MAJOR GARRETT:
00:00:06
Welcome back to The Takeout. Lots of cheers. That's what happens when we score a goal. Across the country, celebrations, watch parties, all about the US men's soccer team. It won the first World Cup knockout match-- now, there's an asterisk because the knockouts have been expanded in this tournament, but they did that for the first time in more than two decades. Beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-0. Next up, Belgium, round of 16. That's Monday night in Seattle. World Cup and Major League Soccer match analyst Brian Dunseth joins me now. Former professional player and was captain of the US Men's soccer team at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Brian, it's great to have you here. Let's just talk about the red card. OK? Let's just talk about it because it aggravates everyone, and it will have a very big effect on Monday's match. Yeah, listen, when you watch the still pictures and you take a look at the way that the ankle kind of buckled underneath, Flo Balogun stepped down, it's not a good look. When you super slow mo it and you see it in these freeze frames-- right there, perfect example-- it's not a great look. But law 12 specifically talks about endangering the safety of the opponent and excessive force, and the bar and the level of intervention in Major League Soccer-- or, excuse me, in the World Cup has been so, so high so far in this tournament, and rightly so. Everyone is using reference points of what we saw with Lionel Messi and Argentina against Algeria in their opener and saying, hold on a second. If that's nothing, then why is this so significant and so detrimental? I can understand the idea of protecting players, and the ankle looks terrible with the way it's coming together. And you have to take the word intent out of the conversation, but I would like to maybe infuse the word instinct because instinctually, it's two players just jawing for each other's positioning and trying to clear space and trying to win the ball. I'm a former defender. I'm a former center back. In moments like that, I would be trying to separate Flo Balogun off my left shoulder and kind of manipulate the ball to my right-hand side. I'm just not sure where Flo Balogun's foot is supposed to go in that moment. Now, the intervention and then the use of kind of these slow-mo replays isn't necessarily what we like to see and now has created not just that final 25 minutes where Malik Tillman gets the second goal and that amazing free kick, and you see that sense of urgency and camaraderie defensively for the team to walk away with a 2-0 win. But now Mauricio Pochettino and his team, much like they had to do with Christian Pulisic's injury heading into Australia in that second match of the group stage, they have to find some significant solutions because Flo Balogun is unlike any other player in his position with his intelligence, his movement, his player profile, and, most importantly, his ability to score goals. And very quickly, Brian, talk about the camaraderie thing you just mentioned under this head coach and this team because there were a great number of questions about that very thing before this tournament began. Yeah, you go back to last summer, and you really got to think about Mauricio Pochettino played for the Argentina national team. He went to the World Cup in 2002. So when that crest sits on the shirt, it doesn't matter who it represents. For each individual player, there is a commitment and an expectation that the moment that you put that jersey on that you are not only representing yourself. You're representing your family. You're representing your nation. So last year by subtraction-- almost ended up by multiplication. And by that I mean when guys were either not available or guys got hurt, specific to Christian Pulisic against Australia in the fall, all of a sudden it's that next-man-up mentality, and guys like Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, and Chris Richards really started to shine. And I think that's a specific reason why in that second half against Paraguay in the opener when Christian couldn't continue because of that calf injury, all of a sudden, the pieces of the chess started to move around, and they believed that, irregardless of a player being available or not, that it was more about the collective as opposed to the individual. So that's what they saw, and that's now the challenge for the group playing against an elite, elite Belgium side that can really cut you apart in a split second if you're not paying attention.
