Post-match: USA v Senegal - May 31, 2026 - International Friendly [R]

Here's an overall positive you can glean if you go read this whole thread.

So and so was playing X but then moved to Y when the other guy did this. Then the other so and so dropped back to play Z while some other guy did this other thing. This entire thread talks about how our guys moved to other "positions" and roles without missing a beat.

Do you guys understand how valuable that is and how difficult its going to be for teams to prepare for us? Sure not every player is as good as the guy in front of them on the depth chart. But we played damn hear the entire roster yesterday and hardly missed a beat with all those subs. Sure there were some less than ideal plays and some mistakes were made. But news flash. The other team has a say in those things.

For example, one of the comments has been that Reams passing wasn't perfect. Go rewatch the game. His passes were mostly spot on. There was one particular pass that was right towards our midfileder (I don't recall who). The Senegal player ran forward and around our midfielder and intercepted the pass. That was NOT on Ream. The midfielder didn't come a step back toward the ball nor did he use his body to shield the ball from an interception. Again though the other team has a say in this.

After watching yesterday I am pretty confident that the Paraguay and Aussie staffs are scratching their heads on how to play us.

 

Meh.

Its a one-day leave of absence that I bet everybody knew about for a long time. And he WAS there at the game. He was ready to play if needed.

I think its really not that big of a deal.

He couldn't schedule it for any time during the World Cup. What if we make the semifinal? The World Cup goes thru July 19th.

The first game of Leeds' preseason tour is when? July 25th. Leeds is who pays his salary. He presumably has to hook up with them before the first game (which is against Wrexham) at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa). Presumably Leeds want their American player to play a role in that game.....................

I think this whole thing goes to show how little of a break these guys are getting this year. They all wanted to play for the USMNT in every FIFA window in order to make the team during the season, and they'll get very little break in the summer. Brenden Aaronson barely gets a week of off-season. if the team advances at the World Cup like we all hope. I suspect that after this world cup, many of the guys are going to request a break from the national team.

 

I mean, with Brendan's wedding date being set up 2 years ago (prior to WC schedule), this very well could have been when Gregg was still coach. It isn't a stretch to think he cleared it with Gregg and staff at the time and had it OK'd. Then Poch comes in and honors the pre-agreed personal situation. My takeaway is Poch isn't heartless and understands his players are human (i.e., no punishment or ill-will for the wedding date).

 

They played the first half or more without their starting keeper or two of their CBs who started their AFCON final.

This was about 5 starters from Senegal; A number more came on in the second half.

Weston was great.

 

The only area I'd probably be willing to agree w/you is that Pepi and Balo both have a long way to go to leave any imprint on major tournaments, whereas McBride and Donovan scored in multiple WC's etc.

But yeah, Balo and Pepi? There's not really a comparison, Pepi and Balo have played and contributed multiple goals and goal contributions at the highest level of competition there is, the CL. Pepi's got 9 goal contributions and 6 goals in 443 minutes, Balo has only played this past season, but he piled in 5 goals, including two against CL winning PSG in 910 minutes. That's 14 goal contributions for them. The entire USMNT striker pool combined in history has zero goal contributions in CL (unless I'm forgetting someone). They are, by the most reliable measure of competition, the best strikers we've ever had, and by a good stretch (it also, honestly looks it, only Jozy and Donovan are probably in the convo in terms of talent, and Jozy just couldn't translate his international form to the highest levels of club play, while Donovan never even really tried other than Bayer Leverkusen a couple of times briefly).

So yeah, they are definitely the most talented and best. Are other guys the most accomplished in the shirt? Absolutely, but that's it, that's where the comp ends. They had their careers and they are quite a bit behind what Balo and Pepi have done in their mid and early 20's respectively, for those vets entire careers.

If your wondering along the lines of, "Oh I bet they were playing against sides that sucked," well, Balo scored the goals to give Monaco a 2-0 lead on PSG in a CL knockout match this year (before his team's defense vomited away the lead) and Pepi scored on Liverpool, Napoli, and this years semifinalists Athletico Madrid.....so while the WC is huge, and the biggest games in soccer's world, CL is the pinnacle of soccer itself in terms of elite competition and these guys have scored 11 goals, and created 14 goals and assists between them so.....yeah, I don't think the WC is too big for you if you can score multiple goals against PSG in a knockout match, or against Athletico or Liverpool in decisive games about moving on to knockout matches. It's different, but it's still the absolute pinnacle of the game.....Nobody in our historical striker pool has done anything remotely like that at the top levels of the game. Nobody.

FTR, I have a rich history with this team, going back to 1990, so I didn't suddenly forget that Wynalda was a machine at WC '94 and Copa America '95 (and got himself carded out of WC '90), or that McBride scored multiple goals across WC '98 and WC '02, even drew a red card against Italy in WC '06 and unfortuantely played a role in getting our game winning goal in that match waived off....Mathis is a could have been, if Donovan isn't moved to midfield, what could his goal scoring record be, if Altidore doesn't get hurt at WC '14 and before Copa America '16....if...if....if, but these two guys have already done it, and at levels NOBODY has done it before at striker. Case closed. They may wilt at the WC level, or they may reach new heights, we'll see, we were definitely robbed of getting Pepi opportunities for goals at WC '22 anyway, hopefully this WC is different with him actually rightly called up this time.

 

Fair enough. Don't let it stop you from posting!

Well, I don't get all the negativity. And I mean that in a very broad sense. I don't really understand how someone watches that game and doesn't have a generally positive feel for the performance.

I also don't get many of the negative specifics, which I've addressed specifically ... but I also really also don't get how anyone watches that game and is completely down on this team.

This was an unambigiously good performance even if there were some mistakes, and I am struggling at how to see in a negative light.

Agree.

Sure -- sorry that got misconstrued. We were having a meta conversation and so I pulled in other things like Tim as an example of how I think so much of the "analysis" is pre-made. That wasn't targeted at you and I apologize if you took it that way.

 

To echo several others, that was fun. I don’t mean this as a trivial thing at all. This team has been dire to watch many times, including right before the 22 WC (awful against Japan, and so boring against Saudi Arabia I stopped watching). But this? Was great to watch, even if I could have used less excitement created by our defense. And at the end of the day, one watches soccer to enjoy it (right?) so by that measure this was a very cool experience.

Lots of good things to say about the offense, and lots of reservations about the defense—which is the standard (and accurate) story about this team. That’s not going to change before the WC, unless maybe if we get Richards back, which I hope for but am not confident about.

What this game means to me is that if we replicate this form we stand a good chance to beat any of our group stage opponents, all of whom are in the range of Senegal in terms of quality (maybe below Senegal in some cases). It does not give me a lot of confidence that we can beat elite teams, because we made enough turnovers and other mistakes that a better team would have punished. And we don’t have the kind of goalkeeper we used to, who we can count on to clean up those kinds of mistakes. Germany will be a very interesting test for this reason.

Oh and the Aaronson wedding thing strikes me as totally uninteresting. I care about the game, not media-driven storylines.

 

Was just having this conversation with a friend as we watched the game last night. It really hinges on whether you allow the conversation to put Donovan and Dempsey as "forwards" but if you don't ... 2002 with McBride, Mathis, Joe-Max Moore, etc is really the only time we've had a group that could compare and is it a shock that we scored the most and went the farthest in that tournament?

Balogun, Pepi and Wright will have to prove they are better than McBride in this tournament, but it's hard for me to say this isn't the best striker group. Then again, I don't really remember Mathis all that well and I think there's some "what if" glaze put on him a bit but I am willing to defer on that.

 

Brenden: "But the World Cup was in December last time!"

I don't think missing a day of practice is a big deal. I think his wife probably has a larger complaint being left with all the planning and work and no honeymoon.

 

I saw somewhere that the wedding was scheduled two years ago, so I think that's not the case unless Brendo is marrying an elephant.

 

Again, I'm posting enough about it to make it sound like I care, but I don't, beyond recognizing how dunderheaded it was, and just foolish to schedule it during this period. If you don't think so, just imagine how much endless ---- a playoff bound NBA player would take for scheduling a wedding in May between the conference Finals, and the Final, or in October in Baseball, or in May during the Stanley Cup for an NHL player, or in late January if you play for the Eagles or Chiefs. This is obvious, and not a remotely controversial opinion or illogical. It just is.

I also don't care, and in a lot of ways, if I do care, beyond wondering how he could be so clueless, it's more about how Poch, a guy I've really grown totally sick of, either did it himself, or the climate he created allowed this potential distraction to be turned into a teambuilding, chemistry building moment for teammates, which is pretty fantastic, it ended up being a net plus, pretty cool, and a credit to everyone involved that put it together (the zoom viewing party or whatever it was), and based on Sunday, it wasn't a distraction at all in terms of performance either.

 

The Senegalese defender is in Ligue 1, I think, and not on PSG, so no one in EA is caring about a CB's speed.

But also, I've been saying this on Zendejas. He's not that fast. He's not particularly quick. When someone gets a body near him, his effectiveness drops like a rock. I'm not shocked he got caught, but I'm more disappointed he couldn't find an open man since we did have a trailer coming and open.

I don't think a lot of folks have watched him in LigaMX or watch much LigaMX. Like MLS, it's a pretty up and down league and especially so for América. Everyone plays fairly finesse and open, and while the defenses aren't shit ... he just doesn't face athletes like he will at the World Cup or even in other parts of CONCACAF.

I've seen people give him high scores for the game and I really don't know what for. He got a couple of nice turnovers and there was one backheel ... otherwise, he was very bad in the attacking third in terms of doing anything. He had a couple of terrible crosses that I recall specifically where he wasn't even pressured.

Not a great game for the dude and I think it's a bit baffling to read praise.

We did not get Senegal's A game for sure but I'm glad we seemed to bring more of ours.

 

Its kind of similar to the Donovan Dempsey debate too in that the Dempsey edge is largely built off of his club career which is orders of magnitude more impressive than Donovan's, but in terms of national team exploits, while tied on goals, Donovan is way ahead on goal contributions, and considering Donovan basically carried the program from 2002-2011, it's an easy decision for me (Donovan had significantly more weight to carry from 2002-2011 than Dempsey, whereas Dempsey could focus exclusively on soccer until Klinsy made him captain), it was Donovan who had to do the media interviews, and got blamed if we sucked, and on and on....but, if you compare club careers, than suddenly Dempsey is quickly closing the gap, and if you consider contributions across 3 WC's, even moreso....

But what they are, are blended things, and we talk talent, and ability, it is what it is, Pepi is what, 23? Balo's 25 or 26, and they already have 14 goal contributions at the CL level in just like 1300 minutes lol. It's insane. We used to praise the heavens when we saw Beasley score a CL goal like once, in an entire decade. Now we've got this. It's just different, and by A LOT.

 

Considering Ream is named captain already, I doubt you are going to see anyone replace Ream, at least not for the Paraguay game. Maybe if Ream craps the bed in that game, he gets replaced in game 2.

 

I do think they are a little bit difference conversations -- not just club and national team but the difference between the stats and how good the players are right in the moment.

I will say this on the stats/accomplishments side ... while the EPL wasn't the EPL it is now, neither Pepi nor Balogun has been successful in a Top 4 league even to the middling level that McBride was.

People like to cite UCL ... but it's not the same, and especially so because most of Pepi's goals have been against 10 men, non-elite teams or against rotated B squads. It's not like he or Balogun are leading teams to the semis or something against Real Madrid on a regular basis. And as you know, I don't really think the small sample is valid. Jordan Pefok has UCL goals. Matt Hoppe has a Bundesliga hat trick. Give me performance against steady comp over time.

So even for now, and especially for Pepi, who has never really been the starter anywhere, not effective yet in even a Top 5 league and never effective anywhere he's not been a wildly more talented team ... I actually think his USMNT resume is better.

I love Pepi, but he's still got a decent amount to prove here. You can see the skills and all around game. Love the quick shot and the finishing. His movement yesterday was great and his work was awesome. I think we still need to see how much offense he can generate overall relative to Balogun.

And Balo's a different story. He's only done it in France, but he has a 23g and a 19g season when he gets 3,000 minutes. When you watch him with the US, it's clear he creates a massive amount of space and chances for the team.

I didn't really watch the game that closely back in the McBride days, so I don't know how many of his goals we really should attribute to his ability to be where the ball was and how that compares to how much danger Balo's runs create, but I suspect it's not as much.

 

is there a source for this two years ago stuff? that sounds a little "musah was on a hajj"...

i sure dont care about off the pitch stuff, but as with almost every instance of this alleged "people are just looking for something about poch to criticize" i know exactly the source for those things, and its pochs mouth/blatant hypocrisy.

what i would assume happened if i cared enough to put any thought into it is poch wouldnt leave aaronson off the roster (even if it were planned in may), but he sure wasnt gonna run brendan right back out the day he returned to camp. is keeping him out of a pre-wc friendly that poch treated like a glorified walkthough enough to even be called a "punishment"?

who cares?

but the poch guys cry about everyone being mean to him by what? acting like hes an understanding manager when it comes to anything outside of the team? that hes consistent in anything he does?

if yall tried shutting up about it more no one would be talking about it. but any chance to manufacture a reason to defend poor poch from us haters is just too enticing to pass up.

...and obviously now ive given it a single thought, but dont celebrate your weak-ass troll yet guys- im just pissed at brendan for making me watch zendejas for a few minutes.

 

It's not fair to do this, and obviously I have an agenda, but the second I watch him, and everything I thought about him vs Luna is confirmed yet again, I'm just scratching my head wonder what in the ---- Poch and his assistants were thinking. It just made no sense, then or now, or at any time. I get what happened, clearly, for whatever reason they felt Luna's level went down after the Gold Cup, and he lost the ticket he'd grabbed hold of from January to July of last year, but the reality is, they just dropped him, for a guy whose literally never put up any level to speak of, period, in the shirt, EVER. Not once. He's got that nice club career, but for the US he hasn't even looked convincing in the group stage, where we've like, what, never lost a game, or only lost one ever, against truly horrible sides, and Luna's sitting there, having to carry the entire attack along with Tillman, another guy whose never lead the attack in the entire June/July window last summer and they both actually did it, unlike the '23 crew that included Zendejas, and because of some pique with Luna's fall off (I wonder if it was the tailspin of his play with RSL, and RSL's in general), we get this guy whose never looked the part, and didn't AGAIN.

I imagine if anyone else were doing anything this probably would have been them called up rather than Luna or Zendejas, but it's still just insane to me. If they were that unhappy, leave them both at home and take another 6. Wright can play WF in a pinch, so can some other guys, they have coverage, even if it isn't ideal. I feel bad because I'm giving him like one shot in the past 3 years to impress and since he didn't, I'm piling on, but it really is just absurd, "yeah, you were surprised Alejandro, SO WAS I," because the decision was insane! I'm happy for you, to get the totally unearned ticket and what it means to him and his family, but it's still flat out insane that the staff did this to Luna and the team, and so how many wtf call ups do we have harming depth right now around the team? Miles Robinson FOR SURE, Alejandro Zenedejas FOR SURE, we can argue about some others, like Roldan who was spotty at best yesterday, but two of these guys showed for 1000% sure, why the fans were right to be screaming WTF, when they were announced.

I think Zendejas can be better than that, btw, but much like Ferreira nearly four years ago, I look at our group stage draw, and it makes even less sense: Paraguay's packed defense, Australia probably trying to play something like a low block, defend and counter, and really only the Turkey match and knockouts would maybe fit Zendejas' game, and yet we'd be clinically insane to give him a single minute in games of that caliber, so again, why the ---- is he here? More Vibes? Pulisic's old roommate bestie? It's just absurd.

Not fair to pile on, a player isn't one botched breakaway after all, but man oh man, there was basically zero justification for this choice over Luna, or over more cover at the 6, or depth really anywhere, and so far, nothing Zendejas has done has changed my mind remotely (beyond the creation of the opportunity itself, which, I will credit to him, that was excellent). But Paraguay, a team that gave up the 2nd fewest goals in WCQ in South America are not going to do that....I doubt Australia either, nor Turkey....so I'm left being mean to the guy....and definitely a bit unfair, but when a decision is this bizarre, and the player in a moment, reminds you why, well, there you are, same with Robinson....I wonder if he would have made these mistakes coaching a full cycle or is he just blinkered with certain things because these were unforced errors in squad selection that were incredibly easy to avoid and disappointing to say the least.

 

Yeah, I mean no one should be surprised if they'd actually watched Zendejas rather than "América, blah, blah, Pulisic's roommate, blah, blah, MLS sucks..."

I would have taken Luna, clearly, BUT I will say this:

1. Poch's commentary about Zendejas being the only true wide player isn't right, IMO, but if we take that for Poch wanting more players to provide width, I get it a little bit. Luna comes inside religiously -- he and Christian worship at the same church -- so if you think you have enough of those guys, that's a point for Zendejas.
2. He was poor yesterday around the box, but I do expect him to be better in future games at passing / crosses when not pressured. What was surprising about yesterday is that he was just off in general. Getting caught and stuffed was not surprising.
3. Theoretically, his distance ball striking and crossing aren't bad tools against a bunker. Dribbling into one isn't a great strategy so his lack of ability there against good defense is somewhat moot; almost no one can.

 

I just don't agree about this, pretty much at all, those were HUGE games for PSV, and CL games to boot, and he has piled in goals, it wasn't Pefok pouncing on a defensive error once, and getting a knock in once, it's a half dozen goals for Pepi in less than 500 minutes, for Balo, he did it against freaking PSG in a game PSG absolutely needed a result in, there's nothing close to that in club history for our strikers. Now McBride and Dempsey for Fulham, there are huge moments, relegation battle goals etc....but its not against this level of comp in these kind of stakes too....

So agree to disagree (I do think Dempsey had a do or die relegation battle goal against I think Liverpool, but he wasn't a striker and that's what we're comparing).....

 

Good points, especially 1, but here's the thing, if we need him for literally anything at this WC that is an ENORMOUS problem. I would not put him in my top 10-12 of WF options in the 2021-2026 era. I have '18-22 Arriola like 5 spots ahead of him lol. He should not see a minute in the WC and if he does, it's basically a huge problem to me.

As for 3...the problem I have is Zendejas from what I can tell lacks pace AND strength, we have piles of wingers who have one or both, and could work through a Paraguay or Australia level defense (see Luna's play against Canada for Australia, see his goal and great run and finish against Uruguay in that beat down as another example, see him being one of the few players with not a horrible rating against Turkey last summer as a sub etc)....Zendejas seems 10x more likely to struggle against that to me, as Luna would, we already have a guy that can get little brothered off the ball in Aaronson, we don't need two, and at least Aaronson knows how to turn it into whistles with the right refs (still waiting on assignments with baited breath and lots of fear)...I just don't see Zendejas doing anything against it, Luna's physical, Weah's physical, Aaronson can draw fouls, and can generate turnovers w/his pressing if we lose the ball, I just don't see Zendejas doing anything against those teams, and again in knockout matches, or against Turkey he's literally the last guy I think should see the field other than maybe Ream or Robinson.

 

quoted for truth. some people do like citing our guys playing at the highest levels of the club game, especially those significantly contributing to their teams. i mean, we arent talking romain gall levels of participation here...but starting for, or putting up stats on teams that make decent runs are meaningless unless they win the trophy, amirite?

other people, though, like to cite like two performances in made-up, cash-grab offseason tournament losses- glomming onto the very euro fairy dust they claim to disdain in order to support arguments for b-team role players.

people are funny, huh?

 

I guess I am confused on the point? The first goal was scored in the 7th minute, which falls within that first 20 min time frame I mentioned where I thought Gio was doing well, and I was complimentary. Then I think he faded a bit. But he was not bad at all.

 

Look, it's great those were big goals against good competition, but I don't think it says anything about their level on a sample size basis.

And what I mean by that is: I think a lot of guys can score once against PSG in a big game. Or a lot of guys can put in the one or two goals that Pepi put in in UCL that doesn't come with massive caveats.

(I mean, seriously, with Pepi, it's like 3 goals up a man or more, once against Liverpool's U18s, etc. I think one of the few goals without a massive edge was the Sevilla one, but I can't remember).

It's not that I don't think these have value. But I'm don't think there's this clear line that says "players of X ability can't do this so this player must be at least this good." This logic has been used over and over, and all that happens every time it is proven wrong is that the line moves ... but it's not the line that moves, it's the logic.

I guarantee you that I can find guys who score against really good teams in games that matter but overall aren't that good.

Proving you are really good means doing it over and over. I love Pepi's skillset so let's get him to a better league so we can see how good he is over 38 games.

 

What Zendejas should be able to do is finish a quality chance better than most of our other winger options. Dude can shoot if he can get the ball in space.

I don't know if carrying Zendejas in case the ball drops to him is worth losing other things; clearly, I preferred Luna, but that's what Ale can do.

 

"a top African team" consider getting bifocals.