USA v Mexico review: Cavan Sullivan makes history, and the kids are alright

Taylor Rockwell (0:20)

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Total Soccer Show, a rare Sunday edition of the Total Soccer Show, as we are here to review the USA's Trace Acero victory over El Tri.

The United States is not quite dominant in Mexico. We're going to talk about that and how this game played out. But we did get teenage records, red cards, the dark arts, and some good football along the way. Here to break it down, a man who's had, I assume, a restorative and relaxing non-sleep interrupted evening. It's Graham Ruffin. Hello, Graham.

Graham Ruffin (0:52)

Hello, Taylor Rockwell. How are you? Yeah, it's been like, what, 20 minutes since we last spoke? I've just rolled straight from the YouTube watch along into this, so.

Taylor Rockwell (1:01)

I had a couple hours sleep.

My setup looks shockingly similar. Graham, all three of your teams won yesterday, forcing you to confront that incredibly foreign feeling for Scott's joy. How was it for you?

Graham Ruffin (1:14)

Joy and celebration, yeah. Honestly, I feel like hung over from it today. Like, didn't have a single drink yesterday despite appearances. It was a zero Guinness on the stream.

That's what I'm telling people. But yeah, hung over from joy, I guess.

Taylor Rockwell (1:29)

Hung over from joy.

It's a good place to start. Rounding out the crew today, Joe Lowry, are you still trapped behind the glass case of emotion that is State Farm Stadium's press box?

Joseph Lowery (1:40)

No, thankfully, I've broken free. Graham, that's not joy that you feel hung over from. That's from sleeping zero, actually. Let's just go ahead and I've got the answer for you there. I know it's kind of hard to parse out like where is this coming from? Why do I feel bad? Why is my throat sore, etc.

I solved it for you, pal. Don't worry.

Graham Ruffin (1:54)

Thanks. Thanks, Joe.

Taylor Rockwell (1:56)

Is that like Heideken Zero, sleep zero?

Joseph Lowery (1:58)

Sleep zero, yeah.

Taylor Rockwell (2:00)

I like it.

I like it. Yeah, Joe, so we'll get to the game. We'll get to your experience at the game, maybe a little bit more on the Patreon over at TSS Plus. If you want to join in support there, that's where, according to Ryan, all to most of the cool children are hanging out. Joe, what was the experience for this friendly? Given that it's a friendly, but given that it's against Mexico and given that it's what, 90% of L3 supporters are thereabouts?

Joseph Lowery (2:25)

Yeah, man, it was, on my drive there, traffic was rough. I mean, getting to State Farm Stadium in general is just not really centrally located. So it's always a bit of a trip, but getting there and seeing behind me a giant black SUV with a giant Mexican flag painted on the hood, not like one dangling out the window, like someone had gone through the effort to actually paint. I mean, it painted a picture for me of what the evening was gonna be like. We already knew what the evening was gonna be like. Pochettino was sort of joking at his Matchday Minus One press conference about how maybe it's gonna be 50-50 USA-Mexico fans and then just sort of laughing after everybody was like, that's not what it's gonna be. And he knew that full well. Remember, Pochettino had those comments after the US-Mexico Gold Cup final in 2025 played in Houston where he was publicly sort of not pleased with the lack of US fan representation in that game. So everybody knew what this game was gonna be.

Everybody knows why US Soccer puts this game in my neck of the woods instead of say in, I don't know, the central strip of the country.

But I loved it, man. And I think the US staff and players really appreciated the atmosphere as well of World Cup qualifying wasn't a thing this past cycle. So they didn't have to play in a lot of hostile environments along the way and getting one of those and doing reasonably well along the way. I think the scoreline certainly flattered the US. But doing well in a hot atmosphere, the atmosphere was certainly hot and the US did well enough. I thought it was a job well done.

Graham Ruffin (3:47)

Yeah, impressive considering how many young players as well featuring for the US and they totally stood up to that environment and that atmosphere. So I feel like it's probably quite a... Now that the US has come through it, obviously we'd have a different framing if this has gone against the US, but now they've come through with such a positive result in performance, this feels like a bit of a growing experience for some of these players.