3rd Degree the Podcast #253

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Bingo. [00:00:01] Speaker B: Bingo. Bingo. Bungo. Yeah. Ooh. Third degree. The third degree Napa degree. The third degree napa degree never can third degree third degree nep. I guess. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Third degree podcast is sponsored by soccer 90. Com. Explore the brand new Dallas burn collection with gear from Mitchell and Ness, vintage tees, jackets and hoodies. You're going to love this stuff. Hurry, it's limited stock. Don't forget the code. Third degree works both online and in store, 20% off code. Third degree at soccer 90. Com, some exclusions apply. 30 B. The podcast was also brought to you by the Lundstrom law firm for Wills Trust, probates and business law. Call 469-515-2559 that's 469-515-2559 or visit thelinstromlawfirm.com for a free consultation. [00:01:08] Speaker B: Well, hello there, FC Dallas. Curious fan. Welcome to another episode. This one numbered 253 of third degree. The podcast hi, it is me, Peter, as normal first with Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:01:26] Speaker C: Hey, how's it going? [00:01:27] Speaker B: Excellent. And how are you, sir? [00:01:30] Speaker C: I am still alive. [00:01:32] Speaker B: Wow. Okay. I guess, all things considered, that's probably a good thing. [00:01:38] Speaker C: My doctor tells me so. [00:01:40] Speaker B: All right. [00:01:41] Speaker A: That's right. [00:01:41] Speaker B: Excellent. Glad to hear that. And your hero. My hero. Everybody's hero. Editor, founder, third degree. Net, and the original soccer influencer, Buzz Carrick. Come in, buzz. [00:01:51] Speaker A: I thought for a moment Dan was going to break into Pearl Jam song. [00:01:54] Speaker B: There. [00:01:56] Speaker A: He's still alive. [00:01:58] Speaker B: I'm sitting here trying to figure out if I believe that Dan Crook is a Pearl jam fan. I'm going to say, no, he is not a fan of Pearl Jam. [00:02:08] Speaker C: I'm not. But they did a really cool collaboration with Oasis. [00:02:13] Speaker A: I can't remember which Beatles song it was. [00:02:15] Speaker C: It might have been hey Jude, actually. I know it's come. [00:02:20] Speaker B: That. Does that mean you're only a fan of them if they're working in collaboration with the brothers? [00:02:27] Speaker C: No, I appreciate them. It's not on any of my playlists. [00:02:34] Speaker B: Okay, what is on a Dan Crook playlist now? I'm dying to know this answer. [00:02:39] Speaker C: There are various ones, depending on mood. A lot of UK rap lately. Now I'm trying to find Spotify. [00:02:49] Speaker A: I don't think I knew that UK rap was a genre. [00:02:52] Speaker B: I didn't either. This is new to us. Us Americans. What is the most famous UK rapper? [00:03:00] Speaker C: Well, the one you'd most likely know would be Stormzy because he's a Man united fan. [00:03:04] Speaker B: I do not know who Stormzy is. Sorry. [00:03:07] Speaker C: You suck. Dave did the Tiago Silver song. He works in a lot of footballers stuff into his songs. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:03:18] Speaker C: Never mind. [00:03:19] Speaker B: You learn something new every day. What's on a buzz carrick playlist? Buzz? [00:03:24] Speaker A: Oh, well, I would say, first off, that I am of what I would call the Pearl jam generation. Like, I listened to mother lovebone before Pearl Jam even existed and things like Green river and had a special order, temple of the dog when I was in college, before Pearl jamming even came out with an album. These days, I'm mostly into what I would call singer songwriter type people like Ryan Adams, who I know you like, damien Rice, people like that. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Okay, that genre. [00:03:55] Speaker A: But I'm all over the map. [00:03:57] Speaker B: Learn a little bit something about your Dallas soccer pundits to start off the episode. Well, probably doing that because we're trying to avoid talking about Montreal beating Dallas just a few days ago here at home. Two to one. And look, there was a lot of things to be excited about this game. Mostly is the fact that they were debuting Petter Musa the moose, and we got to see the return of some players. But I think if we're all being honest and fair, the reality of this game is that this is a reflection of a lot of the things that have concerned us on this podcast, not just for a short period of time, but for a while now, all really coming to light. And it's probably not unfair to say, although this is how these things work. Dallas is literally two or three Martin paws saves and a Dante Seeley goal away from being Owen. Two at home this season. [00:04:58] Speaker A: Yeah, well, when you lose at home for the first time since July of last year and you give up two goals at home since the first time since September of last year, you know, things are not going well. And on a macro level, obviously, this is not very good performance by the team. There's lots of caveats that we can talk about. The growing pains of a new formation, the growing pains of new players in new formations, the growing pains of the fact that you have to develop guys for new positions rather than just going out and buying six people for that know, like you might in some of the know. So there's caveats to all of it, but the bottom line is that at home, this is not good enough, this kind of showing. [00:05:45] Speaker B: Dan, do you have any overriding reactions to the performance of the game? [00:05:50] Speaker C: Desire to forget it? Here's the thing. You saw a team that can play that kind of three, four three style and adequately use the wingbacks, and a team that struggled with the wingbacks. Yeah, I think that was it. Ariel Lasseter and Ron just kind of had the run of the wings. They pushed. Yeah, they pushed the Dallas wingbacks inside. They were effective going forward. They were effective getting back. There was a moment where Bernie was just kind of just jogging back leisurely and I think it was last. No, it was run. Just absolutely blew by him with the ball. And this is like, come on, you're supposed to be in a position where you're running all day and that's kind of basics. [00:06:42] Speaker B: Buzz, I do think that a lot of people have already picked up on this idea, this kind of running talking point amongst fans that I've read in your discord and other social media that people by and large are very confused as to why Nico has chosen to go with this formation. Considering that it emphasizes a couple of positions that I think it's not unfair to say the team is not particularly strong at, especially when one of your starters in the back line is out injured. I don't know what you're feeling. Is this something that everybody should just be calm down, everybody, and just give it some time. It's two games into the season. Nothing to panic about yet. [00:07:25] Speaker A: Yes, mostly the important thing to understand is that coach esteves has decided clearly that switching to this formation as his base formation is the best thing for this season. He has had two good defensive teams in a row and has struggled to score goals for two seasons in a row. And so this is the adaptation he's come up with to still be good defensively and try and unlock the offensive end. And he's not doing it for today, he's doing it for the end of this season. Right. The idea is that by the end of the year, these players that are struggling now in some of these new roles, the team as a collective and obviously, of course, certainly we hope it's way before the end of the season. But the idea isn't like, how good am I today? The idea is how good am I at the end of the season? Do I have enough that I'll get into the playoffs and will I peak in the second half of the season with this new system and have scored enough goals to give myself enough position that makes him pay in the playoffs and that's what he's doing. You can disagree with him, anyone can, in terms of that being the right choice, but that's clearly what the choice has been. And in a way, he's gambling his job on that. I don't know that if he were to miss the playoffs, but he would get fired, but, man, he probably would at least be up for it because that's what they've stated is the minimum goal. And if he goes backwards for two straight seasons, which is what missing the playoffs would be, he's not likely to keep his job. So he's betting everything that this formation is going to work. Now, is there a point later in the season where he might give up? Absolutely. And there'll be games where he won't use it because you remember last year and like every year the two years he's been here, he does change formations from time to time. But right now it's still in the working out of the kinks phase and it's going to be for a while, I would imagine. [00:09:18] Speaker B: All right, so I'm sure we'll dig more into what is problematic and the holes and the stuff that's pretty obvious for most of us, but let's talk about what's good so far right off the bat. There is certainly a quality to Petter Musa that is different from anything else we've seen so far. He scored on his debut and I think, thankfully we're all delighted that he scored and it wasn't a worldie on his debut because we know what that happens when a new Dallas player scores a worldie in their first games. And so I think we're thankful for that. But buzz, he does look like he's got a little bit something to his game to look forward to. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah. This is the caliber of striker we've only seen a couple of know Graziani in his early days here. The longest run of his career. In fact, probably the first season of Los Perez is probably close, probably similar, not the same, but we hope it's not exactly the same, but it's at least in the ballpark, maybe fish when he was really on Cooper's first year. This is a quality and this guy should be ahead of all that, right? This is a guy who I think any player, any fan, excuse me, of whatever level you're watching the game. I think you can see the difference between this guy Musa at striker and what you've seen here before. Jesus was a good striker, a good nine, but he's a very different stylistically nine. Hopefully everyone can see that difference. And even in one game, it's quite clear that Musa will be a handful for centerbacks and that's part of what will make this system work a bit better is his occupation. Occupying of the attention of the center backs should create some opportunities for the two players there and vice versa. But this is a guy who even just in a couple of trainings in one game. To me, I would say what I see is worth the price they paid. Now he has to produce, of course, but he shows like he's got all the ability to produce and I expect him to produce. [00:11:22] Speaker B: Dan, is there anybody else from the loss on Saturday that caught your eye at least in a positive way? Have we lost Dan? [00:11:34] Speaker C: No, I'm trying to think. That's a difficult one. Not particularly. I think it was a pretty dead okay. [00:11:48] Speaker B: Hmm. [00:11:50] Speaker C: I guess you could probably say, considering we obviously haven't seen anything of mean. He did play the DC United game, but I didn't obviously out the country for that. Patrickson Delgada looks like an MLS player. That's a positive. [00:12:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I was a little bit surprised by his performance. I liked his size and his ranginess and his willingness to battle a little bit. I was pleased by what I saw there. [00:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah, he was a little out of source in terms of positioning, but he also jumped several passes and cut them off and took them forward, which is nice for a kid that's what, like 20? I think he is. It was a really nice first debut. It has carried over to training, by the way. There are moments where it's like, oh, you're in the wrong place. But then there are other moments you're like, oh, we can't wait for this guy to get dialed in. [00:12:37] Speaker B: Hey, just for everybody, people that maybe not have been paying attention or don't know, what is his story? What's his background? Where is he from? How did he get here, et cetera, et cetera. Please. [00:12:49] Speaker A: Well, I believe he's a U 22. No, he's not, is he, Dan? He's not a U 22 signing. He's just a 20 year old Ecuadorian. He's on loan and they have a buy option. So this is the kind of player that, the kind of loan that they've done in the past with North Texas, where they bring a guy in basically for just one season. But he is only 20 years old. He's played for the ecuadorian youth national teams. He may have one senior cap, but he's definitely a guy that's come through their system. He's definitely a six, maybe a little six. Little bit of eight in there, too. This is the kind of deal where you think maybe a guy can help you, but you're not ready necessarily to pull the trigger on the full buy because it might be a little pricier than you want to go. And so you bring him in and you see how it goes. And at the end of the year, you're like, okay, great, that worked out. We will buy you. So it's kind of like a short term lease with a long term buy option in a sense. And it's not a guy that you would necessarily expect to be a huge part of your team this year, but you want to see enough out of him that you're like, okay, that is worth investing in. And I think already, I think it looks like that really could be really a nice player. And if he projects forward from where he is now, he really might be a guy you might be wanting to buy. Sometimes the price can be crazy, but usually you don't look at a 20 year old that's not a kind of loan. That's like a short term fix. Like, I needed a body. You don't bother with that, but it's more like run the rule over a guy and see if you like him. [00:14:25] Speaker C: He was also on loan at Young Ajax last year, so, I mean, the idea of him kind of moving on from Ecuador is definitely on the cards. Yeah. And you said obviously a bit of six, maybe a bit of eight. He also played left back and center back with young Ajax, too. [00:14:44] Speaker B: It was interesting because obviously, and we probably need to talk a little bit about maybe the most frightening aspect of the game, which was the situation with Alaramendi, but the fact that Alara Mendy had to come off or was predetermined to come off at that time, I was surprised it was Delgado that came on or how, whatever name he goes by. [00:15:05] Speaker A: Patrickson. [00:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah, Patrickson instead of Paxton. Were you surprised that he was the first choice to come on at halftime? [00:15:13] Speaker A: No, because that's not. Paxton was on a minute restriction for only 30 minutes. I think it shows you that in a sense, he may have already climbed ahead of Norris in the pecking order. If you wanted to try and see, like, okay, what do I actually have here? It's as good a time as any to find is putting them in. They obviously had seen enough in training. They felt comfortable with it. So what didn't surprise me, it didn't surprise me that it was him instead of Paxton. Nolan Norris would have been the other choice. You really could have gone with there. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Okay, well, let's talk about a little bit about the rest of the game. Probably just starting with the lineup and the idea that the thing that probably, I think, concerned most everybody, based on the observations and commentary from you and other people that had seen the team in preseason, was that Kamungo started on the right wing instead of anybody else. And we know that he has struggled in that position. And I think that was pretty evident again on Saturday night. [00:16:14] Speaker A: Yeah, the struggle is real. He has the same problem Dante Seeley does. You know, even when they switch sides, which is when the run, the goal came from that right in that first half, is when they did that flip flop. Ruan just torched both those guys all night long. The problem they're both doing. And Dante Seeley, by the way, his positioning was much better in this game. But when Montreal clearly was playing balls in behind those wingbacks to get to their own wingbacks on the break, and they were getting behind the Dallas guys, and the Dallas guys were not busting it back, they were jogging know, assuming that the center back is going to come over. Well, the problem is that even if the center back is coming over, which they were, you have to bust your ass back there and take up the center back's position because you can't leave your team down with now just two center backs and a three center back set up. So it's like you can't. If this is a team you're coaching at any other level, you're screaming at the guy and you instantly sub him out. That's how I would look at. It was like, if you jog back again, you're coming out of the game. Except that you can't do that because you only have a certain number of subs. But that's effectively what's happening. And that's why we joke about Dante 80% sealies, because you can watch it the whole game, that when the ball goes over his head, he just jogs back. Somebody else will cover that man. Not when you're a wingback. You got to get back. And so that was the problem the whole night. And the second goal in the second half was exactly the same way. Dante Sealy was up and Sam Junka had also got caught up and both those guys were up. And it was just like a cakewalk down the length of the field with nobody to stop the ball right into the know. It's just like. It's ridiculous. There's a basic misunderstanding from both Bernie and Dante Seeley about how you play this position. [00:17:52] Speaker B: Okay, so you can see this, I can see this. People that haven't watched this team very long, or don't consider themselves tactical experts or anything, can see this. How long does Nico allow this to continue before he makes wholesale changes? [00:18:07] Speaker A: Well, if you mean the tactics, I don't know, because he'll want to keep working on it. The problem with Dante on the left is that there really is no other option at left wingback. On the right you have some other options and we'll talk about some of those later. But the other problem he has is that Bernie is a nice player that you really want to keep playing, you really want to keep developing. But coach is forcing him into the lineup. He's forcing him in at wingback or he's forcing him in at ten. Neither one of those positions does he fit the profile. And so he's kind of stuck trying to make it happen because the other option is just to let Bernie stagnate and become a wasted player, which nobody wants to do right. We talked before about he was going to be the odd out in this formation. It sucks for him that the shape does not fit him at all in any way. There's no position on the field that he's ideal for. He's going to have to spend the whole season trying to figure out how to play some of them, and so far it's a disaster. At some point, why does the coach not say, okay, that's clearly not working? They subbed out Nde really quickly in game one. We haven't seen him since, but far fans hurt. So see league that you're stuck with and I would imagine as soon as far fans available, you'll probably see him get back in there. Just because Dante's such a liability defensively. Granted, at home it's been somewhat riskable, but now they're about to go on the road and they also lost a game at home, so it's problematic at best, but it comes down to the idea of, like, how much belief does he have that this is the way to go in the long run, so he's going to keep at it. [00:19:30] Speaker B: Okay, then obviously the other point of concern offseason has been the center back situation. Here we go. We talked about what happens when one of these guys go down and Ibiaga already got an injury and he can't go. So we get the debut of Omar who, man, just looks really slow and on that goal. I think his lack of pace was a critical component to that goal. [00:19:57] Speaker A: I mean, listen, there were other mistakes that led to that goal, but he definitely didn't have the wheels to keep up with Martinez in that situation. The thing is, if Nomar was your fourth or fifth guy like we thought he was when he first signed, you're okay with him starting four or five games or maybe a little more than that, but the idea that he might have to start like half this season, particularly if guys get hurt. That's where you get worried. Like a guy's 35 and this is going to come back to that's a double factor into the biggest issues the team has right now is the fact that Omar is one of your main guys. It's clear as day that that's not ideal. And within the context of that, like, okay, there are some games I need my fourth center back to play. I'm going to have to deal with some of that stuff, but you have to adapt for it. You have to understand it. You can't play it exactly the same way. And they clearly did not adapt well enough for it and it became a and the fact that it's this early in the season, we're already having to rely on Omar Gonzalez. I mean, again, imagine if Nikosi would come get hurt. But I want to talk later about how we got here and I think it's important to cover and why there's a problem at center, why and what the problem is going to be going forward continually. [00:21:10] Speaker B: All right, so wingback issue we've addressed and we've obviously seen a lot of that so far in two games. Center back depth and lack of really top quality starters is something we've talked a lot about and have seen now already in the first two games been exposed as a significant problem. But the thing I really have been looking forward to recording this podcast and getting into is the thing that really has surprised and bothered me the most about the first two games. And that is it harkens back a lot to last season, which is this team just simply does not appear to have any idea or clue what to do with the ball when another team sets up against them, whether it be deep or middle of the field, they get the ball and all they seem to know to do is pass it backwards and laterally. And what I think they're trying to show off is a bit of patience really is nothing almost seems like a level of cluelessness that I find very disconcerting after all this time. [00:22:12] Speaker A: Yeah, in this particular game, you are right, it's not as bad as Lucci ball was, but they are doing that a little bit. In this particular game, coach actually thought they weren't patient enough, that they're too willing to just try and go vertical really quickly all the time. I actually thought that usually they get these low blocks that they can't handle, but this was a mid block and they didn't have enough patience and I think this part is right to wait. And for those opportunities of those little spin back balls that he did one of them to a couple of them, he's the only one that can really do it since Paxton's not available. And one of them resulted in the goal, but this idea of dropping the balls right in behind. But what the problem was, in order to do that, you needed your two wingbacks to be up and slashing, and Dante didn't do that nearly enough, and Bernie did it a little bit and it was almost like they just were like the team as a whole, just sort of collectively just tried to get forward through the middle, where since Montreal is in a three, four three also, they also had a box midfield and overloaded the middle, so they made it impossible to go through there. And Dallas doesn't react well enough or smart enough by everybody on the field. And I honestly think that Yara Mindy, of course, instantly does and understands it, but then he doesn't speak English and most of the guys on the team speak Spanish, but not everybody speaks Spanish. And so sometimes I think they don't get a cohesive enough idea out of that stuff, and sometimes it's just the fact that they just maybe aren't quite smart enough. They do have a couple of young guys who don't really know tactically what they're doing yet. Cele and Bernie, or guys that are playing like a rookie that's making step up to a pro game, playing slightly out of position as a ten, or Paul, who's all kinds of a disaster. [00:23:51] Speaker B: Right now. [00:23:55] Speaker A: Liam Fraser, who had a really nice five progressive passes, but I thought defensively was really poor, and he's not going to bang forward like on a runs. He's going to sit deep just like Mindy is. There's a lot of stuff going on in terms of offensive pains that fell off from the first game when they had all those opportunities. I did ask coach if perhaps part of it was the fact that Petter Moose is there. And so everyone was like, oh, this guy's going to solve everything. Here you go, Petter. Have fun. And kind of just tried to play everything into his feet the whole time, when maybe there might have been some moments where that wasn't always ideal. [00:24:32] Speaker B: Well, but the other part of that I witnessed repeatedly over the course of the day or the game was there were moments where somebody appeared to make a run in behind and nobody would play the ball or very clearly was queuing up to do it and nobody was even bothering to consider playing the ball in behind. And then there were other times where somebody did play a ball in behind and nobody was making the run. And it's that lack of. I know it's two games into the season, but that was really obviously a problem. [00:25:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's lack of cohesion. That's what I'm talking about. It's like the lack of guys that are not quite dialed in yet and don't know what they're doing and they're not quite all on the same page yet. They had some pieces that were hurt a lot of the spring. They've had one or two guys that just got know. They're just not all on the same page. Know, teams that have Champions League stuff to start them early are probably a lot more dialed. Mean, Montreal is not one of those teams, but they were definitely a team that's played this system in this way for a couple of seasons, I believe. So they're not trying to figure things out. You can clearly see they know how to do. It's just. It's all those growing pains, man. It's just going to take time. And I'm not saying they'll ever figure it out. They may not, right. It's going to take more than this because, listen, they had a bunch of pretty good results in the spring, and a lot of teams, almost everybody pressed them and they figured that out. And then all of a sudden, here's Montreal not pressing, sitting back in the middle of the block and it's shit. Now what do I do? [00:26:02] Speaker B: Now we're back into this problem again. [00:26:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I forgot what to do when I'm not pressed, and I'm not smart enough to figure that out instantaneously because I'm not. I'm Indy. I'm everybody else. Or I'm not Paxton. Or I'm not Jesus. Or I'm Ariola, but I'm playing in the front line instead of back in the middle, perhaps, or know. So it's work in progress, man. [00:26:26] Speaker B: All right, Dan, would you tell the average curious to just be cool, chill out and not worry about this? Or you may want to consider at least hovering your hand over the panic button. [00:26:41] Speaker C: Drop everything, run out of your house. Or if you're driving, park in a sensible place, run out of your car, not towards the traffic. That'd be a bad idea. Scream, set things on fire, shout. It's two games into a season. Ultimately. Do the players fit this formation? No, that's not ideal. You kind of want to have a system that bases around the strengths of the players you have through a 34 game season. Can they get there? Potentially. And if they don't, there's plenty of time to change things up, go back to a four back and actually play to the strengths of the team. It's MLS. They're probably going to make the playoffs regardless, right? [00:27:27] Speaker B: Well, I don't know. See, here's the thing that I keep thinking, this is the thing that I've been thinking about since Saturday is this question of, okay, it's two games into the season and they're just working on this, but I'm also very concerned that I'm not even sure they've got the players to play this formation. And it always goes back to, why is he even doing this? Like, what is it about this roster that has got him convinced as the manager of this team he should be playing this formation? [00:27:55] Speaker A: Well, it's clear that they don't have the players. And this is what I joked about earlier. When he's not at a club where he can go by six wingbacks, he has to develop wingbacks. So he's trying to develop Bernie into wingback. He's trying to develop Cele into a wingback. He's probably going to try and take Farfan into a know. That's what he's having to do this. So why does he have so much belief that he wants to do this? Well, part of the answer is in Jesus, right? Like Jesus is the only guy on this team scoring. So how do we get other guys to score? Maybe by bringing them perhaps inside underneath, maybe closer to the goal. Maybe we can get some of them to score. Maybe it's by rapid overloads on the outside. We can get guys more free and they can slash in and maybe they can score. Or maybe it's by moving Jesus to a slightly different position and bringing in spending $10 million on a nine. Okay, if I'm going to do that, then how do I make sure Jesus is still close enough goal that Jesus is going to still score? If I play four, three, three, then I'm putting Jesus at right wing and he's way over there on the outside and maybe Jesus only gets five goals. What if I play a four, four two or maybe. But then I'm having my wide mid sit on top of my outside backs and all of a sudden I'm into a cross heavy game that doesn't play for Jesus either. So you have two players on this team now that are worth a lot of money and get paid a lot of money and that are clearly at a moral league level. It's Musa and Jesus. How do I make those two guys optimized and it's either a two striker system, like a three five two or a four four two. Or it's like something like this where Jesus can slash underneath. And maybe when we see a real tenny kind of guy, like an Al Vlasco, maybe it is more of a three five two. But he's betting a lot of money, in a sense, his house money on the fact that this is going to work with Moose and Jesus. That's it. [00:29:46] Speaker B: Yeah. It feels like a roster made for a four two two or four one one, or something like that. As I sit here and watch it and think about the players. But again, I always go back to Nico's, the one with all the coaching badges. He's the one that inexperienced. He has to know what he's doing here. And somehow this is going to come out of its very ugly cocoon into a beautiful flying thing. [00:30:10] Speaker A: Never forget that. This really is his first head job of any substantial time. And he's infatuated with the high level thinking of the elite coaches in Europe. He's trying to replicate and emulate these guys at the very highest levels of the game. The things that Man City and Liverpool and Arsenal and Madrid's and Barcelona's are trying to do. Bayern Munich, he's trying to play those same styles and tactics. And there is a serious question to ask of, like, this ain't that league, these aren't those players. We've talked about that before here many times. It's like you're not in Europe. You don't have the same caliber of player. You cannot expect them mentally. And I think Ira Mendy underlines this. You see how good he is with his mind in terms of the game. He's on another level and the rest of the players on this team are not at that level. And so that doesn't work. It's like Greg Beauhalter has this problem where he tries to make a hybrid right back holding mid. The only guy he ever found that could do it was Adams. Like he can't get anybody else that can do it because the Americans just aren't good enough at that level. So it's the know, you could think that that's a massive problem. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Johnny Cardosa, brother. [00:31:21] Speaker A: Yeah, right. He's trying to. I mean, yeah, Cardosa now, he hasn't been doing that before this now. [00:31:26] Speaker B: Right? [00:31:27] Speaker A: But, you know, that's the thing. It's like whenever I talk to him about like, hey, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? He'll be like, oh, I was watching Liverpool and they did this and that. I was watching Arsenal, I was watching Man City and I was talking to pep about like, bro, this ain't ain't fucking Man City. Sorry. You know what I'm saying? [00:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it is interesting and I think the other thing to discuss, it goes back to the question about Elara Mendy and the fact that he did come off at 45 minutes and some people reported that he looked like he was nursing an injury of some sort. I'm sure you're going to give us an injury update here in a little bit. But was, did he come off because he was injured or did he come off because they had decided early they were going to take him off at halftime? [00:32:10] Speaker A: Well, I think Dan is a little more on that. I wanted to say about him, though is that last week we were talking about he ran that eight. I was saying 8. Thought that was actually low, even though it was the most. It was actually 8 miles, which is 12 km, which is the number you would expect. I still hate it that your 34 year old guy ran the most on the team and here he is the next week, unable to play. So maybe I knew what I was talking about. But I do want to give him credit that he wasn't lower than I was expecting. I misunderstood the stats. So, Dan, I think you maybe knew more about what the deal was with him coming off at half. [00:32:42] Speaker C: I know he had been struggling with some discomfort in the week and there was a very real possibility he wasn't going to play. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Discomfort, please, please explain. Discomfort like he had a tummy ache, a headache, an ouchy toe. What? [00:32:59] Speaker C: That's Nico's exact phrasing was discomfort. [00:33:04] Speaker B: Oh, okay. We don't know what it means. Okay. [00:33:06] Speaker C: Yeah. No idea. Yeah, that's really it. Whether it was a compromise of he plays 45 minutes and Delgado goes, or through the half, it deteriorated again and he felt uncomfortable. I don't know. [00:33:23] Speaker B: So are we just going to take the positive mindset and say it was planned all along and he's perfectly fine? [00:33:29] Speaker C: What is positivity? [00:33:31] Speaker A: He's not perfectly fine. [00:33:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that was pretty clear. [00:33:37] Speaker A: You want to do that now or do you want to go? Sure. [00:33:38] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think this is big stuff, so why don't we go there? [00:33:42] Speaker A: Okay. So here's the injury update. You want the whole thing or just Yaramindi? [00:33:46] Speaker B: Well, let's start with that. [00:33:47] Speaker A: All right. [00:33:48] Speaker B: And see if we want to drink afterwards. [00:33:50] Speaker A: Yeah. He has an abductor problem. [00:33:52] Speaker B: Oh, boy. [00:33:53] Speaker A: So he's out this week. We'll see how long it is, but he's definitely sounded like he's definitely out. He was not at training today and not taking part, so that's not good. [00:34:09] Speaker B: Between him and Jesus. There's no good healthy adductor in the team. [00:34:14] Speaker A: No, Jesus is fine. He came through the game. He's fine. I actually would expect Jesus to start this week. [00:34:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:34:20] Speaker A: So I think he looks good. Farfan and Corcha are still out, at least till next week. Ibiaga did some hard work on the side today, and if he comes through and the later day inspection and is okay Thursday, when people want me to listen to this podcast, he will be available if he comes through. So let's call him questionable that he might be back. So 50 50 chance on him. Probably basically, maybe a little more optimistically than that. Let's see what else. Oh, right, Paxton's out. [00:34:57] Speaker B: What do you mean? [00:34:58] Speaker A: He re aggravated something in his knee, has some problem in his knee. He's going to go see a doctor this week. He's out. So you're going to miss Eri, Mindy and Paxton both in that double pivot this weekend. Super fun. [00:35:21] Speaker B: Well, I mean, look, as the president of the non family fan club of Paxton Palmyall, this breaks my heart because this now is an almost countable number of times the poor kid has had some sort of injury. And I know they've tried to downplay the knee situation and the scope thing all offseason, but it clearly is more than that. And you do begin to wonder if we're getting to that part, that really scary, awful reality, that maybe it's just too much and the kid's going to have to hang it up because that may sound extreme, but after all of these injuries, I mean, was this like the 7th time he's been out with some sort of injury since he joined the senior team? [00:36:06] Speaker A: I mean, I would have to do a lot of counting, but yeah, he's 24 going on 25 later this year. Certainly the injuries are derailing his career at a rapid rate. And I feel horrible about the kid, for the kid, because every time I run into him, I'm having to ask him how he feels. And he's obviously tired of talking about it. I'm sure he's tired of being hurt. Hopefully the answer is, oh, it's just no big deal. There's a tiny little piece of scar tissue. You're going to be fine. Just play through it. I mean, hopefully that's what the answer is. But they're trying to get him something set up. This week and then he's not going to be available this week. Hopefully we'll see. [00:36:41] Speaker B: Well, I think that's the part. If they're sending him to a doctor to be looked at again, then that's different than, oh, it's kind of sore and we just need to give it. [00:36:48] Speaker A: A. I think, I think they're so paranoid and Paxton's probably so paranoid that when they say, quote unquote discomfort, I'm sure whatever it is, it's enough that he's like, look, I need to go see, because they did clear him to play and he did play and I thought he looked pretty good, but then he came out of it with like, shit, I better go see somebody. This is not right. Maybe he didn't react well. Maybe like the day after, they didn't get into the details with me. So maybe there was some swelling on Sunday, Monday, and now it's like, oh, something's not going right. Let's go get this thing checked again with him. You have to be super careful at this point. We did get almost a whole season out of him last year, so maybe they can nurse him through it. But effectively there's no way now that he has this year and next year under contract and then he has a couple of options. But those are big options. There's not going to be big money for him out there. There's not going to be a european move. There's not going to be a big MLS move. It's like he's going to be an FCD Dallas lifer. Maybe you're only going to get a half a season out of him at a time. [00:37:50] Speaker B: Well, I don't think that anybody should even be thinking about him getting out of the United States as a professional player and going someplace else. I think everybody should just be worried, will the kid get to play beyond the age of 24, 25? [00:38:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it's certainly not at the moment he's making now. [00:38:07] Speaker B: Wow. Well, I wasn't prepared for that one, Buzz. I was prepared for the Alara Mendy and some of the other stuff. I was not prepared for you to break my Paxton Palmer call love and heart. [00:38:19] Speaker A: I know me was not. When I was out there today watching and he wasn't there, I just bombed me out because I knew something was going to be up. And then when a coach told me, I was like, yeah, I mean, look, you and I have both known him since he was 1415 years old. We only want the best for the kid. Let's not be too downer. [00:38:39] Speaker B: Well, but let's also, be fair and honest with everybody. We've been in this league. We've watched this enough times to know that when these situations happen, there are more than enough times where the result is somebody's done something and their season is over. [00:38:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:55] Speaker B: And in Paxton's case, another my season or half my season's over is a bigger problem than just my half season or seasons over. [00:39:04] Speaker A: Well, the silver lining I can try and take away is that it's a different thing. It's now his knee instead of his hip, doctor. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:39:11] Speaker A: So maybe it's not a big deal. [00:39:13] Speaker B: He's moved away from the hip impingement surgery, right? Yeah. He's starting fresh, but he's rapidly approaching. [00:39:23] Speaker A: What should be the prime of his career and he's not really progressing anymore. At this point, I just want to wish the kid the best and I'm cheering for him and send him all the karma I can and I'm hoping for the best, but it's like just every time there's something new with this kid, it just makes me feel so bad and I don't know what to do other than just to be like, well, shit, yeah. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Well, I bet Dan, probably through his life watching kids come in and out of academies and being rising stars and phenoms and the next big thing. The reality is not everybody ends up being the next big thing or turns out to be a guy that ends up with a decade long plus career. Sometimes guys have injuries and things just don't go the way you want them to go. And. Right, Dan, I mean, that's just the reality of this deal. Not everybody's going to turn out to be Ricardo Pepe or Christian polisic. [00:40:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, those guys are the vast minority, the 1%. There's so many kids with all the talent in the world who maybe don't get the chance or coming up through the ranks. Girls come along, partying comes along. Just the difficulties of the game, injuries being part of that as people are growing. Yeah, it's rough. And you hope that Paxton comes through. [00:40:51] Speaker A: Just to put it on a local spin on it. You remember, Peter, that Chris Bondi, when he was drafted on the hermit and drafted number one by FC Dallas. He blew out his knee like a month before the end of that senior season and he was the best player in college and FC Dallas still took him first overall, I think it was first overall. It was high up there, whatever it was. And he never really got back to the same level he had when he was in college. And then if you want to take it for another spin? It's the Baylor Bears quarterback Griffin who tore up his knee like playing for the Redskins that first season or two. [00:41:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Griffin. Yeah, yeah. [00:41:28] Speaker A: It was quite been the famous example. [00:41:31] Speaker B: Who was the standout linebacker the Cowboys drafted that had the bad knee injury with the flop foot and made it for a couple of years and then Jalen Smith. Yeah, Jalen Smith. That's a great example. I mean, that guy was the next big thing. He was going to be the number one draft pick until he blew out his knee and tore up that nerve in a bowl. Mean Jalen Smith's the reason why guys bail out of bowl games these days. [00:41:57] Speaker A: I hate to be this guy, but I'm worried for that same reason with Tarek Scott with his double knee last year, spring camp. It's been a year since he's done anything and now he's playing for North Texas. And I thought he looked quite bright the other day. He had moments, but he looks a little passive and that comes back to the mindset, the brain that takes so long for your brain to believe he's just back playing. Really. So you hope that he comes through this out the other side, but the double knee is, man, that's a big ask. [00:42:28] Speaker C: This year is going to be a write off for him. You just kind of hope that he stays healthy for it as much as anything. [00:42:35] Speaker A: Yeah, there's no rush with that kid. He's so young and had such huge upside. You just want to see him get through the North Texas season without having a major mental problem or setback or something or losing complete faith in it. [00:42:48] Speaker B: Well, before we progress any further, I would then suggest that the curious's homework assignment for the following week is every night when you kneel down for your bedtime prayers. Include one for good old Paxton Palmicall and his knee. All right, so, buzz, anything else about the Montreal loss and that game in particular performances or particular players that we want to get into before we talk about what you did see in training and previewing the game this weekend? [00:43:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I would just take the last 15 minutes or so and some of the brightness that was there. I thought legit looked pretty bright in that moment. Jesus looked pretty bright until he went walkabout. I thought Eugene Ansa gave a good 1015 minutes or whatever. It was sort of run out. We talked about Patrickson, so there's some positives there. Obviously, Musa was fantastic. So you take those things and you go forward and you hope that some of these key players are going to come back soon. That's it. [00:43:46] Speaker B: Okay, let's see. So you did go to. Let me ask. Dan. Dan, you got anything before we move on? I'm sorry. I wanted to give you an opportunity to. [00:43:55] Speaker C: Nada. [00:43:56] Speaker B: Okay. Look like another sellout. [00:44:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:44:02] Speaker B: Good turnout. Anything in particular about the crowd or the scene going on at the stadium we need to know about? [00:44:09] Speaker C: Yeah, actually. So another 19,096, interestingly, cleared out before the drain show. [00:44:16] Speaker B: Really? [00:44:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:19] Speaker B: Because of the loss or because you think people are burned out on drone shows? [00:44:24] Speaker C: I can tell you I was too busy trying to get to the press conference at that point. Yeah, there are obviously still people around. Later on, there was still traffic when I left the stadium, but, yeah, the theme was crap. It was that fast and furious ripoff thing, which for me is such a weird thing. It was Texas Independence Day. The themes already built in there. But, yeah, maybe a better theme, whether it's a marvel or Star wars or something good. Maybe a different story. [00:45:01] Speaker B: By the way, I mentioned this, I think, in the discord Tuesday night when I was at my old, know, seven aside game. Afterwards, somebody came up to me and asked me why they keep seeing Dallas wear their, in their terms, away jerseys and home games. And when I explained the answer to that question, the collective response from my teammates was, that's the dumbest effing thing I've ever heard. You wear your home shirt at home. And I said, yes, we all agree. I think most everybody's in agreement with you, that this is the dumbest thing ever, that you're wearing your away jerseys every other game at home. And I will never, ever get used to that buzz. [00:45:47] Speaker A: Even in the stands at the game this weekend, people were like, why are they wearing white? I didn't even bother to try to explain it. [00:45:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I think people should kind of be used to it in MLS by now. There's a reason they don't call it home in a way, anymore. It's primary and secondary. They went to the whole thing where it was the light versus dark, and sometimes that meant wearing the home kit, away kit at home. Obviously, now they have that split sponsorship where they're obligated to do. Was it nine and eight? So you'll see another seven times the white kits worn at home. But I don't. It's. I feel like culturally, that's less of a big deal in America. Right. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Houston wore their purple at home the night in the Concaca calf against. [00:46:37] Speaker B: Well, I just. It's just stupid. I'm sorry. [00:46:41] Speaker A: Can we do a well, so I was. [00:46:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say. I'm sitting here just for transparency. I'm watching this game in the background, the US Canada game, while we're recording this, because we're in the middle of it. This is so stupid. After what we saw in Salt Lake over the weekend in the snow blizzard. They should have never played that game. In the women are now playing a knockout round match in a tournament in essentially a bog. And it's that game, Dan, where the ball defies all normal physics. You kick it as hard as you can and it stops in the ground as if it's got stuck in quicksand. And Jaden Shaw scored because she had the one good opportunity where a defender tried to play it back to a goalkeeper and the ball just came to a complete stop and she got to chip it past her. But the United States is lucky that they haven't had that happen to them two or three times. This is the dumbest thing ever. And I have no idea why they're playing this game. [00:47:39] Speaker A: Well, they probably don't have a choice because it's a tournament. They got to keep going. [00:47:46] Speaker B: As somebody that had a referee license, this is an unplayable field, Buzz. There's literally standing water on the field and nobody can control the ball. [00:47:54] Speaker A: Ref should have stopped it. [00:47:56] Speaker B: Well, they shouldn't have started the game. And it looked like at one point, about five minutes in, she stopped play and she ran over to the near side and she looked like. Because I think she's a mexican referee, she looked like she was going to stop the game. And then they went on with it. It's ridiculous. They're playing this game. [00:48:13] Speaker A: Well. Mad love to Jaden. She's the first us women's national team player to score multiple knockout games since Christine and Lilly. Those are the only two players to ever do it as teenagers. [00:48:24] Speaker B: Wow. [00:48:24] Speaker A: Super cool. That's a very short list. And Jaden Shaw is now the first women's national team player to score in her first four starts ever. [00:48:31] Speaker B: It was a good finish. [00:48:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Just super awesome to see that player that we all started watching when she was 13, 1415 years old around here. [00:48:39] Speaker C: Twelve. [00:48:40] Speaker A: Yeah, twelve. In dance case, when she first played for the women, when she was twelve. FC Dallas women. And we've talked about her, Peter, I know you have since you saw her at the Dallas cup. Just an amazing player and it's so exciting. [00:48:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's cool to know that she's from the right. Like, that's. That's really great that she's a North Texas player. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Yeah, she played for thousands. And solar both. So lots of local love there. [00:49:01] Speaker B: Okay, well, anyway, so us, by the way, it's almost halftime and they're winning one nothing and it's a terrible game of soccer. All right, so buzz, anything in training that you want to talk about? [00:49:14] Speaker A: Yeah, some fascinating stuff. Coach, I think clearly has no idea what he's going to do this weekend with the lineup. With Yara and Paxton both out, he's trying to figure out what to do in the double pivot. With Ibiaga still questionable, he's still trying different options in the back, knowing that New York's got some really quick strikers. So he obviously knows that Omar is not quick and like, okay, what do I do if I don't have ae? What are my options? He's looking at some various know in terms of just watching guys train Patrickson. It's fascinating in the sense that he has these really great moments, but then other times guys are yelling because he's in the wrong spot. Watching Imitu Amasi looks skinnier by the day, which is great because he looked like a dude that sat around for three months this winter. I think he's been in the weight room too much. They need to trim him down a little bit, but he's a fast player so he's definitely in the mix potentially for this weekend. There's definitely some interesting stuff going on and when we get to the part about the eleven, I'll actually try and break down what some of it is more specifically, but the temps are really good right now, so practice is really intense. Nolan Norris absolutely clattered Musa, but that's fine. You got to be physical trying to win a spot and all that. It was actually a really good day of training, all things considered. [00:50:44] Speaker B: One of the things I meant to ask you about the game was you're surprised that he started Farrington in that kind of ten role and the fact that we didn't get to see the same Farrington we saw the first game. [00:50:55] Speaker A: Well, yeah, because he's playing out of position. [00:50:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Is it a position he's just not used to playing? He's purely a real nine. Not any kind of pretty much second striker type or a wing. [00:51:07] Speaker A: He's played some wing, but that's in a front three, flat three. That's not that like. It's like trying to ask somebody to become a midfielder overnight. It's just not doable really, unless you've got those tendencies in your game like Jesus does, where he's actually even played there, so that's fine, but asking Ferrington to do it is ridiculous. If legit wasn't coming off of some preseason stuff, if Bernie wasn't out of sorts, if Hader Obram was still know there's lots of other choices that could have happened, but he was kind of out of people at that point. I think he was trying Bernie at wingback, so he couldn't use Bernie in that spot. So he kind of was stuck with going with Ferrington, and it clearly didn't work because Jesus was on a minute restriction, so I don't think that's a viable long term option. And Farrington played nine the whole day. Today there was no wing or underneath with Ferrington. Today it was just. [00:52:02] Speaker B: Okay, well, what else from training? [00:52:07] Speaker A: Well, if we want to talk about the know, I think obviously moose, even though he played more than he was supposed to, no problem. Jesus, I think she's good to go. He clearly is considering Paul at wingback for this game on the right. [00:52:29] Speaker B: How mad are you going to be if that happens? [00:52:32] Speaker A: I'm not going to be mad. I'm concerned with the long term longevity of Paul as a wingback. Paul has played wingback. He played it at cholos. He's smart enough to do it. He understands the position. But at 30 ish years old now, asking him to spend the entire season running up and down the field in the heat is going to burn him out. So you can use him there, but you can't use him all game, every game there. There certainly has been guys in the past that have gone from forward to outside back, or to center back, or to six. Teddy became a six, Bobby Ryan became an outside back. There's a litany of them guys later in their careers. There's the guy from Kansas City that was for became an outside know. It's a common adaptation. So using Paul as a wingback is no big. Actually, it probably will work quite well when you're short bodies. But the other side of it has been a, we hadn't seen Paul doing it, b, you had nobody else really that could do the tens roll at all. But now Jesus is back, so that helps that legit's back. Maybe he's an option there. Bernie has gotten a little bit better at it, maybe he's an option there, and maybe Paul's going to have to be the answer at wingback. I'm just concerned about it for 34 games. Well, now it's 32. You know what I mean? Like, if he has to go 90 minutes week after week after week after week at wingback. That's not going to be. He's going to do a far fan where the last six games of the year he's trash because he burned himself out. [00:54:02] Speaker B: Okay, well, yeah. Anything else from training that will something buzz give me something that doesn't bum me out? [00:54:10] Speaker A: Well, you have three choices, really, at the double pivot, and it's Frazier and perhaps Patrickson. I don't love that combo right now. Probably might be legit as a deep eight, which will be fascinating. I don't think it'll be Nolan. Nolan's also in that contention spot. So those are your four choices. You pick the two you like at that spot. As I said before in the podcast, it's Dante's the only wingback you have on the left right now. So it'll be Dante again, much to my chagrin and trying to compensate for Omar's pace. They were trying Masi as a center back. They were trying Carl Sante in there again from North Texas. It's not ideal, obviously. You really hope ibiaga comes back. They were actually doing tafari center, and Omar left at one just. And they even worked a little in a four back set. Some of that was replicating. You're not really replicating New York, I don't think. Because I don't think they play a four, but I didn't look into that. But I think, just remember that this coach is not 100% ever locked into just one shape. So you might see other adaptations, including a four three three or a four four two, possibly over the course of this game or the next few games. But like I said, there was way more experimenting than usual. So I think coach is still trying to figure out what he's doing. And so I would not bet my money on any of those combinations I just talked about. Because you will not have a high chance of winning. Because I don't think he's decided. [00:55:50] Speaker B: Well, Dallas goes up to New Jersey to play Red Bull at Red Bull Arena. I love that place. I don't know if you guys have been there. It's a great stadium. [00:55:58] Speaker A: Not been there. [00:56:00] Speaker B: And with all the bad news that Buzz has been giving us for the last almost hour, the only thing that comes out of this piece of statistical information that I think may play in Dallas's favor is the gall that New York has for actually putting this out on social media. It just feels like you're just jinxing yourself badly. But pointing out the fact that New York is on an eight match twelve year unbeaten run against Dallas. And of those eight matches, Dallas has only scored goals in two of those, New York has shut them out. Their last four games they've played again, I'm sorry, I'm doing this backwards. Yeah. So they shut them out the last time they played back in 22. And of six of the games, they've shut them out. So, Buzz, Dan, did New York make a mistake in putting this out on social media, or are they just pointing out the obvious that they may be Dallas's Eastern Conference bogey team? [00:57:04] Speaker C: Did the Red Bulls put out? Or is that the picture that mark Fish can put out? [00:57:09] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know who put. You know what? That's a really good point. I thought it was New York Red Bulls. Maybe it was somebody else. [00:57:17] Speaker C: Could have been Fiskin because it was the sea and red. That is right. [00:57:22] Speaker B: Oh, you know what? Down there in the corner, it does say seeing red. I'm looking at the graphic, but I'm going to say Mark Fishkin is like their version of Buzz Carrick. And that's just bad karma, right? Please, somebody tell me this is bad karma and this is going to blow up in their face. [00:57:36] Speaker A: Well, I was on his podcast today and he said that. He said all his friends, all his followers blast him for the jinx of putting that graphic out. But I will also say that they are Dallas's east coast bogey team. It's so bad. Dan, you'll remember this, that there was a game where they came to Dallas, New York did, and they went on a full 100% rotation and played like 15 academy kids and 17 Red Bull, two players, and they smoked Dallas. Three nothing here in Dallas. [00:58:09] Speaker B: Yes. That was their Oscar para kids Columbus game. [00:58:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:58:13] Speaker C: That was 3131. [00:58:15] Speaker A: Sorry, I should have given credit. So, yes, they are Dallas's east coast bogey team. Yeah. [00:58:22] Speaker B: All right. Well, now that you know all that information, it doesn't feel, I mean, based on everything else we know, it may just be a nine game unbeaten run against. [00:58:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think they're undefeated. Aren't. [00:58:40] Speaker B: Got. Yeah. And they've got a couple of really. [00:58:42] Speaker A: Nice new players on the road. [00:58:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Forsberg apparently has hit the post twice or. Yeah. I think we should talk about some of the big picture things that are bothering me with this. [00:58:55] Speaker C: Okay. [00:58:55] Speaker B: Okay. Well, I thought we had. But there are more. Yeah, there's two. [00:59:00] Speaker A: There's two major ones. These are not specific to the game. These are big pictures for this season and a couple of games in. Now I want to talk about them because I think it's important. So my good friend Mike Renshaw used to say, soccer is a young man's game. This is not a game where olds do well. Father time is undefeated this team. And I think almost every coach eventually learns this lesson. But coaches who are more recently removed from their playing days. And I know Nico wasn't a big time player, but he's still relatively close enough to the days when he himself probably played some and is close enough to the players that especially young coaches always think, or often think that the answer is to play old, experienced players who make good decisions. And that's actually not true. The opposite is true. You want to play young players, a great deal of young players. And going older and older and older is actually a horrible idea, and it never works. And I think that we're watching that happen with Nico. He hasn't learned that lesson yet. And you just look at the number of players that are in their 30s that they're signing. Like, we need a center back. What's the answer? 35 year old Omar Gonzalez. Man, that is a terrible idea. We need a midfielder who can pass. What's the answer? 34 year old Asir era Mendy from Spain. Now, that dude is a great player, but he's 34, and look how he's already hurt, right? Game two, game two. Legit in his 30s, big contract, relatively speaking. And doesn't shart. Paul Ariola, rapidly approaching 30, rapidly declining, may have lost a step getting paid big money on this team, right? There's a tendency, ibiago, at 31 32, signing him for more than he's ever made, to start more than he's ever made in a center back line. There's always a tendency from these guys that are early in their coaching careers to do this, and it always backfires. And I'm sure someone will point out an example to me where that's not true. But you can look at the way, for example, Germany rebuilt their national team when they went with all those young guys and played them for a long time, and then they won a World cup, right? It's like you want to go with guys that are young. The very best players in the world are not 28, 29, 30. Other than Messi. They're in their low twenty s. Like, how old is Foden, for example? Like 23, something like that. So look at how much debriner. Look how De Bruyne is breaking down now after in his 30s, with all those games played, right? He's 30, right? [01:01:36] Speaker B: Close to it. [01:01:37] Speaker A: If not. If not close to it. He's not 22 anymore, he's Areola. He's starting to lose a step. So this roster is in MLS. We've always had a lot of young guys and a lot of old guys, and we've applauded when they've got guys. They brought guys in like Musa in the prime of his career. Super exciting. Young guys are expensive. They've done a nice job with some young guys, but all of a sudden there's a whole lot of old guys playing and no homegrowns playing. Like the first game, Dante Sidley was the only homegrown that played. So that's soapbox number one for what's wrong with his team. Number two is the foundations of the center back problem. And I think it's important to talk about how we got here because we definitely have a center back problem now. If you played a back four, it would not be as bad, but it would still be bad. And you guys know, in the big picture of things, Nikosi Tafari is the replacement for Matt Hedges. Effectively. He's a domestic striker. You drafted center back that you drafted, you developed him, and now he's in the prime of his career. He's replaced Matt Hedges as one of your other guys. At the end of the Lucci era, we had Reto Ziegler, who was the international center back, paired with the Matt Hedges domestic center back. Reto Ziegler was a great player. We really liked what he looked like. High line, quality player, smart, knew how to play, but was getting along in the tooth. And eventually they moved on. And his replacement was Juan Martinez. Jam Juan Antonio Martinez, who did not work out. He didn't become a frontline guy. He was hurt all the time. And they had to, over time, try and fill that gap with other guys and try and make do. And Duck took the whole thing together. This winter he left and they did not replace him. So you have not replaced your equivalent to Nakosi Tafare level player. You need two center backs of that caliber if you're going to compete at the top level of this league. And to claim that Sebastian Dibiaga was it is what I think. If you claim that you don't know anything about this league and you don't know what it takes to compete in this league, that's a ridiculous statement. To say that that guy's as good as retal. Ziegler was retro. Ziegler was here. That's just ridiculous. If Ibiaga is your third guy, I'm excited. So they clearly left a gigantic, massive hole and we've been talking about it since Ziegler left. We've been talking about it, and for sure we've been talking about it since November. And then they went to a three center back system and exasperated this problem and made it worse. Now, I love Sam Junka. He's great. He's willing to play anywhere on your roster. He's a wonderful piece, but he is not an equivalent to Nicosa Tafari level center back. If you're going to play a back three, you need three guys that can move, cover big distances, have size range, and can pass and dribble. And only one of your centerbacks has that, and that's Nakosi Tafari, and none of the rest of them do. And you want to play a three and center back. So if you talk to them about any given performance, they'll talk about this guy, play good. That guy played good. It's ridiculous. Your underpinning of your defense is Martin Paws. If Martin Paws wasn't incredible, this team's defense would suck. And it's a problem, right? They're duct taping the thing together and they spend all their money on the front line. So those two things right now, it's not the three four three that terrifies me. It's not the fact you're trying to develop wingbacks that terrifies me. It's the fact that your team is getting old fast and breaking down physically fast, and you have no center backs of enough caliber. You have one center back of real caliber. And so that's my TED talk for today. And those are what terrifies me. Not the other things that we talked about today. [01:05:15] Speaker B: But aren't these the things that we've been talking about? I feel like we've had this conversation endlessly for the last two months. [01:05:22] Speaker A: Yes, but they're still true and they're still a problem. And when Dallas is 500, the middle point of the season, and everybody wants to know why, those are going to be the reasons why not Dante Seeley and wingbacks. [01:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like what we're doing is we're just finally seeing the actual evidence of the results of everything that we were suspicious about in the preseason, when we're all looking at each other going, wait a second, they're going to play three center backs? [01:05:51] Speaker A: Yes. [01:05:55] Speaker B: I want to be hopeful, and certainly after two games, winning a game and losing a game isn't the worst thing in the world, a position to be in. But we're all collectively guys that have watched this team through its entire existence, and we all kind of have a pretty good gauge of how things are going to go as you watch the first few games. And this certainly doesn't feel like this is going to turn itself into a championship caliber team. [01:06:23] Speaker A: No. [01:06:24] Speaker B: Unless something else changes that I don't foresee. [01:06:27] Speaker A: Well, we had this false dawn in the winter where we were talking about, where's the ambitious? Are you going to do anything? And then they went out and got Musa. That's fantastic. Oh, I love that so much. And they're like, we're going to add one more player. And it turns out that that player was Patrick and Delgado, who's a six. And while we like that, we had hoped the false Don was, oh, a player's coming, please be a center back. And then it wasn't right. [01:06:53] Speaker B: It was Omar Gonzalez. [01:06:54] Speaker A: Oh, no, this was after that. But, yeah, this was after Omar. Yeah, that's true. There was that also, dom, when they're like, we signed a center back. Yay, it's Omar Gonzalez. Oh, okay. Is that the fifth center back or the second center back? Well, the answer was third, but still not what you needed. I just wanted to underline the two things that I think are going to derail this team that are solvable problems, and hopefully they're going to recognize it eventually and solve it, and it may just not be till midseason. And Martin Paws is going to carry the defense through this whole thing and it'll be fine, and they'll have to rotate players in and out of them. But you wonder why these injuries are all happening other than Paxton. It's all because of age and wear. Legit's 30, Yaramidi is 34. These are where these injuries are coming. Other than Paxton, which we knew about because Farfans is a fluke. That was a fluke. He got banged, he has a tiny crack, and corches is maybe sort of a heavy season load thing. I'm not worried about that one. It's the ones that are there because they're 34 years old that are the ones that worry me. [01:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:06] Speaker A: I'm not usually a guy that reacts emotionally to losses. This is not that. This is me reacting to a winter of what to me looks like a lack of recognition of two problem areas and a willingness to carry through it, knowing that my keeper is going to save Matt and that my midfield will be taped together well enough that it'll be fine. And maybe that's true. Maybe it will be true. We'll see. [01:08:32] Speaker B: Well, I guess we should all just be thankful we don't have three soapboxes for you to stand on or you want to stand on. [01:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah, well, just wait till Tafara gets hurt and then we'll do that bit again. Hey, they loaned Mulatto to San Antonio. Didn't see that coming. [01:08:51] Speaker B: Yeah, well, before you get into that, the one thing I wanted to say is it would be perfectly in line for Dallas to have finally gone out and gotten a top quality striker and the rest of the team falls apart because of bad roster construction. [01:09:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Martin Paws is so good it won't. But the underpinnings are fragile and on loose sand. It's bad construction, especially if you're playing three four three. I'd feel better about it if you weren't, but the clutch wants to do it, so they're going to do it, so we'll see. [01:09:29] Speaker B: All right, well, so before you move on to Mulatto, did we get a definitive. What you think the starting eleven is going to be in New York? [01:09:38] Speaker A: Well, there's a lot of grasping at straws in this one because of even coach was very tenuous in training. There were not a lot of discernible patterns. So based on the fact that Paul Ariola played wingback the whole day, I'm going to go with Ariola at right wingback, Celia on the left. I'm going to bet on Ibiaga being cleared and you'll see junka Tafare ibiaga. I'm crossing my fingers on that. If Ibiaga is not cleared, it'll be Ema Tiomasi. And then I'm going to go Frasier legit because Frasier, Nolan Norris or Frazier Delgado makes me really nervous on the road. I'll go with legit there. Again, the old guy coach thing, this is me predicting what he's going to do. By the way, not my choices. [01:10:34] Speaker B: Clear qualifier. [01:10:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Jesus looked really good in training today, so that's an upside. He and Musa with. Since I put Paul at wingback, I'm going to go Bernie underneath with Jesus and. [01:10:49] Speaker B: Okay. [01:10:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. I think that's my guess. We'll see how I might have half that wrong, because coach clearly had no clue what he wanted to do. Still trying to figure it out. [01:11:00] Speaker B: All right. And then they solved your mulatto problem today, Buzz. [01:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't expect San Antonio. Thank you. Michael Fruzzi. I thought for sure that they were going know, sell him to some mid tier european team or somebody in Ecuador or Colombia or know or loan that way. I wasn't expecting USL championship. I think that's his level actually USL championship and whatever that would compare to to other leagues. I think he'll probably be great for know or not. Or he'll suck even more and then we'll know for sure that he was not any good. But they posted the stats that he scored like in every other game he played for North Texas. He really was very good there, but it just wasn't translating to MLS for sure. [01:11:40] Speaker B: All right, before we go, I wanted to ask you guys your opinion about something that caught my eye in this game. Because Petromusa, when I was just checking him out in his away shirt that he was wearing at home, I noticed something on the shirt and I didn't know what it was and I did a quick search and lo and behold, I learned that MLS has decided to scarlet letter players who are playing their first seasons in MLS, whether they're actual veterans or rookies or whatever, with a special badge that says debut on it. Is it only for their very first game? [01:12:20] Speaker A: First game? Yep. [01:12:21] Speaker B: Okay. So, Dan, do you like the debut badge? Yes or no? [01:12:27] Speaker C: No. It's just purely for a relic piece for trading cards. It's dumb. [01:12:34] Speaker B: Oh, is that what it's for, you think? [01:12:37] Speaker C: I mean, that's what the news release says. They glue it on the shirt, they take it off immediately after they mail it to tops. It goes on a trading card. [01:12:46] Speaker B: Okay, I didn't see that part. Okay, so, buzz, did you like it. [01:12:50] Speaker A: Or is it dumb? It's a bit. [01:12:53] Speaker B: It is kind of dumb, yeah. [01:12:56] Speaker A: Okay, I got one more thing for you. [01:13:01] Speaker B: Okay. [01:13:02] Speaker A: This morning, North Texas soccer club played 40 sC, which is the local UPSL team that coached by Michelle that has done really well. They're in the open cup. They've drawn Austin FC two in the open cup. So that'll be fun. It's down at Austin, but they played North Texas this morning. Guess who played goalie for 40 today? [01:13:23] Speaker B: Guess who played goalie goalie for four. [01:13:28] Speaker A: Jesse Gonzalez. [01:13:30] Speaker B: Yes. I was just about to throw that name out there. Really? Seriously? [01:13:34] Speaker A: Yeah, seriously? Yeah. It hardly looks like him. He doesn't look like himself at all, but it's him. Yeah, apparently. [01:13:43] Speaker B: Why does he put on a bunch of weight? [01:13:44] Speaker A: Well, yeah, he's not a professional athlete anymore. [01:13:47] Speaker B: Right. [01:13:47] Speaker A: He hasn't played in years, so he's. [01:13:49] Speaker B: More like Fessy Gonzalez. [01:13:50] Speaker A: Well, he's not fat, but he's like. He's not a professional athlete. [01:13:54] Speaker B: Okay. [01:13:56] Speaker C: Now he looks like a person. [01:14:00] Speaker A: Now he looks like a normal person. He's still six four. Yeah, but he's probably a better goalkeeper than just about anybody else in town, but he's not up to the professional standard anymore. He's lost a step in terms of the quickness and all that kind of stuff. [01:14:15] Speaker B: That is weird. [01:14:16] Speaker A: We don't need to get into that story again, but it's like what a wasted life of professional life, only for, I don't know, nothing about his real life that has come about with that guy. He's basically nuked his own career and deservedly nuked it for all we understand. But still, it's just like what a path that guy's walked. You never can walk a mile in somebody else's shoes and a lot of it is his own making. But when you run into, you keep running into that guy various places, trying to get on here and catch on there and it's just what a missed moment. I mean, he would still be starting. He's only like 26 now or something. 27. This is ridiculous. [01:14:59] Speaker B: Well, that was a surprise when you said, guess who I thought, is it Jesse? Possibly, but I didn't even know if Jesse was here in town. [01:15:08] Speaker A: Well, apparently he's 20. [01:15:09] Speaker B: Didn't he go play over and wasn't he playing like in Czechoslovakia or something? [01:15:13] Speaker C: He was in eastern Europe. Salvador he got released from, he played that friendly against FC Dallas for New Mexico. [01:15:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And he was kicking around in Greece or something like that recently before that. There you go. [01:15:33] Speaker B: All right, well, just to update because this may be interesting audio after the fact, so it's one nothing, us Canada, and there's amazing footage. The referee actually tried to, it appears the referee tried to stop the game about 15 minutes in and ran over and the match commissioner appeared to tell them, no, you're playing this game and they're still debating it as they get ready to kick off the second half and she's been rolling the ball around and it's not going very far. This is going to be one of those games that gets talked about for a very long time no matter how it ends up, guys. And I'm really worried somebody's going to get badly injured because the girls are fighting hard, they're tackling hard, people are sliding and getting stuck in the ground. This is such a recipe for disaster. And I can't believe CONCAcaf is making them play this game. It's terrible. [01:16:26] Speaker A: I always had fun playing in those games. It made my slow ass look a lot better. [01:16:30] Speaker B: Buzz, can you see the video? [01:16:34] Speaker A: No, I'm not watching it, but I know. [01:16:35] Speaker B: Okay, no, this isn't a fun rain game. Literally the ball doesn't want to do anything. It should under normal physical situation. It's the frustrating kind of rain game. [01:16:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm with you. It sounds awful. They should have called it. [01:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, they should have. All right, well, just along with bedtime prayers, hope nobody gets hurt on either team because it's an unfortunate that us Canada are playing a knockout game like this in these conditions. All right, well, anything else before we go, lads? [01:17:11] Speaker A: No. [01:17:12] Speaker B: Going once, going twice. [01:17:14] Speaker A: Third degree, the podcast has been brought to you by Soccer 90. Com. Make sure and explore the brand new Dallas burn collection from Mitchell and Ness. The stuff is fantastic. Vintage jackets, tees, hurries. That stuff's limited stock, so it could run out. And remember, as a third degree listener, you get 20% off with the code third degree in store and online soccer.com code, third degree, 20% off. Some exclusions may apply. This podcast was also brought to you by the Lindstrom law firm for Willstrust, probate, and business law. Call 469-515-2559 that's 469-515-2559 or visit thelinstromlawfirm.com for a free consultation. [01:17:49] Speaker B: All right, Dan, thank you so much. It's great to hear from you. Talk to you again. [01:17:54] Speaker C: Thank you for the marathon presenting that you did tonight. [01:17:59] Speaker B: Was it a marathon tonight? [01:18:01] Speaker C: It's been a sizable one. [01:18:03] Speaker B: Oh, okay. And buzz. Thank you, sir. [01:18:08] Speaker A: Oh, you're welcome. Sorry for the rant. I just felt like I needed to do it. [01:18:11] Speaker B: We appreciate and understand all the ranting. If there's ever a time to rant, you might as well get it going early in the season, right? Get it out of the way. And thank you, FC Dallas curious fans. We will speak to you next week, rain or shine, on another episode of third degree. The podcast wanted capable wingbacks, pain negotiable. Third degree. The third degree, never podcast. Third degree. The third degree, never podcast. Third degree, never get. And third degree. Third degree, never cat.