3rd Degree the Podcast #236

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Um, yeah. Ooh. Third degree. The third degree nap, I guess. Third degree. The third degree nap, I guess. Third degree nap, I guess. Third degree Nap podcast. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Third degree. The podcast is brought to you by Soccer 90. Com. You can shop all the latest arrivals, including cleats, shin guard, soccer equipment, gloves. Man, they got pretty much everything you can eat over there. All the latest sepsy Dal stuff. Everything you can want to get ready for the season or the winter or the Christmas or whatever you got coming up. Third degree listeners, of course, get 20% off when you shop at Soccer 90. Dot with the code, third degree at checkout, three Rdegree at checkout, 20% off code, Third degree Soccer 90. Com. Some exclusions do apply. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Well, hello there, FC Dallas. Curious fan. Welcome to an unexpected episode of Third Degree, the podcast. This is episode number. Oh, I forgot. Hold on, let me look. I've got it in the notes. It's episode 236. Hi, it's me, Peter, and we're supposed to have Dan Crook. He's supposed to be here, but he's not. So maybe in the middle of this recording, he will pop in and delight us all with his presence. But in the meantime, that means it's me and your hero. My hero. Everybody's hero. Editor, founder of Third Degree. Net, and the original Buzz Carrick. Come in, Buzz. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Hi, Peter. How you doing? I want to give a shout out today by Patreon Moe, who bought me lunch today. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah, we were up. He was dropping off something for me, and we were grabbing a burger at Jake's, and I, conveniently, or inconveniently, depending on your point of view, left my wallet in my truck. Oh, no. Tap, tap. No wallet. So he bought me lunch, so I owe him. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Left your wallet in the truck. I didn't know you were that kind of fellow, Buzz Carrick. [00:02:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that was air quoted, left my wallet in the truck. Oh, I seem to have forgotten my wallet. [00:02:07] Speaker A: Wow. [00:02:08] Speaker B: I'm not that guy. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Well, today you are. [00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I offered him money afterwards, and he said, no, that's fine. Happy birthday and all that. [00:02:19] Speaker A: Well, that was a very fortunate end to what sounds like started as a very unfortunate beginning to your day, I guess. Yeah, we could talk about that now, later. When do you want to talk about? [00:02:30] Speaker B: Whichever. I guess we could do it now. It's not really anyone's fault, per se. [00:02:36] Speaker A: Oh, yes, it is. [00:02:37] Speaker B: Buzzard communication. [00:02:38] Speaker A: Quit being level headed and reasonable about this. [00:02:40] Speaker B: Well, what happened was that Dan and I both showed up for training today, only to have training close on us unexpectedly, and they tried to call me after I was already sitting there waiting to tell me that it was going to be closed. [00:02:53] Speaker A: Oh, so somebody did actually try to reach out to you to forewarn you. [00:02:57] Speaker B: They tried to call me at like five minutes after ten when practice started at ten. So I was already sitting there. The problem, what happened was that their team is traveling today and because of that, today, coach decided to make today what is normally Friday, which is the walk through kind of final tactic thing for the game, really. So that's closed. And they had notified us earlier in the week that Tuesday and Wednesday would be open and I chose to go Wednesday. So for me, it's a drag to drive up there an hour each way. And then now I had to sit around there for 2 hours just to get coach for five minutes. Since I was already there, I just waited, Dan, and I waited. It's kind of a drag, but I get know it's a drag for me because I rearranged my entire schedule around being able to go up there. I could have easily gone yesterday, it would have been fine. And it's not PR's fault, it's not Coach's fault. It's just a breakdown of communication. It kind of stinks that nobody thought to figure that out ahead of time on the off chance that somebody might be showing up and trying to carve a team. It was really discouraging because the TV and radio guys and the in house PR guys were all there and all got to watch practice and then Dan and I had to go stand ever by ourselves. [00:04:06] Speaker A: Wait, the TV guys got to go in? [00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, they always do. [00:04:09] Speaker A: The TV people work for the crew that actually calls the game. I thought you meant like Channel Five or Channel Eight. [00:04:15] Speaker B: Sorry. Steve Davis and Owen Newkirk. [00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Okay, so quite rightly they got to watch, but that was even more frustrating that Dan and I had to go by ourselves and stand over by the wall by the facility and just wait around for. [00:04:32] Speaker A: But you were the only other media there anyway, weren't we were other than. [00:04:36] Speaker B: John Arnold, but he works for the. [00:04:37] Speaker A: Team now, so they let him in. Yeah, he was part of that crew. [00:04:40] Speaker B: And Garrett and know. [00:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah. That video you posted in your podcast preview of the two of you just standing by yourself solo outside between the stadium and the practice field looks so lonely and pathetic. [00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, we were feeling sorry for ourselves at that point, for sure. It was a long drive for nothing. [00:05:00] Speaker A: All right, that's ridiculous. [00:05:03] Speaker B: Happens. [00:05:04] Speaker A: You're too level headed. [00:05:06] Speaker B: I know. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Buzz, you have every right in the world to completely blow your top and throw your hands in the air and say, I quit. This is the biggest waste of my time in the world, but I was. [00:05:18] Speaker B: Pretty mad at the time. At some point, you pick your battles and you just complain about it and move on. It's not like someone tried to screw me. It's just we're very low priority. [00:05:32] Speaker A: It's called media relations for a. So. [00:05:36] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:05:37] Speaker A: Trust me, if there were certain media members in the Dallas Fort Worth area standing outside that practice field that weren't part of the radio crew, they would have let them in. [00:05:45] Speaker B: Well, I can tell you that there have been several coaches in the past when this kind of thing have happened that knew me well enough to just say, no, you can stay and have invited me in, or invited me over to where they're standing to talk with them, or people that have known me a lot longer. And this particular coach has only known me for two years now and not in the same capacity that people that played here for twelve years would know me. So it's understandable that it's a different scenario under this head coach. [00:06:14] Speaker A: Let me just put it. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Access. I used to. [00:06:16] Speaker A: Let me put it this way. That whole bit at the beginning of the podcast about your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. There's a point to that. And the point is that you are willing and have a superpower of putting up with a level of shit that they give you year in and year out, unlike anybody else. And that is your superpower. And that's why you're a hero. Because despite the shit they give you as an organization and the way they treat you, you persevere and continue to do your job. So, kudos to you, my friend, because I certainly wouldn't put up with that crap. [00:06:51] Speaker B: Well, thanks. I do sort of consider it my calling, so I try, but it does get frustrating at times like today. But I eventually got over it. Pounded a little while, had a little pity party. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Well, I'm going to throw a hit for you. How about that? Okay. [00:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. [00:07:05] Speaker A: I got your back, brother. [00:07:06] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. [00:07:07] Speaker A: All right. Well, here we are. We are in an episode where we get to continue as much like a Marvel movie. When you think it's dead on the ground, it's deceased, and it's over, it gasps back to life. And Dallas comes up with a big win at home in front of a really nice crowd against Seattle. Come on, the field just guns ablaze and pop up to a two nothing lead over Seattle and end up winning that game. And it was a lot of fun to be there. Saturday night. Buzz. Look, winning a playoff game is fun, period. The end. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. There's no question it's something coach had and I talked about a couple of weeks ago rang true in this game, which is they're not the kind of team and organization where the collective can be poor and they can still win because they have, like, one guy who's amazing or something. At least that's what it is currently. And this was one of those games. There was a whole selection of everybody that played really well. And when that happens, you get a really good performance like this, and you could have picked among many people for man of the match. There were multiple candidates that had legitimate performances at that top level. Six, seven, eight players were all played really, really well. And when it all comes togeTher, this team's pretty good. When you have a parity league like this, second place, down to 13th place, as Kansas City is demonstrating, can beat each other up on any given day because they're all pretty good teams. [00:08:32] Speaker A: In the end, when it popped up on the stadium screen, they announced that Ariola was man of the match. You and I kind of looked at each other curiously, like, wow, that's an interesting selection. And then, to be fair, and I think you agreed with, I think you stated in your video afterwards that you picked had. I was kind of going back and forth between Paxton and Yellow Mendy. I picked okay. But then I saw Garrett Melcher tweet something out from the club that kind of supported Ariola's. The case for Ariola being man of the match. And I thought he made a fair. I mean, look, he scored a goal. He had some other things happen in the game that I hadn't thought about in the moment, and maybe he was. This was arguably the best. Not arguably, was the best performance of Paul Ariola of the. [00:09:25] Speaker B: Ooh. I would agree that he was definitely among the players that had a pretty good game, and I'm okay with that idea. I don't think this was his best game of the season. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Really? [00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it was pretty good. There were a couple of games earlier in the year, I think, where he was before he got hurt in the first quarter of the season. I thought he was pretty good. [00:09:43] Speaker A: I'm getting old, Buzz. Maybe I've just forgotten it then. [00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, this was the better game that he's had in a while, certainly. I will definitely agree to that. I just didn't feel like it was his best game of the year. You're getting into semantics, really. I mean, the difference between what's your best game and what's not your best game is like. It's certainly in the top five or six of the year, for sure. There's a question about that. He was good. His off ball run he made on Obrion's goal. There were two goals, actually, that had really nice off ball runs on them. Was really quite decisive in that goal happening. I mean, if you just look at. On paper, ObriOn runs the ball in from midfield. But if Obrion doesn't make that run, by the way, directed by Obrion, if he doesn't make that run, then the defender and the center back aren't pulled out of position. And O'Brien doesn't have a clear shot on goal. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Him. Yeah, we'll have to talk about Obrion's goal here in a bit. But his run and header for the opener goal from Bernie's cross was fantastic. [00:10:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it was nice. That was really good. Sometimes it pays just to get where you're supposed to be. Which we could talk about several players on this team. That when they're in the right positions, are much better than when they're not. It's always true that if you can get into the box and get high percentage shots, it's good for the team. And that first half performance by everybody, in fact, was classic Nico ball performance. Because they got the lead and they started sitting back. They only had like 40% possession, and yet they had two shots and two goals in both shots on goal. Again, high percentage opportunities. That's the way this team plays. [00:11:03] Speaker A: It's interesting about this league in that. The way that the performance between these two teams kind of flip flop from game to game. Dallas was kind of icky flat up in Seattle in the first game. And Seattle, man, I was so surprised how muted Seattle was to start this game. They definitely came out a lot more enthusiastically in the second half. But for the first 15, 2030 minutes of this game, that did not look like the typical Seattle that we're used to seeing. [00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah. There was even a quote from Jordan Morris where he said that it was on them for not matching the intensity. And I think that Coach Nico deserves a little credit for one or two changes they made that actually were really impactful. Roll. Dan kind of got the better of Farfet up there in game one. And so in game two, partially out of the three game series, management coach flipped the script on them and brought in Sam Junka, who's a much more physical get on you kind of defender, much more body up kind of defender. And Roland didn't like that at all. He got marked right out of the game by Sam Jonka. So that was a big part of what sort of diffused their play. I think a great deal early was the fact that that particular player, Rodan, is usually very effective, was not. And then Dallas, of course, just for the first 2025 minutes, they were just really on their game. They were being very patient, but yet getting forward in a positive, direct kind of manner. And again, the mentality is everything for this team. And when you're in your home field and you have the right mentality, when you're getting forward, you're playing your combinations, you're getting good chances. Even when you went into the mid to low block, you still were proactive about your defending, which is what we talk about all the time, that you can defend, but be proactive in it instead of negative. And that showed up, too. So all phases of the game, Dallas mentality was right in this game, and it showed across the. [00:12:57] Speaker A: I don't. How else do you want to get into the game? I guess we could just. I thought specifically the three center mids in this game were really good because you and I got to sit and watch the game together. You had a good laugh at my expense, at pointing out every time Liam Frazier did something with the ball, and I'll be damned, he had a really good performance. But Lara Mendy just continues to be this guy who is so much fun to see play in. [00:13:26] Speaker B: Oh, it's ridiculous how good he is, and I hope that people can see it because I will admit that it's not flashy, but it's just recovery after know right place, right time, turning the team back, picking the ball up. His touch is so classic and clean, dependable. Oh, my gosh. And he just makes these little steps, these little moves, shuffles into a place where you can get him with find him or he can pass it off. It's just exciting to watch. When you watch a guy, even without the ball, he just makes these little slides or these little moves, these little 510 yard adjustments, and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because you don't see that most of the time. He clearly is seeing the game better than everybody around him. And it really just is electrifying to watch a guy play at a capacity that most people in this league don't have. And it's so exciting to watch from a tactical observer kind of position. I just hope he can hold up. Obviously, for a long season. He's fine now, of course, because he's only been here for a few months, but long term, I will worry about that. [00:14:27] Speaker A: You called him man of the match in your video, your postgame video, but very quietly, over the course of the last, I don't know, is it six weeks or like. Yeah, I feel like we're finally, after this long, painful season, really starting to see Paxton play the way we expect him to play. Game in and game out. [00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Part of what is really great about him the last tiny little bit is that he's adapted a role because of Alan Velasco. So game one up there, when Alan got hurt and Fraser came in through game two, Paxton had to take on that little bit of a higher role. Fraser and Yarmindi are not going to be these box penetrating players. They're not going to make these runs underneath the ten, into the Zone 14, as Dan likes to call it. Yaramindi will make passes from deep like that, but he's not going to move up there on his feet. And Paxton had to sort of adapt his game. And in this particular match, he was 82% passing, which is really good considering where the team was at as a collective. But he had 21 carries and five progressive passes and five recoveries. He just had a really quality game. Again, he's another guy who is physically much older than he actually is, and in the long run, it'll be not interesting, but I'm afraid where his career is going to go because of how banged up he is already in. You know, he's had to carry a really heavy load since he came back from this last injury stint because Legit is out, because the bench has been shortened, because now Velasco is out and he's really risen to the occasion. So full credit to Paxton. He's leading this team, one of the leaders of this team, I should probably say, more accurately, through his positional play, his mentality and his effort over the course of the time that he's in the game, he doesn't go the whole 90, but it's really remarkable how he's playing. [00:16:20] Speaker A: He's 100% all the time, and there have been multiple times in the course of these two games where it's just purely his pressure and winning a ball deep in Seattle's half that has created multiple chances for this team. And it's definitely the packs that we've been looking for for some time. [00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, he always has had a knack for nipping it and sort of poking the ball away from people. He doesn't tackle hard like Daniel Hernandez did, but he tackles with finesse and he's always had a knack for that. And when he's playing this slightly higher role, he's doing a little bit higher up the field. And he also, like the other two guys in the midfield, is doing a good job turning the opposition back by doing that kind of thing. [00:16:57] Speaker A: Now let's talk about Bernie Kamungo. And we know this as fans of this club. This is a reality that many of us have come to learn over the last ten years, which is you can live and die by the youthful, by playing the Utes, as they say. And we got the best of Bernie right off the bat. I thought his cross into the box for the goal was great. Him skinning Nuhu to pull the foul and the penalty kick for the second goal was fantastic. But also trying to backpass from midfield to your goalkeeper as a pass to Jordan Morris is probably not the best idea and not one you make if you're a more seasoned veteran. [00:17:38] Speaker B: Yeah. By the way, shout out to Ima Tummasi for his overlap run on that first goal. That created a lot of openings for the rest of the. Yeah, you know, listen, Bernie is. And it's funny, I had a national media guy call me today talking about Bernie because his stock is blowing up. And we've had a laugh about the refugee story that everyone keeps telling over and over. [00:17:57] Speaker A: Wait, what do you mean? What story are you talking about? [00:18:00] Speaker B: Oh, you may not be aware, Peter, that Bernie is a. Sorry. Okay, so, yeah, this game, Bernie is a very instinctual player. His offensive instincts are fantastic. His timing on his runs is really, really good. It gets him almost exactly right all the time. Gets right in and foot race, foot race. There's pretty much nobody in MLS that can sort of keep up with him straight up. If he's going to be even at best. If not, he's going to beat you to the ball. Sometimes the combinations and the service he's putting in are really good. Other times they're not so good combinations. Defensive shape, when to press, when not. And particularly this one backpass is just absolutely horrific of a backpass. Those are the raw things we talk about, how little coaching in the grand scheme of things this kid has had. It's only been a few years now, but the upside is just tremendous. He's already holding his own and doing game breaking things in this league and he's still just learning. Imagine where his upside will be when he actually has all these team concepts dialed in and he's got four, five, six more years until he peaks out. He could be a spectacular player for probably somebody else by that point, and not Dallas. But it's exciting to watch him because he gets him better all the time. You can see it happening. And he was such a vital part of tearing Seattle's defense apart in this. Know the runs he's making that pull the defense apart. Those are the runs that Areola most this year has not been making. He has not been pulling the defense apart. And you can tell when you have a player doing it how much of a difference it makes. [00:19:33] Speaker A: You surprised he kept him in as long as he did? [00:19:36] Speaker B: No, I think that the kid probably feels pretty good when he's not on turf. It's the ankle that's bothering him. And when you impact on dirt, it doesn't feel like when you impact on turf when you're running. So I think he's probably fine, and I think, I'm sure he'll start next game. We'll get to the lineup later. But I think he's mostly healthy, probably 80 to 85, 90% healthY. So I'm not surprised he left him in. The season is almost over. There's no reason to be super cautious if you're not going to actually damage yourself. Being in pain is not the same as being damaged. So an ankle twist, or whatever it is, is obviously not damaged. It just is uncomfortable. [00:20:15] Speaker A: So tactically, the game is a bit, I don't know if interesting is the right word, but maybe we should talk about a little bit, just kind of the attitude of the team coming straight out of the game, really attacking. But once you get up to nothing, I'm interested in your opinion if Nico is doing the right thing by kind of reverting back to that thing that we've been frustrated by most of the season. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Well, the thing about a mid or low block is that the reason why people play it is because it works. So Seattle, as we've talked about, is very similar to Dallas in, you know, they can struggle to break down a block, too, just like, you know, Seattle's at their best. When you've seen Morris running at people, that's when they're really know. When Roldan escapes on the wing and they can get those balls into Morris, they do a little more of the traditional cross in than Dallas does, but they're very similar in styles in that way. So given that the way Dallas struggles against the block, it's not surprising that they turned around and blocked back against Seattle. It's also human nature that when you're up two goals, you sort of relax a little bit and the other team starts pressing and trying to do good things, and so you have a natural reaction. The thing that's more tactically interesting to me, granted, I don't love it, and I think maybe they compressed a little too much, but I can accept it for the chunk in the middle, particularly because Dallas is really poor late in the first half. They give up a lot of goals late in the first half, and so if that can get them through that, which it did in this case, that's fine. The thing was interesting to me was the switch to the three four three late. I did not like it very much, but coach really did. He thought the guys that came in really pressed hard. I kind of felt like there was a sort of a barrage of Seattle chances late. And I did discuss that with Coach, and he said he thought that was more just from them throwing everything forward in desperation and not necessarily that the three four three wasn't working for them. I don't love that shape. I kind of feel like it takes you too much out of what got you to that point in the game. There's too much for me when Dante Seeley comes in. There's too much where he runs at 80% instead of 100%. That drives me crazy. So as long as he's given Max effort, that makes a big difference in that particular shape. And AnSA did put in a fair bit of work up high in the limited time he was in there. So obviously scoreline it functionally feel. It doesn't make me feel great when I see it happening. It makes me a little worried because there's been times where it's been a disaster. [00:22:38] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting to me because it's the debate between clubbing the baby seal. You got Seattle down to nothing, and I had a sense that if they had just kind of kept with it, there was more opportunities in the game, because Seattle was just not playing well at all. And I almost feel like his decision to do that let Seattle back in the game, specifically in the second half, when Seattle came out really hard, Seattle was defending the goal at the end of the field that you and I were sitting at. And as we were watching, Dallas was defending, I'm sorry, the half of the field that you and I were sitting at, and there were multiple times through the course of that where Seattle just kept getting build up as Dallas kept defending deeper and deeper. And it was pretty clear which team was the better team on the field. It was just a matter of if Seattle could figure out that and that's where I feel like maybe I'm not a big fan of playing it that way because I just feel they really missed an opportunity to add more goals to this game before they decided to go into the turtle shell. [00:23:50] Speaker B: Yeah, thAt's fair. I do think that the way Dallas plays in that shell is somewhat effective in the sense that if you look at the shot map for, like, all but one shot, other than the goal, all but one shot come from outside the box. And if you're going to be shooting from range on Martin, pause. I'm okay with know. Other than when Bernie had the horrific turnover, that was really the only time that they unlocked Dallas. Well, Morris just Bulldogged Ibiaga because that's what Morris is, and then just beat everybody else to the chamber. [00:24:20] Speaker A: Well, there was the very close. Yeah, it's the other goal that got called back because of the offside, and I never saw how accurate that was or not. [00:24:29] Speaker B: Yeah, there's multiple calls that could be debated in this game. It goes both ways. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Oh, we're going to talk about those. Don't worry. Okay. [00:24:37] Speaker B: There's some from each way. And sometimes you reach a point where I'm just like, you just play the game. The ref is part of like, it's like field conditions. Dealing with the ref is dealing with everything else. I just felt like, for the most part, Seattle wasn't really getting a lot of great, necessary. I'm with you. I don't necessarily like sitting back that deeply, but in the end, Seattle probably is a better team than Dallas, and they were definitely pressing aggressively to try and get back in that game. And this is the Dallas Mo. This mid to low block grind out is what they do. And when you're up two goals and you're by nature going to be more hesitant to be more conservative, it just lends yourself to play this way. Buzz. [00:25:16] Speaker A: It's the most dangerous lead in soccer. [00:25:17] Speaker B: I know it is. Yeah. As demonstrated by the fact that they scored to make it two one. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Well, again, I think the effect that I don't like is that I feel like it gave Seattle a reason to ignite and get a better attitude about the game. Frankly, Seattle looked completely out of it up until Dallas decided to start changing the way they were attacking the game. And that, to me, is the negative effect of it. Look, they won the game. There's not too much to bitch about. Dallas did, and so I don't want it to come off that way. I just feel like they made it harder on themselves than they needed to. [00:25:56] Speaker B: Well, you know, I don't like the XG stat, but if you want to use that, for example, to try and spell this out a little bit here, if you look at the tracking of that through the 90 minutes, really, through halftime, they only had like a 0.1 XG on all that alleged opportunity, and they scored the goal and that jumped them up to like a 0.3. And it wasn't until they got a series of four shots, like in the minute 87 on, when they were just going crazy trying to get forward and score, that they actually got above a 0.5 xG. So it's like, as much as it seems like they were having a lot of the ball and were having a lot of making it very difficult for Dallas and getting forward, they really weren't getting forward with opportunity. They weren't getting forward with good. In good fashion. Of their eleven shots they had on the game, they only managed to get five of them on goal, which is less than 50%. So that's a relatively good, in my opinion, run of form. Dallas had a couple of blocks and they had a couple of saves. And that's all it really know, to shut out a team. Like know when you're making them fire from know again, that's like we talk about Dallas. They want to have all their shots in the bucks, right? Efficiency of shooting high on targets per shot. Low shot volume, but good efficiency and good opportunity. Seattle had a lot greater volume, but they didn't have as many real opportunities to score. So that's the key. [00:27:22] Speaker A: And the other thing is that you mentioned Obrion's goal. [00:27:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:29] Speaker A: Can I tell that story? [00:27:30] Speaker B: Yeah, go ahead. [00:27:31] Speaker A: Okay, so the break is on, and Obrion has the ball. Areola makes the run, and then the seas part the far post. And it's just because it's the line of sight. You and I have a direct line. We are literally in line of sight, directly behind Obrion in a perfect straight line. When this is happening and it opens up. And it never in a million years dawned on me that Adir Obrion could hit that shot as well as he did one. I thought for sure he was going to pass it to Ariola. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Everybody did, obviously. [00:28:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, Fry even thought so. Fry had cheated so far over to his left, he had left this bank vault door wide open. And I have to give hot air all the credit in the world, because as easy as that shot is, it's also incredibly difficult just because of the pressure. And he hit it perfectly, and it was such a wonderful goal. And you and I just looked at each other and we laughed. [00:28:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a funny goal because he had one later that might have been easier that he. But, you know, the only thing that worried me was because he's right footed, that that ball would have curved wide was when he hit it that I was worried about. But he did a nice job with know and he directed, sorry, Ariel to make that run. And Ariel's run pulled both Nuhu and Eureka keeper out of line. And it was a nice finish. It was well taken. It's weird how he can do a harder thing to do and score and miss the easier one. This is Oberon being man, you know, he's had a good month or, you know, full credit to him and he did a nice job. When he came in, did I see. [00:29:11] Speaker A: Ariola call that the most typical goal of them? Or he talked about that goal in some way, essentially just saying, yeah, that's extremely the type of goal that we like to score. [00:29:25] Speaker B: I don't remember that comment. Maybe he meant the first one, which was really good passing and teamwork, but it could be the overall one he meant because that was such a funny goal. The know, in a way I can buy that it might have been the transition. Yeah, they turned them over. Drop a transition back, catch them before they're ready. Off ball, run, create space. That's very typical of the way Dallas plays. [00:29:45] Speaker A: Yeah, and thank you for mentioning this, because what I didn't do, and I should have at the beginning is when we're talking about the first goal, we talked about Arielo's finish. I talked about Bernie's cross into the box. But we really have to admire and give credit for all of the buildup play prior to that. In fact, Matt Doyle even tweeted it and called it champagne football. And I don't know. Have you had a chance to go back and count the number of completed passes that led up to that? I haven't. I mean, it's got to be approaching 20 passes. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's a really good goal. The whole 1st 20 minutes of the game, Dallas was just playing really silky football. Maybe it really was. Seattle wasn't fired up enough or didn't have the right intensity because Dallas just controlled play and played the way they wanted to play and were having lots of room for their passing. Their little quick passing that they do get. Know, I even tweeted out something about how I was enjoying how patient they were. They weren't having to be. There wasn't like a track meet. They were just building forward in these nice little combinations. And the first 25, 30 minutes of that game were just beautiful to watch. Honestly, the way they were playing, if they can play like that all the time, they would be much better than they are. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Yeah. If you haven't gone back and rewatch the first goal, make sure you rewind it a full two minutes. I think it's about prior to the goal, just so you can see how they get possession of the ball and then how they keep it for an extreme amount of time and just kind of work out that puzzle to create the opportunity and finish it off. It's really good stuff, and it shows what the team is capable of when they're on it. So good stuff there. Okay, what else from the game do you want to get into? I know that there is an aspect of this that we've got to talk about. Coming up for the game three that you got from the very short amount of time you were allowed to watch training, which is a bit of a huntsman dump. So everybody hold on to that. I don't know if there's anything from this game, a three one win that you want to get into. [00:31:47] Speaker B: Well, I want to get into something because someone had pointed out in the discord that Dallas only passed at like a 66% clip. And that's really bad, and that's terrible. You don't want that and that kind of thing. [00:31:58] Speaker A: You mean 66% completion rate, completion percentage. [00:32:02] Speaker B: Not possession percentage, completion percentage. In other words, inaccurate passing effectively. And that's true. MLS scored at 66%. FB ref, which is where I look up a lot of stuff, had it at 67%. Whatever. It's not good. If you buy FB reps stats, that's the third lowest of the year. 66 would have been the lowest of the year in terms of ability to complete passes. So either way you slice it, that sounds terrible, right? Well, it actually doesn't matter if you look up the worst 16 games, I sorted it by passing percentage. So the worst 16 games this year, when Dallas has been the poorest at completing passes, they're actually nine, four and three. And if you take all the other games where they pass really well, they're three, seven and ten. So that's three wins, seven losses and ten ties. So like nine wins when they don't pass well. So for some reason when Dallas passes poorly, they're better. I don't know why. I think it just goes to show you that it doesn't matter. [00:33:06] Speaker A: See, I think there's another stat that's related to all of this. That would make the conclusion clear as to what all of this means. [00:33:16] Speaker B: Yeah. In particular, what we talk about is not, I don't want to dial back to Jesus, this is different. We talk all the time about this team that when they're at their very best is when they're waiting for you to come at them and then they turn you over and they rapidly transition back the other way. And there's a famous stat that came. I don't even remember what it came, what decade it came out, where they figured out that most goals happen within something like two touches of getting possession. And in the old days they thought that meant that you should play very vertical and just get up the field really quickly. But it turned out the answer is when you turn people over. And that's why teams like Man City and Liverpool press the way they do. And Dallas doesn't high press and they don't press in volume, but they do wait for you. And when they do turn you over, they turn and go at you fast before you recover. So the overall possession numbers and the overall passing percentage numbers mean very little to this team. That's not when they're good. So it's like you can have these stats basically with SC Dallas that you're like, man, that sounds terrible. And it really has nothing to do with whether they're going to win or lose the game or so. [00:34:22] Speaker A: Okay, then I guess we can set that aside. I'm not sure what that means. [00:34:30] Speaker B: Which part? [00:34:31] Speaker A: Well, the build up to the play. We just spent all this time talking about all this beautiful passing they completed leading up to the first goal. So I'm not really sure I know what to talk. I don't know. [00:34:45] Speaker B: This is actually really good because this is exactly the way people think. People think Dallas never has the ball. They have these games where they have 40% possession and then some games they have these really bad games where they're not able to pass it together. They could barely get forward. They can't break anybody down. Those things are both true. And they have nothing to do with how the Dallas wins or loses. They don't win or lose based on that. They win or lose based on their ability to turn you over and get at you. Now, when they have this really nice electric play, like the first 20 minutes, it's beautiful and we love it and wish they would do it more. In the big picture, that's not how they win games. They win games with the way Obrion scored, which is where they turn you over and dribbles down there and taps it in the goal. That's how they win. [00:35:26] Speaker A: No, you're absolutely right. No, you're a. [00:35:29] Speaker B: It's not sexy. I know it's terrible football, but it wins, apparently. [00:35:35] Speaker A: I know. I felt like I was trying to be nice and shiny and happy go lucky by pointing out all the beautiful champagne football that Matt seemed to join so much. But that's really not them. [00:35:46] Speaker B: It's not them. [00:35:47] Speaker A: I really want that to be the team that I love, not the turtle shell, poke your head out and do that kind of soccer. [00:35:56] Speaker B: Well, this is the tragedy of FC Dallas this season. And there's people we've had conversations with that you and I have talked about on this podcast, and there are other people that we've heard this from, too. That, man, this team is boring to watch, and it really is. Yeah, bad passing doesn't mean they don't win. Low possession doesn't mean they don't win. They're just kind of killing the game off. They're playing to win, though, right? You remember the conversation we had one time about the academy where I watched the Academy lose to an Oklahoma City team and I thought, boy, that team was actually really well coached. They had one guy that was capable of doing anything and they set themselves up to free that guy up and they won the game. And I talked to an FC Dallas coach afterwards and he was railing about how horrible they were coached and how nobody on that team is going to get any better. And, okay, listen, in the Academy, yes, it should be about the progression of the kids. This Oklahoma City team played in the quintessential, the big six foot two, strong, fast guy was up front and that's how they won the game. And so maybe in the academy, we don't want to do that. Well, at the MLS level, you sure should want to do that. You want to play to win. And the way Dallas plays to win is not sexy. It's often boring as hell. I totally agree with you. The first 20 to 30 minutes were so beautiful and I wish they would play that way all the time. It's so much more fun. But that's not how this team gets results. This team gets results by other ways. And most of the time when you get the nice part, you got to enjoy it while it lasts because you know it's not going to last and you're almost certainly not going to get it up there in Seattle. [00:37:27] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Which does take us to game three. And unfortunately for the Dear pod listener, for the curious out there, Buzz has some bad news. I think. [00:37:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, aside from not. [00:37:41] Speaker A: Or is this even bad? Yes, this is bad news. [00:37:43] Speaker B: I think it's bad news. Aside from being able to watch training, even when training is closed, you can watch the first ten minutes and then you have to stop. And so for the first ten minutes. [00:37:52] Speaker A: The first ten minutes is just essentially warming up, right? Yeah, it is. [00:37:56] Speaker B: They were just kind of walking around and kicking the ball around a little bit. But what's noticeable is that Jesus Ferreira wasn't there. So afterwards I asked coach about it because we have admittedly seen Jesus poking at his groin or hernia or whatever is going on there for like the last month and a half. [00:38:12] Speaker A: We saw it at the end of the game. Yeah, he went down. [00:38:15] Speaker B: He pokes, you know, tries to push it back in. I have no idea medically what's going on. He's been fighting something for a month or two. Right. We know this, we've talked about it. So he wasn't in training. And then afterwards I said, okay, hey, Coach, Jesus has been fighting through this, what's going on? And he know it's the same deal. He's going to be a game time decision about whether he starter, bench, that kind of thing. So that's the big news is that. Let's call that questionable. I mean, I think that's fair. It is a playoff series. You'd like to have him play. Obviously, if he's healthy enough to go, I imagine he'll be starting at the nine. If he's not healthy enough to go, I think the option is pretty simple. I don't think Jesus Jimenez is a choice there. I think it's got to be O'Brien who has played a little bit of the nine of late and has done a decent job there and even coming off the bench behind Bernie. So if you put Obrion at nine, you can keep Bernie on the right, you can keep Paul on the left. Things that have been working can kind of be the same. Obviously you're going to hope that Jesus comes through that game time decision and is able to go, but we'll call him questionable and we'll see what happens. [00:39:19] Speaker A: Well, if he has a hernia of any sort, and that's what it looked like when he went down at the end of the game, he wasn't that far from us in the stands and he did not look happy whatsoever. And if you've ever seen anybody or had a hernia, you know what you're doing when you're pushing on your abdominal wall. And that's exactly what it looks like he's doing. And if that's what he's got, man, that's brutal. [00:39:41] Speaker B: We're not diagnosing that, but we've been around a long time and we know what it looks like we're looking at. And when they are eliminated, if we get a press release that he's having a hernia surgery, it's not going to shock me at all. Obviously, it's not bad enough that he's had to shut it down. He's able to play through it, but it certainly is impacting him as the coldness that he's having can certainly be attributed a little bit to this struggle. But at the same time, when he had those two glorious chances up in the start of the game one, and then spent the rest of the game running away from it, that ain't hernia. That's mental. The kid's a bit of a mess, in my opinion, right now, but he's obviously struggling with it physically as well because you can see him even, like, walking around during the game. He'll do a little pushing on it, kind of. [00:40:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Well, you could see it through the whole game. [00:40:28] Speaker B: I mean, as cold as he is, maybe it's for the best that if you put Nobre on in and then have him off the bench or something, I don't even know. It's so difficult to say that having Jesus out would be good. That's crazy. But he's just too good of a player in any given moment that you still really need him to come through. If you're going to get winning up there where you've won once ever, you're going to need something special to happen. And he's a guy who can be special, even who's been cold lately. So certainly you want him to go if he can go. So we'll just see what happens. It'll be game time. He'll call. I'm sure he'll do his best to get out there, but I know that it's not bad enough that they're not shutting him down so he can play through it. He's got to be only 85, 90%. [00:41:16] Speaker A: It'll be interesting to A, to see if he starts, B, if he's even on the bench. And I think depending on how that turns out, will be the best indicator of where he really is at. [00:41:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:27] Speaker A: THe other thing to keep an eye on, in my mind again, we didn't see the game in Seattle in person, but getting to see them in person on the surface at Toyota Stadium, it's clear to me that the surface in Seattle is such a clear advantage for Seattle, not because it's just turf, but it's an, you know, it has less rubber, less crumb. It's harder than the turf surface in Portland, which is a proper soccer installation, et cetera, et cetera. And one of the things that we talked about after game one was the poor game Ilara had and how much better he looked playing on grass in Frisco. Now, going back to Seattle, it'll be interesting to see if he kind of puts up a similar performance. And if it is, I think we're going to be able to chalk it up to just his unfamiliarity of playing on that kind of thing. [00:42:19] Speaker B: Well, let's be clear. His bad game was, relative to everybody else, still really good. It just was slightly worse for him. Yeah, by all measures, I think that they'll play him. I'm kind of guessing based on some conversations and various things that he'll be in the deeper sort of not pure six role, but the stay at home role. And it'll mostly be sort of a double pivoty kind of look. And Frazier will be moving in and out next time, but Fraser is going to be more mobile at this point and be more aggressive and more physical. So you want him to run around a little bit more. Him and Paxton will give you that energizer kind of effort in front of Armenia a little bit. So that's kind of what you're looking at midfield, I think. [00:42:58] Speaker A: And are Fukundo and Martinez just done for the season? [00:43:04] Speaker B: No, not done. They're both in training. I just don't think that they're going to be picked. I mean, Martinez at this point, Coach told know almost a month ago now that that was settled, that basically it was going to be Ibi and Nicosi the rest of the way, but that they would need Martinez coming off the bench at times. We've also seen that not happen as much. He did roll his ankle, you remember before game one he got rolled by Obrion, so that's why he missed. And Junko can play that back three. So they kind of have been doing that some, too. But I think Martinez will still be on the bench and be available. Fakundo was injured and then was gone, so some of that with him was. [00:43:40] Speaker A: Like for his get his green card. [00:43:44] Speaker B: Yes. So some of that was just like availability. You got to be here and be getting ready because there is a difference between being fit and being like 100% game fit and sharp and ready to get back in there, like with special legit, for example. Legit is cleared. He's 100% healthy but he's not 100% game fit. He looks like a dude that's been sitting around for two months doing nothing. You know what I mean? I mean, not literally doing nothing, but you know what I mean. He's not viable as a choice to start. You can get 2030 minutes out of the guy. Maybe it's just not the same thing. People sometimes don't understand the difference between being 100% fit and being game sharp and game ready to start. Those are two very different things. [00:44:22] Speaker A: So I guess we're at the point where you just kind of predict what you think the starting eleven will be for the game. [00:44:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm going to stick with Junka, by the way, at left back. I think that he really shut rolled Anne out in this last game. Farfet maybe looks a little bit of that late season fatigue that he gets because he plays too many damn minutes. They got to work on that again. They didn't fix it really what I had hoped they would. And Nicosi and Ibiaga is obvious. Tumasi is obvious at that point. There's nobody else that can do that side. The midfield is obviously eR, Frazier and there's no one else that's ready to start it there and anyone that wants to seek it can forget about that. He won't even be on the bench and then the front line is going to be Paul and Bernie because they've been doing really well. And then it's just the game time that if Jesus can go at all, I'm sure he'll be in there and then I just don't think there's any other option. But Obriana him in it is just not a viable choice at this. Just it looks like watching you or me run around sometimes he's slow. I mean it's not really of course, but it sure feels like you're watching somebody that's slow. He might actually be slower than Frank O'Hara, which is amazing. So there really know Miata is not rosterable because the international slot mean Eugene Ansa could factor maybe. But if you're picking him and Obrion, the way Obrion's been playing, you pick know he did a nice job last game when he came in one of his better off bench performances. I still hope that maybe next he's when he has a full spring that maybe we might see a little more out of that guy because otherwise he's just going to be roster filler. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Yeah, you and I had an interesting conversation about him and Obery on Saturday night that I will save for another episode about next season. You said some things to me about that that I was kind of surprised by. So we'll see how that plays out. All right. Well, I feel like that's the lineup and that's what you're looking at, and it's in Seattle. You're going to hear a thousand times over the course of the broadcast and leading up to the game that Dallas's road record in Seattle is miserable. And it is, but we'll have to know. That's why they play the game, as. [00:46:31] Speaker B: They say, buzz, that's it for the official record is one win there all time. And when you have a scenario like that which has long flights, turf, big crowd pressure, playoffs. Coach and I today talked about the intensity difference of these games to regular games. It's going to come down to mentality, which is funny that we've gone full circle, right? That was the word of the season, mentality. And the big difference between game one and game two was just that at home there was a comfort level and you talked about the first 20 minutes, how they were flying and they were doing their executing their plans and they were looking good going forward. And even when they defended, they defended proactively. Everything about that game two performance was the right mindset that you want to have. So the bottom line is you have to figure out how to take that mindset up to Seattle. If you can go out on their court and play the way you played at home and not let that crowd get to you and not let the atmosphere get to you and not let the turf get to you and be proactive and be positive and play the way you're capable of playing, then I think you can give yourself a chance. It's going to be difficult. You're going to have to keep the game really tight like they do. Zero or one. If it gets high scoring, you don't have a shot. You got to keep it close and hope you can steal it in the end, what more can you ask for? It's game three. It's now single elimination. You don't have to get more goals than them or anything. You just win. And you could play for and go into a shootout and you got pause on your back pocket, which is nice if you really want to, there is a chance. It's not a good chance, but if you can bring some mental toughness and you're getting paid a lot of money to play soccer, man, let's go show up and play well, maybe give yourself a shot. [00:48:19] Speaker A: If Jesus is out and Obrion ends up starting up top and they end up winning in Seattle. Wowie. That would be a really weird twist in the script that I was not anticipating. [00:48:32] Speaker B: If they can get through this game, there's a delay afterwards and you can actually get people back and healthy and feel good. Uh, but without Jesus, that's going to be a mental blow because he is a leader of this team. He's not a captain in the traditional sense, but he is a leader in terms of performance. Or if Obion can be Obion, a guy who. The water just slides off that guy. Right? Water off a duckbacks. He doesn't pay attention to anything. He just goes out there and does what he does. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but he never changes. He's super positive guy. So maybe that's the right pill is to have that be Obrion. Right? Two second memory. [00:49:08] Speaker A: Did you see the Obrion Instagram or tweet or whatever it was after the game of him? Have you seen this interaction with Obrion online? Are you aware of this? [00:49:18] Speaker B: I mean, I knew he did the. [00:49:18] Speaker A: Dance thing, other than he. I don't know if it was a tweet or an Instagram post or what it was, but on his account, it was in English. It said, hey, thanks so much. This is how we play. I'm so proud. Thanks for coming out and supporting us, and blah, blah, blah. And I think it's Nicos. He was like, hey, Obrion, when did you learn English? Yeah. [00:49:42] Speaker B: Oh, by the way, one of my favorite moments of the game was when Paul subbed out and he handed the armband, captain's armband, to Iara. And Iara turned around and ran 20 yards over Nicosi and gave him the armband. And Nicosi tried to shake it off, and Iara Mindy insisted that Nicosi take it and put it on and helped him put it on. So I thought that was really cool, man. [00:50:01] Speaker A: Actually, I'm glad you mentioned that, because there's a moment in the game that I think has gone largely forgotten, which is Nikosi's tackle. I think it's on Jordan Morris at the top of the box to keep Jordan from just dribbling freely into the box. It was such a good tackle. Stand up, just hard tackle. Won the ball and then played it forward. Nakosi is really, really good. I like him quite a bit. I mean, in terms of this team, he's really quite special. [00:50:34] Speaker B: Well, he's grown so much know. We've been talking for two years about how he should be starting and he wasn't. And this year they finally gave him the keys to the bus in the back. And his mental maturity has just been phenomenal. You remember we talked about it multiple times, like in the middle of the season. All of a sudden we were like. It was like an explosion in his attitude, not in a negative attitude, in a positive attitude of realizing that he was the guy and telling everybody where to be and how to be. And this moment of Iyara giving him the armband, to me, shows so much respect from Yara, who's just got here and recognizes what's happening with Nikosi and what a big player and important player he is. And that level of respect is phenomenal. And the back half of this season, Nikosi has become the dominant defender on this team and one of the dominant leaders on this team. And I love watching the maturity of a player coming to fruition. What we've expected for years is finally here, and it's just fantastic. The player he's become and the leader he's become. I love it. [00:51:30] Speaker A: All right, and before we finish up, real quick conversation about some of the calls in this game. I know this isn't everybody's favorite conversation to have, but I do think this one's interesting because it makes for an interesting debate. Obviously, the Seattle fans. Well, I'll start with the other one first, which is Dallas fans feeling hard done by on the incident between Ibi and Jordan Morris on the goal that Jordan scores because Morris bodies Ibiaga off the ball very well. And I think a lot of Dallas fans thought that should have been a goal disallowed for a foul on Jordan Morris. I thought Ibi just failed to just lost a battle there. I thought that was fair and square for Jordan to have won that. [00:52:17] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. I'm with you. That's just soccer. Morris is a big, strong guy. That's what we talk about core strength. We talk about power. He just won that duel. He just outmanned Ibiaga straight up. [00:52:29] Speaker A: And the other one, I think, is a bit more interesting, which is as the game is coming to a close, I can't remember who crossed the ball in for Seattle, but the ball comes in, pause, makes a very clean know, grab of the ball from the cross. But what's happened is that not Diaz arse? [00:52:52] Speaker B: Rui Diaz. [00:52:55] Speaker A: I called him Diaz Arse in the game. [00:52:57] Speaker B: I know you did. [00:52:58] Speaker A: We had a good laugh. I mean, how old is that guy's got to be 100 years old. Now Rui Diaz is making a run into the box, trying to get to the cross, and Jesus has full jersey pulling on him. As they get into the box, Rui Diaz goes down, obviously, but he was never going to get to the ball. And I think, Seattle fans, I can see the argument of why, hey, look, that's a foul. Period, the end. I don't know where did you land on that? But when they stopped it for review, you and I were convinced they were going to turn around and give them the PK. [00:53:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, Jesus grabs his jersey clearing day, and not just like a little, like, it's a big, full on tug. [00:53:40] Speaker A: No, he stretched the shirt out. It's now a size bigger than it was when he put it on. [00:53:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Why? There's some nuance there that's not a PK. I don't honestly know. But the graft didn't call it and the VAR didn't call it either, so I honestly don't have an answer for it. [00:53:53] Speaker A: Well, no, remember, VAR did call him over to go look at it, and the ref declined to give the PK. [00:54:00] Speaker B: Well, yeah, usually when they call you over, it's going to be switched because they intentionally don't call you over if it's close because they don't want to make the ref look bad by constantly questioning his play. So usually they don't call you over, so they're pretty sure that it's happening. And for him to look at it and then say, no, there must have been. I don't know what it was. [00:54:20] Speaker A: Well, I think it said he was never going to get to the ball again. So there's this thing called Law 18. There are 17 laws in the book. There's an imaginary one, a mythical one called Law 18, and that's the application of common sense. When the rest of the laws in their application don't make sense to the scenario, then there's an adage about applying common sense, and I think that's what happened in that case, because it would have been an absolute travesty to give Seattle a penalty kick on a situation that in no way, shape or form was ever going to result in even an opportunity on goal. [00:54:59] Speaker B: Yeah. There's one thing a lot of people don't understand about soccer referees is they have ultimate power in the game to call it the way they want to call it. And that's that idea of why a team, as you say, the common sense. And one example of that is that the referee has the clock instead of the stadium. Another example is I'll compare it to NBA. An NBA ref walks around with the whistle in their mouth because when a foul happens, it's a foul. And they blow the whistle, literally. When you take referee 101, they tell you to carry the whistle in your hand because the delay it takes for you to raise your hand to your mouth gives you a second to think about it and make a decision about is it advantage? Do I carry on? Should it even be a foul? What's the circumstances of that moment? So there's a built in ability of a referee in soccer to make those kinds of decisions, as you say. So all I can come up is what you're saying, which is that it's so far away from the play, or maybe it's late enough in the play that it doesn't matter. Obviously, if he swings at him at that point, it doesn't matter where you are if you swing at somebody. But a grab of a jersey, there's a lot of grabbing of jerseys on every play. [00:56:02] Speaker A: And I think Rui Diaz makes an absolute meal out of. [00:56:05] Speaker B: I'm sure he makes a meal out of it. Maybe the ref's mad at Rudia. I mean, who knows, right? So I don't have a definitive answer other than to say that you and I both were like, that's going to get reversed and be a PK. And it didn't. So we were both shocked by know. So is the IBM Morris one, which was just Morris being a one. [00:56:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that dude's bigger than I remembered by the. And if the referee had given the PK, I wouldn't have bitched about it too much because it was a terrible decision on Jesus's part. And, man, we would be railing on him right now for that if in fact, it had gone that know really lucked out. [00:56:45] Speaker B: Another indicator that Jesus has lost a little bit of his burst right now, probably that he had to grab like that because that's not usually, he shouldn't have any problems keeping up with think, you know, that's definitely a foul. In almost any book, that's a foul. You got to be smarter than that late in the game because that could have changed the way things are going, certainly at that point. [00:57:08] Speaker A: All right, well, Friday night, the game is late, 09:00 Dallas time, because obviously it's on the West coast and there's a watching party, I believe it is on the Apple TV. It's not on Fox up in Seattle. Can the burn do it this one time? When was the last time? When was the one win in Seattle. I don't remember, off the top of. [00:57:28] Speaker B: My head, Brexit 2011. The only win. [00:57:32] Speaker A: Yes. [00:57:33] Speaker B: And then the time they beat them in the playoffs was the Walker Zimmerman PK down here to advance past them. It's the only time they've advanced past Seattle. Listen, Seattle is almost always good. They're almost always in the top half of the West. They always have that home field advantage. Dallas has struggled with them all the time. It's one of the most difficult home fields in MLS, that one up there, so it's a bitch. And by the way, speaking of home fields, 11th sell out of the year. But in this game for Dallas, that's awesome. [00:58:03] Speaker A: Yeah, dude. Considering that they've had 18 home games and they've sold out eleven of them. Last year they sold out eight games, which was a club record, and they've beat that this season, it's a huge achievement. I still continue to call it the most underreported sports story in DFW, but whatever. After today, I don't care anymore. And so credit goes where it is. [00:58:29] Speaker B: Deserved in that case, by many other team standards. Even in this market, you'd be like, that's terrible. But no, for this club, that's awesome. Eleven shutouts. That's serious progression. That's seriously movement in the right direction. If they keep selling out games, I'm going to quit going. It's fantastic. [00:58:47] Speaker A: That is another funny conversation. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:50] Speaker A: This was a lot more fun when there was nobody here. Life was so easy. [00:58:55] Speaker B: Yeah. My favorite stretch of FC Dallas awesome is at the end of COVID when you and I would go and there'd be like ten other people there. Those are my favorite games of all time. [00:59:04] Speaker A: You could walk in five minutes before the game, sit down. Nobody was around you. Nobody was getting up, going to the bathroom or getting popcorn. [00:59:11] Speaker B: You and I took like six seats each. Just spread out, man. Spread everywhere. Our old man's manspread. [00:59:17] Speaker A: Oh, it was so great. Yes. [00:59:18] Speaker B: And those two British dudes were behind us and we were laughing the whole time. [00:59:21] Speaker A: Yes. That was fun. Those were the good old days. [00:59:24] Speaker B: I know. [00:59:25] Speaker A: Bring back COVID. [00:59:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Fans, go away. [00:59:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:28] Speaker B: Let me have my game to myself again. [00:59:29] Speaker A: And by the way, full credit to the absent one Dan Crook for predicting Kansas City's beating of Seattle to advance in the MLS playoffs. And look at Poppy finishing off Nashville last night to advance. Now they will wait to find out who finishes up between Atlanta and Columbus as they now have advanced to a game three. But I'm so proud of Poppy, man. I hope this works out in his favor. Yeah. Salt Lake pulled a game three, so that's good. And we'll see how all this finishes up as the season goes on. [01:00:02] Speaker B: I started hearing Poppy Atlanta talk the other day that I didn't like the sound of that at all with. That's. I don't want to hear that Portland hired. No, I can't believe Portland hired your boy Neville. [01:00:15] Speaker A: Yeah, you mentioned it. You were kind enough to come do the radio show last weekend, and your suggestion about San Diego makes the most sense. It gives Papio a season to take off, build his thing, do it completely under his construction. That's a dream scenario, and I'm sure that guy's willing. That guy's just itching to give him an absolute brinks truck of money to come down there and do. [01:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And it certainly is a place that Oscar has lived down there, right across the border. And we probably would love to, you know, the, you know, would play in that. [01:00:51] Speaker A: Down. Have you ever spent any time in San Diego? [01:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I went down there for a bowl game one time and went to the zoo with Amy. [01:00:57] Speaker A: The weather's ridiculous. [01:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's nice. There's that place on the beach, that hotel with the lights on it. You know what? [01:01:03] Speaker A: Coronado. [01:01:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that place was super cool. Yeah. Just all around awesome. By the way, Amy and I had got a real kick about when you and I were at the game, and everyone that came up was like, where's Dan? They couldn't believe that the two of us were there without Dan. And we were like, no, he's in the press. [01:01:18] Speaker A: My response was, Buzz is making him work up in the press box. Dude, you're a rock star in that stadium, by the way. I so get such a thrill out of people recognizing you and walking up and saying hello to you and thanking you for your coverage. That just warms my heart to no end. I love it. That alone is the reason to go to the games, is just watch people fawn over Buzz Carrick. It's great. [01:01:45] Speaker B: Well, that's a little heavy, but yeah, it's like that all the time. That started when I started doing the three things and the little teasers of the podcast or whatever. When I started doing that is when that started happening. People started recognizing me at games. [01:02:00] Speaker A: Hey, I meant to mention this last week, at the end of a couple of episodes ago, we gave out awards. [01:02:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:02:07] Speaker A: And I'm serious. I think they need to be called the Buzzies. They're officially the third degree awards. The third degree awards. My nickname for them is the Buzzy, okay? And I am not kidding when I say the award is a gift card to Starbucks. We get a stack of $5 or $10 gift cards to Starbucks, and we have a whole thing where we go up to one of a practice, and after practice, we get to video giving the players their buzzy award. [01:02:41] Speaker B: I'm not doing that. No. [01:02:42] Speaker A: Why not? Bits are fun, Buzz. [01:02:47] Speaker B: I'm not a bit guy. That's why I'm not in talk radio. [01:02:51] Speaker A: That's fair. Okay. [01:02:55] Speaker B: I think it's funny that you want to call them the Buzz. The trophy is going to be a picture of me in the stands with my feet over the chair in front of me, like scratching my belly, like man spreading in an empty stadium. That's the trophy. [01:03:05] Speaker A: Somebody make Gen AI create that image for us, please. Yeah, the Buzzies. Okay. Well, all right. [01:03:13] Speaker B: I'm not sure any of them would care. Half of them don't know who I am. [01:03:17] Speaker A: Well, they would then, wouldn't they? [01:03:19] Speaker B: They would. [01:03:20] Speaker A: When they're drinking their warm Java on a cool fall morning. They're free. [01:03:25] Speaker B: Let's tell you the story of the strength and conditioning guy who's from Spain and it doesn't speak, as near as I could tell, a lick of English. He came up to me one time after training, and he was trying to say I don't know what, in broken English, but he kept saying, are you the guy? Is that you? Are you the guy? Are you the guy? And I was like, oh, my God, is he mad at me? What's going on? I had to get somebody to finally ask him, and he was trying to ask me, am I the guy that does the Instagram with the little videos after the game? And that's what he was asking me. So I said, oh, yeah, yes, that's me. But if I was worried he was mad, he was going to be like. [01:03:55] Speaker A: Well, then what did he say after that? [01:03:57] Speaker B: Nothing, because he doesn't speak English. That was it. [01:04:00] Speaker A: I don't know if that was you. [01:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess he liked him. I guess. I don't know. He was smiling and shaking his hand. I don't speak any Spanish at all, and he doesn't speak any English at all. So somebody just told me later what he said. So it was just funny that he struggled to ask me if I just asked me if I was the guy. And I was like, the guy doing what? [01:04:22] Speaker A: Of course. [01:04:22] Speaker B: I said, yeah. I said, yeah, I'm the guy. [01:04:27] Speaker A: You know what we should do, Buzz? Speaking of bits since people love to meet Buzz, we should tell everybody you're going to be somewhere in the stadium before the game, and we can get a chair, and you could sit down and take pictures with Buzz, and children can sit in your lap like Santa Claus. [01:04:42] Speaker B: No, thank you. We're not doing that. [01:04:47] Speaker A: Hey, you may not speak Spanish and he may not speak English, but you and that guy share a common language of soccer. [01:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, apparently not enough to know what he wanted. It didn't cover Instagram. He didn't have that word in his vocabulary. [01:05:02] Speaker A: All right, well, we missed Dan because I really wanted to hear him talk about the game and this morning and all that stuff, but I'm sure he has a very good reason for not making it, and I hope he is okay. [01:05:14] Speaker B: And, well, his text says he fell asleep. Seriously? [01:05:20] Speaker A: Okay, I guess that's acceptable. Maybe he was very. [01:05:26] Speaker B: Did. He did work from home know. [01:05:30] Speaker A: Okay. Very good. Well, Buzz, thank you so much, man. I had a blast watching the game. [01:05:34] Speaker B: With you Saturday night. [01:05:36] Speaker A: You and. Well, maybe I'll get a season ticket to sit over there. [01:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah, if they advance to the finals and sporting Kansas City gets to the semi, then they'll have a game here. [01:05:46] Speaker A: Okay. [01:05:47] Speaker B: It's the only way it can happen. [01:05:48] Speaker A: All right. Very good. [01:05:49] Speaker B: Third degree. The podcast is brought to you by Soccer 90. Com. Shop all the latest gear over there. Soccer cleats, gen guards, T shirts, gloves, mankeeper stuff, everything that you need. They got all the latest FCDals gear, too. As a listener of this podcast, of course, 20% off at Soccer 90 dot when you use the code. Third degree 20%. That's not nothing. Get yourself ready for the winner, Soccer 90. Com. Some exclusions do apply. [01:06:12] Speaker A: Well, thank you, sir. [01:06:14] Speaker B: You're welcome. [01:06:15] Speaker A: Thanks for being here to host any old time. And thank you, FC Dallas Curious fan. We will speak to you next week, win or lose, on another episode of Third Degree, the podcast. [01:06:27] Speaker B: Dan, wake up. [01:06:29] Speaker A: Wake up, Dan. Third Degree, the third Degree NAB podcast. Third degree, the third degree Nap podcast. [01:06:39] Speaker B: Third degree never catch Sam.