3rd Degree the Podcast #231

[00:00:00] Speaker A: No, it was some something that scroll over on Twitter and it's some woman with this giant silver mustache. Yeah, third degree. The third degree nail pocket. Third degree. The third degree napa. A third degree. Never get third degree. Never cat third degree. [00:00:32] Speaker B: The podcast is brought to you by Soccer 90 Dot. Right now, take advantage of the Soccer 90 Dot special ball sale. Every soccer ball is 50% off, regular price for a limited time only. While supplies last, they got a wide variety of soccer balls. MLS, Women's World Cup, European Club and League balls. Man, they got a lot of balls over there at Soccer 90. We're talking all kinds of soccer balls, pro balls, mini balls, 50% off. And of course, third degree listeners get 20% off all other kinds of orders. With the code third degree at checkout, some exclusions may apply. [00:01:05] Speaker A: Well, hello there, FC Dallas curious fan. Welcome to another episode number two three, one of Third Degree, the podcast. Hope you made it home safe last night. Hi, it's me, Peter, and I am joined not by one but two. All three of us are here tonight. He's returned. He's back, tanned and ready to go. The amazing Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:01:31] Speaker C: Hey, soccer friends. What's going on? [00:01:35] Speaker A: Oh, you even sound like you're a bit. [00:01:37] Speaker C: Nah, nah, it's still a facade. [00:01:39] Speaker A: OK, all right. You're just putting on a good happy face for everybody. [00:01:43] Speaker C: Yeah, last for like five minutes maybe. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Typical miserable English self, I hope. [00:01:48] Speaker C: Always. [00:01:50] Speaker A: If nothing else, I'm honest and your hero. My hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of Third Degree Net. And yes, the original Buzz Carrick. Come in, Buzz. [00:02:02] Speaker B: Hi, Peter. I'd like to personally thank LutonTown for finally winning a game so that Dan would come back to the podcast celebrating. [00:02:10] Speaker A: His first Premier League win. How did it feel, Dan? [00:02:14] Speaker C: It was pretty good. It's pretty good. Unfortunately, then not winning in the week kind of took a little bit of the shine off, you know. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Also, Peter, we should mention that this is the first podcast since Dan's birthday. So happy birthday, Dan. [00:02:29] Speaker A: Oh, that's right, I forgot about that. Happy birthday, Dan. [00:02:34] Speaker C: Thank you so much. [00:02:35] Speaker A: How's it feel to be 67 37? Sorry. Well, I am pleased to report to the curious listening to the Pod that we have not one, but two eyewitness reporters that were on the scene last night during natural disaster talk. So we'll have some firsthand reporting from the scene of the amazing stuff that happened last night at Toyota Stadium. [00:03:05] Speaker B: Well, I will admit that I did not see any of the truly amazing stuff when the weather came through. It came through fast because that was about the fastest drop of 20 degrees that I've ever experienced in less than a minute. And then what would be probably the early makings of a cyclonic sort of wind tornado wishy kind of thing. I'm not going to say it was a tornado. It was nowhere near that. But it was like it was a swirling dervish that bigger than I've ever been in. Which is not to say very much, but it kicked up a lot of dirt and stuff all over the place. And then the skies opened up and it dropped a lot of rain. But that wind was at a level that it was pretty remarkable since it started ripping parts of the stadium apart. And there's a bunch of clips on Twitter. I reached one of some of the worst of Know throwing around trash cans apparently, which I know Dan can add more on and big signs and big chunks of building and all kinds of stuff. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Yes, I'm sure many people are familiar with the two reported victims, one of which we'll talk about here a little bit later in the pod. But I am just learning that Dan himself is a victim of last night's fiasco. An actual victim here on the pod. [00:04:16] Speaker C: Jesus. [00:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:21] Speaker C: That was a weird one. Got into this friend text like hey, I got a couple of tickets. Do you want to go? And they weren't planning so the wife and I went. We get into the stadium right as the whole red alert thing for the players to supposed to be coming out plays and like okay, let's get a couple of dollar hot dogs on the way to the seats. And it just starts hammering down and shielded by the hall of Fame winds really start picking up. You just hear a ton of screams and I guess she jumps out the way of a trash can that gets blown across and then at the very last second goes babe, I start to turn around. This thing just like wallops me in the ankle. Then we end up taking shelter in the concession stand, which is great, ordering beer from inside of the thing. It was inside of the concession stand a lot quicker, a lot easier. It's like a bar but cleaner. [00:05:29] Speaker A: Did you five finger discount a snickers or a bag of popcorn or something? [00:05:34] Speaker C: No, I was very thankful for the hospitality. [00:05:39] Speaker A: I'm glad to know that you survived the attack of the flying trash can, Dan. [00:05:44] Speaker C: It was just funny watching Know. I turned to hear where the screens come from, look to where the flags are by the east gate. The flags are virtually ripping off the poles at this point and then I see a Continental tires board just fly past and I was like, that should be by the field on some grass and it's all the way up here. [00:06:10] Speaker A: Man. It was crazy scenes last night and we will talk more about all of that here a little bit later on. But Buzz, let's get to the business at hand, which know we were planning on having two games to talk about for this episode, but obviously we only have one. And I've been noodling on the impact of the fact that this game last night is now postponed and what that means for the larger picture because I think there's lots of interesting ramifications out of that. But let's start off in Houston. Down in Houston, at the Dynamo on Saturday. We all know Houston has won the US. Open cup. They have done a flip flop of form in this season, much like, I think in some ways it's interesting because they've had a similar conversion from a really crummy to a really good season in the same way Dallas did from 21 to 22. And Nico went down there with his crew and just did everything possible to make it the most boring soccer game of the season so far, didn't he? [00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that my three things from that game was about the most frustrating you'll ever hear me in terms of boy performance. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I had not watched the game, and after watching your three instant reaction comments, I was like, yeah, I think I'm okay. I don't think I have to watch this one, man. [00:07:29] Speaker B: It was just a can. I can understand a tactic of you're going up to Philadelphia, a place that you've not done well against a team that is really, really good, but I don't think Houston is all that much better than FC Dallas. They have four more points on one more game played. Those teams are not separated by that much. In my opinion, they would have just won the Open Cup right before Dallas played them. So they're going to come off a little bit of a hangover on that. They were clearly going to rotate a couple of guys. That's what everyone was talking about. I think it was pretty obvious that was going to happen. I don't think that going to houston is necessarily a place that you've really struggled and that you need to go down there with this incredible grind it out sort of philosophy. And in particular, what drives me crazy about this game is that they use the three four three again, which is a formation that Dallas does not play properly. Not because I'm sure Coach doesn't want it to be played properly, but because the wings don't perform it properly. And you end up with and I think part of it I should say this too, I think part of the reasons why they don't play it properly is that this particular coach, based on my observation of his tactics, does not like his outside backs or wingbacks, or whatever they are, to be the total width of the team. He doesn't want them running end to end. He wants them to maintain this defensive shape often. And basically it's a five back. Basically often instead of a three back. But that means that in order to have that be the case, in order to maintain that stability, you have to have your wings play wide well in a three four three. When you do that, you've abandoned the middle and your two men in the middle just get absolutely overrun by everybody. And that happens every time they play this formation. So, particularly in my opinion, when you're playing against Houston, who has a very, very good midfield group with Hector Herrera and Coco Carrotski who didn't play in this game, they rotated him out. But their 6th is it Victor, I think is their 6th. I don't remember the exact names of some of these guys, but they have a very quality central midfield and Dallas basically abandoned the midfield. This was the worst possession we've seen. It's the second worst possession on the year. I remember looking that up. It's 37% and it resulted in four total shots, only two on goal, which I think was probably a combination of like the second least amount of shots all year and probably the least amount of shots on goal all year. Effectively, they had zero chance to score in this game and therefore zero chance to win this game. So to me that tactic is ridiculous. Now, I know it's late in the season, I know they're trying to grind out points, I know they're trying to get every measly point they can, but I don't think that Houston needs to be treated as if they're LAFC or Miami with this this formation. This tactic, to me, took the team out of any chance to win. And in particular, what I don't understand is why are you moving Alan Velasco out of the middle after it was clearly demonstrated over the middle two months of the season that this team's at its best when Allen's playing that ten sort of role underneath and how much better they were in that shape. Now all of a sudden, we've watched the team completely abandon that and put him back on the wing again. And so there's lots of things happening in the last couple of games that I don't understand at all. And the worst part for me, of course, is that because they've been playing every Wednesday, I haven't been to training in a month now because the schedules don't allow me to do it. Practice isn't open. And so I don't really have any answers for some of this stuff. I'm just mystified by what's happening in the last game or two. [00:10:57] Speaker A: I get the sense and my frustration and my comments about how boring this team is. I understand that he's doing what he thinks he needs to do to get this team to the playoffs. But what I'm curious of is what is he going to do when he gets to the let's just assume they get there. How far does this go? Does this mean as soon as you get to the knockout game, if they qualify 8th or 9th, that they continue to play this? [00:11:29] Speaker B: Probably. Listen, I will give them a certain amount of credit here because so far they're undefeated in this seven games in 22 stretch. Now they haven't won, but they also haven't lost. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Right? [00:11:43] Speaker B: So also for the entire month of September, they did not lose a game. They had five draws and one win. So there is a school of thought that that tactic is kind of working in a way, I guess. But I think that just tying all these games isn't enough. It's the failure to win home games is particularly egregious. And if you go back to Crew where who were the best offensive team in the league, I can sort of buy that tactic that's what you want to do is try and shut down their offense, but it didn't really give you, again, much of a chance to win games. At some point, you got to win games. Now that brings you to the playoffs. Question do they continue to do the same thing? Probably. Honestly, they do, because there really isn't a lot of people on this team that can score goals other than Jesus Ferreira. And he's in a drought, there's no question about that. He's stagnant since he got back other than the RSL breakout game. So I'm sure the philosophy probably has devolved to the point where it's like we're going to try and kill as much of the play as possible, keep it, and hope Jesus can do something magical and steal the game. That's what I see. That's what it looks like to me. And I don't know why you wouldn't continue to that if you don't feel like you have anybody else that can score. [00:12:59] Speaker A: Dan, did you happen to watch this game? [00:13:02] Speaker C: I saw about 30 minutes of it. Thankfully, that was all I did. Just go back and watch a couple of highlights and I definitely didn't miss anything. Yeah, it's funny, I kind of figured let me take a look at stats and Buzz talking about you don't have chances, you're not going to win the game. Their Xg was the lowest in four years, 0.3. And when to look back, when was the last time they actually won a game with as low Xg as that? Because I know it obviously doesn't mean it doesn't mean everything. There's always got to be context. And June 29, 2018, a one nil away win to Minnesota, was the last time they won with that kind of crappy and attacking output. [00:13:59] Speaker B: Go, damn. Sorry. [00:14:02] Speaker C: And the scary part about it is more than 50% of that number came from Jesus Ferreira's third minute shot. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I think if you I went and looked back at all the low possession games for the season, which is not the same as Xg, but it gives us a sort of flavor. And this is the weird part, right? If the six lowest possession games, their record is two, one, and three, they only lost one game. So of the other five out of six, they got a point or a win. Now, the difference is, as Dan mentions, the Xg, if you don't manage to get any opportunities like this team thrives on low pressure. Right. We know that not low pressure. I'm sorry. Low possession. They always want low possession, and they always want to quickly counterattack and get forward. The difference is, as Dan mentions, it's the Xg, which is a roundabout way of saying opportunities to score. Again, low possession is okay, not getting any opportunities. Only four shots on goal. Right. Really bad Xg. So this is the thing. It's not that they didn't want the ball. That's always the way it is. It's that the formation didn't allow them to do anything and give themselves any chances to score. And that's what's mystifying and that's what's concerning. [00:15:14] Speaker A: All right, but are we looking a gift horse in the mouth in the fact that, to your point, Buzz, they haven't lost a game at all in six weeks or whatever it's been? Six, seven weeks. They went through the month of September, which was a stretch of games that we were all really worried about, and they came through it relatively unscathed. And so are we being unfair and being critical about how they went about getting to this point? [00:15:45] Speaker B: Well, to be totally fair, they continue to get a point. They continue to tie games, and so they have not fallen down worse than 9th. They've maintained their position. But you also see teams tightening the gap, right, because now Minnesota, Kansas City, and Austin are now all on 38 when those teams were all like, five or six points back a couple of weeks ago. And you're not making up any ground like, you're on 41 and right in front of you on San Jose at 42, who you're about to play. Portland on 43, houston on 45, vancouver 46, Seattle 46, sorry, Salt Lake 46. Those teams were all there for the taking. Like, if you won a couple of games instead of tie, you might be having home field advantage in the first round instead of being the road team in the knockout game. So, sure, credit that you didn't lose. You're still in the playoffs. And remember, the Hunt said that back in the playoffs is the bare minimum, right? So maybe that's fine, but I don't think that you're giving yourself much opportunity. You want to be able to win games. You need to be able to win games because even if you even if you limp in on ties, if you can't win a game, you're not going anywhere, right? At some point, what's the point? At some point, you got to try and win. And that's where I begin to see worry, because I see tactics being laid out that to me, don't look like they're trying to win. They look like they're trying to tie. [00:17:04] Speaker A: And trying not to lose. [00:17:06] Speaker B: Trying not to lose, which is totally fair. I get it. Maybe if it gets you in the playoffs, it'll be okay. But listen, again, this team's got some problems. We know it's not an MLS Cup team this late in the season. There's some things I want to talk about, like personnel wise. That what we're seeing this late in the season that are kind of interesting. But we'll come back to that. I'm just a little mystified by this overall don't lose at all kind of mentality versus trying to win even some of the home ones. [00:17:34] Speaker A: Well, let me ask you this, Buzz, because this is a conversation all three of us had a lot in the post Oscar years and I know that a lot of people listen to this and go, oh, there they go again talking about Oscar, the good old days. But one of the comments that many people agreed with with Oscar is that Oscar made a lot of lemonade out of a roster of lemons. And is there an argument to be made that Nico may, in many ways have an even worse roster or an equally lemon filled roster, and he's just trying to make the best lemonade he can make out of what he's got? [00:18:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that's possibly true. I still think that what I think that the difficulty here is to circle back to the process idea. I don't think that Coach Nico SteveZ has yet transitioned this roster to 100% players that he wants to play the way he wants to play, right? So that's part of it. This is year two, I'll give you that. But on the other side of the coin is that, yes, Oscar made lemonade out of lemons. He won games that way and he won a supporter shield and then tied for a supporter Shield and lost a gold efficient or whatever it was. Point being is that he had the team at the top of the standings not scratching inclined to make the playoffs. Those are very different things. So, I don't know. Listen, I'm not out on nico, Steve's, by any means. I just am occasionally mystified by how aggressively he has this mentality of trying to tie games and grind out games as if his team is not nearly as good as he wishes it was. And I don't think it's as bad as know, other than their inability to score by anybody else but Jesus. Maybe that's the recognition that Jesus is in a funk and nobody else can score and so I'm going to do what I have to do. Maybe that's where we are. [00:19:21] Speaker A: Well, he's also burdened with a really weird set of attacking options. Very, very few, right? I mean, they went out and got a winger in the transfer window who's been worthless, OBrion is and depending on the game, you may get a good or a bad one. Ariola's been hurt for most of the season and only recently has started to come back. Jesus, obviously we just mentioned legit has know absent all season, comes back, starts to show some form and now is by all accounts done for the season or at least the regular season. Who else am I forgetting? Velasco. [00:19:59] Speaker B: Yeah he was. [00:20:02] Speaker A: Not only was he hurt for a period of time, but he also struggled at the beginning of the season and only recently kind of came back and showing a little bit here and there. The other guy that they spent a lot of money on is supposed to be the backup nine and he's maybe the most useless of them all to me when I think about it and I try to be pragmatic and fair about it. Maybe this is just him just trying to do the best he can to get the most out of this thing. [00:20:33] Speaker B: Yeah we even saw this healy have to start some know because of the lack of pieces or know. Which brings me back to the mystifying idea of alan Velasco's lack of production on the outside and how much better the team looks collectively offensively when he's inside to then now give up on that and move him back outside. That's another mystifying know there must be some deficiency that he's trying to overcome with that move, which could bring you into a conversation about overthinking things and coming back to the idea that I always express and I don't. Know where, Dan, you are in this, but the idea that I want to play the way I best play and not try and over respond to whatever you're doing, to stifle what you're doing and those are two very different. [00:21:20] Speaker C: Mean, I was, you know, absolutely ate up when Lucci or Oscar or even Nico talk about being the you want to you want to set the pace, you want to dictate things, you want to absolutely bring it. Because otherwise you go into a game like what could have happened last night, where you're playing an opposition that is quality wise, a little bit beneath you, and you're realistically going to let them come at you and they're going to be the standard. [00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah well that's why I found the cancellation of last night's game we're recording this on Thursday obviously all the more disappointing because based at least on the lineup buzz, the eleven that he had lined up there was actually kind of look they were going to play Colorado who are terrible, who are out of this. They're just waiting for somebody to come and club them and put them out of their misery and it looked like Nico was going to put an attacking aggressive team on the field and that would have been a lot of fun to watch. [00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the weird thing, is that to go from these overly defensive, overly stagnant formations to then go to a four four two on paper, it looked like with O'Brien up top and then a double eight and no sixes at all. Which know, you can do that in a know. And both Paxton and Yarmindi are ones to play a little bit deeper and have a little bit of that characteristic in them. So you probably can get away with it in that setup. But to me, that's kind of fascinating. Now, if you take that on paper lineup and you rotate it, you can easily rotate it to where Vlas goes a winger instead of being a wide midfielder or same thing with OBrion rotating up and being sorry, areola rotating up and being a winger. You can see ways that that thing can shift. Maybe Velasco shifts into the middle and it's a 4231 instead, you know? But for this coach, they tried it on, I think I can't remember which game it was. They did this through substituting. They ended up in this formation, this double eight formation for, like, a 20 minutes stretch. And to see them line up to start that way is absolutely fascinating to me. For this coach of all coaches who to me is rigidly defensive in shape and formation. To want to try a double eight look without a six at all is, oh, man, I was actually really excited for this game. I really wanted to see it because of that idea. Because if you could figure out how to do it with Paxton and Era mendy going forward and have a double eight and not have to be over reliant on Fakundo and Frazier, that would be outstanding. [00:24:05] Speaker A: Yeah, there was a lot of different possibilities out of the formation. I mean, hell, I could have seen them flipping into kind of a diamond midfield with Alara sitting a little behind Paxton. Yeah. Or a bach. I mean, there's all kinds of things that we may have gotten last night that we didn't. Who were the two starting backs last night? I forgot. [00:24:27] Speaker B: Center backs with Terafari and Ibiaga. We should talk about that, too. [00:24:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. [00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Because since the game Martinez had that knock, I want to say it was either the Nash game or game or the Philly game. I don't know which one it was. He had to sub out at, like, the surprisingly, it looked like he was supposed to go the 75th minute and they had to emergency sub him out. And I can't remember who they brought in. It might have been Dante, Celia. I don't remember who it was. Since that moment, the Martinez triple center back rotation has stopped. It's been Ibiaga and Tafari every time since then. We even talked on the podcast, like, oh, that's what it should be. And sure enough, it has been. So I think it says something that since that moment, we've not seen Martinez start, and now we've seen a game with no ficundo Quinon and there's been less and less reliance on those two guys down the stretch. And I think that says something. I think those are two guys whose contracts are coming up and maybe late in this season, as pressure mounts, coaches tend to lean towards more and more and more to guys that they trust you see less and less rotation. You see less and less of these guys getting a game here, a game there. You see more and more reliance on who can I absolutely, positively, 100% count on. And I think it raises a couple of red flags, maybe some that we probably were already anticipating, but it's always interesting. [00:25:49] Speaker A: Anything about the lineup last night, Dan, that we didn't comment on that you wanted to point out at all? [00:25:56] Speaker C: No. [00:25:56] Speaker A: Unless you're still concussed from the trash can ankle concussed. [00:26:00] Speaker C: Yeah. No, I got to be honest, I didn't even look at the lineup until like 09:00 when there was that first hint of, oh, maybe we'll get a game tonight. I was like, oh, yeah, should probably take a look at that now. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Before we get into the whole weather and procedure and the story of our new addition to the list, which I'm so excited about. The other thing that I was thinking, Buzz, is I'm trying to figure out if the fact that now this game against Colorado is apparently now going to fall sometime during this upcoming international break actually plays into Dallas's favor, because it's against Colorado and it's not like Colorado is going to lose anybody. But now they get San Jose first, and that's a six point game. So I don't know. I can't figure out if the fact that this game getting postponed or not is a good or a bad thing. [00:27:05] Speaker B: I think it's a good thing. I think that right now the rumor, the Scuttlebilt 100% unofficial assumption by people that are around this team is that it'll be that Saturday that they had a game on 14th. The 14th. Why would it not be that day? You could probably come up with some reasons, but I can't think of what they would be. [00:27:26] Speaker A: I don't think any MLS team is playing on the 14th. [00:27:29] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's the final international window. [00:27:31] Speaker A: So the way MLS works never stopped MLS before. [00:27:35] Speaker B: No, I'll explain that part. MLS gives teams the options to because the international windows are planned way out in advance, right. So when they do the schedules, they give the MLS teams the option to play in some of them or not. You have to play in a couple of them because of the schedule load, but you can pick which ones you want. So most everybody leaves this last one open, perhaps partially for this reason, so that you can put a game there if you have to. But also in the stretch run of the playoff chase, you're not going to have people missing. But if you're FC Dallas, you didn't lose Jesus Ferreira for this window, right? You could have, but you didn't. Maybe you might lose Alan Velasco, but I don't know. He was just got back from a 23 camp like a week two weeks ago or whatever it was, or a month ago. So would he be gone again? But that's it. You're not going to lose anybody else. [00:28:19] Speaker A: Yeah. There are two MLS games on the 14th already scheduled. Nashville hosting New England and the Galaxy hosting Real Salt Lake. That's right. So Real Salt Lake also is the other team with three games left. So they both play on the 14th. [00:28:32] Speaker B: So it lessens the load this week and allows you to be fresher for San Jose without having a midweek game. Whatever light rotation you didn't do in this game and might have had to do versus San Jose, you no longer have to do. So you're now looking at games on Saturdays over three straight weeks. You can basically play your best eleven now against San Jose, against Colorado, against La, where before you maybe had to maybe this game or maybe San Jose, you had a little rotation for each one. Perhaps. It's hard to say depending on what he's thinking about the rosters at this point. So I think it absolutely plays into their hands given that you didn't lose anybody. If you'd have lost Jesus, of course it would have been a disaster, but you didn't. So piece of cake. [00:29:10] Speaker C: Big think as know, you want to get into the playoffs, you want to come in hot, you don't want to limp in. Yeah, you get you don't have that weird cool down in the international break. You can play San Jose at home. There's an advantage playing them at home. You can then play Colorado at home, your final home game. Kind of make it a bit of a bigger deal. Go into the game with the Galaxy, know, potentially walk into the playoffs seven points better off or so. [00:29:45] Speaker B: So I really think this is actually a really massive benefit in terms of how you help the team once you didn't lose Jesus. It's just huge. [00:29:54] Speaker A: Yeah, well that and along with the fact that nobody got injured, don't we have a couple of guys on cautions like nobody's going to be yellow card suspended? The San Jose game is the important game because it's the six point game. Yeah, right. And by the way, San Jose ends their season at home against Austin. [00:30:13] Speaker B: Well, who's charging too? Yeah, you got to hopefully they'll take care of each. [00:30:20] Speaker A: Know. Now that we've had this conversation, I do think this helps. I think this plays well into Dallas's situation. I don't know how many of the three games, how many points they're going to have to get out of the three games to move up, but it does feel like my initial worry was, oh no, this is really going to clog the calendar or something is going to be negative about this postponement of the game. But now that I think about it and after hearing you two, I think this actually helps Dallas. [00:30:48] Speaker B: Yeah, as long as they don't lose out in Velasco. And I have no idea if Argentina is doing anything at all. I really don't know. But we know what US is doing and we know we're not losing, asus. [00:30:57] Speaker A: Wouldn'T we have heard by now. [00:30:58] Speaker B: I mean, you would think so, but who knows sometimes with South American teams well, I know a U 23 team, they could call them up for that again, I suppose, or something. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Didn't I see today that Messi got called up to the Argentinian national team and there's a big outcry about that. [00:31:14] Speaker B: Yeah, probably. I immediately have not that close a follower of the Argentinian national team. Obviously Velasco is more about the U 23 team, which is usually flies way under their radar. So it's very possible that he could get through it and have a call up at the last minute. He wouldn't even know. It wouldn't have been until after the San Jose game. So maybe they were just sort of waiting a little bit or know. But yeah, I'm looking at news right now and you're right that Messi is going to join Argentina. [00:31:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I'm just sitting here looking at the numbers. We know where Dallas stands in terms of form. They've won one game in their last, they're undefeated in their last, what do we say, six games. [00:32:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Okay. In front of them is San Jose. San Jose is one, four and one in their last six. Portland is the team that's really on a roll. They're undefeated in their last 123457. They are four oh no, I'm sorry, 50 and two. So they're on a hot streak. We know what Houston is doing. And you look at Austin while they won that game against DC three nothing. DC's. DC, but they hadn't won a game in their previous 1234-5678. So I'm not sure Austin is in the best of form at this particular moment. [00:32:41] Speaker B: Well, somehow they're just a point back so they must be doing something right. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Well, they tied some games, but in their last six games they're one two. [00:32:53] Speaker C: And it's crazy because their last three games with the Galaxy Colorado, and know you wouldn't expect four points from those three games. [00:33:05] Speaker A: Kansas City has been a little hit and miss, but they've won a couple of games, lost a few games. I mean, one of that's against in St. Louis, one of those is against Nashville. And then Minnesota really does appear to be dead in the water. They haven't won a game in their last seven. So it just feels like the game against San Jose being a six point game, if you can get three points over San Jose and catapult yourself in front of them and get at least one or two points against la or Colorado and end up with four points out of this, you've probably solidified your situation of at least making a play in game spot. [00:33:42] Speaker B: I mean, honestly, when you have two home games left, could you ask for a better set than San Jose? [00:33:47] Speaker A: Who's. [00:33:48] Speaker B: And then Colorado, who's the worst? Now listen, those are two teams that have from time to time been big, Dallas, bogey teams. But when you look at the current form, I don't know that you could ask for much better than know, maybe Toronto, but you're not getting that. [00:34:02] Speaker A: Well, if we're looking at the standings right now with Austin and Kansas City and Minnesota all sitting on 38, they each have a maximum capability of 44 points. If they were to that's six points. Is that right? Is 38 and 644. Yes. That's basic math, Peter. So if you can get six points, you're at least in 9th place. [00:34:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds right. [00:34:29] Speaker A: And then you don't have to worry about going to La and fussing it up. And fussing it up. Well, look, you don't want to leave the road game in La to be the deciding on decision day, not the. [00:34:44] Speaker B: Way this team plays on the want. [00:34:47] Speaker A: This, you want that to be a game that does nothing but other than help buffer and elevate your position in the standings. So maybe you don't have to play the play in game, for example. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Yes. Well, ideally you would have liked to have gotten higher up and not have the play in game and even get a home slight home field advantage. But at this point, I don't think it's very likely they'd have to really win out in order to even have a shot at that because they're already five behind Salt Lake and Vancouver. So you would have to have both those teams stumble there's a lot of teams stumble. I think it's almost impossible at this point. [00:35:20] Speaker A: Well, keep a couple of things in mind. The final game this actually works, decisions day is going to be fascinating because Houston and Portland play each other in Portland on decision day. Right. And Portland right now is two points behind Houston in that fifth, 6th, and 7th spot. The other one to keep an eye on is LAFC has to go to Vancouver, and Vancouver is on 46 points and LAFC is on 48. You're only seven points behind that's third place. [00:35:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:51] Speaker A: So there's a scenario where if you could get seven points and get yourself up to 48, you may end up in one of those home field advantage positions. [00:36:00] Speaker B: I mean, you can get to 51 out. [00:36:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Dream. [00:36:03] Speaker B: Weirder things have happened. [00:36:04] Speaker A: We can dream. Right, Dan? [00:36:06] Speaker C: I mean, you can try. It's just normally they get squashed and ruined. [00:36:13] Speaker A: This is Dallas after all. [00:36:14] Speaker B: Well, given the amount of ties this team puts up, I doubt you're going to win out just because that would be like you would have like a third of all your wins on the year would come in on three straight games. That's not going to happen. Yeah, this team doesn't win like that. They tie way too often. They keep games close. [00:36:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Just so everybody knows right now, currently they are seven wins, three losses, five draws at Toyota Stadium. It'd be very symmetrical for them to end up with seven wins and seven draws by the end of the season. That's the way it played out. [00:36:51] Speaker B: Well, this team loves to pull the shoot against Colorado, so that'll be a so. [00:36:58] Speaker A: Wow. Crazy stuff. All right, so San Jose is now coming to town this weekend, correct? [00:37:09] Speaker B: Yeah. It'll be interesting to see what this team chooses to do, what this coach chooses to do, because now he doesn't have to rotate at all. He doesn't have to worry about any of that management. He can just go full out best eleven, of course, as he always does. He'll have some sort of tactical plan to try and deal with some aspect of San Jose's game. So you can't make any prediction about what tactics you're going to get. You have to just sort of try and analyze San Jose the best you can and see if you can come up with an eleven or an idea of the eleven. But I think there's a certain amount of assumptions we can make about what's going to happen. Right. We know it's going to be pause at this point. It's going to be farfan. Ibiaga tafari tuomasi. That's pretty given, you know, Jesus is going to start, is healthy. He's going to start. If Velasco is healthy, he's going to start. The only question is, where is Velasco going to start? Is he going to start in the midfield? Is he going to start on the wing? Yara Mindy will start no matter what. So that just leaves you some choices. Are you looking at Fakundo coming back in or are you going to try this double eight look again? Are you looking at Velasco on the wing or is he going to be in the midfield? If he's in the midfield, who's on the wing? Is it going to be Obrian again? Is it going to be Kamungo? If Velasco is on the wing, who's the other piece in the middle? Is it paxton and era mindy with Fakundo. So there are some choices up there that were going to be impossible to predict without doing a deeper dive into what San Jose is doing. This isn't a coach who seems to have like, here's my best eleven, you're going to have to deal with it. That's not what he does, at least not this season, he doesn't. Or last season either, that I can remember. I mean, I wish that it was that way, but it isn't. So we're going to be left and maybe we'll learn some things over this last two games, because when you don't have any midweek games, you should be able to line up your best eleven, bang, bang, bang. Three games in a row and we probably won't see that. [00:38:59] Speaker A: And this buzz is, ironically, where the postponement of last night actually helps Dallas, because now, instead of having a midweek game stuffed right up in front against the critical game against San Jose, now they didn't have to play. They get to play San Jose on a week's rest, just like San Jose is on Saturday night, and then they get a full other week off before they have to play Colorado. So this actually, in weird ways, other than Dan's ankle and the two other people at the game, in the drama of all of that, this actually worked out everybody's favor. We all just had to suffer a bit for it. [00:39:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I mean. Know, it lines the cycles back up. It gets you back on a know, it gets you back to where you don't have to think about man management, minute management, you can limit all that from the conversation. It gets you on the same page as San Jose, the same page as the other teams you're fighting against, and it gets you back to the structure that you normally want, structure you have a normal part of the season, so it'll enable you to feel much better about your path as you come into the playoffs. [00:39:59] Speaker A: Thank you for your sacrifice, Dan. [00:40:02] Speaker C: Anytime. [00:40:05] Speaker A: Do you have a mark or a welt on your ankle? [00:40:10] Speaker C: It swelled up a little bit. I got to be honest, I haven't looked at it since this morning. [00:40:17] Speaker A: Did you try walking on it since this morning? [00:40:19] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like, above and behind my ankle. Funnily enough, Mo said in our discord server, bad things happen to my ankles at Toyota Stadium, and it's the same ankle right next to my Achilles tendon scar from tearing that playing in a supporters game on the field. [00:40:45] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. I forgot that had happened to you. Okay, Buzz, can we get into the stuff about last night? [00:40:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:56] Speaker A: Because all right, so as everybody knows, the storm front blew in. We knew this storm was coming literally since yesterday morning. All the weather reports were predicting a rather substantial storm front to blow through sometime during the two hour window of the game. And the kind of the radar reports we were getting a few hours beforehand kind of made it look like when it was going to arrive was going to happen somewhere towards the end of the game. We've all lived here. We know what's going to happen before the storm actually arrives. It's going to be the lightning. And that's what ultimately ends up delaying these matches for Dallas all the time. And sure enough, the storm actually. So help me figure out, because I wasn't there, am I correct in saying that the guys had all come out, they had warmed up, they had done pregame activities, and then the shit hit the fan. [00:41:50] Speaker B: Yeah, they went through the anthem and they did the little pictures and everything. And then basically at that point, there were lightning strikes too close, and they were, like, waved it off, and everybody went to the locker room. They didn't kick off or anything. [00:42:00] Speaker A: So how long between the lightning strikes and them deciding to push between the lightning strikes, and then when the weather actually hit, about ten minutes, maybe. Okay. Because they're at a 30 minutes window at this point. When the lightning strikes, it's a 30 minutes, isn't it? A 30 minutes delay? [00:42:20] Speaker B: Yeah. From anytime there's a strike within a certain amount of distance, they have to restart the clock. You have to be 30 minutes without lightning in the area. And so they were waiting that period out, and after about ten minutes of all waiting was when that wall, the temperature dropped like a rock, and the wind went crazy and people started running. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Did they make an announcement in the stadium to go under the concourse or anything like that? [00:42:41] Speaker B: Well, when they delayed it for the lightning, they said the stuff they usually say about weather delays and when the weather started kicking up again, they reiterated that, everybody please take shelter. [00:42:53] Speaker A: Okay. So we have learned that in the course of the dust up and the strong winds and all of that, first off, it seemed like a funny story, because the way we're going to work this just sounds so very Dallas, but there was an eight year old kid that got injured. I don't know how has anybody heard the details of this kid's injury? [00:43:16] Speaker C: I tried to watch the news story on that, and it didn't mention the. [00:43:19] Speaker A: Kid at oh, well, all I know about the kid was that somehow I don't know if the kid fell. I don't know if something struck the kid. I don't know or what happened, but the kid apparently ended up having to go to the hospital and was checked, released last night, and apparently is okay. Not like a life threatening, but we did have a good, curious listener injured last night. You're aware of this, right, guys? [00:43:47] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:43:53] Speaker A: And I am proud to announce that for the first time ever, we have somebody added to the list. I think I'm correct buzz in saying that is not from the front office or the team itself, but a fan has actually made the now famous list. [00:44:11] Speaker B: Are you not on there being hip checked into the board at the open cup game? [00:44:15] Speaker A: No, because I don't think that qualifies. So the honor goes to Colton Stevens, who was very kind to trade direct messages with me this morning and told me the whole story. I'm sure everybody heard by now, but Colton was in section 120. This is the craziest part of the story. Colton is in 126, which is on the east side of the stadium, more than halfway across the expanse of the stadium from the stage end. And he's up towards the top at this point because the weather is hitting, and everybody is going up to the concourse end when he feels himself get struck. As he said, something hit him hard. He thought maybe a chair had come loose and had hit him in the shoulder, and it wasn't until later that he found out it was the plastic face of the first letter O in Toyota on the face of the stage signing all the way at the north end of the stadium. So I was doing some math that has to have flown almost a full 80 yards to have hit him where it hit him. [00:45:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I believe it. [00:45:27] Speaker A: And he says he thinks it was going about 40 miles an hour by the time it hit him. [00:45:32] Speaker B: It's possible. I saw one of those plastic trash cans that are not that light pick up and fly across the whole field in about 3 seconds. So the wind was moving at that point. [00:45:44] Speaker A: Is that dan's assailant? [00:45:46] Speaker C: It could well have been. [00:45:47] Speaker B: No, this was on the field, so I don't think it was unless it made an end around run and circled back, like, went up the stands and circled around the hall of Fame and got him then. That's what that's possible. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I bet that letter has got to be 3ft tall bigger than that. [00:46:03] Speaker C: I think it's probably more like five bigger than that. Yeah, because that little facade with the Toyota Stadium sign covers the entire catwalk, so you've got to have, like, a six foot gap there at least. [00:46:16] Speaker A: It's crazy that, first off, he's lucky it didn't hit him in the neck or the head. He's got a pretty good welt on his shoulder. He told me in the direct message that he immediately left the stadium after it happened. He didn't really know what was going on. He went straight to his car to kind of get out of the weather. But then when he got in the car, he realized his shoulder hurt so badly, he went back into the stadium and found the paramedics, and they checked him out, told him he was okay, and if it got worse the next day to go to an urgent care center or something like that. [00:46:58] Speaker C: So there is a picture of him Fox Four have put up, of him actually holding a fragment of the sign of the letter O. And you can see the inside and outside edge of part of the o, and there's a good foot there. So the total size of that O is probably five to 6ft. [00:47:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it shattered. He said it shattered when it hit him in the shoulder, and he's got a pretty good size welt on his shoulder. That picture of him with his shirt off made the rounds last night. And then, of course, within 30 minutes after they officially announced the cancellation of the game, I think it was Fox Four was doing tweets and stuff about the bad weather and people getting injured at FC Dallas game and I could just see the front office completely freaking out in that particular moment. Because now it's not just the cancellation of the game, but now there's injuries from the moment. And yeah. So, Colton, congratulations. Your crazy happening is now part of FC Dallas legend and myth. [00:48:07] Speaker C: There's a video of the O flying. [00:48:09] Speaker A: Is there? [00:48:10] Speaker C: There is. [00:48:11] Speaker A: Oh, I haven't seen it. You'll have to put that in our group chat, please, sir. [00:48:15] Speaker C: It's actually the Fox Four story. I guess they managed to get hold of a video where you can see parts of the O just come in towards them. Yeah, that's terrifying. [00:48:26] Speaker A: I got a copy of a picture of the O without the lens piece that flew off, and I included that in the addition to the list along with a graphic of kind of showing where he was standing versus where it flew from. It's a crazy distance. He's so lucky he didn't get hurt worse. [00:48:45] Speaker C: Yeah, it's amazing there wasn't a serious injury period. [00:48:50] Speaker A: But here's the thing. Look, the club can't control the weather in any way, shape and form, and certainly the dramatics of the front blowing through, I guess, is a little predictable or whatever. I think if I have a frustration as a fan, and the part that I can't figure out is, why is it that for a club that has to deal with this, it feels like two or three times every season? The process of communicating, the delay time, whether or not the game is going to be picked back up and restarted or played at all or postponed to the next day, just feels like a really broken system. Like, I only found out last night at one point there was a Hispanic journalist that was reporting the game was picking back up at 1035, and he was saying he was told that by somebody at the FC Dallas front office. Well, 1035 came and went, and then the first official thing that I saw from anybody related to the club was Owen, who does the radio play by. [00:49:57] Speaker C: Was it was really so I was down near the south end where the interview rumors so Dan Hunt was popping in and out, and a couple of people were asking him, what's going on? And he's like, we're just waiting for the countdown. 1010 was going to be when the final decision was made, 1010 came and it was, okay, playing, play is going to resume. 1035. [00:50:25] Speaker A: Oh, so that was announced. 1035. [00:50:28] Speaker C: It wasn't announced, but it's 100% true. It was happening. One of the guys I was talking to actually was on a text with somebody who works for the team that was on the communication back to MLS. And he was like, yeah, we're trying to get the game going, but I think the match Commission is going to overrule it and cancel it. And then sure enough, it was dead on. 1030 hit, and one of the security people down by the field just was like, no, everyone's got to leave. And then a few minutes later, they actually put the announcement around the stadium. [00:51:12] Speaker A: Why did the security person say everybody had to leave? [00:51:14] Speaker C: Because they'd just been radioed that the game was off. [00:51:18] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. Okay. [00:51:21] Speaker C: Yeah, the communication was just bizarre, but, I mean, you don't hear anything up in the press box either. [00:51:29] Speaker A: Well, no, that's my experience, too, after all these years, is that we get into these games where you're at the press box or you're at the game or you're at home, and nobody seems to have any real clear idea as to what's going on. And whoever is in control of that isn't communicating with the communications team who are apparently unable or unallowed to communicate to the public. I don't know, it just feels like because this happens so often, there should be a very clear plan as to how this should go down, but maybe I'm completely talking out of my ass and I don't know what I'm talking about. [00:52:05] Speaker C: No, you're 100% right. And it's something that should be led by the league, too, especially. You've got a lot of parties who have a say in it, right. Apple TV is now going to have a say. The league is going to have a say. Both teams are going to have a say. The referee is going to have a say. Potentially, police fire for public safety is going to have a say. [00:52:26] Speaker A: It just feels like to me that every 15 minutes, somebody should get on social media and say, the status of the game is this, right? [00:52:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it's funny. Some of the times you're up in a press box and one of the guys will get a text like, okay, warm ups in 20 minutes. And then you're like, oh, great. Yeah. Lightning flash hits it's hard because that countdown resets so frequently. Yeah, it would be great if there was a even if it was an update. There is no update. [00:53:00] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. Because it was just weird because we got so late into the night. At one point, I saw Buzz tweet out that he was leaving the stadium, and I thought, well, if Buzz is leaving, this thing's definitely not getting started. And then I saw the tweet from the Spanish station reporter saying the game was starting at 1035, and I think, man, Buzz is going to be pissed because he just left ten minutes ago. [00:53:24] Speaker B: No, I think at that point, I knew from your salt sources the game wasn't getting played. [00:53:33] Speaker A: This wasn't just you being a salty veteran and a native of the Dallas Fort Worth area. [00:53:37] Speaker B: I'm sure that factors, but I was pretty sure what was happening. I knew that basically, they were waiting for a certain time frame before they could call it. And I was looking at the weather and knew that there was no way that weather was going to go away before they got to that time frame. And so I was like, I'm out. [00:53:55] Speaker C: That was the 1010. That was supposed to be the if it's happening, it's happening. If it's not, it's not. It was the match commissioner made the call after that, though. [00:54:04] Speaker B: That's what they say. I sort of had been given a nudge that it was like they're just waiting for 1010 to call it, not make a decision. But the decision had been made whether my nudge nudge was any more true or not than anything else I've been told about that, it's hard to say, but when I looked at the weather and I felt that nudge, I was like, yeah, I'm out. [00:54:27] Speaker A: I don't want to be unfair to anybody because those situations can be completely chaotic and there's a lot of moving parts and different people making decisions. I just feel like after all these years and after all of these experiences of games getting delayed due to weather and it's not like this is exclusive to Dallas. Right. I feel like there should be some sort of and I'm sure there is some sort of guideline at the league level that says this is how you handle these things. And I don't mean the process of making the decision if it's going to be postponed or played or whatever. I'm just purely talking about how do you communicate this, both to the media and the public as to what is going on so that everybody's not sitting around waiting for something. Does that make sense? [00:55:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't really have a good answer for that. I would agree with you that I. [00:55:16] Speaker A: Feel like they're but shouldn't that be really easy? [00:55:19] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:55:20] Speaker A: Well, let me put it this way. Somebody knows at any given moment what the status of the game is, right? Somebody has to know this. [00:55:29] Speaker B: I'm not sure that there may be too many factors of politics. As Dan said, it's kind of the match commissioner's call. But sometimes when the owner is standing there saying, we want to play this, know things happen. Politics. [00:55:48] Speaker C: Like I was standing there and Dan Hunt is standing there with the referee and the match commissioner pointing out like, the field's drained really well, we can play this. And they'd brought all the equipment in, they started bringing it back out, and then it was kind of like, oh, it's happening. It's absolutely happening. And then it was almost a surprise at that point when they said, actually no, it's off. [00:56:11] Speaker A: I wonder why they decided not to play it. Was there more lightning? [00:56:17] Speaker C: It started raining pretty heavily again. [00:56:20] Speaker A: Okay, well, they have a lightning detector out there. I know they do because it's out there at the concession stand for the fields. So I know they've got an actual detector at the facility that is set for a range to detect lightning. And that is supposed to be, I think, the official determiner if there's lightning in the area. [00:56:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. Nothing. [00:56:47] Speaker C: No, it was chaos. It was such a weird I mean, here's the crazy thing, right? Say like, there should be better communication, better organization. Cast your mind back a few years ago. When there was that delay against I want to say it was Houston and the stadium. Oh, no, sorry. It was the Toronto game when there was that three hour weather delay, and we finished at like one to five to one in the morning. [00:57:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:18] Speaker C: They told people to go to their cars because there was no stadium evacuation plan. There was no plan in case of weather or anything. So people were trying to go to the ops tunnel and they were like, no, you have to go to your car. We have no plan. We cannot do anything for you. [00:57:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the problem that I have about last night. What happened with the weather, while they have no control over it, was largely pretty predictable. I feel like we've all lived here long enough to know in the fall, when you see that line of storms coming, it's not going to be a gentle sprinkle. It's going to be a violent couple of minutes of wind and storm and lightning. And it just feels like the fact that they allowed the game to get so close to be played, even that decision, I'm curious about, like, who made that decision? But I don't know, it just seems very weird. [00:58:16] Speaker C: It's hard, right? Because if you think about games, this is Europe, right? This is geographically smaller scale. If you're going to call a game off, you call a game off before the team leaves to go to the ground. So if that means in winter, you're playing a team who's halfway across the country. The pitch inspection is done the day before. [00:58:38] Speaker A: Makes sense. [00:58:40] Speaker C: When they get on a bus or on a plane, colorado is in town. They've probably been in town since the previous day. You can't do anything like a pitch inspection because it's an atmospheric thing that may or may not happen close to kickoff. So the process of calling the games off yeah, you're 100% right that they have to figure out better because Frisco isn't the only place that's faced with severe lightning storms half the time. [00:59:11] Speaker A: Well, no, that's the part that I'm confused by, because if I remember last night, looking at the radar, it wasn't like it was five minutes before the game started that the line of storms blew up. You could see it coming well, long before they probably even came out for pregame warm up. But the but at some point, from a meteorological standpoint, and I know Mark Falwell, he's the one that's got kind of a degree in this is you can do the math and figure out when the storm is going to arrive. Like, you know how fast it's traveling, you know how far away it is at that particular moment. And it was at like 636, 45. I was like, yeah, there's no way this game's kicking off. This is happening faster than even I thought it was going to. Because initially, based on early weather reports, the line wasn't supposed to pass through until after 08:00, somewhere between eight and 09:00. And so when it started showing up that it was going to arrive somewhere closer to 730, I thought, man, this game's never even going to happen. So when I found out that they were out warming up and there were pregame activities going on, I thought, that's really weird. I don't know, man. I don't know. I wish I knew. I understood the whole process of how that decision making thing is going on. I'm sure somebody's listening to this and punching their dashboard, yelling at us to shut up because we don't know what we're talking about. But it does feel like a very broken system where nobody has a real. [01:00:41] Speaker C: Plan, I guess hard, because you've got to figure out actually fitting the game in. There were little gaps in there. So that period, I guess after the main storm, when you looked at the radar, there was this huge hole. [01:00:57] Speaker A: Donut hole. Yeah. [01:00:58] Speaker C: And the stadium was right in the middle of it. And it's kind of just how long does that last? Is there a window to play, or is it just a case of get home while you still can? [01:01:09] Speaker B: Well, probably with the whole game to be played, they've never felt like they had a big enough window because you don't want to end up with a split game again like we had against St. Louis. [01:01:18] Speaker A: No, it just felt like they should have just canceled the game before they let anybody come out to do warm up Monday. Well, maybe that's a little too and. [01:01:29] Speaker B: I felt like we were talking about it from Monday mean what the weather was going to get. [01:01:38] Speaker A: Well, you know, it is Texas, after all. You never know exactly what's going to happen. But I do feel like at least an hour prior to the game, it was pretty clear that it was going to be a bit of a crummy situation. [01:01:48] Speaker C: I will admit to being very naive because I just believed that my phone said it had an 87% chance of rain. I was like, I can't be that bad if it's only 87%. I'll just take a rain jacket, I'll be good. [01:02:00] Speaker A: You're telling me there's a chance? [01:02:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:05] Speaker A: All right, enough of that. Real quick, a couple of notes before we end up we have FC Dallas nominees for different MVP or of the Year stuff, and there's lots of people listed here. [01:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Hey, Seuss is up for MVP, and then Nico for Coach. [01:02:23] Speaker A: Martin paws for whoa. Nico is up for Coach of the Year. [01:02:29] Speaker B: The team nominate yeah, the team nominates a person for every position no matter what the award is. Yeah. [01:02:35] Speaker C: Don't you remember when Marco Ferrusi was up for Coach of the Year? [01:02:39] Speaker A: Yes, I forgot. Sorry. [01:02:41] Speaker B: Tafari's up for Defender of the Year. These are just the club's nominees. Bernard Kamungo is Newcomer of the year. Alan Vlasco's. Young Player of the year and Areola's up for what used to be Humanitarian of the Year, but now has this eight month long read of Sponsors of the Year. So the point is that none of those people are finalists. What matters is who the finalists should be, and none of those people are going to be finalists at all. [01:03:03] Speaker A: You don't think Bernie will be a finalist for a newcomer with his story? [01:03:07] Speaker B: No. [01:03:08] Speaker A: Oh, probably because he got injured, didn't play a lot, messy. [01:03:12] Speaker C: And the guy at St. Louis. [01:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [01:03:15] Speaker B: And these people all play for FC Dallas. So even if you were in first place, you still play for FC Dallas. And the national media ignore FC dallas you're so bitter. [01:03:25] Speaker A: You're so old. [01:03:27] Speaker B: It's that I've been doing this for 27 years, and I can count the finalists for MLS awards from FC Dallas. [01:03:33] Speaker A: On one hand, other than the new Paul Gardner. Yeah. [01:03:37] Speaker B: So it's like I'm turning in the next. So, you know, the one that should be at candidate for at least a candidate for it is Pause for Goalkeeper of the Year, but he won't be. But nobody else on this list. Maybe Bernie should be up for a young player sorry, a Newcomer of the Year. And maybe you can make us a case for Velasco, but there's a lot of good young players. Velasco doesn't have the stats. And when your team's in 9th place, you're not going to win any of these awards. These awards go to players on teams that are in first place or top three or four, maybe. [01:04:08] Speaker A: So what you're saying is we just wasted amended? [01:04:10] Speaker B: No, it's worth discussing who they are because it is a news item. And I think you can make a case that Martin Pause is going to get hosed on this, even though he should at least be a finalist. I don't think he will be. [01:04:20] Speaker A: We agree with you on that. All right. North Texas roster moves happened. [01:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I was pretty chalk, except for, quite surprisingly to me, hope had his option not picked up. Now, there's a couple of reasons why that could be. One is that he's already signed a new deal to be with North FC Dallas. Potentially, they could have not picked it up because they didn't like the number, and they want to resign him for maybe a North Texas deal. That's also possible. Or it's possible that he asked to go to the USL where he could play more. All those things are very possible. I cannot fathom that they looked at this team and watched him be the best player on the team all season long and then thought, now that guy's trash and let him go. So I don't understand it. If that's what it is, I don't understand it. At know, from time to time, the last several years, there's been decisions that I don't understand in terms of talent. And if dumping Hope of A is what's happening, I don't understand it, because they're signing guys worse than that all the time. [01:05:18] Speaker C: Texas is always weird. [01:05:20] Speaker B: Right. [01:05:20] Speaker C: Because their whole premise is they sign guys to project to the first team. The second they don't, they dump. You know, maybe a case of some of the guys are trash and are I see I see something we can polish out, you know, hopes had that sort of two, three years now. That seemed to be what christ, I've forgotten the fellow's name now. [01:05:46] Speaker B: Bernie? [01:05:47] Speaker C: No. Ronaldo Damas and Alpha Sanijata. [01:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know. I think he's better than them. He's only 20 years old. I think he's capable of being in the first team. I see a talent at that level. Again, Middle East is an international player. Maybe that's a factor, certainly. And like I said, there are reasons why they might have declined it. They have to do with the technicalities of whatever's next for the kid, but if the answer is there, just let him walk. They draft guys older than this that aren't anywhere near as good and keep them around for two years. So I don't get it. If this is just a dump the kid, I don't get it. [01:06:30] Speaker A: Are they playing in Arlington again next year? Yeah. Okay. And then let's see. Dan, Open Cup qualifying here locally has been taking place. [01:06:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I went out to see four OSC, which is Michelle's team that he coaches play against 1015 FC, which was actually Zach Lloyd's team. [01:06:55] Speaker A: Oh, how did that go? [01:06:58] Speaker C: 401. Two nil over in Prince Apiece. They move on to the third round now. Third qualifying round. Sorry. They're going to go down to Houston and play athletic. Katie FC. You know, it'd be great if they get a chance of getting to the first round. I think there's going to be four qualifying rounds this year. In the past, there were three, but things evolve over time. Yeah. Really interesting game. Saw an absolute banger of a second goal from Hector Romero in stoppage time. 1015 best player was what's his name? Tyler Lee, a center back who actually plays for the Cayman Islands national team. Then he has an amazing performance, but then misreads across and deflects it in his own absolutely cruelest way to give one. [01:07:59] Speaker A: Hmm. Well, I appreciate you going out and supporting local soccer and the US. Open cup. [01:08:06] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:08:10] Speaker A: Is there a game that other people can locally go see next? [01:08:16] Speaker C: Since the next round on the 21st is in Houston, locally, those two teams, 1015 and four, both play UPSL. They were actually due to have a rematch on the 21st, but now 40 is going to be a little busy with other stuff. Yeah, 40 is top of that league. They're actually the only team that's beaten the FC Dallas youth. Well, the Academy team so far. I think they kind of caught them on a bad week on the first week of the season. [01:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah. The 19s had a red card, too. [01:08:51] Speaker A: That did not related to Open Cup talk. I get an opportunity to throw in very quickly two references. One, the wonderful third degree discord, which I enjoy very much. And two, kit talk. Did you guys see this kick ass team from Seattle called Sharktopus? Yes, Sharktopus FCD. [01:09:17] Speaker C: That was me that put it in there. [01:09:19] Speaker A: Oh, I thought it was somebody else. [01:09:20] Speaker C: Someone put the kit in. I said that I hope to get far enough to play Dallas. [01:09:27] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Well, no, no, it was the kit that caught my eye because it's an awfully snazzy kit. I love it. But I love the name sharktopus FC. I think that's pretty fantastic. And I guess they won one of their Open Cup games and they're onto the next round up there in that particular region. It's a lovely would you call that salmon or pink? The jersey? [01:09:50] Speaker C: Let's go with pink. [01:09:52] Speaker A: Okay. It's kind of a pink with a octopus pattern in the background. And then it says Sharktopus in big, bright light blue letters across the chest. And I dig it. It's pretty fantastic. I think that's fun. [01:10:06] Speaker C: You can buy it for $50 from Olive in York. [01:10:11] Speaker A: I may have to do that. All right, Buzz, have we covered all of our bases tonight? [01:10:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. I think there's a really weird story that I wanted to bring up. Did you see that report that Matt Turner tried to get to play for Lithuania back in 2018? They basically ghosted him. And now, of course, he's starter for the national team and plays for Arsenal. It's really funny sometimes how no, he's. [01:10:36] Speaker A: Playing for Nottingham Forest. [01:10:38] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry, you're right. [01:10:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:39] Speaker B: Nottingham Forest in the Premier League. [01:10:42] Speaker A: Yes. [01:10:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I just think it's funny that how a career can migrate from 2018, where he calls Lithuania, of all people, and they ghost him and now he's the number one, basically, for the US. Just weird. [01:10:56] Speaker A: He had a very frightening game for Forest last weekend. It was not his finest hour in the game. He's lucky he didn't get a penalty kick called against him when he fouled Wisa for Brentford in the Box. Trying to clear, but he held the ball. That's our big worry about Matt, is his footwork with the ball. Yeah, he waited a little too long with the ball and Wiesa caught up to him and he was very lucky to have gotten the ball away. But in the process of kicking the ball away, he then clobbered Wiesa and it was a shock. It was just another example of some of the bad VAR stuff that happened in the Premier League this weekend that it didn't come back and turn into a bar. [01:11:37] Speaker B: They got shockers with their VAR, don't they? [01:11:39] Speaker A: Yeah, they got lots of problems. Yes. [01:11:41] Speaker C: Hopefully you'll have another stinker on the 21st. [01:11:45] Speaker B: That's the one thing that we do better than VAR. [01:11:50] Speaker A: Is that the one night I have to root against Matt Turner is when they play Luton. [01:11:54] Speaker C: Yeah, obviously. [01:11:56] Speaker A: Okay. That's right. Fair enough. [01:11:57] Speaker C: Are you going to root for him when they play United? [01:12:01] Speaker A: At this point, I may actually root for Matt Turner against my team because they're so bad. At this particular point, they're terrible. Terrible, terrible. All right, boys, I think well, Dan, it's good to have you. [01:12:19] Speaker C: Good to be in your pocket. Try and make it a little bit more regular as time allows. [01:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I'm glad you weren't mortally wounded last night in the disaster. [01:12:30] Speaker C: Dan Crook killed by a trash can. [01:12:32] Speaker A: That's right. That would make for the weirdest episode of Third Degree of the podcast if we had to announce that Dan Crook was killed by a trash can. A plastic one, no less. [01:12:44] Speaker C: Heavy plastic. [01:12:47] Speaker A: All right. Thank you, Dan. It's good to talk to you. [01:12:49] Speaker C: Likewise. [01:12:50] Speaker A: And Buzz? [01:12:52] Speaker B: Yes, sir. [01:12:53] Speaker A: Thank you, sir. Sorry you drove all that way for nothing last night. [01:12:56] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I met some people and some patrons and shook some hands and kissed some babies and it was all good. [01:13:03] Speaker C: A couple of dollar hot dogs. [01:13:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And I had an $8 hot dog because I went to Chiba Hut on the way and was glorious. [01:13:10] Speaker A: Is there a new Chiba hut? [01:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's on Preston. [01:13:12] Speaker A: Preston. [01:13:12] Speaker B: And what south of the tollway? [01:13:15] Speaker C: It's just north of it's between Campbell and Frankfurt. [01:13:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:20] Speaker A: Okay. I'll have to it opened on my. [01:13:21] Speaker C: Birthday, so that was my lunch on my birthday. [01:13:24] Speaker A: All right. [01:13:25] Speaker B: So that was super exciting to have. [01:13:26] Speaker A: Can we make an effort to see if we can get Chiba Hut to become an official sponsor degree of the podcast? [01:13:31] Speaker B: I think they got a bigger vision to fry than us. [01:13:33] Speaker C: I don't think we have enough weed. Oh, for them. Not for me, for them. [01:13:44] Speaker A: Dan always ends the pod, goes to his wife and go, we didn't talk enough about pot tonight. God damn it. [01:13:49] Speaker B: Maybe in five more years when we hit episode 420, they'll join in, we'll. [01:13:54] Speaker A: Cut them a special deal. [01:14:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:03] Speaker A: Good stuff. [01:14:03] Speaker B: Third Degree, the podcast has been brought to you by Soccer 90. Com. Hey, did you guys hear? Soccer 90. Com. They got a lot of balls and they're on sale. 50% off. Balls everywhere. Euro balls. League balls. Women's World Cup balls. Man, they got an overflow of balls up [email protected]. 50% off. Get your order, get your balls pro balls, mini balls, you name it. And of course, listeners get 20% off of other things you order with a code 33 at checkout. Some exclusions may apply. [01:14:38] Speaker A: All right, boys, thank you very much. And thank you. FC Dallas curious. We will speak to you next week after hopefully a big ol'win on third Degree the podcast. Get well, colton Third degree. The Third degree. Nair podcast. Third degree, the third degree. Never get 30 degree. Never get 30 degree. [01:15:08] Speaker C: Never care.