Time to Panic for Brazil?

0:00The Stanley Cup Final on ABC is more than a quest for the cup. It's 134 years of putting it all on the line and the heaviest 35 pounds ever lifted. It's broken curses and broken hearts. But for those chasing it, it's everything. The only question is, who will take it? You just have to watch the Stanley Cup Final presented by GEICO on ABC and the ESPN app. Brazil kicked off their World Cup with a draw. Slow burner or a sign of things to come? And the Socceroos gave us the first upset of the tournament. How will that affect the USA? Ilkay Gundogan joins the show to talk all things Germany. Candy Mineshaft pass a group stage for the first time in 12 years.

0:51Plus, Ronaldo touches down in America. ESPN FC is next.

1:03Hello, good morning. Happy Sunday to all of you. Who else would you want to be with but Stevie Nichol and Shaka Hislop at this time on a Sunday morning? I'm Kay Murray. Looking back on everything that went down yesterday and ahead to what's coming up today in World Cup action, let's start by looking back with Brazil against Morocco. Group C heavyweight face-off between these two sides, the five-times champions against the Darlings of 2022. it finished in a draw but who's going to be happier with that draw Shakir Hislop? Brazil because for large spars of this game Morocco outplayed the Brazilians we knew coming into this tournament that there were a lot of questions about Brazil who'd been tagged as one of the favourites but we always felt all along that that was more to do with Carlo Ancelotti than what we saw of Brazil certainly in common ball qualifying question marks about the start to England 11 maybe question marks about individual performances, certainly.

2:01But Brazil have a lot of work to do if they are to live up to their pre-tournament billing. What are we looking at, Stevie? Are we looking at a slow start from them? Are they concerns right now that they need to address? Well, I think it's a little early to be concerned. The fact is that the group they're in, they're going to get through it. So they've basically got three games to get themselves in good shape to take on the rounds after that. So it's not a huge concern At the same time You're always looking You're always looking to improve So they've kind of set a low bar Considering this performance But it's a low bar that actually got them a point And at the end of the day In the group stages It's about picking up points And they've done that Certainly didn't do it in any style But they got a point And I think both Brazil And probably Morocco as well If somebody had said Look we'll give you a point each Let's not bother with the game They probably both would have taken that.

2:56You know, I disagree a little bit. I think there's a lot to be concerned about from Brazil here. Listen, I like the front three. You've got your two wide men in Rafinha and Vinicius Jr. Thiago started, did not cover himself in any kind of glory. You expect to see Cunha from the start more often going forward. But you look at the midfield. You've got Bruno Guimaraes, Paqueta, who gave the ball away far too often, in my opinion, and Casemiro. I just don't feel there's no real creativity in that midfield. They're lacking legs in that midfield. When you see Carlo Ancelotti having to bring Fabinho off the bench, that kind of speaks to the lack of options, certainly in terms of running in midfield.

3:37So you have a Brazilian midfield that doesn't cover an awful lot of ground, aren't overly creative. That puts a lot of pressure on the two wide men to service whoever plays through the middle. and not an awful lot of protection for a back four, where there were also questions. So while you get a point against a team that got to the semi-final four years ago, I am not at all convinced. Yeah, let's talk about that backline just quickly before we get to some of the decisions here, because Marquinhos and Gabriel were opened up on that first goal. When you actually look at the stats as well, Brazil conceded more shots in the opening half hour than they had in any of their previous six World Cup games, Stevie.

4:21Right. Now, if there was a worry to be had, that would be my biggest concern. You know, going into this, you're looking at those two going, right, we don't need to worry. We've got two world-class centre-backs, we've got other things to worry about. But the way that that ball just got played right through the middle of them, I mean, you talk about not being aware of what's on around you, and not just one of them, but both of them had no idea that Baez was there. so yeah that would be a concern on top of apparently all the other concerns the Brazilian fans are upset that Kunia didn't start they're upset that Hendrick didn't even see the pitch they're upset at the moment I don't think they're as happy with Stevie as the point no listen I wouldn't say I'm happy I'm just you should be quite happy I know who's top of that I think it's a little early to be panicking listen Stevie always the beacon of positivity I don't recognize this TV at all.

5:23Listen, from a Brazilian perspective, you understand the concern. First of all, we could have our own opinions about how good this Brazil team is and how deep they go in the tournament. Every single Brazilian thinks that this team should be winning the tournament. So that's an unrealistic expectation on their part just to start with. And then you see the start. They had, in my opinion, happier with the point to your first question, K. And as we mentioned, many questions. Now, I want to defend the decision to start with Thiago Thurie middle from the opening whistle. Because the intention all along was to get Vinicius Junior as far to the left as you can and hope that he gets one-on-ones and save us into the box.

6:11Push Rafinha out as far to the right and for him to do the same. And you want that big target man for both of them to Eman, somebody who plays more with his back to goal and can link up play if that's what's needed. The trouble is, I just thought, as I say, while you understand the thinking behind Carlo Ancelotti's selection, Thiago just did not play well. And there's no other way to put it or excuse it. And actually, the chance he had with the header could have covered himself in glory and we'd have had a completely different conversation. That's why he was there. Let's talk Vinny with Stevie, seeing as though he's a positive one this morning.

6:47Vinny Jr. He got the goal, he got the equaliser. He had a performance for Brazil, which we don't always see on the national stage from him. Well, Vinny, what we saw is just Vinny. You know, if you need a goal, if you need a bit of magic, if you need something when at that particular time, things are going against you, you're being outplayed, you can't seem to keep the ball, nothing's going for you. Give the ball to Vinny, because Vinny will do something. We know he's capable. And what does he do? He pops up and drops on his shoulder. Poor defensively, but he drops his shoulder, comes inside and sticks it in the back of the net.

7:21I mean, that's just Vinny in a nutshell. That's what we've always known and loved the word Vinny's junior. There were lots of questions about Vinny's role defensively in, well, for Brazil all tournament long. And I thought you saw glimpses of that. Very late on in the game, 90th minute, Vinny's just racing back, trying to close down. Listen, he's not a defender, but he's getting himself involved and making things difficult and taking up space in defensive positions. Now, if Vinicius can continue to lead in that regard, my biggest concern about Brazil as a team coming into this was how heavy that yellow shirt is and whether they had the personalities to carry it.

8:05I wasn't sure that Vinicius was that player. I felt what you saw over the 90 minutes against Morocco is he has established himself as that go-to player, that marquee player who handles the pressure of being Brazil's star man and leader on the park. My biggest concern coming into today's show is that Stevie's in charge of the tactical technology a little later on as we take a closer look at Vinny's goal. We'll see how that alternates. He's already spilt his water this morning. I wonder how you felt after watching the Tartan Army. Here they are travelling in numbers. They have taken over Boston and they sit top of Group C right now, a group where they did find themselves with Brazil and Morocco.

8:46But, of course, they took on Haiti after 28 years away. And John McGinn made the difference as Scotland's score at the World Cup. Once again, it was a deflected strike. It's the only difference between the two sides. But who cares, Stevie? Who cares? It was a goal and it was a full three points for Scotland. The only thing that Scotland had to do was win this game. You know, we're talking here about Vinny and Brazil. We don't care. I couldn't care less if we break the goals up and stop anybody scoring, whoever we're playing, and we can nick a goal and win 1-0. I really don't care. Because for us, it's all about getting out of the group by hook or by crook.

9:29And it was a typical Scotland performance. And actually, I thought probably Haiti deserved a point. but unfortunately it doesn't work that way. John McGinn, I'll say, took his opportunity. McTominay probably was unlucky. He didn't score right before it. Good saving the keeper. But again, the ball ends up in the net. Yes, deflection again. Who cares? It's three points. And now for Scotland, it's all about getting a point either against Morocco or Brazil. Are you feeling a little bit better about Scotland now? Well, yeah, because I know we can defend. I wasn't quite sure how we're going to go about it going forward and creating.

10:08I mean, Gannon Doak really is, for me, he's the key player for Scotland in terms of getting forward and in terms of creating because he does what defenders hate. Every time he gets it, he goes after the full-back, he runs at them. And defenders can't stand that. So as long as he keeps doing that, if he continues to do that against Morocco and against Brazil, when we get the opportunity, then I think we'll be okay but yeah we just need a point and how we get it I don't really care as long as we get it yeah so Scotland sitting top of the group and boy have those Scottish fans been having fun here in the United States of America getting the cops involved here juggling cop Scots love this one hey how did he do lads give him that he's in full uniform outstanding he was under a bit of pressure as well he is he's handled it well We also got to see our colleague Mark Donaldson in a kilt.

11:04Oh boy. Oh no. Hope you're not having your breakfast right now. Oh boy. Mark was at the game, travelling in force with the rest of the Tartan army. We've seen that Stevie's been a little bit drawn on whether the kilt should be worn. We've been in touch with Stevie's lovely wife to get some pictures of Stevie. That was a sneaky move, wasn't it? Oh, dress himself. I'll tell you, that's smart. The kilt's smart. You look great, Stevie. You do? You should have... I've never said that. The kilt looks fantastic. You should wear one for tomorrow's show. But as a football player, you don't want to be worrying about putting your kilt on before a game.

11:41If they get out of the group, will you put one on for us? You have to put the kilt on to go play the game. Absolutely. All right. No danger. You had it here first. Let me know where that is, please. I better go shave my legs. Let me know where that's happening. Of course, what John McGinn's goal does mean is that Craig Burley is no longer the last Scotsman to score for Scotland in a World Cup. John McGinn taking that accolade from him last night. How does Craig Burley feel about it? I'm sure he's no problem. Robert, how's Craig handling no longer being the answer to a pub quiz question? That question, of course, who's the last Scotsman to score at a World Cup?

12:17Who's the last Scotland person not to score a deflected goal at a World Cup? How's he handling it? How he handles most things. Miserable.

12:28Sounds like he's doing fine, just fine. Okay, you can keep up to date with extra time every single day over on our YouTube channel.

12:38And after the break, we will be hearing from Jermaine Jones, because he will be joining us from New York. Look at him, looking cool as you like. He'll be talking U.S. Men's National Team and Germany too. ESPN FC is brought to you by Coca-Cola. Always the real thing.

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14:53Brazil have got their World Cup underway with that 1-1 draw with Morocco but we did promise you that we'd be sending the boys over to the sandbox to break down Vinny Jr.'s goal so here is Shaka and Stevie doing just that Alright Stevie let's have a look at this equaliser for Brazil because up until this point, Morocco had pretty much dominated the game. Hakimi was pushing all the way up, and that was Boonu's intended target. Long ball forward, aimed at Hakimi, was only able to find Douglas Santos. He then, though, heads down to Paqueta, who's in space, and that allows him to pick out Vinicius Jr.

15:35Vinny was playing very wide all game long trying to find those spaces, trying to find those one and ones which Morocco largely were not allowing. This time though he picks the ball up, comes inside, Diop comes over and now he drops all the way in and now they have Vinny 2v1 which is exactly where Morocco wanted him. Yeah, now from a Brazil point of view they want Vinny to be going one on one with the full-back with the defender, whoever it may be. And Morocco defensively do a good job, as you said. We get Diop out, he comes out from centre-back, and Inouye, defensive midfielder, covering Hakimi.

16:13You can say Hakimi's too high, but if you want to get him forward, that you do, then sometimes that's going to happen. But you have to cover for him. And on this occasion, right now, they've covered for him well. You've got 2v1 defensively against Vinny. That's exactly what you want in that situation. But all of a sudden, two passes later, Brazil have Morocco in exactly the position they want. Vinny comes down the line, Diop comes over, Anoui comes with him, little ball into Bruni Gamarish, Diop drops inside, Thiago's central, that leaves Vinny Jr. one-on-one with Anoui, one ball back, and that's what they've been playing for all game long.

16:53Right, and as well defensively they've got set up for the previous one, this one they're all over the shot. You cannot have a one-on-one against Vinny in the penalty box. And so the nearest man on this occasion, it's Anui, he has to go tight. He has to get touch tight. And because his movement towards Vinny and towards the ball, automatically Deop gets pulled out. So you then have the situation that you want defensively, two against one. The fact that Anui doesn't get tight, Diop doesn't come out, it's 1v1. That's what Brazil want, now Anui's in trouble. And then Vinicius does exactly as we've seen him do time after time.

17:38Goes down the line, comes back inside, picks out the top corner, nobody's stopping those. all of a sudden Brazil back on level pegging at a time where maybe they didn't fully deserve to but got that moment of magic from Vinicius Jr. And that's exactly what you want from a Brazil point of view. Get Vinny on the ball so that he can produce that bit of magic that either gets you back in the game as it did on this occasion or hopefully in other games it wins you again. So is this two points dropped for Morocco? I believe so. Good job, guys. You made it. You actually thought we knew what we were doing.

18:16Well, no. You didn't break the machine, which is actually a massive plus. A big plus as well was the U.S. national team's opener against Paraguay, and there is still so much excitement over that first game for Pochettino's men. I'm sorry, are we a soccer country now? I don't know about that. It's definitely called soccer this morning. I can say that. I cannot believe what my eyes have just seen. I actually had to check that this was a US team I was watching. The one thing that will get a grip of the public is not noise, it's performance. And we got that. We said the dream big and today was a dream start.

18:51It was a complete dominance. Take away the first two minutes and it truly was all the United States. The USA passed it forward at every opportunity. I do not think I had seen this bit of performance from the U.S. men's national team at any level of the game. The first half couldn't have been any better. I haven't seen a U.S. team play that well in a long time. I've watched the U.S. talk for 40 years. This was the best game they've ever played on international stage. One of the absolute top three performances of a U.S. team in the last 20, 25 years. The first half was as good as I've seen any national team play in any tournament, let alone the World Cup.

19:30One of the best U.S. national team performances in a World Cup. I don't think I'm surprised. I've seen us play like this recently. Three goals in our first half in the opening game. I felt like it was a real statement, you know, and that's what we wanted to do. Wonderful stuff. And Jermaine Jones now joins us from New York. Jermaine, thank you so much for being with us. There is a lot to talk about when it comes to the U.S., especially with what we saw. or you just heard all of the excitement around them. We're going to get to that in a minute, but we just want to remind everybody who we're talking to right now as we show one of your best goals for Schalke back in the day, Jermaine.

20:10Do you miss those days? Oh, a long time ago, huh? It's always nice to see something like that. Yes, it is. It's very nice. And it's always nice to see what we did see from the U.S., which we're going to get to. but you are in New York, so we have to ask you first how you slept last night, because we've been told it was pretty loud last night after the Knicks win, and the fans were out celebrating.

20:38To be honest, my room is pretty high up, so I was able to sleep good. Oh, you're like Shaq Yislapp. He can sleep through anything, absolutely anything. All right, let's get to the US then. Jermaine, everybody's been speaking in glowing terms about them. Obviously, you were there the other night. You were on our coverage from LA. Now you're coming to us from New York. Tell us how you're feeling a few days later, still just as excited with what you saw?

21:02Of course, I think we all, when you in general look at the game completely, if you go a couple of months, weeks back, we all were a little bit confused. We were like, we don't know exactly how we will play, what does the formation look like? And then we go into this game and we have completely dominated this game. We played good soccer with the ball, but without the ball too. I think Paraguay had no chance to breathe. And that they made their own goal, played completely into our cards. But I think every single player on this team showed up. And I think that was the biggest key for me where I looked at it and I said always that Christian Pulisic, it's the heart and soul and he's important for the team.

21:41But at this game, every player showed up and played, I think, an unbelievable game. I'm still today looking back and saying, if we can play every game like that, I can see us going really far in this tournament. Yeah, a lot of excitement. And our panel was split the other day when we actually looked at some of the goals in this game. We asked the panel if Balogun's second goal was the best that was scored on the night or if Gio Reyna's goal was. And we couldn't decide between them. It was two against two. You're going to split that decision for us. Whose was better, Balogun's second or Gio Reyna's goal?

22:19I think both goals were amazing goals, but I would go with Gio Reyna's goal because alone that he got sucked in, he came in and then even the reaction of the team, right? Like that everybody, even Pochicino run to him. But I think going with the outside of your foot around the player, the goalkeeper has not really a chance. I think it's a tricky shot, but it's really good. There you go, Stevie. Take that. You wrote number today. Well, I can't argue. They're both great. Yeah, they are both great. I'll get over it, don't worry. But, which is better? Either of those two goals or Jermaine Jones' goal against Portugal in 2014.

22:54Oh, easy, Jermaine's. No danger. Are you just saying that because he's here? Absolutely.

23:03Jermaine, how often do you revisit that goal and enjoy it? How often do you think about it? I think it's not the goal, I think it's the momentum. And I think we really, we live all this momentum right now, right? Like when I look at the stadium a couple of days ago, that's the momentum football, soccer lives from. And that brings people together. And I think the moments what we had in this game now a couple of days ago, that helps this game grow in this country. And I think that brings people together. And the momentum is what we need in soccer. And yeah, I always, yesterday when I flew back here, somebody in the airport, he came to me and he said, man, that momentum when you scored this goal, I celebrate that in Brazil with my dad.

23:48And that's what I'm talking. It's momentum. You will look back one day and you can be happy for it. See, they're still talking about it, even when he's going through the airport. Even when he's going on his flights, everybody's still talking about that goal. A lot of people are talking about the result between Australia and Turkey this morning. Many of us woke up to see this result. Turkey were the favorites going into this one, but Australia beat them 2-0. Is that a favor for the United States? Is he surprised with that result, Jermaine?

24:18Yeah, I'm surprised because if you watch the game, Turkey was the better team. But Turkey has the problems and it showed in the past already, especially in transition, that they're not the best and you can hurt them in transition. On the other side, I say it's now who we face and we have to be careful too because going into this game, Australia comes now with the belief too, that they're saying, hey, we beat Turkey, why we should sit back against, you know, or be scared against the US, you know, so it's a tricky game. We can celebrate, okay, I think everybody at Turkey has the favour in this group even, you know, but now the whole thing is mixed up.

24:58And I hope that US can, yeah, clean up the thing in the next game and start on or stay at the table. This was unexpected, this result. It was. and it changes the dynamic of the group so much in my opinion. Coming in before a ball was kicked, you thought the US and Turkey were the two favourites in the group and especially with them facing off on match day three, you wondered what the lead up to that would look like. Both Paraguay and Australia, similarly defensive in how they set up, how they play the game and then you see the US do what they did to Paraguay and you felt, OK, this is a US team that can break down defences, even the most stubborn of defences, that bodes well for Australia.