The welcome in. It's time for another edition of the Morning Espresso on the SDH Network, presented as always by our friends at Oglethorpe University, Atlanta's premier undergraduate learning experience and soccer powerhouse. I'm Jason Longshore. All the soccer news you need to know from Monday, March twenty fourth, and typically on Mondays, We're going to start with Atlanta United, but in light of the Concacaffe Nations League, we're going to start with the US men's national team and their
loss in the third place game to Canada. Started really well. Didn't get enough out of the good start, the response to Canada standing up and taking the game away from the US. It wasn't great. Matt Turner's distribution wasn't great. Patrick Gogimond, he got a goal to be the best of the number nine options lately. Diego Luna, in my opinion, needs to be on the field as much as possible, and what he brings on the field is really good.
He has the assist in this one, but I think the attitude, then the spark that he brings on and off the ball is so needed with this group. Canada was really good, even maybe especially after they lost Alfonso Davies to injury. Alistair Johnston was outstanding, put Fosse in his pocket in the second half trying to get forward. Jonathan David was that clinical number nine when needed. Canada was relentless. They never backed down, they never lost their confidence.
They played with a chip on their shoulder, and I think it highlighted something that frustrates me about where this US men's national team is and something that kind of highlights the challenge of this group right now. They're in this weird spot where they're good enough to make teams like Panama sit back, defend deep, dare you to try to find a way through a five to four to one.
They're good enough to do that, but they're not good enough to intimidate a team that's on the same level like Canada, and Canada was not intimidated by any stretch. So you're good enough to force teams to sit back and defend deep, which makes it hard for you, but you're not good enough to outplay teams that are on your same level. And the question going into the World Cup, because you're going to see teams that are above your level, how do you handle those games? Because the team's less
than your level, which you will see. They've shown they can sit back and defend against you and make life difficult. The teams that are at your same level have shown they're not afraid of you. I don't know if you can be the underdog darling against a team that's better right now, I don't know if this team has that personality. Five shots in a game like this is just flat out not good enough. Two on target. Canada doubled you up in shots on target and almost doubled you up
in shots in total. What's the big picture for this usmn's national team, Because, look, there's a lot of talk. There's a lot of people going into the drafts on their social media platforms of choice and pulling out things that have been written before, reheating things that have been said before. There's lots of that. Look, it's time to make your statements and get the script writers out and do your performance to get attention and get clicks. That's
what people are going to do right now. Let's get real here on the morning espresso, rather than look for clicks and yell and scream and stop my feet. What has Marito Pochattino learn from this, he's not going anywhere. These two games have to force a response, whether that's from the players, whether that's from him, whether that's a combination of both. There has to be a reaction to this.
There really wasn't a lot said afterwards, and Pochatino says all the right things about this is over a year out from the World Cup. The goal is the World Cup. We've seen this happen before with host teams, where you don't go through qualifying, you don't look great a year out, and then things turn around as you go into the World Cup. That's very true, and that happens, and it's
not new to this US team. In the situation. You want to see a reaction to this though, the first big set back for Poa Chattino, and you want to see better performances. You've got the Gold Cup in the summer, you've got friendlies between now and then, and then you've got friendlies afterwards to get ready for the World Cup, and you've got to get players in the best form possible.
The Gold Cup just became a whole lot more important, and you're not going to be at full full strength because you're going to be missing players to the Club World Cup the summer, that doesn't matter. Like for the US, winning the Gold Cup has to be the goal. And any thought about using it as an opportunity to see more of the player pool that's gone. Now you've got to go and try to win that tournament. You've got to show that in games that matter and knock out
games that you can get the job done. Look, I know a lot of people in this reaction again talking about going back into the drafts of old messages. You're gonna go back to that, and you're gonna yell about pay to play, and you're gonna yell about more kids playing, and you're gonna yell about we want our best athletes playing and all these different things that are real conversations
to have. They didn't affect this game. If you want to get into a big long spiel and try to find a way that it did, sure, whatever, have fun, I'm sure it will get attention. But what affected this game? What affected this performance in these two games? The group has too much talent to have these kind of results. It's unacceptable. It's not tactics to me, it's not coaching to me, it's not about caring enough. These guys care. It's about two things that I keep coming back to.
It's the quality of the performance when it matters it wasn't good enough, and the ability to rise above the pressure to perform. And what is a little concerning is it feels like that pressure is suffocating these players and you're not getting Sometimes when you see a team that's feeling pressure, they act kind of crazy there running around, they get stuck into tackles, they're too over the top dealing with that pressure. This team went the other way.
They turned within themselves and they looked very unbothered by it, but in a bad way. Like you want to see a team that can handle pressure, but you want to see a team that understands it's dealing with pressure. I don't think we saw that in this tournament. Look big picture with soccer in this country. Of course, we want to see more access for kids to play. Of course, we want to see better coaching to develop those kids. We want to see more professional environments. All of those
are valid. That's not why the team lost to Panama and Mexico. If you want to try to draw that map, have fun, go at it. Whatever, the team had enough talent to win against Panama and Canada. Sorry, the team had enough talent to win, they didn't. It's down to that group. Is there another group of players somewhere hidden within this country that would have been better? No, that's not true. Don't believe that anymore. That was maybe true back in the eighties, it's not true now. Are there
good players out there who are not part of the system. Yes, there are, and that needs to change, But that's not why this team lost. That is not the issue at the current moment. We want to see the pool get bigger it has. We want to see it get even bigger. We want to see more kids develop to their highest potential. That's gotten better, it can still improve. Stop calling this a golden generation as well because others have won more
and accomplished more. This is a very talented group with players playing at some of the highest levels that we've seen US players play at. That's true, but that doesn't make you a golden generation. What makes you a golden generation with a national team is what you achieve, and this group hasn't achieved enough. It hasn't been as bad as some will lead you to believe. Getting out of
the group in twenty twenty two, was an accomplishment. Getting to the knockout round was an accomplishment based off the level that this team has. That is an accomplishment. You achieved what you should have achieved. Okay, that's good, that's good. Winning nations leagues in the past, that's good. These are good things. You haven't went above that. That's the next step. And right now, this group hasn't met in this current iteration,
hasn't met The level has to change. And if that means you got to see things different in the summer, if that means you got to see different players, that's where you are right now. You can't sit back and cross your fingers and hope that performance has changed. You saw two games where there were major issues in both in terms of how the team performed under pressure. It
wasn't good enough. What's different? Number nine is it? Patrick Adjumon Right now, he's the guy who's performing, He's the guy who's putting the ball in the back of the net. I'm rolling with him at the moment. Didn't see anything from Josh Sargent to change my mind. Ricardo Peppi is hurt fulerin Balagan hasn't really done anything different either, right now it's Patrick Ajumon. He at least gives you the ability to go be a wrecking ball up top if
things aren't going well. And he's shown enough he's putting the ball on the back of the debt. So what else do you want from the number nine? Center back was a huge issue in these games. That's gotta change. You gotta figure out your center back pairing. You gotta find two guys who could play together, and you gotta find two guys who don't fold under pressure. Get your fullbacks back in Sergenio Desk and Anthony Robbinson. That's going to help things a lot. Fullback was an issue in
this tournament. I thought Max Arsten looked pretty good yesterday. Matt Turner's got to be playing regularly to be sharp. Where everybody's saying, it's true, he didn't look great. The goal that he conceded in the Panama game was an issue. His distribution in the Canada game was an issue. It's got to be better. He's got to play consistently for that to happen. Okay, let's move over to the final and we can sit here and complain and talk about
the US men's national team. All we want, but it doesn't change that they weren't good enough in these two games. All right, let's move on to the final of the Conka Caffe Nations League. Panama fought very bravely against Mexico, but couldn't get it done. They conceded first really early. They tied it before halftime from the penalty spot. Just a crazy, inexplicable mistake from Jose Cordoba to concede a penalty with a handball that I have no idea what
he was thinking. Raul Jimenez puts it away, his fortieth goal for the Mexican national team that wins the tournament. For Mexico, they looked better than they have lately in the tournament, but they didn't look great. They didn't look convincing. Panama took them to the limit in this It's a shame for Panama who's been so close so many times to getting into that elite group and they just haven't
quite been able to do it. It's also a shame that we saw the game stopped in the eighty fourth minute due to the discriminatory chanting that happens when Mexico isn't playing well. And that's how this is getting used now and that point has to be made because this is not the same conversation that it used to be about. Well, it's tradition and this is what we do. And no, no, no, no, that's not what's happening now. It's not happening on the
first goal kick of the game. It's not happening all night. It's happening when things aren't going well for Mexico or for your club. Because we've seen it in CONCA CAF games as well, we've seen it in others. It's not acceptable and it's even more not acceptable in the way that it is currently being used. It is used as a way to punish your own team, which is so incredibly stupid. First off, in this game, look, it didn't end up making a difference. Panama had a chance to
read group, they didn't quite take it. The handball ends up taking them out of this thing. But it is a reaction to poor play or being upset with your team and weaponizing the chant which people and this is what is so frustrating. That means that the all the education that has been done to say this is not acceptable, this should not happen, has worked because it doesn't happen all the time. It happens to try to punish your own team, and it's so stupid, and it's got to stop.
And you've got to see, in my opinion, a better response, because now it's become a performative thing. Now it's become a oh, we got the game stopped. He look at us, Hey, look at this. We really showed them. We're not happy, We're stupid, stupid, And I don't know. I mean, I feel bad for the Mexican players. I feel bad for the Mexican coaching staff. I feel bad for the Mexican federation. They've tried, They've done everything. Liga or Lega MX has
done this, They've tried all of these things. They've put in the work. Again it's worked. It's not happening all the time, but it can't happen ever, And it still happened again last night in the CONCACAFFE Nations League final, and it's just so so frustrating, and I don't exactly know what to do about it at this point. If you are Mexico and if you are trying to get this out of the game, players have talked, federations have talked, clubs have talked, coaches have talked. I don't know what
else can be done at this stage. It's very very very very upsetting, and I don't know, but it has changed in terms of how it's being used and that doesn't need to be recognized and makes it a little bit harder to eradicate. All Right, we normally start these things on a Monday with Atlanta United. Let's get to Atlanta and Cincinnati. It was a draw on the road. Atlanta opened the scoring after losing Tristan Welliam about an injury.
No update yet. We'll find out more this week, but Ronnie Daila say that he felt better about it after the game than he did initially, that it might not be a cruciate ligament. You mentioned meniscus as a possibility, so that's that's good news. It was a huge blow to lose Muyambah in this match because you've been playing really well. He had a good tackle on the play where he ended up getting injured, and you didn't have a lot of depth in that central midfield position because
of the international call ups. We talked about five center backs, but you were also missing two central midfielders in Barto Schlish and Jay fortune. Alexei Moranchuk had to drop deeper, came in, Togashi came on as a pseudo number ten, and it worked. Togashi helps earn a throw, takes it quickly, so the ar and the referee can't think about did the ball go off with Togashi. He takes the throw very quickly since saba In finds Latte a lot, great finish,
great cross, great goal. Kind of lost your way a little bit in the second half. Fortunate for Cincinnati, a deflection off of a free kick that beats Gazan from Evander. Then you get a second in quick succession. It's to one. Atlanta created an own goal to draw it, and moran Chuk was involved in it. He sent saba In. Saba's cross deflex off of Alvis Powell, it would have found Latte lot on the backside. To to final felt about right. Honestly,
I think Atlanta could have won. I don't know if I would say they should have won, but they could have won. And it's gonna feel like a good draw on the road, but also two points possibly kind of sort of dropped. Will Riley was outstanding. I thought he was going to get subbed at halftime because of the yellow card situation, but you didn't really have any depth
of the position is one and two. Ronnie Diler was really clear afterwards and how much he believes in will Riley and how good he was playing, which I completely agree with you. I said he was my man of the match. I thought the moment was going to be too big for him after getting that yellow and after getting the talking to, I thought he was going to have to come off. But Mateo's click couldn't go forty five and it ends up being where Riley stays on.
And wow, was he great in the second forty five playing on a yellow and dealing with Evander as well as anybody could, and it wasn't really on him on the two goals. Matt Edwards was also very good. Yes, he commits the foul that leads to the free kick, but he was very very good playing at center back. Saba was excellent. Saba looked more I think connected in this game, which was very good to see. Hopefully he can continue to kick on from here. It was a
gritty performance. There's a lot of good things about it. It wasn't easy being down the players that you were down. It was not an easy day at the office, but you found a way to get something out of it on the road against a tough place to play against, a tough team to play in, a tough place to play to two draw. Atlanta comes back home next week. We'll be out at the training ground tomorrow. We have a training ground dispatch to fill you in on all
the updates. Quick things around MLS this week. Nashville they've won three straight after two bad first weeks, but they've rebounded very well under Baj Callahan. Chicago's won three straight under Greg Burhalter. They defeated previously unbeaten or untied Vancouver. Charlotte is off to their best start with three wins at home. Austin also has three wins, even if they were really wasteful in front of goal and allowed San Diego to hang around yesterday afternoon to the point that CJ.
Dosanto's had a chance for an equalizer at the end nearly would have scored the goal of the day if the goalkeeper gets it, he doesn't and San Diego ends up. I don't think it's a situation where they should feel like they should have won this or should have gotten some out of it. Austin should have scored five. Brandon Vasquez got a goal that he was very wasteful in front of goal. Austin was good enough, but man, they almost got punished for throwing goals away. All right, a
whole bunch of other stuff. We're gonna try to get to these quickly. This is a very long morning espresso. Hopefully you are enjoying all the caffeine on a Monday morning. New Zealand they're enjoying their caffeine. This morning they won overnight three zil over New Caledonia. New Zealand are the second team to book their spot in the twenty twenty six World Cup. Japan did last week. They win the Oceania Qualifying tournament, first time a direct qualifying spot has
gone to the region Australia. They left the region for Asia because of how hard it was to get in. They kept losing in the inter Confederational playoff. New Zealand hasn't qualified since twenty ten. They drew all three group games in South Africa, but they didn't get to the knockout rounds. New Caledonia still has an opportunity. They will go into that inter Confederational playoff early next year. Mexican club Clube Leon. They have been removed from the summer's
Club World Cup violating FIFA's multi club ownership rules. Leon was supposed to play Chelsea in their opening match in the tournament. Leon majority owned by Grupo Pachuca, who also controls Pachuca, who's in the Club World Cup. FIFA regulations state that quote no individual or legal entity may have control or influence over more than one club participating in the competition. Both clubs have rejected the ruling and planned
two appeal, so we'll see. There are other situations where you have ownership between the same group and multiple clubs, and I don't know exactly how you ensure that they don't have control or influence over more than one club. I'm not positive on that. It's a little hard to understand, and I don't own multiple clubs, so I don't have access to those rules. Alow Linzei from Costa Rica. They
demanded that FIFA enforced the multi club rules. They think they could get in and replace Leone because of their continental club ranking. FIFA has not announced to or replace it yet and again there are still appeals waiting. Reading they're running out of appeals. They could be thrown out of the English Football League if their owner Diejong does
not sell the club before April fifth. The Chinese businessman was disqualified as an owner under the League Owners and Directors tests in February and action made public at Commercial Court in London on Friday, April fifth. Isn't very far away. There have been efforts to buy Redding and I don't have all of the information on where they stand at
the moment, but something's got to get done here. And I don't understand why he wouldn't sell if he's up against this wall at this point, because he's not going to make money by the club being thrown out of the EFL. He's only going to make money by selling it to somebody. Good luck Redding fans. Sorry, Jess Charman. I feel very bad for your Redding team. I went through this back in the day with the Atlanta ruckus Andy Atlanti Silverbacks on are they going to stick around?
Are they going to survive? Are they going to be back? Ope? Owner's gone now the league's running it. Oh boy, here we go. I've been through it. Those were very young clubs. Redding is not and they should not be in the situation. Hopefully they can find a way out of it. Quick update on the twenty thirty one Women's World Cup bid.
Henry Bushnell of Yahoo Sports had a great article that might have flown under the radar this weekend with everything going on, US Soccer formulating a bid for the twenty thirty one World Cup that would include or could include proposals to stage some games in other countries throughout CONCA CAF.
The US will definitely bid to host the tournament, whether they bid jointly with regional partners or take control of the bid but then divvy up some games, we'll see deadlines are coming up to formally express and a firm interest to FIFA that's going to happen. The US led bid is gonna more than likely loop in multiple nations from CONCA CAF. Initially, US Soccer was gonna bid with Mexico for the twenty twenty seven Women's World Cup. They
withdrew it. They said that they would be willing to or they would be focusing their bidding on twenty thirty one. That was an interesting whole situation, and maybe the political climate within FIFA kind of manufactured the way things played out. Over the past year since they withdrew the twenty twenty seven bid, the plans have evolved. It's not going to be just a joint country bid. It's looking more like new kinds of proposals where a few games could end
up in say Costa Rica Jamaica. The BID's going to be the favorite with FIFA because it's only going to be between Concacaffe nations and African nations to host the twenty thirty one Women's World Cup. Twenty thirty five will be either in Europe or in Africa. It's more than likely that any kind of bid from the US is going to get this. Sources said that they expect South Africa to launch a bid, but that could be twenty thirty one, or that could be twenty thirty five twenty
thirty five. It looks like a joint United Kingdom bid is going to be heavily favored. FIFA wants the tournament in the US and twenty thirty one there's just no way around. It might not even go up for a challenge. So then that gives FIFA US soccer cities around the United States, stadiums around the United States, our parts and other CONCA Caffe nations, they'll all get to figure it out. What it sounds like is you have to express your formal interest and in your bid you have an idea
of what it's going to look like. But then that could evolve after the deadline, So you could it could be US in Mexico for example, that bid and then after you get it say hey we're gonna give some games of Costa Rica. Hey we're going to give some games to Jamaica. And then you got to work with FIFA to get that done. But that can happen, so
stay tuned. It looks like the Women's World Cup is coming in twenty thirty one, but it also looks like not all the games are going to be in the United States, which I don't think is a bad thing. I think it really helps grow the women's game around concor CAF. Speaking of the women's game, Kansas City current huge win at or on the road at Audi Field over the Washington Spirit nineteen two hundred and fifty four. Fans on hand case won two nil in that one.
Real Madrid, their women's team won the Classico against Barcelona for the first time ever eighteen match losing streak. Madrid won three to one in front of thirty five thousand fans in Barcelona. Caroline Weirs scored the decisive goals in the eighty seventh minute and in stoppage time. Madrid is four points off of Barcelona through twenty three rounds of La Liga F Newcastle United in the Women's Championship Second Division in England. They smashed the attendance record thirty eight thousand,
five hundred fans for their game. Their derby match against Sunderland more than doubled the previous league record, which Sunderland set in October. Newcastle won the match one nil. They move into sixth place in the English Second Division to move to the USL Championship. Oakland Roots their first game at the Oakland Coliseum twenty six thousand, five hundred seventy five fans, second largest in USL Championship history, but Oakland dropped their third game in a row to start the season.
They lost to San Antonio to one. San Antonio is the only remaining team in the us Second Division with no losses or draw so record is three oh and oh. Get to know this name. Noel Urbaniak. He is a fifteen year old who served as a ballboy in Germany for their Nations League match against Italy, and he has been given an honorary assist. In this one. Germany advanced to the semi finals five to four on aggregate. It was a three to three draw, all kinds of chaos
in this one. Germany scored three in the first half, Italy scored three in the second half. But the second goal in this one crazy situation, and the ball boy was a huge part of it. So it's a corner after a save from gian Luigi Donna Ruma. He's yelling at teammates. Maybe they're yelling at the referee. I don't know. Everybody's yelling. They're not paying attention. And Urbaniak, the ballboy, noticed that this was happening quickly through the ball to
Joshua Chimmick. He took the corner quickly. Musilla put the goal away from inside the six uncontested and that ends up deciding this And it's a really big goal for Italy to concede as well, not just because of the tie here, but that means Italy instead of going into a four team World Cup qualifying group with the highest ranked nation being Slovakia, where you should win that group
in advance. Now you go into a five team World Cup qualifying group and you got to deal with Norway, Arling Holland, Martino de Gore, quite a few really good players with Norway who hasn't qualified for the World Cup in a long long time and are hungry to do so. That goal, that moment, that ball boy ends up really potentially changing the World Cup qualifying scene in Europe. Craziness.
Let's go to World Cup qualifying in South America to close things out here on a super jam packed morning Espresso Rafina, he's the front runner for the ballindor in my opinion, he kicked things off between Brazil and Argentina. They meet Tuesday night at El Monumental in Buenos Aires. Jumped onto Ro Mario's TV show in Brazil, which is always a dangerous thing to do, but he did it. He said Brazil would beat Argentina quote without a doubt unquote. He added that they would beat them quote on and
off the pitch if necessary unquote. He also said that he would score, and he also said that Argentina quote can go to hell unquote. And I think there were other things that were said that maybe get lost in translation or maybe don't, depending on your understanding of four letter words. Argentina hasn't beaten Brazil in Argentina and A World Cup qualifiers at two thousand and five. Juan Roman Riquelme had an incredible match there. They did win the
Monikaana in Rio earlier in disqualification process. You know it's already gonna be spicy between Argentina and Brazil. You add in a few things that Raffina has to say here and things will get very, very interesting tomorrow night. I would not be surprised if Rodrigo de Paul goes in flying for a tackle on Rafina at some point early in the match. Stay tuned to that one. That's gonna do it for us on the Morning Espresso. Thank you for listening, Thank you for subscribing on YouTube, Thank you
for following us on social media platforms. Thank you for subscribing wherever you like to get your podcasts. And there will not be a Morning Espresso tomorrow. There will be Atlanta Soccer tonight this evening on ninety two nine. In
the game at ten o'clock. You can listen to it live on the Odyssey app as well or on demand on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your off the woodwork podcast from ninety two nine Morning Espresso will be back on Wednesday with a whole bunch of recaps of a whole bunch of World Cup qualifying over the next couple of days. Until then, Audio sy'all