wolf stansson

Acosta always plays out of his mind against Mexico. It’s incredible

Yes.

Hoping for penalties so Turner can win it for us.

Gyasi you horsefeathers Arriola is such a spaz in front of goal

Imagining Christian Pulisic on the end of these counter attacks instead of Paul Arriola.

I thought we’d see Williamson, but Bello is a surprise. Not that Vines has lit it up. Going to need a lot from Hoppe.

Miles Robinson is on that list too.

I have never understood why women pk takers don’t go high every single time, like Pino just did. Low and to the side is so much easier for female keepers to cover.

Playing outdoors in Austin, in July, is ridiculous. Feeling much better about our keeper situation. Turner rules

9 minutes of stoppage should be illegal

And their replacements create the goal GGG pushing the right buttons

Both of those subs looked ticked

horsefeathering Matt turner!!

Ooh baby

I’m not super optimistic about tonight’s game. Think the US is going to have to score 3 to win. Qatar loves playing against a high line and are great on the counter. The US lives to give away cheap turnovers when Adams isn’t in central MF. Another massive test for Busio and Acosta.

https://twitter.com/watke_/status/1420443767211970560?s=21

Big boy squad number for Gio.

They look like the 2007 world cup team. End of an iconic generation that is essentially only as coachable as they feel like being.

Why is old ass Carli Lloyd the only American player running in this game? I’ve never seen less effort from two teams in a big tournament. We should be stomping Australia. If we get Brazil in the knock out, Pia Sundhage will find a way to beat us.

Where do we think Canada is with their top squad? I think they're solidly third in the region talent-wise, but I'm not sure they "know how to win in concacaf" yet. They're sort of where the US was in the early aughts before we started beating pretty much everyone at home, including Mexico, consistently. If they can start holding home court consistently in qualifying, and getting draws/regular wins against the riff raff on the road, there is no reason they can't be the new, second tier power in the region going forward. I just don't know if they are there yet mentally. The MLS arm of US Soccer coverage is always very rah-rah, and I think they overhype the Canadian MNT because it's a huge market for them, and I also think they extend way too much credit to their league guys (Kellyn Acosta for example), when evaluating play, but I liked this about Roldan: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/three-takeaways-from-usmnt-s-tense-gold-cup-quarterfinal-win-over-jamaica Roldan does this for Seattle, every game. He's a huge part of their consistency/dynasty. He is so smart adjusting tactically without needing active coaching that he can watch the flow of the game, and make his own adjustments to use the defensive shape to his team's advantage. It's subtle and rarely wows you, but he knows how to disrupt defensive shape and unbalance the opposing team mid-game. GGG is a complex tactical coach, sometime too complex for short international windows, but players like Roldan being able to execute his tactics become super valuable as role players.

Roldan gets a ton of criticism for not being elite but I think this tournament has proven something we all already knew, which is that steady and playing within himself against any opponent is a valuable asset when other players seemingly play up or down to the level of their opponent, or even worse, play well when paired with the elite guys like Adams & mckennie but badly when asked to be the pacemaker in the midfield (Lletget, Acosta, etc). Thought Busio looked good in the second half and definitely think it’s worth pointing out that the dude is only 19. He needs to get used to playing faster, more decisively, and more precisely, and Serie A is a great place to do that. Dike needs good playmakers or his game can look chaotic because, again worth pointing out, he’s been a pro for only exactly a year. I still think he’s the guy to build around, but he was a lot of noise and action without any focus last night. Hoppe is good. He has something, maybe even something special. I also think he is super raw. He needs to smooth his technique and get better at combining. He reminds me a lot of young Charlie Davies in how direct, energetic, and persistent he is. Again, a raw talent that the right club could turn into a star, but he’s got a ways to go. Matt Turner is the best shot stopper we have. Miles Robinson is a really, really nice player. Reminds me a lot of Matt Besler when he broke through under Jurgen. I still like a handful of guys better than him, but I really trust him when I see him in the lineup. This is a really nice domestic talent pool, but Mexico is going to carve us up in the final. Really happy with the entire camp so far tho in terms of depth, talent evaluation, and looking ahead to qualifying.

Confident lineup. I like it. Big responsibility for Busio.

My favorite part is when they acknowledge Gio is the cockiest, horsefeathers talking mf'er on the team. I love this man.

According to their website, they also signed Tanner Tessmann from FC Dallas Yep, and they gave him the 4+ million Wolf would've figured for Busio, despite Tessman not getting consistent playing time at the club level. Venezia is either very prescient, the market for Americans is maturing rapidly, or they're overpaying/not going to get a ton of profit on them in the median case. They also have found a ton of interest in their brand in America just because they embrace legitimately great fashion in their apparel and branding. Their jerseys look like Dior. It's very cool and soccer hipsters have been buying their stuff since they were in Serie C, so now I think they see this is as a big opportunity to establish their brand as a Serie A team to fashion conscious American fans who don't have a Serie A team. All of this branding and their climb up the table coincides with American ownership. I don't know crap about Tanner Tessman, other than his parents are friends with Dabo Swinney. I do know Busio's value isn't his soccer and branding potential alone, it's his Italian dual-citizenship, which helps them a great deal by not taking up a foreign player slot.