3rd Degree the Podcast #257

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I, you know, just getting kicked in the ball. Figuratively speaking. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:09] Speaker C: Ooh. Ooh. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Third degree. The third degree ner pocket. [00:00:18] Speaker C: Third degree. The third degree ner pocket. Third degree. The third degree nap, I guess. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Third degree. [00:00:28] Speaker C: Third degree nap, I guess. Third degree. The podcast is brought to you by soccer 90 dot. They are your source for FC Dallas us national team international club gear. They got all the latest stuff from the US men's national team, the home and away jerseys, the pre match tops and the jackets. And as a third degree listener, you get 20% off the code in store and online code. Third degree. Soccer 90 dot. In store, online, 30% off. Some exclusions may apply. Third degree. The podcast is also brought to you by the Lindstrom law firm for Wills Trust, probate and business law. Call 46951. That's 469-515-2559 or visit lundstromlawfirm.com for a free consultation. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Well, hello there, FC Dallas. Curious fan. Welcome to episode 257 of Third Degree, the podcast. Yep, this one's gonna hurt, but we'll get through it together. Hi, it's me, Peter. And together. And by together, I mean first, the good Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:01:29] Speaker A: Hello, hello, hello, hello. [00:01:33] Speaker B: How are you these days? [00:01:36] Speaker A: You know, getting by, just enjoying two terrible, well, two terribly injured, ineffective teams. [00:01:43] Speaker B: You know, tell me all about it. And of course, your hero. My hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of Thirddegree.net, and the original soccer influencer himself, the. The amazing buzz kerrick. Come in, buzz. [00:01:58] Speaker C: Hi, fellas. How are y'all doing on this lovely Wednesday as we're recording evening? [00:02:03] Speaker B: I am reporting for duty, sir, because this podcast has a responsibility to the curious. [00:02:08] Speaker C: It does. Yeah. [00:02:10] Speaker A: You just wanted to say duty. [00:02:12] Speaker B: I did duty. And our duty, I think, is to be honest and forthright and keep everybody grounded in the good times and in the bad. [00:02:26] Speaker A: All the things that make people mad. [00:02:29] Speaker B: And I want to start off this podcast by establishing some level set of agreement, which is as bad as this season has started and as bad as I think, over the course of the next 45 minutes to an hour, we all are going to come to an agreement. It may continue to get, if not worse. This is not the norm. 2010 wasn't the norm. 2016 wasn't the norm at the other end. Nor is this. We will all get through this one way or another together as fans of this club. And we will return to the norm of middle of the table, make the playoffs, and feel good about ourselves and think there's always next year. [00:03:13] Speaker C: Yeah. Right now, FC Dallas is definitely not better than you think. [00:03:17] Speaker B: No. [00:03:19] Speaker A: I got a question for you, Peter. [00:03:21] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:22] Speaker A: When did you become the optimistic one? [00:03:24] Speaker B: I'm not trying to be optimistic. I'm trying to be. I'm trying to be pragmatic about the situation because I think it's easy. It would be really easy to get on this podcast for people who I think. So a lot of people are new to this team within the last few years and have enjoyed a relatively good run for the most part, over the last few years, especially those who have joined since, you know, the high of 16 and what happened then. And things have been somewhat unstable. But this team has historically been better than average, which is what we all know is what this team is. Is better than average over the course of its almost 30 year history. So when we get into this real shit, I don't want everybody to fall off the wagon just because of this, because I believe that we'll get back to the middle ground eventually, in due time. [00:04:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's fair. We always try and say, or I always try and say when we do the. When I do the post game, three things, or when I'm doing the analysis of the. Of the game, it's a. Dan does the same thing. It's important to take the emotion out of it. You know, we're here to analyze and try and talk about how we got to where we are, what's gone wrong, or what's gone good, and what's going well, you know. So we're gonna continue to try and do that, I think. So we're not gonna have an overly emotional reaction. [00:04:39] Speaker B: But, Dan, I appreciate you noticing anytime that I'm trying. Yeah. So, Buzz, here we are on the heels of losing to broccoli two to one, a team that had not won an MLS soccer game since the summer of 2023. [00:04:59] Speaker C: Well, they'd won one, they hadn't won two, but, yeah. [00:05:01] Speaker B: Okay. [00:05:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Okay. And somehow all of this runs us down a road of just a miserable. A miserable appearance, a miserable result. The fans went down there and gave it their best. And I think we've seen players get on social media and beg for forgiveness and apologize and all of that stuff. And I don't know how much you want to talk about the game in particular, or do you want to get to the whole. You want to talk about the game first? Okay. [00:05:34] Speaker C: All right. Yeah. I think, you know, Dallas got dominated in almost every category, but, you know. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Really shitty team by really bad team. [00:05:42] Speaker C: So what. But what you saw is what you always see from Nico Steve is, whether intentional or whether it just happens because of the team he has, you know, when they go on the road, they try and stifle the game. They play a mid to low block. You know, they try and close things down, try and keep it tight, try and give themselves a chance. Right? And there was some trumpeting of the fact that didn't give up a goal in the first half. That was an improvement, all that kind of stuff. The problem is, is that, and we're now seeing a return to 2021, if you remember 2021 when Dallas was very susceptible to balls into the box from crosses, from wide spaces. And that has come back. And the bottom line is when you look at those goals and it's not just this game, it's the game before that. There was a couple and there was in this dumpster down. Tell us in second. It probably was all season. It's very simple factors. It's like you're not closing down crosses like the one that came off of the throw in. There was only one defender over there instead of more. And then the bottom line is you're not winning aerial duels, you know, and the people were close enough to their guy. They had bodies on guys, they had framed up guys, and then they just lost out on getting the ball. So when you're getting, when you're trying to play mid to low block and you're giving up goals, you know, Peter, we talk about here all the time, right? How do you break down a block? Well, one of the ways is you fireballs into guys on crosses into trying get some headers. And that's what people are doing to Dallas and they're susceptible to it. So everything else goes out the window if that tactic falls apart. Now there's a discussion to be had of whether Austin being as bad as they have been, you shouldn't have tried to go there and play. But they know that's not what Dallas does on the road. So, you know, overall this season in the micro, it's the susceptibility to these crosses that's really killing them. [00:07:21] Speaker B: It was a bad game all the way around. And there's lots of, you know, even Steve Davis, the good Steve Davis, in his stub stack wrote today, I mean, if you're at the point where you're lamenting the loss of Martinez as a center back, you know, things have gone pretty, pretty wrong. Not that, I mean, Steve makes a very valid point. [00:07:43] Speaker C: Who was it that was talking about this winter, about getting a center back? I'm trying. [00:07:46] Speaker B: I can't remember we all were. Yes. [00:07:47] Speaker C: Everybody. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Yes. All of us. Anybody paying attention? Yes. And that's why when, you know, Dan. Dan screamed like a little girl when he found out they were going to a three man back line. Because you know what? You don't remember that day, do you, Dan? [00:08:05] Speaker A: I did no such thing. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Dan, do you have any thoughts on the Austin loss that you want to throw on the fire here? [00:08:15] Speaker A: God, was terrible, wasn't it? Yeah. Two terrible teams making a terrible game. The goal was incredibly frustrating, and including the one that was then pulled back for offside. There was just nothing good about that game. It's a little bit frustrating towards the end to watch your $9.7 million record signings, just kind of strolling about looking like he's, I don't know, caught in the Somme valley, dodging german rounds and wondering where the hell his friends gone. And. Well, there's his head. Yeah. [00:08:58] Speaker C: Just. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Just a mess. [00:09:00] Speaker C: I do want to throw in a little bit of love for Musa, actually. He had 35 touches, which is not really crazy low for a nine, but it's not probably what you want out of him. But he did have six shot creating actions, which is by far and way the best on the team. And he got the assist on that goal, which, by the way, shout out Eugene onslaught for being the first off striker to play off of a high nine correctly this season. And Musa also had two blocks, two clears, five recoveries. He was two for two on take ons, which led the team. He actually won four aerial dues, which is duels, which is way more than anybody else on the team, you know, twice the next best person, who was Ima Tuamasi, of all people, that was the next best person in duel. Aerial duels one. So while things are not gangbusters, great, of course, you know, you're still looking at a striker who needs to be have the team connect the ball to him. And Dallas has no one right now that can do that. Legit's trying, but it's not. He's by himself, so that's not really working, you know, so it at least, like his form is in the correct manner for when they do get guys healthy, you know, so there are some signs of positivity there. And he actually, when I did my breakdown, I made him the man of the match, you know, which I had not done in real time. It wasn't until I looked at the numbers that I did that I can't. [00:10:07] Speaker B: Imagine what must be running through Moose's head, making this move here and ending up in this situation with this particular team and just how bad it is. And, you know, just a young guy and he's a human, too, and he's in a weird place and in a bad situation, and he must be, you know, you just wonder what is. Well, we know how, how often this team has been plagued with guys brought over from a foreign country who also all of a sudden decide they want to go back to Homeland. Oh, gosh, you know, we've seen that before. [00:10:39] Speaker C: That would be, that would make it even worse if we were to do that. [00:10:43] Speaker B: So the game ends up two one. Dallas is, you know, in the mud. They haven't won. They've only, the only game they won was against an equally bad team, and they basically won that on a last second desperate goal and a few Martin pauses, and they're literally a sea hare away from being zero points, completely defeated, uh, for the season. [00:11:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:05] Speaker B: That's just the reality of the deal. And I, and I know, Buzz, you want to get into how we got to this point. [00:11:10] Speaker C: Yep. [00:11:11] Speaker B: And, and I know the first thing's going to be injuries. And you and I have talked about this because I, I'm of the opinion that it is very easy to let some people off the hook by saying this is a team that has just had the worst run of luck with injuries. But I would say there's a, there's an opposite side of that coin, which is any team can be beset by injuries and at some point it's going to break. You look at Seattle. [00:11:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:38] Speaker B: As an example of that, who, by the way, are, in fact, in worse place than Dallas is somehow in this weird world we live in suddenly. But I feel like the problem with all of this is, is that almost all of the injuries Dallas is dealing with at this moment were in some way predictable, like high risk situations. 34 year old center, mid with a lot of miles on him, another center, mid with a lengthy injury history and a young number, you know, a young star who's been running around with an adductor injury forever. The list goes on and on and on, and it, you know, the, I guess if there's an unfortunate part for Dallas, they went into the season with a lot of high risk players. It's just that all of them have blown up in their face. [00:12:26] Speaker C: Yeah. They even went into the season with two guys that were already going to be out for big chunks of the time that are. [00:12:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't even gotten to that point yet. [00:12:33] Speaker C: Yeah. So, again, that goes back to my idea of why I talked about, you should. You should have Ir'd Alan Blasco even if he was coming back, because it's putting you in this huge hole when all these other things happened. Like if you'd replaced his body with a. With a. With a DP, you might. You'd have one more really good player available, but you don't. And if you. And if you look at it just the short term, just the guys right now, the last. If you look at. By using last year's money because the news, the PA hasn't leaked the new list yet, but between Velasco, Yara, Mindy, Jesus Ferreira, Pax and Pomogol and Gmoni, Jay Zeus, that's $4.7 million out in a league that has a salary cap of like two something. So, you know, no one is ever going to win games with that amount of talent out. And so you're correct that it's a problem of a not addressing the injuries that they have and almost, in a sense, sacrifice half the season because they just were willing to wait. But then also, as you say, betting too much on guys with a series of history of injuries or age, including Jesus impacts and with the history of injuries, Jesus has always had problems with his core. That's not new. It was so bad, in fact, that you remember when Oscar was here, he used to talk about. He and I talked about how all the kids coming to the academy had these core problems, so they had to institute like a core program into the academy because it was so bad with all the kids. He had his own theories about why that was. But it's just modern kids, I guess. But the point is, is that, you know, with that alone, and you're right, there's a whole bunch of questions that have to be asked with that, including how you building your roster, how you're maintaining, you know, what you're doing in training, what kind of programs you're running, all kinds of things that can go into that. A lot of them we'll never be able to give an answer for because we're not on the internal privy to how their medical system works and their training system works, because that's all HIPAA protected and stuff. So it's not a good situation that they've dug for themselves. And I want to specifically talk about Jesus some more, if I may, please. [00:14:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I was. [00:14:24] Speaker C: I was trying to look at the big picture of Nico Estevez, and I wanted to set the table first with this idea that 2022 was a really good season. And if you include. If you looked. I looked at 2023. To see the results, to see when they started to turn south. And there's an arbitrary date of May 31. Looking at last year's schedule, where they started losing games, there was a. That was right about when Martin Pawes got suspended. And then Velasco had his first little injury problem. Various things. So before that date, FC Dallas under Nico Steve has just read regular season had a record of 20, 112 and 16. That's 79 points in those games. More specifically, that's 1.6 points per game. That would be the 6th best points per game in club history. So for a season and a half, Nico Estevez was a spectacular coach. And then from May 31 of last year and on, Dallas had a record of 511 and eight for only 23 points and a 0.9 points per game, which is the second worst behind everything but the southeast season of 2003. So clearly, from essentially the first part of April or the last weekend of May last year, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. You know, what guy doesn't go from not likely go from best, one of the best they've ever had to ever have, without something happening. So I tried to look and dig and tried to figure out what it could be. And other than just generally speaking, that's kind of when the injury started happening. And generally speaking, he started tinkering with lineups. The real thing that happened, I think, is that Jesus Ferreira went to the Gold cup and he hurt his abductor. And since that Gold Cup, Jesus has played in a grand total of twelve games and scored three goals since that Gold cup. Before that Gold cup, in the first year and a half of Niko's tenure, he scored 27 games. Goals. Excuse me. So that's, you know, over a higher number of games, but essentially he was twice as good as he is now. And basically, it's completely ineffective. So he went from scoring a whole boatload of goals for Nico Sevez and a good defensive team to not scoring any goals for Nico Sevez in a good, and relatively speaking, until this year, good defensive team. So when you can't score goals, you can't win games. And there's a reason why, probably when you look at those kind of numbers, they think, we got to get a striker, and they went out and spent $10 million. You can see the payoffs of when. When it's not working like that. So I don't want to blame Jesus because he's a young guy, he always wants to play through injuries. I don't know enough about his injuries specifically to say 100%, they should have shut him down and have surgery. I'm inclined to believe that probably was the case, but either way, you know, from the middle of last year, basically what's happened is this team is quit scoring, and most of that is because Jesus quit scoring. So that's, that's the main reason why this team is now terrible, is that no one can score because all last year didn't we talked about no one score could score for shit except for Jesus. [00:17:34] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:34] Speaker C: Well, not even Jesus now. So that's where we are. It's brutal and it's not his fault, necessarily. Well, whose fault it is? But it's the. It's. That's the cause of the biggest amount of outage in terms of teaming. Any good? [00:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah, at that point, it's not a function of who to blame for his particular injury situation. [00:17:55] Speaker C: Right. [00:17:55] Speaker B: Who to blame for how they accounted for that or how they plan b for that. And, and I think my biggest problem with all of this is, is it just feels like when everything went to crap, well, the decision to. The decision to leverage this entire season and team on three or four players who clearly the odds are we're all going to struggle with missed time at various different parts of the season. I just don't think anybody assumed or hoped, at least in the worst case scenario, they'd all be gone at the same time. And that's exactly what's now happened. [00:18:32] Speaker C: Well, you could certainly make the case that Jesus has struggled to get the ball and we've seen him come back more and more and more and get in those weird positions. You know, you look towards the middle of last year, right legit was not performing. Areola was not performing. Velasco started getting hurt. Eventually. Bladders, they cl. So all of a sudden, Jesus is not getting the ball. Bernie's coming in, starting to play a little bit and looking pretty good, but Bernie's not a passer. Bernie's not going to pass the Jesus. Bernie's a get it and go kind of guy. And you look at the start of this season, year, Mindy, when he came in last year, helped stabilize things. And they tied all those games instead of losing because they were able to at least stabilize defensively and try and get a little bit going offensively. But now he's hurt again, and Apollo calls hurt. And all these people that would, would be able to facilitate for Jesus are not available, and they're also not facilitating for Musa. So you wonder, like, why is this striker got a 1.1 x G? Well, he's got one goal and one and 1.1. XG. It's not like he's in the wrong positions. You just watch him play. He clearly knows how to play. They're not getting him to the ball. And good. The biggest exponent, the biggest part of XG is like, you have to have the ball in those positions to be able to score. That's how XG is. It's like, if you have the ball here, what's the percentage chance you were going to score? Having the ball is the key. And if you're not having the ball, whether it's Jesus or Musa again, even if you're healthy or not, that's going to be a problem. So it all relates back to the same things. It's all systemic, it all builds together. [00:19:55] Speaker B: Well, it is about as bad as I can ever recall it being at this particular point of a season. I mean, we've. I think about this a lot at the beginning of baseball seasons, when baseball starts and there are team like the Oakland A's, everybody knows the Oakland A's are just going to absolutely suck for 100, whatever, 80, is it 182 or is it 162, 162 games? And that. And everybody knows, like, that fan base starts a season going in knowing it's going to be a slog for 100, 2062 games, period. The end. There's no way out of it. There's no hope. And I don't. And that's why I don't understand baseball as a sport. I don't know how anybody does that. And here we are with this team and, man, I'm just, you know, it does, it has all of the hallmarks of those seasons that we experienced here. Not many of them. There's only been a few of them, Buzz. [00:20:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:52] Speaker B: But it does feel like the. The south lake season to a degree, or name, whatever, Cotton bowl, pre Southlake season, you want to. That went really south. But this, that's what this feels like. [00:21:05] Speaker C: I think the biggest difference between South Lake and this one is they both have, at least right now, like this, this big, huge weight hanging over them. The south lake season, it was the venue, it was the change, it was the philosophy, it was the cost cutting. It was the fact that they weren't being treated like professionals. It was the fact that it was minor league. And all that stuff just killed it from before the season started. This one, it's the weight of the injuries. You know, you watch training and they know they're in trouble, they know they're missing all these pieces and those guys are all still working hard. Out there. My watch. But, you know, when you have this gloom over things, it can really, you know, play havoc with your ability to try and get out of it, you know. And Dan's Luton having climbed through four tiers of the football, he may not really know what we're talking about until this year. Maybe when Dan's feeling the same thing from his Luton team as he is from this team. [00:21:58] Speaker A: I've seen like six relegations of them. I don't know what you're talking about. [00:22:02] Speaker C: Oh, do they? Oh. [00:22:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Dan's been through the drug. Dan's been drugged through way worse shit than this. [00:22:09] Speaker C: I thought it was straight up. I'm sorry, misunderstood. You did almost get folded. I know that. [00:22:14] Speaker A: Yeah, we did that three times. We did have three consecutive allegations. We started a season on -30 points. You know, give us a little bit of credit there. [00:22:23] Speaker C: Oh, so you saw it all the way down and then all the way back up. Wow, what a roller coaster. [00:22:29] Speaker A: Well, you know, come lately, give me. [00:22:32] Speaker C: Some credit, you know. [00:22:34] Speaker B: Well, that's where I was hoping dad would throw up. A really inspirational rah rah speech of how everybody here shouldn't feel so bad because it could be a lot worse than this. Right. [00:22:43] Speaker A: I think I settled that in 2021, right? You know, the club isn't going bust. The owners are going to put money in. They're not going to strip it out and run away with it. They can't do that. They're invested in the league, you know. Yeah, it may be a bit boring, it may be a bit depressing, but ultimately there is going to be a club to support for people. People who, you know, do that whole world, you know, if they're not going to play, if they're not going to buy another $10 million striker are not worth my time, great. Sod off. It's all right. Yeah. I mean, that's it. This is a crappy start to the season. It is. Through five games. The joint second word. No, the joint worst. I think the other one was 2003. That was the South Lake season. Right? They started draw loss, draw loss. Three draws and three losses in six games. So even if they lose at the weekend, hey, it's still not the outright worst start to a season ever. That's all the positivity. [00:23:48] Speaker B: I'm fired up now. [00:23:51] Speaker A: I think. Yeah, you look at the. You look at the. The injuries, that certainly takes away from the attack inside of the ball. It gives the opposition the ball. I can't really think I'm trying to draw back to other seasons and say, okay, well, are they really facing that many more shots than other times? Because giving up ten goals in five games is just not. Not what FC Dallas has been in the past, what, nearly a decade? You know, FC Dallas has always been defensive first. It's, you know, give up a goal a game. It's not give up two goals a game. And I know we'll get into kind of like the breakdown later on of where those goals are coming from and just how, you know, avoidable. Those are. But the roster construction in general is strange. We kind of all laughed about, well, laughed behind tears, you know, not having a real, you know, Omar Gonzalez, your third centre back. Maybe that works out, maybe that could be tragic. But something came up in the discord earlier, and I was on a meeting I just really didn't want to be on. So I started looking at the roster in 20. 202-022-2024. So you think 2020, you've got centre back one, Matt Hedges two, reto Ziegler three, Bressan. All right, not amazing, but he still won a cope with Libertadores and started and played the whole thing. [00:25:18] Speaker B: God, I'd kill for those three right now. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Right, Tafara was your centre back for Callum. Montgomery was five, you know. All right, Montgomery, massive drop off, that 2022. You've got hedges, Martinez, you got Tafara, Quinonez. That was amazing, Bartlett. It was pretty, pretty terrible. Well, this year you've got Tafari is now up to centre back one. You've got Ibi Aga, who everyone was like, yeah, if they bring in a centre back and he's not the starter, he's an adequate third guy. Well, he's an everyday starter right now. And you see b three is a converted left back, and then you've got Omar behind him. The drop off there is horrible, you know, time after time. And then you're also adding the. The extra work. Not now, but you started the season off of a back five. Two players that couldn't play the wing back roles. They don't have any. A single player. The only one really who seems suited to it is Giovanni Jesus. And obviously he's out until at least May, and then you're still a centre backs even, you know, in increasing the role. [00:26:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Dan has actually hit on what is item number two in the. How do we get here? Which is the mismatch between this winter. [00:26:36] Speaker A: You're only doing a one point. [00:26:39] Speaker C: No, no, there's four of them and. But that we're going to go through them one at a time. And the one you're on now is number two. And it's the idea that there's a mismatch between the idea that you're going to play a three four three and the rashid you built, the designers and on a build. And Dan's completely right that there's not enough quality center backs. There's not any wingbacks at all. And that disconnect is creating some of the issues we're seeing, in a sense, of the coach trying different formations and trying, and having these problems with balls into the box and these crosses that are developing. So it's, you know, that's another part of the key reason why Dallas is struggling to win games, is that there's. The personnel doesn't match this system. [00:27:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel. I feel like Zenada sometimes gets off with a free pass to a certain degree, and I certainly haven't heard from him or seen anybody talk to him or ask him any questions lately. And he. And I don't think he. I mean, unless you guys correct me, I don't think he makes himself available to the media for questions on a regular basis, if at all. And. And I. And we've talked about this on this podcast endlessly, which is the confusion of exactly what you're talking about, Buzz, is how did we get to a point where a technical director responsible for building a roster created this exact problem in the back, and then the manager decides he wants to play with an additional center back? Like, that part, to me, makes zero sense, and I'm sure they're both equally at fault in that, but I think that's. That may be the single most glaring and problem that. That needs to be explained to the fans and everybody else, how they got here. [00:28:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say that. I think that, as Steve demonstrated in his piece, he wrote today about the space between the center backs that you play three at the back, or five, whatever you want to call it, that tightens up that space and really helps. So I think part of it maybe that reaction that, you know, this idea that they have been susceptible the last couple of games to crosses, but even before that, I think that idea was to tighten those gaps, you know, and we go. We go back to the idea of Martinez struggling with guys running at him for pace. That was why even Lucci, back in the day, tried three a little bit to try and tighten those gaps up. So that's a big reason for why you do it. [00:28:55] Speaker B: Well, I understand why Niko did it, but. [00:28:58] Speaker C: Yeah, but. [00:28:59] Speaker B: But then, if you're going to do that, you would think that the technical director is going to help supply him the personnel to do that more effectively. [00:29:06] Speaker C: You would think. [00:29:07] Speaker B: And to Dan's point, the. The options that Niko has at his disposal are. That's a sign. That's like a massive drop off in talent from. From 2020 center back right now. [00:29:20] Speaker C: Reminds me of the six under Lucci when it was a slow step down, season after season after season. And you just can't do that. You can't. You can't regress when everyone else is getting better, and that's why you end up where you are. They're doing to Nico what they did to Lucci, right, is they're slowly regressing the talent rather than making it better. You know, making it better is expensive, though, so it's not easy to do. [00:29:44] Speaker B: Hence spending 10 million on a striker, the number nine we've all been running around begging for. [00:29:49] Speaker C: Well, I'm never going to say that that's not a weird spend, because, like, it's so alien to what the hunts have ever done before, you know, to them to do that. So I have a personal theory about that, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the Benfica youth deal got over the line when. Right. The exact time they were paying $10 million for a striker. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure all that's interconnected and. Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing. And this is a conversation we haven't had on this podcast. Somebody sent me a text after the Austin game and said, can somebody explain to me how this club can go out and spend a near record amount of transfer fee money on a kid that apparently is so not ready to play at this level, he can't even make the 18 on this particular. In this particular situation. And I'm speaking of an east Sully, of course. [00:30:43] Speaker C: Yeah. Now, I have a. I have gotten a little pushback from inside the club on that $3 million number, but nobody will, probably, because I'm just a blogger, nobody will give me what the real number is. [00:30:54] Speaker B: You're a. You're more than just a blogger to me. [00:30:57] Speaker C: Thank you. So, you know, I think that that price is probably not accurate, but it's particularly stupid because effectively they've just bought a homegrown, and if you remember, a coach even tapped the brakes pretty hard on, like, hey, don't be patient. You're not going to see them have an immediate impact. So literally, that's what they've done. And the thing that's ridiculous about it to me, and this is doesn't matter how good the kid is, is that there's literally five or six dudes lined up in the academy that have that exact same profile. So it's like, I don't know why they bothered. So I'm not real, real thrill that conceptually idea of that signing. [00:31:32] Speaker B: Well, I think it. Well, just real quick before you get too. This is where I think people start need to pointing the magnifying glass at Zenada because we all keep. Everybody keeps talking about Niko out, and I'm not saying Niko is blameless here, but if we go back over the last several years of this team having to deal with some realities, the selling of Santos, the signing of this guy, the signing of that guy, and there's certainly been some signings that have been really, really good. The. The one common factor in all of this isn't the manager at the time, it's Andre Zenada. [00:32:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:06] Speaker B: And I just don't know if we're spending enough time investigating how good or not good that guy actually is at this role. [00:32:15] Speaker C: Yeah. His rep was for being able to sell players to make money, and he certainly has done that, you know, before he got here, I don't think the hunts saw profit and then he was able to sell guys to make money, which we're going to come back to again in a minute. You know that NSLI was the first finding of their new big trumpeted european scout that I know nothing about, that this was his first guy. And obviously, so far I'm not that impressed by that idea that they have whatever the price really is, the fact that they've overpaid some bit for what is effectively a homegrown. When you have this academy that does what it does, why bother? You know, so that's weird. You know, the kid does have a little bit of a pace. He's very vertical, but, like, so is Tark Scott. So, like, what's the point? So I don't. I agree with you that, like, I think the fact that they've brought in a TD to work under Andre and the fact that they've hired this european scout, the fact they've hired these guys, the scouting here, and the overall director, like a. Was it maybe two years ago now they hired that guy. The fact they've got scouting overseeing South America shows you that, I think. Whereas not as bread and butter really is. It isn't that stuff. It's the. It's not the finding guys or developing guys. It's the selling guys and making money. So, you know, the problem is, of course, that the hunts just gave him a big extension and a fake title bump, but. And some more money. So it's he. You know, when you do that in January, what, are you going to change that? And in March or April? No, you just change the coach. That's how it is when you're the TD, right? Yeah. [00:33:43] Speaker B: Um, well, hopefully someday. I mean, look, there's going to come a point at the time in this season where they're going to fire Niko. We all know this is coming, and at some point, probably sooner than later, and we're going to get on some Zoom call like we did after they fired Lucci. [00:33:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:59] Speaker B: And I don't know who, maybe it's going to be me again, that just asks him directly how much of this is your responsibility? [00:34:07] Speaker C: Yeah, well, the best thing we did last time is that some of it was him, too. But, you know, again, they just gave him a big raise. So I don't. I mean, I don't know how much, but I'm sure it's part of it, you know? So let's move on to item three and how we got here. You ready? [00:34:22] Speaker B: Yes, please. [00:34:23] Speaker C: All right, the next one is lack of consistency. And I was looking at, thankfully, FB ref shows you the lineup for in every game. So I went back and looked at the lineups and it was almost pretty much dead solid lock, four, three three. Until we hit that same mark last year, that into May, into April last year when things started going south. And then it starts to vary and it gets changed up and you see that again this year, too. The coaches vary in the tactics all the time, shape all the time, formation all the time. And I think that's a crazy idea. I think if you're really, really good, you can do that. I think if you're man city, you can do that. If you've got versatile players and talented players and smart players, maybe even if you're the crew, you can do that. But if you're a bad team or even a middle table team, I think you have to be very consistent. You have to. You have to work really hard to do one thing really well and get to where that thing is very hard to beat and that thing is really good. And then you make other people react to you by being really, really good at one thing. And you don't go on the road and play something different. You don't. You just do what you do and you try and be who you are. And he was doing that for the first year and a half, four three. Every time the same. A lot of people didn't like the tactic, you know, this mid to low block kind of stuff that they were doing, this rapid transition they're doing. They're not looking to possess the ball. They are, they do build out of the back, but they don't possess the ball. That's necessarily. And then that all has gone all wishy washy. And part of it was this come as a reaction to injuries, trying to figure guys out. Part of it is reaction to opposition, but he didn't do a lot of that flip flopping before things started going south. So that lack of consistency drives me crazy because I'm a big fan of the being just doing what you do and making people react to it. [00:35:54] Speaker A: Do you remember the very start of his tenure? He would, he would finish games in the. Almost in the same formation as whatever the opposition was, but it was kind of like as a kill the game strategy. Now he's just kind of like. It's kind of stretching players out a little bit by, by trying to get them to do too much. You know, you look at Oscar's team, right? It was, it was, you know, soak up pressure, counter attack. You know, there was no real plan b, but it was kind of building a team that, like you say, was kind of good at that one role. Right now it's between two tactics. And for me, the killer on the three four three wasn't the centre backs. It was actually the fullback, the wing back. Sorry. [00:36:41] Speaker B: Sure. [00:36:42] Speaker A: You think about there is, you know, the one player who probably has that profile is not fit, you know, ACL surgery. You look at teams that execute a, that kind of three four three. The wing backs, you know, full pelt, 90 minutes back and forth. Defensively, you know, they don't have to be the strongest, but they have to at least cover, make up numbers, cut out passing lanes going forward, you know, lots of crossing, lots of overlapping runs, lots of cutting inside, underlapping runs on the winger. You know, the, the teams that tend to thrive of it switch play a lot. You know, Dante Seeley, in the first three games playing that role, had one cross. You know, they just do not switch play. They. It's always a check. It's get up, check, check, pass back, go center, keep the ball, lose the ball. [00:37:46] Speaker C: There's. [00:37:46] Speaker A: It is nothing fits that formation. [00:37:49] Speaker B: I agree, Dan, that those two positions are a big problem, but I'll go you one better. I think it's the entire midfield pro is. Is the problem, because not only are the wingbacks not really capable at this point. Whoever's having to play the two center midfield positions is a huge hole in this team. You know, Laramie only played what was it, a game and a half? Yeah, okay, Paxton played what, 20 minutes? Six minutes. Six minutes. And after that it is some sort of weird combination of the canadian. Fraser, a new young kid they got from South America who looks like he might have something but he's certainly not MLS prime ready. [00:38:33] Speaker A: He's growing into it. [00:38:34] Speaker B: He's grown into it or shit. Who's the other one? I'm forgetting about legit. No, Fraser, I said Frazier, Delgado and in there a third. [00:38:49] Speaker C: Who's the CK or Norris? [00:38:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, look, you guys are making my point. The reason why I can't think of the name is there is no name. It's all just a bunch of throw somebody in there and see what happens kind of situation. [00:38:59] Speaker A: Yeah. One thing I'm kind of fascinated about with midfield is, you know, I know we're kind of going to get to the idea of like all these goals that come from crosses and it's something that Steve Davis has mentioned. I didn't read his email today. I haven't got to that yet. But you know, before we did this I, you know, went back and watched all of the goals and one thing is really sticking out my mind. I don't know if they've kind of gone more from that hybrid Manmark and zonal to just purely zonal. But everything in and around the penalty spot is just falling perfectly in between backtracking midfielders and a defensive line that's sitting on the edge of the six yard box. So an attacking player can well attack the ball. Case in point would be the goal that FafA Pico scored. No one picked up his run. It's just. Yeah, there's just that kind of, you know, people talk about that corridor of uncertainty, right, for the goalkeeper on a corner. Well they're just creating that because you've got a midfield line that's just sat on the 18, you've got defensive line sat on the 6th and in the middle is just fair game for any attacker because nobody is tracking those runs. [00:40:11] Speaker B: So buzz, if you, if this was up to you and if your goal is to establish some sort of tactical consistency, what is it of all the pieces that are left and what is it? What is the formation that you think ultimately he's going to have to go to to find some sort of form? [00:40:30] Speaker C: Well, that's a complicated question. First, I wanted to win Dan's wingback thing. Dan, you remember how good Ruan was for Montreal? That was a guy put on a clinic as a wing bag. He was amazing. [00:40:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Case and put his. His pass to Martinez was exactly. Was exactly that kind of. Martinez has the underlapping run. He gets inside of Gonzalez. Ruan just kind of, you know, just. Just coast the ball inside. Nice and easy. That's what you want back doing. [00:41:02] Speaker C: Yep. To answer your question, Peter, I think we have to talk about the midfield just a little bit more. The way they play the three four three. It's supposed to be this box right where right now you don't have your arm Endy and you have Frazier, who's kind of a six only and legit's trying to do some linking. But yet to remember, too, that Dante Seeley is not a particular passer. In fact, when he had a key pass the other day, it was so remarkable. I was like, oh, my gosh. You know, the other side. Whether it be Kamingo, whether it be indelay, or whether it be EMA, is not necessarily, like a crazy creative, you know, passer. Ariel is not really doing it. Jesus hasn't been playing. I mean, Ariel is leading the team in all those categories. Key passes, progressive passes, balls in the final third, progressive dribbles, Arrows leading him in all those categories. But it's not really doing anything. It's not being effective. He's not finding anybody. Bernie's not really, when he's in the air in that role, he's not really an effective passer. You know, Jesus can be, but he's been hurt. So, you know, I mean, again, you saw ANSA for five minutes, play the correct way and scored. So it's. You know, the problem is, is that. And you saw the symptoms of that in the Austin game. I'm getting your answer, I swear, is that the Dallas hit, like, this enormous number of long balls that they normally don't hit. It's like it was way. It was like they had as many long balls as they had medium length balls that they played, because they're basically giving up effectively. Like, they're trying. If they try and do a couple of passes to try and do a build, they basically just giving up and hoofing it long and hoping they can reset rather than trying to dribble it, you know, bring it around and reset and try and cycle the ball back and then try and come again. So they're losing some patience there. And because of the fact that they don't have any effective connecting tissue through the middle of the field. And then when I talked to coach today about the biggest impact of the injuries, he said that was it. It's that ability to connect the back to the front, to do that build out, to do that rapid transition and the fact that they're losing confidence in themselves and the resulting is all these long balls they're hitting. So the answer to your question to me would be to go back to what made you comfortable, go back to what you knew. And that's a four three three. It's a single pivot. 433. You don't have Ermindi, so stop trying to play a double, play a single. Put Liam Frazier in there or Delgado in there, whichever one you want, and go let him go hit people and go back to the four four two with the defensive first mindset, you know, far fan at left back. And Tumasi for now, you know, is the only choice available at right back, but is the better defender of all those people right back anyway, and just clamp that, tighten that back line up and with that single sticks in front of it and go back to the idea of having a double pivot put back on real wingers, which you have a couple of. Kamungo was playing really well. Asus is out anyway. Ariola is better at that than anything else. Dante Celia is better than that at anything else. And you actually have a nine now onset can wing, you know, go back to what brought you good results before and just use that over and over and over again and try and tighten up the back end and try and get back to that rapid transition that Dallas was really good at in all 22 in the first half of last year, in 23. So that would be my answer to that. I would be happy with him picking any single formation and just drilling the crap out of it until you get that going. Because right now, like, if it is the three four three, you know, they're going to need to, they need a center back and a central midfielder, and they need to develop those wing backs. It's going to take all season before they really get it. And I think it's going to be way too late by the time you get it. Really get it. So my, my long winded answer is go back to the four three three the way you played it in 2022, you know, because you. Because you don't have these pieces that you thought you were going to have to make it work as a 343. [00:44:40] Speaker B: All right, well, I appreciate that you had a fourth point about how we got here, Buzz. [00:44:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:47] Speaker B: This might be the most painful of all of them, frankly, it has. [00:44:51] Speaker C: The FC Dallas has betrayed the homegrown system. The thing that made FC Dallas special for a long time. We've talked for about like a decade now. We've talked about how Dallas is always somewhat better. As you said at the start of the show, they've been better than average in the league because everybody can sign players, foreign players, domestic players, everybody can draft. But Dallas had something most teams didn't have. They had the ability to progress through a homegrown that became a solid part of their first team roster. So their first team roster was held up higher by those homegrowns. Paxton Pom McCall and Jesus Ferreira are the only two that are still here. The others have all. And don't say not to see. I'll get to that. Second. Since those two guys came through, every player that became an established first team contributor has been sold. Brian Reynolds, sold. Reggie Cannon, sold. Brannon Sylvania, traded. Same thing. Right? Chris Richards, sold before he became a part of the squad. Evelyn Cerrillo, traded. Ricardo Pepe, sold. Tanner Testman, sold. Justin Che, sold. Right, so that's. Antonio Carrera is on loan, but he's not really into the solid contributions yet anyway. And the other people that are not here, there's another six or seven of them. They all just didn't miss. They all became not part of the key system. Like Thomas Roberts, for example. So the. Dante Seeley is an example, you might say. Well, there's a homegrown contributing. Well, they tried to sell him PSV for two and a half years. Nobody wanted him, and he came back. So now you're using him. So, okay, I'll give you that one, sort of, but not really. They tried to get rid of him. They tried to make money off of him. So the point is, is that the thing that for a long time kept you in the top half of the league is gone. It's done. Now, will there be some more? Will Nolan get there? Will Tark Scott get there? Will the next wave of homegrowns get there? Probably. But if they sell them off again, again, you will have. You'll have cut the heart out of this team. The thing that made it above average all the time. Now, we always lamented they never spent a little extra money on top to make them push it over the top. Well, they finally went out and spent 10 million on a striker. At the same time, they've gutted the roster by selling all these pieces off. Yeah, so that's the painful one. You're right. That's the one that makes me the maddest. And that, again, is not a thing, you know, with the blessings of the hunts, obviously, they wanted to make some. [00:47:11] Speaker B: Money, you know, but that was always the model. But really, the most painful part of it is, is that the two homegrown players that because somebody will go. But wait, what about Jesus and Paxton? [00:47:24] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, sure. [00:47:25] Speaker B: Okay. Well, they're also paying each of those guys a million plus dollars. [00:47:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:29] Speaker B: So it's not like you're, it's not like you're saving money on those two. [00:47:33] Speaker C: Sure. [00:47:34] Speaker B: And one of which, the only reason, and here's the other part, one of which, make no mistake, Paxton wouldn't be here if he had stayed healthy. He would have been sold for a lot of money, and Jesus wouldn't be here if he just wasn't this weird tweener. And it would establish himself as really premier and top class at one particular position that somebody wanted him for. [00:47:56] Speaker C: If he hadn't heard his abductor at the goal cup and he'd have finished the back half of last year and had back to back 18 goal seasons, he wouldn't be here. [00:48:02] Speaker B: Sure. [00:48:04] Speaker A: He also had his injury troubles, you know, in his first couple of years as a homegrown, too. It's not like he's had a clean bill of health up until last year. [00:48:11] Speaker C: And those two guys are great examples, and they're 99s. There's. And we're now up to class. The 2006 has been signed. We're up to 2007, so we're approaching a decade. And you have two players left that are adding value and being a consistent contributor to a team. So people joke about, oh, this is the ix of. No, no, Ix keeps a bunch of dudes get. Sell them all. You know, you can't sell them all and then still be able to compete. So that's item number four on how we got here. [00:48:39] Speaker A: Ajax also sell guys, you know, when they've taken him to a Champions League semi final, just when, hey, we got to the playoffs. [00:48:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:48:49] Speaker A: I do wonder how much actually comes from the hunts in a way. You know, obviously, you know, just to. I mean, this is speculation. [00:48:58] Speaker C: Right. [00:48:58] Speaker A: We know Niko's deal is, is, you know, coming up, um, you know, what the, you know, those end of year expectations and everything, because Dan Hunt talked a lot over the pre season or the offseason. Hey, with their defensively, we just need goals. So then they don't focus on rebuilding the defense that they were losing pieces from, but they go out and spend nearly $10 million on a striker. Then, you know, Ennis Sully as an attacking player too, it just seems like a, you know, such a massive imbalance and something that really to then go for a formation that like say isn't, isn't defensive first. You lose your defensive first left back, your right backs either or it just, it seems so uncharacteristic. And we've talked about Niko's suitability to the DNA of the club, but did the, the ownership of the club decide that DNA needed to be slightly different? [00:49:58] Speaker C: Well, I still push back on the idea that the defense was fine when you remember when Zenaya told me they were good at center back and I said specifically, I think if you want to quote me said that I took that as I was like, you guys don't understand how to build teams in this league then, because to me you were clearly missing a center back when that was when you're playing for, let alone when he went to three select statistically. [00:50:20] Speaker A: Yeah, the defense was there, but you knew you were losing hedges, you were losing Martinez, you knew you had a right back that was going to be out for a year. Like, there was a lot of work to do there. [00:50:32] Speaker B: But I also think, I also think that fails to appreciate the one good thing that they did is they went out and got a Laura Mendy because a Laura Mendy was a key component to this, to the defense solidifying last year through that weird run where they were tying games and not losing games. [00:50:51] Speaker A: Because he is so one game they've won this season where he ran what, 8 km? [00:50:56] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So I think I can see a world buzz where this team talked themselves into this idea that because of all our mendy, they could patch up a lot of things and get away with some things by not signing a big name or big dollar center back. But we are going to make everybody excited by finally signing the big dollar striker and we have all these pieces. We just have to hope everybody stays healthy because on paper, if everybody, if everybody's still healthy, this team is a solid, kind of better than average MLS team. [00:51:34] Speaker C: 100%. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, some of the minor things that are contributing to the bad play right now, you know, are, would be overcome by, as they have been for multiple years by the relative level of talent you have. We all picked them to be in the playoffs, you know, in the middle part of the playoff pack, you know. But again, we, we also talked about the idea when they signed him at 34, that recovery time was going to be slow and we're seeing that, and we, we've all talked all the time about Paxton can't play 34 games. Right. And we talked about how bad it was, in my opinion, that they weren't replacing Velasco. They were just going to eat a DP salary for a season, you know? And so it's like as Ferrer with his always having his core problems. So, like, you hit the nail on the head with, like, you, they had this strategy that was going to work if they all stayed healthy. Man, nobody says healthy in this league. Your strategy has to be what happens when we don't stay healthy. Yeah, I think. [00:52:27] Speaker B: Well, you're right. And at the end of the day, somebody asked me the other day if Niko's the problem. And I don't know the answer to that because, I mean, the reality is the best run this team has had under him was largely powered by the aligning of the stars in terms of a lot of players being in really good form and that. [00:52:49] Speaker C: Very healthy. [00:52:49] Speaker B: And being healthy. [00:52:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:51] Speaker B: Areola legit, Jesus Paxton, et cetera, et cetera. And that really powered that season for him. And when, when things to your point, like, people started becoming, well, it's the seas it started with when the legit thing happened and he, he went, you know, he went to the sack and, and Areola showed up not in the best of form because he was all bent about the World cup and, you know, all of that stuff started and then Jesus got hurt and, and it's just been downhill from there. So I don't know if Nico is a good coach or not. I just don't know. [00:53:28] Speaker C: I think that, like, I think you can look at 22 in the first half of 23 and say that, like, you know, when he has his pieces, I think he's a good coach. You know, the question is, when things went south, did he overthink it and overreact to it? I think you can make that case. We've talked about all the weird formations. We talked about, you know, trying to put his team in a system because he thinks that system can help them beat people rather than like, I am adamant about animation soccer, which is when you, when you getting ready for the season, you have to look at what you have and say, what's the best thing I can do to get these guys on the field? The problem is, is that I think he thinks he's doing that by, by doing all these different things and different tactics and alterations and fluid formations and game shifting, shifting in and out of shapes. I think he really thinks that he is doing the thing that's going to best make his team compete. The question then becomes, is that overly complicated for Major League soccer? This ain't, again, this isn't man State. This isn't Liverpool. We don't have guys that are worth $100 million, but we have guys here that are worth $5 million at most, or ten if you're. If you get lucky with Asus, you know, you don't. They don't have the brainiac soccer ability to play these super. One or two of them do. Your money certainly does. But you see how above the game he is compared to everybody else. You know, packs maybe could do it, which is why that one game we saw him play, that weird six to, like, right backy eight kind of combo thing that he, Niko got from Bearhalter Paxton did that one game. So, you know, it depends on what. How you like your tea, whether he's the problem or not. I think there are systemic problems between him and Zenada and the DNA of the club and the expenditures and the places they did and didn't add players. That's just. There's a whole disconnect happening that's making the injuries even worse, and let alone, like, what's going on internally, that's, I'm not going to say causing these injuries, but sometimes when you have an extended run of injuries, like, of all various different kinds, sometimes there's a problem we don't understand and don't know about, and you can't even identify it until some guy gets fired and Tracy Coleman comes in and all of a sudden they all go away, you know, so. [00:55:31] Speaker B: Right. I don't never. I don't know if everybody gets the Tracy Coleman reference. [00:55:35] Speaker C: Yeah. He was a trainer that left here a couple years ago, but there was a time where they were having a whole bunch of injury problems, and they changed trainers, and he came in and they all went away. Within, like, two months, they were all gone. Right. You know? Yeah. Hmm. [00:55:47] Speaker A: And, uh. And profit Bazan, too. He. Oh, yeah, he was Oscar's kind of solution to a lot of injury problems. [00:55:54] Speaker C: Huge. Yeah. One of the. Yeah. Phenomena. You cannot undersell him, but, you know, and I'm not saying that there's a problem I have. I'm not involved enough in that stuff because I'm an outsider to tell you if there's a problem or not. I'm just noticed that. I noticed when you have a lot of injuries like this, sometimes you. There's a systemic problem in this, in what they're doing. I can't help but think. For example, remember when Nico came in, there was this idea that training was too lax and they were going to push the pace in training. They were going to go drill to drill to drill to drill, and we're going to tighten up and made it shorter. Well, man, it's friggin hot here. You know what I mean? It's like, maybe that doesn't work here. You know, that's the one thing I can think of that he does very different than anybody else. You know, maybe that's a contributing factor. Although it wasn't in. Yeah, it wasn't in season one, but it was in season two, maybe. [00:56:37] Speaker A: I don't know, just wonder what the scientific approach is. You know, like that when the bazaar sema was already here, but for when Fabian Bazaar came in, you know, they started talking about, you know, measuring players strides, really using all those analytics that they get from those GPS trackers and the different cameras that they have in training, having, you know, modifying reps for different players, pulling players out of different parts of sessions, but letting them continue elsewhere. It doesn't seem like something like that's happening. Granted, I haven't been to. The last time I went to practice was. I mean, it wasn't 2024, you know, with the. With the schedules, unfortunately. But I just. I haven't seen that the last few years. [00:57:21] Speaker C: They do a little bit of that. Not as much, but they. I have had seen them yell out guys, so, like, hey, get off the damn field. Stop taking pks or stop working on crosses, you know, you've reached your limit load. You know, they do have some of that. [00:57:32] Speaker A: Yeah, this was kind of like, you know, oh, you know, it's. It's this many. It's as many meters he has to. You know, it's this many yards he has to run. It's this many minutes in this particular drill. This drill's a bit too heavy on. On this particular muscle load. It seems more like, um, you know, okay, just pull him out of the session entirely. Now he's going to go run laps on the side. [00:57:54] Speaker C: No, that's exactly right. Yeah. [00:57:56] Speaker A: Which is more like that kind of shellis Hyneman approach. [00:58:01] Speaker B: Oh, shallow. [00:58:02] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think it's like that quite. Oh, I just mean in general, it's. [00:58:07] Speaker A: Kind of like you're in or you're out. Not like, okay, well, let's scale back here. Let's protect this muscle group. You know, something that, you know, doing shuttle runs on a guy that's got a dodgy hamstring that sort of thing. [00:58:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that was not a lot of fun to talk about. We do have to plug on because there is a game this weekend at St. Louis. It feels like if you. If everybody's bummed out, losing to Austin, um, just. That was against a bad team. Now Dallas has got to go play a team that's going to impose its will on them for 90 minutes. Uh, and you went to training today, you talked to Nico. You got it. And by the way, Buzz, I really wanted to call in sick on this podcast after I saw your podcast teaser video and you announced every. You told everybody in advance the update on the injury situation, which is obvious. [00:59:01] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Well, Yarmindy and Jesus or no go, the one that you may be surprised to hear is that Petter Musa picked up a little tightness in some part of his body in training on Tuesday. So they win. They had an MRI and he's clear. He's 100% fine. So today he was doing like cones and flags instead. But Coach says, as he always does, optimistically, that he's fine and will be available this weekend. So Pattermoos is fine. Coach says, granted, you have to wait till and see what happens on the weekend, but. So he should be good. That was the one. That was the first team player that had a knock and came through it. That was him. But no Yarmini and no Jesus. Both theoretically next week. So. [00:59:48] Speaker B: All right, so pause on that for a second. Martin Bus. Yeah, sure. I'm just going to state for the record, we are now officially at a point I feel like with both alarm. Well, both Jesus, but specifically and more concerningly all Armendi that we're at this point where it's like this injury thing is dragged out one week, two weeks, here we are, week three, and he's still not back. And I just am going to put everybody on officially an injury, big time injury status warning, which is don't be surprised if this, we get a visit or a press release at the end of a week from now and somebody goes, oh, yeah, Laura Mendy, he's out for three months or whatever it is, because it's worse than we thought it was. [01:00:38] Speaker C: Speaker one. Yeah. I saw a report today that he tore his abductor in 2020. So this is a problem area for him. [01:00:44] Speaker B: So it is an adductor injury on him. [01:00:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. This is what it is. The same thing as Jesus or what Jesus was. Now he says the hamstring, but again, you know, hip. [01:00:53] Speaker B: But my point is, is that this has been going on with these guys now for longer than they've been kind of peddling it, and I feel like they're soft playing this. And we're. And we all should be mentally prepared. We can all hope for the best, but we should be mentally prepared for the reality that we may not see one or both of these guys for some time. [01:01:11] Speaker C: Yeah, well, we've always said that one of the biggest signs of the age, you know, 34, is that you recover slower. So it's not a surprise that it keeps being longer than they said it was going to be. That's what I joked about Nico being over the optimist. He's always, one more week, you know? So take one more week on those two guys with a grain of salt. [01:01:26] Speaker B: Okay. [01:01:26] Speaker A: One thing to keep in mind with Iyara's injury is that half game, he had the knock coming into it, and that's why they had him on a minutes restriction for 45 minutes. So obviously he made that worse and. [01:01:40] Speaker C: Yeah, and that's why I told you it was bad that, er, Mandy ran the most miles in that first game. I was like, that's awesome. I was like, no, it's not. He's 34. That sucks. It's not good. So, anyway, training. More training report. So obviously, you know, Niko, at this point, it will not surprise anyone to hear, is trying to keep his guys motivated. So there was a lot of, like, you know, he was putting a lot of energy out today. Niko was trying to get everybody up and attacking and keeping the pace up and keeping them motivated and fighting. So I think that's probably pretty good. That's probably. Probably like that vibe. [01:02:16] Speaker B: I don't feel like that's Niko's forte. [01:02:18] Speaker C: It's not. It's not his usual forte. He's not really that kind of guy usually. [01:02:22] Speaker B: He did a rah rah dude. [01:02:23] Speaker C: Yeah. He did much more vocalization and much more direct running of training today than he ever has done that I've seen before. You know, I think he. I think. Listen, they all know exactly what's going on, and he knows exactly what's going on. You know, they know they're gonna have to have their hands full for the next several weeks until they get some of these bodies back. If they do, you know, so it's. It's gonna be a fight and a claw. And hopefully they don't give up, because if they give up, it's gonna be South Lake. Like, if they don't give up, you know, even if they change the coach, it's like, it's not necessarily gonna rebound, you know, then we don't know necessarily get a. It's hard to get a coach change bump if you don't have any players. So, you know, I don't know that that would help anything. Outside of that, though, you know, they are playing St. Louis this weekend. Who they did. They smoked here, if you remember, last year, and they were doing pretty well up there until they got a red card in that game. St. Louis plays very narrow and very direct. When they get the ball, they don't, they don't miss around that. They go in a hurry at you vertically and they try and, you know, smash it up front to their guys and come at you over the top or in hitting a gap. So there's not going to be this ball to gagging the ball around by St. Louis. I think with the struggles between that, as Steve Davis so eloquently put in his piece, and we've talked about here to death, the spaces between the center back, I think they'll go back to a three at the back to try and tighten those gaps, particularly against a team like Seattle that wants to. Not Seattle, excuse me, St. Louis that wants to run at you. And because they play so narrow, the wing back should have plenty of hay up and down the outside. You know, the question is going to be, can you get back to your ways of rapid transition? Because St. Louis won't possess you too much. They will turn it over and if you can get at them, and that's what Dallas was really effective against them last year. So if you can get back to that, you'll have a chance. That's the idea. That's what you're probably going to go for. So along those lines, it sounds like Musa is ready to go. I think you'll see. Pause. Of course, I think Paul Areola will be your right wing back because of that idea of how much space is going to be out wide, and then it'll be Ibiaga, Nakosi and Sam, of course, left wing back was interesting. Like, I watched Marco Farfan play as much as Dante Seeley did at wingback today. So that might be a coin flip for this one. The idea that you might be able to do things out wide would make me lean towards Dante Sealy, but also you also don't want to get, if you want to occasionally tighten it up and have it turn into a four, because Paul on the other side won't be able to do that. You might lean towards far fan. So look, you can pick whichever one you like there? I don't think you have any choice but to go with like a. Because of the way they're going to come up the gut. I think you might be looking at a Liam Frazier Delgado double pivot in front of that back three. And that would give you. That would let legit play higher. So you might, because Ariel will be in the back. You put legit up on that underneath role with Musa. And because Ansa had a pretty decent game, I think there's a chance you might see Ansa again as one of those two guys with legit, rather than say, bernie or I don't even know who else would be at this point because Paul's going to be, I think, in the back. So that's what I think you'll see. And I think that's how they'll attempt to go at them and. And hopefully we'll see a positive result and not get them get steamrolled. [01:05:46] Speaker B: It's going to be a bloodbath. [01:05:47] Speaker C: It could be, but it's going to. [01:05:49] Speaker A: Be interesting because St. Louis are crap this year. [01:05:53] Speaker C: Yeah. They're not playing really well either, but they're better than Dallas. [01:05:56] Speaker A: Well, there are only wins come against the ten man New York City. You know, they've had a couple of draws, but yes, he's been reeling, too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's two weeks of really awful matchups. Yeah. MLS season pass subscriptions. [01:06:19] Speaker B: Well. And there's no messi to watch because he's out again this weekend. [01:06:23] Speaker C: That's true. [01:06:24] Speaker A: He does not play for FC Dallas. That's fine. [01:06:26] Speaker B: Well, speaking of. Speaking of underselling an injury, I'm surprised his leg isn't broken from that tackle that started this whole thing. And I'm quietly wondering if that that particular tackle and the result of that wasn't worse than they're letting on just because it's messy. [01:06:42] Speaker C: Yeah. They're not going to admit that he's out long term if he is. I'm sure. [01:06:47] Speaker B: Okay, so that is Saturday at St. Louis. And yes, as Buzz is reported to everybody in the discord, they will once again wear the glorious white kits they've worn. They've worn the afterburner jersey. The shirt that we don't like is Dallas shirts. I guess the upside is they've only won it worn. [01:07:05] Speaker C: Yes. [01:07:05] Speaker B: I'll see. [01:07:06] Speaker A: They listen to us and they're undefeated in it. [01:07:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:07:08] Speaker A: 100% record. [01:07:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:11] Speaker C: Now, if we get to the Seattle game and they let in Seattle, where's the red? And Dallas comes in here, where's white at home. Then it'll be like, okay, what the hell is going on? But that'll, you know, this one sort of makes sense because St. Louis wants to wear their pink or whatever color that is. [01:07:26] Speaker B: All right, well, everybody keep fingers crossed. Bedtime prayers, whatever. Hopefully for some sort of result. That would be great. [01:07:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:07:33] Speaker B: Buzz to finish thing up, we had another glorious Dallas cup. [01:07:37] Speaker C: So good to enjoy. Yeah, it was really good, by the way. First off, shout out to the teams that won four Dallas cup titles, which now has. Dallas FC Dallas is now in 15 titles, which is two behind the all time champion t res at 17, and they're closing the gap. So on the boys side, the ECL Red won the 16s, which is amazing because the academy 16s finished third in their group and crapped out in the group play in east Seattle. Red, which theoretically is the second tier, won the thing. That's amazing. Those guys played great. Amazing. At 18s. On the boys side, the ECL white won the championship, which is, again, super awesome. They played really well. Won the 18s, which is admittedly not a great group normally, but those guys played really well as a group. And one that, on the girls side, the, um. The U 17s were won by the absolutely insane zero seven group, which have now won three straight Dallas Cups. [01:08:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:32] Speaker C: And beat a team 20 to nothing. And they didn't get scored on the whole time. And they had, like, 46 goals for something. That team is insane. Good. Your friend Wayne's kids on that dollars on that team. [01:08:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:08:44] Speaker C: And then the oh nine. [01:08:45] Speaker B: She's an a and n commit buzz. She's an Aggie. [01:08:47] Speaker C: Yeah. They've got at least four national team players on that team. Three us and one Mexican. Just a phenomenal team. And then the oh nine girls, which is the under 15. Also one on the academy side, not so great. Lots of teams crapping out. The. The one in the GA cup, the 15s crapped out with the U 17s have now progressed through, which is a really talented team that I'm excited about. But in the back to the Dallas cup, the. I want to give a shout out to the U 19 team. I've talked a little bit about how relatively gutted that team is. There's multiple homegrowns gone. There's multiple big time signings that have gone to other clubs. Ice Stone is not there. Pickering is not there with Memphis. Corcoran's not there with Birmingham. No. No. Norris is with FC Dallas. Tariq Scott's with FC Dallas. I mean, there's a lot of talent gone from that team. It was two other guys that have left the academy just on their own violation that are not in that team. So they're coached by Chewie Vera, who is a phenomenal coach. And every kid in that team basically had the tournament of their life. And Chewie coached his tail off and ran some phenomenal systems at people that confused the crap out of the other teams. And they had an amazing run to the goal, to the Dallas cup super group final, beating Botofugo on the way and playing Sao Paulo, who at every single position has a million dollar prospect to FC Dallas's group of college kids. And they played right with them and had a. Had a beat for a bit and then ended up not being able to hold on. But it was an absolutely phenomenal performance by those kids, all of whom played their best I've ever seen them play. And Chewie's an amazing coach that I think people should pay more attention to in the academy. And he's the former, you know, head of scouting here under Lucci. He was an assistant coach and head of scouting and he wanted to get back into more direct coaching. So that's why he's running the 19s now. He's from Venezuela, I believe, unless I'm mistaken. [01:10:42] Speaker A: So he was a. Yeah, he was a top level coach in Venezuela. [01:10:47] Speaker C: Yeah, won a couple titles, you know, and got to a couple team player cups, played for the national team. Phenomenal coach and they had a great run. So credit to them and super amazing for them to get. I mean, I think it's only the second Dallas team to even get to a super group final and they had a shot to be the third american team ever. It's like a once a decade achievement so far. And they, they had a shot at it. It just was great to see it renewed my faith in humanity. [01:11:13] Speaker B: Well, Dallas cup is certainly back up and running at full power. It was a great tournament again this year, post pandemic. They've really done good work at getting themselves back and in full standing and good times, as always, for sure. So congratulations to all those teams. I do have a question, though, and I am, and I'm sure there's a reasonable reason for this, and I'm not, I don't ask this question to be critical, I am just genuinely curious about it, why doesn't the club's social media account promote those results? Like, why isn't on the FC Dallas Twitter account and on the other social media channels? Why aren't they highlighting the successes of. [01:11:57] Speaker C: Those teams well, they have, they have specific social media accounts for youth and for the academy. And Garrett did do some, you know, lots of tweeting like I do, and wrote some articles, you know, some basic articles about some results. And they, in the main account, you know, tweets about once, basically. So I'm just, I'm going to assume, not speaking for them, I'm going to assume that they don't go all hard in on it because the numbers are just not there. It just doesn't generate traffic. [01:12:20] Speaker B: Yeah. The only thing that I saw was them. Like, they retweeted something Garrett posted. [01:12:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:12:26] Speaker B: That doesn't feel like it's sufficient enough. I don't know. I just, I would feel like for a club that has built its reputation on its academy and its youth structure, they would want to celebrate those results both on the boys and girls side in an official manner. And I just don't see it. And I, and I'm. Again, you may be right, buzz. Maybe it just doesn't track traffic and that's all they care about, which I guess. And that would be a disappointing answer, too. [01:12:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:12:53] Speaker B: You know, I just, I was, I was really surprised for all the success they had in the tournament this year, for none of the social media to directly and on the official club channel talk about that. I'm just can. I don't know why they don't do that. [01:13:08] Speaker A: There's also a possibility that molasses had a little quiet, hey, guys, generation Adidas cup. We schedule it on the same week. Please don't overshadow it. [01:13:18] Speaker C: Yeah, they do make a bigger deal about the GA Cup. [01:13:20] Speaker B: I will, but I didn't see them tweet anything about that either. [01:13:23] Speaker C: Well, it's because they just started or. [01:13:24] Speaker A: Lost the first game. [01:13:25] Speaker B: Well, they haven't so far. How about that? [01:13:27] Speaker C: Well, they shared that. Yeah. More than they have the Dallas cup. Without being privy to the exact reason. I do know that. Like, when I've talked to them about, hey, how can we do this? Hack? How can we do that? The answer is almost always in a Internet analytics. They just look at the numbers of the traffic. You know, there's been guys that have been, they're like, man, I would love to do that story, but it just doesn't do anything for us. [01:13:48] Speaker A: So, yeah, you know, if you think about, like, ga cup, they've got all the broadcasts, they've got, you know, the league's cutting clips. Yeah, I tried to watch some Dallas cup games. I couldn't figure out who the actual provider was because there were three different companies who had never heard of talking about it. So other than, like, the u 19 final, it seemed it was really inaccessible compared to the days where it was, like, always on, whether it was on spectrum Sport or Fox Sports southwest or on just on YouTube, which, yeah, I'm. [01:14:20] Speaker B: Sure, like I said again, it's not my business, and I'm sure there's a reasonable answer for it. I'm just somewhat surprised for a club with this history and in terms of how its core is its youth structure, that they don't pay. They don't pay more homage or celebration of that. It's like patting yourself on the back, you know, it's like. It just seems so obvious and easy to do. But again, maybe there's a reason why they don't do it that I don't understand. [01:14:48] Speaker C: So I will refer you to the first half of the show where we talked about guiding the home ground system. [01:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah, I know. I know. [01:14:56] Speaker C: You know, I just think it's. Some of it's that some of it's like how far away those kids would be from helping the first team. You know, it's. I really. I assume it's going to come down in the ends of the metrics. It's just the audience isn't there. There's no payoff for it. Doesn't get traction, doesn't get clicks, you know, doesn't drive tickets. [01:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that seems really self defeating in my mind, but whatever. Okay, well, there you go. Dallas cup was great. FC Dallas, not so great in terms of the MLS team, and we'll see where the rest of the season goes from here. But everybody just keep your chin up and know there's always next season, and we'll figure out a way to get through this one in the meantime. Right? [01:15:35] Speaker C: Yep. Yep. [01:15:37] Speaker B: Okay. Maybe something, maybe some young player will, you know, show up, maybe Sally will turn out to be a baller, and he'll come up and they'll let him play a game and he'll ball out, you know, against Houston one night or something. Who knows? And we'll all celebrate that. [01:15:53] Speaker C: Look at hope. [01:15:54] Speaker B: All right, well, anything else for Oscar? [01:15:58] Speaker A: Uh, got to the second round of the open cup, unfortunately fell to, uh. [01:16:01] Speaker B: The lubbock, and that was open cup, you said? [01:16:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you were thinking, ah, FC Dallas is crap right now, I will load my MLS fantasy team with St. Louis City players. Edward, uh, lovin is out with a hamstring injury, so don't pick him. [01:16:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. Literally, the podcast has been brought to you by soccer 90 dot. They're your source for all the FC Dallas us national team and international club gear you could want. They got everything over there. Jersey scarves, tees, pre matched tops, jackets. That stuff is amazing. As a third degree listener, you get 20% off. In store or online? In store. Just mention the code third degree. At checkout, you get the same discount you get online. Soccer 90 dot code third degree. Some exclusions may apply. Product was also brought to you by the Lundstrom law firm. For will stress, probate and business law, call 469-515-2559 that's 469-515-2559 or visit lindstromlaw firm.com for a free consultation. [01:17:02] Speaker B: All right, well, awkward dismount. Thank you, Dan. I appreciate your time tonight, sir. I know you're a very busy. [01:17:08] Speaker A: I appreciate being awkward, as always. [01:17:11] Speaker B: Yes, always. And buzz. Doing the Lord's duty, sir. [01:17:14] Speaker C: Thanks. Dallas. Cup was always a blast. It was busy, but it's been blast was fun. [01:17:19] Speaker B: All right, well, here we go into another weekend. Thank you, FC Dallas. Curious fan, for sticking through thick and thin. We will speak to you next week, one way or the other. In another episode of Third Degree, the podcast. [01:17:32] Speaker A: It will get better, probably. [01:17:35] Speaker B: Third degree, the third degree nap podcast, third degree. [01:17:41] Speaker C: The third degree napkin, third degree. Never get third degree. Third degree. Never cast.