Latest / Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football / BONUS EPISODE: 🇺🇸 USWNT v 🇳🇱 NETHERLANDS PREVIEW
Transcript
- 0:05OK, welcome to Into the Channel podcast primarily about women's
- 0:08football. Before we hit the pitch.
- 0:09If you enjoyed the show or loved ones football as much as your
- 0:11boys do, come kick it with us already.
- 0:13Subscribe, follow YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcast, wherever
- 0:16you like to watch or listen. Leave us a review over your
- 0:19favorite podcast app. Links to all of our socials in
- 0:21the show notes of this episode. I'm your host.
- 0:24Do you know de suspicious? And as always, I'm joined by my
- 0:26coast. Mr. Grant Angle.
- 0:28What is up man? I'm feeling fantastic, buddy.
- 0:31We get we're spanning the globe here.
- 0:33We got a little international football, we got to watch USA
- 0:35play at Wembley Historic Stadium.
- 0:37Now we get to watch them take on Orang at The Hague in
- 0:41Netherlands. We're spanning the globe.
- 0:43We're worldwide. I love it.
- 0:44Yeah. We're hopping on one of those
- 0:45tiny planes just to kind of scoot around Europe and, you
- 0:49know, stamping our passports and just kind of trying to get a
- 0:51feel for this US women's national team on this short but
- 0:55highly compelling European Tour. For the record, I am more of a
- 0:59train guy. I think we could get a train
- 1:01from London to The Hague. I'll have to check that out.
- 1:04But this is actually all just a gigantic figure of speech, so I
- 1:07probably won't waste my time doing that.
- 1:09I digress. Sorry buddy, please go ahead.
- 1:12All good. So these two teams lock up this
- 1:14week again, on the heels of both of these teams in action in some
- 1:18pretty compelling matchups. We talked a little bit earlier
- 1:20this week about USA, England. The Netherlands also found
- 1:24themselves in a bit of a friendly matchup.
- 1:26They took on China that 1 ended 41, but I think a little bit
- 1:30deceiving scoreline. China was up I think until like
- 1:33the 70th minute, maybe a little bit later.
- 1:35One nil before the Netherlands just brought on a bunch of
- 1:38excellent attacking players who just unleashed absolute
- 1:42destruction on that China defense to hang 4 on them.
- 1:46Yeah, Jin Kuhn for China had a really hard fought goal in the
- 1:5034th minute to open up the scoring.
- 1:53Kind of was able to kind of muscle pass the defender, not
- 1:55get past the keeper. Great goal.
- 1:57Yeah, great goal. And China looked scrappy
- 2:00throughout. Didn't have a ton of shots on
- 2:02goal, but just looked like they understood what they're supposed
- 2:05to do. They're going to go in there.
- 2:07They're going to play some underdog football.
- 2:08Even though there weren't a lot of Netherlands stars weren't in
- 2:11the starting lineup, I think China knew like, OK, let's let's
- 2:15get out there. Let's make this as close as
- 2:16possible. They're able to muscle up and
- 2:18get that goal. Going to halftime with A1 NIL
- 2:20lead. There's a little bit of history
- 2:23between these squads. Two, I'm going to rewind it all
- 2:26the way back to the 2015 World Cup where China was able to get
- 2:29a victory over the Netherlands one nil.
- 2:32They had a goal at the absolute death of a group stage match.
- 2:35And that was back when the format was six groups of four
- 2:40and there were four third place teams that would make the
- 2:45knockout stage from the groups. And China's win over the
- 2:48Netherlands in that group stage match actually made it so the
- 2:52Dutch were the 3rd place team in their group that made it to the
- 2:56knockout stage later on. So I don't know if there's any
- 2:58bad blood remaining, but I do remember that 2015 for anybody
- 3:03who's watched the show, I think I've said like, you know, 1999
- 3:06was obviously like The Big Bang for like women's football in the
- 3:09United States. But the 2015 Women's World Cup
- 3:11was a first one played in Canada.
- 3:12So it was like similar time zones.
- 3:14It was the first one that I was really able to like kind of lock
- 3:17in and kind of started my interest in women's football in
- 3:20general. Again, another digression for
- 3:22me. I don't know if there's any bad
- 3:24blood leftover from that one nil loss in a group stage.
- 3:26But the Netherlands, after they brought on all their stars
- 3:29around like the 70th minute, it seemed like they they took that
- 3:32personally, as Michael Jordan would say.
- 3:35Yeah, yeah. You look at the Subs, Lynn
- 3:36Wilms, Jill Rord, Esme Brooks, Daniela van de Donk, Lynneth
- 3:40Bernstein, Pretty good, pretty good unit to be able to bring
- 3:46onto the pitch. You know, you look at this
- 3:47Netherlands side, they've got a lot of talent and it's a really
- 3:50great mix of young players. You know, we've mentioned some
- 3:53of those veterans that came on late, but you look at some of
- 3:55these young players 25 and under.
- 3:57Damaris, she's 25. Kirsten Kasparai, Lynn Wilms,
- 4:00Daphne von Damsel are all 24. Chastity Grant, Romi Luchter,
- 4:03both 23. Esme Brooks, 21, and Vika
- 4:06Kaptine, who had herself a game against China with a goal and
- 4:10assist, just 19 years old and looks like an excellent,
- 4:13excellent player as well. This Netherlands side will have
- 4:17something a little bit different than England was able to put
- 4:20forth against the US women's national team.
- 4:22I kind of feel like there's going to be a little bit less
- 4:24tape, little bit less predictability from this side.
- 4:27And, you know, they got a ton of vets in addition to all those
- 4:30young players that I rattled off.
- 4:31So, yeah, a lot of options for Netherlands coach Andres Yonker.
- 4:35And you mentioned the potential bad blood between China and
- 4:37Netherlands. Not sure if there's any of that
- 4:39left. But our guy Yonker, during the
- 4:412023 World Cup, when speaking about the US women's national
- 4:44team, had that famous quote. In the past, the American women
- 4:48were a lot fitter than the rest of the world.
- 4:49But I really think those days are over.
- 4:51If you look at the Champions League nowadays, you see the
- 4:53same level of intensity. So the big question is now what
- 4:56is left of their superiority? Let's see about that.
- 5:00End Quote. There we go.
- 5:03Yeah, bad blood confirmed. I know Lynette Berenstein was
- 5:06kind of talking some shit too in that tournament, and for good
- 5:10reason. I mean, Lynette Berenstein
- 5:11should not be afraid of a single player on this planet.
- 5:14So yeah, I mean, a lot of great players.
- 5:16We saw Vika Kaptine net herself or I believe her first Champions
- 5:21League goal against Celtic just a few weeks back.
- 5:24Really exciting, good player, came over from FC-20 on a free
- 5:27transfer. So yeah, I think, I think
- 5:29they're going to present some issues for the USA.
- 5:35But to be honest, I mean, it's really going to be lineup
- 5:39dependent because if the USA is going to line up Germa and
- 5:43Sonnet as their center backs again, which you know, they
- 5:47might not considering they just played a match on Saturday and
- 5:50this match is being played on Tuesday.
- 5:52If you get Germa full strength against the Netherlands, I would
- 5:54not be that afraid if I'm, you know, a USA supporter.
- 5:58But if Emma Hayes completely shakes the snow globe, then
- 6:02those players, they might be able to present some real some
- 6:05real danger for USA. Yeah, when I think about
- 6:08England, a lot was made of the one versus 2 measuring stick
- 6:12nature of this match. And you know, I I always kind of
- 6:16do a lot of relating. I know you relate women's
- 6:18football to college football, the States.
- 6:20I always kind of for some reason, try to compare women's
- 6:24football to the fighting sports. I love it.
- 6:26You see this sometimes when 2 great fighters are sparring each
- 6:30other. It's like, OK, this is this
- 6:32isn't for the title. They're each trying to get each
- 6:34other ready for some other big, you know, matchup.
- 6:36But it's well, well, well worth watching and breaking down and
- 6:40paying very, very close attention to because you can
- 6:42learn a lot. It did kind of feel like Emma
- 6:44Hayes nor Serena Wiegman who wanted to give that match away.
- 6:48So it was very defensive. Like even when you think about
- 6:51the offensive attacking talent that wasn't on the pitch, it did
- 6:54kind of feel like that kind of chess match.
- 6:55The Netherlands does not come into this match with the same
- 6:58agenda. You know, England playing the
- 7:00United States to a draw felt right for them.
- 7:03Even though they're at home. They probably were disappointed
- 7:05for sure. The second ranked team defending
- 7:08champions of Europe. The Netherlands, though, are
- 7:10kind of like a little bit of a notch below.
- 7:12You know, they have qualified for the 2025 Euros.
- 7:14They finished fourth in the UEFA Nations League.
- 7:16This is a team that is not part of the absolute upper, upper,
- 7:20upper upper crust where you might think, OK, there's
- 7:22England, there's Spain, you know, France, Germany are kind
- 7:25of right there, you know, in that top four.
- 7:27Netherlands are is at the very top of that next group of
- 7:30European teams, I think in my opinion.
- 7:32But the creativity that they have on that team, the
- 7:35diversity, like we talked about old and young, different ways
- 7:38that they can approach things. Some young players coming into
- 7:40their own roommate Luchter. I think as a as a player that
- 7:42you can kind of like draw a circle around.
- 7:44Definitely in that camp. Vega captain as well, for sure.
- 7:47Yeah, it does feel like they're going to be able to throw stuff
- 7:50at the USA that I don't want to say is going to be tough to deal
- 7:53with. But I think it's going to be
- 7:54new, like new things that they're seeing that it's going
- 7:58to be interesting to see how the United States defense.
- 8:00I think that's fair. I know this is a short episode,
- 8:03but I'm just going to crack another brewski.
- 8:06So far. And it's by Ruben's brews out
- 8:10here in lovely Seattle, and it's called Stay Frosty IPA.
- 8:13And the reason behind that is because I will say, so in the
- 8:16Netherlands, they're ranked #11 in the world in the FIFA
- 8:19ranking. So I think kind of where you're
- 8:22placing them in your mind, like do do you think they're better
- 8:24than Brazil? I don't think so.
- 8:27I didn't, yeah. I didn't think you would.
- 8:29And Brazil's ranked above them. And like, you know, Colombia,
- 8:32it's like, you know, you could you could make some arguments
- 8:35the Columbia with that's. A good match up, that's a good
- 8:37match up. I will tell you, though, I don't
- 8:39think Netherlands views themselves the same way.
- 8:41I mean, you think about that 2023 group stage match you had,
- 8:45the shoving match between van de Dunkin and her Leon teammate
- 8:49Lindsay Oran. Netherlands walked away from
- 8:51that match thinking we absolutely should have won that
- 8:54game. And so I think if you're the
- 8:56Netherlands, I think you kind of look at USA and say, OK, they
- 8:59don't have their three best forwards.
- 9:01And who knows if Emma Hayes is going to push it with a player
- 9:05like, or even a player who's a little bit older in Sonnet or a
- 9:09player who's a little bit older in Kruger.
- 9:11Like, who are we going to see out there?
- 9:13Can we get some goals? We brought on Biernstein late
- 9:17against China. Why do you do that?
- 9:19Maybe it's because you want her to start against USA and see if
- 9:23she can cash in early. I think so.
- 9:25I mean, if you're watching the the England tape, you're
- 9:28probably thinking, OK, maybe we want to try to attack some of
- 9:31these wide channels and see what we can do.
- 9:33I think the Netherlands like pretty well situated from that
- 9:36standpoint and I do feel like they've got a couple players
- 9:40that can make the US think a little bit, at least from
- 9:42distance. You look at that goal, that
- 9:44estimate Brook scored, the fourth against China where she
- 9:47gets like that insane 10 yard run up.
- 9:50I think I was telling you a little bit earlier, kind of
- 9:53harken back to like a UFC fighter kind of like flying from
- 9:56their corner at the at the bell, just kind of like delivering a
- 9:59flying kick, kind of the same level of ferocity and just a
- 10:02placement on it was, I mean, impeccable.
- 10:05You know, we've seen Esme Brooks score tremendous goals and it
- 10:08like you shouldn't be surprised, but you're also still really
- 10:11surprised that somebody's able to do that.
- 10:13And I think we we talked about the players that can kind of
- 10:15reach that rarefied air, but maybe not able to kind of get
- 10:18there consistently like a Mary Fowler.
- 10:20I think we were talking about as well, Esme Brooks definitely in
- 10:23that category where her best is like, holy shit, like it really
- 10:28it's like, let me watch this 25 more times.
- 10:31A player like that in a match like this, I think could really
- 10:34kind of flip things and and make it extremely interesting.
- 10:37Because now without a triple espresso, what do you go to if
- 10:40your MAA is you're down a goal and you really kind of want to
- 10:43make a statement in a match like this on the road?
- 10:45And they're going to be playing what I would assume is going to
- 10:48be a pretty intense environment. And so you ask yourself, like,
- 10:52what do you go to? You kind of look at the roster.
- 10:54Yeah, obviously you have, you know, 159 caps from Lindsay
- 10:59Horan. She's not exactly your goal
- 11:01scoring threat even though she is currently leading Leone in
- 11:04goals in the Divas have season. She has nine goals on the season
- 11:10by the way. I think we were talking about an
- 11:11episode or two ago. She had like 4 in one match, had
- 11:14a hat trick before halftime. Saying at the end gave him that
- 11:16work. There you go.
- 11:18But you know, she's not playing St.
- 11:20Etienne in in this match. So I think, you know, you think
- 11:23about it. Yeah.
- 11:23Lynn Williams, she has 73 caps. But other than that, yes, Mean
- 11:27Ryan has three. Emma Sears has three.
- 11:29Ali Sentinor now has one. Jaden Shaw has 20.
- 11:32Alyssa Thompson has 12. You know, we're not talking
- 11:35about it. Experienced forward room here
- 11:38outside of Lynn Williams, anybody who's playing for the
- 11:40Netherlands or their manager Yonker, If you look at this and
- 11:43think, OK, we got home field. They're coming off a match where
- 11:46they played most of their experienced players because they
- 11:49wanted to have a good showing at at Wembley.
- 11:52We just came off a match against China where we brought on all
- 11:55our good players for the last 20 minutes of the match.
- 11:58If you can get a win against USA at The Hague and you're the
- 12:03Netherlands manager, just like thinking about it like almost
- 12:06from his perspective, perspective of like now you just
- 12:08look at the federation and go, huh, pretty good, right?
- 12:11And like, if you're those players, you want that on your
- 12:14resume. The more we talk about this, the
- 12:16more I think they're going to come out absolutely firing and
- 12:20USA is going to have to have a response to that.
- 12:22Well, that response might be in the form of 1 Lily Johannes, I
- 12:27bet. Let's go.
- 12:28I kind of wish I kind of wish Lily had gotten a couple of Lily
- 12:31minutes at Wembley just to kind of, you know, warm, warm up the
- 12:34engine. But with this match on the
- 12:37calendar looming, I think the announcement came a few weeks
- 12:39ago. So it would seem extremely
- 12:41fitting that you would play in this match.
- 12:42And I kind of feel like would bring some of the energy we need
- 12:46to match some of the unpredictability and kind of
- 12:48like not not saying that what the US has been doing has been a
- 12:50little bit stale, but I think it speaks a lot when you see like
- 12:53an Alyssa Thompson come in and really jump off the screen.
- 12:56Yasmine Ryan kind of do the same really because OK wow, you know
- 12:59we're we're some injections here of some new stuff, but I think
- 13:03Johannes would be really great A lot of familiarity with a lot of
- 13:06those players. You know some IX players up and
- 13:08down the Netherlands roster. Spitz chastity grants moved on
- 13:12to the WSL, but looked her obviously she's also moved on to
- 13:15PSG, but still a lot of familiarity with some of those
- 13:19players could be really interesting.
- 13:20We do hope that she gets a good response innovation from that
- 13:23crowd. I think she.
- 13:24Will I think the the fact that both federations kind of took
- 13:29part in the announcement, I know I acts like congratulated her on
- 13:33making her decision and saying, you know, obviously they clearly
- 13:35want the best for her as any good club.
- 13:38What I I don't think anybody ever doubted that.
- 13:41But yeah, I think that's going to be a great moment.
- 13:43I want to see how Hirsch felt minutes.
- 13:45I want to see way more Ali Sentinor minutes.
- 13:48Yep. So don't get me wrong here when
- 13:50I say that the Netherlands are going to come out here and
- 13:52they're going to come out swinging.
- 13:54The USA is not underdogs in this matchup.
- 13:56Just to be clear. Doesn't matter that it's at The
- 13:58Hague. Don't matter the USA or
- 14:00underdogs against very few teams in the world.
- 14:03And in fact, I would say maybe just Spain.
- 14:07I don't think they're an underdog against anybody else.
- 14:09So I just think they they need to be prepared to take
- 14:13Netherlands best punch. And you know, knowing Emma
- 14:16Hayes, they probably will be. But it's a different animal once
- 14:19you get there and there are 10s of thousands of people screaming
- 14:22at you while you're playing. Yeah, that's an interesting that
- 14:24creates an interesting potential scenario.
- 14:27I keep thinking back to the Emma Hayes quote where she made
- 14:30reference to totally paraphrasing here, the US being
- 14:32able to field two teams that would be extremely competitive,
- 14:35right? I would love to maybe see like a
- 14:38not quite 25 and under that, you know, type approach.
- 14:40But what would it look like if it's like Sentinor Sam's
- 14:45Hirschfeld? To your point, Johannes, you
- 14:48know, I'd love to see Ms. Sears get another chance.
- 14:50You know, obviously she didn't totally shine against England, a
- 14:53really tough matchup. We talked about her having to go
- 14:55at Alex Greenwood. Yeah.
- 14:57Would love to see some more Ms. Sears minutes and just see like,
- 15:00what do we have? Do we have some pairings with
- 15:03some of these young players and really thinking more
- 15:05offensively, but I don't know, mix it up.
- 15:07Let's let's get some some new groupings in there.
- 15:09Let's get a, you know, different midfield.
- 15:11This would be a great spot for something like that. 100% agree.
- 15:14I'm really excited to watch the match.
- 15:16It might have to be a no spoiler situation.
- 15:17It's during the middle of our work day on Tuesday.
- 15:20I got stuff I got to do. That's all right.
- 15:22I digress. Do you have a score prediction,
- 15:24my friend? I'm going to say 11.
- 15:27Son of a bitch. We're too linked up.
- 15:29We're too linked up. OK, that's what I that's exactly
- 15:32what I was going to say. I thought I was going to
- 15:33surprise you with it. Why?
- 15:35Yeah, I think it's one one, I think the Netherlands Steel one.
- 15:38I think we get a little bit of a Van Damslar game where she she
- 15:43just looks a little bit like a wall.
- 15:44Yeah. And maybe some of those young
- 15:47American attacking players get looks.
- 15:50I think we breakthrough with something, but ultimately a game
- 15:53that we probably feel like we're in control of from the US
- 15:56perspective, but aren't able able to kind of like break all
- 15:58the way through and pull out a win.
- 16:00So yeah, another draw for the US international team.
- 16:03Give me one one. OK, give me the same.
- 16:06Let me try to add my own spin on it.
- 16:09I think Biernstein scores the goal for the Netherlands.
- 16:12I think it comes before halftime.
- 16:14USA gets the equalizer and I'm going to go with Jaden Shaw,
- 16:19assisted by Lily Johannes. Let's go.
- 16:24The Shadow EP and I were on a walk the other day and she was
- 16:28just like because, you know, I was obviously bothering her by
- 16:32telling her my Orlando Pride. One nil prediction was spot on
- 16:35and I'm a sincere. I have a crystal ball in my
- 16:38office. And she was like, you know, you
- 16:40never talk about the predictions you get wrong.
- 16:43I go, not important. I don't need to.
- 16:45It's our show. We just never speak of them
- 16:47again. So if I get this one right, I'll
- 16:49talk about like, I'm the smartest man alive.
- 16:51And if not, we'll just keep it pushing.
- 16:53Yeah, and I love that you called me out for changing some of my
- 16:56predictions, but hey, shit changes.
- 16:57What do you want? You know, I'm not gonna, you
- 16:59know, tell you that the Portland's gonna win the
- 17:01championship and they look terrible.
- 17:03Or. There you go.
- 17:05You know what? You've got new information.
- 17:06I I applaud you for taking in the new information and making
- 17:10new predictions. We call that training data and
- 17:12technology. You know, we just utilize it and
- 17:15optimize these algorithms, make better decisions as we go, and
- 17:18off to the races. I like it.
- 17:19OK. As mentioned, this one's going
- 17:21down Tuesday. Very excited.
- 17:23Can't wait to see the lineups. Can't wait to see what these
- 17:25teams do when the ball's rolling.
- 17:27We'll be back later this week with our December Fest episode
- 17:30featuring our guy Peter Vice talking all things German
- 17:33football. We're going to talk Byron
- 17:35Wolfsburg and their Champions League prospects, we'll dive
- 17:38into Fran, Bundesliga, talk a little German national team, and
- 17:41then we'll be back next week with the match Day 5 preview.
- 17:43December 11th, December 12th, Champions League returns.
- 17:46We'll be talking key matchups, machinations, who's in, who's
- 17:49out. We're going to check in on the
- 17:50big club, see how they're doing in their domestic leagues.
- 17:52So definitely stick around for that.
- 17:55Mister Grant Engel, anything else you want to hit?
- 17:56Before we get out of here, I think we covered it.
- 17:58I'm very much looking forward to this match and I think just us
- 18:00talking about it kind of turned on some light bulbs for me.
- 18:03So I'm looking forward to it even more now.
- 18:06Awesome. Well, no spoilers in both
- 18:08directions. They got a meeting or two on
- 18:10Tuesday that I'll have to check in on.
- 18:11But outside of that, I think we did it.
- 18:13It's been an episode into the channel.
- 18:15A sincere thank you. Thank you for watching,
- 18:16listening, following, liking, subscribe, and just playing,
- 18:19hanging out with your boys and traversing the European
- 18:21continent as we track all these key matchups.
- 18:24And remember to like. If you liked and subscribe or
- 18:26follow into the channel, YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcast,
- 18:28or wherever you like to watch or listen, leave us a review or
- 18:31favorite podcast app. Links to all of our socials in
- 18:33the show notes of this episode. And a big thank you to my close
- 18:36as well, Mr. Grant angle for By Train, by Plane.
- 18:39Doesn't matter. There's a big match.
- 18:41I already know my guys going to be here by our side,
- 18:44storytelling and doing all the things that we do here at the
- 18:47ITC. I appreciate you bro.
- 18:48Likewise, buddy. And you know what?
- 18:50While I'm in the business of making predictions, I predict
- 18:53that ITC will continue to have the best damn Internet pals in
- 18:57the podcasting space. So thank you all for rocking
- 19:00with us. And I will also predict that you
- 19:02will educate me on anything that I missed or anything or let us
- 19:05know if we ran a follow up anything.
- 19:07And so we thank you for that and we will talk to you all next
- 19:10time.