Lost In America - Free, Daily World Cup Newsletter: Day 9 - Sub Pop Rock City
We got our first two teams biting the dust, and the Yanks are marching on!
USA 2 - 0 Australia
Let me just say, the air up here with a team that's won its first two games in the World Cup, something we Yanks have never experienced (I know I know but anyone who might have seen such a thing in 1930 is long dead), is quite fresh and crisp. Holy shit, we should do this more often!
It wasn't as fluid or pretty as the opener, but Australia turned this one into far more of a cagematch than Paraguay did. Whereas Paraguay seemed totally off-guard about what the US was going to bring to them, Australia knew they could line up deep in their half, with their five defenders, and all that movement and interchanging the US put forth last week wouldn't matter as much.
The US had less of that interchanging, because Christian Pulisic was out entirely, and then Mauricio Pochettino threw a curveball by replacing him with another out-and-out striker in Ricardo Pepi. This put the US in a straight 3-5-2, instead of the 3-4-3 they had been sporting.
While the US might not have been an Eddie Van Halen solo with the ball this time, their press was ruthless and total. Australia couldn't get out, and when the US couldn't create on their own, they did by turning the ball over right around the Australia box and making a ruckus before they could get set. Sergino Dest on his own had three chances, all off stealing the ball back and charging ahead before the yellow fence could be put up.
Whereas against Paraguay it was the US's left side that did the roasting, this time it was the opposite, as McKennie, Dest, and Freeman combined to turn Jordan Bos and Cameron Burgess into burger. The constant pressure on that side then opened up the other side, which the US hit for their first goal, even if they got another defender belching the ball into his own net. It still resulted from the US quickly swinging the ball from right to left, which gave Balogun the room to run in behind to create the goal.
Pepi might not have had too much of a hand in anything, but he played a selfless role in constantly occupying at least one of the Aussie centerbacks, either by attempting to run through them for a pass, bodying them up, or getting one of them to follow him when he dropped. A big part of being a striker is doing things that don't result in anything for yourself, but open up something for someone else. Watch how many selfless runs Cristiano Ronaldo makes, and you'll pretty quickly see why Portugal keep choking on a chicken bone.
Perhaps more important, is the US didn't get sucked into any of the horseshit the Aussies were trying to pull, which involved a lot of diving and bitching. The Aussies wanted a physical struggle, they got one, and they came out on the ass end of it. Combined with the US's greater skill and better plan, and it's clear why they were never really in it.
Yes, a chunk of the second half got a touch hairy, and the US did seem to tire under the constant sun. Fuck, even the ref did, too. But even with ceding a bit too much possession and resorting to a bit too much punting to the hinterlands, Australia didn't really create any clear chance to bring it within one. And if Balogun's breakaway earlier in the second half didn't get held up by the "sticky" grass, no one would give a shit what happened, with yet another 3-0 lead in the bank.
The US saw off a tricky opponent without their best player, did it without much of a fuss, did it while not only accepting the fight but coming out on the better end of it, and did it while shaking out a new system that we hadn't seen before and they installed in a week.
Is this heaven? It's definitely not Iowa.
With Türkiye's hairball now officially coughed up, the Yanks can send out the B-team, or at the very least seal off Robinson, Adams, Richards, and Balogun in carbonite to avoid yellow card suspensions for the R32 game. They can give Pulisic another 10 days to heal, or 15-20 minutes for sharpness if they so choose.
Having options is pretty bitchin'.
Morocco 1 - 0 Scotland
Morocco seem to be in their own contest to see how efficiently they can play this tournament. They simply declared at 1-1 with about half an hour to go against Brazil, and got exactly that with minimal fuss. Yesterday, they seemed to figure any lead against Scotland would be enough, as the Scots attempts to equalize would look something like...
First, the goal. While we all love an intricate move with a pass or two we didn't see or some dude dribbling three guys into the Earth's core, there is no more visceral or primal joy than watching some yahoo leather the ball so hard it rips open a membrane to another dimension. Ismael Salbari apparently is a hockey fan, because he's learned how to beat a butterfly goalie, which is to try and sheer their ear off:
This almost got stuck in the net like a tennis ball.
From there, Morocco cut off whatever route Scotland would have thought about using to equalize. Which, to be fair, aren't plentiful. One is getting their fullbacks up to cross. How'd that go?
Patterson on the other side?
The other is to keep Scott McTominay from crashing the box late and getting on the end of stuff. As we can see above, there wasn't much to get on the end of, and the rest...
Not a ton. Ryan Christie and McTominay didn't create much through the middle, John McGinn tried hard and meant well but didn't do much that mattered, and the Scots missed the one-on-one skills of Gannon-Doak, who wasn't started for some reason.
Now they're up against it a bit, as they probably have to get something against Brazil to advance. Not that they can't, but they'll have to dig deep while swimming through the air of Miami in late June. And all those videos of the Tartan Army on South Beach that are on their way...
Brazil 3 - 0 Haiti
There isn't much to say about this one. Brazil, while not anywhere near the best team in the tournament, are still miles better than Haiti. All they had to do was not blow their own toes off, wait a bit, and then space would open up for one of their forwards. So it proved, as Vini Jr. and Cunha got loose a couple times and hoocha hoocha hoocha...LOBSTER!
Losing Raphinha could be a big deal, if he's out for multiple games, as he's their best forward, whatever Vini's Jr. PR team puts out there. Along with Cunha he's also most of their press, so Brazil might be easier to play against for a team that really does try to work the ball. But they might not see that for a while yet. Thanks to Morocco's Milton Berle policy of just showing enough, the Seleçao have the goal-difference advantage for topping the group.
We'll say goodbye to Haiti below.
Paraguay 1 - 0 Türkiye
Speaking of saying goodbyes, there go the Turks. Despite having a pretty sexy troika in the middle with Çalhanoglu, Güler, and Yildiz, Türkiye never looked like they had any idea how to link the three of them, or how to link the three of them to the rest of the team. 32 shots in this one, a whole half against 10 men, and 20 shots in their first game, and yet the opponent's goal was rocky place where they could find no purchase. Look at this shot chart:
This kind of "Keep Firing Assholes!" approach would get anyone kicked out of a rec league game. Couldn't weave anything more than this?
Türkiye will be missed, if only because they tossed out two slapstick players who somehow made them worse with a man advantage in Yilmaz and Deniz Gül. The former can only run in one direction, and I swear the latter only fouled someone or had the ball bounce off him like his shoes were made of metal. Sometimes it's heartening to watch a couple players on this stage and think, "Well shit, maybe I could have made it out there."
Paraguay didn't really have to do much different from their first match, having scored so early, because the Turks didn't come with nearly the imagination that the US did. No one was running behind, no interchanging of positions, no combinations, just 10 guys doing stuff.
All of this leads to an Australia-Paraguay staring contest, with advancement on the line and likely a trebuchet home for the loser.
Day 10 Preview
Sweden vs. Netherlands (1pm ET) - We'll find out if Sweden's sudden vitality was due to clicking on a system combined with some players getting healthy, or Tunisia's general awfulness. The Dutch didn't do anything impressive against Japan, and kind of goofed two goals. The lack of a true ball-progressor was a real issue.
Germany vs. Ivory Coast (4pm) - The Hun get to step up from wiffleball. The Ivory Coast gets to play a team that might actually want to score. If the German fullbacks still have the yaha fever from getting to galavant wherever they wanted against Curacao, they could get hurt by Diomande and Diallo on the counter.
Ecuador vs. Curacao (8pm) - Thanks to their last-minute loss against Ivory Coast, Ecuador have to get this one and they have to do it with a multiple goals. But that's not really a thing they do. But real progress is getting out of your comfort zone, right?
Japan vs. Tunisia (Midnight) - Tunisia will be rocking up with a new manager, Herve Renard and his perfectly unbuttoned shirt and $400 haircut. He probably smells like pine needles, too. He'll have had barely a week to turn Tunisia into the grindcore outfit he turns every team he manages into. Japan accepted their draw with the Dutch, confident they would get two more wins. They'll have to break through some trenches and barbed wire to get this one.
Happy Trails...To You...
Türkiye - Making most of us look like assholes. They spent 180 minutes with an attacking plan of, "I don't fuckin' know! Ask that guy!" The glass-half-full crowd will say they just went cold. Yes, sometimes Ball Don't Go In. But a team has to have more of a plan than Ball Will Go In. Vicenzo Montella will be fired long before he approached the tarmac, if he's even allowed anywhere near it.
Haiti - Great that they got here, given all they had to work through to do so. Threw a scare into Scotland, didn't get embarrassed by Brazil, and we thank them for their service. It's one step. In time, they'll take another.