USMNT set to face Bolivia, Unselfish Ronaldo, Edson Álvarez injured in opener

This episode provides an in-depth analysis of recent soccer matches, focusing on the US Men's National Team's upcoming game against Bolivia, Ronaldo's uncharacteristic unselfish play, and the injury of Edson Álvarez during a Copa America match.

1. USMNT is favored to win comfortably against Bolivia, reflecting on both team's forms and past performances.
2. Cristiano Ronaldo displayed uncharacteristic unselfishness, which could influence his team dynamics positively.
3. Edson Álvarez's injury could significantly impact Mexico's defensive capabilities and overall strategy in the Copa America.
4. The episode provides detailed analyses of various international games, highlighting key players and moments.
5. Discussions also extend to off-field events, including player transfers and strategic decisions by national teams.

1: Introduction

Alexi Lawless introduces the episode's theme, focusing on USMNT's upcoming match and key player performances in recent games.

2: USMNT Preview

The hosts discuss the US Men's National Team's strategies and expectations for the upcoming match against Bolivia.

3: Ronaldo's Unselfish Play

Analysis of Cristiano Ronaldo's unexpected assist, discussing its rarity and potential effects on team morale and his personal image.

4: Edson Álvarez's Injury

Detailed discussion on the impact of Edson Álvarez's injury on the Mexican team, considering how it alters team tactics and morale.

5: Match Analyses

In-depth reviews of recent Euro and Copa America matches, emphasizing individual performances and critical game moments.

1. For aspiring soccer players, observing Ronaldo's play can provide insights into the importance of teamwork and situational awareness on the field.
2. Fans and analysts should look beyond scores, understanding player contributions that might not be immediately obvious.
3. Injuries can change a team’s dynamics significantly; thus, flexibility in strategy is crucial.
4. Viewing each game critically can help fans and players alike appreciate the tactical aspects of soccer.
5. Engaging with soccer content like this podcast can enhance understanding and appreciation of the sport’s nuances.

Alexi Lalas and David Mosse first recapped today’s Euro 2024 matches, with Cristiano Ronaldo’s assist advancing Portugal to the round of 16. Belgium’s 2-0 win over Romania levels the points in group E. On the Copa América side, Mexico salvages a win against Jamaica after captain Edson Alvarez gets carried off the field. The USMNT is set to take on Bolivia tomorrow for their opening match. With great expectations for the squad and a lot at stake for Gregg Berhalter, all eyes will be on this team as they step on the field. (4:50)
To wrap the show, the guys breakdown Berhalter’s press conference comments ahead of Copa América. (25:30)

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Cristiano Ronaldo, Edson Álvarez

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Alexi Lawless
Hello sunshine. I'm Alexi Lawless and welcome 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. Today's show is brought to you by Zillow agents. Tours loans homes get home with Zillow. We are coming to you live Saturday.

That's right, Saturday night. Saturday night is all right for fighting. June 22, following our 9th day of the 2020 €4 and our third day of the 2024, Copa America. As we make our way through this amazing summer of soccer, reminder, we'll be coming to you live after each and every day of euros action and Copa America action right here, giving you a wrap up and a preview of what's to come. But first, joining me as always, my friend, my colleague, my guiding light, David Mossey, a soccer savant and a Fox soccer researcher and writer extraordinaire.

Mossy, how are you on this Saturday night, June 22, in the year 2024? I'm doing well. I'm mourning the end of Fubo. Today was the last game of the summer on Fubo. We had a little moment of silence and as I mentioned yesterday, I came to the determination with an executive decision that there will be no more games on Fubo.

Everything from here on out, when it comes to euros and Copa, will be on our Fox networks. So we are excited about that. You're welcome. Ok. I took it.

You know, I listened to people. I listened to what they said about the Fubo situation. I said, you know what? That's it. No more everything on Fox.

So we're excited about that going forward. Anything interesting happened in the last 24 hours in your life? I know we're not reading or seeing a whole lot, but anything interesting that you want to bring up? Not really. Really?

David Mossey
Yeah. Nothing. How did it go today? From a production perspective? It went very well.

I thought at least the euros part of the day. Oh, really? Cope? America was interested. Well, you know, there is this juxtaposition between these two tournaments that is inevitable, that's going on right now.

Alexi Lawless
And I think we've come to the conclusion that they are separate but equal in that they can both be entertaining but in different ways, you know, from the production perspective. Look, no matter what, between the two productions that we have, and I'm going back and forth between the two of them, so I see both, both worlds, there are incredible people, incredible people that are working. You know, we have our good moments and our bad moments. Many more good moments. You know, we have glitches here and there, as any production that's cranking it out every single hour, every single day for over a month is going to.

Is going to have. But for the most part, it's been pretty good. What a long day for Rob Stone. He did everything. Yeah, I think he's going to be.

David Mossey
I don't know. He's going to be just fine. I mean, he did famously lose his voice in the Qatar World cup, so you can sometimes overwork Rob Stone real quick. For those that maybe are joining us recently and weren't involved with the State of the union back then when we were broadcasting each and every day from Qatar. Rob Stone, the great Rob Stone is just so good at what he does.

Alexi Lawless
But there was a broadcast in Qatar in the middle of the Qatar craziness, where I saw a human being start the show out as just the pinnacle of success. Everything looked great, and within a probably a 45 minutes period, he completely deteriorated into something subhuman. It was amazing to witness on live television. I remember telling him that night, by the end of the show, he sounded like former Celtics announcer Johnny most. That's a bit of a deep cut reference you might not get, but hopefully some people.

I definitely don't get it, but can. I can imagine what it is. But, yeah, we were. People were flying in from all corners with cough drops and honey and tea and every possible concoction, and his eyes started to water and he was sweating and his voice went, and we literally had to pull him off of air before the show was done. It was insane.

Jenny Taft, I think, took over for him for the rest of the show, but that's how quickly it hit him. But he came back stronger than ever. I love Rob Stones, and he's going to be just fine, even with the long day. All right, should we get into what happened today? Mossy?

David Mossey
Let's do it. All right, first off, by the way, for those out there on YouTube, thank you so much for getting us over that 20,000 marker. We're going to go on to the 30,000, I think. And however you're taking this show in, whether you're listening, whether you're watching, whether it's live, whether it's later on. Thank you very much for doing all the different things that you do over there.

Alexi Lawless
All right, let's go for some scores. Today we had. Okay, let's go. Euro first. Georgia and Czechia, one one.

Turkey and Portugal. Turkey, a, zero. Portugal three. Belgium, two. Romania, zero.

And then in Copa America. Ecuador, one. Venezuela, two. Mexico, one. Jamaica, zero.

The first game was a fubo game, so if anybody watched it, good on you. Georgia and Czechia, one one. Thoughts on this game? Mossy, do you have any? Patrick Sheik was the joint top scorer of the last euros.

David Mossey
He's battled a lot of injuries since then. He did have a pretty good second half of the season with Levy. And here he is scoring a goal in this tournament. So nice to see that the Georgia goal was scored by Mikhail Tadze. That's two for him.

So he's now tied with Musiala and Ivan Schranz of Slovakia in the golden boot race. Yes, Patrick Holy sheik was, you know, took it off his nipple today and put it in. I think that was the big thing to come out. But both of these teams are still alive. That is an important thing.

Alexi Lawless
Correct me if I'm wrong. Still, after today, there's only one eliminated team, and that would be Poland. Correct. Okay. That's a good thing for a tournament as we get into these second games and going into the.

The third games starting tomorrow. Okay, so that was the first game. We'll get by that. All right, now, Turkey and Portugal. Turkey A, zero.

Portugal three. Turkey. Losing to Portugal isn't necessarily a surprise. The way in which it happened was. And an own goal for the ages.

I think that is one of the big stories coming out in terms of the fact that own goal right now is kicking ass when it comes to the goal scorer lists out there. Before we get to Cristiano, I'm not bearing the lead here, but anything on the own goal. One of the worst I've ever seen. All right, we'll leave it at that. Big story is Portugal wins.

Although Cristiano Ronaldo does not score. The big story coming out of this game is going to be, you know, dare. Dare I say it, a. A unselfish Cristiano Ronaldo. And I know we made fun of it on air, and we can make fun of it here, but strikers in general are selfish.

That's a good thing. You want them to be greedy, and none more greedy and selfish than Cristiano Ronaldo. We were watching it together in the green room when the third goal came. And for those that didn't see it, the third goal was basically Cristiano Ronaldo on a breakaway. But it was two Portugal players in that moment who had the opportunity.

Cristiano Ronaldo wouldn't. I think in most instances, nobody would have batted an eye had he gone on his own shot, maybe scored, or maybe it had been saved, but in this case, he was benevolent, he was charitable, he was unselfish. And yet my good friend Mossy, in that moment, turned to me in the green room and said, yeah, but it's the logical pass. And he wanted to give him no credit for doing what I don't think a lot of people expected him to do. Please explain yourself.

David Mossey
Well, you're framing it as if I'm giving him no credit. I would argue I'm giving him more credit. We shouldn't make that big a deal about him making the correct play. He's done it many times before. As Rob Stone pointed out, today was his 47th international assist.

So I think this notion that. This notion that Cristiano Ronaldo always goes for goal and never gives the ball to a teammate that's in a better position than him, I disagree with that premise. The notion that Cristiano Ronaldo, on a breakaway, in a tournament that he has yet to score on, defers to somebody else and passes it off to Bruno Fernandez. That's the notion that we are pushing back against. Well, and we should note, folks, after Portugal scored their first goal by Bernardo Silva, Alexei and Joel Santos were trying really hard to concoct this narrative that Ronaldo was this great decoy on the play.

And that shows his importance, the way he dragged defenders away from Bernardo Silva when all he really did is trip over himself and fall in the middle of the box. So, you guys were so jonesy to push this Ronaldo theme. And I should say, by the way, I thought he played well today. And I thought he played well against Czechia. He's off to a pretty good start in this tournament, despite the fact.

Alexi Lawless
Just because you hate Cristiano Ronaldo. All right, don't take it out on me. Just because I stand for Cristiano Ronaldo and have for years and years, especially when it comes to the debate between Messi and Ronaldo, don't take it out on me. All right. On a serious note, you know how high I am on this Portugal team.

David Mossey
And I do think it's significant that they've won both games and scored five goals. Without Cristiano Ronaldo finding the back of the net, I think it does speak to their depth, how much quality they have. So I think they are a major threat to go far in this game. Before we get away from this game, do you think that we are putting too much weight on that particular moment because we kind of expanded it to kind of look into the psyche and the dynamic of the locker room? And that in that moment, because he was being charitable, because he's being benevolent, he.

Alexi Lawless
If he hadn't won people over to his side, because he can be big, he can suck the oxygen out of a room, I think he would be the first person to admit that. And the dynamic right now between Roberto Martinez and the rest of this team is something they certainly have. Have to be careful of. And in that moment, he was, like I said, so charitable that it almost endears him certainly from the outside, and maybe it endears him more on the inside, or am I pushing it? I suppose.

David Mossey
I think you're exaggerating a little bit, but there is something to that. All right, well, anyway, Portugal won. Portugal goes through. Not only they go through, they win their group. So they are.

Alexi Lawless
They can. In the third game, they can do whatever they want, right? Correct. And, you know, you mentioned my name on the air, the comment I made in the green room, which was nice, because I'm no longer getting mentions over the state of the union pod promos. Have you noticed that neither Rob Stone or Jules breach?

David Mossey
It's just. I will buy that, because that is. That is just wrong. Okay. I mean, don't you have in front of you all of the buttons and all of the keys to basically bring us down if you wanted to?

Alexi Lawless
Couldn't you just do something inside the control room? In theory, I could put my name in the script, but I think that would be shameless. I leave it up to Rob Stone. You do? All right, well, I'm going to come into the control room tomorrow.

I'm going to demand that your name is in the. In the script when they're reading and giving the promo for the. For the podcast. All right, moving on. Belgium, two.

Romania, zero. Is there a more unlucky man than Lukaku? Yeah, I mean, I brought this up the night before, so it was very timely. These millimetric offsides and how much it bothers people. And we had another one in this game.

David Mossey
What a ball by De Bruyne, by the way. And then Lukaku with a great finish, but it gets chalked off. And again, I saw a lot of people on ex upset about it, but we all know your stance. You can't be a little pregnant. He technically was offsides when they reviewed it, but I think the bad form was debate.

Alexi Lawless
The call was made. It was the right call to make. And, you know, he's just got to score a goal that actually is within the laws of the game. And that's. And that's okay.

Ultimately, they won. I think that, you know, when you're dealing with a player like this, you got to go to him and say, first off, he set up the first goal and he is still such a problem. Everybody has to worry about him. He will score goals and he may score big goals and ultimately the amount of goals you score, I know people keep track of it, but the reality is, are you scoring the big goals and they're going to go on and he has the opportunity to score big goals. That's the most important thing.

I will say, though, that the second goal, the De Bruyne goal, I mean, route one right down the middle on a day where myself and Marisa do and Giorgio Colini had a little breakout session on air where we talked about this phenomenon in certain ways. This cancer of playing out of the back. This was straight down the gut. This was the new romantics because playing out of the back, evidently for Belgium, is dead. And long live the long ball.

And it was glorious to see Kevin de Bruyne gets on the end of it and just basically runs straight down the field and puts in the goal. They went to nothing. Yeah. And it was redemption for Doku today because it was his bad giveaway deep in his own half that led to the Slovakia goal and the Belgium defeat. Doku was phenomenal today, involved in the first goal.

David Mossey
That was a great play. Doku to Lukaku to layoff the Tielemans and then. Yeah, to your point, the second goal, the goalkeeper, Castiles gets the assist with the ball over the top to De Bruyne. So good performance by Belgium. Good result.

They're back on track. Doku especially that first half was. They did not know what to do. He was tearing them a new one every single time he touched the ball. It was an amazing thing to see.

Alexi Lawless
All right, so those are the euro games that happened today. Then we did the turnover and the production team and everybody. Did you go home or did you hang out for the. I've been here the whole time. You have?

Okay, good. Well, you know, we want to make sure that nothing happens, right. So we, we got to keep you around. All right. We get into the Copa America.

Ecuador, one. Venezuela, two. Congratulations to the vinotinto. Now the enervation red card. Okay, for those that watched, this was insane in that it was unnecessary.

And yet there were some people that said maybe it should have been a yellow card. You have to be in control and you are responsible for your extremities and you cannot put your foot through somebody's or at least attempt to put your foot through somebody's sternum and expect to stay on the field, which is what he did. So it was rush of blood of the head, whatever you want to talk about, whatever you want to say. But ultimately he put his team in the crapper there. So they go down to ten men and yet they fight back and they score a goal at that point.

Mossy, what do you think is going to happen? I thought even down a man, they might be able to get a result. This Venezuela team is for real now. Again, it's against ten men, Ecuador and a lot of people talking about this as the best Ecuador team in some time. I do think that they are a very good team, but ultimately they let the vino tinto back into the game.

Substitutions are huge players coming off the bench, making a difference. And Venezuela fights back for two goals to win. Two to one. Yeah. Cadiz and Bayo get their goals after Sarmiento had scored for Ecuador.

David Mossey
Ecuador or my dark horse for the Copa America and Turkey are my dark horse for the euro. So it was a bad day for Mossy, dark horses, but obviously the Valencia red card shaped the whole match, so, yeah, disappointing result for them. Good result for Venezuela, by the way. How about Fran Arthur texting us excitedly about the Venezuela result? Does she think we don't remember her telling us that she would root for Argentina over Venezuela if they played?

Alexi Lawless
We remember everything. So she's very excited. And I don't know how you say bandwagon in Spanish, but. Or if there's a dialect when it comes to Venezuela for the Vino Tinto, but that's exactly what she is right now. Because if this had been against Argentina or if this had featured Messi in any way, either directly or on the periphery, we know what would have happened in that type of situation.

But congratulations to all our venezuelan friends. A huge, huge victory. They get three points off the bat. Ecuador now is, you know, obviously they lost the game, but they also lost Anna Valencia up top. So they're going to have to make some changes going, going forward.

It was still an element of the, of the bar fight type of scenario that keeps going on when it comes to this, to this game. Okay, so we go to Mexico, Jamaica. Ultimately, Mexico gets to win one. Nothing over Jamaica. Much better second half than first half.

But really, I don't think that this score nor this performance is changing anybody's mind about the problems when it comes to this Mexico team. At times, they seemed rudderless. They were rudderless. They had no idea in terms of what they actually wanted to do. No organization, very few players.

No, I'm not going to say very few players. Nobody really wants to take anybody on one on one in the way that they have done in the past. And I'm not sure if they even have the ability to take players one on one. They have no real threat up top. And so a real toothless type of Mexico found a way to ultimately get a result.

But again, if this is what Mexico is in, cope America 2024. They're not long for the tournament, so they got to find some answers real quick. A great goal by Arteaga, it must be said. But, yeah, I agree with you. Overall, very average performance and a costly win because they lose.

David Mossey
Edson Alvarez, who is one of their few really good players, with could what could potentially be a serious injury. We'll see. But, yeah, Mexico get the three points. But I agree with you, not overly impressive. We also had a goal disallowed for offsides in this game, but it was no debate here.

Antonio was clearly offside, so correct decision there. Yeah, I mean, hats off to Jamaica. I thought they actually played very well for most of the game, and they didn't just completely bunker in this game. But ultimately, Mexico gets the three points and jumps to the top of the group. All right, should we give a little quick preview of what's coming tomorrow?

Yes. So, with the euros, we have the conclusion of Group A. The two matches kick off simultaneously. Switzerland, Germany is in Frankfurt. Scotland, Hungary is in Stuttgart.

The scenarios are Germany already through. They only need a point to secure first place in the group. Switzerland only need a point to advance. And then Scotland and Hungary both need a win and help. They must win to have any shot at advancing.

Alexi Lawless
And again, Switzerland, Germany is on Fox. Bart Simpson, Fox and Scotland. And Hungary is on fs one. For those of you that are. That are watching, that'll be fun.

And simultaneous play is fun. Some of these things are going to be kind of cagey in terms of what teams need and what goes on. Because of the four third place finishers advancing, a group can conclude play, and we might not know exactly who advanced and who didn't from that group, because the third place finisher might still be twisting in the wind and waiting on results from other groups. Okay, listen, we are on the eve of the first game when it comes to the United States in Copa America, us versus Bolivia. Real quick in terms of things that we are thinking.

No idea what Greg Berhalter is going to do with the starting eleven. I've put my starting eleven out there with the knowledge that there's not a chance in hell. I think that Greg Berhalter is going to do what I want to do or what others want to do. He's going to do what Greg Berhalter wants to do, as he should. And I think it's going to be predictable.

I think it's going to be conservative. I think it's going to reflect previous lineups that we have seen. Obviously, the questions will be, who's up top? Is it the incumbent, Baligan? Is it somebody else that goes there?

The right back situation says he can continue on with scaly Tyler Adams, who we saw our own Jenny Taft interview, and he didn't want to give too much away. So it'll be a surprise if we actually see him on the field, either in a starting capacity or even on the field at any time tomorrow. But we'll see if that happens and then I think the rest of it kind of picks itself. The key for this United States men's national team when it comes to what's going on tomorrow, I think, is that they're a better team. This is the lowest ranked team in Copa America in Bolivia.

This is a team that excels at altitude. And when they don't have that in their arsenal, they struggle. And unless Marco Echevere is going to come out of the woodwork or anybody else out there, this is not a team that the US should lose to. So I predict a win. I predict a comfortable win.

I predict a multiple goal win. I agree. Bolivia's only World cup appearance came in the United States in 1994. They actually reached the final of the 1997 Copa America on home. So they lost to Brazil, a game I remember well.

David Mossey
Ronaldo scored a great winner in the final, but they have one win in 30 Copa America matches since then. So this is an absolute layup for the US. We've hyped up this summer as if the US is going to get all these big tests, and those will come later with Uruguay. And presumably they advance from Group C, whoever they face in the knockout stages. But it won't come in this first game.

This is a game the US should win easily. Remember everybody going crazy about the Taiwechi Academy and Jaime Moreno and Marco Echeveria and stuff? And Bolivia did win Copa America on home soil back in 1963. Actually, the game we had tonight, Ecuador, Venezuela, those are the only two nations that have not won a Copa America. All right.

Alexi Lawless
Okay. And then the game after 09:00 p.m. on Fox. Is Uruguay in Panama? Any predictions on that one?

David Mossey
Uruguay is my pick to win the whole tournament, so they better beat Panama or I'm going to look like a complete idiot. But yeah, excited to watch him. I'm a Marcelo Bielsa Gruppi. I think he's got a lot of talent to work with there. I'm curious to see what Suarez's role is going to be on this team.

Nunez is obviously the center forward now. Great midfield, Valverde, you've got Ada Ujo at the back, so tons of talent. But, yeah, Suarez is. It's a little bit of a Ronaldo situation, except in this case, they've actually gone to somebody else and the big star has to accept sort of a super sub role. And we'll see how Suarez copes with that.

Alexi Lawless
Now, you came to us today because, look, we know we are knee deep in both of these tournaments, but there's a whole lot of other soccer news that is going on, either on or off the field, that has something to do or is tangential or anything like that. But you wanted to at least get this into the show because, you know, we're here to make sure that we're talking about the things that are going on. So you wanted to mention Weston McKinney's situation with Juventus right now. So have it at my friend speaker zero. Yeah.

David Mossey
First off, our world's collided a little bit because McKinney got kind of intertwined with a brazilian player, Douglas Luiz, who plays for Aston Villa. Juventus wanted to acquire him, but they didn't want to pay the money that Aston Villa were asking for. So they tried to arrange a deal where they would pay some money and also some players would go the other way. And Weston was supposed to be one of those players who would go to Aston Villa as part of that deal with Douglas Luis going to Juventus. But Weston refused.

He apparently has some financial dispute with Juventus, and until that gets resolved, he wasn't going to accept this deal. And just in general, I don't think he likes the way he's been treated by Juventus, and I don't completely blame him. Reading some of the things that I've read in the last few days, it doesn't seem like they've been completely fair to him. McKinney refused to be part of this Douglas Luis deal to Aston Villa. The deal is going to go ahead.

They simply swapped out a different player from McKinney and Fabrizio Romano gave it to here we go go treatment today. So it looks like that's going to go through. But so you wonder if McKinney has any ability to stay at Juventus anymore if that relationship is broken. And then what would be his next step? Everybody assumes it would be a move within Europe, but FC Cincinnati have made a cheeky bid and of course, that has a lot of us fans up in arms.

The mere possibility that somebody like a Wesson McKinney in his prime would go back to MLS, people find that absurd. But, you know, I do wonder, are any of these players in this sort of McKinney Adams Pulisic group? Might they make that move earlier than we would think? They all went to Europe at a young age. They've been there for a long time.

And at some point will they decide that they do want to go back and play in their home country? And at what point does MLs have enough credibility where a move like that wouldn't be seen as a major step back in your career? I don't know. So this whole McKinney Cincinnati rumor, nothing might come of it, but at the very least, it's triggering all these larger questions that people want to talk about. Mossy, while you and I, we don't care about money, you know, we're in it for the romance and the beauty right?

Alexi Lawless
There are those out there that do. When I think back to Josie Altidore, Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, when they made moves back, and in those cases they were older. But the situation is the same in that for a western, McKinney, okay, if he can command, whatever, $5 million a year, I'm just throwing out numbers there, okay, continuing on and playing in Europe somewhere, but MLS is going to overpay to bring back an american, an american star and an american star two years before the World cup, all right? And they're going to pay him, whatever, $10 million, $15 million, where he's never ever going to get that anywhere else in the world. You bet your ass that that is going to turn his head.

And I don't blame him or anybody else in that moment for taking the money. So if that happens, it's going to be because he couldn't find a better deal. Or maybe to your point, there isn't you know, a human element of coming back to the country that he loves and getting paid a boatload of money in order to do that a couple of years before. But all hell is going to break loose, especially out there in the soccer community, if and when that something like that would happen. We'll keep our eye on it.

But the Western McKinney situation off the field is certainly a story that it's developing going forward. We don't ultimately know where it's going to go. All I care about is starting tomorrow, that Weston McKinney is the best frickin Weston McKinney that we have, and he does the job on the field for the us men's national team. All right, it's time for my one for the road, and we're going to finish this off. I'm sorry, did you have something else before?

David Mossey
No, that was perfectly well set up. Well, I don't know. You made the video perfect over there. For my one for the road. Did you see the Greg Berhalter interview today?

I did. Okay. Well, Greg Berhalter said that he, quote, hopes that the US get out of the knockout round and has a good performance. And I know that that rubbed some feathers and that ruffles some feathers and rub some people the wrong way. Excuse me, including our own Carly Lloyd.

Alexi Lawless
She did not like to hear that. And she made it very, very clear that this us team shouldn't be hoping, especially when it comes to getting out of the group. Now, this is just a soundbite. And just like in politics, sound bites live. And sometimes they can distort, I guess, cheap fakes or whatever you want to call them here.

I want to be fair to Greg Berhalter in that most coaches say we're going to play every game at a time and then when we hope to get out. But there should be no mistaking the absolute clear fact when it comes to this team getting out of this group in Copa America that features, like we said, Bolivia, Panama and Uruguay, in that order. In terms of your group, that's not an accomplishment. That should not be something that the us team is hoping to do. That should be something that Greg Berhalter and company are expecting to do.

And I believe that they will. And I think that they will do it, dare I say it, with ease, the expectations. And we're going to talk a lot about this in the next 24 hours. And let's be honest for the next couple of years about what are fair expectations for this team under Greg Berhalter. I think everybody has to figure it out for themselves.

But it's not about getting out of the group. It's about doing things that we haven't seen done before. And the sooner that Greg Berhalter realizes that, and I think he does, but if he hasn't yet, he better realize it and he better realize it quick because I love the fact that people are losing patience. Okay? In a good way, in that it's time to put up or shut up for this generation of players, this group of players and Greg Burhalter and a lot of chips are being thrown into the Copa America and how this team does in the Copa America.

And that's a good thing. And I know it's subjective as to what is success and what isn't success, but again, I think you'll know it. But if you're going into this tournament with hopes of doing something, then you've already lost. All right? There should be expectations internally from Greg Berhalter and the team, and certainly externally in terms of how we view this.

And I expect this team to get out of this group. On our pregame show tomorrow, we have a very good Tom Rinaldi feature on Greg Berhalter. Everybody should check it out. A lot of quotes from Berhalter in it. Talk reflecting on the last couple of years, everything that happened at the World cup, the geo Reina situation, how he's grown as a person since then, his relationship with his players.

David Mossey
We get different players talking about Berthalter in it. So it's a good one. Well, to be fair, let's, let's play the clip so at least we hear it and know what Greg Berhalter said, because I think we'll probably use it tomorrow. And it's not, you know, crazy, but play the clip there. It's about the team, you know, it's about us believing in ourselves and going out and having a really good tournament.

Greg Berhalter
We know that if we take it game by game, I think that's the best route for success. And then we hope to get to the knockout round and really take everything we've learned over the course of these five years and put in a very good performance. All right, I expect to get to the knockout round, and I expect Greg and this team to make sure that they get to the knockout round. And Greg Berhalter is never going to get into a press conference and have you leaving it saying, I am going to run through the wall. That's just not who he is.

Alexi Lawless
I know. It's what we may want him to be, but his motivational approach is always going to be very different and to a certain extent, subdued. Again, might not be what we want, but it's what we have right now. So take it for what it's worth. Ultimately, it's about the results.

Anything before we go, my friend? No, we've had a long day. Should we let everybody get out of here? We'll let them. We'll let them get out of here.

I'm going to go get a drink with my good friend Rob Stone, and then I'll be up early. I got some promotion on Fox News, and then we'll be at it. And game day, baby. American game day tomorrow. I cannot wait.

All right, keep downloading, keep reviewing, keep subscribing, keep doing all the different things, whether you're listening live or listening later, whether you're watching live or whether you're watching later. Thanks again to everybody that joined us here, all 123-4345 we're still stuck on about five right now, so we'll see if we can increase our numbers like we have done on YouTube with our in studio audience here. We'll talk to you again tomorrow. American game day tomorrow. Join us until then, and as always, America and size, the day.