And then Preston Judd, he's got 15 goals, but I feel like it's one of the more slept-on 15-goal seasons because even Jeremy Abobese, when he was getting his United States men's national team talk as a product of the American collegiate system and going to Duke, he was more in the conversation with fewer goals.

Yeah, I think, one, the hard part for Preston Judd in the national team pool is that the depth at striker is deeper than we've ever had, right? When you think about, you know, Brian White is on the outside looking in, and he's done it for five seasons straight, right? And you think about just the fact that we've got this young crop of strikers coming out of, you know, whether that's – Red Bull or you know out of MLS that are teenagers right and so you have a look to the future there and then you have three or four strikers that have established themselves within that pool January camp is where I think you establish yourself and when I think about Preston Judd I think a little bit of like where Danny Musoski was last year put up insane numbers and they haven't gotten almost any production out of them this year so I think the real test for Preston Judd We've seen him scrap and fight and be that number two for most teams.

He's become that number one.

Even when he's coming off the bench, he's finding ways to be impactful for San Jose.

Next season is going to be that determinant for him where I'm sure his agent's knocking on the door saying, hey, this guy's bad goals.

What are you going to pay him? But for him as a player, I think that's going to be that idea of like, oh, is he a bona fide goal scorer or is he in good form, right, this season? But the January camps is where you really establish that.

Players that don't necessarily get the call up or aren't in the watchful eye.

As a final one for you, because I know you've got to get the kids to school, what do you see as the hinge point in this game this weekend?

See you in the rest of your career.

It definitely shaped me.

I mean, I was always driven.

Like, I ended up retiring when I was 30 or 31 because for me, it wasn't necessarily playing in the national team.

It was to be able to be able to believe that I'm playing at that level that would drive me, right? And that was just like the bar.

And when I felt like I was so far from that Then I looked within myself and said, is this something I really want to do for another six, seven years with the pain that I'm feeling, or do I want to start something new? And so I think those things are shaped by moments that happen throughout your career.

And I think, more specifically, 2010, that was a tough one.

What drew you to content creation and what are the best parts about it?

Yeah.

Uh, and I thought the US did a good job of that against, in the games that they won.

And Belgium did do a good job of making it really difficult for us on that day, but it was just sort of a listless, energy-less, kind of flat performance.

That was disappointing, because I expected so much more.

I, I expected that to be the baseline of, like, collective fight mentality, you know, fighting over the...

Like, winning all the small battles on the field, 1v1 scenarios.

It's the first time in a World Cup that I felt also when we had our attackers in the box and we're creating chances, like, we might actually score.

Yeah.

So far, throughout this tournament, the decision to hire a coach, the decision to have a more of a, an attacking mindset and trust this generation of players, it's paying off, Heath.

Yeah.

And, and, and one of the things I really like, and, a- and you mentioned it, is we can play in transition.

We can do that.

And I think there were times that Bosnia went high on us, and you could see these very clear plays develop where maybe Balogun peels off, maybe he checks back, he creates space, and then you have Weston McKennie running in, or you have Sergino Dest playing on that highest line.

And the way that they're playing right now with this sort of back three, back five, is that it's allowing Dest at times to cheat way up the field, right? It's allowing Pulisic to cheat way up the field.

And so when you have these counter movements, it allows you to be direct.

[laughs]

What's Poch thinking about for, for game three?

Well, we, we talked about it.

Like, you don't change a winning team, but in a tournament you have, you navigate the group stages differently, right? So the US has gotten six points, which is unbelievable.

Uh, and now you maybe have a little bit of a freedom to rotate a few guys that have maybe taken a few knocks that you're not aware of.

But being able to go out there without a Christian Pulisic and get a result, that's exactly what you want to happen, right? If the US doesn't beat Paraguay, maybe you don't have that luxury in the second game, and you're now taking more risks early on in the tournament than you want to.

And so having that rotation, making sure that tomorrow when the guys who didn't play enough minutes go out and train, that they're well aware that they might be called upon in that third match.

All of those things are gonna be important here in the coming days, because Turkey is not gonna be an easy, an easy team or a walkover whatsoever.

... and the tac- and the technical ability to do it.

[laughs]

... human nature would tell you to just relax.

It's like the two-nil lead where you just let off the pedal, you cruise a little bit because naturally you're full of stress, and you get the second goal, and you're like, "Okay, we can just breathe a little bit." And then you get punched in the mouth and you get scored on and then the game's back to life again.

So I think if you're Poch, you're looking at it through the lens of you gotta let the players have this moment, but then you gotta get back to the basics and get back to the business of what are the small details in the margins against an Australia side that are gonna make the difference for you.

And you really have to find that balance between rewarding the players, but then also keeping them grounded because it's really, really hard after a convincing win in front of millions and millions of people to not feel like you've got it, right? Like, you've got the sauce.

And so you wanna harness that, you wanna bottle that, you wanna carry that to the next game, but at the same time you have to have these types of moments.

So in training there might be one or two times this week where Poch has to light up the players and has to be a little bit rough and has to be a little bit brutal on them to say, "Hey, you've done nothing.

If you're Tim Ream- The captain of the team, if you're Tyler Adams, if you're Christian Pulisic, what are you doing with these guys over the next couple of days? Like, are you letting them be hyped? Are you gonna try and, like, temper expectations a little bit? How are you gonna be a leader?

So how do they survive from here till the break?

Well, I think I'm really fascinated with the San Jose side.

I know everybody is just because they've, I think, kind of overperformed expectations looking at the roster, looking at the spend, looking at the budgets and all those types of things.

But what I'm really fascinated by is, again, with all that rotation, they take... a Seattle team to the closing moments.

And that comes down to details and how you close out games and the rotated squad.

It's always a challenge, especially against the Seattle side.

But, you know, I think there's a simplicity in their game and that's not meant to be, it's actually a way in which I would describe Seattle over the years, right? Is there's there, it's a, sometimes a lack of overcomplication that Seattle has had that's made them a challenger where there's just a maturity and understanding of time and a place.

He's just on the field more.