3rd Degree the Podcast #238

[00:00:00] Speaker A: He won't say it out loud, but I can report firmly that Dan Crook hates Thanksgiving. Yeah. OOH. Third degree, the third degree. [00:00:17] Speaker B: Never pocket. Third degree, the third degree napa the third degree. Never get third degree. Never care. Third degree. The podcast is brought to you by Soccer 90. Com. Don't miss soccer 90s Black Friday sale with 50% off. Wait, 50%? Is this right? 50%. Holy cow. Starting midnight Friday until 10:00 A.m.. Then it's 30% off the rest of the weekend. Don't miss all the deals. 15% off on Friday. That's incredible. Until 10:00 A.m.. 30% off the rest of the Black Friday weekend. Stop by the store for more selection and better deals. Doors open at 10:00. A.m. Soccernutty.com? Some exclusions do apply. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Well, hello there, FC Dallas curious fan. Welcome to episode number two three eight of Third Degree, the podcast. Hi, I am Peter. It is Thanksgiving week, which means Dan Crook is very busy avoiding Thanksgiving, as every Englishman does. So he is not here for this particular episode. He won't say it out loud, but I can report firmly that Dan Crook hates Thanksgiving. He's absolutely against it in every fiber of his English being. So it's just me and your hero. My hero and everybody's hero, editor, founder, third degree, net and the original Buzz Carrot. Come in, Buzz. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Hi, Peter. Since it is Thanksgiving, let me just take a minute and say to you, and today, and is not here, but I'm really thankful for you guys for doing this podcast with me all the time and also all the fans out there that listen and join the Patreon and all that stuff. [00:01:56] Speaker A: Yes, we are always very thankful for the curious. No doubt about it. [00:02:01] Speaker B: For sure. [00:02:01] Speaker A: All right, we're officially into another season for Football Club Dallas, and we're at that point where we start talking about what's going to happen next season. Before we get into Buzz's article that he posted on the website just a few days ago about his plan, his recommendations as to what they should be doing, we should at least discuss the report that was given to the Dallas Morning News. [00:02:31] Speaker B: PR special. [00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The media relations special that Nico Esteves does in fact have a contract option. He seemed very befuddled in that particular interview with that intrepid sports reporter from the Dallas Morning News that he seemed confused as to why anybody thought anybody thought differently and that he will exercise said option. So here we are. Nico is coming back. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Very specifically, it says that he has an option. So, like, his choice, that's what you almost never hear of player options. It's kind of interesting in a way that he negotiated or his agent negotiated an option for him to choose after season two. Essentially like a get out, a jail card if he really wanted it. That kind of shows you maybe where his mindset was about this job when he took it. So that was by far the most fascinating part for me because I always assumed that he and Andre Zanata were both coming back just because of conversations with I've had with those guys about what they're going to do next know, and the plans that they were already I was, you know, mechanics aside, I just figured they were going to be here. And so that's the fascinating part for me because we never see player options anymore and for the coach to have a coach option feels unusual to me. [00:03:58] Speaker A: So Nico is mean. I guess my first question to you. Are you glad Nico is back next season? [00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. I'm not really one, know, gets all up in arms and calls for coaches to be know, the audience that's going to choose to do that or not is really just one or two people. It's Dan and Clark. Even the technical director doesn't have that kind of power to remove a guy. And for the most part, I think he's done what his job description was, given the assets he has available. The way that this club operates is slightly different than other clubs in terms of the money. Sorry, not other clubs. There's many clubs that don't have money, but this one runs that way too. He's done fairly well. I really think that this team would have been exactly where it was last year if not for the injuries. They needed to change some things. But I'm perfectly okay with him coming back. I have no complaints about it. [00:04:59] Speaker A: Do you like his style of play after two seasons? [00:05:03] Speaker B: I like his preparation level of detail. I like that he tries to play a very modern game and he all the time is referencing things that the very biggest and best clubs and coaches in the world are doing and how they're trying to replicate those things. I do have two macro level concerns. One is that the average MLS player may not be soccer savvy enough for that. We've seen the way Yura Amandi plays, that there's a different level still above Major League Soccer. That's not going to surprise anybody. That that's true, but there's a reason why players are here and not in Europe. And the second part of that is that I still worry a little bit that there's a slight disconnect between Nico's desire for late career professionals versus the club's ability to make money by bringing players through the pathway. This idea that they don't want to bring players up until they're ready to assist the first team is a really good one. But at the same time, there's a trouble for young players and families and agents to understand that the connectivity of North Texas, that tissue is there and that it's not doesn't mean you're a worst player, that you're getting the North Texas offer hybrid whatever they're doing behind the scenes versus like a real homegrown deal. But yet some guys still do get real homegrown deals. So we don't see those young, young kids play quite as much. Those 15, 1617 year olds who might get a game or two here. That was a big problem, of course, that those guys like Brian and Jesus and Paxton hardly played for, like, three years, but now North Texas exists, so it's a different landscape. But that doesn't mean that the only players we see coming through now are, like, 22, 23, like Bernie. They're not college kids. That's almost completely out the window, really. It's more of the guys that are coming through North Texas, which is fine, except that the whole mantra that the Hunts found that was working for them was this academy kids and academy kids, academy kids. And so I'm a little worried about, know, two seasons in. Have we seen him progress through an academy player? I can't think of one. I mean, there's a couple that have signed that are right there on the fringe, but nobody's progressed into the team. Now, granted, you, Peter, have heard me say this, I think, and I've been saying it long enough, that we're right now in the middle of this gap, this 2004 gap, where Antonio career was the only really player that came through that season. All the 2003s have been sold and are gone, pretty much. So there's a bit of a drought. There a bit of a gap there. Dante Seeley is one who's had the three, but hasn't really become a frontline player. Actually, I think he may be an Two. I say that I made a spoke out turn there, but he's still a part of that gap, that part of that we're not seeing that progression. So that worries me a little bit, but other than that, I'm okay with everything Nico does. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Well, he's here, at least, so he has just the option year, which means now he is kind of a layman next season if in fact, they don't sign him to a new deal. And is there any well, he could. [00:08:18] Speaker B: Have multiple option years. [00:08:20] Speaker A: Do you think they would have said that, though, in the middle of trying to clarify the issue? They could have, yeah. [00:08:28] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, he said that you would have thought they might have, but, like, a two plus one seems odd. I feel like it's more likely you might have a two plus two or a two plus three even, because coaching cycles we talk about that right. Are three to five years, really. And so year three is really as you're just starting to peak. So it'll be weird to have just a three year deal, in my opinion. But again, I'm not the Hunt, so it's hard to say for sure. But you might be right. You might be right. [00:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm just asking the question. I don't know if it makes sense at all. All right, we'll have a little bit of stadium talk and kit talk and what's going on around the stadium talk here before we end this particular episode. But here's the meat of this particular presentation, which is the other day, Buzz posted his plan for improving FC Dallas 2024, outlining all of his suggestions and recommendations and thought we'd run through this relatively quickly. But I do immediately up front want to ask you a question, Buzz. [00:09:26] Speaker B: Go ahead. [00:09:27] Speaker A: Did you, when referring to Clark and Dan Hunt, andre Zanata, and Nico Esteves, in lining out their responsibilities, did you purposefully use the word constraints in relation to those four people for the denotative version of the word constraints? [00:09:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. Well, for one thing, it constrained the article. It constrained my thinking. Like I try to put myself into their headspace. This is not just me scatter shooting and come up with anything on the world. I try to think about how they will operate. And two, yes, Dan and Clark make constraints on what you're going to do. Right. You can't go sign a $15 million player or, I mean, they could, theoretically, but I can't suggest that because I know they're not going to. Right. So that's part of the constraints. You have to think about the way those guys do business and try and make what I'm predicting work within what I know based on their talk and their actions. So, yes, constraints was absolutely the right word to use there. [00:10:37] Speaker A: All right, well, it made me laugh out loud when I saw it because obviously my immediately thought of, oh, it means all their shortcomings. And maybe in some ways it is. [00:10:47] Speaker B: You know, in terms of how they operate with building a team, it makes shortcomings happen. You cannot keep up. They can't or they don't keep up with the Seattle's or the Toronto's or the LAFCS with these players that cost that have salaries of 10 million a year kind of thing. They just don't do that. [00:11:04] Speaker A: I was reading it in the connotative sense, which means you were shading them. [00:11:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, part of the constraint, too, and we'll get to this later on, is that one of the positions in particular, you cannot get it wrong. Right. And so that's a constraint there. Like I even mentioned, the times they failed at that particular position. [00:11:19] Speaker A: And that's part of every time. [00:11:20] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty much every time, yeah. [00:11:23] Speaker A: All right, so we'll run through these. Buzz starts off with his roster preparation. Obviously, the most obvious one out of all of this is getting Elara to return. And since you've posted this, he's put some stuff up on social media that I think we all agree reads like his intent is to return. [00:11:40] Speaker B: That's what it sounded like to me. I mean, it was a little bit wishy washy, but it definitely was the team reposted it, and they interviewed him among the players that we're talking about next year and this and that. So the signs are there that he's returning the team had player interviews this last week, their exit interviews for the season. So any player that's going to get let go will know by now that they're going to let go, or the contracts being declined and or they'll have started negotiating with any of those guys. And the deadline is December 1. So I'm assuming at this point that they'll hold those announcements to December 1 because some teams are announcing only because if they're going to negotiate with somebody, they'll take the week and a half and try and get a deal done so that when they can announce the contracts with a client, they can immediately then announce whoever it is they're trying to resign. Like that we've signed them or not. You remember, like last year with Hedges, they waited and then they announced that Hedges, without a comp, they were declining the option, but they were negotiating with him. They're obviously hoping that they'll have I assume they're hoping that they'll have one or two guys that they'll resign because. [00:12:43] Speaker A: You mentioned it in the article. The fact that Fukundo was on about 900,000 and Elara was on just a third of that or two thirds that it does make you wonder if he'll put up a fuss and go, wait a second, if you're willing to pay him that much money shouldn't I get paid that much money? But I guess it's already in writing. [00:13:04] Speaker B: Yeah. The team has the option, so his options are either to say yes and come back when they pick up the option, or he can retire. That's basically all he can do. [00:13:13] Speaker A: Well, he could threaten to retire if they don't give him money. [00:13:16] Speaker B: Fair? Yeah. [00:13:17] Speaker A: All right. Your next one is maybe the one that I'm most concerned about, which is buying out Jesus Jimenez, who is arguably the most worthless nine that this team has traded, purchased, added to the roster, and an illustriously long list of number nine failures of this front office. It's pretty remarkable just how awful this guy was, especially when you start comparing him to some of the other names that we thought were truly, truly shit. Do you think that Clark will pony up whatever millions of dollars and pay this guy out to go away? [00:13:53] Speaker B: I don't think they have a choice. Even if you liked his production, which clearly you wouldn't, but even if you did, let's say the problem isn't just his salary and relative to the production, the problem is the Toronto part. Toronto was paying the cap hit for Jimenez in 2003. In 2024, they won't be. So it's like, even if you liked them, you're still talking about, like, a max salary budget and cap hit coming onto your roster. And if you want to get better as a franchise, you can't add a million dollar salary and a DP level cap hit that gives you nothing, that doesn't add anything. So it's like it's just in those terms, you must get rid of this one, if you wanted to keep them, you do the buyout and then you get into another deal that makes sense. I don't think they're going to want to keep him. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying it's like that aspect alone. It would be like putting cement shoes on yourself and jumping into the river. You know what I mean? You can't handicap yourself in terms of contract building money before you even start. So it's like they just have to do this. If they don't do this, you can just throw out the 24 season already. [00:15:03] Speaker A: Is there a date in which they have to do that by deadline? [00:15:08] Speaker B: Yes. Well, probably not, because he or they. [00:15:14] Speaker A: Can'T do it before a certain date or they must do it by a. [00:15:17] Speaker B: Certain no, they can do it whenever they want to. [00:15:20] Speaker A: Well, I asked because they obviously used the contract buyout this year to buy out Hara, so they've already done their one. Are they officially out of season? And now they've got the option to buy out again available to them. So if they wanted to do it today, they could. Or do they need to wait till after MLS Cup to do it? [00:15:40] Speaker B: I think that's a technicality that wouldn't make a difference. It is one per season and they may be using the one for next season. Now, technically, contracts run till December 31 for the season you're in, so I'm sure technically they'll be buying it out come January 1 or whatever that first business day is, or at some point shortly after that. But they'll be going ahead and telling him and it'll allow him to be negotiating with wherever. So I imagine you'll see some announcement of it before the actual technical paperwork. Filing deadline is almost not important at this point. As long as you do it before starter next season, you're fine. [00:16:21] Speaker A: All right. And the third part of your three step plan of just getting everything prepared and ready to go was dumping salary by declining options. And you have a whole list of players here that you're like. These are optional players. We need to boot them out the door, save some cash. [00:16:37] Speaker B: I mean, we've gone over these and all the dump and it's Martinez. I can't imagine he's coming back. Fakundo, I'm going to bet Monday. Fakundo is one they're trying to renegotiate because the money getting the green card is a big help, but the money is ridiculous for his age. Like, we compared it to the Era many a minute ago. So I imagine that's a decline in negotiate. We've gone back and forth on the OBrion ONSA one, so there's a lot of people that would prefer to have O'Brien, but one is under contract and one's not. Might they try and do some roster shenanigans there? I mean, maybe they'll try and resign both to lower. I mean, who knows, right? But there's some salary cap money to be saved there. And the overall point is that if you move on these veteran players, you can save 2.2 million in budget and then 1.7 million in cap and then a bunch of Tam GAM money that you would have to use to sign them down below the DP line. I know this is overly complicated, but basically the point is that you can save a whole big chunk of money, which, again, loops back to the Jimenez thing. Like, you can't save all this money and then immediately use it all on Jimenez. So you don't want anyway, so you can set yourself up to have some room to maneuver here if you do things right. [00:17:49] Speaker A: All right, well, that takes us to phase two, as you refer to it, buzz making moves. And the first one is one that we've been talking about since last season, it feels like, which is adding a starting left center back. [00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we know would be honest with ourselves that Sebastian Ibiaga had a really nice season. He was much better than I expected him to certainly be. But we just talked about how Martinez has fallen off and he shouldn't be back with his physical problems at age. So you need a center back just for that reason alone. You'd like it to be a left guy so that you can play Nikosi Tafari on the right know, and that way Ibiaga becomes your third center back. Most of the time. In particular, you can see that game three goal against Seattle was particularly bad. And the reason why it's really important to get this player one that is good passing, because we've talked a bunch about Nicosi, right? Yes, the Dallas defense is good, but it could help offense by being better at distribution and build out of the back. That's the way Coach Nico SteveZ wants to play a four three three that builds out of the back. So in order to do that, you need to be better passing out of the back. So it's a pretty straightforward signing that you need. That's one of a couple of pieces you need to bring in. [00:19:02] Speaker A: Interested to know if they have design. I'm sure they've got designs on somebody, whether it be within the league or outside of the league. My side question related to this, is there anybody coming up through the academy as a center back that people should keep their eye on? [00:19:19] Speaker B: Yes, there's a couple. The one that's closest to being able to help the first team is named Luke Shriner. He's a 2006. But the thing is that at centerback, a centerback that can play in MLS at 18 is incredibly rare. The ones that can actually help you are there's four good center backs in college that came out of the FCD system, and I haven't been able to I can't really watch every one of these guys play all the time in college. So I don't know how to tell you which one is better, but one of those guys might be a hit that you can sign at now 2021 as a homegrown. They might be able to help you now. I don't know that none of those guys, as good as they might be down the line, are not going to help you right now with the starter that you need. You need somebody who's a frontline starter, not a guy that's a know. It looks like Norris is probably more of a midfielder than a center back at this point, and Corsa is okay, but he doesn't look like he has a massive upside. So you really need some buys at center back, and I wouldn't mind getting one of those homegrowns, but he's not going to solve one of your problems right now. Center back develops way later. [00:20:24] Speaker A: Did you say that initially the person the player you're talking about was an six? Yeah, buzz an six. I'm, like, on the precipice of having my first colonoscopy. That's ridiculous for talking about sixes. [00:20:39] Speaker B: Yeah, he's in the neighborhood of six foot two, six three. Luke Shriner is he's a, you know, good player, but I think you'll see him play with North Texas a bunch this spring. And how he does might get him vaulted up because he's got the size, and he's a pretty good passer, so we'll see. And there's some other guys down below him, but then you can start getting into ridiculous. I mean, the center back at even younger than that is ridiculous. Even one at 18 is ridiculous. I mean, Chris Richards is a generational player, right. The kid for la. Galaxy whose name is leaking out my head right now is a starter at 18 at center back. But that's incredibly rare. It's much different because team concept is so important as a defender. It's like goalie center back takes a know outside back is different. Center back is. [00:21:23] Speaker A: Well, can we just stop referring to years players were born? [00:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. [00:21:27] Speaker A: It's really starting to bother me. [00:21:29] Speaker B: Dude, Paxton is younger than the website. What do you want? [00:21:34] Speaker A: All right. Your other move, and this is obviously the most controversial, which was the idea of putting Velosco on season ending injury reserve. [00:21:44] Speaker B: Yeah, this is the ruthless bit. This is where you have to be absolutely ruthless, because in this league, if you have a DP that doesn't do anything for you, you're going to be handicapped big time. If you want to be the top of the league, your DPS have to produce. Look at Paul Ariolo this year, for example, if you don't believe that's true. So the point with Valen Velasco is that originally I wrote this article. I wrote it before he got hurt, and the whole thing was about moving him to the inside to play like he has at the late end of the season to make that permanent move. But then he got hurt, and at the very best case, he would come back to training in August next year. Now, actually getting in a game and being game fit and game confidence is not going to happen in August. It takes months after you've sat around for a year just rehabbing. That's not the same as playing. So both in terms of form and fitness, it'll take a couple of months before he could actually really play, in my opinion, and based on 27 years of watching professionals come back from these injuries. So at the very, very best, he might be able to help you a little bit in the playoffs, I suppose, if you're lucky. But they often say, and you'll remember this, Peter, from watching guys too, is it really almost takes a year of playing before you really get your form back. When you've blown your ACL like this, think back to Jason Christ or anybody else you've seen have this injury. So the point is that if you want to have 2024 be a good season and compete at the top of the league, you cannot have a DP not contributing. So you put him on injury reserve for the year, you get roster and cap relief. It's basically like he's not on the team effectively, and you cannot remove him from it. He has to do the whole season period. [00:23:27] Speaker A: But they don't get another DP spot. [00:23:28] Speaker B: No, they do. [00:23:29] Speaker A: Oh, they do. [00:23:30] Speaker B: You get DP, you get roster, you get salary. They have to still pay him, but they get 100% relief from him in terms of all the mechanics of Major League Soccer, but you cannot activate him no matter what. And so, like in August or September, if he's training and wants to play, let him play for North Texas. Hell, I don't know, loan him to somebody in Argentina for a couple of months, whatever you want to do, and then worry about the problem in spring of 2025. Maybe you have 40 PS. Well, you can solve that problem when you get there. Don't sacrifice 2024 just because you like Alan Velasco. The hard part of this whole deal, though, is the emotionally sensitive Alan Velasco. You'll have to really work hard to make sure he understands that he's still loved here, and you want him to be a massive part of your club going forward, because he might not understand that when you say you're done for the year before the year has even started. That's the tough part. [00:24:17] Speaker A: The interesting aspect or angle of your recommendation is the onus that it puts on the responsibility that it puts on the Hunts as an ownership duo, because this isn't a function of, well, we're not allowed to do that, or this isn't a limitation of the roster rules. This is an opportunity for them to correct an injury situation and improve this team for next season. The system is set up to account for these deals. The only trick to it is you got to be willing to essentially double pay for that position for a season. And when you begin to look at the really serious teams in this league, you know, miami would go out and do this if they had to do it. And any of the really serious clubs trying to compete for a championship in 2024 would all absolutely do what you needed to do to make this happen. [00:25:15] Speaker B: Yeah. This is one where the owners are going to have to decide if they want to compete or mean you want to play in this league or not, because right now they have three DPS jesus ferreira, alan Vlasco, and Paul areola. And you just saw, like I said, what happened when one of those guys didn't perform in the season. You got what you got, right? So, like, originally, the plan was going to be you have to buy down Paul Ariola to create a DP spot if you want to really add a nice piece. Well, buying down paul Ariola would have been expensive. It would have cost you a lot of money. So if you'll be in terms of I should be very more specific. Buying down Paul areola for roster cap reasons, would have cost you a lot of MLS funny money. It would have hampered your ability to compete. You could have done it, but it would have limited your options, whereas putting Alan on injured reserve costs you nothing in terms of roster and MLS funny money. It only costs the hunt pocket money out of their own own. [00:26:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I would even go so far as to say is if you really want to take a measurement of how serious the hunts are about winning MLS cup, why not do this with velasco? Sign another DP and pay down Ariola and sign another DP? I mean, those are all options they could do it all. Just depends on how serious those two guys are about winning MLS cup. [00:26:33] Speaker B: Yeah, if you bought down Paul and did this move, you could actually add two. And like I did my plan being slightly more reasonable, I opened up one DP spot, and then I didn't have to buy Paul down, and then you could bring in a tam gamm level player at other positions. So that's, again, constraints, right. Of the hunts. I did my plan as if it's still the hunts. And even a couple of things I did are a little bit pushing the envelope of huntness, whereas, as you just suggested, we could go even further of that and have two new DPS next year other than Jesus if they really wanted to. Even jesus's number is a number that you can buy down if you really wanted to. At some point, you run out of the funny money, so they may not be able to in terms of those terms. I haven't done that kind of math that's way beyond anything that's worth bothering doing. But the bottom line is for sure, you. Can open up one by doing this move with Alan, and it costs you nothing but a Hunt check to Alan, which they should be able to make up someday when they sell them. So, I don't know. You would consider it like an investment in a way, I would think, in terms of because you want to maintain this success in the stands. Right. And if you sacrifice 2024 and basically go in with, like, maybe we'll make the playoffs with that kind of mentality, again, you don't want to do that. You want to climb. Right. If you stamp at nothing, you get worse. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Well, for sure. I mean, if we get to February of next year and they haven't irred Velocico or they haven't signed another DP of any sort, I just think that's the greatest indicator that the Hunts are just kind of mailing it in for 24. And why would anybody want to buy season tickets for that? [00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah, imagine if they don't IR Velasco, they don't buy down Paul, and they don't buy out Jimenez. How much could you do in that case? Well, nothing, basically. [00:28:17] Speaker A: Well, no, you functionally have a worse team than you had even this season. And this was not a great season. [00:28:24] Speaker B: Right, exactly. Yeah. You would be basically going to the yeah, it wouldn't even be holding Pat. It would be getting worse in terms of roster. [00:28:32] Speaker A: It would absolutely be getting worse. [00:28:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it would be awful. [00:28:34] Speaker A: Which then takes us to the big decision phase three part of Buzz's article. And this is the big one. This is the thing that they've never gotten right. They've yet to ever sign the right person for this. And it's a long, not illustrious list of meh, which is signing a proper DP number nine on this club. [00:28:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So originally, this section was a choice. You could do one move or the other move, and that's why the one move was called the big Boy pants money, where you got to pay and you got to throw it down and be good. And the other move was like a middle of the road type move. But now, because of my Alan Velasco shenanigans with the injured reserve, you can actually do both of these moves. So this, again comes back to the hump ambition. How ambitious do you want to be? And the idea is that we watch Ferreira play, not play nine a lot. He does play nine a fair bit, but occasionally, particularly when a team low blocks, he vanishes from that position. He goes out to the wing, and he fires in all these crosses, like Colorado, he had, like, 17 crosses or something in that game. Or he drops back underneath as a ten, like we talk about off striker all the time, or that high position that Velasquez was playing, you can put him into that spot and have me really good. If you can go out and get a legit high line nine the problem. They even put a lot of money in that spot. Franco Hara got paid a lot of money. Jesus Jimenez gets paid a lot of they've they've shown in their relative terms a willingness to spend a little bit of money in that spot, yet they keep missing. So the whole idea was to try it again but be better about it. You actually have to hit what you want is somebody who can move, because this team is based around movement with its wings that it has. But you also want somebody with some size who can post up and play like a more traditional nine, too. The ideal example, because Miami is rumored to be getting Luis Suarez, and by rumored, I mean it's being reported everywhere. [00:30:27] Speaker A: It's happening. [00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it means it's happening. So the ideal in my mind, and of course, the guy's a good player, so they're probably not going to want to do it, but if you could go get Campana from Miami, he's only, like, 600K. So you can get a player that would fit this role and have it not be a DP. It could just be a really good signing if you can get it right. But you have the flexibility here to use a DP in this spot and get somebody really good. He just can't be 34 and static and not move. It's got to be legit because that's the only way it works, is if you hit on that spot. Because the bottom line is that the difference between FC Dallas and the top teams in the league is goals scored. Their defense is one of the best in the league, but they're probably 15 goals behind per season, the top teams in the Western Conference. So you got to add 15 goals somewhere from this team. Right. And that's with if you move Jesus out of the nine, his goals will go down a little bit, but his assist should go up, and everybody else should get more goals. And so you need a 1015 goal scorer as a nine. You got to hit on this if you want to get better. If you don't want to get better, just keep doing what you're doing and plays. This is a nine. If you want to get better, this. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Is how you do it outside of Campagno. Do you have anybody in mind that you think, like, in a perfect world, buzz and realistic, obviously you're not going to go out, know, get Balagoon or somebody like that? [00:31:43] Speaker B: Well, he's the got the LAFC striker is what you want. They don't even put him as a nine, actually. They use him more as a wing, but I would make him an outright nine. Dennis Bonaga. The LAFC guy. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. Okay. [00:31:58] Speaker B: They often play him as a wing and not an outright nine. But if you just said and I'm going to say a name here, don't panic. If you just said Chicharito seven or eight years ago, that would have been great. Right now, he's not fast, but he moves and he knows how to move, and he tears defenses apart with his movement, with his off ball movement. That kind of guy would be fine. It might have been Frank O'Hara five years before Dallas signed him. You know what mean, like, those kinds of players are fine. Dallas is not a track meet vertical club. They are fairly vertical, but they have wings that do some of that. They do play rapid transition. You just have to be able to move. You don't need a track. You and more importantly, you have to be able to pull teams apart and make those spaces for Jesus and Paul and Bernie and the way Dallas plays. And that would be the key to making this team actually be better. Other than Kampana and then a guy, you can't those those are the kinds. [00:32:56] Speaker A: Of players you want, though, which is the part B of your deal, which is obviously moving Ferreira. If you do get a nine, that means Jesus has to play somewhere else. And you've commonly talked about Ferreira as an off striker, but in knowing Nico, knowing his system, knowing the other potential pieces that you have to play around him, do you have an optimal position that would maximize the very clear skill sets that Jesus brings to the team? [00:33:29] Speaker B: Yeah, he's a really great line breaker, and he's a good late arriver into the box. So this coach's preference is a four three three. You can use him at either wing if you want to. And his coach likes to rotate a lot, shift it around a lot. So you could use him at left or right wing. If you play a double pivot, he can play that Velasco rule. And we saw this down the stretch most of the time. This is the formation we saw Ferreira has played back there before. That deep, but you would do it with Pomacol and I armendi or Legit or Fraser behind him, and you give him a lot of freedom. Or you can even adapt that into a more of a four four two, and have Ariel and Kamungo or whoever you have around at that time, whether it be Oberon or ANSA, whoever plays slightly deeper. And then Fred can really be a true off striker and play know right off of the shoulders of that nine phenology for anyone who's been around long enough. Errol Graziani, Jason Christ combo, that's what you're looking for potentially as well. So Nico, you know, Nico loves to change formations and tactics based on who he's playing. And so Ferreira would move all over the place in this idea. Now, the one caveat to this whole thing is when Nico got here, before he even had his first practice, he's like, for me, Jesus is a nine in the system. I want to play. But two years later, maybe you think, Boy, he really, at times, wants to not be in a nine. So why don't we try something different? And then, of course, you can't still use them in a nine. Whatever nine you sign, you don't want to start 34 games in the league and seven leagues cup games and four Open Cup games. So there's going to be games where you might prefer up there as a nine. Again, in versatility options, changing it up all that would be great. [00:35:08] Speaker A: Okay. The other thing that you put in here was upgrading the defensive midfielder in the six. [00:35:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:15] Speaker A: And I assume this indicates to you, or at least in your thinking, elara Mendy is definitely not a six, and Nico is not intending to play him as such, or you're saying that you don't think he should be played as that position. [00:35:29] Speaker B: It just depends on how much money they have available. I think if they don't add any bodies, like, if they just resigned Fakundo, then I think Era Mindy will be your starting six most of the time, but there will be occasions again, this coach likes to mix it up all the time. There'll be occasions where you want a little more defensive grit. So you start a Fraser or a Fakundo to six and move iyaramindi up. For me, in an ideal world, because of Aramindi's passing, I want him slightly higher up the field, and I want a six like a Jalapeno or even like Mindy, like another guy. I want a six who can pass out of that spot. If nothing else changes, it'll be Iria Armendy, but I'm hoping that they can add a body rather than bringing back know, have Fraser be your backup six and bring in a new. I think, you know, my rough calculations are if they did all the moves I suggested, there would be money to do Know, because you have enough money already for a tam center back, and that's number one. And then number two or one B is the striker, the nine. And then beyond those two, if you get rid of everybody else, I said, and you do the Allen thing, you probably have enough money to get a six also because in Ficundo and Martinez, you're jettisoning two tam players, and I'm replacing them with a new tam center back and a new those are. And then the Velasco thing allows you to bring in a nine. So it all makes sense to me in budgetary terms, as long as you get rid of Jesus menace. [00:36:53] Speaker A: All right, so to summarize all of this, I'm going to ask you to do an exercise in two steps going into 2024. What is the worst case scenario that you can see? [00:37:07] Speaker B: The worst case scenario that you can. [00:37:08] Speaker A: Without there being some other sort of surprise, like somebody gets hurt in the offseason playing basketball? [00:37:15] Speaker B: Well, the worst case scenario is that they don't buy out Jimenez. They don't injure reserve velasco. They keep Paul as a DP, they don't sign a new six, and they keep Fakundo, and they retain Martinez, which would be even worse than actually letting Martinez go and then just trying to hope Corsa can be your third center back. Like, keeping Martinez is actually worse. So, like, basically standing pat with what they have now is the worst case. You know, the best case scenario is that you IR Alan Velasco. You buy out Jimenez, you sign a nine, you sign a six, and you sign a center back right up the spine. And that'll elevate your team to one that can compete at the top of the league. If you hit on all of them, you can't miss. [00:38:00] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's part of the trick of the best case scenario, which is you're talking about buying essentially, a new spine of the team. And I think it's at least fair to say that the debate is open as to how successful or the rate of success this club has had in new acquisitions over the last several years. I mean, yes, elara Mendy was fantastic. Rito Ziegler, by and large, fantastic. And Ariola and Legit were great last season. Not so great this season. Farfan was a good addition. Junka was a good addition. [00:38:38] Speaker B: Right. Here's the thing. If you look at your ten highest paid players on the team right now, right? Jesus had a decent year, but then fell off. Paul had a really bad year. Velasco is three. He's about to be out for the year. Jimenez, we're trying to buy him out. Legit is fifth bad year. Fakundo 6th. Do you really want to bring him back at 30 in that number? I don't. I want to replace him. Paxton pretty solid year eight or seven. I got seven. Jimenez. Not Jimenez. I'm sorry, Martinez. I get my Spanish guys mixed up who we've proven can't go 90 minutes. He's lost his job as a starter. He has that injury problem, and he's 32. Right. Ibiaga was solid, but still made bad mistakes. And then you have AR mendy. So, like, seven of your top ten paid players either underperformed and should be cut or need to be bought out or now hurt. So if you're going to try and compete in Major League Soccer with seven of your top ten paid players functionally not being worth a shit, how good are you going to be? Colorado. [00:39:38] Speaker A: Here's the other thing that is standing out in that list to me. You said seven of the ten did not have good seasons. Of the three that did, two of them are homegrowns. [00:39:50] Speaker B: Yeah, well, let's give Alan a little love. He had a pretty decent you know, Paul didn't. Legit didn't. [00:39:58] Speaker A: Did Alan have a I'm going to make an argument that for the improvement we got, I still don't think they're getting the level of production out of Velasco that I think we all anticipated for the hype of his arrival. And his mean, I like the kid and I like his improvement. I still just don't think they're getting the amount of production out of him that other clubs are getting out of their somewhat equal type roster player. [00:40:31] Speaker B: Well, he is a young DP, which makes him cheaper, but that point aside yeah, I agree. But I think that the move to the central position really opened the team up and helped the team be a lot better and helped Alan be a lot better. So until he got hurt, of course, and I would have had high expectations for next year, but now we're talking about next year. You can't have him be on the roster and be zero. That's sure. Handicapped. That's definitely not better. And even 2025 now, you'd be looking at almost like a start over because he's been sitting out for a year. So there'll be some really important to work him back in properly and get him games. But the macro point still stands. Of those ten highest paid players, you need to have all those ten of those guys be good if you're going to compete. And the fact that only two or three of them were any good is a pretty telling situation on why you barely made the playoffs last year. And you got to improve most of that if you want to try and get better and compete. If you go into the season with all those guys still here, you're screwed. [00:41:28] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, it's a miserable I mean. [00:41:31] Speaker B: Go look at the list. It's ridiculous. Aria Aramindi on a half season is higher than he is on the paper. [00:41:36] Speaker A: But let me throw a Wrinkle into all of this. [00:41:38] Speaker B: Sure. I love Wrinkle. [00:41:39] Speaker A: That also then relates back to something about Velasco that we have not discussed, which is Velasco did not have his surgery in the United States. He went home to Argentina to have the surgery, which I was a little bit surprised about. [00:41:55] Speaker B: Well, massively. I was like, what the yeah. [00:42:01] Speaker A: I guess I don't feel like I have enough understanding about how those decisions are made and who's responsible for making those. At some point, I would assume a player has the right to decide who's going to cut on them. [00:42:12] Speaker B: Oh, 100%. Yeah, right. A player has 100% of the power. [00:42:15] Speaker A: And the fact that he's only lived in the United States for a couple of years and he may have a family friend orthopedic surgeon down in Argentina that he wants to do the surgery. I don't know. Yeah, so I don't know if I should be surprised he went to Argentina to have just there's a part of me that wonders and just here's my wrinkle. Is there a time dimension portal world where we could step through where the front office goes, look, our best option is to IR him for the season. Why don't we just cut our losses and sell him and get somebody else? [00:42:53] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, you mean the universe where he never plays for this team again. [00:42:55] Speaker A: Yes, that one. [00:42:56] Speaker B: It's real. Yeah. [00:42:58] Speaker A: I mean, he my opinion is I think he's probably settled here more than we all realize, but I think if he had the opportunity just to stay in Argentina and go play for, I don't know, River Plate or whatever, I think he'd snap that up in a nanosecond. [00:43:12] Speaker B: Yeah, he would. Well, the trick will be the Hunt's investment in him, and no one's going to pay for him when he's hurt because you never know what's going to happen. The big thing with me with the surgery. And listen, I'm not a doctor, of course, but we know that the very best doctors at this kind of thing in the world are here because we watch European players come over here all the time. And there's even a guy here in Dallas that they all fly over to all the like, it's that's how good it so, like, the idea that you're going to leave the place where you have the very best people in the world at this particular kind of surgery to go back home to Argentina, to me, is weird. But again, it's 100% his call. You're right about that. That medical stuff always is. You never have to take the continuous advice. You can always do what you want. Remember Alan Suter? His version of rehab and surgery was to go sit on a beach and drink margaritas. [00:43:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:59] Speaker B: Or not. Probably not margaritas because he was a holistic, healthy guy. Probably smoke some weed. [00:44:03] Speaker A: Kombucha. [00:44:03] Speaker B: Yeah, whatever. So it probably shouldn't be surprising to me that he did like you say, but yeah, there is a universe in which he never plays for the team again. I mean, I hope that's not true, but yeah, easily that could happen. Yeah. He could just choose not to come back. He could be like, do all his rehab down there and be like, no, I'm not coming back. [00:44:23] Speaker A: Sure. I mean, look, this club singularly individually as a club, the history of this organization is fraught with guys who went back home and went, you know, I think I really like it here. Can I stay? [00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah, just look at the list. Of the list. [00:44:41] Speaker A: Go look at the list. There's multiple entries and examples of this. Yes. I can think of, like, five of them off the top of my head. [00:44:48] Speaker B: And that's not even to get into Giovanni Jesus, who's giovane, as you like to call him, giovanni Jesus, who also has a knee blown out, and we'll be back earlier than Alan. But is another roster problem. [00:44:59] Speaker A: You have to and has he had his surgery? [00:45:03] Speaker B: I mean, I'm sure he has. I haven't seen an announcement of it, but I can't imagine he it was that injury was two months ago. He's posting pictures on Instagram of being out and about with his family and stuff. So I'm assuming he has he has the same kind of out time frame as Alan except it obviously had happened earlier so there's no reason to hire him for the whole year. But it doesn't mean you have to keep a player. You have to keep either Smith or Indole as your backup right back to imito Masi until you can activate Giovanni. [00:45:35] Speaker A: And the other part of this leading into 24 which I like to call the Intangibles is a lot of what happens in 24 no matter what else they do. Best case scenario worse it is going to require Paul and Sebastian finding their form again. [00:45:53] Speaker B: Yeah regardless of how good those guys were at one point paul Ariola this season was on a $1.5 million base and where is Legit was on 700K. So you're talking about $2.2 million of budget and a combined 1.2 million probably in terms of cap hit that didn't have good seasons. So again you can't have that kind of money in this kind of cap stringent league not be performing. [00:46:26] Speaker A: I wonder if it would be a good bet to go to Vegas that one of those two guys is not with the team. Next. [00:46:36] Speaker B: Know I think that in the long term you saw the injury situation and how bad it was. I think the club will look to carry one or two more people that are more in the prime of their career on the roster. I think that's why they'll try and keep Fakundo actually because there are times where you'll just need some bodies. That's why Fraser's nice in terms of the roster. He's cheap and he can start some games. You got sebastian? Not sebastian. Sure. Sam Junka again solid player, can play start games. You need guys like that. You don't want to have to play guys that aren't well. [00:47:21] Speaker A: That's the difference between Seattle and Dallas. [00:47:23] Speaker B: That's 100% correct. When Seattle lost these big time superstar players like Lidero and Rui Diaz they brought in guys that were more in the primary career that became so good that the other two guys came back. They didn't immediately come back in the lineup. The other guys kept their jobs. That's what you want. You want a guy, a legitimate professional frontline player too deep at every position and I think the club will continue to work on that and improving that because since you've added league's cup you make a run that's five to seven extra games. If you want to take the Cups open cup seriously that could be multiple slate of games that doesn't even include injuries. I think that's the big learning thing they'll take away because you remember for season one going from Nico into season two he wanted to shorten the roster a little bit. Well it bit him in the ass. They moved, you know, out thinking he wasn't going to get any minutes and getting to play well damn sure like two months later they regretted that didn't they? So in terms of just in terms of body. So I think that's the lesson for this year, the macro lesson will be that that you need to have these pieces. Even if they're not playing a lot at the beginning of the year, you need to figure out how to get them some minutes and keep them involved. Because there's going to come a time where you're going to need them. [00:48:34] Speaker A: All right, well, and the other thing, the other outlier, which would also kind of relate to worst case scenario is I feel like there's zero chance that the sale of Jesus is going to happen just based on how poor he was the second half of the season. Is there a level of interest in Kamungo or pause that pokes out of nowhere? I suppose those are things just know have in the back of the head just to keep an eye on. [00:49:00] Speaker B: All right, well, let's talk about Jesus if we can, for a second. [00:49:03] Speaker A: Oh, sure. [00:49:04] Speaker B: Because the back half of the season fall off I think is a little bit related to I'm sure you do too, whatever injury problem he's currently having. I want to throw a little bit of a caveat onto that discussion we have. You and I talked about we won't be surprised if we see a surgery postseason. Well, we didn't see one, not one that's been announced. And he's on social media and stuff, so it doesn't look like he's had one. The other thing I will add is that when I talked with Coach right before game three versus Seattle, when he was telling me that Jesus was really doubtful, he says, but if we get through this game the week, layoff before we play again, jesus will be I think you know, how you take fine and how you take available is a good question with him poking at it all the time. So the fact we haven't seen a surgery, I kind of think maybe it's an injury that they'll just rehab it and work on it through the winter and he'll be okay. So that's kind of where I am now. I'm no longer expecting a surgery. They haven't announced anything, so I don't think they will. I think they'll just sort of let it happen and kind of just forget about it. But that fall off and that potential injury will devalue whatever sale price someone may have been considering for him enough below what the Hunts value at him at, which I think is probably about 12 million that you're not going to see him move this winter. I think he probably knows that he's all in here and focused here and needs to do really great things here before that big move will come for him. [00:50:29] Speaker A: He's still young. [00:50:31] Speaker B: He is. [00:50:31] Speaker A: It feels like he's a million years old. In fact, I could say that about him and Paxton and so many guys because we've known them for so long. [00:50:40] Speaker B: Well, no one's going to look at him like they look at Pepe, because he is a couple of years older. But any team that's like a mid tier team in one of these top five leagues that is interested in him, they'll be interested in him to come in and be like a spot starter and roster filler and hoping he can grow over the next five years into, like, a full time guy. But it's not going to be Real Madrid. It's going to be somebody mid table your Valencia's or your Malagas or whatever it is. I mean, I have no clue. Of course, bottom of the Premier League, something like that, if and when it does come. But you still got to prove you could do it year after year here. First, be healthy. Can't stay healthy long enough. [00:51:17] Speaker A: All right, well, if you've not read in great detail buzz's plan for improving Football Club Dallas for 2024. You can find it over on the website thirddegree net. It's one of the top stories. Go absorb that and keep it in the back of your gray matter. [00:51:34] Speaker B: I should just acquire me. One more thing to add to your worst case scenario is what if Era Mindy says no thanks, and retires? That's another one you could tick onto the worst case scenario. I mean, at that point, if the worst case scenario happens, you're totally screwed. That's why it's the worst case. Sorry. [00:51:52] Speaker A: And then he turns and rips off his mask and says, AHA, that's for the Tiago Santos from a couple of years ago. I'm going to do it to you. [00:52:02] Speaker B: It's lucci in disguise. [00:52:03] Speaker A: It's lucci in disguise. Yes. Probably would have made that joke funnier if I had said that. All right, move on to a couple of other things. We are now into a new season and as MLS has it set up, everybody gets at least not at least everybody gets a new kit, alternating between home and away. Dallas is no different than that, which means we are getting a new home kit next season. [00:52:27] Speaker B: Yeah. North Texas. Both yeah. Both of them. [00:52:29] Speaker A: Do we have any have we heard anything? [00:52:32] Speaker B: No. [00:52:32] Speaker A: We have any idea? [00:52:33] Speaker B: No. They're getting better and better all the time about protecting this information. I mean, presumably they're going to stick with red and blue. Hopefully they keep in terms of branding recognition, hopefully they're going to keep some kind of hoop element. I know you don't like them, but they've sort of married to that now at this point. [00:52:51] Speaker A: No. Again, I'm just going to repeat for the record, it's not that I don't like hoops. I don't like red and white hoops. [00:52:58] Speaker B: Yeah, the red and blue is way better. [00:53:00] Speaker A: All in for the solid red and navy blue hoop design that we have yearned for with white shorts for the last however many years. [00:53:10] Speaker B: So the only caveat I'm going to throw out there is you remember the powder blue Ranger kit? That was for sure. 100% the best selling secondary kit they've ever had. And the people I know have hinted that it would have been the highest selling kit they've ever had, period, if not for the pandemic supply chain problems. That meant they sort of ran out of them pretty quickly. So I don't think that you bring powder blue into the home kit. But, man, that kit was a sure fire, big, huge, massive seller. The Burn Baby Burn kit with the white and the black comes back. So with a mostly white slate against it. You can do almost anything you want with a home kit. But I think I am so, so adamant. You don't screw with the home kit in the sense of your big branding pattern. You got to keep the red and blue hoopish elements. You can go hard in on them. A whole red and blue solid hoops would be the best version of that. But they won't. [00:54:11] Speaker A: No, they'll goof with the blue hoop like they have the last two versions do some sort of wonky design effect of it. Hey, we have hoops. Not really, but technically, these are horizontal blue lines on a red background. So that whatever. [00:54:30] Speaker B: The one we're getting rid of was an okay version of it. I wasn't the biggest fan of it. [00:54:34] Speaker A: Well, I liked this one more than the one previous where they were all at the bottom of the shirt. [00:54:38] Speaker B: Yeah, fair. They haven't very many of them are very great. They're all just the home. [00:54:45] Speaker A: Just okay, well, this is the closest they've come to our dream design. [00:54:49] Speaker B: Yes, that's fair. [00:54:52] Speaker A: As far as that goes, I'm fine with that. I wish they would wear white shorts, but again, whatever. And the more I see the Burn Baby Burn Jersey, the less I like it. It just looks like wallpaper to me. [00:55:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not great. From the stands, it just looks white. [00:55:08] Speaker A: Well, I love the idea. I want to make sure everybody understands. I appreciate and love the idea of what they were trying to do with the old vomit flame buzz. It's called a vomit flame. It's not just a flame. It's a vomit flame. Okay. I just didn't like the execution of repeated, perfectly spaced out vomit flames. [00:55:33] Speaker B: I'm trying to remember on what occasion we've talked about FCD Dallas and we liked the idea, not the execution. Oh, right. Everything. [00:55:40] Speaker A: The powder blue. [00:55:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, fair, fair. [00:55:43] Speaker A: That's a really we love the powder blue. [00:55:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really good one. As long as they don't go back to the reunion one. That white one that was just so boring. [00:55:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I really liked the white and blue away hooped kit from, like, the second or third year after they had renamed FC Dallas. [00:55:59] Speaker B: Yeah, the one with the gray highlights. [00:56:01] Speaker A: Are you talking about no, the actual white and blue away kit that they wore with the blue shorts, I thought. [00:56:07] Speaker B: Well, the blue shorts and blue socks really helped. [00:56:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a good look. [00:56:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:12] Speaker A: And there's no indicator of when we're going to I guess it'll be one of those deals where they literally wait till, like, the week before the season. [00:56:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I'm sure they'll have their usual season ticket holder know where they'll show it off and put out embargo images. So that'll probably be late February, early March. I would assume that we'll know maybe some hints on social media, although when they do that, it makes it really easy for Dan to fake it. Make it sometimes his fakes are so good that the club panics. [00:56:41] Speaker A: Inevitably, somebody in the front office has a few pops and ends up sending somebody an image or picture snapped on their phone. No. Oh, sorry. Did I say that out loud? I didn't say that out loud. Never has happened, not to me. [00:56:57] Speaker B: Well, maybe you know somebody I don't. [00:56:59] Speaker A: Well, you know, pretty popular around here. [00:57:02] Speaker B: Bus you are. [00:57:04] Speaker A: All right. I am now going back and referring to the famous or infamous red crayon written run sheet, and I see something written here that has piqued my interest and actually what I've really wanted to read and ask about, because I have no idea where you're going with this. It just says Dan Hunt. Stadium talk. [00:57:26] Speaker B: Right. So do you remember that? [00:57:29] Speaker A: Are we getting a new I want before we're over, I want to share kind of like I wasn't like a deep REM sleep dream. It was kind of like I was having trouble falling asleep and I had this idea kind of dream. [00:57:47] Speaker B: Yeah. What was your dream? [00:57:48] Speaker A: Well, no, let's do that. You do the important thing and we'll talk about my thing afterwards. [00:57:52] Speaker B: So they had this little PR event about a month ago, maybe, where they had this new company they're partnering with for the Academy, whatever. I went to that. And the important part was that I talked to Dan Hunt about several things, and one of them was about the stadium. Because I have said relatively recently that, man you guys talked about and this is what I said to him that you guys talked about this idea that you wanted to have some stadium renovations to sort of coincide with leading up to the World Cup so you could take advantage of some of the economies of scale, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. I said, I feel like it's getting a little late in the timeline. And he said, well, yes, so I'm going to paraphrase here, because I wasn't recording. But what he said, basically, was that the World Cup is the impetus for them to do some renovations on the stadium and that they are 100% all in on doing those renovations. They're still going forward with them. It may not be that they're finished by the World Cup, but the explosive growth that they anticipate they're going to see from the World Cup is the impetus for them to be able to invest this amount of money that they're talking about. So he did clarify for me that it's not the south end of the stadium, it's not the hall of Fame. That basically has already been done effectively. And if you'll go back to what we've been hearing over the last year and a half, and there even have been season ticket surveys they've sent out to people asking like, would you be okay with this happening? That happening. So effectively, I think what they're looking at and what I understand they're looking at is basically the East Side and the stage to be redone in some capacity. Is there going to be a hotel involved still? I don't know. The Casino Street, not street, bet sport betting looks like it's a DOA for now because of the politics behind it. But there has been some discussion of maybe like an event center in there. So I'm looking at and what I'm understanding is probably happening based on what Dan and I talked about and what we've heard before, this is basically some kind of redo of the entire Eastside structure and above the stands and maybe even also the seats themselves. And also the stage area to make the stage area useful for the team and the bowl games and the football, high school football and FC Dallas, because we're down to like one concert a year in there at this point. They don't really use it for that anymore. So that's where we are in terms of the stadium and I think you could actually expect to see some news on that, hopefully in the next this offseason. I think you might start to hear something because of the timeline he and I were talking about. It's not like, oh, it's going be to ready for next year. It's not like that. But they're definitely moving ahead of it in the rumbles you hear behind the scenes are they've crossed some hurdles and that those renovations will begin at some point, relatively speaking. Soon. If I can just those are my words, soon, relatively speaking. Yeah. [01:00:45] Speaker A: I was trying to remember between the time that they announced the hall of Fame design and it was actually finished, was it almost three full years? I don't remember. It's funny you mentioned all this because there's a photo that is like the image used for your 2024 Plan article that pops up when you share it. And it's the picture of the team all in a huddle at midfield and they're in the foreground and in the background, it's the stage with the giant ridiculous Crest sign lit up and two Toyota trucks. And that's it. It's not fans. It's not a supporters group. It's a wall of ivy and a ridiculous sign and two cars for sale. And that picture actually says a lot in many ways and they need to fix that. [01:01:44] Speaker B: You remember when I think it's coming into this season, they did a thing where they offered like a special pricing where you could lock your price in for two seasons. And there was even some discussion, some surveys about would you still come to games if the East Side was completely torn down above the stands or if the East Side was closed or they were laying on the groundwork for that? And part of that price lock is the idea that basically the East Side might get shut down to some extent. And I have no idea what that's not a news item on my know you remember we've talked about this before. So my expectation is actually the entire East Side infrastructure will be gone, not the seats, but everything above it. And the idea is that they're going to do something new up there above the seats. Like the hall of Fame, in effect, is my assumption. And then something like that probably on the north end, too, where the stage is. [01:02:32] Speaker A: I'm sure it'll have plenty of suites, I would imagine. [01:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah, or something like the hall of Fame with clubs and fancy seats and trying to make money in those locations that are usually my low sellers. [01:02:43] Speaker A: So here's the thing that I think about that idea as a concept, is putting suites up there, and all I can think about are all the people that are going to pay all that money to sit in those suites and stare into the sun on the east side. On the east side looking west. [01:02:59] Speaker B: I'm actually hoping that whatever they're going to do might have cover well, but I don't know. [01:03:06] Speaker A: How do you cover that, right? I guess it depends on how tall it is and how many rows of it there are. I guess you could put some sort of I mean, I'm sure they have to be thinking about that. But if you're going to make people pay all that money to sit in these fancy new seats only to have them shot in the eyeballs with the death rays of the sun, it just seems like they've got to account for that somehow. [01:03:28] Speaker B: Having sat on the east side of Choctaw Stadium, I can tell you the answer is to put a 30 story hotel on the west side of the stadium that blocks the sun. It works great. So without knowing anything about the structure of the press box and whatever, I think it's possible to canilever like some sort of tarpy kind of fabricy roof up, out, over and block from that side. In my head, that works, but then I'm not an engineer, so it could. [01:03:53] Speaker A: Be like an old convertible off a Buick or something. Pop top. [01:03:57] Speaker B: You see these modern stadiums all the time that have like these drapey awnings and stuff and roofs that look like old Roman Coliseums with tarps. [01:04:06] Speaker A: The stadium in Germany they were showing off the other day that had the roof that collapsed into the scoreboard. Did you see that thing? [01:04:12] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And there's another one that I've seen where it almost looks like a camera lens, where the tarps all go at angles and they kind of atlanta Stadium kind of does that, too. [01:04:23] Speaker A: That would be the robot's anus. [01:04:26] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I was going to call that, but thank you for that clarification. Yeah. [01:04:30] Speaker A: Well, it's the appropriate one. [01:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, they don't need to cover the whole thing. They just need to cover they need to raise it up so it blocks the sun from the east side. [01:04:37] Speaker A: And that would be all right, real quick, here's my fever dream idea. [01:04:41] Speaker B: Okay, go ahead. [01:04:42] Speaker A: Because everybody's always talking about the best location to put a soccer stadium that isn't in Frisco. That's, like, centralized to everybody. [01:04:48] Speaker B: Sure. [01:04:49] Speaker A: And everybody immediately goes to the most awesome idea, which is putting it on the old Reunion Arena site with downtown Dallas looming over an open end and all of that stuff, which would be farting fantastic. [01:05:01] Speaker B: Well, when you're a billionaire, we can make it happen. [01:05:03] Speaker A: But I always think we all forget that in many ways. The Dallas Fort Worth area was originally the home was the home of the original how do I say this? Soccer stadium. Kind of roofed design stadium in the old Texas Stadium in Irving. Because it was the original stadium. It was famous for having the hole in the roof. Right? [01:05:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:32] Speaker A: So God could watch his football team. [01:05:34] Speaker B: Yes. [01:05:34] Speaker A: What if you were to build a modernized miniature because it used to be like a 65,000 seat stadium. What if you were to build a 30,000 seat version of Texas Stadium and put it back in the old Irving. [01:05:52] Speaker B: Location between the highways? [01:05:54] Speaker A: Yes. [01:05:55] Speaker B: That'd be awesome. [01:05:57] Speaker A: Because that solves all kinds of problems for access. That's a fantastic place. Mean it's got all sorts of ingress and egress solutions already in don't. I think there's a train line that runs close to it now. [01:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah, the Euros Knobs wouldn't get, like, their walkable neighborhood vibe, but other than. [01:06:18] Speaker A: That oh, my God, I can't scratch everybody's itch and solve this problem. [01:06:23] Speaker B: Downtown does. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Well, no, I don't even think Downtown I don't think the Reunion Arena solves that problem too small a not that that's not an area anybody walks right now. [01:06:33] Speaker B: Oh, that's true, too. Yeah, you're right. I mean, nobody walks around downtown anyway. Unless you put it in west. [01:06:37] Speaker A: Yes, it's in that weird little southwest corner. That's not a walkable. There's nothing else. I mean, they'd have to put a lot of other things over there to make it that kind of thing. [01:06:45] Speaker B: I like your Irving idea. That's a great idea. [01:06:47] Speaker A: Wouldn't it be cool if it actually looked like the old Texas Stadium, too? [01:06:51] Speaker B: That would be fun. [01:06:52] Speaker A: Wouldn't that be yeah. Yeah. All right, so there you go. [01:06:55] Speaker B: Dallas football club. I'm in. [01:06:57] Speaker A: Well, they could call it and they could call it you know what they could call it? Texas soccer stadium. [01:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah. There you go. I love it. [01:07:03] Speaker A: Southwest Airlines Texas soccer stadium. [01:07:06] Speaker B: I like where your head's at. Yeah, thanks. [01:07:07] Speaker A: All right. There is the fever dream idea also on the run sheet. I see this on here and I can't figure out if you already mentioned this or not. It says Frisco Main Street Project. [01:07:17] Speaker B: I don't think we've mentioned that. This next whatever year they're tearing up Main Street in we're just east of the stadium where it narrows down to like one lane. Like through this. You can go look on the town of Frisco. They have a whole big plan for it and everything. It's all laid out. It sort of has been under the radar for most people, I think. Certainly for me it has been. So you can expect that to be torn up all this next year. So I just wanted to bring it up so people knew about it. And I'm not breaking any news here. It literally is all over their website what the plan is. It just doesn't get talked about very much. If you're trying to go to an FC Dallas game, you can come in off of this whole way or you can come in from east off of Preston through Main Street kind of thing. So Main Street is going to be ripped. Know it'll be very difficult to get through there if that's the way you go to the stadium, man. [01:08:05] Speaker A: Egress and ingress of that stadium is literally its worst problem and it's about. [01:08:09] Speaker B: To get worse is what I'm saying. [01:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I know, I just was thinking about that. Interesting. And I don't think there's an easy solution to that problem. [01:08:20] Speaker B: Oh, no, there's not. [01:08:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not talking about the Main Street problem. I'm just talking about the General getting in and out of that stadium. I don't think there's an easy way to solve that problem. [01:08:29] Speaker B: Well, a bunch of cops directing flow out like you do with NASCAR, and that's how you do it. But that costs a lot of money and the city is not going to pony that up. [01:08:36] Speaker A: All right, let's see. In other news, Julian I stone and Duke got disqualified or got eliminated from the playoffs. So you personally have called the family and offered them a contract buzz, is. [01:08:51] Speaker B: That how this works? Can't offer contracts? No, but look, this is one of the top talents to come out of the academy in a couple of years. This is a natural homegrown signing. This is high, high tier player. They need to get on him. He's going to have I've been assuming for a long time this is going to be a one and done player because he accelerated his high school member and graduated a year early. Smart kid. Went to Duke, that ain't easy to do. Played one year and now he's turning 18 in I don't remember what month it is. It's the first half of this year. That means that this winter he's eligible for pre contracts to Europe that he can sign when he turns 18. So he's now eligible to have offers on in front of him, contracts in front of him from European clubs. There will be some. So if FCD Dallas wants this kid and he's going to take a homegrown know, now's the time. If you don't sign him now, you're not getting him. He'll be gone. [01:09:49] Speaker A: Well, and just to make sure, in case somebody's listening and do not know who we're referring to, it's the really insanely freakishly tall goalkeeper that's been playing in the youth system for the last five or six years that you look at and go, holy crap, is he like 17ft tall? That's Julian eyestone. [01:10:06] Speaker B: He's over six six, but it's not six seven. He's also at that height, very athletic. Freakishly, freakishly athletic. Yeah. Vertical. [01:10:16] Speaker A: Victor Wembayama kind of athlete. [01:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I tweeted a picture of him jumping up for a ball where he's literally like two thirds of his body are above the guys around him jumping. His mentality is phenomenal. He's not afraid of anything. He works his tail off. As I just mentioned, he off field work too, on and off. He took enough classes that he graduated early from high school. He's got a phenomenal group of people around him that know sports his athletic family across the board. So this is as good a prospect as you can get coming out of the academy, which is no shine off of any other prospects that have come out, even at goalkeeper. Nothing wrong with having quality goalkeeper after quality goalkeeper. And he spent all last summer and working with the MLS first team, FC Dallas'first team. And he's been with North Texas and made starts with North Texas too. Like you talk about homegrown signings out of the academy, this is it. You cannot miss on this guy. So it's time for them to make phone calls and get it done. Yep. [01:11:19] Speaker A: Unless somebody wants to pony up a bunch of money and he wants to move to Europe, then it is what. [01:11:24] Speaker B: It you know, like I said, he is smart and his family have intelligent people working with him. So it's going to be about the plan as much as anything. You have to demonstrate here's how we're going to develop you here's the coaches you're going to work with. Now, Dallas has one of the great goalkeeper coaches in the league and Drew Keyshawn, so that's a really good sell. Working with him is really big. If you're not the number one keeper, what matters most is what's the training environment going to be like, who am I going to be working with? So that's going to be really huge and they're going to have to compete with some of the really biggest clubs in Europe. They're going to be circling around this kid. I mean, I've been around when he's got six agents standing around him at these tournaments out there at the academy fields. And some of the ones that have showed up that I know have come to the tournaments just to see him are pretty big. So I don't know who he's going to sign with. I'm hoping it's SC. [01:12:13] Speaker A: Dallas It'd be fun to watch how this all plays out in the offseason. Really good. And joining the illustrious amateur ranks of Roma and Riatos, four o SC has qualified for the 2024 US Open Cup. [01:12:29] Speaker B: Yes. They are coached by Michelle, former FC Dallas player, midfielder Michelle. [01:12:34] Speaker A: Not the supermodel Michelle? No, the former FC Dallas player, left. [01:12:38] Speaker B: Foot, free kick taker Michelle. He is also a North Texas soccer club assistant coach, but he coaches for SC and plays for them, too. So they qualified for the Open cup. And they play in the UPSL, by the way, which is the really high level national Amateur League. They won the UPSL Championship, like, two years ago, and right now they just finished in first place in the season, right ahead of FC Dallas's Academy team, which finished in second place. Those two teams will play for the championship of that division next weekend, I think it is. So 40 now has qualified for 2024. So they'll be in the opening rounds next, whenever that kicks off in March or whatever, for 2024 Open Cup, that if they keep going like Riatos. They'll eventually run into an MLS team along the way, depending how good they are. And he's got some really nice players on that team. It's a really good team. [01:13:26] Speaker A: And before we finish up, I'm assuming you watched the US Trinidad games. [01:13:31] Speaker B: I did. [01:13:31] Speaker A: And in the course of watching those games, were you like, me? Did you totally forget that Aubrey David was on the 2026 FC Dallas roster? [01:13:41] Speaker B: No. I know. I remember dipping. [01:13:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I had totally forgotten about that dude. And it wasn't until they mentioned him on the broadcast and Tyler Kern sent me a text, and he goes, man, I thought Aubrey David was old when he was playing for Dallas. He was six years ago. [01:13:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:57] Speaker A: Holy cow. But I barely even remember him being on the team. I don't remember him playing at all. [01:14:05] Speaker B: He wasn't here very long, but yeah. [01:14:06] Speaker A: They said he only played like, five games. [01:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it wasn't a lot, but he was here. Yeah, like Shaka Hislop was here for a bit. [01:14:13] Speaker A: I remember that one. I hadn't forgotten. But did you enjoy the I keep talking about this because I'm so fascinated by it. The super fat guy that played for Oakland Roots. [01:14:24] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. That was so awesome. We joked in the discord about, that guy actually is fat. He's not just like, what I told. [01:14:31] Speaker A: You, I'm interested to see if you're in the same think space I am. That is without question the fattest player I've ever seen play at that level. [01:14:42] Speaker B: At a national team mean. Because, listen, you know, I see fat. [01:14:46] Speaker A: Guys out on a sunday at Sunday beer league every weekend. I'm one of them. But I've never seen a guy with his fat hanging over his shorts in a professional game like this before. [01:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah, this ain't the Samoan national team. This is Trinidad and Tobago, which has got guys like Dwight York and our friend Brian Haynes in their past. This is love to see that guy know. Listen, there's a whole thing about barrel chested. Dudes can have really low body fat and be fit. But that dude wasn't just barrel chested. He was also heavy. But, man, he could play. He was out there. He didn't move very much, but he could play. [01:15:21] Speaker A: No, he jogged the entire second half. [01:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah, he didn't do a lot of running, but he was out there. [01:15:25] Speaker A: It was just it was so distracting. I couldn't get past how big he was. [01:15:30] Speaker B: I thought you were going to ask about. [01:15:33] Speaker A: Know, I just it is what it don't. [01:15:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly the player. He's always a knucklehead. [01:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah, double knucklehead. [01:15:42] Speaker B: He's a nickel douche. [01:15:44] Speaker A: Yes. All right, Buzz. Well, I think we've finished. Anything else you want to get to? [01:15:49] Speaker B: I think that covers pretty much everything I had on the list. Nothing's jumping out at me right this minute. [01:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't have anything. [01:15:56] Speaker B: Did you see the thing that just came out about? I think it's New York Red Bulls. How if you have their season tickets or whatever, and if they get entered Miami for game one that you don't get that ticket, they'll give you an extra ticket to game two so they can sell the end of a game for just boatloads of cash. [01:16:14] Speaker A: If it's the opening game. Look, I predict that this is not going to be the last of angry fans getting upset with their club as to how they manage selling tickets to Miami if in fact their club gets a home game against Messi and Suarez and all that stuff. In fact, bisquettes yeah, I saw an article, I think it was this morning, and the headline was Messi saying, we are going to improve this team. And I Suddenly just had flashbacks of The Cosmos in the just Thought, Man, I just Hope this isn't I know everybody Thinks This Is A Really Cool Idea, but please listen to those of us that Were Here when everybody thought it was a great idea that the cosmos was out spending everybody to bring in all this talent because it spelled the end of that league. And I know there's a lot of other protections and guardrails in place, but I could see this thing getting haywire very quickly. [01:17:10] Speaker B: Well, this is where you'd be thankful for Clark Hunt, and I'm serious about this. Clark Hunt is the leader of the old school MLS owners who remember what killed the North American soccer league because his dad wasn't part of it. Right? He and Dan were there for that stuff even though they were kids. And they were also there when the league almost died in 2002 and Clark single handedly saved it. Not Clark Lamar single handedly saved it. So they remember when you look at all these crazy, stupid roster rules that exist in this league, most of them are actually Clark Hunt's fault. And they exist because he and his people that believe like him are doing the very best they can to rein in spending because there's a bunch of new owners who want to go gaga nuts crazy like the Miami guy does. And if it weren't for Clark and his buddies that are keeping the thing in check, this thing would be out of control overnight and the league would be dead so fast because you would kill all the teams but the ones that are Magaga. Yeah. [01:18:12] Speaker A: I think the problem is and what everybody this is very much a double edged sword. Everybody loves the idea of bringing in this next tier of talent at whatever the cost is. But the byproduct of that is exactly the thing that we're seeing in Miami, which are all of these original fans that stuck through thick and thin that now can't afford season tickets because they've gone 300, 400% through the roof in cost. And that's going to happen everywhere that this goes on. And everybody needs to choose what they want out of this deal, right? [01:18:44] Speaker B: Yeah. For those of people listening that were not around for the North American Soccer League, I'm going to give you the ten second version of what happened. The Cosmos had boatloads of money, signed everybody they wanted, and had budgets out the roof that no one else in the league could keep up with. And what happened was the Cosmos were the only team anyone cared about and the only team that made any money, and everybody else only had one 10th of the budget, had no star power, and couldn't make any money. And so all the other teams went out of business and they've learned really quickly that if you don't have a league to play in, it doesn't matter how good your team, they're trying. That's what Clark and his guys are trying to prevent happening. They want to keep the whole league healthy and alive and not cost the league just because one or two teams want to go crazy. So very slowly you'll see an incremental rise in the way they do things. They'll slowly let it get more and more up there. And even just like letting messi happen at all is an example of the messi is going to change the way the league works. And the Hunts are going to have to decide whether they want to try and keep up or not. Not keep up. You can't keep up with that because there's only one messi. But you can't keep up with LAFC. Either because of their Hollywood power and their money making that you can do in La. Where there's 15. Million people instead of 5 million people. The Hunts can do way better, for sure, there's no question. But the reason this league exists is because of them and because of Clark. And so everything everybody hates about the Hunts owning this team for the good of soccer united States be really glad that Lamar and his boys existed because we wouldn't have MLS if we didn't. If they didn't. [01:20:12] Speaker A: No matter how many constraints single entity provides or the way this league is structured, there's always going to be have and have nots in MLS just simply because players of high calibers don't want to move to Kansas City or Minnesota or Dallas or Houston. They want to move to La. Miami and New York. [01:20:32] Speaker B: And we even have owners who have MLS teams just to fill up dates in their stadium. Like know, although that's not the same stadium, but Krass for. [01:20:43] Speaker A: New England. I think New England is going to get a stadium before too long. But my point, all of this just goes back to when I saw the headline that Messi says we're going to improve this team. It shot chill down my spine because I thought, oh, no, it just is another reminder that we're not that far away from living in a world where it's NASL 2.0. And that wouldn't be a good thing. All right, Buzz, I think we've filled up enough time in an off season podcast. [01:21:15] Speaker B: Yeah, let's just recircle back to the idea that this winter could really violently go two ways for FC Dallas depending on whether the Hunts want to compete or oh, yeah, or somewhere in between, of course, too. But you can easily see from everything we know about how they operate, a scenario that looks like the worst case scenario I mentioned or the best case scenario I mentioned. It can go anywhere in between, and we have no idea which one we're getting. So it'll be absolutely fascinating to watch it unfold from that perspective alone. [01:21:46] Speaker A: There's two steps to this, Buzz. One is the intention of the Hunts to allow the club to go out and spend that money. The second one is if in fact they allow Zanata and Co. To go out and buy these DPS or these new players in IR Velasco, then the onus is on them to go get the right guys. But it starts with Dan and Clark having the intention of at least trying to build a cup contending club for 2024. [01:22:16] Speaker B: The thing that I fear is that when we talked a couple of months ago, they said that our roster is fairly set, we don't have a whole lot of room to maneuver. But then Velasco got hurt, and that really changed everything in terms of what you were going to do and your ability to do. They back then they said we might have the room for one or two guys. Well, now, you have the ability to do much more than that. If you really want to be aggressive about it and keep up and be ruthless, as you need to be, they now have the ability to do not a Miami level overhaul, but a pretty decent mid overhaul of some of your high end sorry, high end salaries on this team to actually do some things. And I really hope they do. [01:23:00] Speaker A: Two or three, four, five years ago, I would have said, yeah, no chance in hell, right? But based on some things that have happened in the last couple of years, I'm at least going to have an open mind that maybe it'll all work out and they'll surprise us. So let the offseason begin. [01:23:16] Speaker B: Buzz yeah. In the last year, the way they've upped everything in the organization and step four in every phase of the organization, really good sign that they're going to try and compete more. So we'll see. [01:23:25] Speaker A: All right. [01:23:26] Speaker B: Third Degree, the podcast has been brought to you by Soccer Nighty.com. Don't miss soccer night's. Black Friday sale. 50% off everything site wide starting midnight Friday morning, presumably until 10:00 a.m.. Believe me, I thought this was a typo. 50% off and then it's 30% off the rest of the weekend. Don't miss these deals. 50% off on Friday until 10:00 a.m.. 30% off the rest of the weekend. Soccer 90 dot and you can stop by the store if you want for other selection and better deals. Perhaps even those doors open at 10:00 a.m.. Soccer 90. Com. Ridiculous Black Friday prices. Some exclusions do apply. [01:24:01] Speaker A: Thank you, sir. Good talking to you. [01:24:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Awesome podcast, man. You're welcome. [01:24:04] Speaker A: Yeah, always fun. Hope everybody has a fantastic Thanksgiving and holiday weekend. Be safe. We are obviously very thankful for you guys, and we will. Thank you. I just want to say thank you to the curious out there. And we will be back next week with something, I suppose. Buzz we'll find something to talk about next week on another episode of Third Degree, the podcast. [01:24:30] Speaker B: Get your big boy pants. [01:24:32] Speaker A: Third degree. [01:24:33] Speaker B: The third degree? Never podcast.