Post-match: USA v. Australia [R] - October 14, 2025 - International Friendly

Haji generated a lot of power on that first goal

 

Roldan has gotten a lot of flak for Australia's goal but that was a team failure of a bunch of guys not reacting. Richards, Miles, Sands, then Roldan's panic clearance. After that thought Roldan did very well. Great first assist and just a smart play for the 2nd.

Haji started the half slow, but as the channels to run opened up, he got dangerous chances.

Communication between the backline and the CMs wasn't great.

Hopefully Pulisic's injury isn't serious.

Thought Luna, Aaronson, and Morris took a lot of advantage with the space that was available for them.

Thought wingbacks were fairly decent going forward and creating space, but lacked a bit of focus defensively.

 

Based on this game….

stock up - wright, Freese, Roldan, Brendo,
Stock down- Morris, Sands, Luna

biggest loser is probably Sargent - Haji just finished off any chance he had.

 

I’m happy with (most of) the players.

We win against a decent side, but even so, I have a number of concerns about Poch’s choices. Like, the various men asked to play left back did little until Arfsten came on…and that was predictable, that they’d underwhelm. Sands AND Roldan set them up to fail as a pairing because there’s not enough ball progression there. Roldan stepped up really well, but more in the final third than the middle third.

 

I think our depth is fine. Great in midfield. Surprisingly not bad at CB(Robinson, Mckenzie and Richards have to stay healthy). Balogun, Wright, Pepi has got to get healthy next window to sure that up. I assume Poch is going to give Scally a real shot.

A bit weak in the 'Pulisic position'. Luna is going to make the WC due to that. Btw Luna is a youngish guy he's not fighting for starters spot and seems to understand that.

 

I thought it was really interesting that Aaronson subbed in at LWB. He seemed uncomfortable there and was the total opposite once he switched over to McKennie’s attacking mid position. I thought he looked more positive there than either McKennie or Luna. I’d love to see McKennie switch to one of those CM spots and give Aaronson the first attacking mid off the bench spot.

 

#1 Responsibility on that goal is Richards, who was closest to the ball, watched it come down and did nothing, and then completely whiffed as a defender.

#2 is Sands with whatever that clearance was and no recovery.

Roldan probably comes in at #3; not because of the unlucky bounce, but the slow recovery time. But I somewhat understand -- Richards just ballwatching was weird.

The only negative from this window is a downgrade of Richards from really strong to ... still CB1, but not reliable. He got turned by Enner Valencia and now this.

I would not think of him as a stopper right now.

McKennie, Roldan, Wright were legitimately strong.

Weah was good in the build up but it was kind of odd how little real pressure he applied forward -- not sure if that was a function of Weah or how Australia was playing.

Freeman was good but not impactful, really. Sands had first game in a while jitters, I think. Bit slow. Christian -- hope he's okay but we got better when he left because he wasn't passing. McKenzie always plays nervous. Miles was Miles. Freese was Freese.

Weird game in the sense that despite seemingly controlling the ball we really didn't seem to have real possession much. For a team with 64% possession, we spent little time attacking the bunker.

Got away with one in some ways.

 

That was a professional performance from the guys to work through Australia's sledging.

Good on Roldan for showing his class after all the ignorant garbage spewed about the player.

#7 from Australia looks and plays like the rogue from a Dickens novel.

Haji has 7 goals 1 assist in 8 games worth of minutes for the National Team.

 

Folks obsess over starting elevens. You may need every player on a world cup roster to contribute. Some of our players are fragile, so I'm glad we played a bunch of players this year. We discovered Luna, who is for real. We learned Tessmann can play with the big boys. We might have found our second striker behind Balogun.You build a a roster of 23.

 

I think Poch is landing where every coach seems to with Roldan. Super smart, great culture guy, extension of the staff on the training ground, and worth a roster spot.

 

Gotta admit I had expected more from Richards.

 

We should still look at the larger data set on Roldan. Not overreact to one game. Just saying.

 

I think Morris was good and Freese wasn't.

 

Yeah, not a great window. He's a good player, and frankly, we're weak at CB, so all that there is to be done is hope he plays more like he did at the GC, where he really dominated.

 

…and a key field player when intelligence is needed.

 

This was only his 2nd start in 3 years. What is the larger data set?

 

He needs Ream for multiple reasons.

 

With the health of this group, Sargent's chances are never nil.

 

How was Luna bad? He had too good goal scoring chances that he helped engineer. A fine sub appearance for the injured Pulisic.

 

I need to re-make my depth chart, but he's either just on it or just off it, just because of the number of quality guys we have in central midfield.

 

This was not a pretty win, but it was a good win. This was an excellent defensive team on a run of excellent form. Both goals were developed from the run of play capitalized with an excellent final ball and were clinically finished.

 

His entire 40 something caps with the National team.

 

We didn't discover much yet. In particular both Luna and Tessmann were poor today.

 

We shouldn't be using data from 2019. Players are different six years apart.

He's been decent and now good in two games. He's been very good for Seattle and even in games against PSG and Atletico Madrid.

I'm not suggesting he's starting or anything on a healthy roster, but we should give him his due.