Colin Cowherd reacts to USMNT losing to Belgium in the Round of 16 at the World Cup. Colin gives his take on Christian Pulisic & Matt Freese's performance. Where does United State go from here? Will they ever breakthrough in soccer?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. Today's show is brought to you by our
friends and are presenting sponsor hard Rock Bet Florida Sportsbook. Listen,
the world's biggest soccer tournament is here. Everybody seeing the ratings.
Everybody's watching National Pride on the line. Superstar is chasing
immortality and for the next month, every match feels like
a final. If you haven't tried hard Rock Bet yet,
(00:23):
this is the time. Hard Rock Bet is a top
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whether you're back in your country, betting on your favorite superstar,
building the same game parlay for the biggest matches of
the tournament. Hard Rock Bet is your way to get
in on the action. And if you're ever late to
kick off, don't worry. Hard Rock Bet lets you live
(00:44):
bet all match long, first minute, final whistle and we're
talking profit boosts, no sweat bets, bonus bets and more.
Be sure to check out No Goals, No Problem and
Super Sub two promos designed to give your bets insurance
all tournament long. So sign up hard Rock Bet today,
place a five dollar bet. If it wins, you also
(01:04):
score one hundred and fifty bucks in bonus bets a
winning bet plus an extra one hundred and fifty to
bet with right now. That's how you get the summer started.
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(01:24):
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Tribe of Florida, offered by Seminal hard Rock Digital, LLC
and all other states. Must be twenty one plus and
physically president in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. To play. Terms and conditions apply. Concern about
gambling in Florida, call one eight three three play wise.
In Indiana. If you are somebody you know as a
(01:45):
gambling problem wants help, call what eight hundred nine with it.
In Arizona, Ohio, Virginia, Call one eight hundred my reset
gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler. Well, it was
a nice run. It was a nice run, but I
(02:08):
mean I think ultimately, if you look at the teams
in the World Cup, you know there is a kind
of a class of eight, and you know, Spain, we
all know who it is. Argentina. Belgium now counts, although
they've gotten a little older. But remember in twenty eighteen
they were one of the three four best teams in
the world. And I mean, I think it was pretty obvious.
(02:29):
I think the first seven or eight minutes you could
say it was nerves. But after that we weren't winning
enough one on one battles, we weren't maintaining enough possession,
we got very few good shots on goal. We looked
like we were outclassed. We looked like we did against Paraguay.
Just flip the sides and so. And I also think
(02:50):
it's a little bit like the NFL playoffs, is that
the better teams you face, the better coaches you face,
and you know you can get through the AFC or
the nf C South, you know, then you match up
against you know, the Buffalo's and the Philadelphia's and the mcveigh's,
and you know, just the better coaches and the better teams,
and your flaws become gigantic holes. And I mean Matt
(03:13):
Freeze looked like an MLS goalie tonight. I mean when
he had Tim Howard. We've had Tony Meola, Casey Keller,
Tim Howard who was a huge physical presence, a great athlete,
hyper aggressive, big strong presence in goal. Matt Freeze looks
like an MLS goalie. You know, an embarrassing mistake playing
with his feet. I mean, that's that's that's like that
(03:34):
stuff you see in a Tuesday night in the MLS.
That's just not good enough. And again it's not exposed
against Paraguay that didn't have much of a dynamic offense,
or or Australia, but it does get exposed against Belgium.
And you know, I thought, again one of the things
I've said throughout this tournament is soccer fans love to
(03:55):
kind of project that you don't understand soccer. You could
see it very quickly, first five or six minutes. We
just could not maintain any fluidity or any flow. We
couldn't win the one on one battles until the very end.
We couldn't get quality shots. And when Belgium was in
their offensive end, it was just easier. There was much
greater ease to get quality shots. Tim Reims, a thirty
(04:17):
eight year old defender. Although there are things I like
about Tim Reim, he got physically dominated on that second goal.
So the back end was our weakness. And again you
face better countries and better players and it's completely absolutely exposed.
Also listen, Christian Polistic. If you look at the best teams,
Harry Kanes had a great tournament, so is Messy, so
is Imbape, so is Earling Holland. For Norway, Christian Pulisic
(04:41):
did not. He's a slight player. He's always been fragile.
He gets banged up again and I didn't think he
played with any confidence today. You know, he wasn't winning
his one on ones and he kind of you know,
gave the ball up early and his one on one opportunities,
he just gave it up. That that feels a little
(05:02):
bit like kind of bailing your lacking confidence. Then later
he gets injured on a legal play. Was not a foul.
So I mean again, I don't think it's overly complex.
I think we faced a team that beat us handily.
I think it was five to two in a friendly
with great scoring opportunities, and you know, we kind of
felt like we weren't playing some of our best players.
But you know, in this instance, we played our best
(05:23):
players and we were just outclassed, you know, and you know,
you can blame Pochettino. What I really like about this
is that you can't blame the coach. We love Pochettino
before Belgium. We can't look at him with dismay. Now
is that soccer is always going to be about who's
(05:44):
got the worst, who has the most passing, dribbling skill,
who can create better opportunities more shots on goal? I mean,
how many quality shots did we get on goal tonight? Two?
The even the Malie Tillman goal on the free kick
was a ricochet. So I think I would rather lose
(06:09):
this way than be frustrated. I mean, Baligan really only
got one opportunity on goal. A couple of the notes
I wrote down, you know, twenty two minute mark, no
shots on goal, Belgium two to one, physical domination, Pulisic shaky.
First USA cornerkick was at the end of the first half.
(06:31):
I just think when you see a team that has
a higher level of skill, more experience in bigger games.
Inside one point, stue Holden was asked about how do
you get better in big games and his answer was appropriate,
you play in them, and Belgium just felt like they
had been in more games like this. You know, it
was funny in the first seven or eight minutes, I
(06:52):
saw that they were calling it nervy and I'm like, yeah,
I'll give you that for about five minutes, and then
it was really really clear we could not There must
have been six, seven, eight, nine straight moments where it
would come down to a one on one battle in
Belgium always came out with a ball and we met
(07:12):
our match. But we know now if we flipped goalies,
would we have a greater opportunity. Yeah, but we weren't
going to beat Belgium. I thought Matt Freeze felt like
a little bit out of his depth. This was a
little too big for him, and it happens. But we
(07:35):
kind of know where we stand, you know, the Argentinas.
You know, we're closer to Brazil than we've ever been,
We're closer to Portugal than we've ever been. But there
does feel like a gap, a skill gap between England.
Five of the top thirty three players in this tournament.
Where I was reading an article before the tournament by
Fox five of the top thirty three were from England.
(07:57):
And I mean you watched Jude Bellingham and you watch
Harry Kane against Mexico. They were easily the two best
players in the pitch. And you watch that in NBA games,
you know, you see that when you watch great football teams.
You could just see the best players jump through the television.
So it didn't matter if we were playing a four
to two three one, or or we had gel Rena
(08:20):
substituted in at half, it just didn't matter. We just
got outclassed. And that's where we stand as of today,
you know, and something to remember. We have the best football, basketball,
baseball and hockey league in the world. And you can
look at the Olympics and say, well, look at what
we did. Our men's and women's won gold at the
Olympics in hockey. But hockey is dwarfed in revenue by soccer.
(08:45):
Soccer's got forty five billion dollars annually in revenue in soccer.
That's like six to seven billion annually in hockey. Because
of the international elite events, sponsorships, the international television rights.
If you want to dominate international soccer, it is much
harder than dominating international hockey. It's just it means more
(09:10):
to far more countries. It's just hockey is just not
as broad. It often feels like a cold weather experience,
a cold weather country experience. Whereas everybody can play soccer.
Norway's good at it, Cape Verde is good at it,
Argentina and France are amazing at it. And so you know,
(09:33):
we generally are kind of the hub of revenue globally
for sports. Soccer is different. We spend about four hundred
million dollars between our men's and women's team annually, four
hundred million, and that's that's on par with many of
the top teams, but not greater then. And we also
don't have the cultural fixation, fascination, intensity or passion that
(09:58):
other nations do. I don't look at this World Cup
is a failure. I think we earned ourselves another World
Cup sometime very soon. Our infrastructure is so capable of
hosting it. But I think it's just it's the one sport,
the one Rubik's cube we're trying to decipher, and it
(10:20):
really comes down to revenue. It's massive, very difficult to
buy your way to championships. And again, we have some
really nice players, but saying in a globe with two
hundred and fifteen countries that were not in the top eight,
(10:40):
there's no great shame in it. But I thought we
were outclassed, and I will say Sebastian Berhalter adds great energy.
We had great fight until the end, but we met
our match. And that's okay. I mean, it's not okay.
It's infuriating. It's in Seattle. But I don't think you
(11:02):
walk away from this and say so we gave it
a good run, we gave it a good fight. You
just keep chipping away. Remember England has won one World Cup,
Spain has won one World Cup. This shit is hard,
you know, And I'm sure I'll just get blasted my
(11:24):
text tonight when I wake up tomorrow. We'll we will
never compete. This is worthless. We got out class tonight.
Belgium added on that final goal. So if you count
the friendly against tonight five to two and four to one,
our back end was completely overwhelmed. A clean sweep in
(11:46):
the two times we face Belgium gives you a sense
of where we currently are on the soccer global map. Remember,
our average age is under twenty seven, so a majority
of this team is with more European and international experience.
It's not on our soil, but generally group stages aren't
(12:07):
our greatest challenge. It's the knockout stage. But this is
a very young team going forward. Twenty six point nine
years old is the average age, still one of the
youngest teams at this World Cup. The volume
The volume. Today's show is brought to you by our
friends and are presenting sponsor hard Rock Bet Florida Sportsbook. Listen,
the world's biggest soccer tournament is here. Everybody seeing the ratings.
Everybody's watching National Pride on the line. Superstar is chasing
immortality and for the next month, every match feels like
a final. If you haven't tried hard Rock Bet yet,
(00:23):
this is the time. Hard Rock Bet is a top
branded sportsbook app, the best built to viva la copa
whether you're back in your country, betting on your favorite superstar,
building the same game parlay for the biggest matches of
the tournament. Hard Rock Bet is your way to get
in on the action. And if you're ever late to
kick off, don't worry. Hard Rock Bet lets you live
(00:44):
bet all match long, first minute, final whistle and we're
talking profit boosts, no sweat bets, bonus bets and more.
Be sure to check out No Goals, No Problem and
Super Sub two promos designed to give your bets insurance
all tournament long. So sign up hard Rock Bet today,
place a five dollar bet. If it wins, you also
(01:04):
score one hundred and fifty bucks in bonus bets a
winning bet plus an extra one hundred and fifty to
bet with right now. That's how you get the summer started.
Hard Rock Bet is Florida's only legal sports, but you
don't have to be in Florida to join the party.
Hard rock bets live in Arizona, Ohio, Jersey, Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan.
Download the hard Rock Bet app today, Roll with Us,
(01:24):
Goal with Us. Hard Rock Bet offered by the Seminole
Tribe of Florida, offered by Seminal hard Rock Digital, LLC
and all other states. Must be twenty one plus and
physically president in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. To play. Terms and conditions apply. Concern about
gambling in Florida, call one eight three three play wise.
In Indiana. If you are somebody you know as a
(01:45):
gambling problem wants help, call what eight hundred nine with it.
In Arizona, Ohio, Virginia, Call one eight hundred my reset
gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler. Well, it was
a nice run. It was a nice run, but I
(02:08):
mean I think ultimately, if you look at the teams
in the World Cup, you know there is a kind
of a class of eight, and you know, Spain, we
all know who it is. Argentina. Belgium now counts, although
they've gotten a little older. But remember in twenty eighteen
they were one of the three four best teams in
the world. And I mean, I think it was pretty obvious.
(02:29):
I think the first seven or eight minutes you could
say it was nerves. But after that we weren't winning
enough one on one battles, we weren't maintaining enough possession,
we got very few good shots on goal. We looked
like we were outclassed. We looked like we did against Paraguay.
Just flip the sides and so. And I also think
(02:50):
it's a little bit like the NFL playoffs, is that
the better teams you face, the better coaches you face,
and you know you can get through the AFC or
the nf C South, you know, then you match up
against you know, the Buffalo's and the Philadelphia's and the mcveigh's,
and you know, just the better coaches and the better teams,
and your flaws become gigantic holes. And I mean Matt
(03:13):
Freeze looked like an MLS goalie tonight. I mean when
he had Tim Howard. We've had Tony Meola, Casey Keller,
Tim Howard who was a huge physical presence, a great athlete,
hyper aggressive, big strong presence in goal. Matt Freeze looks
like an MLS goalie. You know, an embarrassing mistake playing
with his feet. I mean, that's that's that's like that
(03:34):
stuff you see in a Tuesday night in the MLS.
That's just not good enough. And again it's not exposed
against Paraguay that didn't have much of a dynamic offense,
or or Australia, but it does get exposed against Belgium.
And you know, I thought, again one of the things
I've said throughout this tournament is soccer fans love to
(03:55):
kind of project that you don't understand soccer. You could
see it very quickly, first five or six minutes. We
just could not maintain any fluidity or any flow. We
couldn't win the one on one battles until the very end.
We couldn't get quality shots. And when Belgium was in
their offensive end, it was just easier. There was much
greater ease to get quality shots. Tim Reims, a thirty
(04:17):
eight year old defender. Although there are things I like
about Tim Reim, he got physically dominated on that second goal.
So the back end was our weakness. And again you
face better countries and better players and it's completely absolutely exposed.
Also listen, Christian Polistic. If you look at the best teams,
Harry Kanes had a great tournament, so is Messy, so
is Imbape, so is Earling Holland. For Norway, Christian Pulisic
(04:41):
did not. He's a slight player. He's always been fragile.
He gets banged up again and I didn't think he
played with any confidence today. You know, he wasn't winning
his one on ones and he kind of you know,
gave the ball up early and his one on one opportunities,
he just gave it up. That that feels a little
(05:02):
bit like kind of bailing your lacking confidence. Then later
he gets injured on a legal play. Was not a foul.
So I mean again, I don't think it's overly complex.
I think we faced a team that beat us handily.
I think it was five to two in a friendly
with great scoring opportunities, and you know, we kind of
felt like we weren't playing some of our best players.
But you know, in this instance, we played our best
(05:23):
players and we were just outclassed, you know, and you know,
you can blame Pochettino. What I really like about this
is that you can't blame the coach. We love Pochettino
before Belgium. We can't look at him with dismay. Now
is that soccer is always going to be about who's
(05:44):
got the worst, who has the most passing, dribbling skill,
who can create better opportunities more shots on goal? I mean,
how many quality shots did we get on goal tonight? Two?
The even the Malie Tillman goal on the free kick
was a ricochet. So I think I would rather lose
(06:09):
this way than be frustrated. I mean, Baligan really only
got one opportunity on goal. A couple of the notes
I wrote down, you know, twenty two minute mark, no
shots on goal, Belgium two to one, physical domination, Pulisic shaky.
First USA cornerkick was at the end of the first half.
(06:31):
I just think when you see a team that has
a higher level of skill, more experience in bigger games.
Inside one point, stue Holden was asked about how do
you get better in big games and his answer was appropriate,
you play in them, and Belgium just felt like they
had been in more games like this. You know, it
was funny in the first seven or eight minutes, I
(06:52):
saw that they were calling it nervy and I'm like, yeah,
I'll give you that for about five minutes, and then
it was really really clear we could not There must
have been six, seven, eight, nine straight moments where it
would come down to a one on one battle in
Belgium always came out with a ball and we met
(07:12):
our match. But we know now if we flipped goalies,
would we have a greater opportunity. Yeah, but we weren't
going to beat Belgium. I thought Matt Freeze felt like
a little bit out of his depth. This was a
little too big for him, and it happens. But we
(07:35):
kind of know where we stand, you know, the Argentinas.
You know, we're closer to Brazil than we've ever been,
We're closer to Portugal than we've ever been. But there
does feel like a gap, a skill gap between England.
Five of the top thirty three players in this tournament.
Where I was reading an article before the tournament by
Fox five of the top thirty three were from England.
(07:57):
And I mean you watched Jude Bellingham and you watch
Harry Kane against Mexico. They were easily the two best
players in the pitch. And you watch that in NBA games,
you know, you see that when you watch great football teams.
You could just see the best players jump through the television.
So it didn't matter if we were playing a four
to two three one, or or we had gel Rena
(08:20):
substituted in at half, it just didn't matter. We just
got outclassed. And that's where we stand as of today,
you know, and something to remember. We have the best football, basketball,
baseball and hockey league in the world. And you can
look at the Olympics and say, well, look at what
we did. Our men's and women's won gold at the
Olympics in hockey. But hockey is dwarfed in revenue by soccer.
(08:45):
Soccer's got forty five billion dollars annually in revenue in soccer.
That's like six to seven billion annually in hockey. Because
of the international elite events, sponsorships, the international television rights.
If you want to dominate international soccer, it is much
harder than dominating international hockey. It's just it means more
(09:10):
to far more countries. It's just hockey is just not
as broad. It often feels like a cold weather experience,
a cold weather country experience. Whereas everybody can play soccer.
Norway's good at it, Cape Verde is good at it,
Argentina and France are amazing at it. And so you know,
(09:33):
we generally are kind of the hub of revenue globally
for sports. Soccer is different. We spend about four hundred
million dollars between our men's and women's team annually, four
hundred million, and that's that's on par with many of
the top teams, but not greater then. And we also
don't have the cultural fixation, fascination, intensity or passion that
(09:58):
other nations do. I don't look at this World Cup
is a failure. I think we earned ourselves another World
Cup sometime very soon. Our infrastructure is so capable of
hosting it. But I think it's just it's the one sport,
the one Rubik's cube we're trying to decipher, and it
(10:20):
really comes down to revenue. It's massive, very difficult to
buy your way to championships. And again, we have some
really nice players, but saying in a globe with two
hundred and fifteen countries that were not in the top eight,
(10:40):
there's no great shame in it. But I thought we
were outclassed, and I will say Sebastian Berhalter adds great energy.
We had great fight until the end, but we met
our match. And that's okay. I mean, it's not okay.
It's infuriating. It's in Seattle. But I don't think you
(11:02):
walk away from this and say so we gave it
a good run, we gave it a good fight. You
just keep chipping away. Remember England has won one World Cup,
Spain has won one World Cup. This shit is hard,
you know, And I'm sure I'll just get blasted my
(11:24):
text tonight when I wake up tomorrow. We'll we will
never compete. This is worthless. We got out class tonight.
Belgium added on that final goal. So if you count
the friendly against tonight five to two and four to one,
our back end was completely overwhelmed. A clean sweep in
(11:46):
the two times we face Belgium gives you a sense
of where we currently are on the soccer global map. Remember,
our average age is under twenty seven, so a majority
of this team is with more European and international experience.
It's not on our soil, but generally group stages aren't
(12:07):
our greatest challenge. It's the knockout stage. But this is
a very young team going forward. Twenty six point nine
years old is the average age, still one of the
youngest teams at this World Cup. The volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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