The performance we saw from Gio Raina tonight was the one that we were all hoping for.

It was the one of, I have something to prove.

I loved the scrap. I loved it. I couldn't get enough of it.

I couldn't getei Lalas. I'm Stu Holden and welcome once again to the State of the Union podcast, where we look at the beautiful game on and off the field through the lens of red, white,

and blue colored glasses.

This show is a special live show after the U.S. 2-1 win against Paraguay.

But first, joining me as always, this is my friend, my colleague, my guiding light, David

Massey, a soccer savant and Fox Soccer researcher and writer extraordinaire. Masi, how you doing? Michigan squeaked out a win. So did the U.S. and we have a lot to talk about, my friend. Stu, it's to the point that when Alexi's here, he's filling in for you now. You hear that, Lexi, wherever you are? We know you you're somewhere he's going to chime in with texts in

like you know the next couple of minutes and we'll continue to ignore him because we're going to

have an elevated soccer conversation and we're going to have fun because the u.s won again and

we get to dissect all of that including a geo rena goal ladies and gentlemen

stew don't look now but the u.s. is in a pretty good run of form. If you take it from the second game in the September window, a 2-0 win over Japan, then they played well in both October games, 1-1 with Ecuador, 2-1 over Australia. And tonight, a 2-1 win over a pretty good Paraguay team that beat both Brazil and Argentina in qualifying coached by Gustavo Alfaro. A lot of familiar names to MLS fans, Miguel Amirón, Diego Gomez, a real brazalero flavor to this Paraguay team with Gustavo Gomez of Palmeiras, Jr. Alonzo of Athletico Minero, Bobadilla of San Paulo. So it's a pretty good team that the U.S. clearly outplayed tonight. It's a nice result. And before we get right into the lineup,

it's important to note momentum as well without Christian Policic, without Weston McKinney,

without Chris Richards, without Anthony Robinson. And we can discuss, you know, how, if we can even

start considering Anthony Robinson a part of that group, because he hasn't played much soccer as

of late.

But let's start with the lineup that Maricio Pochitino rolled out.

A lot of questions really about what he would go with formation-wise, personnel-wise,

the eye-popping names that were back in this roster, Joe Scali, Gio Raina,

who both ended up starting. So let's start there as a jumping off point, as you can see some of the highlights from today's game alongside us here as well. So it was Matt Frieson goal. The three at the back were Scali at right centerback, Miles Robinson in the middle, Tim Riem at left centerback, then Dest and Arfston were the wingbacks. you Testament and Boldon sitting, and then you had Raina and Aronson underneath Bolligan. Now, this is how everybody drew it up, but once the match started and the U.S. had the ball, you felt like it played a little bit differently. I did. I actually feel like that lineup there is the expectation of what I thought we would see, which would have been consistent with the lineup that Pochitino has played the last couple of games since she switched

to the back three. But in actual reality of how this played out throughout the game was more

of a similar tactical setup that we saw from Pochitino previously during the Gold Cup, where

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