Latest / Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football / 🚨 USWNT BEATS IRELAND 4-0 🚨 Rose Lavelle RETURNS | Alyssa Thompson, Avery Patterson DOMINANT

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🚨 USWNT BEATS IRELAND 4-0 🚨 Rose Lavelle RETURNS | Alyssa Thompson, Avery Patterson DOMINANT · Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football

• 0:06
  OK, welcome to Into the Channel podcast premiere about 1
• 0:09
  football. I'm your host Dean of the
• 0:10
  suspicious and as always, I'm joined by my Co host Mr. Grant
• 0:15
  Angle. What's up, man?
• 0:17
  I'm feeling all right, buddy. That was a There were some
• 0:20
  things to take away from that football match.
• 0:23
  I'll say 1 early take away. I didn't expect the OK to be
• 0:26
  that long. Usually the length of the OK is
• 0:30
  usually commensurate with the level of excitement.
• 0:32
  I'm glad to to see you're this excited about the show tonight.
• 0:36
  I figured one second per goal and I I came in right around
• 0:40
  that. So a little spoiler alert, you
• 0:43
  guys got busy tonight. We'll get into it.
• 0:46
  But with that said, yeah, pretty much just one match on the
• 0:49
  docket. So this this should be no more
• 0:52
  than a formality Mr. Grant angle.
• 0:53
  Where do we get started? Yeah.
• 0:55
  I mean, weren't able to watch the friendly between Sweden and
• 0:59
  Norway, unfortunately not broadcast anywhere we could
• 1:03
  watch in the US of A. So how about we start with
• 1:07
  United States of America for Republic of Ireland, no.
• 1:11
  I'm with it. Let's do it.
• 1:14
  So take people behind their curtain.
• 1:16
  We're recording a little bit later.
• 1:18
  I got a late start, so I just finished watching the match.
• 1:20
  I haven't had a chance to taking any of the Internet activity,
• 1:23
  any of the post game pressers. I'm I'm still trying to figure
• 1:27
  out where I land with regard to, you know, you look at some of
• 1:31
  the stats. I think it's 26 shots attempted
• 1:34
  to one for Ireland, You know, so that right, right, right off the
• 1:37
  bat, you can kind of see the disparity between these two
• 1:39
  teams. But on the same note, I thought
• 1:42
  there was some really good moments from the US You know, I
• 1:45
  think we, we continue to see some of that evolution of the
• 1:48
  attack. We're seeing a lot of diversity.
• 1:51
  We're seeing shots taken from different angles, we're seeing
• 1:54
  of different combinations we've never seen before.
• 1:56
  So I don't know, am I at risk of like sort of like looking too
• 2:00
  much into some of these positive outcomes or is this just the
• 2:04
  first ranked team versus the 25th, 26th ranked team and this
• 2:09
  was just basically par for the course?
• 2:10
  What what? What should be the take away?
• 2:12
  I think it's OK to have the takeaways of there were things
• 2:19
  that really went well and they should have gone well because
• 2:22
  this is the number one ranked FIFA team versus the number 25
• 2:25
  ranked FIFA team. And just as we as we go through
• 2:28
  this, we're going to use some some terminology here.
• 2:32
  And I don't mean any disrespect to the Republic of Ireland.
• 2:34
  You know, they no Katie McCabe, no Denise O'Sullivan.
• 2:39
  So nobody came into this match thinking that this was going to
• 2:42
  be level terms in in in the in the scope of talent on the
• 2:47
  field. But I think it's OK to be like,
• 2:49
  hey, that there were things that happened that were really good
• 2:52
  for USA. Are they going to be able to do
• 2:54
  those things against the elite teams of the world all the time?
• 2:57
  Maybe not, but probably should be able to some of the time.
• 3:00
  I think so and I think before we before we get into it, let's
• 3:04
  cheers to a good performance, you know, independent of the
• 3:09
  competition. They went out and did their
• 3:11
  thing and I'm happy about that. That's what you gotta do.
• 3:17
  Cheers. Just not her doing.
• 3:18
  We got cheers to you. Yeah, exactly.
• 3:21
  You know, and I'll say like when I say some of the terms that I'm
• 3:24
  going to use, and again, I mean this with no, no disrespect to
• 3:27
  Ireland, it was an ass kicking and it probably should have been
• 3:30
  an ass kicking. Like they, you know, they come
• 3:32
  over here, they got to play in the altitude and and go up
• 3:36
  against this team full of like young stars who are all fighting
• 3:41
  for spots on one of the most competitive teams in the world.
• 3:45
  Like there there really weren't many other ways this was
• 3:47
  supposed to go. No, no total arse kicking.
• 3:51
  I, I, you look at some of the, the, the make up.
• 3:54
  This wasn't the fastest team that we've seen Emma Hayes put
• 3:58
  forward, right. But I think physically that this
• 4:02
  was just a really powerful team. You know, like you, you watch,
• 4:06
  whether it's Avery Patterson or Claire Hutton or Sam Coffey or
• 4:11
  Emily Sonnet, like when the ball gets struck, like these passes
• 4:15
  have such weight to them. These runs have such Thunder to
• 4:19
  them. I think it really put put
• 4:21
  Ireland on on notice. The other thing I I picked up on
• 4:24
  pretty early was EU s s interest in putting diagonal balls over
• 4:30
  the top, but not like the looping balls over the top.
• 4:33
  They were kind of like these stinging aerial balls like
• 4:36
  designed to kind of like switch field really quickly.
• 4:38
  And and in a couple spots they went left to right to then back
• 4:42
  left. Whether it was with one or pass
• 4:44
  or two passes. They just made Ireland play a
• 4:46
  ton of defense, kind of like going left to right, just kind
• 4:49
  of swaying in the breeze and just really made them work.
• 4:52
  And I think it wasn't so much about can we beat this team over
• 4:55
  the top and just have them chase us?
• 4:57
  It was like, let's let's make them work a little bit.
• 4:59
  Let's wear them out. And you know, we haven't seen a
• 5:02
  ton of four Nils under M Hayes. So I think this this a pretty
• 5:07
  encouraging scoreline for them to like really, you know, put up
• 5:11
  goals in line with basically like the disparity between these
• 5:15
  two teams from a talent standpoint like you were talking
• 5:16
  about. Yeah, I think that's totally
• 5:18
  fair. And I like it because, you know,
• 5:20
  when Lily Ohana says appeared in previous matches, we talked a
• 5:25
  lot about a lot of those diagonal aerial passes.
• 5:28
  And she was, you know, passing Michelle Cooper even further
• 5:32
  open than she usually is, passing Alyssa Thompson even
• 5:34
  further open than she usually is.
• 5:36
  It almost seemed like other players were like, hey, we want
• 5:39
  to try that too. Like we're we're capable of
• 5:40
  doing that too, just to, you know, make sure that they have
• 5:43
  their spot in the rotation. I I also want to comment on what
• 5:48
  you had mentioned with the physicality.
• 5:50
  This is not breaking news. We've been watching the NWSL.
• 5:53
  We've watched the bats over there at Gotham FC.
• 5:57
  Lily Reel, 5 foot 9, great size, physical player.
• 6:02
  I thought, you know, in her first cap, just kind of walked
• 6:05
  out there and, you know, we talked about this with Carrie
• 6:08
  Abello, just another player who seems to be like, yeah, I'm
• 6:11
  here. Like I I should be wearing this
• 6:13
  Crest also. I just just seemed supremely
• 6:16
  confident in her first minutes with the senior national team.
• 6:19
  Very cool to see Lily Real. Yeah, Lily real was like, yeah,
• 6:22
  I'm here and I could do all the stuff.
• 6:23
  Like just tell me what stuff you need and I'll do all the stuff.
• 6:26
  No problem. I think we Emma Hayes was doing
• 6:29
  something really interesting early where the wingers were
• 6:33
  kind of squeezing, kind of pinching in both Alyssa Thompson
• 6:36
  and Cooper, which was just giving a lot of space to
• 6:39
  Patterson. It kind of gave Patterson and
• 6:41
  reel on the other side the option to either stay wide or
• 6:44
  bring it in. And then there then there'd be
• 6:46
  the overlap. And then the other thing is like
• 6:49
  these rotations that we keep hearing about from Emma Hayes.
• 6:52
  And I think when I when you think about the Sam Coffey goal,
• 6:54
  the second goal that comes from one of those double switches
• 6:59
  that I was talking about where it goes left to right or.
• 7:02
  I'm sorry, yeah, left to right, then right back to left.
• 7:05
  And then because Sam Coffey is filling the space right because
• 7:10
  the, you know, all the players have kind of rotated over.
• 7:12
  She's basically like the last rotation and then she's left
• 7:15
  there with nobody defending, you know, which is just not what
• 7:19
  we're used to seeing. And all that comes from is just
• 7:21
  simple, you know, sort of like connecting passes and and making
• 7:25
  the defense work. Did you pick up on anything, you
• 7:29
  know, from from a passing standpoint or from a creativity
• 7:32
  standpoint? I mean, it's, it's a very
• 7:34
  different looking US attack than I think we're used to.
• 7:37
  Yeah, I think they they just showed, you know, so we've
• 7:41
  already talked about some of those diagonal aerial balls, and
• 7:44
  then you talk about kind of the swinging of some of the passes.
• 7:47
  You talk about the coffee goal. That leads to yet another big
• 7:51
  shrug from her. I think Julie Foudy on the
• 7:54
  broadcast referred to it as the why not celebration, which I
• 7:57
  kind of like reminiscent of Joey Bosa for Ohio State Buckeyes.
• 8:02
  Like when they won that national championship, he used to just
• 8:05
  maul dudes, maul the quarterback and then get up and do a shrug,
• 8:08
  which I think is kind of funny. I can see Sam Coffee being the
• 8:11
  Joey Bosa of the US National, Yeah.
• 8:14
  Just not get just not injury prone.
• 8:15
  No offense to Joey Bosa, obviously he's a legend.
• 8:17
  But that Coffee goal too, you talk about the swinging nature
• 8:22
  of it. As soon as the ball gets to
• 8:24
  Thompson, Coffee knows how open she's going to be.
• 8:28
  Thompson knows how open she's going to be.
• 8:30
  And, you know, she's kind of over, if I remember it
• 8:32
  correctly, she's like over Thompson's left shoulder as just
• 8:36
  like she knew where Coffee was going to be running into that
• 8:38
  space. And it's just kind of an easy
• 8:41
  goal. And like when you've talked
• 8:43
  about in the past few episodes, some of the key pieces of this
• 8:47
  squad moving forward, building that chemistry, I think it's
• 8:51
  pretty obvious one to point to Alyssa Thompson, Sam Coffee in
• 8:55
  in Sharpie, No doubt on any squad moving forward.
• 8:59
  I'm glad. You brought this up.
• 9:00
  I wrote my notes. I've got my little Sharpie crew
• 9:02
  here because I mean, I know that, you know, we're in Emily
• 9:07
  Fox territory and they mentioned on the broadcast or Avery
• 9:10
  Patterson, can you play on the right or left, play both,
• 9:13
  whatever, etcetera. You know, they had a little a
• 9:14
  good chuckle about that. But Avery Patterson, I mean big
• 9:20
  chunks of this match where I'm just like, that's our best
• 9:22
  player. Like that's a player, that's a
• 9:24
  player that can't do anything with her.
• 9:28
  You just, you just can't do anything.
• 9:30
  Yeah, the defense is in big trouble.
• 9:32
  When she has the ball, she tracks back.
• 9:34
  She's smart. She's a smart defender as well.
• 9:37
  Like you were pointing out, she's incredibly dangerous on
• 9:41
  the wing. She can cut the ball in.
• 9:43
  When she cuts the ball in, she's equally dangerous.
• 9:46
  I don't know. You want do you want to say it?
• 9:50
  I mean, Emily Fox plays for Arsenal.
• 9:52
  She's a Champions League winner. What?
• 9:53
  What do you think? Who's a Who's a better player
• 9:55
  buddy? I mean, you know, why do we have
• 10:01
  to choose? I mean, these are great players.
• 10:03
  We really have to make that kind of decision.
• 10:06
  But I mean, Patterson's, she's got that, you know, like she's
• 10:11
  got that air of this might be the team's best player in three
• 10:16
  years, two years. Like I think we could, we could
• 10:19
  be heading in that direction. But I think when you look at,
• 10:22
  like I said, Patterson, Hutton, we talked about the torture
• 10:25
  chamber, the midfield, Patterson and Hutton coffee is nothing you
• 10:30
  could do, like just just nothing.
• 10:33
  And then that frees up Roosevelt in a huge way to just be
• 10:37
  creative, be Roosevelt. You talked about, you know, sort
• 10:40
  of like players, like learning from other players and from some
• 10:43
  of the vets. It was so funny to see Roosevelt
• 10:45
  pull off a couple different back heels.
• 10:48
  And then what happens in the third goal, Claire Hutton's
• 10:50
  like, I'm going to do that. I can do that, like just like my
• 10:54
  turn or I want to move it along. And and I wrote down the whole
• 10:57
  sequence of that third goal because it was just absolutely
• 11:00
  nuts. So it goes Dicky, Dicky, Germa,
• 11:05
  Sonnet, Patterson, Hutton. That's where the back heel comes
• 11:09
  in. Cooper, Setnor, Lavelle.
• 11:12
  Like, come on, man. That's well, part of it is like
• 11:15
  Ireland just decided that they don't want to play anymore.
• 11:17
  Just like I don't want to run fast anymore.
• 11:19
  I'm like trying to try and pull the muscle.
• 11:21
  But brilliant team goal. I mean, you get 7 or 8 different
• 11:25
  players touching the ball and just each of them touching it
• 11:27
  once and then just kind of moving it along.
• 11:29
  And I don't love that. Love those rotations, love the
• 11:32
  ball movement. I think that's totally fair.
• 11:35
  I just want to, I just want to state this for the record, even
• 11:38
  though you're the Arsenal guy, I think today, as it stands on
• 11:43
  June 26th, 2025, I think Emily Fox is a better player than
• 11:48
  Avery Patterson. But how long do I think that
• 11:51
  will hold? I'm not sure.
• 11:54
  Probably not, probably not crazy long.
• 11:56
  And Emily Fox is great. So I think that's, that's good
• 11:59
  news for the US women's national team.
• 12:02
  But to, to your point, yeah, that team goal, you know, it's
• 12:06
  incredible. It comes shortly at what gives,
• 12:08
  like 8 minutes after they they get out of the half.
• 12:11
  I think players talk about in every match, even in, you know,
• 12:14
  some of the matches where it doesn't go as well in the first
• 12:17
  half. The players always seem to talk
• 12:19
  about Emma Hayes very candidly, pointing out what they could
• 12:23
  have done better in the first half and what they need to do in
• 12:26
  the second-half to to get a a goal or or more to see Rose
• 12:31
  Lavelle walk in, in this in this match.
• 12:34
  I thought for sure, and I think they mentioned this on the
• 12:36
  broadcast too. I thought for sure she would be
• 12:38
  off at halftime because that's the most we've seen her play in
• 12:41
  the NWSL so far. I think she played finally
• 12:44
  played a full half in this last match before the break, but she
• 12:47
  comes on and she gets the goal after getting the assist, which
• 12:50
  takes me to my next thing. He kind of moved past it
• 12:54
  quickly, especially I, and I was surprised on the first goal of
• 12:58
  the match. This is the Dino de Cespedes
• 13:00
  year of the short corner. Can we at least rewind and talk
• 13:04
  about the short corner for the opener?
• 13:05
  I, I like you, were the first person I thought of when I saw
• 13:08
  that. Yeah, no, that's my bet.
• 13:10
  And again, this is a function of having just finished watching
• 13:13
  the match. So that short corner in my mind
• 13:15
  was, yeah, it might, it might as well have been a week ago.
• 13:18
  But yeah, the short quarter, the first thing I remember about
• 13:20
  that one was Cooper before the corner just chasing down a ball
• 13:27
  versus nobody and running as fast as she possibly could.
• 13:30
  She reaches the ball quick pivot, whips it back in and the
• 13:35
  the Ireland defense just doesn't know what to do with it.
• 13:36
  They kind of fumble it out. And that's how the the corner
• 13:39
  comes about literally out of a nothing hustle play from
• 13:42
  Michelle Cooper. And then Michelle Cooper not
• 13:45
  done hustling because she she then spreads straight to the
• 13:48
  corner. And you could hear on the
• 13:50
  broadcast short, short, short. I'm not sure.
• 13:52
  Like if you go back and like check it out, you can hear it
• 13:55
  and they just go to Lavelle and then Lavelle gets to walk it in
• 13:59
  another 9-10 yards and then is able to pick out Patterson from
• 14:04
  there. Until defenses start doing
• 14:08
  something over the short corner, having two players that are
• 14:11
  incredibly accurate from that part of the field is just going
• 14:15
  to continue to be a devastating weapon.
• 14:18
  And it's like I it's weird because I haven't been covering
• 14:21
  the sport long enough to the sort of know all the intricacies
• 14:24
  of like why the short corner pisses off so many people.
• 14:26
  But to me it seems obvious. It's like you're overloading,
• 14:29
  you're creating a mismatch and make make them stop it.
• 14:33
  And instead of taking that long corner, you're just taking one
• 14:36
  from 2/3 the distance from a better angle.
• 14:39
  And when you have a player like Roosevelt who couldn't, who
• 14:41
  couldn't make some magic out of it, and Patterson, who fading
• 14:45
  away was able to generate power, you know, for the finish, I mean
• 14:49
  that that's, that's how you open a match right there.
• 14:52
  Yeah, and, and the way you frame it and you framed it this way
• 14:55
  for months now, even when we would see Barcelona use the
• 14:58
  short corner where, you know, they'll run it with Mappy and
• 15:02
  bone with T. And it's just like, to your
• 15:04
  point, like 2 just absolutely devastating passers who can also
• 15:08
  shoot and score from distance. But the the term you always use
• 15:12
  that I like is you, you're essentially walking the ball in
• 15:16
  further. And so they're kind of like
• 15:18
  calibrating, setting it up like, OK, who's going to be open?
• 15:20
  Well, how do I want to hit this? And you know, Lavelle struck it
• 15:24
  so cleanly that even with Patterson kind of doing that
• 15:27
  little bit of fade away, you know, she obviously hits it just
• 15:30
  right on her forehead. But the the cross had enough
• 15:33
  pace on it to where she was able to generate generate enough
• 15:36
  power to get it past Brosnan. So obviously, you know, the year
• 15:40
  the short corner continues. I was I was happy to see it
• 15:44
  defenders still unhappy to see it.
• 15:47
  I think I saw something, I can't remember if it was one of the
• 15:49
  Neville Brothers or somebody put a thing on social media of them
• 15:54
  asking Manchester United great player Paul Scholes about the
• 15:58
  short corner and I believe his quote was it's shite.
• 16:03
  So Paul Scholes, not a fan of the short corner, but I will say
• 16:07
  seems to be pretty effective right now.
• 16:09
  Yeah, I mean, Paul, you could, I would go check out another show,
• 16:12
  my bro. I mean, this, this thing is
• 16:13
  effective. And maybe it's a maybe it's a
• 16:16
  function of the men's game versus the woman's game.
• 16:18
  Doesn't I'm not really, again, I'm not really.
• 16:20
  That's a little bit above my pay grade.
• 16:21
  All I know is that that you could just see teams squeezing
• 16:25
  tremendous amounts of value out of this.
• 16:28
  And the crazy part is there's even a counter to the counter
• 16:32
  because as long as Cooper can get back on side, even if you
• 16:36
  run Roosevelt off the ball after she's gotten that advantageous
• 16:40
  positioning, she could get it right back to Cooper, who again,
• 16:45
  is in a better spot than she would have been from the corner
• 16:47
  spot. So I don't know, it could be
• 16:50
  just one of these things where the with the games kind of
• 16:51
  evolving pretty quickly, or maybe the the skills are at a
• 16:54
  point where now the short corner could just be something that you
• 16:57
  need to to really keep employing.
• 17:00
  The other thing I think that that we won't really see too
• 17:03
  much, you know, or we won't see it all the time was the way that
• 17:08
  Alyssa Thompson was was getting defended, which was basically
• 17:11
  backpedaled as furiously as you can.
• 17:14
  Yeah, keep her in front of you. And I think that the, the, what
• 17:18
  happens then is the defense takes away some of those like
• 17:22
  shots from distance, even if you can get pace on them because
• 17:25
  they've, they've backed off properly, which is why we kept
• 17:28
  continuing to score off passes. We weren't scoring off just kind
• 17:32
  of like one-on-one, just cooking people out there.
• 17:34
  Again, I, I really love the ball movement.
• 17:36
  I love the creativity when you have a player like Roosevelt.
• 17:40
  I mean, I'm the the basketball player, the comp I got for Rose
• 17:43
  with CP3, you know, just oh wow, creative could score, could
• 17:46
  could dish, could just do anything.
• 17:48
  But ultimately can make every right decision and then can
• 17:52
  execute once that, you know, that that processing power has
• 17:55
  made that decision. She could put the ball right
• 17:57
  where she's decided that it needs to go.
• 17:59
  Yeah, I like that as a comp and again, just good to see her out
• 18:03
  there and then she, you know, she comes back goal in an
• 18:06
  assist. Easy money for the legend coming
• 18:09
  back in. Cincinnati, I kept.
• 18:12
  I kept thinking about it. I, you know what I I was like, I
• 18:17
  think I'm going to make it my thing to start talking about
• 18:19
  what city these these players are from it, it's fun.
• 18:22
  I think about, I think you compared it.
• 18:25
  I think you compared it to Musburger.
• 18:27
  I like AI was more of a Keith Jackson guy growing up.
• 18:31
  He was fantastic and he loved a Whoa Nelly, which, you know, I
• 18:36
  love that phrase. Also, Speaking of Whoa Nelly,
• 18:40
  though, what do you say we talk about the fourth and final goal
• 18:44
  of this match? Are you fucking kidding me with
• 18:46
  this Alyssa Thompson goal? I mean.
• 18:50
  A player that you called out earlier, Lily Reel, you know,
• 18:53
  she wins a, you know, a 4951 ball.
• 18:56
  You know, like showing good hustle again late in the match,
• 19:00
  puts a wicked ball up the sideline from from an angle that
• 19:04
  you're just not supposed to be able to do that.
• 19:06
  And then Thompson, Thompson gets that outside inside touch and
• 19:10
  kind of like just dances right past Stapleton and basically
• 19:14
  runs her off the frame was just was in the picture, then out of
• 19:18
  the picture, even though that shouldn't shouldn't be possible.
• 19:23
  Cuts it inside and then just slaps the inside of the post in
• 19:27
  a goal that was absolutely coming.
• 19:30
  You could kind of see Alyssa's hunger in this match and just be
• 19:34
  like, yeah, she was she was definitely looking for it.
• 19:37
  An extra breath, an extra kind of like, let me lower my my
• 19:40
  heart rate, another couple BPMS, just calm myself down.
• 19:44
  And then just smacked it off the like a great sound effect to hit
• 19:48
  the post. For sure.
• 19:51
  Yeah. I mean, unbelievable.
• 19:52
  You know, however many yards. It's like somewhere in the
• 19:56
  ballpark of like a 50 yard run at that point for her to get
• 19:59
  into. Like you, you've been talking
• 20:01
  about it all season, all all NWSL season.
• 20:04
  She's on an absolute heater. I think we'd made some jokes
• 20:07
  about her national team form possibly being considered for
• 20:11
  her NWSLMVP campaign that you are the Chief campaign officer
• 20:17
  for. You know, she just continues to
• 20:19
  impress. And I think there's been some,
• 20:21
  including from me where it's like, well, OK, do you want to
• 20:25
  play Ally Centenor or Alyssa Thompson on the wing?
• 20:29
  And I, I just like the move from Emma Hayes to be like, I want to
• 20:33
  play Ally Centenor at the 9:00 today and play Ally and play
• 20:37
  Alyssa Thompson on the left wing.
• 20:39
  And I thought that worked. I mean, you know, Centenor gets
• 20:41
  the assist on the on the LaBelle goal.
• 20:44
  And I thought they they worked in tandem pretty well.
• 20:47
  It seems like some of their it seems like their style of play
• 20:50
  can kind of feed off each other a little bit.
• 20:53
  Well, I think it has to do with the rotations again.
• 20:56
  So when Thompson's kind of running in, cutting in, it's not
• 21:00
  like Santinor just stands there. You know, Santinor then moves on
• 21:04
  to occupy new space, and then everything just kind of happens
• 21:07
  behind. And as a defense, you just it's
• 21:09
  like sort of standing in the middle of a carousel, you know,
• 21:12
  and like all the horses are just kind of like moving around.
• 21:14
  You're just like, where do I go? Like, where do you like have no
• 21:17
  idea what's going on? But like, that's the beauty of
• 21:20
  it is like, you know, and that that's kind of why I thought
• 21:22
  Biendolo and shout out to you because we we picked, we picked
• 21:25
  lineups. And then I went back and
• 21:26
  checked. You nailed 7 of the 11.
• 21:29
  I only had 6, but it came down to Claudia Dickey.
• 21:33
  So you're on point there. So you you've another another
• 21:36
  win for you in the Grant column, but.
• 21:39
  Another or the 1st. I don't know where we're at
• 21:42
  there. I mean, who's really keeping
• 21:44
  count? Maybe somebody at home is we'll,
• 21:46
  we'll, we'll check in. Check in with the YouTube
• 21:48
  comments on that. What are you going to be looking
• 21:51
  for in the rematch in a in a few days here?
• 21:54
  You know, Moultrie comes into the match and hits just a laser,
• 22:00
  a laser off the crossbar. That was just I couldn't believe
• 22:04
  the power. I mean, I can't believe the
• 22:06
  power she generated on it, but Jesus, like that was a lot of
• 22:09
  power that she got off on that shot.
• 22:12
  So, you know, I think she'll play more minutes.
• 22:16
  You know, I think Mickey Owen will play more minutes.
• 22:18
  Obviously. I mean, at this point you can't
• 22:20
  put it past you can't put it past Hayes to almost completely
• 22:26
  rotate this squad. So this was an interesting
• 22:28
  outcome. You got to see what what this
• 22:31
  group of players looks like. And then I think you're going to
• 22:34
  get a largely different mix of players and, and see what what
• 22:40
  they look like. And by the way, there's another
• 22:42
  another one of those quiet Germa matches.
• 22:45
  Granted, she didn't have to do a ton of work.
• 22:48
  So I don't know. I don't know if you maybe you
• 22:51
  play McGlynn in the next Ireland match and then you go back to
• 22:57
  Dickie against Canada to see if Dickie gets tested a little
• 23:00
  more. But I, I just think, I think
• 23:05
  we're going to get a largely rotated squad.
• 23:07
  I don't know if you play Germa 2, two of these matches in a
• 23:10
  row, if you just hand off the the captain's armband to to
• 23:14
  Sonnet, I wouldn't be surprised if you don't have Germa or
• 23:18
  Sonnet in there. I think it probably be coffee.
• 23:21
  Yeah, it's got to be right. Coffee or be a Dolo maybe?
• 23:25
  Sure I could. I could see Hayes playing a
• 23:27
  bellow and Sam's maybe giving Germa a break.
• 23:31
  I could see Moultrie starting, could see Yasmine starting, Ms.
• 23:35
  Sears probably then giving that whole attack a little bit of a
• 23:39
  refresh. I had a a funny, not a funny,
• 23:43
  but an interesting. How close do you think?
• 23:47
  Let's say Trinity Rodman comes back.
• 23:49
  We're seeing what Michelle Cooper is able to do.
• 23:52
  How do you see the battle at at right wing?
• 23:54
  I mean, obviously Trinity Rodman was one of the best players in
• 23:57
  the world, but Cooper's got a a very unique skill set and also
• 24:01
  fits in really, really well. You know, whether you're
• 24:04
  thinking about that right hand side with Patterson, Patterson
• 24:06
  to Cooper, devastating. Cooper plays a a really good,
• 24:11
  you know, opposite wing from Thompson.
• 24:13
  Like you could see they were hitting balls over the top to
• 24:15
  each other. They're just they they just make
• 24:18
  you defend that entire third of the field because they're so
• 24:23
  fast and they're so fluid in their movement.
• 24:26
  This is the one spot, Cooper and Rodman where I think we could be
• 24:30
  heading towards a spot where Emma has has some has some tough
• 24:34
  decisions to make, especially if Cooper continues to ascend.
• 24:36
  And I think we're we're still two years off from the World
• 24:38
  Cup. So there's a lot of time for
• 24:40
  some evolution here. But I'm starting to, you know,
• 24:43
  look at that right wing spot and be like getting interesting out
• 24:47
  there. I think I think Michelle Cooper
• 24:50
  will be one of the more devastating Subs in the world at
• 24:57
  that point. I just think I and you know, I
• 25:00
  mean we talk about Michelle Cooper a lot.
• 25:01
  I love her game. We talked about her last NWSL
• 25:04
  season where my note from the Seattle Rain FC Kansas City
• 25:09
  current match was Michelle Cooper will run your ass over.
• 25:12
  She, she won over my, my footballing heart in that match.
• 25:17
  You cannot in good conscience not play, not start Trinity
• 25:23
  Rodman. If she's healthy, then ready to
• 25:25
  play. And then by no means is that a
• 25:27
  slight to Michelle Cooper. It's just, it's just kind of bad
• 25:31
  luck in that case. And maybe you look for another
• 25:33
  spot to put Cooper, but you just, you can't.
• 25:37
  You can't not play Rodman when she's at her peak, man.
• 25:40
  She's too devastating of a player.
• 25:43
  Yeah. No, no, I I hear that it's we're
• 25:47
  just getting to that point now. You know, I think the, the early
• 25:50
  part of Emma Hayes's tenure was, hey, let's introduce some new
• 25:53
  players, let's get some new faces on here, especially coming
• 25:55
  off the the Black Code 23 World Cup.
• 25:57
  And now we're starting to see some of these players blooming.
• 26:01
  And now you're just like, oh man, I don't want to see a line
• 26:03
  up without Thompson in there, without Cooper in there, without
• 26:06
  Patterson or Hutton. I mean, these players are really
• 26:08
  starting to come into their own. I'll be interested.
• 26:13
  The Canada match I think is going to be a huge one from an
• 26:15
  evolution standpoint. I that's going to be a great
• 26:19
  benchmark type game. I think we can learn a good bit
• 26:21
  and I'm really interested to see does Emma Hayes put forth that
• 26:25
  like that, that first team out there versus Canada?
• 26:28
  That's going to be really interesting to see.
• 26:31
  Emma Hayes seems to have walked into this job, and I don't think
• 26:35
  anybody's really that surprised by it.
• 26:37
  But she seemed to walk into this job with an understanding of the
• 26:41
  gravity of it, of the history of it.
• 26:43
  And I mean, you know, we saw her work in the WSL.
• 26:48
  She seems to like to bash the skulls in of her rivals.
• 26:53
  And so I, I think you're probably on to something of, you
• 26:58
  know, this is the team geographically, you know,
• 27:01
  alongside Mexico that's closest to us.
• 27:03
  But obviously Canada's program probably has more investment.
• 27:07
  I don't want to paint with a with a super broad brush, but I,
• 27:10
  I believe it does. They're closer to the USA in in
• 27:13
  the FIFA world rankings for sure.
• 27:15
  And Mexico has a good squad. But I think Emma Hayes is going
• 27:19
  to is going to walk into this and say, here's our closest
• 27:22
  rival by proximity and by ranking.
• 27:25
  Let's go out there and show them we run this thing and.
• 27:28
  I'm glad you called out Emma Hayes specifically on that
• 27:30
  point, because, you know, sports fandom, there's a lot of
• 27:34
  impatience. You know, I think the first half
• 27:37
  a dozen Emma Hayes performances, you know, someone Nils in there
• 27:39
  and there's some like like some kind of underwhelming
• 27:42
  performances. You're just like, I don't know,
• 27:44
  I was hoping for more and you know, like logically,
• 27:48
  cognitively, you need to be a little bit more patient.
• 27:50
  It's going to take some time. This is the international team.
• 27:53
  You know, it's not like they're they're she's with these players
• 27:55
  weekend or day in, day out. You know, it's like a little
• 27:57
  window here, a little window there.
• 27:59
  But I mean, to her credit, every window there's been at least a
• 28:04
  step forward, a step and a half forward.
• 28:07
  New stuff, new players, new things are just like, oh, we're
• 28:11
  we're taking this into the next window.
• 28:12
  Like this player is good. These two players work really
• 28:15
  well together. We're keeping this.
• 28:17
  And I think every window there's just, you know, she's learning
• 28:21
  more, she's utilizing more. These players are growing.
• 28:25
  It's very, I don't want to get too, too hyped up, but I'm very
• 28:28
  encouraged, man. I think like if if this team
• 28:31
  comes out and Canada plays a real lineup and USA plays a real
• 28:36
  lineup and it's a big score line, like a three one and like,
• 28:39
  OK, this, this wasn't really a close a close matchup that
• 28:44
  that's going to stay quite a bit.
• 28:46
  It's a great call by you and I think if it is, then I think you
• 28:52
  eyes are already turning to the 2027 World Cup and now all the
• 28:56
  European teams. Obviously they have a massive
• 28:58
  tournament in the EUR, a ton of history, just like the the
• 29:02
  weight of that trophy. But and you know, a lot, a lot
• 29:06
  can change in two years. But I don't think so much could
• 29:09
  possibly change in two years to where if they go out there and
• 29:15
  smash Canada and you know, the rotation looks like it's getting
• 29:19
  more set. And you think about Sophie
• 29:22
  Wilson is coming back, Trinity Rodman is coming back.
• 29:24
  You don't know what's going to happen with Mel Swanson and you
• 29:27
  think about all these other great players who are developing
• 29:29
  that USA Spain match up that any USA England match up.
• 29:34
  You know, that's going to loom super large in in the 2027 World
• 29:39
  Cup. And I think it's it's exciting
• 29:40
  to even think about now. But Emma Hayes would probably
• 29:44
  look at us and say shut your pie holes one match at a time, 11
• 29:48
  window at a time. Let's we got to build this thing
• 29:51
  even before we start talking about that.
• 29:54
  Yeah, but not us though. We don't have to worry about
• 29:55
  that. We talk about it now.
• 29:57
  So we'll talk about 20-30 World World Cup.
• 29:59
  We don't care. She's not the boss of us.
• 30:04
  Episode calendar. So between now and 2031, let's
• 30:08
  see. We won't be back before for the
• 30:10
  next Ireland match up, but we will be back this weekend with
• 30:14
  our mega UEFA Women's EUR 2025 preview.
• 30:19
  We're going to basically go through each of the 16 teams
• 30:22
  vying for that big heavy trophy that my guy was talking about.
• 30:27
  So definitely stick around for that.
• 30:28
  Make sure you're subscribed. We also launched our USW and T
• 30:31
  collection alongside our NWSL collection.
• 30:34
  Those are all visible on our link tree.
• 30:35
  Go check those out if you're in the market for some awesome
• 30:38
  gear. All right, man, I think we did
• 30:41
  it and you just want to hip for get out of here.
• 30:43
  I think that's it for a for a four nil victory over the
• 30:46
  Republic of Ireland on a Thursday night in June.
• 30:50
  I think we covered pretty much everything.
• 30:52
  But whatever we missed, please let us know in the comments.
• 30:54
  We're always, you know, we're always willing to, to get that
• 30:57
  Emma Hayes halftime feedback. Love it man Learning podcast.
• 31:00
  Definitely keep keep letting us know.
• 31:03
  And with that said, there's been an episode of into the channel.
• 31:05
  Thank you, thank you, thank you for hanging out.
• 31:07
  If you enjoyed the show or love one support as much as your boys
• 31:09
  do, make sure you kick in with us each and every single week.
• 31:11
  Like if you liked, subscribe, follow YouTube, Spotify up a
• 31:14
  podcast wherever you like to watch or listen.
• 31:16
  Leave us a review over your favorite podcast app.
• 31:18
  We want to hear from you. We love hearing from you.
• 31:19
  Links to all of our socials except one and show this
• 31:22
  episode. And a big thank you to my coast
• 31:24
  as well, Mr. Granigo for being the Alyssa to my Giselle, the
• 31:30
  Trinity Rodman to my Michelle Cooper.
• 31:33
  Kind of go on and on but you already know what time it is.
• 31:34
  But the ultimate teammate. I appreciate you bro.
• 31:37
  Likewise, buddy, we appreciate everybody rocking with us.
• 31:41
  Super nice comments. You guys are the night, as I
• 31:43
  always say, the night. So we've somehow found the
• 31:45
  nicest corner of the Internet. We appreciate you hanging out
• 31:48
  with us. And yeah, we're looking forward
• 31:51
  to these EUR tap in. If you're, if you're strictly a
• 31:54
  USWNT fan, you know, think about the World Cup like we're saying,
• 31:58
  don't take, don't take it one match at a time.
• 32:00
  You want to see what the competition is going to look
• 32:02
  like. The EUR look like they're going
• 32:04
  to be an absolute banger. Please come kick it with us.
• 32:06
  We'd be happy to have you and we will see you all next time.