Post-match: USA v Belgium knockout game

Mike Jordan use to look for comments to turn into insults. Most famous is the Jerry Stackhouse new guard comment. They are human beings dealing with playing the most games of their lives. Small things to squeeze an extra degree of focus or concentration absolutely matter.

The flaw with your logic is you deny the humanity of these players. I follow rugby and Scotland has been hot and cold for the last frw years but they have always been up for an England game during the 6 nations, home or away, they are like 5-1-1. Their best record against any of the other 5 nations in that span, because the players know a rivalry game matters. You think United players don't recognize that the Liverpool match is a big one?

So yes, Garcia pulled out the us against the to get his team just that bit more focused. Any good coach would do it.

 

My favorite is how he would take personal offense if the other team had a white player guarding him

 

That is pretty much what happened. Belgium went young and athletic to match us. They also learned from Paraguay, Australia, Turkiye, and Bosnia and tactically refused to challenge ATM in the middle of the park knowing that they would lose those battles and be vulnerable to a turnover and quick transition. Instead Belgium often went long and or wide.

Without ATM generating turnovers and transition in Belgium's half we needed stellar games from our 1v1 wide attackers Pulisic and Dest. Instead we got Dest's worst match and another Pulisic injury.

 

Are you somehow confusing Jordan with Bird?

 

Maybe? Is that anecdote about Bird?

I was born in the mid 80s so old enough to vaguely remember those guys but not old enough to remember their best years well.

 

He probably got that from Bird. Cuz I've seen video where Isaiah Thomas admitted he would be like you putting a white guy on me in an offended voice

 

That is 1000% a Larry Bird story.

 

That is 100% Larry Legend not MJ. Bird was the biggest shit-talker in the history of the NBA.

 

I really want to move past this match and put it behind.

Let's go forward from now on.

 

I see why we lost. Should’ve kept last World Cups slogan

 

Not sure why I thought it was Jordan! Honestly the fact that it was Bird makes it even funnier

 

His size had nothing to do with his bad passes though. You have a point.

 

Don't forget, Poch basically passed on Pulisic when he took over at Chelsea. Poch allowed him to leave right after he took over as manager.

 

Do you mean as opposed to Leo Trossard of Belgium at 5'8", 140?

 

FWIW I'll be rooting for Belgium today.

 

Correct, Bird famously once talked to Isiah Thomas (Bird called him cheesy), and asked who was guarding him. Isiah mentioned Tripuka, Laimbeer, and one other white guy. Bird says, "What, you don't got no brothers? That is downright disrespect!"

 

How’s that work out?

 

Peace out b!tches. Don’t come back anytime soon. Your country is a confusing mistake of geography and a mishmash of culture for no reason. Your government is weak economically and militarily. Your golden generation is dead and now you are due to suck for a while. We won’t notice your gone.

 

That's strong, but Belgium did a really great job of making a giant collection of Player Haters Ball level haters of their side going forward in America. There were a lot of Nations that came here and inspired American fans to buy their jerseys and support their team. Belgium accomplished the absolute opposite.

The way Courtouis acted post game was just such horse ----, I found it wonderful to see him have to sub off, and watch his backup send them packing lol. I really, really, really enjoyed the humiliating way they crashed out. I used to kind of like watching them because they had loads of attacking talent, even if their coaches ruined their chances at pulling something special from this golden generation.

This tournament they were such complete and total colossal ---holes to USMNT fans and the team over something that had literally nothing to do with us, or them, and secondly was actually justice being served. So ---- them, I hope to see them fail to qualify for the next decade worth of 24 team Euros (I know it won't happen, they'll qualify) and then super sized WC's we'll have going forward, and if they do qualify for anything, I hope every tournament is as humiliating as WC '22 because they showed themselves to be colossal asshats and scumbags this tournament when it came to the USMNT.

---- them, may they lose every tournament in a crash out game as ugly as ours was against them. Absolute pieces of ----, big talkers before the game, not, none of them had the cojones to talk big before and then back it up. Instead, Colossal whiners and ------ all, Good Riddance.

I knew their hubris would be avenged by Spain, and I love that it was in truly crushing and humiliating fashion as it was so richly deserved considering their post game Schadenfreude dancing left and right over literally the worst knockout experience ever for USMNT Fans/the host nations, just looking for one good knockout memory over the past 24 years. Just one. Belgium's NT: Just absolute ---holes, and it was well and truly wonderful to see Karma served so brutally to those players and their idiot coach (even if he was cool with Balo post game).

 

Somebody probably brought this up either in this thread or the PBP, but it does need to be underlined, I heard them reference it on scuffed, and it instantly reminded me of a moment I utterly lost my ---- during the game.

Why in the ---- did Pulisic take a corner during the game? We all had been screaming bloody murder to take him off corners for four years, maybe five, and after much agony, suddenly and finally, he was thankfully off corners throughout the past several months, and suddenly, dude is walking to a key corner, when we have some momentum, I think in the second half, and I know just like me, every single one of you, well except one or two I won't name Lol, instantly were as pissed as I was to see him trotting to the corner flag, and also as completely and utterly convinced as I was that he would send in a horrendous corner, and sure enough, he punted the corner directly to the goalie like he was trying to land it inside the 5 lol.

Thank you scuffed for bringing back that truly terrible memory lol.

 

Unpopular opinion. We appeared to have a prohibition against clearing. It was play out of the back at all costs. Freeze knew the thing to do was boot the ball. He also knew he was not supposed to do that. He was nervous and caught in two minds.

 

Amen brother. The only deadball Puli should strike is a PK. Wtf was that.

 

We vastly underestimate how many 5’9” guys are playing high school football and basketball, with no future after high school. Some of those guys would have been great soccer players.

 

Shows me we still underestimate depth. Belgium was able to make major adjustments in personnel and style to match up with us. We just don’t have that option right now, and frankly Poch barely had enough time pre World Cup to find a good plan A.

 

Folks like Aaronson, Musah, Tessmann, Pepi, McKenzie, Scally, Reyna, Trusty, Weah, etc have all proven over a large sample size that they can stand up to good competition. All were underutilized (some not even brought). He had almost two years to figure this out, and he failed.