March 29, 2026 • 44 mins
Tab Ramos and Matt Doyle react to the USMNT’s disastrous second-half collapse in a 5–2 loss to Belgium. Tab breaks down what went wrong, what Mauricio Pochettino could have done differently to slow down Jérémy Doku, and shares his growing concerns about Christian Pulisic, and why the U.S. needs more from “Captain America.”
Looking ahead to the clash with Portugal, Tab reveals his projected Starting XI, evaluates which players are still fighting for roster spots, and outlines what must change immediately... from tactics to mentality… and even the jersey situation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We scored in the thirty ninth minute, and between the
thirty ninth minute and the forty eighth minute when the
half ended, Belgium could have scored three times. Right, the
game changed. The game completely changed when we scored, which
means the opponent changed too.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Greetings, folks, and welcome to Inside American Soccer. I'm Matt Doyle,
the armchair analyst. I'll be filling in for new dad
Tom Bogert for just a couple more shows. He's back
soon and he'll be joining my friend in yours. Tab
Ramos one of the greatest players in US men's soccer history.
Veteran of three World Cups, not a veteran of any
(00:36):
beatings like the one the US took on Saturday. Actually, yeah,
you had that Czechoslovakia game. That was a learning experience.
Let's you guys came back better from that in nineteen ninety.
Let's hope we see the same thing from the boys
on Tuesday, because it was a humbling five to two
loss to Belgium in front of a big crowd in
(00:58):
Atlanta that was ready to celebrate. Honestly, after the first half,
tab it felt like they had reason to celebrate and instead,
things went completely off the rails in the second forty five.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
What do you see, man? What happened?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well? You know, first of all, obviously it's great to
be on with you once again. I was watching the
game here with a buddy of mine, and you know
what you just said about the Czechoslovakia game in nineteen
ninety is exactly what I thought towards the end of
the game. And the reason I'm mentioning that is because listen,
(01:34):
in sports, sometimes you just have a bad day, right,
and you just have to deal with it. It is
what it is. You know, even the best players I'm
George Jordan got hammered a couple of times in his life.
But here's the thing, you don't forget it, right, And
so I didn't think that at this point, this late
in the game, being this close to the World Cup,
we would have a result that we're not going to
(01:55):
forget for a long time. And because that's what it
looked like, you know, I still remember, and I think,
by the way, I think I've left at it with you,
right like we I sat here and said, hey, we
didn't belong on the field that day. We were we
were just kids playing with men. And you know, like
they just hammered us every you know, last night, the
second half had a little bit of that feel to it,
(02:17):
and this close to the World Cup, but you know,
it's here's the thing here, I will leave it at
this is my first assessment of what I see. I'm
I'm disappointed at the at the fact that this close
to the World Cup we got deflated yesterday, not just
the players, but I think the fan base, I think
(02:37):
everybody that watched the game. We left the game, by
the way, not necessarily thinking that we can't recover from this,
but the way we're all walking off the field. Let's
face it, we're deflated at this point.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And that's disappointing, especially coming after the previous three camps,
which had produced so many good performances and a couple
of good results, and then a great result the five
to one over Uruguay, which is the mirror opposite of
this one. The vibes were so high, and to come
into this game and play really well in the first half,
(03:12):
I honestly thought the US played out outplayed Belgium in
that first half, and then to have it all fall
apart so completely in the second half, I think deflated
is the right word.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Before we jump in into the.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Specifics, we should talk for a second about the jersey issue,
because the US were, you know, breaking out for the
first time the kind of the flag Waldo, which I
thought looked sharp, really great jerseys. The Waldos are my
all time favorite US jersey, and Belgium had a very
(03:48):
similar color palette on their own jersey. My understanding is
that there was communication between the two team and men's
but maybe not enough, and then once it got close
to game time and they realized that they were wearing
essentially the same look in jersey, Neither team had backups
(04:08):
on hand, and the players, you know, Christian, Polistic, West, McKenny,
a few others said it was an issue. Politic says
it's not an excuse at all because both teams dealt
with that, but it's just it can't happen. McKenny says,
I won't put that at all for an excuse of
the game, but definitely it was a little bit difficult
whenever you do a quick glance to tell which is which.
(04:31):
It was almost like a fifty to fifty thing. I mean,
Belgium didn't have many problems with it to that but
it was it made for a tough watch.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
No, it's difficult. It's difficult for players on both teams.
There's no question because I think I think I'm going
to go back to one of Christians quotes maybe and
he said something about sometimes you look up and you're
just looking for the color, right, because it's normal. The
game moves by quickly. It's not like you're necessarily aiming
for a certain player, but you're looking at the color
(05:00):
and you know that's your player. And sometimes when you
especially when you play quickly, you're looking for the color
and that has it has a big effect on that
type of on that type of path. So I do
agree with the players in this case. And you know,
taking into consideration that now we're dealing with timeouts and
everything else with the you know, the the quarters that
we're playing now, in all of these things that we're
(05:21):
implementing to I guess make the game better. I think
this is this is something that shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, And the timeouts tabs referring to there were hydration
breaks in this game, one about the twenty five minute
mark and one about the sixty five minute mark in
the second half, even though the game is played indoors
in a climate controlled dome.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Essentially.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Look, man, I'm all for hydration breaks when the weather
gets dangerous it's outside, you're in the Florida sun or whatever.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
When you're playing in a dome and.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
It's seventy two degrees, that was a little weird to me,
But all right. On today's show, we'll discuss where things
went wrong versus the Belgians and what we can learn because,
as Tab said, you have to learn from situations like this.
It's a bad day, bad forty five minutes, but you
got to figure out a way to make yourself better
because of it. What Mauricio Pocheccino has to say after
(06:20):
the match and what it all means. Will also acknowledge
the few things that did go well, shout out Weston
McKenny and give our starting eleven for the Portugal match
on Tuesday. Plus we'll talk about the roster and what
we think the Belgium loss means for guys on the
bubble for the World Cup. So Tab, let's get into it.
I mean, we should start with the negatives. You've been
(06:44):
banging the drum for months since I've been on the
show about the matchup with Jeremy Doku.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Tim Reim was not.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Quite on an island in the first half, but it
was close. And then in the second half Belgium realized
we weren't pressing their back line, so they had they
had time to pick their heads up and hit these big,
long switches directly to their wingers and tim Weya went
(07:14):
straight into the torture chamber and that was to me
the story of the game.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Well, you know, this is where I sound a little
bit like a dad, because I hate to say I
told you so, right, but I think I wasn't the
only one right. You know, we've been saying you can
go back on these shows for you're right, two or
three shows where I said, okay, we're thinking of playing
Tim waya right back, which is okay. By the way
he does it at Marseille. He does a good job there.
(07:40):
They wouldn't put him there unless he could do the job. Now,
let me start by saying this. You know, I went
to Madrid to the Champions League game to watch Real
Madrid Manchester City. As we know, both top teams in
the world still being top teams in the world, still
having Alexander Arnold, Mark King Doku. Madrid still needed Alexander
(08:03):
Arnold to delay to allow Valverde to come back and
Pie Tarts to come in from midfield to triple team
Doku before they challenged the ball. So I'm thinking over
the last three weeks, if Real Madrid has to play
Doku with three players on him, why would we be
thinking that we can do the job with one. And
(08:25):
this is so, this is why I'm not necessarily blaming
Tim Wea for it. And maybe something broke down on
the way right, but he was left one v one
with with Doku too many times, and Doku at this
point can be anyone one v one.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So Pocheccino said afterwards that it was quote a lack
of understanding from the midfield. He said, he pointed to Tanner, Testman,
Johnny Cartoso and Weston McKenny. He said, we had we
had three midfielders arrived to the same line as Tim,
but they never went to help him. And you know,
(09:05):
he said he wasn't upset because he told his midfielders
they needed to help weya on Doku and be aware
of Doku cutting inside and shooting, which is what happened.
The problem we had Pacheccino said, was no one helped
in the areas you can help and are really important
to help.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Tim.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
That's almost more worrying than the performance, because if the
coach is saying, we drilled this again and again and again,
or I told the players this again and again again
and then they didn't execute.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
It at all, but that is a massive issue.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Well yeah, because okay, so you mentioned obviously it's part
of your tactics of the week. Okay, be careful with
Doku when he get Let's say, and I'm gonna make
this up, but let's say this is exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
You know, us team trained to know that when the
ball goes wide to Doku, Weeya goes there, he delays
a little bit and wastes for help before he challenges
the ball. Let's say that's not happening. Let's say, way,
I forgot about it, and let's say the rest of
the team forgot about it. But that's what you're there
on the sideline for, to remind the players that this
(10:12):
is supposed to be happening. And by the way, I
just made fun of soccer now having timeouts after minute
twenty two, you have the full team in at the
twenty second minute where you can talk to the whole
team and correct that. Right then you have the rest
of the half and you have half time to correct that.
So I think, look, I mean there must have been
(10:34):
a breakdown somewhere in communication there, but I think there's
plenty of opportunity as the game is going to correct
that as well.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, there's Yeah, that is the frustrating part. I will
say there will be ample film to use during training
over the next hopefully starting today ahead of the Portugal game,
because there's so much that needed to be corrected. But
(11:04):
I mean you're right to have, like, what's the point
of those twenty five minute you know, water breaks if
you're not going to fix what's going wrong. And I
will say in the first half it felt a little
bit better because I think that was because Belgium were
trying forcing it really through central midfield, and the US
did a good job of making that really difficult. As
(11:26):
I said, in the second half, because of the lack
of pressure from the US front line, they were just
able to skip the midfield. One way they were doing
it was by those long diagonals, the other one was
by playing directly up the gut and challenging the center
back pairing of Tim Reem and Mark McKenzie on long balls,
first ball, second ball. Stuff not really what you associate
(11:49):
with Belgium, but they realized if the US had a
little dislocation between central midfield and the back line and
two kind of undersized center backs, that was something that
they could take advantage of. So I think the second
Belgium goal was diagonal. Third Belgium goal was long ball,
over the top, win the second ball and off to
(12:09):
the races. And again the US never really adjusted for that.
In fact that I think over the final half hour
the game tabit, it actually got worse.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things. So I'll
start with some positives, right, and if I look at
the game overall, I think some of the things that
I saw from Tim Waya in the first half, in particular,
a couple of balls that he got over the top,
this is something that I can you know, if I'm
looking forward now, and obviously you know in the World
Cup we don't play Belgium in the first round. We're
(12:38):
playing Paraguay and Australia as our first two games. You know,
I can see Tim Waya playing that position and actually
having an important effect on what's going to happen with
us offensively. So I like that. I like what he did.
I like him coming from behind. I don't I personally
don't see that working without us playing three center backs.
(12:59):
I just don't think we have enough quality at the
center back position to play with two. I think we
have to play with three, which would free up Waya
to go forward a lot and Robinson to go forward
a lot. So a lot of that movement that I
saw both from Weea early on and from Robinson early on,
I think it's positive and I think that's something that
(13:19):
we can do during the World Cup. I also, on
the positive side, saw Johnny Cardoso that got involved in
a good way, right. I mean, I think this was
a positive outcome for him in this game. And by
the way, we said before this game, we said this
last week on the show that you're never going to
see a flashy Johnny Cardoso. That's just not the player
(13:41):
he is. But I think he completed the right passes.
I think he supported the right players. I think he
made a couple of very nice passes moving forward. And
although we're not asking for a lot at this point,
I think he, if anything, helped himself with yesterday's game.
Not saying a lot, I know, because not a lot happened,
but I think he helped himself with the game that
(14:02):
he played yesterday. And then I have to go to
the to the negative side. First, I'll start with why
Turner and goal Freeze has been playing in goal for
the last twelve months and has done a great job.
Why why create for me? Why create that doubt at
this point, like with one being the last camp going
(14:22):
into the World Cup. If there's if there's one position
that could make or break your team is the goalkeeper position.
And we've lived it, fortunately on the good side in
this country for the last thirty years, from Tony Miola
to Brad Friedel, to Casey Keller to Tim Howard to
all of those guys right we've had we've been on
the right side of that. We had been struggling coming
(14:45):
into the last six eight months in this position, and
I thought Freeze had done a pretty good job to
earn that position and for us not to worry about it.
I didn't understand that. I again, I don't think Matt
Turner played a bad game. I don't think he helped
himself in terms of becoming a starter for the World Cup.
But why create that doubt. I thought Free should have
(15:06):
gotten the game. That's just me. Then you know salamachers
in the middle of the field. We could not track
him like he was alone. He played alone. He ran
the show for me. Other than Doku. He was the
best player on the field. He ran the show from them.
Anytime he had the ball. He played as if he
(15:28):
was alone, really impressed with his game and disappointed with
the lack of us putting pressure on him and allowing
him to turn time after time when he was creating
so much in front of our back four and in
front of our midfield. You know, other than that, I'd
have to say, and I'll go back to this, I'll
(15:48):
finish with this, because sometimes it could be a little
bit of fool's gold when you start to think, hey,
you know, we were good for thirty nine minutes until
Belgium scored, and then I'm sorry, until we scored and
then Belgium changed. Let's not forget because we scored in
the thirty ninth minute, and between the thirty ninth minute
(16:08):
and the forty eighth minute, when the half ended, Belgium
could have scored three times. Right, the game changed. The
game completely changed when we scored, which means the opponent
changed too. And this reminds me of one thing. And
I'm sorry I'm going too long on this, but it
reminds me of one thing. When I coached in Houston.
We were in games all the time. The players worked
hard all the time, and you know, and we could
(16:31):
always go back and say, yeah, we lost two to one,
but up until the eightieth minute, we were the better team.
The bottom line is the good teams can just pound
you until you have nothing left and they will beat
you either in the ninety second minute or they can
beat you early. And for us, I feel like we
lost early when we really in this game. If anything,
(16:53):
although Belgium is a better team, we should have lost
to them really late instead of early.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, to your point, Belgium could have scored three goals
from the thirty ninth minute to halftime. The US could
have scored three goals from the whistle to the thirty
ninth minute.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
They had their chances. Christian Polisic in.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Particular, had a beautiful one that he put into row
thirty and Fochccino said afterwards that has to be a goal,
and I don't necessarily disagree with him. I'll add one
of the positive things you didn't touch on. I thought
set Peace delivery was really good from the US today.
It was Malik Tillman and Jedi Robinson. It was Anthony
(17:35):
Robinson who had the assist on Weston mckennie's goal, which
was actually a really well worked set piece and not
in the style of the meat wall that Arsenal have
been doing this year that makes the game unwatchable. It
was actually just a really good set piece, so that
was nice to see. Weston mckennie overall playing is kind
of a right winger. I thought was the best player
(17:59):
for the US. There weren't a ton of other outstanding performances.
I don't even know if I could call Weston's performance outstanding.
I will say that Christian Polistics performance was concerning. It's
now I think he's got one goal in his last
ten games for the US, going back about two years,
(18:23):
all the way to the start of Pachtino's tenure. He
missed that chance. He didn't create any chances to speak of.
He has now been taken off set peace duty, thank goodness.
And it was his lack of pressure to the ball
early in the second half that allowed Belgium to get
(18:45):
out on the run and to open the game up
and to put Doku into one v one situations either
with Weya or even skipping Weya who was pushing up
on the right side and dragging Mark McKenzie out. And
Mark McKenzie is a good player, but one v one
in spa. I don't like any center back in the
world one v one in space against Doku. What do
(19:07):
we read into this into this performance from Christian Polistic?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
And do we read.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Anything into the fact that the best US camp under
Mauricio Pochettino was the November camp that Christian Polistic was.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Not a member of. Is there anything in that tab?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Well? I mean, you you, you can't help but to
read something into it.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Having said that, I think that, you know, Christian just
doesn't look as comfortable on this team for whatever reason.
He still had a couple chances to score. You know, sometimes,
especially against good teams like Belgium, is difficult to to
create those chances. I thought he created himself a great
chance dribbling in the box and a left footed shot
(19:53):
that went over the top that normally you would think
he tucks that in the corner right, and it just
didn't happen for him. I'm not as negative about Christian's
game as I've heard other people be, only because I
still think he looks to me focused to want to
do well, and I think he did create some chances
for himself. You know, still we need a lot more
(20:16):
from him. But you know, in general, when I look
at the performance of Christian Polisic and the performance of
Flow Balogun at the same time and see that they
were not in the game much at all, I think
this becomes more of a more concerning as to why
in midfield we didn't have the ball and we didn't
create enough to put them in good position to make plays.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, the US were able to really get a rhythm
in possession. They were still dangerous at times with the
ball going forward in that first half.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
A couple of good overlaps I.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Think Jedi Robinson got four twice in about the first
ten to fifteen minutes or so. Faded out of the
game a little bit after that, but he did look
up for it physically, and of course Weea had his
hands full on the right, but he did provide some
with in the attack at times. But this actually speaks
to a little bit of a change in the tactical
(21:15):
approach that we've seen from the US over the previous
half dozen gamestaf because we've talked about it on this show.
How it's a back four, but then one of the
full back slides in and becomes essentially a full time
center back while the other just pushes forward. And you
think about Alex Freeman what he did against Dorguay. He
was nominally the right back, but he was basically playing
(21:37):
as a right winger.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
It wasn't that approach in this game.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was a back four and the fullbacks would take
turns pushing forward, and which is not unusual. We've seen
that a lot over the past thirty years as tactics
in the game have evolved. And then when they wanted
to form a back three, it was either Johnny Cardozo
dropping off off to left center back, making Tim Ream
(22:02):
the sweeper, or Tanner Testaman dropping into the middle of
the back line, pushing Reim out to the left and
McKenzie out to the right, and then both fullbacks would
go up and honestly, I don't mind this, but the
rotations have to be crisp and everybody has to be
on the same page. And I think what.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
We saw is that they really weren't.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Because Malik Tillman, if Tanner Testament's dropping out of the
back line, Johnny Cardos is dropping out of the back line,
Malik Tillman has to drop in and form.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
That double pivot so that they have outlets.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
And he just didn't do that, and so the US
didn't have a way to progress the ball.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
No, And that's right because Tilman really was not in
the game at all yesterday, and that's unfortunate. That's why,
you know, I keep saying that at this point, I'm
sort of seeing our team succeed if we add another
center back and have three permanent center backs there. I
think that would be the best solution to what we do.
(23:02):
It would be the best solution in terms of allowing
both Way and Robinson to give forward all the time
and to keep the center of the field steady without
having you know, one of the midfielders dropper or the
other midfielders dropped. You know, you keep three in the back,
you keep two defensive mids, and then you let everyone
else attack and no matter what happens, no matter when
(23:22):
the turnover happens to come the other way, you're in
good position in the center of the field and well covered. Uh.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Mauricio Pocheccino, I think we'll like with this. Marcio Pocheccino
after the game said we need to keep going with
the plan and that's not going to change with the
result today, and Western McKenny kind of echo that.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I said.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I don't think it's a worrisome result for us because
within the team, we know we can do better, we
know what went wrong, and we also know and believe
fully that we can play with a team of this caliber.
We have seen it before against Uruguay. They're top ten team,
just like belgiumar We've seen the US beat Paraguay and Australia,
(24:03):
teams that they'll have to beat in the World Cup.
Hopefully that is the real version of the US and
not the team that fell apart so completely in the
second half of this one. We should mention shout out
to big pat Agiamont. He came off the bench, got
a goal, I thought. Ricardo Peppy came off the bench,
helped himself set up the goal with his pressing. Both
those guys did some good for themselves. Not a lot
(24:27):
of US players can say that. After this one for US,
I think it's time for a break up. Next, we'll
discuss what we want to see the US do against
Portugal on Tuesday, and we'll give our starting eleven for
the match.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Please rate, review and subscribe to Inside.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
American Soccer with Tom Boger and Tam Ramos wherever you
get your podcasts. All right, folks, welcome back to Inside
American Soccer and TAB. Let's just get right to it.
We got another game coming up on Tuesday against Portugal. Uh,
(25:06):
let's go through your starting eleven. Let's go line by line, right,
We'll start in goal. You made your case for Matt
Freeze earlier in the show, and I assume that he's
your starter for this game.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Uh, yeah, he is. And and only because you know,
why change more than anything else, Why add doubt to
that position? I think you know, Uh, Matt had done
a Matt Freeze had done a good had done a
good job, and and I thought, you know, for his confidence,
would have been better to stay on and get more
minutes with the national team. So he'll be for me,
he should be back in goal. Again, this is this
(25:40):
would be my lineup, not what I think Pochettino is
going to do. I would have three center backs, I
would add considering the injuries we have, so I'm obviously
thinking that you know, uh Richards is not going to
be available and so because of and Miles Robinson's not
going to be available. Because of that, I would start
free Men as the right center back, with Mackenzie and
(26:03):
Reem as a three center back way on the right side, Robinson,
Jedi Robinson on the left side. I would have McKinney
and Tesman in the central two central spots with Aaronson,
Pulisick and Balligan. And the reason I'm gonna add Aaronson
is because I think the team, without a doubt, will
(26:25):
be a little bit deflated, as we mentioned before, and
I think the energy that Aaronson brings, I think and
have a really positive effect on the team at the moment.
And I think at this time, although I think normally
at the World Cup this is not one of the
players that I would put on the starting eleven, I
think the team needs Aaronson a little bit at this time.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I've never been a huge Brennan Aaronson fan, but coming
off that game where I've already said it three times
on the show, but the US sproatline was not doing
the work to get pressure to the Belgian back line.
But let's you never have to worry about that with
Brendan Rison. He is going to do that work defensively,
and the US badly needed that one. And against teams
(27:11):
of that caliber, you can't take your foot off the
gas even if you're one hundred yards from goal, and
I think Aaronson can maybe set the tone a little bit,
so I don't hate that.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Let me ask you about Tanner Testament. He's a player
I really like.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
He almost scored a goal and it had a really
good shot from about twenty two yards early in the
game of a well worked set piece. Didn't do much
else other than that except end up being about three
yards behind the play for the entire game. When asked
about him afterwards, Rise, which kept it really short, said
he can do better. What did you see from Tanner Testaman,
(27:49):
Because tab he's a guy that you and I have
both consistently had in our best eleven for the US,
and he looked nothing like that in the game.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Against Beltium.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, I think he struggled with having to come back
and put himself in between the center back, so let's
say in between Robinson and reim right in that spot.
He struggled with being able to do that and getting
into that line, which he did at times, but then
at the same time to then be able to take
six or seven, you know, steps forward, to be able
(28:20):
to receive both, to be able to create for us,
and he didn't do that. I did notice that in
the first half when we were attacking and Belgium had
some some turnovers and recover the ball and try to
play through the middle. He did intercept a couple balls,
so he was in the right place. I just feel
like the game, the game didn't help him at all,
and I don't want to make excuses for him, but
(28:42):
I'd like to see him again because I think he
can do better.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, that's exactly what Mauricio Poccino said. And you're not
you're not dropping wesn mckennye back a line into that
double pivot with Tanner Tasman, and I understand that because
West has played there a lot for the US, He's
played there a lot for Juventus. I thought he was
really good in the attack for the US against Belgium.
But is it just a case of like, Okay, he's
(29:08):
probably this team's best player at this point, so you
want to have your team's best player in the heart
of it all, stirring the drink and give him the
responsibility to set the tone. Probably have the most touches
on the team.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Well, you know, the one thing you can always count
on with Weston is that he's going to make that effort,
you know, to get around the field to try to
recover the ball. I think, if anything, what didn't help
him yesterday was getting that early yellow card in the
first half and he lost a little bit of aggressiveness
at that point. But I think we can't I wouldn't
(29:41):
take him off the field. I think he was still
one of our best players yesterday and he needs to
be on the field. And in order to fit Aaronson,
that's the player that I have to drop a little bit.
So I wouldn't mind doing that. I think that would
be that would be the right solution for me.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Let's talk about.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
The back, the center backs in particular.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Now.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Alex Freeman did get on for a late cameo We've
talked about his move to via Real quite a bit
on this show. It's a move that both of us
like in macro level micro level. We worried about playing time,
and it turns out that was justified. He's played about
fifty minutes I think since the.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Move in January.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
But he's been good for Manicio Pocheccino, and he's played
it either as a you know, really attacking fullback, but
sometimes he's played as a third center back. In this setup,
you have him as kind of a true center back
in that back three tab and walk us through that.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah. I what I like is he's he has the speed,
He's able to defend one v one. I think he
would be a good addition to way Aside because he
can cover Way and at times he can go forward too.
I think he's a he would be a great addition
to the three center backs. I guess you know. What
I would say is, obviously we don't have we don't
(30:58):
have Richards, and we don't have Miles Robinson. Although Miles
Robinson is not in great form at the moment, I
think for what we have in this current roster, I
think I think try and Freeman in that position would
be helpful.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, he's done it before. Hopefully he'll get a chance
to do it again. On the other side, left center back,
you have Tim Reim who had moments with the ball
where he looked like the Tim Reim of old. His
line breaking passes, he puts guys in better positions than
any of our other center backs. Like he still has
(31:35):
that to his game. But one of the things that
Belgium was able to take advantage of was his lack
of size and athleticism. And if you go back and
look at that second half, they made him challenge a
lot of aerials and he has never.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Been great in the air, and they were able.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
To go first ball, second ball, and off to the races.
But we still have him out there. I think I
would probably start him too. Is there any argument in
your mind for Austin Trusty getting this start at left
center back instead?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
At this point, I would say no, you know, I
think and I've been critical of Tim and not critical obviously.
Tim is a great player, has been a great player,
you know, But I've been a little bit critical because
I think we can do better in that position. I think,
considering where we are today with the roster, that we
have and the guys that are injured. I think that's
(32:28):
the best solution. And to be fair to Tim, I
don't think he played a bad game. I think you're
right in the fact that you know, Belgium try to
take advant advantage a little bit over the top, but
you know that's what you do as a team. But
this is the reason why I would play three center backs.
I would pair him with with other guys who can
help him in that position, and by and by being
(32:49):
a third center back. I have to say, you know,
Tim was excellent in distribution in this game. I don't
know that he missed the pass. He may have, but
his passes were Chris. They were sharp between lines that
were right to the perfect foot. You know. He actually
with the ball, he did really well.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, he's always been gifted with that. It's a weapon
for the US and you can see why so many
coaches have trusted him club and country to be sort
of the main distribution hub for the teams that he
plays for. Let's go back in the other direction up top.
We've talked about it a lot on this show. For
ac Milan, Christian Polistic plays as a second forward. He
(33:29):
doesn't have the responsibility to make the plays. It's more
just finishing plays off and that's kind of what we
have him as here. The way you have it set
up is this sort of a you know, a three
to five to two with Aaronson dropping deeper almost as
a as a playmaker, and Pulisic and Baligan up top together.
(33:52):
Or is it more of like a three four two
one with Pulisic and Aaronson kind of on the same
line underneath Balligan.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I have it more as a three four to two one,
only because I think Aaronson can help a lot more
in an early bowl recovery. I wouldn't want to see
him deeper in midfield.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Well we will see.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
You know, Mauricio Pocchettino has not hesitated to to to
throw stuff at the wall see what stakes And sometimes
it has and sometimes, as in the second half against Belgium,
it has it. With this lineup, tap, do you have
any subs in mind? I mean we saw gi Arena
come off the bench. He didn't really do much. There
(34:33):
are obviously a couple of defensive midfielders you could choose
from anyone in particular that you would want to see
at say the hour mark, if this is the lineup
that the US trots out on Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Well, first I have to say that I had one
doubt on the roster I put together, and that was
whether I would start Testament or Cardozo, right, because I
think Cardozo likely deserves another start at this point. And
if you were to put him to McKinny and make
them that true defensive mid I think that can work.
So I would say that that that's one place. But
then up top, really you have a lot of different options, right,
(35:08):
because you could potentially go you could take Aaronson out
and go to two forwards and just have Christian polistic
play uh sort of a ten behind those two forwards.
I can see that happening. If that's gonna be, let's say,
uh Ajimon or you know, or or Peppy, if one
of those two guys comes into add to Balagun being
up top, I didn't really see Raina as being he
(35:30):
didn't look fit to me. He'd looked like he was
sort of roaming on the outside, not really connecting. He
didn't look ready, he looks he looks like he hasn't
been playing.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
And then other than that, I I you know, I
would say that you know, the only other thing you
could do is potentially adding Arstin to the left side
instead of Robinson if he's not doing well, because obviously
this will be two games in a row and he
hasn't been playing as much.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Yeah, or excuse me.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Robinson played sixty minutes in his final game for Fulham
before this camp. He played sixty minutes against Belgium. We
will see how much he's got in the tank. And
this one, Johnny Cardozo should be noted, came off at
halftime for Christian Roaldon. Pochettino said that Johnny had picked
up a little bit of a knock or maybe just
(36:21):
some tightness, so he wanted to be careful with him.
Maybe we'll get to see Iden Morris, he's also in
this camp. Didn't get in the game this past weekend.
Might be a good thing for his chances to have
not been on the field for that one.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And Matt before we go. I'll add this to that,
the fact that we're gonna have twenty six players at
the World Cup. But I think, you know, yeah, we
can give other players opportunities, but the fact is we're
gonna play the World Cup with about seventeen or eighteen players,
and so I think it's time to narrow that down
and to now just start putting in the guys that
are actually are going to get the playing time.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Got two three friendlies left to go, starting on Tuesday
against Portugal.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
We'll see time for one more break.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Next up we will talk roster and who needs to
play well Tuesday to save their spot for that World
Cup squad.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Thanks for listening to Inside American Soccer.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Please rate review as subscribe. Welcome back to Inside American Soccer.
All right, Tom, I mean, let's talk roster. In your eyes,
did anyone play their way off the World Cup roster
(37:35):
with their performance against Belgium.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
I wouldn't be as cruel as to say that anyone
necessarily played themselves off of the roster by what they
did yesterday, But I think guys that had an opportunity
to help themselves didn't really help themselves, right, And so
I look at guys like, maybe, you know, maybe Rain
you know, because he did come in with about twenty
twenty five minutes and we didn't really see him do anything.
(38:00):
And by the way, it was a difficult situation that
he comes in. But this is maybe your chance to
make the team, so you probably need more than what happened. Yeah,
I wouldn't say that there was a player who eliminated
themselves from the World Cup roster, but I just think
that just guys who got an opportunity late didn't help
(38:21):
themselves at all.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, Geo in particular, and I'm a big Geo fan
and I would take him basically no matter what because
he has that special playmaking talent. But he looked indecisive
when he came off the bench, which is not what
you want to see from a guy who's supposed to
be your late game match winner. The Sebastian Burhalter really
(38:44):
struggled obviously, had a colossal error that led to one
of the Belgium goals. Max Arston, after being really good
for the past year, was really bad.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
In this one.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
I don't think anybody played their way off the roster
from one game or one half. But we all know
Diego lun is coming back and where he is in
Pochettino's eyes. We all know Tyler Adams is coming back
and where he is in Pachectino's eyes. And we know
that Virginia Desk is coming back and where he stands
in Pachettino's eyes. Those are three guys I think that
(39:18):
are going to be in the twenty six man roster.
So that means three guys who we saw on the
field or at least in the squad, you know, probably
not going to be there this summer. So we'll just
reiterate once again, this is a chance to prove it,
(39:38):
and coming off that loss against Belgium, I think there's
got to be a little bit more urgency in the
group and tap that'll bring us back to how we
started this show, mentioning that five to one loss you
guys took at the World Cup in nineteen ninety against
Czechoslovakia and the immediate bounce back that we saw from
(40:01):
you guys with your performances in the next two games,
particularly the Italy game, which was again for those who
don't know or don't remember nineteen ninety, Italy was the host,
one of the favorites. The US one nil loss could
have been one one if not for walters Anga's rear
end really a borderline I think legendary performance from you guys,
(40:25):
the guts that you showed in that moment. What was
the discussion like in the group after that five to
one loss, and how did you spin that together into
that performance against Italy?
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah, I mean we could put a show together on
what happened in between the Czechoslovakia game and the Italy game,
But there were fights in practice. I mean, the tension
in the group was incredible. I mean we you know,
I always say I was fortunate to be part of
that early generation that started in nineteen ninety because we
were just guys that kind of refused to lose. We
(41:03):
refused to accept that we were not as good as
the other teams, and by the way, we weren't even
close as good to the other team, but we just
refused to accept that. And I think that's what it was.
It was really just a strong mentality, and I think
that's why that started to show the very next day
in practice, with guys fighting in practice. And then by
the time we got to the game, we were on
(41:24):
the bus on our way into the Olympic Stadium in
Rome and people on the sides were showing us the
two hands for the ten goals that Italy was going
to score on us that day, and the newspapers were
saying that records were going to be broken. There was
a Hungary nine to one win against El Salvador as
the record and the newspapers were saying that Italy was
(41:44):
going to break that record that day, and so we
had a lot to prove that day and we did.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
You're talking about the mentality and the fights, and how
much of that is from guys being like, I might
have lost my job, I have to fight, I have
to really get stuck it in practice because I want
to hold onto my starting spot or I want to
win a starting spot. Is that the or is it
just embarrassment because of what happened and you need some
(42:15):
sort of escape hatch for that, some way to let
that out and to take it out, and you actually
end up taking it out on your teammates.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
But it ends up being a good thing in the end.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah, of course, because don't forget you're playing for your
I don't want to say you're playing for your life,
but you're playing for your job. And at the at
the same time, you don't you don't want to be
This is a team sport, so it doesn't only depend
on you. It depends on everybody else. But it's important
for you to go to practice and for the other
guys to understand that I'm not accepting this. This is
not good for me and my career. I want to
(42:47):
have a career at this and if you're not on board,
you're gonna pay for it this week because we're we
all we I want to be on the field against
Italy the next game with guys who want to win
the game. And that's and that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Does it have to be Christian Polistic and Weston McKenny
the leaders of this team who set the tone like
that in practice for the US?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
You know. The other thing is it's different much different times, right,
and so players are different Now there's you know, a
different way to approach players, different conversations to be had.
But I think players will realize that, regardless of where
they are in the great clubs that they're at this
summer is an amazing opportunity that they all can be
losing if they don't, if they don't get together on this.
(43:30):
So I think after taking this loss, I think, if anything,
would be a good time for a team meeting for
guys to kind of hold each other accountable and say, hey, guys,
that's it one more game and they name the team
it's all or nothing right now, and I think it
would be a good time for something like that.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Well, that seems like a good time, good place for
us to leave it on this episode. Thank you all
for listening to Inside American Soccer. Please rate, review, and subscribe.
Will be back midweek for our reaction to the Portugal match,
hopefully a less somber show.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
We'll have more happy things to talk about.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
In that one, and so please rate, review, and subscribe
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
We'll see you in a couple of days.
We scored in the thirty ninth minute, and between the
thirty ninth minute and the forty eighth minute when the
half ended, Belgium could have scored three times. Right, the
game changed. The game completely changed when we scored, which
means the opponent changed too.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Greetings, folks, and welcome to Inside American Soccer. I'm Matt Doyle,
the armchair analyst. I'll be filling in for new dad
Tom Bogert for just a couple more shows. He's back
soon and he'll be joining my friend in yours. Tab
Ramos one of the greatest players in US men's soccer history.
Veteran of three World Cups, not a veteran of any
(00:36):
beatings like the one the US took on Saturday. Actually, yeah,
you had that Czechoslovakia game. That was a learning experience.
Let's you guys came back better from that in nineteen ninety.
Let's hope we see the same thing from the boys
on Tuesday, because it was a humbling five to two
loss to Belgium in front of a big crowd in
(00:58):
Atlanta that was ready to celebrate. Honestly, after the first half,
tab it felt like they had reason to celebrate and instead,
things went completely off the rails in the second forty five.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
What do you see, man? What happened?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well? You know, first of all, obviously it's great to
be on with you once again. I was watching the
game here with a buddy of mine, and you know
what you just said about the Czechoslovakia game in nineteen
ninety is exactly what I thought towards the end of
the game. And the reason I'm mentioning that is because listen,
(01:34):
in sports, sometimes you just have a bad day, right,
and you just have to deal with it. It is
what it is. You know, even the best players I'm
George Jordan got hammered a couple of times in his life.
But here's the thing, you don't forget it, right, And
so I didn't think that at this point, this late
in the game, being this close to the World Cup,
we would have a result that we're not going to
(01:55):
forget for a long time. And because that's what it
looked like, you know, I still remember, and I think,
by the way, I think I've left at it with you,
right like we I sat here and said, hey, we
didn't belong on the field that day. We were we
were just kids playing with men. And you know, like
they just hammered us every you know, last night, the
second half had a little bit of that feel to it,
(02:17):
and this close to the World Cup, but you know,
it's here's the thing here, I will leave it at
this is my first assessment of what I see. I'm
I'm disappointed at the at the fact that this close
to the World Cup we got deflated yesterday, not just
the players, but I think the fan base, I think
(02:37):
everybody that watched the game. We left the game, by
the way, not necessarily thinking that we can't recover from this,
but the way we're all walking off the field. Let's
face it, we're deflated at this point.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And that's disappointing, especially coming after the previous three camps,
which had produced so many good performances and a couple
of good results, and then a great result the five
to one over Uruguay, which is the mirror opposite of
this one. The vibes were so high, and to come
into this game and play really well in the first half,
(03:12):
I honestly thought the US played out outplayed Belgium in
that first half, and then to have it all fall
apart so completely in the second half, I think deflated
is the right word.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Before we jump in into the.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Specifics, we should talk for a second about the jersey issue,
because the US were, you know, breaking out for the
first time the kind of the flag Waldo, which I
thought looked sharp, really great jerseys. The Waldos are my
all time favorite US jersey, and Belgium had a very
(03:48):
similar color palette on their own jersey. My understanding is
that there was communication between the two team and men's
but maybe not enough, and then once it got close
to game time and they realized that they were wearing
essentially the same look in jersey, Neither team had backups
(04:08):
on hand, and the players, you know, Christian, Polistic, West, McKenny,
a few others said it was an issue. Politic says
it's not an excuse at all because both teams dealt
with that, but it's just it can't happen. McKenny says,
I won't put that at all for an excuse of
the game, but definitely it was a little bit difficult
whenever you do a quick glance to tell which is which.
(04:31):
It was almost like a fifty to fifty thing. I mean,
Belgium didn't have many problems with it to that but
it was it made for a tough watch.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
No, it's difficult. It's difficult for players on both teams.
There's no question because I think I think I'm going
to go back to one of Christians quotes maybe and
he said something about sometimes you look up and you're
just looking for the color, right, because it's normal. The
game moves by quickly. It's not like you're necessarily aiming
for a certain player, but you're looking at the color
(05:00):
and you know that's your player. And sometimes when you
especially when you play quickly, you're looking for the color
and that has it has a big effect on that
type of on that type of path. So I do
agree with the players in this case. And you know,
taking into consideration that now we're dealing with timeouts and
everything else with the you know, the the quarters that
we're playing now, in all of these things that we're
(05:21):
implementing to I guess make the game better. I think
this is this is something that shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, And the timeouts tabs referring to there were hydration
breaks in this game, one about the twenty five minute
mark and one about the sixty five minute mark in
the second half, even though the game is played indoors
in a climate controlled dome.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Essentially.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Look, man, I'm all for hydration breaks when the weather
gets dangerous it's outside, you're in the Florida sun or whatever.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
When you're playing in a dome and.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
It's seventy two degrees, that was a little weird to me,
But all right. On today's show, we'll discuss where things
went wrong versus the Belgians and what we can learn because,
as Tab said, you have to learn from situations like this.
It's a bad day, bad forty five minutes, but you
got to figure out a way to make yourself better
because of it. What Mauricio Pocheccino has to say after
(06:20):
the match and what it all means. Will also acknowledge
the few things that did go well, shout out Weston
McKenny and give our starting eleven for the Portugal match
on Tuesday. Plus we'll talk about the roster and what
we think the Belgium loss means for guys on the
bubble for the World Cup. So Tab, let's get into it.
I mean, we should start with the negatives. You've been
(06:44):
banging the drum for months since I've been on the
show about the matchup with Jeremy Doku.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Tim Reim was not.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Quite on an island in the first half, but it
was close. And then in the second half Belgium realized
we weren't pressing their back line, so they had they
had time to pick their heads up and hit these big,
long switches directly to their wingers and tim Weya went
(07:14):
straight into the torture chamber and that was to me
the story of the game.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Well, you know, this is where I sound a little
bit like a dad, because I hate to say I
told you so, right, but I think I wasn't the
only one right. You know, we've been saying you can
go back on these shows for you're right, two or
three shows where I said, okay, we're thinking of playing
Tim waya right back, which is okay. By the way
he does it at Marseille. He does a good job there.
(07:40):
They wouldn't put him there unless he could do the job. Now,
let me start by saying this. You know, I went
to Madrid to the Champions League game to watch Real
Madrid Manchester City. As we know, both top teams in
the world still being top teams in the world, still
having Alexander Arnold, Mark King Doku. Madrid still needed Alexander
(08:03):
Arnold to delay to allow Valverde to come back and
Pie Tarts to come in from midfield to triple team
Doku before they challenged the ball. So I'm thinking over
the last three weeks, if Real Madrid has to play
Doku with three players on him, why would we be
thinking that we can do the job with one. And
(08:25):
this is so, this is why I'm not necessarily blaming
Tim Wea for it. And maybe something broke down on
the way right, but he was left one v one
with with Doku too many times, and Doku at this
point can be anyone one v one.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So Pocheccino said afterwards that it was quote a lack
of understanding from the midfield. He said, he pointed to Tanner, Testman,
Johnny Cartoso and Weston McKenny. He said, we had we
had three midfielders arrived to the same line as Tim,
but they never went to help him. And you know,
(09:05):
he said he wasn't upset because he told his midfielders
they needed to help weya on Doku and be aware
of Doku cutting inside and shooting, which is what happened.
The problem we had Pacheccino said, was no one helped
in the areas you can help and are really important
to help.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Tim.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
That's almost more worrying than the performance, because if the
coach is saying, we drilled this again and again and again,
or I told the players this again and again again
and then they didn't execute.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
It at all, but that is a massive issue.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Well yeah, because okay, so you mentioned obviously it's part
of your tactics of the week. Okay, be careful with
Doku when he get Let's say, and I'm gonna make
this up, but let's say this is exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
You know, us team trained to know that when the
ball goes wide to Doku, Weeya goes there, he delays
a little bit and wastes for help before he challenges
the ball. Let's say that's not happening. Let's say, way,
I forgot about it, and let's say the rest of
the team forgot about it. But that's what you're there
on the sideline for, to remind the players that this
(10:12):
is supposed to be happening. And by the way, I
just made fun of soccer now having timeouts after minute
twenty two, you have the full team in at the
twenty second minute where you can talk to the whole
team and correct that. Right then you have the rest
of the half and you have half time to correct that.
So I think, look, I mean there must have been
(10:34):
a breakdown somewhere in communication there, but I think there's
plenty of opportunity as the game is going to correct
that as well.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, there's Yeah, that is the frustrating part. I will
say there will be ample film to use during training
over the next hopefully starting today ahead of the Portugal game,
because there's so much that needed to be corrected. But
(11:04):
I mean you're right to have, like, what's the point
of those twenty five minute you know, water breaks if
you're not going to fix what's going wrong. And I
will say in the first half it felt a little
bit better because I think that was because Belgium were
trying forcing it really through central midfield, and the US
did a good job of making that really difficult. As
(11:26):
I said, in the second half, because of the lack
of pressure from the US front line, they were just
able to skip the midfield. One way they were doing
it was by those long diagonals, the other one was
by playing directly up the gut and challenging the center
back pairing of Tim Reem and Mark McKenzie on long balls,
first ball, second ball. Stuff not really what you associate
(11:49):
with Belgium, but they realized if the US had a
little dislocation between central midfield and the back line and
two kind of undersized center backs, that was something that
they could take advantage of. So I think the second
Belgium goal was diagonal. Third Belgium goal was long ball,
over the top, win the second ball and off to
(12:09):
the races. And again the US never really adjusted for that.
In fact that I think over the final half hour
the game tabit, it actually got worse.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things. So I'll
start with some positives, right, and if I look at
the game overall, I think some of the things that
I saw from Tim Waya in the first half, in particular,
a couple of balls that he got over the top,
this is something that I can you know, if I'm
looking forward now, and obviously you know in the World
Cup we don't play Belgium in the first round. We're
(12:38):
playing Paraguay and Australia as our first two games. You know,
I can see Tim Waya playing that position and actually
having an important effect on what's going to happen with
us offensively. So I like that. I like what he did.
I like him coming from behind. I don't I personally
don't see that working without us playing three center backs.
(12:59):
I just don't think we have enough quality at the
center back position to play with two. I think we
have to play with three, which would free up Waya
to go forward a lot and Robinson to go forward
a lot. So a lot of that movement that I
saw both from Weea early on and from Robinson early on,
I think it's positive and I think that's something that
(13:19):
we can do during the World Cup. I also, on
the positive side, saw Johnny Cardoso that got involved in
a good way, right. I mean, I think this was
a positive outcome for him in this game. And by
the way, we said before this game, we said this
last week on the show that you're never going to
see a flashy Johnny Cardoso. That's just not the player
(13:41):
he is. But I think he completed the right passes.
I think he supported the right players. I think he
made a couple of very nice passes moving forward. And
although we're not asking for a lot at this point,
I think he, if anything, helped himself with yesterday's game.
Not saying a lot, I know, because not a lot happened,
but I think he helped himself with the game that
(14:02):
he played yesterday. And then I have to go to
the to the negative side. First, I'll start with why
Turner and goal Freeze has been playing in goal for
the last twelve months and has done a great job.
Why why create for me? Why create that doubt at
this point, like with one being the last camp going
(14:22):
into the World Cup. If there's if there's one position
that could make or break your team is the goalkeeper position.
And we've lived it, fortunately on the good side in
this country for the last thirty years, from Tony Miola
to Brad Friedel, to Casey Keller to Tim Howard to
all of those guys right we've had we've been on
the right side of that. We had been struggling coming
(14:45):
into the last six eight months in this position, and
I thought Freeze had done a pretty good job to
earn that position and for us not to worry about it.
I didn't understand that. I again, I don't think Matt
Turner played a bad game. I don't think he helped
himself in terms of becoming a starter for the World Cup.
But why create that doubt. I thought Free should have
(15:06):
gotten the game. That's just me. Then you know salamachers
in the middle of the field. We could not track
him like he was alone. He played alone. He ran
the show for me. Other than Doku. He was the
best player on the field. He ran the show from them.
Anytime he had the ball. He played as if he
(15:28):
was alone, really impressed with his game and disappointed with
the lack of us putting pressure on him and allowing
him to turn time after time when he was creating
so much in front of our back four and in
front of our midfield. You know, other than that, I'd
have to say, and I'll go back to this, I'll
(15:48):
finish with this, because sometimes it could be a little
bit of fool's gold when you start to think, hey,
you know, we were good for thirty nine minutes until
Belgium scored, and then I'm sorry, until we scored and
then Belgium changed. Let's not forget because we scored in
the thirty ninth minute, and between the thirty ninth minute
(16:08):
and the forty eighth minute, when the half ended, Belgium
could have scored three times. Right, the game changed. The
game completely changed when we scored, which means the opponent
changed too. And this reminds me of one thing. And
I'm sorry I'm going too long on this, but it
reminds me of one thing. When I coached in Houston.
We were in games all the time. The players worked
hard all the time, and you know, and we could
(16:31):
always go back and say, yeah, we lost two to one,
but up until the eightieth minute, we were the better team.
The bottom line is the good teams can just pound
you until you have nothing left and they will beat
you either in the ninety second minute or they can
beat you early. And for us, I feel like we
lost early when we really in this game. If anything,
(16:53):
although Belgium is a better team, we should have lost
to them really late instead of early.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, to your point, Belgium could have scored three goals
from the thirty ninth minute to halftime. The US could
have scored three goals from the whistle to the thirty
ninth minute.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
They had their chances. Christian Polisic in.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Particular, had a beautiful one that he put into row
thirty and Fochccino said afterwards that has to be a goal,
and I don't necessarily disagree with him. I'll add one
of the positive things you didn't touch on. I thought
set Peace delivery was really good from the US today.
It was Malik Tillman and Jedi Robinson. It was Anthony
(17:35):
Robinson who had the assist on Weston mckennie's goal, which
was actually a really well worked set piece and not
in the style of the meat wall that Arsenal have
been doing this year that makes the game unwatchable. It
was actually just a really good set piece, so that
was nice to see. Weston mckennie overall playing is kind
of a right winger. I thought was the best player
(17:59):
for the US. There weren't a ton of other outstanding performances.
I don't even know if I could call Weston's performance outstanding.
I will say that Christian Polistics performance was concerning. It's
now I think he's got one goal in his last
ten games for the US, going back about two years,
(18:23):
all the way to the start of Pachtino's tenure. He
missed that chance. He didn't create any chances to speak of.
He has now been taken off set peace duty, thank goodness.
And it was his lack of pressure to the ball
early in the second half that allowed Belgium to get
(18:45):
out on the run and to open the game up
and to put Doku into one v one situations either
with Weya or even skipping Weya who was pushing up
on the right side and dragging Mark McKenzie out. And
Mark McKenzie is a good player, but one v one
in spa. I don't like any center back in the
world one v one in space against Doku. What do
(19:07):
we read into this into this performance from Christian Polistic?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
And do we read.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Anything into the fact that the best US camp under
Mauricio Pochettino was the November camp that Christian Polistic was.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Not a member of. Is there anything in that tab?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Well? I mean, you you, you can't help but to
read something into it.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Having said that, I think that, you know, Christian just
doesn't look as comfortable on this team for whatever reason.
He still had a couple chances to score. You know, sometimes,
especially against good teams like Belgium, is difficult to to
create those chances. I thought he created himself a great
chance dribbling in the box and a left footed shot
(19:53):
that went over the top that normally you would think
he tucks that in the corner right, and it just
didn't happen for him. I'm not as negative about Christian's
game as I've heard other people be, only because I
still think he looks to me focused to want to
do well, and I think he did create some chances
for himself. You know, still we need a lot more
(20:16):
from him. But you know, in general, when I look
at the performance of Christian Polisic and the performance of
Flow Balogun at the same time and see that they
were not in the game much at all, I think
this becomes more of a more concerning as to why
in midfield we didn't have the ball and we didn't
create enough to put them in good position to make plays.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, the US were able to really get a rhythm
in possession. They were still dangerous at times with the
ball going forward in that first half.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
A couple of good overlaps I.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Think Jedi Robinson got four twice in about the first
ten to fifteen minutes or so. Faded out of the
game a little bit after that, but he did look
up for it physically, and of course Weea had his
hands full on the right, but he did provide some
with in the attack at times. But this actually speaks
to a little bit of a change in the tactical
(21:15):
approach that we've seen from the US over the previous
half dozen gamestaf because we've talked about it on this show.
How it's a back four, but then one of the
full back slides in and becomes essentially a full time
center back while the other just pushes forward. And you
think about Alex Freeman what he did against Dorguay. He
was nominally the right back, but he was basically playing
(21:37):
as a right winger.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
It wasn't that approach in this game.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was a back four and the fullbacks would take
turns pushing forward, and which is not unusual. We've seen
that a lot over the past thirty years as tactics
in the game have evolved. And then when they wanted
to form a back three, it was either Johnny Cardozo
dropping off off to left center back, making Tim Ream
(22:02):
the sweeper, or Tanner Testaman dropping into the middle of
the back line, pushing Reim out to the left and
McKenzie out to the right, and then both fullbacks would
go up and honestly, I don't mind this, but the
rotations have to be crisp and everybody has to be
on the same page. And I think what.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
We saw is that they really weren't.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Because Malik Tillman, if Tanner Testament's dropping out of the
back line, Johnny Cardos is dropping out of the back line,
Malik Tillman has to drop in and form.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
That double pivot so that they have outlets.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
And he just didn't do that, and so the US
didn't have a way to progress the ball.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
No, And that's right because Tilman really was not in
the game at all yesterday, and that's unfortunate. That's why,
you know, I keep saying that at this point, I'm
sort of seeing our team succeed if we add another
center back and have three permanent center backs there. I
think that would be the best solution to what we do.
(23:02):
It would be the best solution in terms of allowing
both Way and Robinson to give forward all the time
and to keep the center of the field steady without
having you know, one of the midfielders dropper or the
other midfielders dropped. You know, you keep three in the back,
you keep two defensive mids, and then you let everyone
else attack and no matter what happens, no matter when
(23:22):
the turnover happens to come the other way, you're in
good position in the center of the field and well covered. Uh.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Mauricio Pocheccino, I think we'll like with this. Marcio Pocheccino
after the game said we need to keep going with
the plan and that's not going to change with the
result today, and Western McKenny kind of echo that.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I said.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I don't think it's a worrisome result for us because
within the team, we know we can do better, we
know what went wrong, and we also know and believe
fully that we can play with a team of this caliber.
We have seen it before against Uruguay. They're top ten team,
just like belgiumar We've seen the US beat Paraguay and Australia,
(24:03):
teams that they'll have to beat in the World Cup.
Hopefully that is the real version of the US and
not the team that fell apart so completely in the
second half of this one. We should mention shout out
to big pat Agiamont. He came off the bench, got
a goal, I thought. Ricardo Peppy came off the bench,
helped himself set up the goal with his pressing. Both
those guys did some good for themselves. Not a lot
(24:27):
of US players can say that. After this one for US,
I think it's time for a break up. Next, we'll
discuss what we want to see the US do against
Portugal on Tuesday, and we'll give our starting eleven for
the match.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Please rate, review and subscribe to Inside.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
American Soccer with Tom Boger and Tam Ramos wherever you
get your podcasts. All right, folks, welcome back to Inside
American Soccer and TAB. Let's just get right to it.
We got another game coming up on Tuesday against Portugal. Uh,
(25:06):
let's go through your starting eleven. Let's go line by line, right,
We'll start in goal. You made your case for Matt
Freeze earlier in the show, and I assume that he's
your starter for this game.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Uh, yeah, he is. And and only because you know,
why change more than anything else, Why add doubt to
that position? I think you know, Uh, Matt had done
a Matt Freeze had done a good had done a
good job, and and I thought, you know, for his confidence,
would have been better to stay on and get more
minutes with the national team. So he'll be for me,
he should be back in goal. Again, this is this
(25:40):
would be my lineup, not what I think Pochettino is
going to do. I would have three center backs, I
would add considering the injuries we have, so I'm obviously
thinking that you know, uh Richards is not going to
be available and so because of and Miles Robinson's not
going to be available. Because of that, I would start
free Men as the right center back, with Mackenzie and
(26:03):
Reem as a three center back way on the right side, Robinson,
Jedi Robinson on the left side. I would have McKinney
and Tesman in the central two central spots with Aaronson,
Pulisick and Balligan. And the reason I'm gonna add Aaronson
is because I think the team, without a doubt, will
(26:25):
be a little bit deflated, as we mentioned before, and
I think the energy that Aaronson brings, I think and
have a really positive effect on the team at the moment.
And I think at this time, although I think normally
at the World Cup this is not one of the
players that I would put on the starting eleven, I
think the team needs Aaronson a little bit at this time.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I've never been a huge Brennan Aaronson fan, but coming
off that game where I've already said it three times
on the show, but the US sproatline was not doing
the work to get pressure to the Belgian back line.
But let's you never have to worry about that with
Brendan Rison. He is going to do that work defensively,
and the US badly needed that one. And against teams
(27:11):
of that caliber, you can't take your foot off the
gas even if you're one hundred yards from goal, and
I think Aaronson can maybe set the tone a little bit,
so I don't hate that.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Let me ask you about Tanner Testament. He's a player
I really like.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
He almost scored a goal and it had a really
good shot from about twenty two yards early in the
game of a well worked set piece. Didn't do much
else other than that except end up being about three
yards behind the play for the entire game. When asked
about him afterwards, Rise, which kept it really short, said
he can do better. What did you see from Tanner Testaman,
(27:49):
Because tab he's a guy that you and I have
both consistently had in our best eleven for the US,
and he looked nothing like that in the game.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Against Beltium.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, I think he struggled with having to come back
and put himself in between the center back, so let's
say in between Robinson and reim right in that spot.
He struggled with being able to do that and getting
into that line, which he did at times, but then
at the same time to then be able to take
six or seven, you know, steps forward, to be able
(28:20):
to receive both, to be able to create for us,
and he didn't do that. I did notice that in
the first half when we were attacking and Belgium had
some some turnovers and recover the ball and try to
play through the middle. He did intercept a couple balls,
so he was in the right place. I just feel
like the game, the game didn't help him at all,
and I don't want to make excuses for him, but
(28:42):
I'd like to see him again because I think he
can do better.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, that's exactly what Mauricio Poccino said. And you're not
you're not dropping wesn mckennye back a line into that
double pivot with Tanner Tasman, and I understand that because
West has played there a lot for the US, He's
played there a lot for Juventus. I thought he was
really good in the attack for the US against Belgium.
But is it just a case of like, Okay, he's
(29:08):
probably this team's best player at this point, so you
want to have your team's best player in the heart
of it all, stirring the drink and give him the
responsibility to set the tone. Probably have the most touches
on the team.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Well, you know, the one thing you can always count
on with Weston is that he's going to make that effort,
you know, to get around the field to try to
recover the ball. I think, if anything, what didn't help
him yesterday was getting that early yellow card in the
first half and he lost a little bit of aggressiveness
at that point. But I think we can't I wouldn't
(29:41):
take him off the field. I think he was still
one of our best players yesterday and he needs to
be on the field. And in order to fit Aaronson,
that's the player that I have to drop a little bit.
So I wouldn't mind doing that. I think that would
be that would be the right solution for me.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Let's talk about.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
The back, the center backs in particular.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Now.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Alex Freeman did get on for a late cameo We've
talked about his move to via Real quite a bit
on this show. It's a move that both of us
like in macro level micro level. We worried about playing time,
and it turns out that was justified. He's played about
fifty minutes I think since the.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Move in January.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
But he's been good for Manicio Pocheccino, and he's played
it either as a you know, really attacking fullback, but
sometimes he's played as a third center back. In this setup,
you have him as kind of a true center back
in that back three tab and walk us through that.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah. I what I like is he's he has the speed,
He's able to defend one v one. I think he
would be a good addition to way Aside because he
can cover Way and at times he can go forward too.
I think he's a he would be a great addition
to the three center backs. I guess you know. What
I would say is, obviously we don't have we don't
(30:58):
have Richards, and we don't have Miles Robinson. Although Miles
Robinson is not in great form at the moment, I
think for what we have in this current roster, I
think I think try and Freeman in that position would
be helpful.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, he's done it before. Hopefully he'll get a chance
to do it again. On the other side, left center back,
you have Tim Reim who had moments with the ball
where he looked like the Tim Reim of old. His
line breaking passes, he puts guys in better positions than
any of our other center backs. Like he still has
(31:35):
that to his game. But one of the things that
Belgium was able to take advantage of was his lack
of size and athleticism. And if you go back and
look at that second half, they made him challenge a
lot of aerials and he has never.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Been great in the air, and they were able.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
To go first ball, second ball, and off to the races.
But we still have him out there. I think I
would probably start him too. Is there any argument in
your mind for Austin Trusty getting this start at left
center back instead?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
At this point, I would say no, you know, I
think and I've been critical of Tim and not critical obviously.
Tim is a great player, has been a great player,
you know, But I've been a little bit critical because
I think we can do better in that position. I think,
considering where we are today with the roster, that we
have and the guys that are injured. I think that's
(32:28):
the best solution. And to be fair to Tim, I
don't think he played a bad game. I think you're
right in the fact that you know, Belgium try to
take advant advantage a little bit over the top, but
you know that's what you do as a team. But
this is the reason why I would play three center backs.
I would pair him with with other guys who can
help him in that position, and by and by being
(32:49):
a third center back. I have to say, you know,
Tim was excellent in distribution in this game. I don't
know that he missed the pass. He may have, but
his passes were Chris. They were sharp between lines that
were right to the perfect foot. You know. He actually
with the ball, he did really well.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, he's always been gifted with that. It's a weapon
for the US and you can see why so many
coaches have trusted him club and country to be sort
of the main distribution hub for the teams that he
plays for. Let's go back in the other direction up top.
We've talked about it a lot on this show. For
ac Milan, Christian Polistic plays as a second forward. He
(33:29):
doesn't have the responsibility to make the plays. It's more
just finishing plays off and that's kind of what we
have him as here. The way you have it set
up is this sort of a you know, a three
to five to two with Aaronson dropping deeper almost as
a as a playmaker, and Pulisic and Baligan up top together.
(33:52):
Or is it more of like a three four two
one with Pulisic and Aaronson kind of on the same
line underneath Balligan.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I have it more as a three four to two one,
only because I think Aaronson can help a lot more
in an early bowl recovery. I wouldn't want to see
him deeper in midfield.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Well we will see.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
You know, Mauricio Pocchettino has not hesitated to to to
throw stuff at the wall see what stakes And sometimes
it has and sometimes, as in the second half against Belgium,
it has it. With this lineup, tap, do you have
any subs in mind? I mean we saw gi Arena
come off the bench. He didn't really do much. There
(34:33):
are obviously a couple of defensive midfielders you could choose
from anyone in particular that you would want to see
at say the hour mark, if this is the lineup
that the US trots out on Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Well, first I have to say that I had one
doubt on the roster I put together, and that was
whether I would start Testament or Cardozo, right, because I
think Cardozo likely deserves another start at this point. And
if you were to put him to McKinny and make
them that true defensive mid I think that can work.
So I would say that that that's one place. But
then up top, really you have a lot of different options, right,
(35:08):
because you could potentially go you could take Aaronson out
and go to two forwards and just have Christian polistic
play uh sort of a ten behind those two forwards.
I can see that happening. If that's gonna be, let's say,
uh Ajimon or you know, or or Peppy, if one
of those two guys comes into add to Balagun being
up top, I didn't really see Raina as being he
(35:30):
didn't look fit to me. He'd looked like he was
sort of roaming on the outside, not really connecting. He
didn't look ready, he looks he looks like he hasn't
been playing.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
And then other than that, I I you know, I
would say that you know, the only other thing you
could do is potentially adding Arstin to the left side
instead of Robinson if he's not doing well, because obviously
this will be two games in a row and he
hasn't been playing as much.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Yeah, or excuse me.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Robinson played sixty minutes in his final game for Fulham
before this camp. He played sixty minutes against Belgium. We
will see how much he's got in the tank. And
this one, Johnny Cardozo should be noted, came off at
halftime for Christian Roaldon. Pochettino said that Johnny had picked
up a little bit of a knock or maybe just
(36:21):
some tightness, so he wanted to be careful with him.
Maybe we'll get to see Iden Morris, he's also in
this camp. Didn't get in the game this past weekend.
Might be a good thing for his chances to have
not been on the field for that one.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And Matt before we go. I'll add this to that,
the fact that we're gonna have twenty six players at
the World Cup. But I think, you know, yeah, we
can give other players opportunities, but the fact is we're
gonna play the World Cup with about seventeen or eighteen players,
and so I think it's time to narrow that down
and to now just start putting in the guys that
are actually are going to get the playing time.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Got two three friendlies left to go, starting on Tuesday
against Portugal.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
We'll see time for one more break.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Next up we will talk roster and who needs to
play well Tuesday to save their spot for that World
Cup squad.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Thanks for listening to Inside American Soccer.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Please rate review as subscribe. Welcome back to Inside American Soccer.
All right, Tom, I mean, let's talk roster. In your eyes,
did anyone play their way off the World Cup roster
(37:35):
with their performance against Belgium.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
I wouldn't be as cruel as to say that anyone
necessarily played themselves off of the roster by what they
did yesterday, But I think guys that had an opportunity
to help themselves didn't really help themselves, right, And so
I look at guys like, maybe, you know, maybe Rain
you know, because he did come in with about twenty
twenty five minutes and we didn't really see him do anything.
(38:00):
And by the way, it was a difficult situation that
he comes in. But this is maybe your chance to
make the team, so you probably need more than what happened. Yeah,
I wouldn't say that there was a player who eliminated
themselves from the World Cup roster, but I just think
that just guys who got an opportunity late didn't help
(38:21):
themselves at all.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, Geo in particular, and I'm a big Geo fan
and I would take him basically no matter what because
he has that special playmaking talent. But he looked indecisive
when he came off the bench, which is not what
you want to see from a guy who's supposed to
be your late game match winner. The Sebastian Burhalter really
(38:44):
struggled obviously, had a colossal error that led to one
of the Belgium goals. Max Arston, after being really good
for the past year, was really bad.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
In this one.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
I don't think anybody played their way off the roster
from one game or one half. But we all know
Diego lun is coming back and where he is in
Pochettino's eyes. We all know Tyler Adams is coming back
and where he is in Pachectino's eyes. And we know
that Virginia Desk is coming back and where he stands
in Pachettino's eyes. Those are three guys I think that
(39:18):
are going to be in the twenty six man roster.
So that means three guys who we saw on the
field or at least in the squad, you know, probably
not going to be there this summer. So we'll just
reiterate once again, this is a chance to prove it,
(39:38):
and coming off that loss against Belgium, I think there's
got to be a little bit more urgency in the
group and tap that'll bring us back to how we
started this show, mentioning that five to one loss you
guys took at the World Cup in nineteen ninety against
Czechoslovakia and the immediate bounce back that we saw from
(40:01):
you guys with your performances in the next two games,
particularly the Italy game, which was again for those who
don't know or don't remember nineteen ninety, Italy was the host,
one of the favorites. The US one nil loss could
have been one one if not for walters Anga's rear
end really a borderline I think legendary performance from you guys,
(40:25):
the guts that you showed in that moment. What was
the discussion like in the group after that five to
one loss, and how did you spin that together into
that performance against Italy?
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah, I mean we could put a show together on
what happened in between the Czechoslovakia game and the Italy game,
But there were fights in practice. I mean, the tension
in the group was incredible. I mean we you know,
I always say I was fortunate to be part of
that early generation that started in nineteen ninety because we
were just guys that kind of refused to lose. We
(41:03):
refused to accept that we were not as good as
the other teams, and by the way, we weren't even
close as good to the other team, but we just
refused to accept that. And I think that's what it was.
It was really just a strong mentality, and I think
that's why that started to show the very next day
in practice, with guys fighting in practice. And then by
the time we got to the game, we were on
(41:24):
the bus on our way into the Olympic Stadium in
Rome and people on the sides were showing us the
two hands for the ten goals that Italy was going
to score on us that day, and the newspapers were
saying that records were going to be broken. There was
a Hungary nine to one win against El Salvador as
the record and the newspapers were saying that Italy was
(41:44):
going to break that record that day, and so we
had a lot to prove that day and we did.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
You're talking about the mentality and the fights, and how
much of that is from guys being like, I might
have lost my job, I have to fight, I have
to really get stuck it in practice because I want
to hold onto my starting spot or I want to
win a starting spot. Is that the or is it
just embarrassment because of what happened and you need some
(42:15):
sort of escape hatch for that, some way to let
that out and to take it out, and you actually
end up taking it out on your teammates.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
But it ends up being a good thing in the end.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah, of course, because don't forget you're playing for your
I don't want to say you're playing for your life,
but you're playing for your job. And at the at
the same time, you don't you don't want to be
This is a team sport, so it doesn't only depend
on you. It depends on everybody else. But it's important
for you to go to practice and for the other
guys to understand that I'm not accepting this. This is
not good for me and my career. I want to
(42:47):
have a career at this and if you're not on board,
you're gonna pay for it this week because we're we
all we I want to be on the field against
Italy the next game with guys who want to win
the game. And that's and that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Does it have to be Christian Polistic and Weston McKenny
the leaders of this team who set the tone like
that in practice for the US?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
You know. The other thing is it's different much different times, right,
and so players are different Now there's you know, a
different way to approach players, different conversations to be had.
But I think players will realize that, regardless of where
they are in the great clubs that they're at this
summer is an amazing opportunity that they all can be
losing if they don't, if they don't get together on this.
(43:30):
So I think after taking this loss, I think, if anything,
would be a good time for a team meeting for
guys to kind of hold each other accountable and say, hey, guys,
that's it one more game and they name the team
it's all or nothing right now, and I think it
would be a good time for something like that.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Well, that seems like a good time, good place for
us to leave it on this episode. Thank you all
for listening to Inside American Soccer. Please rate, review, and subscribe.
Will be back midweek for our reaction to the Portugal match,
hopefully a less somber show.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
We'll have more happy things to talk about.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
In that one, and so please rate, review, and subscribe
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
We'll see you in a couple of days.
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