Hello,

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Total Soccer show. My name is Taylor Rockwell. And tonight, I'm joined by Joe Lowry to discuss the USA's 1-0 win over El Salvador in World Cup qualifying.

Joe, it wasn't the prettiest game, but it was three points. How are you doing this evening?

I'm doing great, Taylor. Man, three points is absolutely the key here. And to be honest, I think this is both where we kind are right now. I thought that was a pretty good performance. The XG loved the U.S. in this game. They had chances. It's unfortunate that they didn't get another pass El Salvador to do a little late game rotation and get some of the big guys on the bench. But still, like, not a bad game at all from the U.S. I think it's better than a lot of folks out there are giving them credit for. Yeah, that does seem to be the case that I tried to stay off Twitter as much as possible, not because I don't like Twitter, but because it tends to bias me one way or the other. It makes me think, oh, I haven't seen that. I wasn't paying attention to that.

But reading it after the game, it does feel like there was much more negativity, especially at halftime, maybe a little bit more positivity at the end of full time.

For me, I understand where that's coming from, and we're going to get into why there may have been some negative reaction to this one, why moments of this game weren't as entertaining as others. But overall, if we're giving this one a letter grade, I had it as a solid B, and maybe that's even being slightly harsh, just because I think there were large chunks when it was kind of rough and kind of back and forth. Again, we're going to talk about why. But I think, as you said, the XG was good. I saw some really good positional rotation and movement. I saw some great individual performances, some good individual performances and some fine individual performances. So overall, Joe, I'm giving it a B and I'm feeling fairly positive about that. I think I meant like a B plus or an A minus, to be honest, too. And part of that is because I guess the fickle nature of soccer.

If we think back to that first half, the big moment and really the big talking point for the lineup and all of those things is Jesus Ferreira.

And the sequence I'm talking about in particular is the one he doesn't finish after Tim Wea flicks it over to him near the back post in El Salvador's box and he decides to shoot with the outside of his right instead of his left and he hits the ball off the target. If that goes in, don't you think we're all talking about this as an A? Right. I mean, that's just how this game works. And so I'm trying in a sense to look past the box score, which is kind of a fool's errand, but also I think has real value because we've already talked about it in just these couple minutes. The U.S. did create some real chances here, and they did put real pressure on El Salvador. I just think if that goes in or if there's one or two other moments, if Anthony Robinson's second shot in those couple of minutes in the second half, He scores the goal and then he has that right footed shot.

If that goes in, I mean, there's so many things that were really close to coming together that I think are positive building blocks for the U.S. So, yeah, I'm sitting at a B plus or an A minus on this one. Yeah, I think that that's all fair analysis. and I would add to it that if it were a one-nill win

and they maybe should have gotten more but didn't,

and then El Salvador had a few that were like really, really, really close. And Christian, or excuse me, Alex Rolton would be awkward if it were the other way around. Alex Raldon has the shot of the first half on the counter that goes just wide. Aside from that, there aren't a ton of threatening chances in my mind from El Salvador.

Yeah.

And so I think when you look at it from the U.S. kept the clean sheet and kind of did what they've been doing in World Cup qualifying so far. I think this brings it to in the first half, two goals for throughout World Warwick qualifying in the second half, 10 goals for nine shots in the first half, 22 in the second. They do seem to be a second half team, and I like to believe

that is because they're making adjustments. Joe, you mentioned the XG being pretty solid for them.

I think it was like right around three a little bit under that. For you, like a kind of stats

question to begin, is that like that can be sort of explained away as, oh, they should have scored three goals, but they only got one. It was not a very strong performance. The other way of seeing that to my mind is they maybe got a little bit unlucky, but they were creating consistent chances. And on a better night, a more favorable night, yeah, Ferrer gets a better touch to that one. Maybe he uses his opposite foot and puts that one in. Maybe the shot from Robinson does go in and suddenly it's 3-0. So you could see it as they massively underperformed. You could see it also as they still created and XG means next game if they create that many, it's more likely they're going to score at least a couple. Yeah, that second explanation, Taylor, is exactly where I am on this. Is it frustrating? I mean, I kind of led with this, right? Is it frustrating that the U.S. don't put another one into the back of the net and get some minutes off of guys like Tyler Adams, Weston McKinney, and Dest and A-Rob? Like, absolutely, right? You want that second goal. You need something like that, especially in these three game windows.

That would have been ideal. It doesn't happen, though. But it's more of a positive. The expected goals and the chances that the U.S. create. I mean, why would you not want these chances, right? You want the ball in the back of the net. But I think at the end of the day, you're pretty happy if you're Greg Berlther. I'm sure he'll cite this on the U.S. soccer podcast with Bobby Warshot, right? He likes to talk about XG on that show. And I think there's good reasons for that.

And, you know, if the U.S. soccer podcast with Bobby Warshot, right? He likes to talk about XG on that show. And I think there's good reasons for that. And, you know, if the U.S. continue to create chances at this level against teams like El Salvador and against teams like Honduras, and maybe they equate that against teams like Canada. In the middle game of this window, I think that's only going to be a good thing for the U.S. So a mixed bag, of course, there, right?

You don't equal your XG. That means there are shots that you would have liked to hit the back of the net that didn't. But that's always the case. So overall, Taylor, yeah, I'm in that second camp of thinking, man, this is a decent sign for the U.S. All right. So you were at a B plus slash A minus. I was at a B. let's try to remember this and see how we end up at the end of this conversation.

But we've got a ways to go before we get to that. Joe, right now let's talk about the teams as they came out, the lineups that we saw for the United States. It was 11 players, Joe. Not surprisingly there. One of them was a goalkeeper. I'm going very basic now. A couple of absences worth noting. Zach Stefan is not with the team. He's listed as day-to-day, getting treatment in Manchester, D'Andre Yedlin, I believe, arrived today, or the tweet I saw was is arriving today. That may have been yesterday due to some weather issues in Istanbul, so he's getting in late. That's why he wasn't involved today.

Maybe that's not the only reason, but that is a reason.

That aside, Joe, the major name that we are expecting to see and did not end up seeing was Ricardo Pepe.

...