BearcatSA

TBH, he showed much more composure and leadership on the field in his last season with the Caps then his more much experienced teammates who were too often losing their sh*t as the final days of the Robbo era played out

Not for fringe players being included or dropped based on necessity and/or form.

That's just reality for both club and country. There is little sentimentality in play. It's just business.

That's the reality of professional football.

If the biggest issue with our NT seemingly is about the performance of the broadcast duo, then we must be doing well. And we are 🙂

That is the key here. His role with Bayern needs to continue to evolve like it has with our NT. We aren't having that debate about Davies at LB anymore, are we? How he was playing tonight was much more of what I envisioned with him.

How much longer does he stay at Bayern? As an LB/LWB?

Man, I'm so grateful that he's OUR guy!

Acid test home match!

I was discussing that in the Jamaica match thread. On a dodgy pitch, to me that was a piece of inexperience that almost cost us.

We'll see a lot of that game plan in Latin America throughout the Ocho.

Then you would have loved the sucking of air noise that the late, great Graham Leggatt made when the other team had great scoring chances against Canada!

I find that most colour commentators in a two person booth tend to feel that they have to say something, anything and so usually it is the banally Captain Obvious type of observation. I get much more out of the HT analysis from the studio because at least they have the time to review plays on replay without the pressure of being live. More thoughtful observations are usually made at that time. A number of years ago, ITV (or the Beeb or Sky) had the studio analysts interject with relatively brief sound bites about specific incidents during lulls in the play while staying with a single person booth doing pbp. I didn't mind that concept, actually.

I actually like Brym's off the ball movement at the start of the Olympic qualifying (maybe because he was more active than the glacial Bair) but he didn't seem to pick it up another level (as compared to Buchanon's trajectory) as the tourney progressed. Tough pitch and coming on late are challenges for young guys so decision making on plays is the key. You can't afford to have buck fever at this level with these high stakes.

I only saw the two camera angles of the shot from the same side of the field and to me there is nothing clear about the ball's destination. I'll take it as an alert save.