Michael DeCourcy, SportingNews.com, finally talks soccer with Adam.

Mike Decorsy of the Sporting News shares a love of Steely Dan with me and all the smart people out there.

And he joins us on the Adam Gold Show at TSN Mike on Twitter. Alright, I always threaten, and I kid, I use that word kiddingly, that at some point you and I are going to talk soccer. And here it is.

So let's do it. Did the U.S. beat England 0-0? Yeah, well, you could say that. You still only lead with one point, but they outplayed them for sure. And you can look back on that game and think about the fabulous talents that England has.

Bukayo Saka. You look at Jude Bellingham in the midfield, who you and I are both sort of hoping winds up in Liverpool in six months, eight months, whatever. I'd like him there in three weeks. Yeah, well, that too. I don't think Dortmund's ready to give up. Those guys are fabulous talents, and they were not noticeable in that game.

And you have to do a fabulous job to make that happen. And they did. Now, there might be a game in which those guys might disappear because they don't expend any effort. But you don't do that in the second group game.

Maybe the third, but not the second. Yeah, look, the way I looked at it, and there was a lot going on on Friday during that match. I'm trying to focus on a Hurricanes game. Carolina State were about to play football. Both the Tar Heels and the Blue Devils had basketball games in the tournament in Oregon, the Phil Knight tournaments in Oregon.

So there was a lot going on. But I just thought that, and I keep calling them Carolina, and I don't know why. I just thought that the United States played a brilliant defensive game, and they had to try to neutralize all of England's firepower. And it almost, I'm not saying it didn't matter, but it almost was secondary that the same problems for the U.S. not being able to finish chances, that it was still there, but because England didn't score, it just felt like a win. And also, a lot of people went into this match just, well, we should rest everybody. Whoever's got a yellow card shouldn't play.

We're going to lose this match anyway. I like the fact that they, in many ways, attacked, and I don't know if they tried. They tried to win the game, but I just like the way they approached it. They tried to go out and win that game. Yeah, that was one of the things that Greg Berhalter said, was that they weren't going to be passive, and they weren't going to just punt on the game. Because if they had lost it, they still would have been pretty much in the same position coming in to tomorrow. They still would have needed to win. But I do think it's about being a competitor, as well as what you advance to.

Do you compete? They knew they had a big audience back home. It was over 20 million, right? So it was important for them not to just say, okay, well, this game doesn't matter that much, so let's not play. It's important to them to play well. There was Adam Kinziger, I think is his name.

I saw, I read your story about it, yeah. Yes, that was complaining about 0-0. I'm like, how American can you be and still complain about that game? Your men went out there and did everything you could have asked them to do except put a goal home, and you still complain about the fact there was no score. Come on.

I agree. And for somebody, again, I keep reminding people, I'm sort of late to this, but I'm fascinated by everything that I said. And there was plenty of excitement because the build-up, and you put this in your column, the build-up to scoring chances, that's the excitement. When, and I think you used the analogy, the initial part of a long touchdown run, other than if you're going back in the day and you're looking at highlights of Walter Payton or Barry Sanders, in which there's 40 different things en route to the touchdown. You know, usually it's the initial broken tackle or the one move, and then when he's gone, now the excitement's over. It's what happened there to create that, that really made the excitement happen. I agree with that, 100%. I think you can have a very exciting match that doesn't feature any goals, and I think we had that in USA-England.

So let me just bump this up to what comes tomorrow at 2 o'clock. I think the United States is going to beat Iran. I think they are better than Iran. But boy, I don't know who's going to score the goal.

So that is the ultimate dilemma for me when it comes to this team, is that they just, for some reason, when it comes to the attacking third, they just can't figure out how to get on the end one. GEICO presents daily affirmations. Repeat after me, we are filled with an abundance of joy.

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See store online for details. There's a couple different things. One is that they don't show a great deal of cleverness in a lot of instances in terms of creating opportunities. The kind of different runs you can make to open a defense, especially in tight. And I think they're going to face a lot of packed in defense tomorrow because Iran has a chance and a good chance of advancing with a draw.

They all they would basically need for that to happen is for whales to lose and so that they have a good chance of that happening. And then secondarily, there's the fact that they don't have a great striker. And that's, you know, that's been a problem that everybody's been aware of all through qualifying. And then obviously up to the preparation for this tournament, my my idea, and I hope it comes to fruition, is to play geo Raina at the striker spot. However, he's deployed, whether you withdraw him, whether you play him straight up as a striker, I want to get him on the field. If he's capable of playing 60 minutes, I want him on the field. I don't want him, you know, there's a lot of people yelling to get he and Brendan Aronson on the field.

And to do that, you have to take off Timothy Way. Timothy Way has been one of the U.S. best players, especially in the first game. But he was very good in the second as well. I like the speed he has. I like what he brings. I don't want him off the field. He scored the only goal for the United States.

We can't take him off the field. And it was a great finish. It was awesome. It was a phenomenal finish. Great pass, tremendous finish. So no, I don't want him off.

But I think you can put I think you could put geo Raina in the middle. He's such a great passer, such a great creator, is an excellent finisher. He's not a natural at that position.

But I'm not sure that anybody that they brought to Qatar is. I so basically playing playing him as a false nine. So kind of, you know, a little bit further back now as opposed to further up.

Yeah, I think you can do that. I think you could play further up as well. He's not he can play with his back to the goal. He can hold the ball up if he has to. He's not as big and physical as obviously as someone like like Hashi right. I like Josh Sargent at that spot, too.

I say, you know, I'll be honest with you. I'm I'm not a I'm not I'm not a total detractor of Josh Sargent, the soccer player. But put a U.S. jersey on him and nothing happens. It hasn't, you know, maybe someday, but it hasn't yet.

And tomorrow seems like a pretty important day for something that it really tomorrow really does. They they need somebody to finish. I thought it was a good recovery for the U.S. in the midfield. I thought other than Tyler Adams against Wales, I didn't like McKinney. I thought Musa was OK, but I don't think Musa was at his very best. I think all three of those guys were spectacular against England. I didn't think Dest was great against Wales, but I thought he was at his best until he got tired against England.

And those guys, to me, have to be on the field. I texted a friend of a mutual friend of ours about why didn't they use Raina? And this person is in Qatar and he goes, are we confusing him with Killian Mbappe?

And I just laughed. I'm like, that's a good point, because I don't think we really know what Raina can do in a USA shirt because he's played so little. He played so little during qualifying because of injury that maybe the the idea of Raina is better than Raina.

If you were watching the exhibition, the game, if I remember correctly, the game that followed the Nations League title game, they played, I believe, Costa Rica. And he was just absolutely spectacular. May have been the last time he was completely healthy because I don't think he still is. And so I he showed you in that game like he's the most talented guy. It's him and Pulisic very close. Musa is very close as well. But I think he's the most purely talented American player that's in the picture now, not talking about 16, 17, whatever.

But in the picture now, the most talented player again. But it has to be close to 100 percent of him for that to matter. And I don't know whether, you know, my idea, like I said, if he if he's good enough to go 60 minutes, then it can work.

If he's not, you can't start him. That's part of the reason why they haven't been doing that. Yeah. Even when he was starting for Dortmund, I think his max was like 67, 68 minutes recently.

So, yeah. But if he can go 60, it would be really nice to run him out there for 60 and then maybe bring Aronson on behind him to create all sorts of havoc. I thought going into this, Mike, to course, you have the sporting news is with us here. I thought going into this that when they put the captain's armband on Adams, it freed Greg Berhalter up to not have to start Polisic. And whether that did or not, I think he's he's he started in both times and he's beaten the brakes off. I mean, like I thought Polisic's best work was done defensively against England, which is unusual for him. But I don't know. Can he be part of another goal?

Because they're going to need they need they need that from Christian Polisic, I think. Well, remember, it was his great ball that set off Rhea for the for the first goal, the only goal. And then he had he created that that opportunity, the one that struck the crossbar. I mean, the ball was passed to him, but he had two defenders on him and he still got off a great shot. So he showed what he's capable of. I think he's he's the best. He's the most clever player they have in that circumstance. The greatest combination of cleverness and power.

You go back to last January. The goal he scored against Liverpool was just a phenomenal strike. There aren't a lot of guys in the world that can do that.

I mean, there are some, but there aren't a lot of guys in the world. And there certainly aren't any wearing U.S. jerseys. I wasn't worried about taking the armband off him. I was in terms of starting him. I was more worried about the fact that they continued defer to him on set pieces and on free kicks and corner kick. And the first game, he was atrocious.

And it just seemed like, is this ever going to change? Because he's been close to atrocious all the way through when he takes them all the way through qualifying. And then on Friday, he was brilliant. His his corners were unbelievable. And it was almost as if the U.S. players were like shocked that they were that there were gettable balls where they could make a play.

And so nothing happened from those. But I think now, I mean, if he can do some of those on on Tuesday, then I think that that's another chance for him to impact the game in a positive way. Do they get it done tomorrow? Mike, of course, he at this time, we will all be nervous as hell going up into 30 minutes away from match time. Are we nervous now? But I am too.

I am too. But I think they will. I a week ago, I didn't think they would because I thought the England game was going to be problematic for them. And of course, with the way things played out, that game didn't even matter. And then they played great.

So I think they're going to get it done. It's just hard for me to imagine them getting shut out three straight games. And it's harder for me to imagine them giving up multiple goals to someone like Iran. Iran is good. Don't get me wrong, but they're not great.

And they just shut down. Great. So I'll be surprised if if they give up multiple goals to Iran, they have to they they might have to get to. It's been a while since we've seen them get to my course of the sporting news. We just toss talk soccer. How about that?

It's a dream about that. All right. We'll talk again very soon, sir. Thanks, Adam. Thank you very much at TSN. Mike on Twitter.

He wrote about the USA England match. And like people, nil, nil can be fun. Geico presents daily affirmations repeat after me. We are filled with an abundance of joy. We are filled with an abundance of joy, also an abundance of questions. Good thing Geico has twenty four seven claim service to help answer questions and resolve claims quickly. Good thing Geico has twenty four seven claim service. We are also filled with an abundance of biscuits. We are also filled with I don't think it works this way. Oh, and jam. Don't forget jam. To manifest more Geico in your life, go to Geico dot com.