Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer.

Hey everybody, we got a 2-1 win over World Cup-bound Paraguay in Philadelphia last night with a far from full

strength U.S. squad joining me to discuss it as a man who was at the game in the mixed

zone and is now home in Washington, D.C. Charlie Bollum, Charlie, how are you? I'm well. I got a little

whiplash driving to Chester and back and now flying to gorgeous Florida later tonight

to catch Uruguay match but I'm feeling great and it's always a pleasure to chop it up with you

thank you thank you so what was the yeah what was the scene like was it it uh I saw somebody say

it was fun to finally um stick it to a bunch of away fans who were expecting a victory.

Yes. I would say, you know, it's so amazing that in this country, this incredible country of ours, flaws in all,

you know, you can play almost any nation in the world, and the diaspora and the expats are going to turn out almost anywhere.

And you might think that Paraguay being pretty far away, not that big to start with. I looked it up yesterday, 6.4 million

Paraguayans in the homeland. And I don't know how many more are living abroad, but it's substantial.

And there was lots of red and white stripes. And the red, white, and blue colors of Paraguay were

well represented in Chester, PA last night.

And I'm going to guess it came down to somewhere around 50-50.

Okay.

And so it made for a nice experience, though, because it didn't affect the vibe.

But it wasn't really much of a negative undercurrent, but they were belting out the Paraguayan anthem, well representing. And you saw,

I think, on the pitch, what they've done is very impressive in probably the most cutthroat

federation and qualifying scenario in the world, I would say. Pound for pound conned

meatball is just a bear pit.

And they got through it yet again, despite having a lot of disadvantages compared to their

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