3rd Degree the Podcast #239

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Um, yeah. [00:00:04] Speaker B: OOH. [00:00:09] Speaker A: Third degree. The third degree nap, I guess. Third degree. The third degree. Never pocket third degree. Nap, I guess. Third Degree. Do you want to do all of the questions? The third degree there. Podcast. [00:00:28] Speaker C: Third Degree the podcast is brought to you by Soccer 90. Com. Soccer 90 dot. Your location for all the best soccer gear. FC, dallas national teams. North Texas soccer club. Hope you guys enjoyed that absolute banger of a Black Friday sale. Man, they just got all the discounts over there. Third Degree listeners, of course, get 20% off at Soccer 90 dot with code. Third degree at checkout. Soccer 90. Com. They got the best stuff. Some exclusions may apply. [00:00:56] Speaker A: Well, hello there, FC Dallas curious fan. Welcome to another episode of Third Degree. The podcast. This one is numbered 239 239. And it's a special edition of third Degree. The podcast. This is our annual Q and A episode as we look for creative ways to burn episodes with different type of content in the offseason by asking you, the FC Dallas Curious, to submit questions for Dan and Buzz to answer. And yes, hello, it is me, Peter. And today he's back. Wait, was he here last week? I don't remember anymore. It is your favorite Englishman and currently safely out of the relegation zone, dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:01:47] Speaker B: Hello. I wasn't here last week. You needed to do it at an ungodly hour. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. We did need to do it at an ungodly hour. And speaking of ungodly, your hero. My hero, everybody's. Hero. Editor, founder of Third degree Net and the OG buzz Carrick. Come in, Buzz. [00:02:09] Speaker C: Yeah, Peter, it's a weird time for us because FC Dallas was eliminated early enough that there was a delay before the roster deadline. So there's this vacuum between Thanksgiving holiday and now this week of waiting around for the deadline for moves left us with a whole lot of nothing to talk about. So hence the q and A. And here we are. [00:02:30] Speaker A: That's why we can always depend on the curious to help us provide us content for the podcast. So today we're going to go through a whole list of questions submitted by Patreon subscribers of Third Degree, which, by the way, you should totally be subscribing to. It is a fee in which you get to decide how much you want to give Buzz of your money, and in exchange, you get exclusive access to what, Buzz? [00:02:57] Speaker C: Well, you can get little Third Degree burns, which are tiny little podcasts. I mean, mainly the idea is that you support us for all we do, and then also if you contribute at a high enough level, you get access to the discord. [00:03:10] Speaker A: I was doing promotional background music for you. [00:03:12] Speaker C: I enjoyed it. I was with you. [00:03:15] Speaker A: Is there no more? [00:03:16] Speaker C: No, those are the main things. There's some other smattering of things on there. Like if you get to the high enough level, you can actually have my cell phone number. That's a pretty tough level to get to. [00:03:27] Speaker A: We probably could have produced that a little better, right, Dan? [00:03:33] Speaker B: It's a free podcast. At the end of the day, you. [00:03:38] Speaker A: Get what you pay for. [00:03:39] Speaker C: Full of media professionals that are dialed in. [00:03:44] Speaker A: It's late on a Wednesday that we. [00:03:46] Speaker B: Haven'T started Kit Talk yet. [00:03:48] Speaker C: Extra time called and they asked me if I'd be willing to loan back because it's in disarray. So I asked if I sorry. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. I got it. Yes. We should totally do Kit Talk right now because of what happened today in the Champions League. Did you guys see the historic moment in Kit Nerddom that happened today? [00:04:12] Speaker C: Well, I did, but if you do non FCD Kit Talk, you're really going to get Steve Davis to bail out. [00:04:18] Speaker A: You're probably right. Okay, we won't mention it. I'll drop it. Never mind. All right, let's get to the cool Kit combo. But we'll get to the Kit stuff later. Let's get to the questions. And I'm going to start with this particular question from Chris Mobley because it really ties into really what is the headline of the week since we last talked, which is this video that has surfaced now. Remember, Alan Velasco went back to Argentina. We discussed it at great length last week or two weeks ago to have his knee surgery in Argentina against the wishes, we believe, of the FC Dallas front office. Is that fair to say? Buzz? [00:04:55] Speaker C: Suggestions of the front office, probably, yeah. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Okay, so he's back in Argentina and he makes an appearance on their version of Sports Center. [00:05:05] Speaker C: I don't know, it's something I don't even know what it was. I think it was a club related show. I didn't pay that close attention to what vehicle it was. [00:05:12] Speaker A: All right, which one of you Dan and or Buzz wants to play the part of Alan Velasco and kind of tell the story that little knucklehead told on Argentinian television? [00:05:24] Speaker C: Dan can tell it. I'm tired of it. Go ahead, Dan. [00:05:27] Speaker B: I don't know if I could do his accent or speak Spanish for that matter. So Mr. Velasco in August found out that his previous team were suffering some hard times. [00:05:43] Speaker A: And that team's name is is it independiente? [00:05:47] Speaker C: Yes, it is. [00:05:48] Speaker B: Probably. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:50] Speaker B: C-A-I kai. So he asked FC Dallas if he could go on loan to be the triumphant hero and save them from whatever shit they were going through. And of course, FC Dallas was like, no, we're chasing the playoffs, you fucking well, yes. [00:06:12] Speaker A: Can we remind everybody where this team was in August of this year? [00:06:17] Speaker C: Well, August of this year is when they were coming out of leagues, cup, and then in the middle of all those injury problems. And they were certainly fighting for a playoff spot. And that's the problem. They were in and out and in and out and bouncing around and that's not the time. When you let somebody of that kind of money and caliber leave to go help their old team, it's just not going to happen. [00:06:37] Speaker A: Look, this is a club with a history that makes this feel all too familiar with the number of players, foreign players, that have suddenly had something come up back in the motherland of their particular location, which has caused them problems with the club, whether it be homesickness, visa issues for girlfriends, whatever. This all just reeks of, like, okay, he's gone. We're never seeing this kid again. [00:07:10] Speaker C: Well, we raised that question before he even said anything about wanting to go home. And original team. Yes, we know. The actual question Chris asked was, is there any sign that the coaches in front office are frustrated by all this? [00:07:24] Speaker A: Oh, I hadn't even gotten to Chris's question yet. I just wanted to discuss the video first before we got into that part. [00:07:30] Speaker C: Of but well, yeah, listen, frustration is not the right word, but, look, we've had this problem, and they've had this problem, and I'm sure that they're worried about it since the kid got here. You remember they created a department to specialize in making people feel good about being here, like an off field happiness department, for lack of a better word. And then we saw right away he had homesickness problems, and there was a big trip they arranged with this whole family coming up. I know they've tried to talk him to his family about moving here. They got him a puppy. None of these things appear to be working. It's like the kid is really emotional. He's not wired, like, hyper competitive surly bastard. We've seen him come to tears being subbed out of a game. So he's an emotional dude. He needs kid glove treatment, and I'm sure that they're worried about it. There's a legitimate chance he never plays for this club again. I'm at this point, I'm like, 50 50 he never plays for this club again. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Are you saying 50 50, just guessing on how the outcome of this or that you're 50 50 on whether, what, you want him to play for this club? [00:08:33] Speaker C: Oh, no, the outcome 50 50 on the outcome. There's at least a 50% chance of in my mind that he won't ever be back, that he'll do all of his rehab down there, and that he won't come back at all for any of the rehab. And at the end of rehab, when they're ready to activate him, he'll be like, nah, and he'll just not come back. [00:08:49] Speaker A: I completely agree with you. [00:08:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:51] Speaker A: And somebody at some point will figure out he never told anybody to make sure they watch the puppy back here in the Dallas. It's just, like, stuck in his house. [00:08:58] Speaker C: That's the first thing I thought about when I saw you went home. I was like, who's taking care of the puppy? You can't just take a dog with you. [00:09:03] Speaker A: I know. I thought the same. So Tariq Scott got himself a free dog out of the deal. Or so to Chris's question. To kick off the question and answer session. Are there any signs that the coaches in front office are frustrated with Alan's Wander lust? [00:09:25] Speaker C: Not frustrated. You know, worried. It's definitely a concern. Whether they'll do anything about it or not is a question. You're going to just wait till they actually tell him that he's not going to be active for an entire year and see how he, you know, it's not bad, you know, I don't know. Worry is the right word. Probably somebody's involved with money is probably worried. Like Dan Hunt's probably worried. [00:09:50] Speaker A: Oh, man, how much money would you have paid to have been a fly on the wall in his house or office or bathroom while he was sitting on the pot reading the interwebs and saw this video for the first time? [00:10:03] Speaker C: Boy, yeah. I don't know how he would have reacted to that. I'm sure he immediately got on the phone to whoever and said, hey, get the kid on the phone. I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been some kind of statement or reaction that they didn't ask him to go in front of somebody and say, hey, no, look, I'm happy, or know, which maybe is even more of a sign to be know. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah, there's just a whole bunch of red flags here tied to his injury. The fact that he went home to have I mean, I really wasn't all that bothered that he went back to Argentina to have the surgery. Other than the fact that when you start to throw in all the other things that have happened before this, that leads you to believe the kid just wants to go back to Argentina. It's not that he hates it here, he just doesn't like it enough not to want to go back if he could find the right opportunity. And I thought the other part of the video that we didn't mention, at least in how I thought whether Google Translate worked well enough or whoever translated it did it correctly, was the very last line, which, know, I told my agent to tell them money is not an issue. Did I read that part correctly? Did Dan did you pick up on that? [00:11:13] Speaker B: I gotta be honest, I didn't really spend too much time on it. [00:11:18] Speaker A: OK. Well, there was something I thought at the very end of the video where he makes some sort of reference that my perception I'm not saying I'm correct in this, was that he essentially said, hey, if it's a money issue, I'll be happy to figure that out with them. [00:11:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it's basically it's if one month after being sold to Valencia, tanner testament was like, man, SC, dallas really needs me because all these injuries, I got to go back and said, I'll do it for free. It's not quite the same, but it's like minimum wage. [00:11:49] Speaker A: They'll do it for minimum wage. [00:11:50] Speaker C: You know what even more he's even more like a Jesus where he played for the club since he was like even like Tanner at least was a late arrival. It's more like Jesus Ferreira. But we know Jesus isn't wired like that. Jesus is not, you know, this kid so well. [00:12:06] Speaker A: It's just put a whole sour taste. I really was coming around on the kid. I still don't think he's delivered on the promise or the hype or the cost, frankly. And this certainly, unless we find out that this is just a young guy nervous in an interview and there's some sort of translation error, he's telling the story incorrectly or whatever, maybe even then, it's still super. Just the whole thing's really disappointing. [00:12:31] Speaker C: Yeah, there's way too much Aragi's here at this point. [00:12:33] Speaker A: There's a little bit of Maro Diaz and there's a little bit of Fabian Castillo in there. [00:12:39] Speaker C: Well, I hope not. We'll see. [00:12:41] Speaker A: Goodness gracious. All right, we'll come back to some more questions from Chris here in a little bit. Next up on the questions really relates to the other big headline or at least rumor that floated around this week, which is something we all think we know is coming, which is the addition of a fourth designated player per team. This is obviously all tied to Enter Miami and Messi and them wanting to sign the rest of an old Barcelona starting eleven or whatever it is. And so Big B asked this question and somebody else asked this from the Patreon, I can't remember somewhere in here. But essentially the question goes like this from Big B. If MLS does allow a fourth DP, how would that change your patented offseason plan for improving the team buzz? [00:13:28] Speaker C: Well, if it were mine, I would go out and get another DP, but that's not how the Hunts operate. I'm not even sure they're going to do 100% of the plan that I put out there. What it means effectively, is that I assume at this point that more than likely that they'll do something like they did this last year where Paul Ariello was their DP. They'll just basically use this club operates where they have, any given season, six or seven guys that are above the DP line, but only three of them will be actually DPS. They use the funny money of the league and roster mechanics to buy down the rest of those salaries in terms of the salary cap. So basically this will just mean there'll be one less guy that is above the line they'll have to buy down. So on the upside, you can hope they really are going to do these moves that we've suggested of upgrading center back and six and things like that. We'll talk about all those moves specifically, probably in some of the other questions, but the Hunts in this franchise did not strike me as a team that are going to go out and spend another $2 million and bring back a Jesus Ferreira or an Alan Velasco level player. They're just going to use one that money on somebody they already have that's got a relatively high salary. Worst case scenario, the nightmare is that they'll use it on Jesus cementes, which would be awful, but it'd be slightly okay if you use it on Paxton or something like that. But that's not what we want to have happen. We want to have them go do this. And this comes back to this idea we've kicked around a lot is, do you have ambition or not? Are you just going to be content? Are you going to do something? So we'll find out. This is a big winner to find out about that. [00:15:03] Speaker A: Just to make sure I give credit where it's due. Chris kairos. I think I'm pronouncing that. I apologize if I'm butchering your last name. Chris also essentially asked the same question, and I want to make sure that they got credit for that. Dan, you got any hot sports opinions on a fourth DP and what that means for Dallas? [00:15:24] Speaker B: I do not. I mean, for me, you want to have a strong spine of your DP. You've got a DP quality midfielder in the Aramendi. As long as he's back, you've got Jesus DP some level. You really do want a center back, ideally to be that shining star in a winning team, but I don't know. It'll be interesting to see firstly if it does happen and then what the implications on the salary cap and everything else are as well. [00:16:06] Speaker A: I think it definitely ties back to the big message from the last couple of weeks from us, which is you're really going to get a sense of where the Hunt's heart's at in terms of wanting to be competitive based on how they address their roster issues in 2024. That's going to be the biggest and best indicator anybody's ever going to get about how serious they are about this. And seriously, it's either one or the other. It can't be both. They're either serious about winning MLS Cup or the primary goal is the bottom line of the club financially. And I'm sure you can make an argument that either one of those answers can be right in their own, but I do not believe it can be both of those things. It has to be one or the other. [00:16:53] Speaker C: Yeah, we're looking at a summer where you could essentially have exactly the same roster you had last year, pretty much. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Even with a fourth DP. [00:16:59] Speaker C: Even with a fourth DP. Or you could literally have three of your DPS be new, three or four be Know and then add another tamargan player on top of know and all that's because of this new rule, potentially. Salary cap change, potentially. Alan Blasco. Injury? Potentially. You know, there are now ways for this team to do things. Okay, what do you got? Are you going to try and keep up or not? This is all in response to Inter Miami changing the league. This is a watershed moment. The league's going to change here, and are you going to keep up or you're not? Some good questions. [00:17:30] Speaker A: And the funny thing is, historically, DP signings for Dallas don't ever feel like everybody else's DP signings. They're always kind of like variations on the theme. Like, Jesus is obviously a DP, but he's also homegrown. So it doesn't feel like the same thing as signing Chicharito or Zlatan. Right. Or it's a young DP in the case of Velasco or it's somebody that gets bought down. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It just never feels the same. They always seem to try to manipulate it in their favor, and I don't feel like the Dallas fan gets the real excitement out of it other than. [00:18:10] Speaker C: The young old thing. The important distinction to understand about DPS is that there's two kinds. One of them is a salary that you could theoretically buy down with the league funny money, and that applies to every DP that FC Dallas has. They all fall into that category. The ones that they don't have any of are the guys whose salary are so large, which is like, I think it's over two or 3 million that you can't do that. So it's these guys that LAFC or Toronto has that get paid 510, $15 million. Dallas doesn't have any of those. It's Chicharito. It's various guys I don't have in front of me, probably Carlos Bella, multiple guys in Toronto that we know about, some of those Italian dudes. So this team doesn't do that. But even though it doesn't do that, you can still compete and fill up all four of your DPS with legitimate million dollar players and try and compete. Or just be a little bit better about your guys that are slightly below that that aren't quite DPS but still need the funny money and get real value out of them. And that's a lot of the big changes we've talked about are center back in six and things like that, where those Tam GAM sort of Dpish kind of players are not being good enough right now. And that's where Dallas needs to change. [00:19:21] Speaker A: The great Stephanie asks. Realistic, FC Dallas buys for centerback nine and six. I love the fact that Stephanie is using numbers to describe positions. I think that's awesome. That is such a reflection of being a third degree listener. She's asking if you guys have recommendations or ideal targets for center back striker and a holding mid. [00:19:46] Speaker C: Dan, do you have any? I got a couple. It's a big world, admittedly. [00:19:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that's been a tough part. I only had a little bit of time to kind of think about it, but I was trying to look more within the league since that seems to be one of the focuses right now, and none really shout out to me. [00:20:10] Speaker C: Well, I came up with a couple and I did the same thing. I mainly looked in the league, and I don't know that these are necessarily ones that are likely, but I think they fit the equation. We've talked about a value nine being the kid Leonardo Campana, who's with Miami, and you only mentioned him as being reasonable because Inter Miami is getting Suarez, so they're going to have to dump some people and probably dump a nine. So maybe that's a guy, although he's not really a DP, but if you're Dallas, you might have to pay him as a DP to get him. That's the realistic go ahead. [00:20:42] Speaker B: They just gave him a contract. [00:20:47] Speaker C: Well, he's still he still is a guy. If they're going to get Suarez, this extra DP spot may kill this idea, but they might have needed to dump him before. Maybe they don't now. So a reasonable six, again, I don't know if you can get him would be Kellen Acosta. He plays six for the national team. He doesn't necessarily play six for LAFC. But that's a club that always has big contracts. He has a connection here. I know he left here one time, but that's a reasonable number. He probably could talk him into playing six full time, so that works to me. Rangy good passer. That's exactly the kind of qualities we want in a six here and center back. I'll dial it back to I don't think you can get him either, necessarily. But again, they made a play for Aaron Long last year, FCD Dallas did, and they didn't get him, but he also went out to California and didn't start. He's mostly came off the bench, so he might be annoyed by that. So maybe there's a guy, even though he's 31, maybe that's a guy that might be reasonable. So those are some reasonable names, in my opinion, at those positions. [00:21:39] Speaker A: Man, I would love to see Kellen Acosta come back to this club. [00:21:42] Speaker C: Would he be great? Rangy as hell. Good passer. He'll hit hard. If you need him know, it would. [00:21:47] Speaker A: Just feel so good based on how it ended and how angry and frustrated we were with him when he left at the time that he did. [00:21:55] Speaker C: Yeah, it'd be nice. [00:21:57] Speaker A: All right, sam checks in with an interesting question. Your favorite obscure player from the club, and we can define what qualifies as obscure. Now, he specifically says FC Dallas, so I'm assuming he means that and not dating back all the way to the burn, because, boy, can we get obscure. [00:22:18] Speaker C: You can go burn as somebody joked. That the way they already know who's yours is, Peter, by the way. Everybody knows that. [00:22:23] Speaker A: I'm sorry. Ted eck is not obscure. He is a club legend, and his face is on the Mount Rushmore Club, so that does not qualify. [00:22:34] Speaker C: Okay, I'm going to go first. Is Simo Valakari? Obscure. [00:22:39] Speaker A: Yeah that's a pretty good one. [00:22:40] Speaker C: That's my favorite obscure player. If he's obscure if it's not obscure enough, I'll go. Matt Boom. Boom banky. I'll go with him. Boom Boom. Great guy. I liked him a lot. [00:22:55] Speaker A: Dan you got an obscure. [00:22:58] Speaker B: Know I was racking my brain trying to think of someone that's obscure and I couldn't. [00:23:04] Speaker C: How about Lazo Alavanya peter he was a good one too. [00:23:08] Speaker A: Yeah that would have been a good one. Mine actually may not qualify as obscure but imaginary or fantasy player. Remember how we always used to joke we wish Abe Thompson and Kenny Cooper would have sex and have a baby? Yeah because the resulting soccer player that came out of that with Abe's brain and Kenny's body skills would have just made like a world the United States would have instantly won the World Cup in the following 20 years he'd have. [00:23:37] Speaker C: Been a world beater Dallas could never have afforded him. Yeah. [00:23:40] Speaker A: So Abe Cooper Jr. Or Kenny Thompson Jr. Whatever you want to call it that would be my obscure player favorite or least favorite FC Dallas players to interact with over the years. And that's a question you guys are going to have to answer because I haven't done a lot of this is, this is easy. [00:23:58] Speaker B: And this is where I kind of got into trouble because I was like my favorite player to interact with ever was Stephen Keel. I don't think he's obscure but that was the first name that came to mind for favorite obscure FCD player. [00:24:09] Speaker A: No that's probably a good one because he was only here what two seasons for sure. [00:24:15] Speaker B: I think it was three. He was out injured for a full year but if you ever saw the stuff that New York Red Bulls did with him where they gave him the video camera and he went around and did keel cam interviews with all the other players. I mean that's him. That's him. 24/7. Super nice guy. Just the best. The absolute best. [00:24:40] Speaker A: I can't wait to hear Dan's least favorite player? [00:24:43] Speaker B: Mara Diaz. Easily. Yeah the guy literally I was trying to get some questions through a translator at the same time one of the team staff wanted to do some Spanish video with them. He ran through the trainer's room, hid and then we went looking round for him and he was just sitting on the curb out in the corner where the officers are waiting for his girlfriend to come and pick him up because he could drive. [00:25:17] Speaker A: What is it with diminutive high ball skill? Argentinian dudes in this club he was just miserable. He was god he was a miserable person. Yeah. Buzz who's your favorite? [00:25:30] Speaker C: My favorite dinner rack with is Ronnie O'Brien. Ronnie had absolutely the best stories and was really funny and was also super real. He would absolutely tell you 100% exactly what everything was going on or about and being frank and honest even when he was bad. He would be frank and honest about it. He's the one that said one time he asked me, he said, Why'd you say I played like shit? And I said, well, how did you think you played? He's like well, like shit. But you don't have to say that. He's just a great dude. My least favorite is partially my fault. It's literally anyone who doesn't speak English, which is mostly the Spanish guys, because I speak not a word of Spanish, and none of them and some of them have never in their life tried to learn a word of English. Like, Michael Barris was here for friggin 20 years and never learned two words of English. So that's always a real problem for me, because I don't you know, and it's partially my fault, too, so I'll take it on the chin. But it's tough for me to give anybody. And part of the problem, too, is that sometimes and this is not necessarily a shot at anyone in particular, but sometimes the people that they offer to translate for you for SC Dallas don't translate accurately. The player will talk for three minutes, and the translation will be 20 seconds. And you're like, okay, that's not what he said. [00:26:44] Speaker B: But I think the problem is it's a very specific skill. And it's really easy to say that as somebody that only speaks one language, but it's a very specific skill to relay exactly what somebody is saying to you. Whereas I think in more recent times, there's been a lot of, oh, he said, okay, but I'm not asking for a summary of what he said. I'm trying to actually quote his words and put them on paper. [00:27:13] Speaker C: Yeah, well, thankfully, now we can record stuff with our phone and then have it translated via Google or whatever. It's still not exactly the same as, like, a real translation of know that's that's the biggest difficulty. [00:27:23] Speaker B: My favorite was still when Mara Rosales former Iax player, had to translate for me to Maxi Aruti because Maxi spoke English, but he didn't really feel comfortable enough to actually answer in English at the time. That was kind of how the resources were. So I was like, Great, this is perfect. I'll go for a two for I'm interviewing two people at once here, which turned out magic, but it was just yeah, you can imagine that. You've played for one of the world's biggest clubs, and you've been a decent sized DP at other clubs. You come to Dallas and, hey, can you translate for someone? [00:28:03] Speaker A: I didn't think I had an answer to this, but I do quickly. My least favorite and this is 100% unfair to him, but I was so frustrated by this was Matt Hedges, because Matt got screwed into having to do a phoner into the kickaround one day, and not only did he do it on his Bluetooth, but it was a crummy connection, and he all he wanted to. Do is give one word answers, and it was the worst interview in the show's history, and I was pretty pissed off about that, which really isn't his fault because he didn't want to do it and he got made to do it or, uh so again, that's probably unfair to him. No, it is definitely unfair, but that's. [00:28:41] Speaker C: Well, I will say that Matt Hedges was not particularly verbose in his no, he was me. [00:28:47] Speaker A: He was not a Gregarious A type personality by any stretch of the imagination. [00:28:50] Speaker C: It took me years to get him to actually talk to me about anything real and not just give just it's just his nature. [00:28:57] Speaker A: And my favorite, without question, was the great Brandon Pollard, who even before he had his leg broken by Kovalenko, was just the sweetest dude you could possibly meet. And then even after his career, when he first went into baking and then Beekeeping, was just the most down to earth, sweet human being you could possibly meet. And I love that dude and I'm sad he doesn't live around. [00:29:20] Speaker C: Let's just say he had a different worldview than most. [00:29:22] Speaker A: Yes. Yes, absolutely. That's a great way to say it. Stephanie's last question is, considering all the factors of this season, when you take everything into consideration, was this season successful? [00:29:35] Speaker C: That's Sam's last question. But yeah. [00:29:37] Speaker A: Oh, Sam's. Last question. [00:29:39] Speaker C: I'm sorry. [00:29:39] Speaker A: Yes, okay. [00:29:40] Speaker C: In my mind, no, it's not, but for the owners, I think that they're going to know mostly not yes, but yes enough that it met the minimum stated requirements, which is to make the playoffs. They're not going to look at it and go, oh, what a great, amazing season, but they're going to look at all the mitigating circumstances. And I know that you don't want to accept or no one should accept that injuries are part of the parcel of the program and that that mitigates this season. But when you're talking about spending a lot of money and whether you're going to fire a coach or not, it does factor in. So it's not a successful season, but it did meet the minimum requirements. And so I don't think there's any issue there by any means. [00:30:24] Speaker A: Dan? [00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah. For me, I think if you go specific to the word and considering all the factors, results, attendance, general feelings of the team, assuming the team meaning, like the whole club, not just the team on the field, yeah, it was kind of successful. Attendance is up, business is up, play on the field was down. The Hunts are going to look at the business aspect first. [00:30:49] Speaker A: So as kind of an ironic follow up to that question comes from Mose, which is what does a reasonably successful season for next year, 2024 look like? [00:31:00] Speaker C: Well, it's the same thing. It's make the playoffs. That's their minimum line. And if you manage to fix the injury problems, they're going to have an expectation that they belong in the top half of the table because they're going to look at their roster relative to 2022 when they were fourth or third or whatever the hell they were. Now it's blocking it out and they're going to look at last season and throw last season out and they're going to say, that's our expectation, especially if we go add pieces. So a successful season is going to be top four in the west. That's going to be successful. Surviving season is different question. [00:31:33] Speaker A: Damn. [00:31:33] Speaker B: For me, a successful season isn't necessarily movement in the standings. It's just having that stronger bench depth, that stronger resilience against injuries. [00:31:45] Speaker A: So they could have the exact same result this season but next year. And you'd feel like that's successful if they were able to overcome the injury situation. [00:31:57] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it's not just like not getting injured but actually having reliable depth. Yeah, I see because that sets you up for later down the line. [00:32:07] Speaker C: And Dan's right in a way, too, that if this club doesn't go out and make the moves to then extend them at the top to compete at the very highest level, then solidifying what you are. What might be considered successful just to be better version of what you are is probably successful in their minds. [00:32:22] Speaker A: All right, from the very modernly spelled awesome username cynical spaghetti. Yeah, I love that. It's got to be their Call of Duty tag to steal this question from Steve Schlanger. That's totally a made up name, by the way. If you could change one rule in soccer, what would you change? [00:32:48] Speaker C: Okay, my grumpy old man answer is go back to three subs, but that's boring. The fun answer is I would change throw ins to kick ins because then you would get basically corner kicks from like anywhere midfield in basically. [00:33:01] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:33:01] Speaker C: So that's my what's yours, Dan? [00:33:07] Speaker B: I don't really have one. It would be simplify all these stupid nuanced rules like offside or handball with, did he mean it? Was it too close? Was the hand in a natural position? If I had to just pick one, what would it be? [00:33:32] Speaker A: Silence. Damn. [00:33:34] Speaker B: Yeah, complete silence. [00:33:36] Speaker A: I'll let you have two handball and offside rules modified and simplified. Mine without question, would be games that end after extra time instead of going to penalty kicks, go to 35 yard run ups like they used to do in the NASL and MLS. [00:33:55] Speaker B: That would be cool. [00:33:56] Speaker A: That's way better. I'm not saying if there's a foul in the box in the course of the game, that is still a traditional penalty kick, but when you get to deciding the game, it's run ups shootout style, brother. Yeah, that would be mine from Justin. Which current MLS player or players do you loathe and which ones do you have a healthy respect and admiration for? [00:34:20] Speaker B: Dan, you got know I didn't have one after Stephen Lennon retired, but I think in the last few days it's definitely become Matt miyazka. [00:34:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an easy one. We found out today that Matt got suspended through the rest of the season, and all the details, the salacious details about him going into the referee room. Have you guys read that report yet? [00:34:44] Speaker C: No, I saw it. I haven't read it yet. [00:34:46] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. It's way worse than anybody was trying to make it out to be. They were all trying to make it sound like the referees were overblowing it, but there's way too many witnesses and video evidence to the contrary that Matt just completely blew a fuse. And it did raise the question, if you were to do a battle of the knitwit, selfish acts that hurt your team, who was the winner between Matt Miyazka and Sergino Dest? I think most people thought it was Mr. Miyazka. [00:35:19] Speaker C: All right, well, the only low that could come up for was Dima Kovalenko, who's not in the league anymore. [00:35:24] Speaker A: Of course, I still hate that dude's. When you break not one, but two of your club's players legs over the course of a few seasons yeah. You're forever the villain. [00:35:38] Speaker C: My distaste healthy respect for player, however, is Johnny Russell, who I both hate and also think is an absolute baller at the same time. [00:35:48] Speaker A: That's how I feel about Herrera. [00:35:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, I could definitely see that about Hector. I remember I told that story that when he signed for Houston, my wife's like Hector Herrera. [00:35:56] Speaker A: I hate that guy. All right? John Woodward asks. Let's see. He says this is a generic question, but he's going to throw it out there. Should the injury bug hitting a team fall on the shoulders of the conditioning, coaches and dietitians? [00:36:17] Speaker C: It depends on what it is. If you have a rash of the same kind of injury, then, yes, you do. But I don't think if you mean the FC Dallas one specifically, then no. This last season for FC Dallas was a confluence of different kinds of injuries, and it's just a setup of bad luck. Now, you couldn't blame some of it on the shorter roster and a little bit of the overwork, but the injury started happening before they hit the heavy overwork section. So this year wasn't but there have been times where if you see a whole bunch of hamstrings at the same time, that's usually an overwork situation. Kind of like what's happening in Newcastle right now. For example, there was a time when everybody come out of the Academy was getting hernia or torso injuries, and Oscar was adamant that it was like, it's just the kids not doing enough core work, and they really doubled down in the Academy, for example, on core work after that. And that really made a big improvement in that aspect. So it can be that. But this season wasn't that in my opinion. [00:37:16] Speaker B: Okay, so here's my thought. On know. At the start of Oscar Para's tenure, there were a lot of hamstring and knee injuries. Oscar brought in Fabian Bazan as a strength and conditioning coach. And then what we'd see in practice is in any drill, whether it's an eleven aside or even down to something like shuttle runs, every player had a number of reps, and he'd go tap one on the shoulder, pull them out. They got very clever, very sciency. They were mapping pressure points in the feet, strain on individual muscles in a player's running style, things that you can utilize to stop the strain on a short roster like we've seen this season. We've also seen a couple of players with hernias which for the most part that's an old injury that's just never been treated properly. It's been kind of like the pain's gone away. We've seen a couple of instances which I didn't really think too much of at the time, but now looking at the two of them where a player has gone down with an injury and a physio sent them straight back in. One of those obviously was an ACL injury which they should be able to diagnose fairly quickly. It just seems like the club rather has been a little bit carefree with some of the stuff in there. I know there's been a lot of movement in the medical know, they've gone through the head trainer. I think you've had what, Skylar left, he's working with Oscar in Orlando. Reed Whitney left, he got fired from DC earlier in the year. Tracy Chapman left, I think he went into private practice. You've got, I can't remember the chap's name currently, who a couple of years ago was like the youth backup guy. It just kind of feels like that there maybe hasn't been as much attention paid in that area as there has been in others. [00:39:44] Speaker A: Okay, back to Chris Mobley who asked the first question. He had a couple of other ones. He wants to know, buzz, how confident are you that you and Nico agree on evaluations of players? And he uses the example of is it possible that Nico sees Jesus Jimenez and says, you know, he would have been OK if he hadn't gotten injured and ends up playing on this team again next season. [00:40:07] Speaker C: Well, if Jimenez is back here next season, it'll be because the Hunts don't want to pay the money. That'll be all the reason he's back. But it's pretty close. I'm pretty confident. This coach so far yet won't talk to me in the sense of like a complete off the record and say like this guy's shit, he doesn't do that like some other coach have done. But it's still pretty clear sometimes what he thinks about certain my, my beliefs on some guys aligns pretty close. What he does that I don't do is also something Lucci does, which is he doesn't give up on guys. If the guy is still on the roster, he'll continue to try and use them and try and play them and Lucci did the same thing where he didn't give up on Cobra, where I gave up on Cobra after a couple of weeks and he didn't. So they're much more forgiving than I am. But then again, I don't have to manage the guy. I just don't have to write about. So it's I can be much harsher than they can be in terms of my evaluation. There's guys on this roster that I don't think should be on this roster at all anymore. So I think that because he's a non harsh, more of a hug it out kind of a little bit like Lucci in that regard, actually. Kind of coach that he's always going to work with guys and always try and develop them and always going to try and keep them in the mix and always see if they can get some value out of them. And where I'd be like, Just go train on the other field. I don't even care know? So it's pretty close. [00:41:30] Speaker A: All right, Chris's third question I think actually is pretty interesting in this and to provide some context, a few days ago, the club put out a pretty funny graphic with a set of dinner tables, and each one had a caricature of three either current or historical players from the club. And the question was, which table would you want to sit at to be a part of? And I think the general consensus was table number four. Is that right? [00:42:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it was four. [00:42:01] Speaker A: It was table number four, which had Nikosi tafari Breche and Paxton Palmyall. And we're all like, yeah, that's absolutely the table we'd all want to sit at. But Chris's question kind of bends that a little bit, and he says, no offense to Paxton, but if you take Paxton away from that group and you're left with Nikosi and Breck, who would be the most interesting third player in this club's history or current player to add to that table? I know exactly who the answer is for this, but I'm interested who Dan and Buzz think. [00:42:32] Speaker C: Do you want to go first since you got it? [00:42:34] Speaker A: Mine is without question, the aforementioned Brandon Pollard. [00:42:38] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good one. My answer kind of depends on what kind of conversation you want. The most interesting storyteller is Ronnie O'Brien. [00:42:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's true. [00:42:49] Speaker C: If you know, there are guys who I just enjoy having a drink with and maybe eating a nice meal with for me would be like Simo or Oscar or Bobby Ryan, maybe a Brian Haynes. Guys that I've gotten along with really well and are also really good conversationalists. So it just depends on kind of what you want. But if you want to be just pure characters, the only guy that comes close to Nikosi and Breck is Ronnie O'Brien, because a lot of people don't know much about him because he's just an Irish dude. But he had some of the most amazing stories about playing in Europe with Juventus and being voted for man of the Century, and just all kinds of great stories out of that guy. [00:43:28] Speaker B: Okay, so I don't have an addition, but I do have a hot, interesting character opinion. [00:43:37] Speaker A: OK, go ahead. [00:43:38] Speaker B: Brexit was never an interesting character. [00:43:42] Speaker C: Well, he may have been interesting to talk to, but he's an interesting yeah, yeah. [00:43:46] Speaker B: He's just really miserable to talk. [00:43:50] Speaker A: He was he was a weird an. He was one of those weird introvert extroverts, if that makes any sense. [00:43:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a perfect way to put it. [00:44:02] Speaker C: Yeah. But like Brandon Pollard, he has a different worldview than a lot of people. And that's why people from select picked out that particular table, is because Nicosi is the same thing, too. Nicosi is very different than the kind of players we're used to here. That's a fascinating table. You're probably right. Brandon Pollard would be the answer. That would be the crazy. [00:44:19] Speaker B: When you talk to Nakosi, everything has thought and feeling behind it. There's nothing that's without intention, there's nothing that's just like, I say stuff to say stuff or to try and be controversial or anything like that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like coast. I feel like you could have a week long conversation with and go out and walk away and be like, man, there's so many things I wish I'd asked. [00:44:51] Speaker A: It's interesting. I thought that was a cool it. [00:44:54] Speaker C: Was a good bit. [00:44:55] Speaker A: The club did, although they made the answer way too obvious with that pairing of those three guys. We you really wouldn't want to waste your time with any of the other tables. That was absolutely the table to go with. [00:45:06] Speaker C: I mean, it was one I'm not going to say which one. One of them was awful. I was like, oh, my God, that's about it. Would never be that one. But I'm not going to say who it was, though. Don't out anybody. Just move on. [00:45:15] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Fritz and Mark ask kind of the same question, so I'm going to kind of put them together, which is how hot are the seats of both Nico Esteves and Andre Zenata? [00:45:29] Speaker C: I'll go first. And Dan, you can say whether you agree with me or not. Not hot at all, honestly. [00:45:34] Speaker A: Ice cold. [00:45:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, both of those guys were contracts were up or have they had an options or whatever. Nico was pretty adamant that he had his own option, but pretty cold, actually. I've had some conversations with Dan Hunt recently, twice, where he talked about how confident they are in the coach and in Zanata that's their guys, because remember, Zanata is about the business. He was the rep was buying and selling. That's what they want. They want to make the profit that know SteveZ is meeting that minimum requirements. So fix the defense, make the playoffs. [00:46:07] Speaker B: Right. [00:46:07] Speaker C: That's the mo here. So those guys both did exactly what they've been asked to do, and the coach seems really happy with them. The owner seems really happy with I don't I don't know that they're hot at all, in fact. And if you want to be more specific, like, what would it the second half of Fritz's question was, like, what would it take for him to be the next year to possibly let go? And it wouldn't even be safe to miss the playoffs because if you just miss by a point, maybe there's some mitigating circumstances or whatever, you have to miss bad. You have to miss bad. And then those guys would then be on the hot seat. But if you come in like 7th or Eigth again, I don't think they would be upset. I think they would look at what happened and why and see what they do now, if they go spend $10 million, maybe it's a different question, but they're not going to dan. [00:46:49] Speaker B: No, that's it. They're both sitting on giant blocks of ice. [00:46:53] Speaker A: They're perfectly comfortable. 68 degrees. Next up from Claudia, if any. What changes do you expect to see with Ferozi's departure? [00:47:04] Speaker C: This one's pretty simple. Right away, they'll just kind of have some other people fulfill his position, his responsibilities, and then see where it goes from there. They kind of had created that spot for him because he'd been here so long as a great servant of the club. It wasn't necessarily a job they had before. So they'll probably do some evaluation about whether they really feel like they need to fill it again or not. [00:47:25] Speaker A: Director of methodology. [00:47:26] Speaker C: Yeah, basically, he was supervising coaches in the academy team and making sure that there was an integration between the first team all the way to the academy, which, by the way, if you include North Texas, they actually absolutely need to have that integration. It'll just depend on how busy some of the people are that could do that by themselves and whether they'll need somebody or not. So I think it's a TBD to be termed. [00:47:47] Speaker A: Chuck asks a very good question, and it goes something like this. With the club focused on the academy and selling players to generate revenue, how does a coach like Nico Estevez make any sense? He doesn't trust playing the kids, isn't a fan of the homegrown contracts, and the less they are ready to contribute to the senior team. [00:48:07] Speaker C: Yeah, he doesn't we've said this since the guy got, like, even, like, the very first press conference we brought it up. That was not there was a misfit there, and there still is a misfit there. They're trying to walk a line between two states of business. They want to be in a kid's academy development cell team, but they also want to compete and have guys in the prime of their career. Those two things are not necessarily cohesive, so it doesn't make any sense. [00:48:33] Speaker A: The great Lance Lester asks, well, here's the question. Do you think Clark would be willing to have a roster with positions one through eight with every player being at it, being paid at least $300,000. [00:48:51] Speaker C: It's one through 18, but we're actually really close to that. So, yes, I think they will. They're within touching distance of that happening. You're really looking at like, four or five players that are not, and some of them are like, it's Dante Seeley who's know? Okay, that one maybe not, but Lakosi's one, he ought to be. And then you're looking at like one or two guys, like Junka who had a really small deal so he could bounce between the rosters and Mulatto, who same thing. So it's only a very small number of players that don't have that yet. And I think you're within a season or two of it literally being everybody on the first team roster. The only reason you wouldn't that you would keep one or two low is so that you could theoretically bounce them down to the supplemental roster if you had to. But they're almost there already, and Buzz. [00:49:38] Speaker A: Lance is really working hard to get you in deep shit with this next question, which is what brutally honest coaching moves would you make in the academy? [00:49:47] Speaker C: Well, there's one, but I'm not going to say his name because he's coaching kids, and I don't want to do that. But there is one, and to me it's glaring, and it's been glaring for about four years now. What I will say in a bigger sense is that since they've lost from the academy, they've lost Lucine, they lost Javier Morales, they lost Oscar running the thing. They lost Lucci, they've lost some sexiness in their coaching staff, and by that I mean like recruiting sexiness. They've done way, way better on recruiting lately. But when you have a guy like Javier Morales in your academy, that attracts a kind of kid that you can't get if you so the one name aside, which I'm not going to say, they could use a little bit of that kind of thing. They have a bunch of dudes that are really workmanlike and really solid and really good coaches. That's not the same thing as having somebody that's got a big draw name. [00:50:45] Speaker A: Hey, one of you curious need to send Buzz another bottle of that banana flavored whiskey or whatever it was. Bacon flavored whiskey. So he gets drunk and tells us which coach it is. [00:50:57] Speaker C: I mean, I've said it to people. I'm just not going to do it on this podcast. Well, it's not that it's impact on kids. [00:51:08] Speaker A: Yeah, no, you're totally right. I'm just goofing with mean, I don't. [00:51:13] Speaker C: Want to have some kids on that particular team and their parents talking about that. [00:51:17] Speaker A: You know what I mean? No, you're absolutely right. No, it's a totally unfair question on Lance's part, and I'm only prodding it. So my apologies. All good. All right. Chris, will we see more Dallas burn, throwback gear and or acknowledgements in the future? [00:51:36] Speaker C: Yes. Dan, do you like the Burn stuff. [00:51:39] Speaker B: Dan, I love it. [00:51:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:41] Speaker B: I mean, mean, here's the thing. It's selling, so yeah, of course they're going to follow that. [00:51:45] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what happened is that they did that burn throwback stuff and it was sold like hotcakes when they were blown away. They were not expecting that at all. And now they've done this Burn kit and it also is hot and people love it. So yeah, you'll see more of it. [00:51:56] Speaker A: Well, I also feel like that I successfully renamed the official nickname of the club the Burn this season. So why wouldn't they? [00:52:04] Speaker C: I hear that a lot, actually. People like that. [00:52:07] Speaker A: They should. [00:52:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:09] Speaker A: It kicks ass. [00:52:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:11] Speaker A: Steve writes a this sounds more like a customer complaint and he's sending it to the wrong place than a question for this podcast. But apparently Steve is very riled up because for the third year in a row, he went to go buy a jersey as a gift and they have none left anywhere. And it's like, how are they completely out of stock six weeks before the holidays? And apparently this has happened many, many times to him and he's written a sternly worded letter to the podcast about this. I don't know how to answer this question for you. [00:52:46] Speaker C: I do like it, too. Go ahead, Dave. [00:52:50] Speaker B: Okay, so here's the thing. They would rather not sell a few dozen than be left with hundreds of items of dead stock. There was in the 2012 or 2013 season, whenever it was, they signed the Advocate deal. They had that jersey that they used from the toothpaste logo. Well, it's not so much that they had that one jersey, right. They used the home jersey from 2011 to 2013, the away jersey from 2011 to 2014. They came with FC Dallas on the front of them or they came blank and as part of like a little kit where you could iron it on yourself. When they signed the sponsorship, they were left with thousands upon thousands of jerseys that they contractually could not sell. So they've put money into that. They've now got tons of storage space unused. They were given these things out left, right and center to every charity school, anyone that would willingly take a few dozen jerseys off their hands. They did. The Heartwalk that year and every single person that registered to be part of the team, FCD for the Dallas Heartwalk received one of those jerseys. They just could not get rid of them. So that's the sort of situation they don't want to get themselves into. So they are going to order a few less than the point of them selling out. Rather than kind of what's the word? [00:54:33] Speaker C: Stockpiling. [00:54:34] Speaker B: Sorry? [00:54:35] Speaker C: Stockpiling jerseys. [00:54:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a different word, but yeah, rather than kind of run out of people to sell to and then suddenly they've got an empty packed storeroom to look at. [00:54:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Remember that FCD Dallas is a low selling jersey team in relative terms. So Adidas is not going to take the risk, and FCD Dallas is not going to take the risk of having thousands of jerseys laying around. So that's the answer. I know it sucks, but it is what it is. [00:55:03] Speaker B: And I mean, to be fair, even Miami had that problem this well, yeah. [00:55:07] Speaker C: Everybody had that problem this year because of the supply chain. And we've talked about that going back to the blue jersey. That would have been their greatest jersey selling of all time. And if they hadn't run out of them because of supply chain problems, well. [00:55:18] Speaker B: Then the QA was just terrible on them. [00:55:20] Speaker C: Well, that too. [00:55:21] Speaker B: I remember when I went to buy one and I couldn't find in the entirety of Soccer 90, I couldn't find one that had a straight centered MTX logo on it. So I didn't buy one, and people. [00:55:32] Speaker C: Still bought them like crazy, even with that problem. It's my favorite kit I have, actually. [00:55:38] Speaker A: Neil checks in with our first tactical question. Buzz, do you think it would benefit Jesus Ferreira to long term move, to move away from the nine slot and either play in the wing or off striker? [00:55:51] Speaker C: Yes. Bandan, in terms of how much you're going to get for him, I think it would benefit him because I think it's his better position, particularly off striker, but that's a position that doesn't get used very much anymore. So maximizing his game, his talent, maximizing his potential would benefit. But you also don't pay as much for players that are not pure nines, which he's going to have a problem with that anyway. He's not worth as much as Pepe because he's not a pure nine, and also he's a little bit older. It would benefit his game, but I don't know, it would benefit his sale. [00:56:26] Speaker A: Austin asks an interesting question about the differences between in league moves versus signing players that are from out of the league, and basically, is it smarter to sign in league moves since they're already MLS tested, know, bringing in Velasco, who's new to the league and the country and everything? [00:56:49] Speaker C: Well, it's definitely smarter, but they're also more expensive. And if you don't believe that, I'll point to Sebastian. Legit and Paul areola as two perfect examples of that. Yes, it's absolutely smarter because, you know, they're a proven player and you can eliminate the risk factor of can they succeed in Major League Soccer, but that's exactly why those players are relatively expensive. It's a different kind of money. It's not real money. It's only fake money. But that doesn't mean they're not expensive to pry away from teams that have them. Like we talked earlier about the Kellen Acost idea and how great that idea would be. I bet you that it would not be easy to get him away from LAFC. Even if he's out of contract. I have no idea what his contract status, but if he's. A free agent or not, that's different, but I don't think they would allow that to happen. A player that you want is not hitting that free agency market, I doubt, unless it's very unusual circumstances. [00:57:40] Speaker A: All right, Mark, let's see. What's Mark's last name? Yeah. So Mark asked a question about the FC Dallas facility as it relates to the World Cup and wondering if the club as an organization receives any financial benefit and windfall from either the nation that's using the facility for training purposes during the upcoming World Cup or from FIFA and any kind of profit that they may get from that. [00:58:09] Speaker C: Yes, they would. And not only from the national team would pay them directly, but not only from that. They would get it from fans that would come like the fans of that country tickets would show up to want to go to training or just hang around outside the fence or use hotels or whatever, something. Sell them some jerseys, t shirts or something like, oh, Netherlands Training Compound 2026, whatever it is. And also advertising yourself as a vehicle for clubs to do this. Look how good we are as a training facility. We have great hotels right here. We have great restaurants right here. It's not a zoo like it might be if you were trying to be downtown. It's like we can isolate you. We've got a training field, separated, all those things. So, yeah, they make money, man. [00:59:00] Speaker A: That's one of the aspects of 2026 I'm so looking forward to is how many nations decide to use the DFW area as their hub or their base camp for the tournament. And I think about SMU and TCU and Toyota Stadium and the Cotton Bowl. I mean, the list goes on and on of the potential locations that a nation could pay a lot of money for to base themselves from. [00:59:26] Speaker B: Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's actually part of the bid process. And the Dallas bid gave Toyota soccer center and then MoneyGram actually counts for two teams. They can divide it up for two. [00:59:41] Speaker A: Different I didn't know that. [00:59:43] Speaker C: Okay, well, there will still be ways to make money off of Know and I'm sure know Hunts aren't going to give anything away for the MoneyGram. And Toyota being a part of that whole process. There's a way to make money on. [00:59:57] Speaker B: It for the oh, yeah, they'll get the money from, you know, just being available. [01:00:02] Speaker A: Dan, you know more about this than I do. In that same proposal, were things like SMU and the Cotton Bowl and TCU not part of the bid? Are they not eligible to offer themselves up as training hubs? [01:00:14] Speaker B: I mean, they can be added, but the Cotton Bowl was originally down as a stadium proposal. They probably would steer away from that because what they're trying to do is put a fan zone in Fair Park at the Midway and they're trying to get the international broadcast center as well at Fair Park. So adding a training camp in that area might be a bit difficult. They have to have a venue, like, somewhere they can train near a venue. So the Cotton Bowl could even potentially serve a purpose for that since it'd be pretty close to I think the omni is the proposal for the actual FIFA headquarters, and it's a pretty straight shot to Jerry World, then, yeah, for sure. [01:01:08] Speaker A: Okay, David Mercer and Buzz, just to save you from yourself and to make sure we don't do this for the next hour and a half, I'm going to limit you to three on this one. Who are the next academy players of genuine impact for this club? [01:01:25] Speaker C: Well, it's important to remember that there's some dudes that they're trying to funnel everybody through North Texas soccer club, so that is a factor. You basically will want to watch North Texas Soccer Club, and that'll give you a very good indicator of who they will be. But the first answer is Julian. I stone. Now, if you want to claim that since he said Duke, it doesn't count as one of those three, that's fine. That dude is as top tier talent as it's possible to come out of the academy, so they really have to get on him fast for my money. [01:01:52] Speaker A: And by the way, that's the super tall, freakishly tall athlete goalkeeper that was at Duke this year. [01:01:57] Speaker C: Yeah, phenomenal. As big a prospect as you can be, like, I put him right there with, like, Weston McKinney, in my opinion. We'll see. [01:02:04] Speaker A: And they still may never be able to sign him. [01:02:06] Speaker C: They may not go to yeah, same thing. Like, clubs are circling, have been circling. Number two for me is Anthony Ramirez. Now, this is a weird one, because when I talk to people at the club about him, I don't get quite the reaction that I expect. He's been capped by Mexico and the United States since, like, U 15 all the way up to U 19. Like, over and over by both groups. He's already played a boatload of games for North Texas, scored some goals. The other day, they took him over to a UPSL game, and he scored a first track half hat trick. The guy's a next level player, in my opinion. Now, the problem is that he's also Mexico eligible, so there might be some Mexico clubs that are waiting for him to graduate high school in May and maybe why we have not seen him sign. He's a late in the year birthday, so he's like a five hanging around, which is not very common. So for me, he's the guy, whether it's here or not. [01:02:56] Speaker A: What position is he? [01:02:57] Speaker C: Oh, he's a wing ten. He's a false wing. He's maro Diaz. Sorry. He's Alan Velasco. That's his game. He's that kind of player. [01:03:09] Speaker A: Okay. [01:03:09] Speaker C: That kind of talent level. So we'll see what happens. He is a little bit not super big, right? So that's the same thing, but for me, really good. And then after that, I would keep an eye on the kid from Flamingo that the club signed. Well, not signed. He joined the academy. His name is Gabriel Mendonza, and he was Flamingo's U 16 captain, and he joined the U 17 team this year, and he's been playing the academy now, the U 17 team, the 2007s. There's five or six guys there that I think are eventually have a legit shot to be pro, but that kid is a level above. He's Brazilian, but he was born here in the United States. So keep an eye on that guy. And also keep an eye on this is four, since I'm not counting I stone the kid that they just got from Barcelona, USA, and I have not seen him play yet. But the club already traded for his homegrown rights. They would not have done that. They had to get him from Chicago, and they had to pay, like, 100 grand now. And then there's like, an escalator. If they actually sign him, that goes up even more to get his homegrown rights. So they obviously are gaga about that kid. And his name is Leonardo. Good lord. Arija Reyna. It always takes me a minute because it's like para, but not Arja. Reyna is his last name Leonardo? So he's a ten wing kind of player, too. Whereas the other guy I mentioned, Mendoza, is more of an eight. So those two dudes are supremely talented, and they've come in on the 2007 class above what was already like, four or five guys that I think have legit pro shots. So there's four names for you. [01:04:55] Speaker A: Okay, I let you have four. I said three. [01:04:58] Speaker C: Well, I wasn't going to lie. I said, because he's already a Duke, so I was cheating. [01:05:02] Speaker A: David's other question is, can you grade dallas's college draft performance in the past. [01:05:07] Speaker C: Few years mediocre, other than when they've hit, it's been great. Ryan Holland's head or Nicosi tafari, but seeki served a little bit of a role, but it's not their fault, necessarily. The draft is crap. It's really just not very good. Yeah, top five or six guys are, even at this point, a crap shoot. Anything past mid first round is a pure shot in the dark, you're really just drafting anything past the first round, you're drafting for, you know, and just hoping that maybe like to pay back a kid who played for you and then went to college and you want to give him a shot. You know, those kinds of guys, you might someday get a darkers in there, but it's a really long shot at this point. [01:05:48] Speaker A: Eric checks in related back to a conversation we had in a previous episode, talking about the best case, worst case scenarios for personnel moves. And he basically wants to know, knowing how the club is working, what do you think they'll actually do I think we said there were five do. His question is, will we do like two of the five, three of the five? Buzz, what do you think? [01:06:13] Speaker C: Well, I want to hear what Dan says about this too, but I think the center back and probably some kind of six are probably something you can expect at this point. The Nine idea, to me that was the idea of like, how does this club actually raise its status to a higher level? And the only way to do that is to get a second scoring threat. You need to add 15 goals a season to Jesus's number. So the only way to do that is to go out and get a real nine. But that's expensive. So that's the one. Very confident they're going to do it all. Putting Alan Vlasco on the IR for the year. I'm not confident at all that they'll do that and then it terrifies me that they might not buy out Jimenez. So I'm going to say like 2.5 that you're going to get a center back and a six and then hopefully buy out Jimenez. And that honestly might be it. You might not get the Nine or the Velasco freeing up of money to go get something else also. So we might be looking at kind of a mid tierness solution. I don't know. Dan, where are you at on their desire to go do anything? [01:07:17] Speaker B: So we're looking at how many of the things in your plan for improving. [01:07:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Do you think they'll do any of them or do you think they have something else entirely in mind? If you want to branch it out. [01:07:28] Speaker B: A little bit, they'll pick up Er amendi's contract for sure. Dump some players, probably not. I don't see a way know when we played dump and keep Hedera. Brian definitely makes sense since Eugene Ansar's locked in, but I don't know, he just seems too central to what they have. I don't think there's the kind of smarts to do something like moving Alan Velasco to the injured reserve like you'd suggested. I don't mean the big fear is they just kind of stand pat like they did last year and go, oh well, it was only injuries. I don't know, it's so hard to say without getting to Friday and knowing what the roster moves are going to be. [01:08:28] Speaker C: Yeah, fair. [01:08:29] Speaker A: All right. And then to kind of wrap things up, lewis and John had similar questions, which were any updates on the USL Championship and Uslw Super League teams in the area? You know, essentially any news on Dallas Fort Worth getting a women's club somewhere in the pyramid? [01:08:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll let Dan talk about Super League or NWSL first. What I will say about the USL Championship team is that that's effectively dead in the water unless the stadium deal that was being worked up for the Keller North Fort Worth area. The champion of that project was a city council guy and he got absolutely waxed like 75% loss, not even in the main election, but like in a what is that when you're running against your own party? [01:09:20] Speaker B: Primary. [01:09:21] Speaker C: Primary. Thank you. He got primaried and got smoked. So basically that whole stadium thing is sort of gone. So in effect, I'm not a political expert. That's what happened. So unless Donnie Nelson and his guys can drum up a new stadium situation in, you know, or the western half of this thing, it's pretty much dead. Now, the caveat to that whole thing is that Nelson is continuing to pay the franchise fee, holding fee for that franchise. And it's not cheap. It's a lot of money to hold that franchise rights for a market like that. So maybe there's still something floating around. But unless you can get a stadium, Don't, I don't really see it happening. The other thing that happened is that sort of related to this is that there's a team coming to a USL, one team coming to up North Sherman, it's called Texoma something. They haven't announced the brand yet, I don't think, but they had the USL vice president of expansion was there. They did the whole reveal of the franchise. We're starting play in 2025. So while we're not getting the USL Championship team, we are getting a team that would compete directly with, well, semi directly with North Texas soccer club up in Sherman, which is of course far, far north Dallas. But that's still sort of the FW, the Metroplex. So on the men's side, that's kind of where things are at activity wise. Dan, you got anything on the other side? [01:11:00] Speaker B: So you mentioned Donny Nelson's group, neltuck Sports. That's the group that owns Texas United. They were kind of keen to do the Academy stuff. They ended up leaving the Academy stuff. I think they were keen to have a women's team. They've had a bit of a reshuffle. So no idea about that. There is that other group that was supposed to do the W Super League, whichever it I honestly have no idea anything about that group. And then as far as the expectation that there would ever be a Dallas NWSL team and what's keeping it from happening, no one's willing to foot the cost for that. [01:11:44] Speaker C: Yeah, they tried to get the Hunch to do that a couple of times and they had no interest. The W League team was the USL thing. When they announced that league, they announced Dallas as a franchise, that their web page still exists, but there's nothing on it new and it's like a complete ghost in terms of media from those people. [01:12:02] Speaker B: We haven't even had a PR company reach out to any of us. That happens for anything. [01:12:09] Speaker C: Yeah, and that league has there's like three or four teams of the eight or ten that were announced that have now announced brands and colors and logos. So there is some progression happening with that launch of that league. It's radio silence from the Dallas franchise so we have no idea how real it is or not. And we won't know until they make some sort of public move. But that puts them ahead of NWSL coming here. That at least there was a team named at one point and that's well behind the Sherman thing, which is actually like a legitimate team holding tryouts and creating youth teams and stuff and moving forward with their whole thing. They have a stadium deal and everything that group up in Sherman does. [01:12:47] Speaker A: Well, boys, congratulations. You made it through yet another annual question and answer session. [01:12:55] Speaker C: Yeah, that was good. I felt like we answered a bunch of questions and ate up some good time and now we're going to get contract moves either Thursday or Friday and that'll really give us some stuff to chew on next week. As we start to see, we can start to talk about how you shape the roster and whether these moves that we've said they need to do will actually be happening or not. [01:13:13] Speaker A: Do you anticipate any surprise coming out of that or a prediction that we may be surprised to find out? [01:13:20] Speaker C: There'll be something. Of course my predictions I made are not going to be accurate. There'll be something like either keeping OBrion and getting rid of ANSA, for example, or keeping both would be a surprise to me. It will not shock me if they retain Fakundo at a new number. It will shock me if they were to pick up him or Martinez. I don't know if they'll announce anything on. They just if you hear nothing about him but he's under contract that won't be a surprise. It would be a surprise if you hear an announcement that we went ahead and bought him out or something. And then there'll be a smattering of the lower level stuff that we'll have gotten wrong like, well, effectively don't pick up your army. That'll be a stunner. But if for some reason junka's escalator is massive and we didn't know, or maybe there's an end delay or a course that they decide to keep just for bodies that we didn't think that they would, something like that. But the one that probably would have been the most shocking would be something related to Martinez, facundo or OBrion would be ones that will surprise me the most if they go a different way than I would expect them to. [01:14:28] Speaker A: All right, boys. Well, thanks to all of the good curious out there that sent their questions in. Love hearing from them and thanks for helping us burn an episode while we wait for the contract announcements next week. [01:14:40] Speaker C: Burn. [01:14:40] Speaker A: See what you did there? Yeah, I did it. All right. Well, Dan, it's good to speak to you again. Thank you, sir. [01:14:48] Speaker B: Thank you. And actually the end of this week is a pretty big week in the area. You've got the contract decisions on Friday. You've got four OSC plays, the FC Dallas Sunday, nineteen s and the UPSL Texas North final that's going to stream on YouTube. Or you can go to Prince of Peace Eagle Stadium in Carrollton Friday night at 830, I think it is. And actually watch that in person. And Texas United should find out if their undefeated regular season will get them into the US. Open cup by Friday. [01:15:37] Speaker A: All right, go. Support local soccer. Hashtag support local soccer. [01:15:42] Speaker C: Third Degree, the podcast is brought to you by Soccer 90 dot the very best place for all your soccer goodies. They got FC Dallas gear, national team gear, all the good stuff, all the European gear. Sometimes when we even forget to write copy, we still come on here and go, hey, 20% off soccer. And I.com with code. Third Degree. If you're listening to this podcast, 20% some exclusions do apply. [01:16:06] Speaker A: Buzz. Thank you, sir, for your expertise and insight. [01:16:09] Speaker C: Oh, you're welcome. It's always a pleasure. [01:16:10] Speaker A: Absolutely. And thank you. Fcdell is curious fan. We will speak to you next week with all the new information on another episode of Third Degree. The podcast something I really don't know. Third degree the third degree never podcast. Third degree. The third degree never get. Third degree never guess. Third degree never care.