3rd Degree the Podcast #271

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Ooh. [00:00:08] Speaker A: Ooh third degree the third degree nap, I guess third degree the third degree nap, I guess third degree the. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Third degree nerd pocket. Third degree of the podcast is brought to you by the Lindstrom law firm. For wills, trust, probates and business law, call 469-515-2559 that's 469-515-2559 or visit lindstromlaw firm.com for a free consultation. [00:00:41] Speaker A: Well, hello there, FC Dallas. Curious fans. Welcome to another episode of Third Degree, the podcast. This one is number 271. It is moi. And he is here. He is back. Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:00:56] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Hello. How high over the moon are you today as England makes it to the european finals? [00:01:09] Speaker C: That was an interesting way to say it. Had lasso. Yeah, nice. It's fun, right? We get to lose to Spain in the women's World cup and then the men's euros. That's enjoyable. [00:01:23] Speaker A: All right, well, I'm. I didn't know if you'd make it tonight because I didn't know if you'd be all drunk and stuff, you know? [00:01:31] Speaker C: You really think I'm this prolific drinker when I'm just a standard middle aged man that drinks socially every now and again? [00:01:39] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Well, it's England playing and you want a game, so, you know. [00:01:43] Speaker C: Yeah, but I mean, it's your divine right a long time ago, so, you know, I'm past my prime years. [00:01:48] Speaker A: Okay. And your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder, thirddegree.net, and the original soccer influencer, Buzz Kerik. Come in, buzz. [00:01:57] Speaker B: Peter, proud to say that I am currently fifth in the kick around european projector pool. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Oh, are you? [00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And if anyone wins. Yeah, if anyone wins. I think I'll finish second. If I. There's three guys with Spain in front of me and then a guy with England. Spain combo. [00:02:12] Speaker A: So Dan has predicted you'll be losing that the race. Yeah. [00:02:17] Speaker C: Okay. [00:02:18] Speaker B: I mean, Spain looks good, I gotta admit. [00:02:21] Speaker A: Well, it has been a wild day as England won their semifinal. Mister Burr Halter got the shit can. And Columbia beat Uruguay in the semifinal of the Copas, and Darren Nunes went in the stands and punched out a bunch of colombian fans. So I don't know. And on top of all of this, we were intending to record this after the Dallas Kansas City open Cup game, but that game has now gone into a lightning delay, which means we have no idea when that game will finish up. So we're going to go ahead and start the podcast by talking about the two games that we do know about. And we'll figure out the rest of it when we figure it out. How about that? [00:03:08] Speaker C: You've just ruined the magic of editing. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Spoiler. Yeah, yeah. [00:03:15] Speaker C: FC Dallas had a great insert score line here. Result. [00:03:21] Speaker A: I didn't think of it that way. Buzz doesn't want to have to spend a lot of time editing. We'll just do this as best we can. So here we are. While we wait for the. By the way, by the time when we started this, they had started the second half, it was zero. Zero. Very dull first half in the open cup. But before that, Dallas. In the course of two games, there was ten goals in two games of FC Dallas action. First up, the win against the Timbers at home, three two. And then the loss over the weekend, two three, to sporting Kansas City. I have no idea where this team is, buzz, but it does, at the very least, seem a little bit more entertaining. [00:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah, they're. They're all over the place, quite frankly. By the way, Dallas has scored 26 goals in its last 15 games. So, you know, at some point they've changed something. And that even goes back to some of the late stage. Niko seven stuff when they were, you know, starting to give up goals as he tried to get forward and win games. But, you know, the. The takeaways are that the. This is still the same roster that they had before, which has the same. Some of the same defi. Defensive deficiencies, particularly crosses into the box. You know, aerial challenges are not. There were a problem early in the season. I have reared their heads again, but it's a product of trying to free the team up. And no matter what you think about how good or bad the roster is, at least Peter Luxane is letting this team play and get forward and try to score goals. And so the record is roughly. Well, I was gonna say roughly the same. It's not relevant to the same. He's. He's basically playing 500 ball. Petrosane is, you know, but at least it's entertaining. Like, goals are happening and goals are fun. You know, it's okay. I'd rather be winning three two and losing three two and playing 500. Then I would be playing 200% and losing one. Nothing all the time, so. [00:05:14] Speaker A: Or Neil nil. [00:05:15] Speaker B: One draws almost draw. Like, draw. As Dan. Or not. Dan El Hefe has rightly pointed out, you can draw yourself to death in this league and be out of the playoffs real quick. You know, when wins is worth three points and it ties only worth one. So, you know, yes, it's still a 500 team. The chances that they're going to climb into the playoff picture are frankly, you know, ridiculous. They need 21 points out of the remaining twelve games, which would be equivalent. I mean, approximately 21 points, it's never a sliding stone, but roughly 21 points, which is seven wins and they've only got twelve games left and six of those games are home games. So they have to start winning on the road, which they haven't done all year. So, you know, at some point you just have to accept the fact that, okay, let's at least be entertaining, at least. At least score some goals and see if we can get the front end of the team working because it hadn't been for a great part of this season and that seems to be happening. You have to enjoy the freedom and the tactics that losing is doing. Excuse me, Luxaine is doing are fascinating to me. I'm quite enjoying them as I'm now getting a handle on what I think he's doing all the time. So, you know, it's fun for us to analyze it and the cup game will be different in terms of how it plays out because it's a West win, effectively. And then who knows what's going to happen in Leagues cup, which is coming up soon. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Dan, you ready to anoint Peter Lux Sane as the new FC Dallas manager full time? Just get it over with? [00:06:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I'm enjoying the soccer. That's such a big turnaround to the past year and change and just. Sorry, I was doing some quick mathematic about the xG kind of not always the best statistic, but under Nico Estevez this season, FC Dallas has averaged 0.95 expected goals per game, which culminated in his last two games. Sorry. His last three games combining for just 1.3, Peter Luxan has averaged 1.925 expected goals per game. We've been crying out for attacking soccer to go with this $10 million striker and a high draft pick striker and everything else. And. Hey, it's happening now. Yeah. Don't mind conceding the odd goal. Sure. Throw Dante's silly mark in on a corner. That just makes it more fun. [00:07:56] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:57] Speaker B: I got accused of piling on Dante. See, the last time when he was responsible for all those goals and they put him again in and he did it again. So it's like, you know, at some point it's not piling on. [00:08:08] Speaker A: No, it wasn't piling on to begin with. You were pointing out an obvious player error and lack of judgment and you were proven right. [00:08:17] Speaker B: Well, he literally made the exact same error that he was hugging on Wilfred, whatever his name is, and the guy just let him drift away, and he scored an easy editor did it again. So, you know, at some point you, like, stop putting him in. You know, that would be nice. But, you know, one of the. I do think there's a disturbing trend that happened in these last two games. We have to talk about. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Well, before we get to what is not working. Okay, let's talk about what is working. I know you're talking about that, like, Luke Sane has allowed them to go forward and create more, but what, tactically, is he really doing? And my bigger question is how much of this is there's just certain players actually playing better. [00:09:03] Speaker B: Well, some of it is that. I mean, Sebastian Leggette absolutely has come alive under this coach and is playing the best soccer, I think, of his entire Dallas time, not of his whole career, just as Simon Dallas, he's one. Logan Farrington has crossed over whatever the rookie hurdle was and is now playing like, not a rookie. That's really exciting. He's being fouled an obscene amount of times by the other team, which tells you that they think he's dangerous, that they have to foul him like that. He's working well with Peter Musa, seeking and sibling is playing the best soccer he's ever played here. Confidence is an amazing thing. He's making some passes into Peter Musa that Jesus Ferrah had missed when Jesus was playing in that same role. So there's some guys doing really good things. Tactically, what he's. What Luxaine is doing is very specifically what. What all the coaches of the last five or six years have always said about tactics is. The tactics are fluid. And if you want to start talking about, oh, you're playing a three four three or a four four two, or whatever, they'll say, like, it doesn't really matter what you want to call it. And the last couple of games, you know, what you would describe as the base formation almost doesn't matter because the shape is flexing in and out of two different shapes. It's flexing from a back four to a back three, primarily with the right back. It's not the same way that Greg Berhalzer did it with Tyler Adams. It's not that version because the guy's not jumping in as a six, but Paul Ariel, more so even than Neiman Chua Masi. But they both did it is effectively, it's a back four, and then when they have the ball, they sit in that four, and the other four guys sit back on top of them in a four and even occasionally the other side outside midfield were Dante Celia when it was him. Or, or it can be Marco Farfan, it could be whoever, it can be Bernie Kamungo. They'll drop back almost into a five. But when they get the ball and go forward, Paul then adventures forward. And Paul's a very smart player and can read the game well. And he's overlapping in two different ways. He's overlapping outside, getting up into the front end of the formation, playing right back effectively like a wing back should actually be played. He's playing right back like a wingback, and then the other person is flexing, is usually seeking sibling who's flexing from the central to the outside, depending on whether he's playing as a defender or central player. So this shape is constantly fluid. And if you, in any given moment in the game, you look at it, you'll go, oh, it's a three, four, three. And then the next game he'll have inverted the front line because now it's Musa and Farrington. So, oh, now it's a three, five, two. And then you turn around, you go, wait, that's a flatback four. And so that sort of evolution of tactics and that modern fluidity of tactics and about coverage of spaces is really nice to see. That's a very modern tactic, very modern ability that requires relatively smart players. Just watch them do it better under Luxain than they did under Niko. It's not exactly the same as Niko did. He actually, Niko probably didn't do it very much because he was so rigidly defensive about their shape, but Luxanne's given them this freedom. And so you're watching it. I'm watching it happen at a much higher level of play and it takes mainly it's being triggered by Paul Areola, who's, as I mentioned, a very intelligent player and apparently so is Siki. And sibling, we never really saw this out of him. I didn't, you know, over the, the time when he was under Niko. But whatever he's doing under the Peter Luxane's doing with him is really working because that guy's playing the best soccer. He's played here too. And a lot of it is, has to do with the ability of IR. Mandy and legit behind him to pass and find him when he's moving in and out. And you can look at the other side and watch Bernie come to go, not be able to do that and see the difference between those two players right at the minute. [00:12:52] Speaker A: Dan, would you do you have any other observations about what, uh, Peter is doing with his team? [00:13:00] Speaker C: I think Buzz just put it perfect. [00:13:03] Speaker B: Okay, well, playing the kids, that's nice. [00:13:08] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. I mean, look, I think, in my observation, Buzz, is that a lot of this is. Is guys are just playing better, connecting passes, doing some of the basic stuff. [00:13:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:18] Speaker A: That they just weren't doing under Estevez, for whatever reason. Now, I don't. I don't know how much of this is coaches bounce. I don't know how much of this is just a different kind of vibe in the room, and people are paying attention or caring more. I don't. I don't know what it is, but the team is more entertaining and fun to watch, and maybe that is the base of it. I don't know how long this carries on for. I don't know how sustainable it is, but it is. It is more fun. How about that? [00:13:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's possible that some of it was the overly defensive rigidity that coach Nico Sevez wanted made people play relatively conservative play to not make a mistake. I'm not gonna say they play with fear, but it's not quite the same thing. But if you play not to make a mistake, when you do make a mistake, you panic, you get in trouble. Maybe you don't try and be creative. And Luxaine's freed them up and given them the ability to try things, and he's even talked about that. He's talked about, I want my guys free to try things. And within a week or two, Paul Oriola was tweeting things like, hey, we thank you for believing us and making us believe in ourselves again and things like that. And really, sometimes you say, like, hey, everyone's just playing better. Sometimes, really, all that. All it takes is some self belief, you know, and some belief put into you by a higher power. In this case, it's your new coach. Sometimes that gives you the coach bounce, and sometimes. Sometimes you pick up on it and take it and. Cause I think the coach bounces over, but I do think that the belief is not over, that he's made them believe they can play, because how often did we talk about, like, they're just being outplayed? You know, even when they would win a game, they won, but they got outplayed. But that's no longer the case. Now we're seeing games where either the whole game or big chunks of the game, they're outplaying people. Now. They still are not the greatest team in the league, so they still have letdowns. They still have road problems, they still have early game problems. You know, they still have letdowns, but they don't. They don't have entire game letdowns like they perhaps you used to. [00:15:17] Speaker C: So the, the word that the players are using is freedom. They're throwing that around, having the freedom to try things, to kind of veer out of position slightly, but to be trusted to still maintain their roles. I think. Siki, a couple other players have talked a lot about the added verticality, something that maybe Niko discouraged slightly. You know, they've been talking about certain players getting beyond the halfway line. So, yeah, I mean, that sort of stuff that, that does definitely contribute to a new coach bounce. But if that's the new style, if that's the new mantra and that's, you know, that. That's. That meshes way more with what, what Lucci wanted to do, with what Oscar wanted to do, what, what we've known FC Dallas to be. [00:16:06] Speaker A: So after this point, and I know we haven't talked specifically about either of the two games, the league games, the Portland game and the Kansas City game, but if I'm doing my math right, since Peter has taken over, he's essentially gone 500 pace, but he. His team has scored 14 goals and given up twelve goals. What I don't know, and I probably should have looked at this before I started asking questions, is have they really moved anywhere in the standings? [00:16:36] Speaker B: No. No. They're effectively still 11th. They've been in 11th basically for, you know, this late in the season. It's very difficult to move up or down. Like the gap to the team above them is like eight points. So they would have to go on like a three or four game win streak to catch that team. And that's. This is the ridiculousness of, like, the idea that you like it. Was there enough time to make the playoffs? No. You're out of your mind. Like, once you're buried that deep, it's like you have to start playing at a clip. That is ridiculous in order to get into the top half and other people have to not play really well. And like you watched in the. On the game on Sunday or people that watch the game on Sunday would have seen that sporting Kansas City is looking a little brighter, too. And they're the team right behind you. Right. So everybody gets better over the back half of the season. So, you know, it's what it would take to get in and what it would take to catch somebody at this point is not really realistic. [00:17:27] Speaker A: Right. And I, and I think the thing the takeaway for me is, is that really all this is about at this point for us as fans is aesthetics and entertainment because the team isn't necessarily, I mean, the team isn't, I mean, it's playing better in some ways, but it's not playing better in others. It's giving up a ton of goals in the, in this stretch. It scored a ton of goals, but it's not, it's not affecting where it's sitting in the, in the record or the stands. It's not really effectively changing its opportunity to make playoffs. So this is really just, hey, more of a feel good thing for, for us as fans more than anything else than it actually. Peter, Peter, making this a better team. [00:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the, you can't, the roster, still, the roster, you can, you can't turn it over this quickly. You know, you can make a run of the cup. You can put some things in a League cup. But here's, here's the saving grace, though. Here's the thing that's like, okay, what's the moonshot that could make this happen? And that's the fact that the next two, not, I'm not trying to get too far ahead here, but the next two games are home games and then they go to New England, who stinks, right? They're terrible. Well, then you got leagues cup. So from July 20 to August 20, you're not playing league games. You have, you have league cup. You don't have regular games. So in that window, you're going to get Jesus Ferga back, Liam Frazier back, Patrick Delgado is going to come back. Maybe Alan Velasco is going to come back. Maybe Giovanni Jesus is going to come back. Okay, you add you had those five guys, plus you go into the window and get something. Maybe, hopefully. So in some ways you might quote unquote, add six guys of a high caliber to your roster and you're going to have, you're going to have nine games left after this. If my quick, real fast math is correct, you know, you won't have a lot of home games because you'll burn two home games before you go, but you'll, you'll still have nine to play. And so then you can talk about ridiculousness when you add seven players of a high caliber per. Well, maybe I'm lean fridge on high caliber, but the other guys are all of a high caliber. So you can talk pipe dreams and you can sell some tickets and get all excited about that, perhaps, but the math is still really, really difficult, even if, you know, but at the end of the day, though, you know, when they gave Peter the chance to win this job and they defined success as the making the plays be a minute, be a bare minimum, that, that's not really a fair thing to ask given the point deficit. But if you can, but if you can turn it into above 500 soccer with the roster you have, because remember, they said it's a playoff roster, okay, look, I'm above 500. If I'd have been there all year, we'd have made the playoffs. Or look, with the run I've made in the cup or look at. I mean, that's, that's what this coach can say this season is about in terms of trying to win in a shortened window and why it still matters for him and for them. You know, even if we can sit out here on the outside and go keep your realistic expectations in check, because realistically it's not a thing, but we can dream and we can get some guys back and we can get excited and we can see what we have and have fun with it, you know. [00:20:35] Speaker A: One of the other players we haven't talked about yet, that I think, at least based on what I've watched in the last few games, that I'm really curious about your opinion of Buzz and Dan too, is what in the hell is going on with Nikosi Tafari? [00:20:51] Speaker B: You know, his mindset is clearly different. He's playing. [00:20:54] Speaker A: Let me just that because he is a very clear reflection of this team where he has moments where he is playing out of his mind well, aggressive, playing hard, getting stuck in, running forward, and then he has some of the, in the last few weeks, a few games, had some real bone headed moments that have crossed the team. [00:21:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that that's a player that coach Peter Luxane has said to him, you know, be yourself, be aggressive, be attacking, because we see Ibiyaga is physical, but he is not nearly, while he's relatively aggressive, he's not nearly aggressive as Nikosi. And Nikosi has clearly changed things in the way he's playing. He too is also bought into this idea of freedom, clearly. Um, the question is like, is it better or worse? I think that he plays better when he is attacking mentally. Now, it doesn't have to be attacking soccer like, he doesn't have to be at the front line, but you can attack in a defensive pasture, right? [00:21:57] Speaker A: A lot though. [00:21:59] Speaker B: Sure. But even as a defender, you can be aggressive and physically attack the play, you know. And so I think I'm willing to put up with a little bit of those boneheaded moments because of those plays, I. Where he runs it down from 50 yards away and catches up and wins the ball away or scores a goal off of a corner that he's up for. So, like, there's a trade off there. And obviously, you know, him not being worth $80 million is because of some of those boneheaded moments or because of the lack of cultured feet or because of, you know, there's lots of reasons why these guys are all in MLS for a reason, but I think he plays so much better when he's. And we. I've used this phrase a lot when he's on the front foot, when he's a. He's the protagonist and not just sitting there waiting like, that was a big Oscar thing, right? Be the protagonist. And so I think that's what he's doing, and I. And I'm okay with it. And that's why I might think about the next window. I talked about getting a center back that was more of a game reader sitter in place, defensive first. That can cover up some of those aggressiveness out of Nkosi or Ibiaga if you're rotating, you know, going forward. So, um, you know, I think with the right player next to him, it'll fit and work you a little bit better than it does right now because Ibiyaga's not the right player for that matchup. It's okay, but it's not great, you know, but I'm willing to live with some nicosiasms because then I get Nicosi scoring corners and talking trash to the stands and all that fun stuff. [00:23:22] Speaker A: The header he scored against Portland was fantastic. [00:23:25] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, that was a scripted play, too. The whole. The whole team went front post and he spun and rotated out, and it clearly set up play. And one of the postgame quotes was from legit. I think it was whoever took that corner, I think it was legit. Talking about how much they love that play he and Nikosi do because they get. They get to run it, you know, training and had it ready to go and knew it would work. [00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, back to back, three, two games, a win and a loss is maybe the best example of what we're getting out of this Peter Luxane run club. Just because it's the good and the bad of everything that whatever he's doing or whatever he's talked them into doing is fun and entertaining. But it also comes, I mean, like, the goal they gave up to lose the game against Kansas City was. Was really unfortunate. And, man, I feel. I feel for all our Mendy, who is not young, he's playing. He started again tonight in this Open cup game and looks like he's probably going to play the entire game. That'll be three straight 90 minutes games he's put out. And that's not easy on a guy of his age. And on that last goal, he got beaten initially on that. And I mean, I hope they're not wearing that dude out if they're trying to make any kind of run this season. [00:24:36] Speaker B: It's possible they might be. But Paul, Paul Ayrioli in that game was playing as a higher player. And he did not track memo Rodriguez, of all people, on that run. [00:24:46] Speaker A: No, he didn't. There was a lot of. I mean, Laura Mendy was not singularly at fault. There was a lot of people that. It was a sequence of events. [00:24:55] Speaker B: Well, the bigger issue with those last two games is that both of those games, Dallas has given up early goals to Portland. They give up an early goal into St. Louis. Loxain said that he thought that they started well for like the first ten minutes, but their first goal came at eleven, and then they scored again at like 20. Like the first half of both the Portland game and the Seattle game. The first half was bad, you know, so that's a trend. It's like, you know, he's going into the locker room and he's giving speeches and he's throwing trash cans. I mean, I don't know that for sure, but, you know, that kind of thing, and they come out on fire. So, like, that's one of the trends to keep an eye on is like, are they continuing to stop flat, start flat? And we watched the first half of this game at Kansas City again in the open cup, and that was a pretty flat first half, you know, so I don't. I don't know that that's the end all beat all, but this, because this club has a tendency this season to score all their goals in the second half. It's something like, you know, 26 of their 30 goals that come in the second half or something ridiculous. I don't have it right in front of me, but it's something like that. So that's the thing to watch. And the other thing to watch is the. The poor shooting efficiency since Jesus went out, their shot on goal ratio has really skyrocketed in terms of like, it's like twelve to three all the time now, which is not good. This seems not good when it has that kind of poor shooting efficiency. Now. It can't just be Jesus. I mean, that's probably a big part of it because it's like he's such a clinical on target finisher. But you know, other guys too are just being more, well, probably free and just blasting it from other places and being less meticulous about trying to develop really good shots and tight running through. [00:26:28] Speaker A: Some of the other players that we've seen in the last couple of weeks. Thomas Pandega and Tariq Scott. Or did he go back to Tarek Scott? Do we know what's the official Dan, you were there. [00:26:39] Speaker B: Was that. It's Tyrick, isn't it? [00:26:41] Speaker A: Tyra, Tyrick Scott. Okay. [00:26:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's changed twice. That's why he's 18. It's fine. I know. [00:26:48] Speaker A: You know? [00:26:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:51] Speaker A: Why don't you tell it for those who are not familiar with the young men, why don't you share everybody, your, your impressions and knowings of him. [00:26:59] Speaker B: All right. First shout out. Noel Norris, 56 minutes with no yellow card. Baby steps. [00:27:04] Speaker A: Dennis Menace. [00:27:05] Speaker B: That's the mess. Oh, so Thomas Pondeka, um, is a central midfield player. He originally, um, was a us futsal national team player and he's one of these guys that the team says they founded, open trout. And I kind of scoff at that because he played at high school here in town and he was an on the national football futsal team. So it's not like he was unheard of, you know, he played, you know, masl kind of stuff a little bit. So it's like, it's not like I think he got invited. [00:27:34] Speaker A: Don't ruin that buzz. [00:27:36] Speaker C: Come on. I was at his first north Texas game, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, they invited him along so that they could, you know, get the standard for the actual open trial. [00:27:48] Speaker B: Exactly. So he played in his first season in North Texas. They played him as a wing and he was terrible. So like 80% of the season was over and I was like, okay, this kid sucks. See you later at the end of the year, kid. And then with like, it was when John Gal took over roughly, maybe like five or six games left in the season. They put him on inside in the middle and the kid came alive and he was fantastic. He's not a pure ten. He's more of like this free eight kind of style player that can play kind of two ways. And he looks great for like the last six or seven games in that season. And then they ended up signing him. So he's been playing again. He was injured for the like the first third of the North Texas season this year and then he got healthy and came back and played really well. And that's why, look, Sane has called him back up to the first team. A shortage of bodies in a particular position he plays, but he played pretty well down there. Now, his first couple of games here have not been great. He's in over his head, clearly, but that's, you know, that's how this goes. You bring them up, you give him a look, give him a little run out. They get a taste, they go, oh, man, they got, I got to work. And they go back and they keep working and they get better. So hopefully that will happen with him. Uh, he's 22, 23. He's a little bit older. He's like a more. You have to think of him like a college draft to pick. Think of him as like Siki coming out of Oregon State. Think of him that way and that'll help you understand, like, where he should be in his projection. Okay, now, now, Tyrick Scott is homegrown out of the academy, 18 years old. For the last three years he was in the academy, he was by far the most dangerous and prolific goal scorer they had. He was the danger player in the academy for like three seasons. Phenomenal athlete. He runs like stylistically, um, Eddie Johnson or Jeff Cunningham, where his feet kind of skate along the ground. You know that style. I'm talking about Josie alto around like that too. That, that load of the ground with his feet kind of shimming almost, it looks like, as he runs, but he running right past people. He's that kind of vertical forward. He can play as a wing or a nine and plays very vertical. And he's scoring a bunch of goals with North Texas soccer club. So he got a chance to get some minutes. He looked pretty decent in that short run out. That was nice. You know, he's the one that blew out the ACLMCL combo last year and was out the whole year. So even this is even his recovery year. You really shouldn't have had high expectations. And he's looking really good. He's leading North Texas in scoring. He's in the top ten, or he was in the top ten till he got called up for MLS next pro. So some exciting young prospects who are up and getting some minutes, finally, partially due to the lack of people available, but also because Loxand is a little more willing to play the kids than Nico. Steve Washington. [00:30:20] Speaker A: Well, I'm trying. Okay. So I feel like I've been trying to figure out where to squeeze this in here because we probably should have started with this because looming over us like the sword of Damocles is the news that. And as you smartly said on Twitter yesterday, Buzz, this was, frankly, this has been coming, which is that Martin Paws, the guy that has been holding this thing together, uh, as best he can, has some suitors in the summer window, uh, and specifically empley, uh, in Italy, is, uh, talking to the club about getting his. Getting his papers. [00:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah, we're not. So I'm certainly not privy to the inside details on this. What was reported was that, that they were so interested in him that there was going to be some kind of meeting today. Now, because it's not in English and the Google translate was probably not. Follow us. I could not tell if the meeting was with a Paz's agent or Paz himself or with FC Dallas. The idea was to get the framework for, like, what it might take to get him from FC Dallas. And that's. And he's their number one target for their goalkeeper. They let two goalkeepers leave and he's their number one target replacement. They have a younger kid they're interested in, too, but pauses their guy that they want. So, you know, Dan, go ahead. If you got something, jump in. [00:31:36] Speaker C: Yeah. Supposedly there was. There's been some contact and they're talking about a loan with an option to buy initially. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. I mean, the reason why I said on Twitter that, frankly, it's inevitable is the guy has been playing absolutely phenomenal soccer for and keeping Dallas in games they didn't have any business being in, and they paid a million dollars to get him. If you remember, Paz was originally on a loan deal and he said hit a requirement, I think it was a games played requirement that automatically kicked in his buy. And I. I went and looked on the Internet today and everywhere I can find it, it says it was a million dollars or a million euros, one or the other, the difference doesn't matter. So, you know, have that in the back of your head. Okay, what would we want in order to sell him? But also consider that Jimmy Maurer is effectively pretty much done. You know, he came out of. He just didn't retire because he was going to do this combo front office thing for them to help them out so they could send Antonio Carrera on loan. Antonio's 20. So, you know, are you ready to hand him the keys to the boat here for the back end of this season if he's on loan? Or does Jimmy play the back end of the season and then Antonio next year? You know, there will be questions that will have to be asked about the keeper situation and you have to include that in your calculation of, okay, how much do I need from them in order to be willing to let pause go? You know, the back end of this season, you probably don't care. Almost like you want some money. Sure, but, like, is it going to kill you that you don't have paws when you're pretty much done anyway? And so then the question is, okay, what would the buy be for me to give up on pause? Well, how good is Antonio Carrera? And that's their internal evaluation. So, like, I think it probably takes north of 3 million, in my opinion, before Dallas is lecture. You can have him. Wow. [00:33:19] Speaker A: That low, really? [00:33:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, they only paid a million to get them, you know, and it'll depend on how much, you know, how long is his contract remaining, right. That's always a factor in it. Um, does he want to go or not? How much money are they offering him? You know, it's. It's all a factor. Like, keep in mind what's he making here? [00:33:38] Speaker A: Do we remember? [00:33:39] Speaker B: Uh, he's on 325, you know, with. With the bonuses up to like 400, which is not a lot. [00:33:45] Speaker A: No. [00:33:45] Speaker B: Right. So he's under contract through 2026. So with some options. So they have him for. They have the long contract to say if they wanted to, they could say no and that. So, like, okay, if you want him, you gotta pay. It's not like he's free in December. Right. So, you know, if. But if they're offering him a million dollars a year instead of $300,000 a year, I mean, can you stop that? You know, so. [00:34:11] Speaker A: No. And you also have to remember his girlfriend is the supermodel that lives over in Europe. He wants to be close. I would assume he wants to be closer to her. And don't forget about the Indonesia, like, how much closer he is. Indonesia too. So. [00:34:26] Speaker B: Well, he certainly seems to love Dallas. He's definitely embraced this city. But at the same time, there's amount of money on the table for him and the. Where it is and all that stuff, you know? [00:34:34] Speaker A: Well, and. And this, the hunts to their credit or discredit. I don't. I don't know how I feel about this. They've also been the kind of ownership that has been very willing to say, hey, if a guy doesn't want to be here and has a better opportunity, let him go. [00:34:50] Speaker B: Especially if you can flip him for a couple million, you know, over the course of two seasons and make a couple extra million back on the vaccine of the deal, you know, I mean, that's not, you know, and I'm sure they are. They'll throw in a percentage, sell on percentage, like they always want. You know, even though he's not their academy guy, he's still a guy that they helped rebuild, take the next step in his career. It also helps their reputation as being a club that you can take a stepping stone with. People from South America, maybe not Brazil or Argentina, but a lot of other south american countries have always considered that to be the case with Dallas. Well, what about european guys now? Can you now sell to european guys that didn't get their work out, their very first thing to that big leap? Oh, come here for a little bit. MLS is now a big stage and we sell. So it's all part of their program that they're under with. Uh, you know, the reason they have Zenada is the buying and the selling, not the winning of trophies. So, you know, and it's. We were about, we're probably going to lose this guy eventually anyway because he's too good, you know, and not american. So that's part of it. [00:35:52] Speaker A: Well, I got to say, if the trade off is a young guy like Carrera getting in goal, I'm kind of up for that because I don't have any anticipation for the season anyway. So if they want to finish the season with him, I think I'd be fine with that. It'd be fun to watch him play and goal. [00:36:09] Speaker B: You know, one of the things I said about antonio, I think today was that, you know, you. Right, right. Today, of course, he's nowhere near as good as Martin Pawes is, but he was the number two choice for the U 20 team. And you would expect that a guy that well thought of at the U 20 age group, that that's not U 15, that's U 20. You know, that over the next five or six years, that guy's probably going to be really good. You know, maybe he's not really good today, but, like, this is how this works, you know? Do they need something in between? Possibly. Maybe he's not quite ready to be the first team guy. I mean, Drew keyshawn's a. One of the best goalkeeper coaches in the league, so if he thinks Antonio's ready, then I think it's ready, you know? You know, if I had to win a game today, would he be my first choice for the first team? No, of course not. Pause would be, but that doesn't mean at some point you're going to. Eventually, you got to play the kids to find out if they can hack it. And that means eventually you got to put Antonio in games at that level because that north Texas, he was dominating North Texas last year. The reason why they did alone for him this year was because playing in North Texas wasn't going to do him any good anymore. They wanted to challenge his space, put him out on an island by himself, away from his family, away from the club, and make him grow and mature. And hopefully that has happened, you know, and hopefully we'll get a taste of them soon and find out before they sell. Pause. [00:37:24] Speaker A: Well, didn't Antonio's brother just sign a deal with the league of MX team to Luca? [00:37:30] Speaker B: Yeah, he's. He's moving from. I don't know whether it's a loan or a sale. He's moving from Holston keel to Toluca. [00:37:36] Speaker A: Well, okay. Well, things happen in the Carrera family. [00:37:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. [00:37:41] Speaker A: Paying off. Well, I don't know where I put that. I mean, I have really torn feelings about that. It would be great to see Paz get an opportunity to move to bigger and better things, but he's had such a stellar season and actually two seasons because he was great last year, too. Losing him now would. Would really suck, but I think probably everybody wins in that deal if they can get the right deal on the table. [00:38:06] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I mean, at some point, this roster needs a fair bit of pieces to really get to where you're competing at the top of the league, you know? And if. If you have to add goalkeeper to that list, so be it. You know, we ought to be able to come up with american goalkeepers that are pretty good. You know, may, maybe, you know, they found Jimmy Mauer, who was pretty good for a couple of years, and Antonio should be pretty good. And if not now, in a couple of years, you know, they had ice stone, who they missed on, but he would have been pretty good. Michael Cohody is doing great things with North Texas right now, which makes you feel good about him being a, you know, a second or third at some point down the line. So, you know, I have great confidence, actually, in the SC Dallas keeper coach and their keeper evaluation process. You know, there's another academy hit coming through that looks pretty good at the 17s. We move 19s this year, so I'm not in panic mode about losing Martin paws. You know, I think enough of Antonio Carrera that at some point I'm ready to start him. It may not be today, but it may have to be today. We're about to find out. There's no reason why Jimmy Maurer couldn't finish this season easily too. I mean, that would be fine. Or if you, if you sell and pause, maybe you can find somebody else that's like that, you know, I mean, they have this european scout now, you know, they found him in the first place, you know, somebody else making a pop up. [00:39:20] Speaker A: Um, yeah, that would be a weird way to divide the season would be like losing him after. All right, well, all right, we'll, we'll see how that plays out. When is the window open for that to happen? [00:39:31] Speaker B: Well, the, the outbound would be based on whatever the italian season window is. I don't know what that is. I know the MLS one is the 18th, but that's for inbound MLS players. You know, theirs is probably already open, I would think. Actually, Dan, do you know when they're the Europeans windows mostly opened? [00:39:47] Speaker C: Um, I want to say it should be already open like you said. [00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That's one of the things about when we've talked about, like, why hasn't Dallas announced something? Cause, like, you know, most of those teams and whose seasons all ended started making their moves of getting rid of guys. So there should be a bunch of guys that are out there free right now or willing to be moved from their teams right now. And we see MLS team signing these pre contracts and these announced players that aren't active until the 18th or whatever, and we don't hear anything from Dallas. And it's one of the reasons why we're nervous that, okay, you guys have had all season to line up something. Why is there not something ready to go? Maybe there is. Maybe we just don't know about it, which is very possible, of course. [00:40:26] Speaker A: And that leads me to something you did on your discord today, which was take a poll of your discord subscribers, all guessing how many players Dallas will sign in this particular window. Buzz, what was the winning number? [00:40:41] Speaker B: One. One was the main number. Yeah. [00:40:44] Speaker A: One is the loneliest number. [00:40:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And zero got votes. People were like, no, they're not getting anybody. [00:40:50] Speaker A: I was really torn between zero and one. Buzz, I gotta be honest with you. [00:40:54] Speaker B: That was two. [00:40:55] Speaker A: I picked one. [00:40:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I did one also. I think there'll be one. You know, it might not be somebody exciting, but I think there'll be at least one because they have an open roster spot, so it makes, and they have open international spot and they have an open U 22 initiative, which they shouldn't use, by the way. You should not use that because you might need it for Delgado. But, you know, they still have an open roster spot, you know, and if you're about to lose your keeper, then maybe that changes everything again. Anyway, so we'll see. It's a fluid process. Peter. Yeah. [00:41:25] Speaker A: Do you see? You're not making predictions? [00:41:29] Speaker B: No, no, I'm not making predictions. [00:41:30] Speaker A: You don't have a gut feeling about. [00:41:32] Speaker B: What moves they're going to make? [00:41:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:34] Speaker B: Oh, I wrote a thing about that. I wrote a strategy for that. [00:41:37] Speaker A: That was why I asked you. [00:41:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't wrestle. You were leading up to. Well, that wasn't a prediction. That's a suggestion. [00:41:43] Speaker A: Right. Okay. [00:41:44] Speaker B: Right. I mean, listen, you, me, Dan, every national writer out there in the world says Dallas needs a center back. It's fundamentally true that they've needed a center back. They've needed one for like three or four years. You know, my suggestion was somebody like Reto Ziegler, except not Reto Ziegler. He's now 40 or whatever, somebody in their late twenties that has a style similar to retro Zeigler had. That would be lovely. That's the kind of player that they need, you know, and probably an international, left footed, smart game reader, intelligent, experienced, you know, someone that can be a good balance. Nicosia di fare. Nicosia deserves a frontline center back to be next to him, you know, and you can, you want to keep ibiyaga, too, because you occasionally want to go three at the back. So, you know, or have a good rotational guy you can bring in. But that's the, that's the main thing. And then the other thing I wrote was that they don't need to replace Paxton because they have a Paxton replacement. His name is Sebastian Leggette. Leggett is playing fantastic. He's doing everything that Paxton was doing. So there's no need to go out and do something crazy and wrecking your cap for 2025 trying to replace a guy, you know, that's going to come back probably anyway, so just stick Pat with legit and be content with that. If you absolutely 100% are like, okay, I need a central midfielder body, just go sign Diego Garcia from North Texas. He's going to be probably signed this winter anyway, you know, but they don't even need to do that. If you, if you really needed a guy for one game, just do an emergency signing or just try let Pondecka play again or let Norris play again, you know, there's no reason to force something into your roster, you know, at Paxton's on 900,000. So, like, if you're going to replace that, you need another player of a similar sort of salary. Well, that's what legit is, so there's no reason to go get somebody else. Just let little jet do it. That's fine. [00:43:27] Speaker A: Now to the Open cup where we are editing this in because obviously it ended well after we recorded the rest of this podcast. And here we are on Thursday morning talking about Dallas losing and now out of the open cup after going to added time and losing to Kansas City. Two to one. Buzz. Not good. [00:43:49] Speaker B: Yeah, not good. You know, there are some positive game, but there's definitely some negatives too. You know, it's. It's a. It's a really good hallmark, actually, of the entire season for FC Dallas. On the positive front, you know, that we've been talking about this efficiency of shooting and they return to the more of a 50% kind of mark, which is really excellent. They ended up being 17 shots with eight on goal. That's pretty quality. But then the other side of that coin was Melia. The Kansas City keeper did a pause and had six saves and really put them in the bind in terms of converting. And there were. Bernie Kamingo got in on him maybe three times and probably could have scored in there if he had a right foot. And, and Sebastian Leggette was crashing the box pretty well and he had two really nice opportunities that Melia saved in a pretty good fashion. Not. They were not bad shots. Bye. Legit by any means. And Dallas did end up scoring on a good finish by Peter Musa. But, you know, sometimes you just have games like this where the opposition keeper does really well. And on the other side of the coin is that there are some breakdowns, of course, that happen on things that have been breakdowns lately, which is these crosses into the box. And again, a goal on a corner, which is only the third of the year, but happened, you know, twice before this very recently. It's a very new problem that they're having problems with corners. So something has changed in that capacity. I don't know what it is. It's just general, you know, as the game went on, the. Peter, you know, we've talked about how big parts of this spine are just really too old and, and I've raised the concerns about guys not playing 90 minutes enough. And then when you got to go 120, Dallas really started to tire an extra time and they really struggled to compete. And the funny part was is that, um, Yar Mindy was the one that was actually doing more work and still competing the longest because we know he's one of the fittest guys on the team and some of the young guys were the ones that were crapping out because they just couldn't handle it or had expended too much energy. So microcosm of the season and a tough one for fans because that's. That pretty much kills the most of the good chances Dallas had to let do something this year. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Well, a couple of observations from this, let me speak to the game itself. The reality is, is that this is two non playoff teams just kind of pounding each other on the head. The first two goals, just bad defending by both teams, switching off, leaving players open that shouldn't be open. I mean, these are not good MLS teams. And so it is kind of an even keel battle both ways. And it just was a little bit of luck, you know, um, that Kansas City was able to convert their one opportunity where Dallas missed theirs. So I don't know how much that tells you. What I do think on a larger observation is that what we are seeing under Peter looks in, look, saying, excuse me, is that what is being revealed are the reasons why Niko had this team played in such a controlled and defensive manner. Because since he has left this team, this team is bleeding goals at a unbelievable rate. If you go back and look at how many goals they've given up, I think they've given up now 13 goals in, is it six games, I think, at this point, or seven games? [00:47:14] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't count, but something like that. Yeah, yeah. [00:47:17] Speaker A: And, and, and I think when you say buzz, I don't know what's changed. I think what's changed is the removal of Niko's overly defensive and manner of playing, which was very, very protective of his belief that if I let the rain, if I let go of the reins too much of this, we're just going to leak goals left and right. And I don't believe we can score enough goals to make up the difference. And I think that's what this is. And this, along with the two, three, two games back to back, I think are really, really perfect reflections of the difference between what is going under, going underneath Peter and what was going on underneath Niko. [00:47:57] Speaker B: No, you're exactly correct. That's what has happened. In terms of the macro, macro goals. I was specifically referring to the goals off corners. When you don't give up any goals off corners all year and then all of a sudden you give up three of those in a week and a half. Something changed in terms of the defensive marking or whoever's diagnosing the corner. Something changed in terms of corner goal specifically. But you're 100% correct. Um, that this is exactly why Niko was playing this incredibly defensive system. You know, he didn't believe enough in the loosey goosey sort of defending methodology. He was 100% into a rigid, structured system. It was because of the fact that he had. I think he knew he had defensive deficiencies. You know, Martin paws in that kind of system is capable of keeping you in games and giving you some ties and wins. I. You know, the corollary argument would be, well, getting a bunch of ties doesn't help you any. You know, at some point you have to win games and. And so, look, sane has gone. Unsurprisingly, when a guy gets fired, you go the other way, you try something different. So he's loosened the reins. And you're right, they are leading goals at a pretty prolific rate. I mean, you can even. The wins, like the Minnesota game is five three. Seattle's a loss, but it's three two. The only game they were tight. Washington, Cincinnati. But remember, Cincinnati was missing a bunch of players. You know, they give up two to Portland, three to Kansas City, two to Kansas City. You know, like those are. That's a pretty high rate of goal capitulation, you know, becomes. One of the things we've said about it, though, is that like, it's more fun to at least be scoring goals and competing, you know, but it again, like, the. The way things have changed under Peter accentuates the fact that what we've been saying all along, that there are deficiencies within this team, that you can't play open and free and try and outplay people and not give up goals. You know, those two things won't work. You can look at teams at the top of the conference, even just look at FC Cincinnati, right? They lost two center backs that are better than the center backs Dallas has, and they ran out there with reserve center backs. I think they even lost their third best center back, too. And then they still held Dallas to just one goal in that game. Game. Because they're a good defensive team across the board and they have multiple players that can play this positions at a level higher than everybody Dallas has, except maybe Nicosi. And we've talked about how Nicos is playing this very aggressive method and is willing to accept a certain amount of mistakes, you know, so I think under look, saying this is the way it's going to be. Unless he changes his. His ways, we're just going to see a lot of high scoring games, a lot of free games. That doesn't mean that it's good soccer, but it's a lot more entertaining soccer, for sure. [00:50:28] Speaker A: Well, I would. I agree of all of that, but I, it's also infinitely predictable. This is all kind of what we've been talking about even leading up to Steve's sacking, which was, look, unless, unless they're bringing in a particular type of manager, the person that's going to be here is only going to be able to do so much with so little. And that's kind of what we're seeing the results of. [00:50:52] Speaker B: Yeah. I think I've said things like, you know, if you bring in a, a good manager in this league, you know, that you could swing, you know, three or four, maybe even five places in the standings. But you can't go from being FC Dallas to being LAFC with the same set of players. Right? You can't do it like LAFC. Just go look at their roster and look at the money spend they do. You know, look at what Atlanta is about to do with. Like, they've just sold like $50 million of the players and they're going to go turn that thing over. You know, there's just, there's some teams that are at the top of this league. I mean, go compare FC Cincinnati's roster, when healthy to FC Dallas's. It's just, it's a different caliber. You know, you can, a manager can come in and can take you. And I've said this about european teams, too. You know, if you're, if you're in the top six in England, you can change your manager and you can go from third to first or you can go from six to third, but you can't go from 20th to third without spending $250 million. You know, and the equivalent of that in MLS is that this FC Dallas roster right now needs more talent and it certainly needs to be healthier talent. And I don't know that the manager changes whatever's going on with their health issues that are causing, again, all these injuries in midfield, piling up, it's all the same position, which is the weird part, is it's all the mid for midfielders. It's not the strikers that are going down. It's not the center backs are going down. It says something about the way the team plays, perhaps, or it says something about their system or I don't know what it says. So, you know, they need to evaluate that across the board to figure out what's going on with that. And the manager's not changing that. So, you know, it is what it is for the rest of this season, you know, and we have to evaluate Luke sane on what he's doing, and hopefully the club is, too. And, you know, the thing about luxe is that even if he does a good job, you never know what other candidate might come out there. You know, not to be stupid, but, like, if Juergen Klopp calls and goes, hey, I want to coach FC Dallas, you think Luxe has a shot after that? No. I mean, that's a, that's a, you know, crazy example, but that kind of thing could happen to him. You know, even if he has a good season, there still could be some candidate that makes them go, oh, Peter, we love you, man. But so, and so called, you know. [00:52:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is probably not the time to get into it, but I, this is where I get really frustrated because I think historically, we know where this thing is going and where this thing is headed in terms of how they're going to end up, how they're going to hire because of. Well, history just tells us this is the, this is the type of hire the hunts make for this club. They have. They've hired eight managers, and only one of them has had any MLS head coaching experience. One of them and only. And only two of the eight outside of that one had any head coaching experience at all prior to. At any level. Yeah, prior to taking the Dallas job. So I think I know the type of person they're going to hire, of course. And the irony of this is, is that if, in fact, Dallas had brought in somebody with a significant resume and a lot of experience, I would make the argument that what they would have done is they probably would have gone on a path similar to Nik. They would have. They would have assessed the situation, recognized the problems, and what you would have ended up with is probably something not dissimilar to Nico Estevez's system of focusing on keeping other teams from scoring on you and, and trying to figure out the small little things you can do to maximize the few opportunities you, you actually create. That's what I think would have happened if they had hired a really, really experienced coach. [00:54:25] Speaker B: I mean, I think even a coach like Luke, say, might have done that if he wasn't coming on the heels of a guy that got fired for doing that. You know what I mean? Like, if Peter didn't have this mandate of, like, we got to score more goals, he might have come to the same conclusion. [00:54:39] Speaker A: Right. Speaker one, but. Right. No, you're right. But isn't that the difference between hiring a guy that is like, just trying to win a gig versus a guy that actually knows what he's doing and has some gravitas and can Dan Hunt and go, damn, this team is not very good. You want to have any chance, you've got to do it this way? [00:54:57] Speaker B: Well, it's, it's certainly, it's certainly that. It's also certainly a guy who's the interim and has to win it to get it right. And it's not like, isn't just getting the job through an interview because like, when you hire a coach through the interview process, whoever the next full time coaches, that guy's not going to be judged on a month and a half, not going to be judged on twelve games. He's going to be judged on. He's going to get a whole cycle, you know, two, three seasons. And if three seasons in, it's not good, then it's like they'll make a change like Nico has right here or like Lucci has right here. And the other problem, of course, is, and not to go too deep on hiring at this point, is that you still have a front office, that it consisted of Zanata and another tv they brought in and all these other people. Sometimes a big, huge name won't go into a situation like that because they want either full control themselves or they want their guy. Like, I'm going to bring in my player guy and we're going to do this, you know, so, like, it's a complicated setup in terms of like, how you're going to go forward on what kind of guys you can get, but it doesn't change the fact that you're 100% right. And I think we've said this from the beginning of this season, that one of the reasons Niko did what he did was because we think the roster was so deficient. And we've talked over and over and over again about how, yes, the team was low and goals given up, but it was because of the system and it was because of the goalkeeper, not because of the great defensive back five, you know. And so I think any coach is going to come to that same conclusion. Those people are a lot smarter about soccer than you and I are. And we can. Sure, you know, so I think at this point, the takeaway has to be with like, okay, the best path for salvaging the season is over with the open cup out. So that leaves you Leagues cup, which is a tough one. Now there, there are two games are winnable. So they can probably get out of their group because Juarez is not that great. They just started their season. St. Louis is not doing very well, except that you got to go to St. Louis and Dallas has never won a game all year, so problematic. [00:56:43] Speaker A: Road game all year. [00:56:44] Speaker B: Road game. Sorry. Yes, sorry, sorry. Road game all year. [00:56:46] Speaker A: So that's not that bad. [00:56:47] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's not only one team gets out of the group, if I remember it correctly. So it's nothing. You know, it's a bit of a crapshoot that you're going to be able to get anything out of the league's cup, which leaves you just these twelve remaining regular season games, of which you probably need to win seven. You know, and so there's a, there's a diminishing return when guys are going to realize time is running out. So now I'm playing to get another job. When I'm either playing for tape for the next coach coming in, I'm playing for Lucy Luxe, and if he's the next coach, I'm playing for my next stop. If I'm going to get cut by this team, you know, or other guys will be like, you know what, I'm 30 and I'm done after this. I'm 35 and I'm done after this. So, you know, it's going to be a mixed bag of what kind of performances you get as the season wanes on an interim coach. It's going to be tough for the team to continue to put out super positive results and keep competing, you know, and hopefully, at the very least, they'll be entertained. [00:57:40] Speaker A: Well, a couple of things before we move on to, uh, what's coming up in the next couple of weeks. One, it does beg the question, do they make the decision to shut down Jesus, depending on what this injury situation is for the season. Two, related, do they consider just calling it, just calling it for Velasco and or Giovanni Jesus, you know, and their health situations, like, why risk 2025 on two guys coming back? I mean, I don't know what their recovery situation is, but you certainly. It's. The point being is you don't need to rush them back to try to salvage a season that is unsalvageable. [00:58:22] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, that's, that's totally fair. You know, a couple of those guys are in shorter windows and we'll talk about some of them in terms of going forward in the next couple games. But that's a really good question about those other two dudes, you know, and maybe Jesus as well, because of the long term pain, you know, that you're gonna have to get through with those guys that's a really interesting question. I hadn't thought about that. What's the dwell on that a little bit. [00:58:44] Speaker A: And then this is a completely unrelated observation, which is, you know, turn on the game, open cup. It's a summer night. It's. School isn't in effect. I know there was rain coming, but I was shocked at the poor attendance for this game in Kansas City for Open cup. After all of the noise about Open cup and everybody's outrage over how much the Open cup was at risk, and everybody loves the Open cup in this, the fact that you can turn on the Kansas City Dallas game and see, what is it, 30% full at Kansas City. [00:59:22] Speaker B: Yeah, they're having a really bad season. The funny thing about that is that sporting in Seattle are the two teams that actually take the Open cup seriously. They both won four and they're both there. Two of the last four teams left. They're both trying to be the first team in MLS to win five. You know, they both are very, very serious about the Open cup, not just in terms of what they say, but what they actually do. And so then to see that kind of attendance at sporting, where I've been at an open cup game there when the thing is packed out, so, you know, maybe they knew the weather was coming. Maybe it's their bad season. Maybe it's the MLS's insistence on not marketing these games. I mean, like, you couldn't even tell there was a game last night on the front page of minimalist website. You know, they buried those games in their setup and they're, they're hard to find on tv. And, you know, I fear for the future of the open cup. I honestly. [01:00:06] Speaker A: Well, this leads me to my other observation, which is, what must you feel like if you are a sporting Kansas City fan? Because that is an organization that has been lauded for doing all the right things. We have done. We have spent so much time applauding and parading around the success story of Sporting Kansas City. But if you think Dallas's season is bad, actually three points behind Dallas on having played an extra game than Dallas, and you've got Peter Lou, Peter Vermeer kind of lording over all of this, and, you know, that's a roster of dudes very much like Dallas. [01:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, imagine if they hadn't won that six point game, they'd be nine points back at Dallas, and that's terrible. Yeah. I mean, you know, for me, it's just in a situation where I think he has nobody that says no to, to him. And if you watch them play like the guys that have carried them for a long time, Russell and Polito are definitely into their fading part of their careers. Right. That team needs a complete sort of tear down, just as Seattle and Portland did. And they are in the middle of, and are being successful with, you know, so I. Whether Dallas, Dallas needs that same thing or not is hard to say. Some of their very best players are those guys in their thirties, which stinks. It's definitely true that Dallas is too old, but, you know, you watch Yara Mendy performing versus, like, Polito, who's running out there looking like he's a ghost of himself, you know, and you can, you can see why they're in the situation they are in. Vermice is probably smart enough and has won enough titles that he'll get the chance to tear it down and rebuild it. But, yeah, it's in a bad way. [01:01:40] Speaker A: Well, I think the point I'm trying to make is, is that for all of the criticism that we put, we put on Dan hunt and Clark Hunt for how they operate this thing, it doesn't mean just because you have an ownership group that does all of these other things. Right. And create, builds an amazing stadium, that's an amazing atmosphere on the field, has won previous championships, et cetera, et cetera. Means that on any particular season, you're going to be competitive and. Or that you don't hold on to something that maybe you shouldn't hold on to for too long. [01:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, in this business, you got to constantly be turning it over. You got to constantly striving to get better. You can't sit on your hand instead of your laurels or you'll get passed by. That's what happened to Dallas, what's happened to Kansas City. [01:02:20] Speaker A: Okay, now all that stuff's out of the way. Let's look forward. They've got two games in the between now and the next time we record one of these things. First off, home against the Galaxy, who are playing out of their mind. Good. And by the way, I thought looked really good when. Looked pretty good when I saw them out in LA a month or so ago. Buzz, that's going to be a hard game. [01:02:44] Speaker B: Very difficult. You know, it is at your home. But, you know, as you mentioned, a lot of these guys for Dallas are playing a lot of games. You know, you have to consider well, I would say you have to consider the long term of the season, but it may be that, that understanding is that you may not have to, but you also have to understand that there's a game against the Galaxy this weekend, and then there's a, there's another midweek game after that, which we'll do in a second. So you have to understand that like, basically from now until leagues cup, basically you're pretty much playing every three or four days. You can have a midweek game all the time. So you're going to have to continue to do some of this rotation that Luxang has been doing. So, you know, who might go against the Galaxy, you know, since you're coming off of the cup game on Wednesday where you rolled out 100%, like your best eleven, this is as good as we can be. And then you're going to play again against the Galaxy, who are really, really, really good. And then you're going to play again against Austin, who is good but not as good as the galaxy. So maybe you sacrifice a little bit this Saturday, three days later, and running, rotating some guys, and then you could come back again next Wednesday with your full team. So how you bounce back and forth between that and balance that stuff is tough. Like Luke saying is theoretically trying to win all these games. Like, remember, they need seven wins. So, like, you got two home games here. You really need to win both of them. You pretty much got to win all your home games if you're going to have a chance at this thing because you've not run a single road game this year. So you know, how you, how you dial up two winning rosters against the Galaxy and Austin and back to back games is tough. That's. I don't know that that's doable. [01:04:21] Speaker A: And what is the injury situation with everybody at this point? [01:04:25] Speaker B: Well, I looked at that and Ferrer went out after the Seattle game. So this weekend will be three weeks, which was kind of the prognosis. So there's a chance that Ferrer could be back between those two games. You know, maybe even for the first one, maybe for the second one. And then Frazier went out after the Cincinnati game. So he's just now going to be at two weeks. And his original thing was two to three, so less likely he'll be back. Delgado was a longer time frame. He's. He won't, I don't expect, back in time. [01:04:55] Speaker A: What is it? What? Stelgato's injury. [01:04:57] Speaker B: I think it was a hip thing. I don't. They're, they're putting like lower body and upper body on the injury report these days, which is kind of like, whatever. But I feel like if I remember correctly, Delgado was, like, going to be a month or two out so Delgado and Alan Velasco and Giovanni, Jesus. We don't really know when any of those three guys will be back, other than it'll be before the end of the season, you know, but. But Jesus. And I, uh. Liam Fraser could definitely be involved within the next couple of games if their recovery went as it was predicted, to which I don't know why it wouldn't. They usually relatively knowledgeable about such things. The medical staff is like, how long it's going to take. So, you know, can you bring back one or both those guys to try and help relieve some of the pressure? Can you place a couple more kids? I mean, there's some opportunity here to get more kids in these games. So, you know, it's an interesting question, like, do I want to sacrifice one game or the other? Which game I'm more likely to win? But honestly, you got to win both of them if you're going to give it a run. So I think. I think Lok sand will try and win every game he can, honestly, you know, and how you do that is tough. Those are the tough questions. [01:06:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Galaxy and Austin back to back at home. Austin's a Wednesday game, so that will be. Hmm, interesting. Yeah. Meaning I bring that up, meaning there won't be a ton of people traveling up from Austin. I doubt for that game. It won't be like a big sell out. I mean, well, it'll technically be a sellout, but, you know, I mean, Austin has eat out. [01:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Austin has 30 points, which is seven points ahead of Dallas. That's only two wins better. They have eight wins and Dallas has six wins. So given it's your home court, it's like, you know, that's a game that you should have an expectation you're going to win. You know, it's a team that's relatively close to you in the standings. They're going to be bad on the road. They only have two wins on the road, and Dallas has got six wins at home. So, like that, you know, that's balls in your court, balls in your favor. LA Galaxy, however, a third. They've got five road wins. So that road, that game is very, very difficult. You know, no matter what, how, which way you slice it, the galaxy is going to be a very difficult chance to get a win there. You know, you almost have to try and go if you think you need both wins and you really do, you almost have to put more weight on the Galaxy game and then try and hope that you can muddle through the Austin game, you know, but if or you can just sacrifice Galaxy completely, but that's not going to get you into the playoffs, you know, look, saints got some tough calls to make because, you know, the game after that against is against New England, which is a winnable game, but it's on the road but they're not very good. So like you have to feel like, you know, they've only got four wins at home, so like maybe you feel like you can go in there, they've lost six of their home games, so, oh, we can go there and get a point, you know, so that's the. Maybe that's our road when we finally get. So maybe you have to stack your team in order to capitalize on the weekend games and let the galaxy, the awesome midweek one, not be important. This is the battle you face when you're trying to win a job as an interim coach. You know, it may be contrary to actually making your team better for 2025. [01:07:52] Speaker C: Oh, I think as well, you know, you think about when Luxan was introduced. So they talked about a mini season, right? Having open cup, having leagues cup. Well, Leagues cup starts ten days after the Austin game, you know, so there's that. Okay, well, if the league is a little bit out of reach, do you want to burn players out or do you want to try and prioritize, you know, a St. Louis team that's not doing amazing right now, a, you know, a home game against Juarez and really try and make a push for, for the latter stages of Leagues cup? [01:08:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. Maybe dance, right. Maybe the using of some kids and some backups over the next couple games is the way to go. [01:08:38] Speaker A: All right, well, I think that's where we stand at this point. Dan, what else you got for us? Anything? [01:08:46] Speaker C: Not a whole lot. I did see Dallas Trinity have announced Nike as their technical partner. [01:08:53] Speaker A: Some of the gear that they put up online, some of that stuff's really nice. All also expensive. [01:09:00] Speaker C: Yeah, really expensive. Yeah, really nice. I'm sure the jerseys will be great, but yeah, the pricing seems a little bit and I think the same applies to the tickets. Honestly, the pricing just seems a little bit out of reach for a team that's just getting started in a league that's never played. You know, you think about your fort worth for Kira's Denton Diablos of the world where it's kind of, you know, it's similar. It's not, it's not the. The top level professional bull, you know, and the USL Super League is not the NWSL. We can see that from player sign ins and, you know, in an, in MPSL, those jerseys are about $80 and that is your season ticket. So that's all included with Dallas Trinity. I think the, the cheapest ticket is $300, which is more expensive than the cheapest FC Dallas season ticket for fewer games. And then, you know, judging by the price of the match, is a jersey going to be less than $100? Potentially not. [01:10:04] Speaker B: One of the thing I find fascinating about their roster is something that Charlie, who's their zero, as I could tell, their operating owner, the oldest, one of the kids was telling me that they had, they had this big question. They had to try and decide a strategy in terms of how they were signing players. Do they try and get this absolutely full, smashing roster right out of the gate, or do they leave a little room because their season is unaligned with the NWSL? So I think season will end and players will come out of contract basically like two months into their season. And the same thing will be true with like the fall college season will end and those. There'll be players that'll be available coming out of college, like at this around December. Right, going into January. Do they leave room for some of these best names, you know, coming out of, like Ut, for example? There's a couple of really nice Dallas products that will graduate this year. So it'll be interesting in the long run to see which direction they went with their. With their strategy on their roster. I don't know enough about all these players and how they add up and how the league structure is going to work to be able to answer that question right now. And I'll only be able to answer that question based on what they actually do once they get into the season. And in terms of like, all of a sudden, here's some surprise signings a couple months into the year. [01:11:14] Speaker A: You know, you brought up a season ticket prices, Stan, and I saw on the discord that some of the information that is being shared with season ticket holders for Dallas has started to come out for next season. And I think, are we not starting to get a sense of, of what's going to happen with the stadium next year based on some of the pretty. At least what I'm reading in your discord buzz, what appears to be some unbelievably substantial increases in ticket prices? [01:11:42] Speaker C: Yeah, that was an email that I got. It was just like a general sales email wasn't to season ticket holders. It was from Chip, who is the sales director. And it was just a little throwaway line in there about securing season tickets and a half season season ticket for dollar 99. A mention of getting in line for 2025 season tickets, which would start at $650 or around $650 now. Currently, sideline tickets start at $500 if you're including the supporter section, which sometimes they don't because they're weird. Supporter season. The supporter section was about 295 this year. So if they are including that, that's an enormous rise. Even if they're nothing, you know, that's still $150 rise, whatever that percentage would work out to, which seems a little bit much if the stadium work does start in the offseason. Remember the last time this happened when the 20,500 dropped to under 16,000 for the south end? They raised the prices in some areas by 40% and, you know, jokingly, internally kind of joked, oh, this will be a cakewalk to sell this out. And they didn't have a single sellout that season. It was, you know, it was the puzzle piece. [01:13:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:11] Speaker C: And it just feels like they tread in that line again. [01:13:15] Speaker A: Well, I. It's a. It is a weird needle to thread between trying to make revenue and figure out how you're going to operate a business in a building that's, you know, at least by, based on what I understand is going to be half closed for the next three seasons. And I'm still mystified as to why they aren't playing these seasons in a different place altogether and just knocking this thing out quickly. [01:13:41] Speaker B: It's an interesting question because, you know, they've still announced nothing in terms of this build happening. And I tried to get Jimmy Smith to sort of, you know, I was saying, you know, how come you guys haven't announced anything? He said, well, basically, you know, there's lots of parties involved in this. Well, lots of parties involved in that means that you never know that something could go sideways. And, like, you know, we're, lots of people that we know tell us that these things are moving ahead and that these renovations are coming and that this is the amount of money it's going to be. And, like, this is going to happen and that's going to happen. But, like, until they actually announce something or until we see shovels in the ground without an announcement, it's like we really have only options operating on, you know, what our sources are telling us that that's going to be the case. So, you know, it's not, it's not surprising that maybe we're hearing some funny information about ticket prices or whatever when, when we're, they maybe aren't even sure or we're, and we're surely not sure, like, how many seats are going to be available. You know, it's, it's a big mystery situation, and I'm sure that they don't, probably aren't real happy that, you know, all this news is out there, but Dan Hunt started talking about it, you know, a year and a half ago. Yeah. So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone in the organization that's happening. You know, it's not a surprise to us that it's, we think it's happening, except that they won't say it's happening. [01:14:59] Speaker A: Well, I guess we'll tbd on that one. [01:15:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:03] Speaker A: All right. Well, Dan, congratulations once again for making the european final. Very delighted for you, sir. [01:15:11] Speaker C: Thank you. I shed a lot of blood, sweat and tears and drank a few cups of tea. [01:15:17] Speaker A: Well, enjoy that. What is that game on Sunday afternoon? [01:15:21] Speaker C: Sunday 02:00 all right. [01:15:23] Speaker A: Very good. Buzz. I know you're getting ready to leave on your big walkabout. You're leaving Friday, right? [01:15:29] Speaker B: Yeah, leaving Friday. And then the window opens basically like a week later. So everybody can out there can get excited and prepared for Dallas to do all kinds of crazy stuff because they always do and I'm out of town. [01:15:39] Speaker A: Right. [01:15:40] Speaker C: They always. Obviously that means that if Martin Pass is sold, it will happen in the next week. [01:15:45] Speaker B: Yeah, after I leave on Friday. And by the way, we shouldn't undersell the Copa America final. Argentina, Columbia, which is incredible. Also the same day as the euro final, which is unbelievable how that works. [01:15:57] Speaker C: Sunday during the third place game. [01:15:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Good for Canada, by the way, you know, Jesse Marshall, that third degree. The podcast is brought to you by the Lindstrom law firm. For Wills trust, probates and business law. Call 469-515-2559 that's 469-515-2559 or visit Lindstromlaw firm.com for a free consultation. [01:16:16] Speaker A: Well, boys, enjoy everything else and I think we'll try to puzzle, speaking of puzzles, we'll puzzle piece this episode, or at least buzz will puzzle piece this episode together sometime before it lands in your podcast player. Yep. All right. Thank you, FC Dallas. Curious fan. We will speak to you sometime next week on another episode of third degree, the podcast. [01:16:40] Speaker C: Hopefully they won. [01:16:41] Speaker A: Third degree the third degree ner podcast. Third degree the third degree nepot. Third degree the third degree nepot. [01:16:54] Speaker B: Third degree the third degree nap. [01:16:56] Speaker A: I can.