Latest / Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football / USWNT Falls to Portugal 2-1 | USA 1 Portugal 2 | Goals from Rose Lavelle, Diana Gomes, Fátima Pinto

Transcript

USWNT Falls to Portugal 2-1 | USA 1 Portugal 2 | Goals from Rose Lavelle, Diana Gomes, Fátima Pinto · Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football

• 0:06
  Hey, welcome to it's a channel podcast premiere brought women's
• 0:10
  football. I'm your host Dino de Suspitis
• 0:12
  and as always, I'm joined by my Co host, Mr. Grant Angle.
• 0:17
  What's up, man? I'm feeling pretty good, buddy.
• 0:20
  I thought that was an excellent match of football we watched.
• 0:23
  Probably for most of the folks tuning in, maybe not the result
• 0:26
  they wanted, but I think lessons were learned.
• 0:29
  I think there are things to build on.
• 0:32
  And you know what else? What else can you ask for?
• 0:35
  Love lessons, love building blocks, love, you know,
• 0:38
  foundational pieces. I don't like, you know,
• 0:41
  disappointing results. I think this was definitely one.
• 0:45
  I'm going to ask you where we get started.
• 0:47
  But before we get started, I just don't want to forget this
• 0:49
  piece. I this was one of the notes that
• 0:52
  I jotted down. I'm like, OK, Portugal, not
• 0:55
  traditionally one of EU s s rivals, right?
• 0:58
  Like, you know, that's not the first name that pops up.
• 1:01
  But for Portugal, we're clearly one of one of their biggest
• 1:05
  rivals because they ate the USA lot of fouls, lot of
• 1:09
  physicality. This one got, you know,
• 1:11
  definitely rough and tumble. But with that, said Mr. Granik,
• 1:15
  or you get started. I think there's only one place
• 1:18
  to get started. My good man from the great state
• 1:21
  of Pennsylvania, Chester, PA. In fact, Portugal 2, USA one.
• 1:29
  What it happened? I saw it.
• 1:34
  Watched it with my own two eyes for you know, I think if you're
• 1:39
  tuning into this, many people who are tuning this probably
• 1:41
  know this is a UEFA Women's Champions League show.
• 1:43
  Some might say the greatest UEFA Women's Champions League show.
• 1:46
  That's not for me to say, though.
• 1:50
  That's fair. You know one of us can say it.
• 1:53
  Not for you, yeah. You know what, everybody has
• 1:57
  different different standards here for Benfica players in the
• 2:01
  starting 11 for Portugal. Amato at right back, Gomez at at
• 2:05
  center back, Elvis at left back, Deanna Silva at forward.
• 2:10
  Didn't matter in the 1st 35 seconds, I'll tell you that, PTJ
• 2:15
  Fallon tells Joyce. You know, blast the ball up
• 2:17
  field. Kat Macario just does her best
• 2:21
  Shaquille O'Neal impression and just draws 5 defenders, fights
• 2:26
  them all off with great physicality and skill, and then
• 2:29
  just dishes the ball to Rose Lavelle who who knocks in the
• 2:32
  goal. Where, where was your head at 34
• 2:37
  seconds into the match or whatever it was when they popped
• 2:39
  that in And was also, by the way, definitely offside.
• 2:43
  Yeah, yeah, definitely offside. My mind wasn't on the offside,
• 2:46
  though, called. I don't know if we had the right
• 2:48
  angle in real time, but my first thought was I thought Rose
• 2:52
  looked energetic and springy and like sunny in the even in the
• 2:57
  pregame, you're just kind of like, like I was just getting
• 3:00
  the feeling that like, all right, Roosevelt, all right.
• 3:01
  Now, now this is a player that we can kind of like pencil in.
• 3:04
  And I kind of felt dumb just spending the last 18 months
• 3:07
  being like, oh, I just got the injuries and, you know, it's
• 3:09
  crazy, you know, And then you realize, OK, this player isn't
• 3:12
  that old, you know, she's been out for a while, but you know,
• 3:15
  we can expect her to kind of be back.
• 3:17
  Obviously the offsides, we'll put that one off to the side.
• 3:19
  This isn't, you know, like one of the no no real stakes with
• 3:22
  this one. The thing I'll take away though,
• 3:24
  the finish, you know, like perfectly placed ton of power.
• 3:30
  Nothing, you know that the that you know Prairo was going to be
• 3:33
  able to do to kind of do anything with that one and it's
• 3:36
  like OK, it was offsides, but great finish.
• 3:38
  Love to see that and you know we get to start start the match off
• 3:41
  1 nil. Yeah, I I like the I like the
• 3:44
  terminology use of Sunny. She she does look like she is
• 3:48
  like getting like back to herself and playing with like a
• 3:52
  level of joy that you like to see out of like an attack
• 3:55
  midfielder like her. So, yeah, I mean, obviously the
• 3:59
  exact start you wanted, but it's a it's a if you're AUSA fan, but
• 4:04
  it's one of those things where and Emma Hayes talked about it
• 4:08
  in the press conference, the post match presser.
• 4:10
  We'll talk about that later. But it was a very direct play.
• 4:14
  And it was, you know, we've seen this kind of like US women's
• 4:18
  national team, little bit of a transition into some Emma Hayes
• 4:23
  style ball. You know, you you noticed later
• 4:26
  in the match PTJ is trying to play out from the back, play
• 4:29
  with the ball at her feet a little bit.
• 4:30
  I don't think that was a coincidence, but you get the
• 4:33
  goal in this very direct way and it's like, OK, USA is back.
• 4:38
  Is this one going to get ugly? Are they going to just
• 4:40
  completely, you know, dominate this match and it did not
• 4:45
  happen? Definitely didn't happen.
• 4:48
  I mean, I think it it took some time for Portugal to kind of
• 4:51
  work their way into the match, you know, like shake off the the
• 4:55
  the shock of giving up the opener.
• 4:57
  But I thought their press, you know, their commitment to it and
• 5:03
  basically their willingness to say, all right, USI don't think
• 5:08
  that you'll switch the ball, put something over the top and make
• 5:12
  us have to scramble back the other way.
• 5:14
  So we're just going to put an extra defender 2 on the side
• 5:18
  that the ball's on. And we know you're not going to
• 5:20
  like work the ball to the other side that fits.
• 5:23
  You just going to got to go where you got it and kind of
• 5:26
  played right into Portugal's hands from that perspective.
• 5:30
  Also got a kick of, you know, Foudy and Wyman being like, you
• 5:34
  know, just a a kind of like a weird mystery of what we were
• 5:37
  watching. You know, it's like they're, you
• 5:39
  know, like it's like, oh, like, can Portugal hold up here?
• 5:42
  And it's like, are they going to be able to withstand the
• 5:44
  pressure? And then they'll they'll flash
• 5:46
  the possession numbers. It's like 6040 if you're from
• 5:48
  Portugal and like the ball just is clearly spending way more
• 5:52
  time and on their side of the pitch than than the US is
• 5:55
  attacking side. So it it, it always trips me out
• 5:59
  when I watch these things. I'm like, am I crazy watching
• 6:01
  this or do I? And I don't have the same real
• 6:03
  time stats that we do when we're watching like the domestic
• 6:05
  leagues. But I thought Portugal pretty
• 6:08
  early was able to kind of re wrestle control or at least be
• 6:13
  right back into the match even down a goal.
• 6:16
  I think that's totally fair. Before I before I go forward
• 6:20
  though, Speaking of starting a match slow, perhaps we should
• 6:23
  get into a beverage before it's too late.
• 6:26
  I believe that. Let's do that.
• 6:28
  Let's hydrate. Let's let's get, let's get some.
• 6:31
  There's no electrolytes in here, but you know, we'll get some,
• 6:34
  we'll get some calories. Yeah, I don't need to be
• 6:37
  cramping up in the middle of this.
• 6:38
  Cheers to you. Cheers to the football.
• 6:43
  But it it's a great point by you, I mean Portugal was
• 6:48
  unafraid. I just, I mean, we, you and I
• 6:51
  have liked this team since the 23 World Cup when they were
• 6:56
  debutantes in that tournament, I believe.
• 6:58
  And it was really when you and I started like talking to each
• 7:00
  other about women's football more, more and more often.
• 7:06
  And I'm glad you pointed it out at the beginning of the show
• 7:09
  also, is that they came in here looking to play physical, to not
• 7:15
  be afraid and to and to challenge USA.
• 7:18
  And that was one of the things that we said in 2023 was, you
• 7:22
  know, we've joked about it with Benfica, too, is like, you got
• 7:25
  to hit the weight room, got to make sure the strength and
• 7:27
  conditioning program is up there.
• 7:29
  You know, hire away a couple S&C coaches from some SEC college
• 7:33
  football teams, do what you got to do.
• 7:35
  And they looked, they looked ready out there.
• 7:37
  Man, I loved the way they were. To your earlier point, they were
• 7:43
  swarming to the ball, but it was like an organized clustering to
• 7:47
  where they're making decisions very hard for USA.
• 7:51
  Yeah, it's like, like, the lines were still intact, but then
• 7:56
  like, the two or three closest to the ball were just swarming
• 7:59
  and there was no obvious place to go, you know, like to get out
• 8:03
  of it. You know, if the if the you're
• 8:05
  the US And I found, I found, you know, myself a little frustrated
• 8:09
  with like, the first 60 minutes of the match.
• 8:13
  And I'm glad you brought them Hayes quotes.
• 8:14
  I'm not going to mention one of those, but shout out to Jeff
• 8:18
  Casue from ESPN because he grabbed a couple quotes that he
• 8:21
  put into his ESPN piece that I think kind of told us a little
• 8:24
  bit of a story. So he quotes Roosevelt, who said
• 8:27
  it felt really an individual out there.
• 8:30
  And then she follows that up by saying, I think everyone is
• 8:33
  trying to fix it on their own. He grabs another Lindsay Heaps
• 8:36
  quote where she says, quote, sometimes it felt a little bit
• 8:39
  like we were on islands. End Quote.
• 8:41
  So that what I saw on the, on the pitch that reflects those,
• 8:47
  both of those quotes is these midfield players, whether it's
• 8:51
  Coffee or Heaps or Lavelle Patterson, I think to a lesser
• 8:55
  extent, it was just get the ball and try to kick like kick a kick
• 9:00
  ahead, a low probability pass. And it's like, wait, can we not
• 9:04
  string together 5 passes versus Portugal like, and this is sort
• 9:08
  of like our eight, you know what, what's going on here that
• 9:11
  we can't work the ball up the bit?
• 9:14
  Like it's just not even an option.
• 9:15
  Like there was, you know, and then, and then you can see with
• 9:18
  the substitutions Emma Hayes makes, it's, it's a whole swap
• 9:21
  of the midfield plus a Cooper for Yasmine Ryan's swap.
• 9:26
  So it's clear that Emma Hayes is also thinking this midfield
• 9:30
  setup is not really working. The only player that was able to
• 9:33
  really kind of advance it consistently was probably Avery
• 9:36
  Patterson, you know, who I think offensively provided a spark and
• 9:41
  you know, was providing a lot of pressure.
• 9:42
  Portugal was attacking her a little bit, you know, on the
• 9:44
  defensive side. So she was super involved in a
• 9:47
  problem most of the most of the match.
• 9:48
  But I don't know, man, I found the offense pretty frustrating.
• 9:52
  I'm really curious to to hear how you experienced, you know,
• 9:55
  that US attack. I'm looking at the stats here
• 9:57
  too, 12 shots for Portugal, 5 for the USA.
• 10:00
  You know that that's that's, that's a pretty lopsided number.
• 10:03
  It's a bizarro world, man. Like I, you can just tell there
• 10:07
  is an element of US women's national team fans who find that
• 10:13
  hard to wrap their head around is to watch a team come in,
• 10:17
  especially A-Team that's, you know, doesn't have in women's
• 10:20
  football, doesn't have a name like Germany, Brazil, Spain, you
• 10:25
  know, even even Canada on some stretches.
• 10:27
  I know we've joked about USA beating them a majority of the
• 10:30
  time, but like to see Portugal this kind of uprising or this,
• 10:36
  well, how do I want to say it? This like this, this program,
• 10:38
  this women's program that's kind of trending upward that you and
• 10:40
  I have always talked about a lot.
• 10:41
  It's like they had they clearly have the infrastructure from the
• 10:44
  men's side of the game. Now they just need to overlay
• 10:46
  that onto the women's side. You could tell the fans were
• 10:49
  just as shell shocked as some of the players out there.
• 10:54
  And yeah, I I, I'm with you. I think if I had to if I had to
• 11:00
  name of the best player on the pitch for USAI think it was
• 11:04
  Avery Patterson. I think so.
• 11:06
  I mean, obviously Lavelle looks good early and got the goals,
• 11:10
  but I or got the goal, Pardon me, but I it felt like Patterson
• 11:16
  on the wing was finding some joy.
• 11:18
  And that also spoke to some hand wringing that I could see on
• 11:22
  blue Sky that people just didn't like that USA was not attacking
• 11:26
  those wings. And they were, you know, they
• 11:28
  were tucking the the the right back and the left back inside
• 11:33
  and kind of playing into Portugal's hands.
• 11:35
  And there used to be a time where USA could just play any
• 11:38
  old way they wanted to. And we're probably going to win.
• 11:41
  And I just don't think that day really exists anymore.
• 11:44
  That that was that was not any more clear than or like around
• 11:49
  the 85th minute. They're like, right, well, what
• 11:52
  what? Let's try to get a listen.
• 11:53
  Let's try to free Alyssa Thompson up here.
• 11:55
  Ball over the top left hand side.
• 11:56
  Let her run onto it one-on-one versus a model who she should be
• 11:59
  able to beat. But a motto to her credit, you
• 12:03
  know, steps in front of Alyssa, left, steps in front of her
• 12:06
  right and just completely stones her.
• 12:07
  And it's like, it doesn't matter how fast you are, if you can't
• 12:09
  get around the defender and they know what's coming, They know,
• 12:13
  you know, like, like I said, if if, if the defense knows what's
• 12:16
  coming, it's easier to defend. And there just was not a ton of
• 12:21
  answers. I played a fun game with myself.
• 12:23
  Obviously, you know Lily Johannes comes in in like around
• 12:26
  the 69th minute. Yeah.
• 12:28
  I'm going to start to do this whenever Johannes is not in the
• 12:31
  starting line up, where I'm going to timestamp the first
• 12:34
  time where I look up at the clock and I say to myself, why
• 12:37
  is Lily not in the game? There we go.
• 12:39
  And in this one it was 17 minutes, 51 seconds where I was
• 12:43
  like, I look up, I'm like, all right, get Lily.
• 12:45
  Like, you know, like I know I'm not, I'm not.
• 12:47
  I feel like that be early sub early.
• 12:50
  It's an early sub, no doubt. But it was more that her
• 12:54
  connectivity could have really helped and we got to see some
• 12:58
  really fun duels her versus Kika in the midfield kind of
• 13:02
  scrapping at balls. It kind of feels like this is
• 13:03
  going to be a match up that we enjoy, get to enjoy for 10
• 13:06
  years. Maybe there's a Barcelona Lyon
• 13:08
  parallel. Well, you know, obviously the,
• 13:10
  the, the, the bubbling USA, Portugal rival.
• 13:13
  That's that's clearly becoming something just I mean, I, I
• 13:19
  think we're probably in need of turning a corner.
• 13:24
  You know, like probably like Phil, I don't want to say
• 13:28
  philosophically, but it's weird to see the heat.
• 13:33
  Yeah, and I hate to like pair the up these these players.
• 13:36
  These are great players, like the like the heaps coffee
• 13:38
  Lavelle kind of old school style of, you know, trying to
• 13:44
  breakthrough and just seeing that be way, way, way less
• 13:47
  effective. And I I agree with your point.
• 13:50
  I had completely forgot that we made that weight room joke about
• 13:53
  Portugal. And you know, also kind of tied
• 13:56
  that to Benfica because you watch that team today, that team
• 14:00
  looks strong. They looked fast.
• 14:02
  It it didn't look like the US had any physical advantage other
• 14:06
  than maybe a couple of spot here, spot there.
• 14:10
  Yeah, totally agree. And I think it makes a massive
• 14:14
  difference. Like, you know, Portugal had a
• 14:16
  rough go of it in the EUR getting, getting put in Spain's
• 14:21
  group. Never enjoyable for anybody.
• 14:24
  But I think what really has stuck out to me seeing some of
• 14:27
  her minutes at Barcelona is there Kika Nazareth was still
• 14:33
  too hurt to really make a difference in the EUR.
• 14:35
  She was just injured, man. Because when she's at full
• 14:38
  strength, that that corner kick she hit the the first one is
• 14:44
  just on a fucking rope right to Gomez for the for the opener
• 14:49
  goal for the equalizer. I mean, she hit that so
• 14:53
  perfectly. And you could just tell when she
• 14:55
  was on the ball in the middle of the field.
• 14:58
  You talked about like some of the duels with her in coffee,
• 15:00
  her in Sonnet, her in Patterson kind of getting in in the mix at
• 15:03
  times, her in heaps. Like Kika is just a match up
• 15:08
  nightmare out there. She's she's long, but she's but
• 15:11
  she's quick. She can move in the short
• 15:13
  bursts, but then she makes smart long ranging runs.
• 15:17
  She just she does everything you could possibly do on a football
• 15:20
  field. She's just one.
• 15:22
  And you know you and I since she was at Benfica and in the 2023
• 15:27
  Champions League, just one of one of our absolute favorite
• 15:30
  players to watch. Yeah, no doubt.
• 15:32
  And and you're just not out muscling her and she's so smart.
• 15:36
  She I mean they almost Portugal almost scored off a set piece
• 15:40
  like 10 or 15 minutes prior like around the 25th to, you know, 25
• 15:43
  minute mark. Like I'm I almost like fell out
• 15:48
  of my chair like hearing Luke Weinman say he said like 3
• 15:51
  times, oh, US could and US could have been up two nil.
• 15:54
  And I'm like, they also could have been up nil nil.
• 15:57
  Like it all it could have been, you know, we could have been no
• 16:00
  goals. Like, you know, we can't really
• 16:01
  keep playing that game. And I think that also plays into
• 16:03
  what you were saying earlier where the crowd just becomes a
• 16:06
  little shell shocked because there's a lot of buy in to this
• 16:10
  sort of like Marvel cinematic universification of this US and
• 16:14
  national team. We're just like, oh, they
• 16:16
  they're kind of unbeatable. The one thing I wanted to a
• 16:20
  couple of things real quick. PTJI thought had a really good
• 16:22
  game. I think she's getting closer to
• 16:26
  grab and hold of that number one spot and just be like, this is
• 16:29
  mine, you know, until otherwise. And then the second piece I
• 16:35
  wanted to ask you this question. You you look at an Esther
• 16:39
  Gonzalez, you look at a Bunny Shaw.
• 16:42
  You look at it and have a pie or you even look at a player where
• 16:45
  we're talking about Alessio Russo, you know, as a
• 16:48
  traditional #9 finisher. And then you think about all the
• 16:54
  times there was a ball kind of knocking around the box and
• 16:58
  player, you know, like our US players just bumping into
• 17:00
  Portugal play and nobody can get a foot on it.
• 17:03
  Nobody can really like get get the total nose for goal type
• 17:08
  moment to just be able to smash it in.
• 17:11
  You know, you close out, you see Bunny do that, you see a stair
• 17:13
  do that. Can the US win if we Fast
• 17:17
  forward two years to 2027 without one of those top three
• 17:25
  in the world number nines And, and just kind of like, I don't
• 17:31
  know, it kind of slice and dice their way to a World Cup
• 17:33
  championship. I, I know it's early and it's a
• 17:36
  little bit, you know, it's not quite hyperbole, but it, it's,
• 17:39
  it's a thought exercise that, you know, has maybe very little
• 17:42
  validity because it's so far out.
• 17:44
  But I had a hard time imagining A-Team winning without a
• 17:48
  finisher like that in today's game.
• 17:52
  Sure, I think it's a fairpoint. I think you and I are both
• 17:55
  admirers of Cat Macario's game. I think there's still a lot of
• 17:59
  discussion that people have as is she a nine or is she A10?
• 18:04
  Because, you know, I mean that passing ability, her hold up
• 18:06
  game like I referenced, like yeah, I know you and I have
• 18:09
  talked about the the Shaquille O'Neal like idea of just like
• 18:13
  I'll just I'll just put my body into you and you're not getting
• 18:16
  around me. And then I make a smart pass.
• 18:19
  Luckily I will say, well not luckily right now there is a,
• 18:24
  there is a hole at at the number 9 spot.
• 18:28
  But now, luckily, there is a player named Sophie Wilson who
• 18:33
  will return, who will fill that spot at #9 and might not be one
• 18:38
  of the three best number nines in the world.
• 18:40
  Although please, you know, Portland Thorne's fans don't,
• 18:42
  don't accost me for this, but she's damn sure one of the seven
• 18:45
  best number nines in the world. I would say give you know, I
• 18:48
  mean like we're she's not too far down the list when she's
• 18:52
  when she's playing at her Max. So I would say I, I wouldn't be
• 18:58
  too worried about that Wilson will come back.
• 19:01
  There is no Trinity Rodman tonight.
• 19:03
  So it, it's not like fully the A-Team.
• 19:06
  And you know, this like how crazy the roster is.
• 19:09
  Like, I don't think Cooper is a giant man.
• 19:12
  I don't even know how to like Cooper's not a gigantic step
• 19:16
  down from Rodman, but she's a, she's a noticeable step down.
• 19:20
  And I love Michelle Cooper's game, but there's only one
• 19:22
  Trinity Rodman. Yeah, you, you could.
• 19:27
  There's not a lot of other players that aren't to step down
• 19:29
  globally, you know. I mean, I don't know, CGH is
• 19:32
  probably in that I was going. To say it's her, there's not a
• 19:33
  lot. Of others yeah, you know, I know
• 19:37
  I totally I had that same thought watching the game.
• 19:39
  I'm like, you know, this is this is a player that we have to
• 19:42
  account for not being there. But I mean, I think even still
• 19:49
  losing on your home soil, you know, obviously it's a friendly
• 19:54
  to a team ranked in the 20s is not something that you would
• 19:58
  expect from like a like a top tier kind of team.
• 20:02
  And and I'm going to be dying to see what the return fixture
• 20:05
  looks like in a few days because if it looks similar, even if the
• 20:11
  result is different, I think that could that could be some
• 20:14
  some kind of like alarm bells. And we're kind of at that point
• 20:17
  where two years out there could still be some, you know, I don't
• 20:21
  want to say. Major changes, but you know,
• 20:23
  like like some reroutes. I would say with M Hayes maybe
• 20:26
  going some different directions in some spots and with some of
• 20:30
  the strategy. She seemed pretty frustrated
• 20:32
  from her from her quotes of the post game presser.
• 20:35
  Yeah, I think so. I mean, she did have the stat
• 20:40
  that it's been 113 days between matches.
• 20:43
  She had that in the holster ready to to, to put out there.
• 20:47
  And you know, I don't, I'm not trying to be flip about it.
• 20:49
  I don't think it's an excuse. I thought in her post match
• 20:52
  press conference, I watched the whole thing.
• 20:55
  I thought she was accountable, but I I thought she took
• 20:58
  responsibility and I thought that she held the players
• 21:00
  accountable too. And just I thought she had some
• 21:03
  really interesting quotes. I want to start with this one.
• 21:07
  So she said, quote an attack. It felt like we just hadn't
• 21:10
  played together for a long time. I didn't recognize us.
• 21:14
  I felt that we rushed everything.
• 21:15
  We went direct. We didn't look like the team
• 21:18
  that we'd been working on. End Quote.
• 21:20
  I thought that was super interesting.
• 21:23
  You know, to my point earlier about, you know, they the the
• 21:25
  first goal comes direct. The the other goal that was that
• 21:30
  Lavelle nearly scored that Pereira made a nice save on get
• 21:34
  just barely gets the touch to knock it off the post.
• 21:37
  That was kind of that was through direct play as well.
• 21:41
  I you know, there's going to be some rust there in terms of not
• 21:46
  not playing together. But the other point that I want
• 21:50
  to make quickly here, I think I'm walking away from this match
• 21:53
  more bullish on Portugal that that was a performance, man.
• 21:57
  Like I think that was really great.
• 22:00
  And it it goes to the other Emma Hayes quote that I really liked.
• 22:03
  So she went on to say about she went on to say, quote, I keep
• 22:08
  teaching our team. Don't underestimate European
• 22:10
  opponents. They play Champions League, they
• 22:13
  play nations League. They know how to waste time.
• 22:16
  They know how to make it difficult in in many different
• 22:18
  ways. And quote and I dude, like with
• 22:23
  Kika in the middle and a bunch of smart, tough, you know, kind
• 22:28
  of rugged players out there. Like I think that they just have
• 22:31
  they just really have something cooking over there that I think
• 22:35
  they will continue to get better.
• 22:37
  They they certainly played better than the number 23 ranked
• 22:40
  team in the world today. Yeah, I mean, absolutely, they
• 22:46
  played better that that was a better team than the team that,
• 22:50
  you know, pushed USA to the brink in the 23 World Cup by a
• 22:53
  lot. No doubt.
• 22:54
  This team was was very dangerous.
• 22:56
  You know, you can even look at like Catalina Santiago, 19 years
• 22:59
  old, plays for Sporting CP, who was the player that Jessica
• 23:03
  Silva comes in and replaces. I thought Santiago was like good
• 23:07
  and young and spry and dangerous.
• 23:11
  And, you know, when you have a player like Kika in the middle
• 23:13
  who can just distribute and find players that can make every pass
• 23:17
  and can shoot and you can't take the ball from her.
• 23:20
  So what's it like right up to that?
• 23:22
  And it's very it makes it very difficult.
• 23:25
  And yeah, you can definitely imagine that team, that Portugal
• 23:29
  team with a couple more pieces or maybe a couple of these
• 23:31
  players evolving a little bit and that being a team that could
• 23:35
  make a final four, final eight run in that 27 World Cup.
• 23:39
  I think the the the age profiles certainly match any other, any
• 23:45
  other big notes from this US match?
• 23:47
  Obviously we're going to be pretty pumped to watch, you
• 23:50
  know, that that rematch in a few days here, but anything else you
• 23:53
  you saw on this one that you want to?
• 23:56
  Hit I think that's AI think that's about it.
• 23:59
  I mean, I the the last quote that I'll say, Oh, wait, there
• 24:04
  is there is one thing I do want to mention that you know, PTJ
• 24:07
  had that great save in the 40th minute, like to that forced the
• 24:14
  corner kick that led to the equalizer.
• 24:17
  But it was a great save by Telus Joyce and on the replay, the
• 24:23
  whoever the sound engineers were on TI think the the game was
• 24:26
  broadcast on TNT over here. They did a great job because
• 24:30
  when Kika does the chip on the give and go, you could hear
• 24:34
  people in the crowd go Oh, like as the chip goes over for the
• 24:39
  shot on goal that BTJ saved. And that was one of my favorite
• 24:43
  moments in the match, I think. They they were, it was
• 24:47
  interesting what they were. They were trying that chip quite
• 24:49
  a bit, you know, with the with those crosses, too.
• 24:53
  They clearly wanted to kind of draw the US into some areas to
• 24:57
  kind of trip them up. And then, yeah, on those couple
• 25:01
  set pieces, the defense kind of befuddled, you know, in two
• 25:05
  different ways. Obviously the second one was
• 25:07
  like seconds after four players just kind of get subbed in, you
• 25:11
  know, they have to defend and it's a whole it's a whole
• 25:14
  mishmash. And then on that first one, I
• 25:16
  think I think all this kind of like a little little kind of
• 25:21
  rubber out action. You know, she she kind of gets
• 25:23
  away from coffee by, you know, like kind of sliding behind
• 25:27
  Macario, but then a great finish on that one too.
• 25:30
  And Emma Hayes had a lot to say about the set piece defense, but
• 25:35
  I don't think it was I mean all of it was kind of off today.
• 25:39
  That was that was that was the main thing.
• 25:40
  And you know, sometimes that does align pretty well with like
• 25:45
  the notion of rust maybe, which is why I'm so, so enthusiastic
• 25:49
  about the rematch. But I'm not, I'll say I'm not
• 25:53
  totally buying all of it just yet.
• 25:55
  You know, that 113 days wasn't just MAS.
• 25:58
  That was mentioned a couple couple times too on the
• 26:00
  telecast, which means, you know, you're, you're in this world
• 26:04
  too. That means that that was that
• 26:05
  was something that was circulating that that they
• 26:07
  wanted out there. Everybody want everybody to know
• 26:09
  it's been 113 days. So I'm, you know, we'll kind of
• 26:16
  take it with a grain of salt a little bit and check back in in
• 26:18
  a few days to see what what that next matchup looks like.
• 26:21
  I like it. I think that that makes sense.
• 26:23
  I think one of the other. I think I have two final quotes.
• 26:26
  I'll save one for the absolute outro.
• 26:28
  But one thing I thought Emma Hayes said that was gave me a
• 26:31
  chuckle in the in the post game press conference was sometimes
• 26:35
  you need to kick up the backside like that End Quote, which is a
• 26:39
  pretty English way to say it. But yeah, you know, I mean, you
• 26:43
  came out, you played another good team and they were like
• 26:49
  they were less rusty, I guess, or I don't know what it was, but
• 26:53
  they were, I think they were elements of.
• 26:56
  They were more rusty. They looked a little, they were
• 26:59
  more rusty. They looked, they looked a
• 27:01
  little more prepared and they looked like they had a little
• 27:06
  bit of a better plan. And I thought M Hayes wore that
• 27:09
  in the in the post match presser as well.
• 27:11
  Yep, definitely saw that for sure.
• 27:14
  All right, man, I think we did it.
• 27:15
  It's been another episode of into the channel.
• 27:17
  Thank you, thank you, thank you for watching, listening, hanging
• 27:20
  out with your boys. If you want to support the show
• 27:23
  into thechannel.orpatreon.com/into
• 27:25
  the channel or ITC merch, 2 great ways to do that.
• 27:29
  If you enjoyed the show or level into as much as your boys do,
• 27:32
  make sure you kick with us each and every single week.
• 27:34
  Like subscribe, follow or leave us a review, YouTube, Spotify,
• 27:37
  Apple podcast, wherever you like to watch or listen.
• 27:39
  And a big thank you to my coach as well Mr. Grand Angle for
• 27:43
  never been one. Never been afraid to give one a
• 27:46
  kick on the backside, whether that's a Co host or some
• 27:49
  competition out there. I appreciate you bro.
• 27:53
  Likewise, buddy, you know, we hold each other accountable, but
• 27:55
  we also do the best we can and we win and lose the team no
• 27:58
  matter what. So, you know, we're just out
• 28:00
  here. We appreciate all of you being
• 28:02
  on the team with us. And let's also try to live by
• 28:05
  another thing that Emma Hayes said.
• 28:07
  I just want to make sure that I that I find it here.
• 28:11
  Let's not take this too seriously.
• 28:13
  I, I don't have the exact quote in front of me, so I'll try not
• 28:15
  to butcher it too much. But she did say something very
• 28:17
  similar to nobody died. It's just a game of football.
• 28:21
  So let's just let's try to keep some perspective here.
• 28:25
  Let's all learn and grow together.
• 28:26
  That's why we appreciate you guys for always dropping
• 28:28
  knowledge. So thank you for that and we
• 28:30
  will see you all next time.