SoccerWise - Soccerwise: USMNT Post-Game Edition

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

4:25 Pulisic's Elite Form11:15 Balogun & Pulisic's Tactical Wrinkles17:25 Weston Changing The Game Off The Ball19:09 Worries After Only 2-0 And Early Panama Preview Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

What's up everybody, welcome back to SoccerWise, this is our first ever live post game show, I am David Goss with you, if you're listening anywhere else, feel free to listen at your own speed and message us after, but if you're listening live, I want to hear everything you all have to say. I want you all to be a part of this conversation. And we're going to do this the entire Copa America. I would like to do it both for Canada games as well as for the US games and then maybe into the Olympics,

doing it for both the men's and women's side as things go along, just so we can all enjoy this together and have a little bit of fun. I will have the weekend reaction for MLS and NWSL coming up as well. So if you're listening as a podcast, you can go find that one separately. But this is just specifically about the U.S.-Bolivia game, which just wrapped up 10 seconds ago on my feed, which is behind everyone else's because I get every text of,

how amazing was that? Let's go. Oh, no. The entire night. And I am not seeing any of it until after people after people have messaged me. So a lot for me to react to a lot coming up. The U.S. wins 2-0 over Bolivia in the opening game of the group stage of Copa America. They finally get things started.

It is a dominant performance. I will talk a little bit about the scoreline and what it should have been and what it could have been and why it matters as we go along and some other big thoughts that I had as well. And then hopefully we will get what all of you think and what you guys are all talking about. Shout out to the legend Eric Gonsalves, who just says, Tyler Adams, unhealthy, the most important player for the USMNT.

Yay or nay. I love talking Tyler Adams. Me and Tom debated whether or not he should play in this game on Thursday. My pure take was he is so important that I would not have wasted him in this Bolivia game. Greg Berhalter clearly had a hard minutes limit for him at 45 minutes and decided to use him from the start rather than from halftime. And I think the easiest way to understand that is

you want him to play with your starters. You want him to get experience in that midfield with Reyna, with Weston McKinney once again, with Pulisic and Boligan, with that group. Like the expectation is as Tyler Adams progresses in this tournament to being a 90 minute player and you go and you play tougher and tougher teams. And that is like the clear road for the U.S. right now is you're going to go from Bolivia, the worst team you could play, to Panama, which is probably the second worst team that will be left in this tournament

for the U.S. to face Uruguay after that. And if you're lucky enough, probably Brazil and Colombia as you go forward. So it's going to get tougher literally every single game as you roll along. And because of that, you wanted to get Tyler Adams minutes with your starters in this one. So I could understand the idea there. I would have just protected him because I don't want to risk anything with him. He has not really played this year. He's played about three games outside of the U.S. jersey. You want him as much as you can coming up in the season or in this tournament. So I wouldn't have

done it, but I can understand if you're going to do it, that you do it from the start. Eunice Moussa comes on for him at halftime. So to EG's point, I think he could be that player because no one else does things exactly as he does things. You heard the comments from Chris Richards this week about how even when coming off injury or not fully fit, he is still the leader in this team, both vocally and the way he trains and what he brings this team in the way they raise their game. I think you could put him in that conversation. I think you could talk about Tyler Adams being the most indispensable player in this team. You could talk about him being the most important.

And he was the big flag in the starting lineup. It was him. And then, of course, it was Florian Baligan, who has struggled over his time with the U.S. so far, struggled with Monaco this year. We had the conversation on Thursday. I think me and Tom both said if Josh Sargent was healthy, we thought he would be the starter right now based off the way he played with Norwich,

the way he finished the season, and the elements he brings to the team. That was not the case. Balogun gets the start, struggles for large stretches of the first half purely with his finishing, especially setting up his finishing. A lot of his moments where slow first touches out the way he's gets his hips and body around the ball takes a little too long it allows defenders to close

but he does get a really good finish on his goal Pulisic drives up the middle lays it off to him and he scores from the left side could have been set up by timothy way a few other times so has some really good moments has a really good game overall i think in this one gets the goal gets a little bit of confidence that's what you want to see and you can understand once again you should beat bolivia like i am someone who strives more than anyone to watch as much soccer as i can respect as many players and opponents as you can this Bolivian team is the worst team at this tournament they are the worst team in South America although they did beat Peru but they did so at home at La Paz they have won two games outside

of La Paz in competitive soccer since 1995 that being against the U.S. in 1995 and of course that's a different generation when they had qualified for the 94 World Cup, they had talented players that they were pushing. Since then, they've only won one competitive game outside of the altitude and their home atmosphere, and that was against Ecuador back in 2015. So this was you should win game. This was you must win game.

And this was a situation where I think you could have tried a few different things and one of the things they chose to try was to get ball again a little bit of confidence and I think it works out for the U.S. in the end so those are the two big flags on the starting lineup otherwise everything else stays the same as it did against Brazil I think that was easy to expect for the most part a lot of these names are written into stone I thought Gio Reyna had to start in this game because I thought it was a game like it was where the u.s dominated possession 61 that they needed more of that quality to create chances to to create going forward and to do a lot of different things so he made sense for this game in that way he made sense for this game and that

his one most talented players on the team and he's fit in really well in central midfield. And so he gets the opportunity to start in this one as well. And I think it worked out for the U.S. in that midfield trio as it went along. As Bolivia shifted things, the U.S. shifted things in both personnel with Moussa coming on, as well as moving things around and starting to change the way they built out. When Bolivia did show a little bit of pressure the few times they did so as this game went along. So a good day for Tyler, a good day for Baligan.

But I think when you talk U.S. soccer right now, when you talk the U.S. national team, you're talking Christian Pulisic. This is the best soccer of his entire life. This is the best he has ever played that I've seen. This is the best I think he's played that most of us have seen. And I think there's a few different reasons for it. I think the biggest one I see is his confidence, his decision making, and his ball striking once he's in possession. When you go back and watch his Chelsea years, and you watch some huge goals that he scored, right? FA Cups, Champions League, most of them are one-touch finishes. He reads the play really well on the far side

when he's one of the wingers or wide attackers, whatever you want to call him, and he's great at crashing and finishing. He's really good at positioning his body on his first touch to finish dangerously and put things on goal. A lot of times for him, what went wrong was after that first touch, setting up his shot, shooting at speed when he's in possession, taking a defender on and then setting himself up for a shot. Those were the moments where he had trouble finishing. That's not the case right now. He is so clean out of his body with his second and third touch,

and the way he strikes it, you see it on the goal, the movement. It's got eyes for the corner. There's nothing the goalkeeper can do about it. And you see in the way he celebrates in the conversation around pointing at the free kick specialist, pointing at Gianni, that he had the idea of what was going to happen the whole time. So he sets himself up from when the corner kick is taken short until he drives into the box, gets his body around the ball, curls it to the far post. Exactly what he's going to do.

And he executes it. Now we're talking about a player who has struggled to beat the first man on set pieces. Who has struggled in big moments when the ball comes to him to set himself up and score. That's the difference that we're talking about right now. For the whole year at Milan, both in his own goal scoring and setting up his teammates and what we're seeing right now with the U.S. you come out of that Brazil game where he carried the U.S. into that game kept them confident played his socks off to the point where he is limping around cramping whatever he's doing insists on staying in the game both then and today

against Bolivia and then he's able to continue to perform and push things and play better and better and so this is the best I've ever seen him this is the best he's played and this tournament has that moment where he can sort of elevate himself he's the star he's known but if he performs like this against some of the better opponents if this team continues to push forward and he performs like this, he gets past the Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey level. He gets into a conversation of, you know, a great athlete in the world and a great American player. And he can be that star that a lot of people are hoping for. There's a lot put on his shoulders.

It's unfortunate. He seems really comfortable with it right now in this group in this setup you hear how he talks about wanting to play for Greg Berhalter and what this team is you know his relationships with Weston McKinney and Tyler Adams and a lot of these guys that he grew up with that are his best friends from when he was younger being back in this side and playing but I think playing every week at Milan knowing that his career is going in the trajectory now that he wants it to having that confidence having that comfort and being informed, we're starting to see what we thought we could see. We're starting to see a U.S. men's national team legend.

He was the quickest to 30 goals in his career, both in games and in age. Everything Landon did, he's doing. Everything Landon did, I think he can continue to do and break. And a lot of these performances are like Landon was on his best day, where he was always driving. He was always taking players on. He was always carrying the team behind him when you weren't sure who was going to show up that day or what the team was.

And especially in a game like this, yeah, you should win. But everything came off Christian Pulisic. And you talk about Baligan's goal I thought that was one of my favorite parts of this game was the amount of interchange between Pulisic and Baligan it happens really early where the U.S. is building out of a goal kick and they play to the right side they play to Richards they play towards Scali and rather than Pulisic hang on the sideline he comes all the way across the field. Balogun floats out a little bit wide. And now Pulisic is open in a hole underneath the center backs to pick up the ball.

And Balogun is the one crashing off of him. And then that's what happens in the goal as you go along. So the goal ends up being scored in the 44th minute. But this had already happened 15, minutes before that and then continued to happen as it went along and one of the things that gets frustrating as you watch the u.s a lot of times was things felt plotting things felt methodical and things did not feel as fluid as they could and this is how you change some of that start to confuse defenders start to have some create creative moments where players

can find the game and change things a little bit. And I thought Pulisic did it fantastically. I thought Boligan looked comfortable going out wide and just allowing that space. And then he gets the goal in a moment where now he can face up on goal. So the layoff comes to him rather than being slipped through, rather than the chance that Weah set him up with where he had to take a touch and then turn himself towards goal. This one, he's's already facing goal Pulisic can lay it off to him and he can then strike it with the outside of the laces towards that far post on the ground straightforward finish but a really clean one from him as well and so I think you're starting to see now Greg Barhalter add a couple elements to what they do and I've've been as frustrated as some people, as many people,

over when you watch the U.S. and it looks kind of plotting. That wasn't the case today. 2.5 XG, they should have scored more than they did. And it was not a case of getting into the final third and not making the right decision. And it wasn't really a case of getting into the final third and being lost. It just wasn't one of those days where a lot of them went in. We have a ton of questions and

comments about ricardo pepe lord billiam and seven ziggy seven how many of pepe's chances were good saves versus bad finishing and on another day pepe has three so kind of answers the question for itself the first one is tough for pepe he comes off the bench immediately he has a look it's what you dream about he was not prepared for it. And I say that in saying this is a guy who normally is prepared. Like Ricardo Pepe scores against Honduras off the bench, or excuse me, El Salvador, to maybe save the U.S. in World Cup qualifying for 2022.

He is not, he hadn't in his career been a bench player. He has been at PSV. He's come off the bench and scored a ton of goals for PSV. He normally has a good mindset to come into the game at full speed, maybe overwhelmed by the moment playing in Dallas, being an El Paso native and an FC Dallas Academy kid, maybe just not prepared in that exact time and will be next time. If he's going to miss that chance, I'd rather it be against Bolivia than against Uruguay or against Brazil or Colombia or wherever it is going forward. So unfortunate there. I do think a lot of it is on his finishing.

Now, the two chances he hits from outside the box, those are really good saves. The one is he drives it high in the middle. Keeper punches it up. It almost goes in and then goes over the crossbar. The other one is he pulls out the shot in the left channel, but from 30 to 35 yards out. It has eyes for the corner, and another really good save there as well, that one in the 81st minute.

So he comes on, and within 10, 15 minutes, he has three to four chances. It's what you want for a striker. It's what he would have wished for. You'd love to see him put them away um but i think in the end you have to give him a little bit of a little bit of love because he performed he has performed well in the past he has not started a ton so he's still getting his legs under him uh and i think a lot of people feel the same which is you're rooting for him and you're hoping that he gets there uh and you continue to sort of look at these opportunities and see if he can build on it as he goes forward not as much interchange between him and his ballistic as you'd you would expect

because bolligan has a little bit more um athleticism to go side to side and play out as sort of a quote-unquote winger so i think that's part of the reason bolligan is the starter in this team it's also part of the reason i thought thought Josh Sargent would be the starter of healthy because he's both finishing and can be that player. He's played as a winger for Norwich. It's not his best position, but he's done it. I think he's an elite chance creator as a center forward with his back to goal for the players around him, which allows a way and a Pulisic to crash inside and come find the game and play off of him if necessary and I think he then if necessary can turn and beat players 1v1 but Baligan showed some of that in this game as well and I think the U.S. found ways to create chances without having that which

was Pulisic driving inside Pulisic picking up the ball from central areas drawing defenders and then finding players. And I will say, it felt really good to see the U.S. hit more switches earlier in play. You saw them spray a couple out to Timothy Weah that could have created chances in the first half or did create chances that they were just not able to finish off. That was before defenses were set. That was at times when you could now have crashing players come across an unsettled back line as way as able to attack space. And that's something that the U.S. has struggled with in these types of games.

You go back to CONCACAF Nations League semifinals for the most part. You go back to some Gold Cup games. We're going to talk about Panama coming up. You go back to last year's Gold Cup semifinal where the U.S. failed to score lost to Panama in those games there was not enough quick play or early play before defenses were set and it was so much trying to break down closed tight lines and close blocks and so I thought the U.S. did that really well in this game as well one more note and then I'm going to dig into all the comments here from me. Two more actually. I thought Weston McKinney was really good in this game out of possession. There were some really

nice moments in possession. He creates the chance that gets called for the offside where Weah is a shoulder offside but Weah lays that off. Weston McKinney has a ton of work left to do. He holds three different defenders off. He keeps possession. He drives it forward. He lays it off almost at the exact right time and creates that chance. So I thought Weston McKinney was good in possession. Not great. Didn't come and dominate the game. Didn't come and find the game all the time. I talk about this a lot.

In games like that, a lot of times Weston McKinney is a passenger overall because he's just not engaged and he's not finding ways to affect the game. I thought in this game, he did a great job of affecting the game as a defender and affecting the game as a runner. And so I thought he worked really hard to win it back. I think the yellow card was the wrong call against him in the first half. I think he gets that ball cleanly, but he's making the effort, right? He's working to get back. He doesn't let his back line get exposed. He makes the effort to make the tackle. And understands i think sort of the moment there of how dangerous a goal against them is he's got to now live on one yellow card for the group stage it's two yellow

cards in the group stage and you're suspended for another game so he's got to be really smart about what he does and you don't you can't see him do a lot of the off-ball antics stuff that he sometimes inspires the U.S. with, but can get him in a lot of trouble. But I thought today was a mature performance from him in that he fought to be around the game. He worked really hard in a central midfield that had Tyler Adams for a half, but then didn't for a large stretch of the second half that he was still on the field. And while they brought Johnny in alongside Moosa or dropped Rain a little deeper Weston did a lot of work to clean things up throughout that second half so I thought this

was a good Weston McKinney game even though it wasn't a quintessential elite Weston McKinney game it wasn't the way we normally see him be great so I give him credit for that I think he is working on these things as he gets more and more mature and I think he's finding ways as a leader of this team to always show up for them even if it's not in the perfect ways he'd like to and it's you know diming a ball to the back post against Iran to win a world Cup game and move this team on. He was still a factor throughout this game. The last thing here, 2-0 is not great. Like 2.4 XG, they created the chances. Like I said, there was a lot of big opportunities. Three big chances is what I'm seeing on FOTMOB. There is a situation in which you draw Panama and it comes down to who beats Bolivia by the most and who

loses to Uruguay by the least I'm not saying that's a hundred percent what's going to happen but this has left that door open you often want to play that worst team in the group last we're seeing it in the euros right now already and then you have the opportunity to sort of set up what you need to do and know what you need to do. The U.S. didn't put themselves in a perfect spot here. Now they win the next game. They're through. Like there's it.

We will watch the Panama game in a few moments. It feels like a very small chance that Panama beats Uruguay. And the U.S. is in a situation where they have to get the result against Uruguay in the final game to get through. Your hope is that you're in a situation where if you get that result in the final game maybe you win the group but you have left that door open so now game two sort of becomes must win for this squad which isn't exactly where you want it to be but it is fine it's just not ideal for this team so I think you left a little bit on the board. I think you put yourself in a dangerous spot. And real quick on Panama coming up. The US lost to them in the Gold Cup semifinal last year. 0-0 game. Mexico barely scrapes out a 1-0 win in front of a fully home crowd at SoFi in the Gold Cup final to beat Panama, a game Panama outplayed them. They finished four points out of World Cup qualifying and played fantastic under Thomas Christensen.

That's why he's been brought back. And then you look at a Panama team that is probably the third best possession team and one of the top two defensive teams in CONCACAF right now. All of that leads to their games are always tight. They are always in it and if you are not on that's where i look at a potential draw coming up in the next game and that's where i think it's really dangerous andres andrade who's been inspired for them at center back he's injured he's not available for this tournament so that is a blow for them but they still have coco carasquilla

who i think is the most underrated midfielder in the region. They've still got Anibal Godoy if they need it. They've got a back line that has players playing in Portugal, that has players playing in England, that has some of the most experienced players in this region behind them in Mosquera, in Goal. It's a dangerous team. And it's a team that I think coming into a Copa America where you don't know a lot of your opponents will feel fairly confident against the u.s not pure belief that they should win or have to win or going to win but i think fairly confident that they can get that result and so i think that's a dangerous moment for this u.s team it makes game two must win it makes it a very important match uh and it makes it one where you'd like to see another

performance like this from Pulisic and maybe a step up from Weston McKinney and a step up from Timothy Weah to be at the level necessary to get a guaranteed win there if you win that game you're through six points you've beaten Panama unless Panama shocks Uruguay this group is pretty straightforward you finish out in the third game we'll talk about that as the week rolls along what type of team you'd see then whatever but the U.S. has left the door slightly ajar with this just 2-0 win but they have obviously their own destiny and their power and they can do whatever they want going forward from this moment so those are my thoughts that's what i saw uh from the most part now we get into me being a grass expert as we go along um adrian gandhi says do we think the pitch held up

or what cannot believe that final peppy attempt how did that not go in the christian goal was a banger i agree with you on the christian goal it's one of the best goals i always think back to demarcus beasley's finish against Mexico in 2005. In 06 World Cup qualifying, they play a quick one-two off a short corner, and he sort of jitterbugs along the end line and curls it to the far post. That's one of the best set-piece goals in U.S. history. Benny Felhaber, of course, his volley as well, one of the great moments in U.S. soccer history against Mexico.

In that one, this is one of the great set-piece goals in U.S. history. You go short, and it's clear with the celebration, like, it was a plan. They know exactly what they're doing. They thought that that would be an opening. And then I thought Pulisic's service outside of that was solid. In this game, it's all about matching it up with the runners and being more dangerous. The U.S. needs to be dangerous on set-pieces set pieces they historically have been it's a huge factor in international tournaments

they have left it on the table over the last four or five years and it's clearly a genuine focus that they're trying to improve and then the finish has that as you watch it in slow-mo from behind everything about it is perfect and almost the goalkeeper touch makes it even better because it just shows the power and placement on the shot that a goalkeeper covering the right area and putting his hand in that right spot, still not able to keep it out. And it was the exact start you needed, right? In games like this, the longer your opponent stays in it,

the longer it stays 0-0. That's where we see the U.S. get frustrated, start to play earlier balls when they don't need to start to stress all these things that didn't happen in this game and it didn't happen because of that start and that's what you want to see that's the inspiring play you want to see from your captain in Christian Pulisic so I agree with you there Adrian uh on the field the field was fine in this game I'm not an expert I don't know why people are getting hurt if it comes out that it I'm not an expert. I don't know why people are getting hurt. If it comes out that it is because of the fields,

then I don't think there's any scenario in which you should be allowed to play in these settings and on these fields. But we don't know that yet. We don't know what's happened. It has been ugly in some games. I think it has caused some of the soccer to be worse. I think you heard the broadcasters talking about the width as well, not being as wide as you'd like it to be because some of these football stadiums are tighter which is insane to me because

they were built in like the last 10 years and 80 of the business they do is soccer games but clearly it doesn't matter so we move on from there um and your hope is that the facilities as you go forward remain good or better uh clearly at&t stadium has done work based off what happened um i believe in nations league and the issues that were there they've instead of laying it over turf they've added real sod and grown actual grass on top of it and to make the the surface better and that's kind of what you've heard from the people who have played on it um this is like the most interest i have about grass in this one. If you want more, I can call Bobby Warshaw and he can talk about blue grass and all this

other stuff and the way the ball runs and runs forward and backwards based off the blades. I don't know enough about this, but I've had I've been on a broadcast with him where he's done a large section about that. EG agrees with me. He said needed at least two more goals. I like that. He said in a game like that feel like we should have given some of the center back that some run too would have liked

to see miles get some minutes yeah i thought that was interesting i thought it was interesting especially when you see ream struggle a little bit um struggle he had two turnovers that were completely unforced and then he's holding his face at one point and obviously he's not on the right side of the mid 30s to be ready to roll for maybe the entire month at a really high level when he was in and out of the lineup in Fulham because of injuries, not because of performance. You thought maybe this was a chance to see some other pieces. I think everything is so new that you're still trying to get him and Richards together. Richards was great again. Chris Richards is the center back position right now. And if he

continues to play this way, it just gives you this huge safety blanket to then be able to introduce everyone else alongside him. So it was another really good day for him. I thought he was clean in his possession. I thought he read danger well. All the shots for Bolivia came from outside the box because he was able to close off most of the issues and there was one or two builds where Bolivia actually extended their pressure unexpectedly he was calm he was composed the really big one in the second half he finds Moussa's feet at the top of the 18 he plays it to the correct foot so Moussa can turn on the half turn beat that first defender he ends up getting dragged down all of that is the high level stuff that you want to see from these players.

And for Richards who moved positions a little bit at crystal palace, that was huge. You could have understood. Maybe this is a chance to see miles a little bit. Maybe this is a chance to extend some of the minutes, maybe save Scali's legs a little bit as well. Cause without deaths, you don't feel like you have a ton of depth at that right back position.

Wasn't the case from Greg Berhalter. I think there's a part of him and sort of what Tom said on the show on Thursday. It's like, it's Copa America. It's time. We're not rotating. We're not finding experiences like it's time to go and win. And this was the start of it, even though it's just Bolivia in front of a very friendly crowd. I think you saw some elements of that from the way Greg Berhalter decided to handle this one. And then Bish Lance says, I noticed Weston decided to sit next to Miles on the bench.

That pretty much confirms to me he's coming to Cincinnati. This has been a wild experience to deal with the Greg Berhalter, or sorry, the Christian Pulisic. Weston McKinney potentially to FC Cincinnati stuff. I'm not going to dig into it too much here. I understand. I think the elements from the outside. I want to do this with Tom on Tuesday.

So 2 p.m. Eastern time, we will be live on Tuesday, or you can get us as a podcast. The moment we're able to get it out at 3 30 or 4 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon but we're live every Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday on YouTube on Twitch MLS chat with Tom on Tuesday some USMNT now it will be as well we'll have NWSL with Jordan on Wednesday again and then Thursday Tom will be back to talk some more USMNT I believe the US game against Panama is Thursday night. So we'll preview it throughout the week. We'll preview it there as well. And then we'll do a little bit of post game on Thursday night. It feels very similar, I think, to going into the 2014 World Cup

and coming out of it where there was this big push by MLS teams to get US stars like Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey and Josie Altidore and all those guys to come to Major League Soccer and play there. It is different because Weston McKinney is a legitimate piece of Juventus. And it sounds like Aston Villa is interested in bringing him in as well, which is now a Champions League team in England. So to come to the U.S. is a different experience. He obviously came through the FC Dallas Academy, but was raised for a large amount of time in Germany. Hence why he went to Schalke, speaks German fluently, comfortable there, and has been in Europe since. You know, Michael Bradley could have stayed.

Clint Dempsey could have stayed. Other players that came to MLS specifically could have stayed. It wasn't the exact scenario we're looking at here. On the other side, too, for FC Cincinnati, it's going to cost you a lot of money to bring this player in. You won the Supporters' Shield last year. You are in the conversation to win it again this year. Obviously, it has been changed heavily with Matt Mioska's injury and Myles Robinson being unavailable right now and Nick Hagelin's injury and all of them continuing to pile up along the back line with Kip Keller.

This is different and I'm here for different. I'm not sure if I would do it, but I'm here for teams trying new things and teams taking risks. So I'm here for that. And it'll be interesting to watch as it goes along uh dave thank you for the kind words appreciate it thank you to all of you that are watching on twitch as well uh this was a lot of fun we are going to continue doing it going forward um obviously early days for us so we appreciate everyone who took the time to be here um and want to continue to give you the best

coverage of the u.s national teams as we can. I'll try and do some for Canada as well as we go forward. My weekend review episode still to be recorded. Talking MLS and NWSL from the weekend. A ton to talk about. 12 goals scored in Orlando over the course of 24 hours. 6-0 in NWSL action against Utah on Friday night, and then a 4-2 win for Orlando City on Saturday night. Plenty more as well, as there are still some NWSL games going on here on Sunday. So I'm going to chat all about that, give you my thoughts. We've got our first set of mailbag in the Patreon. If you're interested, go to the Patreon, subscribe,

and then you can be a part of it as well. Lord Billiam, thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm glad everyone enjoyed it. I'm glad everyone enjoyed it. I think we're going to do some great work covering these national teams, maybe a little bit differently, hopefully, than everyone else who's just screaming

as loud as they can about fields from the highest surface they can find, as well as continuing to cover the leagues in this region as well. So I appreciate everyone. Have a great night. Talk to you again soon.