficient option in the attack. Yeah. Pomacall came on for the last five minutes. I mean, he took somebody on, which was kind of nice to see, you know, sort of in contradiction to what we were just saying.

But it was nice to see him take somebody on. He did lose the ball in the box, but he beat two guys into the box. And I don't know. It was exciting to see him get his first cap. Hopefully he can continue to grow and continue to impress Greg Burhalter. Yeah.

be discouraging. Like everyone's like, you got to be patient. You got to be patient. And I guess kind of, but again, this game doesn't mean anything. So what would be discouraging is if we get into October and he still isn't getting called up because now, well, we can't call him in now because these are competitive games and we can't experiment in competitive game. Like that's where it would start to be like, all right, but at this point, you know, nine, ten months into the, into the Greg Burholter era, like there's being patient and then there's being glacial. And And I feel like we have to stay on the correct side of glacial. Like we cannot, I don't think like we should just die by inertia.

No, I'm trying to look up like the U.S. Cuba Nations League game, which is, you know, a month away. I think it's at home. It's in D.C., yeah. Yeah. Is it D.C.? I don't know. Yeah. They've announced where they're playing it.

It's definitely a home game because then we play Canada in Vancouver. And then in the next window we go play away to Cuba, but not in Cuba. We play in like the... In the Cayman Islands, I think. Yeah. Which is kind of southwest of Cuba, closer to Mexico. So I think that's kind of a nice trip back to the U.S., you know, October games in D.C. And is it Vancouver or Toronto?

Vancouver, I'm pretty sure. Okay. You're going to call me out here for being wrong. I don't get any joy out of that. Our fact checkers are horrendous. Overpaid and horrendous. Okay, so no, we're playing Canada in Toronto at BMO field. So that's a great, that's actually a great window.

Play in D.C., play in Toronto. European guys can fly out from there. The domestic guys are, it's easy for them. We should absolutely, cue at home, we should absolutely be willing to take some experimental risks. Yeah, I think so. I think. And I just have to keep. hammering on this too we call them experimental risks we're not talking about

intram call replacing some guy who's been entrenched in the national team for for the better part of two world cup cycles we're talking about like will trap Christian Lodon these are even Sebastian legit these guys are also experimental like all of these guys are experimental and it's it's pretty new data on all of them we should be a little bit more fickle in these early stages yeah I had some idea we should talk about some of the bigger picture stuff here, but I think we should not. Let's do it next week. Is that okay with you? Yeah, I think that'd be great to sort of wrap up on what we can take from this window, and almost like the Burr-Halter era to date, because we are now

getting into meaningful games in the sense that they cap-tie us, and in the sense that we at least have to get some results here in order to play more competitive games against Mexico in the March window. Yeah. That's the goal, right? We've got to make sure we get to play Mexico in March. Yeah, that'll be really fun, hopefully fun and not horrendous. We also, you know, programming-wise, we got to get our, we got to do our top 40 for the

month at some point in the next few weeks, Greg. Yeah, that could easily be. I know you go into a trance when you see a spreadsheet. That spreadsheet I'll spend all day and I'll just I'll just be like I love ranking players. Yeah, it is pretty fun actually. And we're going to make those rankings available to all members of the Patreon, all supporters on there. We want to thank everybody who supports us on Patreon.

That's a huge help. And finally, let me put in a periodic plug for rating, reviewing, and subscribing to the podcast. The audience is growing, but we wanted to keep doing so. and the iTunes engagement, iTunes slash Apple engagement is a good way to get us into more ear holes. How do you like that? Don't say ear holes. It makes me squirm. Hey, I just need to do another fact check.

Our fact check just chimed in my ear. We have to win our group to be in March window against, like, Mexico and the other four group winners. So if we drop a result against Canada, that will basically be it. Like you can't because Canada is going to do the business against Cuba, presumably. So we have to be playing for a result against Canada. Bring in the big guns. Right. I mean, we could presumably lose Canada and then beat them at home and still win the group.

But yeah, I think we want to come in and win that game, bring the A team. I imagine, I mean, I'm no psychologist, but I imagine, McKinney, Pulisic, who else had to go home early. Morales, they probably want to get that taste out of that Mexico game out of their mouth. Don't they? Don't they want to come back and get a do-over against Canada? I would. Yes.

Oh, yeah. Pulisic especially, like, you can just tell, like, he's just on fire when things aren't going well for the U.S. Yeah. What a man. What an American. I think Morales tore is that, doctor. I don't think he's coming back by October. Yeah, that's true.

Hopefully, we heard Tyler Adams is two weeks out from training. We've been hearing that for a long time, though. All right. Let's get out of here. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We'll see you.