3rd Degree the Podcast #276

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Ooh. [00:00:05] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Oh. [00:00:09] Speaker A: Third degree, the third degree Nap podcast. Third degree, the third degree napa cast. Third degree, the third degree nepocass. Third degree, the third degree nap. I can. Well, hello there, FC Dallas. Curious fans. Welcome to another episode 276. This one is numbered of third degree, the podcast. The crew is here, starting off with Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:00:40] Speaker C: Howdy do. [00:00:41] Speaker A: How de do, indeed. And your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of Thirddegree.net, and the original soccer influencer himself, Buzz Kerik. Come in, Buzz. [00:00:54] Speaker B: Hey, Peter. How are you guys doing out there on this wonderful Wednesday? [00:01:01] Speaker A: It's hot. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Hot? [00:01:03] Speaker A: You know, hot. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Not as hot as it was. [00:01:05] Speaker A: No. Hopefully. Hopefully the summer thing is winding down. Although, you know what? To be fair, this has been a pretty mild summer here in Texas. Or maybe a better way of saying it's been a normal summer. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Feels about normal to me because I left for a month. So. [00:01:23] Speaker C: You know, it was really upsetting for me. I went to New York at the weekend, and it was horrible and humid, but then it rained, absolutely pissed down. And it was glorious. It was. You could walk for miles and miles and not break a sweat. And then I get back to Dallas, and I'd parked my car on the top level of the terminal e parking garage at DFW, and I think the sunshade may have melted a little bit of yipes. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Your car turned into an oven. [00:01:56] Speaker C: Yeah, it got below 111 by the time I got home. It was great. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Were you in the. What were you doing in the city? [00:02:04] Speaker C: A friend was performing. [00:02:05] Speaker A: Oh, very nice. [00:02:07] Speaker C: I got to see several New York City Fc home stadiums. Yankee Stadium, obviously. City field, Red Bull arena, uh, some random park where kids are playing pickup. It was great. Yeah. [00:02:22] Speaker A: See the whole collection of home stadiums for NYCFC. That's awesome. Good for you. Uh, well, very good. Uh, it's gonna. I don't know how long this will be. Every time I think we're gonna end up with a short episode, it ends up being an hour plus, like, last week. Uh, so we got a couple things to talk about. Obviously, buzz, the big news of this particular week, specifically this day, is the odd, weird ongoing story of whether or not Alan Velasco is going to be sold in this window back to some insert name of argentinian club here. [00:02:56] Speaker B: Well, it's Boca. Specifically, Boca Junior. [00:02:58] Speaker A: Well, didn't I see river at one point? And also a third club was. [00:03:01] Speaker B: And then they. Well, that maybe have been just junk because they denied that that was ever true. And of course, the independent fans were going crazy, so their club tried to get in, you know. Cause that's where he's from, and see if they could get in. But that was quickly, like, they're not even in the same class, so. And then, of course, the final. Apparently the final news came out today with both reporting from Argentina and from Tom Boggart that it was dead in the water. And then hysterically, Bogart posted the numbers they were offering and it was. It was 5.8 million plus a 1 million incentives, you know, which is a 6.8 million total. And that's, you know, look, I haven't talked to FC Dallas, but that ain't gonna get it done. I mean, that's not even close. So I, you know, I don't really know what all was going on in terms of, like, maybe just Argentina, you know, various voices hyping it up and trying to make a big deal about it, because that's kind of the number that's like, you're being ridiculous. You gotta at least get in the neighborhood. So FC Dallas may have been laughing themselves silly the whole time, for all we know. A particular interest to me was that, uh, apparently they told Boca that they weren't going to do it no matter what now, because the window they closed and they couldn't replace Alv Laska, which is hysterical, given that he hasn't played all year and has not been available. So I don't know what you think you're replacing. Uh, you know, the impact he's going to have over the last nine games is going to be, you know, small compared to his actual real value in terms of next season. So, like, you know, there's a whole other window before you actually need to replace him if you're going to sell him. Like, replacing him now does nothing. [00:04:42] Speaker A: I'm interested, buzz, you say that that number isn't going to cut it. What do you think the cut it number is, or should be? [00:04:52] Speaker B: Well, they paid something like eight or 9 million for him and it's now a couple years later and he's significantly more mature and a much better player. So, you know, like, to think that, like, something less than what they paid for him was going to get him back to Boca is ridiculous. You know, there was reports at the time that Dallas got him that it wasn't even 100% of his pass. And of course, this situation going back was, again, not going to be 100% of his pass, probably, according to some of the reporting. But, you know, it. Less money than you paid for him is not going to do it. Now, granted, he's coming off of an ACL and you never, never know. But he's been back in training, so surely they have some relative idea. You know, this is a player that when they bought him in the first place, they got him at a Covid discount. He was a year before that being talked about for twice as much money. So the idea that you're going to give him on a discount back to anybody in Argentina is ridiculous. I'm sure Alan thinks the next step, other than maybe Boca or River maybe, would be to Europe, not back to Argentina. You know, he can buy into those two clubs because they have a massive, massive reputations and they are amazing places to play, but you got to come in with money. That's real. You know, it's. It doesn't. When you're talking about a guy that's just now broken into some of the argentine youth teams and had some camps with and had got invited in early to train with the first team, you know, this is a guy that obviously a lot of people think of really highly. You can't, and you can't get that guy for $6 million. This is not possible. [00:06:26] Speaker A: Dan, you have an opinion on this? [00:06:29] Speaker C: Oh, boy. Yeah, it's just like the bollocks in it. It's funny, it's always the south american rumors, right, where one in 20 has some substance to it. I'm sure there was a conversation, I'm sure FC Dallas did say, here's one of his 700 reasons why we're not going to do it, and one of them is no time to get someone in. But if you're on the bokeh side of things and, you know, fans are flooding pages talking about how they, where did the money go? They've made so much money recently and they're only offering a pittance. Oh, you know, we tried so hard. We tried to money whip them, but they just said they couldn't replace him. It's just an easy cop out. [00:07:17] Speaker A: Okay, this may not be a popular opinion buzz, but I'm going to be a bit contrarian here, because what really is the reality is, is that Allen was bought for a little bit more money than this. He hasn't turned out to be the player I think everybody hoped he would be. His numbers aren't, you know, all that spectacular. He has, you know, bright promise here and there, but he's not the guy that's beating people on the ball with any kind of regularity. He hasn't scored a lot of goals. He hasn't had that many assists. His highs came more very early in this than later, and he is coming off an ACL surgery. So I, and I am of the impression, based on my observations and things that I've been told over the, his course here, that he really would like to return to Argentina. So his heart isn't completely in the, the Dallas setup at, you know, maybe 100% that if he doesn't come back and play, like, better than he was before the ACL and quickly, there's a real chance that Dallas may regret not taking $6.8 million for the guy. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I suppose that's possible, but, you know, when you're talking about a player like this, you know, I think you have to. Why? I think you're correct that maybe the assists weren't there like you'd like them to be. I don't think you can deny, however, that how much better Dallas is when he's on, um, and when he's playing well. And, you know, let's think back to when he got hurt and they had run that experiment with him in the middle, you know, and he was, um, I think, moving into the hierarchy of becoming this playmaking player in the middle. Like, you know, at the time, if you remember, it was almost a year ago now. [00:08:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a lot. [00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Coaches Eve us was talking about he's fought, we the fact that they had played him on the wing because they felt like they had to mature his game in a lot of ways and that he had finally reached that maturity in his game, not in life, in his game. And so they were, they were moving in the middle, and that was going to be the way forward. And I'm sure that that would still be the case. I'm sure that the idea would be he would come back and be this central playmaking figure that would sit in behind Musa and behind Jesus and behind Variola or Farrington or whatever it's going to be. You know, this is the kind of player that is dynamic and changes the game when he's in there, partially because other teams have to, um, compensate for him and acknowledge where he is and take, and keep an eye on him, and that frees up other players as well. And then the other part of the point is in the rejection of, of them because the window had closed. For me, it's a little bit less about that and more about, like, what would it take to replace a player of this caliber? You know, a player that at, you know, 1819, whatever he was when he got here, you know, walked right into the lineup that has this south american pedigree that gets him into Argentina youth national teams and training with the first team. And as a guy that they think that they're going to develop into the. That kind of stature, guys like that cost, you know, a lot of money. And if you. If you're just talking about the kind of dynamic player that is equivalent to him, you can look at FC, also his own roster, like, who's a player that is, are probably of the same sort of caliber of Alan Vlasco. And the only one who really jumps out of me is Jesus Ferreira is the same sort of caliber. And so what does Jesus cost? Well, they just turned down 12 million for him. So, you know, to replace Alan Vlasco, who is now going to be coming into the sort of not the prime of his career, but is going to start to really accelerate. Theoretically, we would hope in this progression as he's turning into 2223-2425 years old, approaching his prime, he's just going to get better and better over the next few years. So I don't, you know, unless there's some bizarre medical thing that we're not aware of, and it sure doesn't look like it based on what we're seeing and how rapidly he's coming back. Compare that to GVL and Jesus, for example. You know, I don't have any doubts that he's going to be fine and that over the next couple of years he's going to more than overcome this now, two years from now. Maybe you're right, but obviously they know a lot more about his knee than we do. And obviously it feels like there's a calculation that makes sense. So, you know, I don't think they're going to regret turning this down at all. I think there'll be better offers some other time, some other day, you know, and I think. I think there were a couple of reports that came along with this, that Allen was not pushing for this at all, actually. Um, and that he was willing to accept it, but he wasn't pushing for it. Some contrary reports, both from Argentina and domestically from poverty. So, uh, I think I'm okay with them turning this down. I mean, I would have accepted it, but I would. Cause I would have understood. I would have understand the risk factor like you're talking about. But I feel like they must feel good about it and they're okay with it. [00:11:55] Speaker A: All right, so you are good with them passing on it or you would have been good with it if they had said, okay, yeah, we'll take the deal. [00:12:01] Speaker B: Well, if they would have taken the deal, then that would have told me that maybe they really were worried about it. Yeah, they were. Okay, if we're taking less than what we paid for and based on what we think he's going to be worth someday, or I think he's going to worry someday. And the fact that they didn't pass, they did pass on it makes me think they must be very confident. And I'm very confident based on what I see from the images and video that he's been putting out on social media and how quickly he's returned and how good he looks. Honestly compared that to Gvni J. Zeus, who should have been back maybe in May and it was out there running in June on the sideline and now has vanished. And we don't see him in any of the clips or the pictures and like where's, you know, we know he had the scar tissue cleanup. But like, you know, I'm really worried about that guy as opposed to Allen, who looks great. [00:12:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I. Well, kudos to you. You've sold me fine. They kept him. They didn't sell him. I think really now the onus is on island to show up and just actually perform. I mean, I guess the problem is obviously the one thing that was really hanging out there when this started was the idea that Dallas would not have put him on the IR and had the ambition or the drive to replace him for this season, only to then sell him and him never play in a Dallas shirt again. So that obviously isn't going to happen now, so we can set that, that concern aside. [00:13:25] Speaker B: Well, remember we raised that concern when he got hurt in the first. [00:13:28] Speaker A: Yes, of course. [00:13:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:29] Speaker A: I mean, I thought that was obvious. And so now the reality is, with nine games left in the season, is there going to be a lot of patience for him to. I mean, I guess everybody probably should, in fairness to Allen, but the reality is people are going to be expecting a lot out of the kid the second he shows back up on the field. [00:13:51] Speaker B: Well, the thing about being a player of his stature is that the pressure comes with that. And I think being a guy that played in the league he played in, he's probably used to that already. And you don't have a desire to play for Boca or River if you're not capable of handling that pressure. So I think you're absolutely right. People will have high expectations. I hope that the team is smart enough and the coach is smart enough to realize that you don't rush him in 100,000 miles an hour. You know, be very patient with bringing him back. You know, it's one thing to say he's cleared. It's another thing to say, start and play 90. Those are. Those are two. Two totally different things, you know, and I think that, like, this is why it was so important when I brought up the idea of IR aiming in the first place is that this nine games you're going to have left, you know, the idea of bringing him back too soon is real. The idea of rushing him back is real. Like, if you think he's the catalyst that's gonna turn you into playoffs, you're right, there's gonna be pressure for that. But they need to fight against that because you don't want to do. You need to think about with a guy this valuable and this young, you don't want to sacrifice his career for these nine games. Right. So let's hope they're smart enough for that. [00:14:59] Speaker A: We've talked about the idea of just benching Jesus and Allen for the rest of the season. Yeah, or for the majority of it, just because, I mean, what you're not really playing for anything at this point. All you're doing is, is putting guys fresh out of injury at high risk of injuring things again. But I think we all have to trust that they know what they're doing when it comes to training and health and fitness. [00:15:21] Speaker B: I just really want them to not, not to be think, like, when the season was where it is. Regardless of whether they think it's a playoff roster or not. I really want them to think long term. Right. I know Peter Luxane is fighting for the playoffs and we've talked about how show and rwanda, we think our moves to help him fight for that playoffs and give him a fighting chance. But in terms of Jesus and Allen, you know, let's not, as a collective unit, let's not make some decisions that are going to make things worse for us in the long term because those contracts are not going to go away. Even if those guys are hurt, even way past this season, you're still going to have all that money, you know, because you can only put one guy on season IR, not two. So hopefully they're being smart and hopefully they're, their, their staff is doing a good job. You know, some of the things this season make us nervous, you know, so at this point, we just have to cross our fingers and hope that these people that are being paid a lot of money to evaluate this, know what they're doing. You know, it's at some point, what can we do other than express concern and hopefully it comes through fine, but. [00:16:18] Speaker A: Show and Ron are just our patches. They're just filling holes for the rest of the season. They're not, you know, roster changing or roster improving entity. Just like we need a body and the other bodies we have available to us and the second team are all teenagers. [00:16:35] Speaker B: So I actually, I actually think those move actually make me feel good about, um, that they're not going to risk too much just to make the playoffs this season. Right. Because those, both those guys are guys that, whose contracts are ending or you can get out of it because one of them is the short term alone, right? So, like, those are both rental players and they're not sacrifices of future possibility for current possibility. So, like, that mentality makes me think that, okay, they do see this. They do understand that it's not that they don't need to sacrifice the future for now. So, you know, if they had not done that and they had only done big long term extended moves with long contracts, that would make me a lot more nervous, actually. Then, then I actually feel better that they're doing these short term band aids. [00:17:20] Speaker A: You know, unlike last season. This is where the downside, the negative side of League's cup really feels like it's having an effect on this team because it feels like this extended period of time they have not been playing. And I'm even kind of throwing the two leagues cup games in there because those felt like friendlies or exhibition matches more than anything else because of the way they kind of sat and saved players instead of playing. [00:17:46] Speaker B: The Juarez one did. [00:17:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, they didn't play alarm in either one of them, you know, so. And he's the real difference maker so far in the roster is that it feels like it literally has been an entire offseason since we've seen them play a league game. I mean, it, I know it's only been like six weeks or something stupid like that, but it feels like a. [00:18:05] Speaker B: Lot was July 20, so it's been a month. [00:18:07] Speaker A: Well, it feels longer than that, doesn't it? [00:18:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. Well, when you don't do anything for a couple of weeks and it's. And they. It's been many weeks. Many weeks. It's been since leaks. Since the Juarez game. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:19] Speaker B: Since they've actually had like public comments or, or press conferences or quotes or. [00:18:26] Speaker A: Like, don't get me started. [00:18:27] Speaker B: They've been in radio silence since the 31st, you know, which is like three, three, almost four weeks back. So it definitely feels really quiet for sure. It almost feels like a mini, mini spring offseason sort of for like a stretch run or something. It's weird. [00:18:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't, I don't get the radio silence. And I guess it shouldn't surprise anybody that Andre or Dan or anybody from the club haven't come out and talked about the window or. I mean, even Peter hasn't even made any kind of public statements about the window. So I, I don't get it. But whatever, it's, it's their business, not mine. Um, I was thinking about this, you know, assuming that within, let's just all have best case scenario and everybody's healthy and raring to go for that first game in DC here in a short period of time. Jesus is healthy. Alan's ready to go. Laura Mendy's ready to go. The two new additions in rwandan and show are ready to go. What does this starting eleven look like to you, Buzz? And what formation tactical change do you think Luxaine puts out there? [00:19:34] Speaker B: Well, I think that before we do a prediction, I'm not asking, I'm just. [00:19:40] Speaker A: Asking kind of generalities. You don't have to actually predict your eleven. [00:19:44] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, I was saying before I do all that, I think I went back to the beginning of Luxain's stretch when I looked into who he said his mentors were and what they played like, and then I looked at what he did in the first sort of early bits of training and then through the few games and Dan has talked a bunch about how there hasn't been a real chance for him to really work with his team. That's another thing this break has actually given him is a chance to really work with his team. And so because of that, because he didn't have a lot of time to work with them, he kind of was sticking with the same formations and tactics that a lot of ways that Nico Steves was using. We still saw the back three occasionally we saw this flex formation, this in and out of a back four to a back three. And so I think that's the key for him. I think based on who he talked about, I think it's, I think it's a base back four system or four three three that we've talked about, you know, could be a single pivot, but because oer Mindy and just because in general, looking up the history of the guys that he worked under, I think it's more likely it'll be a double pivot. But I think it'll also include this, this flex shape because he was very. I think. I think we saw that in almost every single game one way or the other. The most common version of it was like when Paul was at right back and he would flex out of right back into like up into the midfielder as a wing position. And so you would get this back four shifting to a back three and then they went out and they traded for Ruan, who is a notable player of the. With the ability to play a real wingback style and really get forward and he crosses into the box a lot. Something like Sam was adamant about against the wars game that they stunk at that and then they went out and traded for that guy right away. So I think that that guy plays into this idea that like he is a right back will give you that ability to flex, do this flex formation that he loves so much. And so far fan will be kind of a little more of a stay at home and you know, or junk, if it's junka, but probably more likely far fan. And then Ruan will be the one that'll be doing the bombing forward and doing that flexing sort of shape. And I think you'll see that a lot, that tactic. So otherwise it'll be basically. Basically be that base four, three, three with that flexing, you know, three, four, three. Look, which will be kind of interesting to watch. I mean, it's a very advanced tactic. It'd be interesting to see if you can get him to do it consistently because the one versus Juarez was awful. So bad. [00:22:14] Speaker A: Well, it's. It's. It's all going to be about form and players just playing well. More than anything else, it's because. Yeah, it. It'll be interesting to see who is one who's available because if they go to DC and Allen doesn't play. Okay, now there's eight games left in the season. If. Jesus, you know, I. You know, I'm just going to assume everybody is going to be raring to go and they're going to give it a mighty push for the playoffs because, you know, I mean, it doesn't look good in terms of the numbers, but it's not impossible. I mean, as they say. [00:22:44] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a chance it's doable. Yeah, it depends on what other people do. You know, we've talked about it. The 40, 42 to 44 points you need to win all your home games. You know, those home games are gonna be massive. You just got to get some points on the road somewhere you can grind them out in ties. That's fine. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I was I'm sorry. Go ahead. [00:23:01] Speaker B: And I was just say, should we get into who we think is going to be available, or do you want to wait? [00:23:05] Speaker A: Oh, no. Yeah, go ahead. [00:23:07] Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, looking at the media that is available, I don't think Delgado is going to be back. But Jesus Ferrero looked, as of a week and a half ago, was, you know, in training and looked decent. So I. My expectation is he's going to be ready. And Jesus is a guy who, with his resume, Will, if he's healthy, he play. He starts for me. I don't see Liam Frazier in the media, so I think he's not good. But Yarmindy's back in training, and so I would assume he'll be ready to go. Obviously, Jay's even on his use. We don't even know if he's in the country. Paxton's a no. And then flash, aka Ruan, is in town, has been training, and he was in midseason, so he should be fine. And the show is in town, but we think he's probably more of a depth piece than anything. [00:23:47] Speaker A: Are his batteries charged? [00:23:49] Speaker B: Hopefully his batteries are charged because he was looking depleted in this post. He hasn't done that since. I wonder if somebody said something to him. And so then the question is, Allen, like, I think you ease Alan back in, you know, even if he's ready and cleared, quote unquote, for this DC game, and we don't know for sure. Funny. And thing enough, they've already posted the media notes for the game, and the injury report section is blank because the injury reports not due till Friday. So they'll re upload them Friday at 05:00 when they have to post the injury list. But if Alan's cleared, I would not start him. I would ease him, like, first run out, like, just ten minutes or something, you know, just. There's. There's no reason to rush that and ruin it. So, you know, that that gives you a lot of good pieces. I mean, if you get Jesus Mindy back, you know, show and Ruana here, those are some decent pieces that you can start moving in and can help you a bit, you know, and then start to ease Alan back in. So. [00:24:47] Speaker A: Hmm. You know, earlier today, somebody, or I guess it was yesterday, somebody posted video of Chris Albright. Albright. Albright, who is the technical director, sporting director, whatever is it? Cincy holding a press conference, talking about some of the fan outrage that they didn't get deals done for big name players. And he had a really honor. I thought it was a really, really good, kind of like, hey, look, the fans have a right to complain and we tried and we have big ambitions. There were tens of millions of dollars on the table from the owners. We just couldn't get these deals over the line. And I, and I thought it was great that he did that. And I know that I said some things last week about, you know, Dan Hunt coming out or Zenata saying anything. I guess maybe I should put it this way. Should we expect Dan Hunt or Andre Zonata to do something similar? Do they owe that to us as fans or not to us, but to the fans of the club to come out and comment about why things are the way they are or how they got here? [00:25:56] Speaker B: I don't think that they owe it to anybody, but I think it would, would have been a good idea. You know, I can't, you know, the general fan base is obviously we're dialed into the hardcore fan base, but not the general fan base. But I would imagine the general fan base probably, you know, saw all the Allen talk or has heard, you know, everyone's, of course, got a take on, like, what they think the team needs. You know, everybody does. And you go into a window and you think, and you think to yourself, even if you're a casual fan, you probably noticed that they traded for a right back when they already have like five right backs and they traded for a midfielder from a league you never really heard of. You know, they both short term deals, you know, I think it would, would have been smart to come out and say things like, hey, you know, we have, you know, we tried to make some short term moves to help this coach get this roster. We thinks the playoff roster into the playoffs. We also didn't want to handcuff ourselves long term. You don't say all these things and let the fans know that you do have a plan, and there is, you weren't just winging it. And that Rwanda wasn't just a last second grasp at a straw when you didn't get the long term center back, you thought you were getting a, you know, you know, or even now that we've reported that they had a center back and that the guy failed the medical, that maybe they could have talked about how close they got on that and then why they didn't have another option to go and maybe they could, if they have another one next window, they could reassure us that that's coming, you know, and by us, I mean the fan base, you know, so I. Dan's probably a lot more used to this kind of transfer window talk than I am. But, you know, I just think that, like, like I said, when the show started, it's like, I feel like there's a media blackout around SC Dallas right now related to the team. It really feels weird. Like, the social media stuff has been like, there was a thing on Ibiaga with his wardrobe, which was a nice feature. There was a thing on Targ Scott and his climb up the ranks. That was a nice feature. Those were nice things. But there was no soccer talk for like three weeks now. [00:27:53] Speaker A: Oh, yes, it's all self, and it's a self and self inflicted media blackout, for sure. [00:28:00] Speaker B: And I just feel like it would have been nice to hear from somebody involved in the process, about the process, like what worked or what didn't, you know, and what they think is next and, you know, and, oh, no, we think this roster, you know, double down. We think this roster is fantastic. It has all the pieces it needs. You know, let us hear that, you know, reassure us that you didn't need to have a plan. I know Dan is itching to say something. Go, Dan. [00:28:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:25] Speaker C: Yeah. I think, firstly, it's. That's just the. The nature of the two clubs. FC Cincinnati is very big on being publicized about having people talk about them, having people cover them. FC Dallas is. We want to just do our business, get on by with us. Fewer people knowing as possible, for whatever reason. That's their approach. That's what works for them. There hasn't really, you know, I can't say I've seen many opportunities to engage the club. They had a weekend training session, which is one of the rare times I can get up there during the break, and I was basically told that all weekend training sessions will be closed off to media. I mean, why would you kind of open things up to the majority of people that actually covered the team? And then, you know, in preseason, Dan Huntley stood in the cotton bowl behind the press bit and talked about how the defence was fantastic and they just needed to score some goals and that they had players that were coming in and everybody laughed because the defense got dismantled and, you know, the, the whole goal scoring thing kind of sputtered along. Moosa's adapted well, but getting chances to him hasn't been the greatest process. The, the notable one a couple of years ago where he's talking to junior on the sidelines and said, oh, you know, we're gonna bring in reinforcements and these are meaningful reinforcements. And they signed absolutely nobody. Sometimes they just do themselves more harm by talking. And I think if you. It's maybe not the general fan base, but if you talk about the general online fan base away from, like, the, the sickos in our, in our discord, who we all love and adore, the entire narrative is ownership sucks. They need to sell the team. They can't do anything right. So why would you give them ammo? In a way, yeah. [00:30:39] Speaker A: Made me wonder if part of the strategy is it, you know, if we come out and say something, all that does is engage people to tell us that we did it wrong or something, you know, for the haters to say something. So why not just not say anything at all? I guess. I don't know. I just think that they would do themselves a huge favor in trying to engage and keep everybody up to date and kind of express some sort of willingness to share the process. As you said, buzz, that I think that would go a long way. [00:31:11] Speaker C: But it's hard, right? Because on a normal, on a normal club, I'll call FC Dallas, not a normal club, a club that's kind of tries to engage its fan base. I mean, we can talk about outside of soccer, the Mavs miss out on big free agent, on big free agent targets. It comes up, oh, you know, we tried to go for this guy. We tried to go for that guy. Cowboys do it, Rangers do it. Everyone does it. FC Dallas has a lot of people that's not particularly comfortable with talking. Andre Zanata hates talking to people. Dan Hunt has got a hell of a lot better over the last decade, but he's still not confident talking to people. So then what are you left with, Peter Luxan? Who's gonna say, well, my focus is the people who are with the club. [00:32:04] Speaker A: Well, they got nine games to prove something to everybody. I guess that's all we can go by, guys, is just wait and see how it plays itself out. This is the position that Dan Hunt has put this team in, and he ultimately, the blame lies it on his shoulders. Am I, do I have that right? Do you guys think, is this really, ultimately the buck stops with Dan Huntley? [00:32:31] Speaker B: Well, I will tell you that I think I've mentioned this before. I think it was, maybe it was when Lucci was still here. I actually asked Clark Hunt a question where I was asking him something about the way something happened inside the organization. And he explicitly told me that the club is run by three people. It's run by the coach, the TD, and Dan as president, and that Dan as president and honors, TD and the coach as head coach are all equal on the hierarchy. Tree and those three people report to Clark as the CEO. Now, of course, Dan Hunt and Clark are also the owners of the team. But in terms of the structure, that's what, at the last press conference, made that remark to me about. Everything's decided by a committee. When I was talking about, like, how much input would the coach have? That's what he's talking about. He's talking about the three headed of the committee are Dan Zenada and Luke Sane, in particular case as equals. So at the end of the day, I don't know whether the buck starts with Dan or starts with Clark, either. Either way, it's probably more likely Clark would. [00:33:39] Speaker A: Clark. Is there a scenario? And I'm not suggesting this is what needs to happen. I'm just asking the question. Would Clark ever fire or replace Daniel as president of this club? [00:33:50] Speaker B: I doubt it. He might. He and Dan might have a conversation, I guess, apparently, that maybe if he felt it wasn't working and Dan would agree to that. But this is just pure guess on my part. I've never in a million years asked them this. But, you know, Dan, for a long time, wasn't president. Like, even after they bought the team, Clark. He and Clark were just the owners, and they had a president. They went through a couple of presidents, and then Dan took over as president. And that's one of the things that coach said this to me. Maybe it was Niko. He said, I'm the only coach in the league where the owner is, like, four doors down the hallway. And I meet with him, like, literally every day because he's the president. So, like, in terms of the day to day operation of the club, Dan Hunt is the operating president that runs, I guess that means the business side of the organization. And then. And then Andre Zanada is now the head of soccer operations. So he runs the soccer operations half of the club. [00:34:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny. I remember, you know, it's been a long time, because did Dan replace. Did Dan get up, get. End up getting the job after the Quinn incident? Or was there somebody after Quinn? Was Hitch after Quinn? [00:34:56] Speaker B: No, it was Quinn, I think. [00:34:58] Speaker A: So. I. Whenever it was, I do remember those of us covering the team in the media. And I don't mean, you know, the three of us. I'm talking about people at the paper and in other places. There are a lot of question marks around Dan hunt's qualifications to run a professional sports organization, other than being somebody's kid. And, you know, I don't know if anybody ever really figured that out. And so I mean, he's been doing it a long time now, so he's like, anybody in the Jones family have certainly just by osmosis or just through time, have earned experience. But I was thinking about this the other day. If this is suddenly turned into the whole, you know, would Jerry the. The owner, fire Jerry the GM kind of thing that we all joke about with the Cowboys is, if it got bad enough, if things continue to not go well, would one brother ask the other brother to step down or replace him or whatever? [00:35:57] Speaker B: I don't know. Let me. Let me go back over the history just a little bit, just so we can all get on the same page with it. So Michael Hitchcock took over from Greg Elliott, and who took over from Andy, who took over from Billy. Those guys were all the GM president combination, sort of. There was no TD at that point. [00:36:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:36:14] Speaker B: That guy would work with the coach. And Hitchcock is a soccer player. He. He's a soccer guy. Your. Your. Your miles may vary on how much of a soccer guy you think he is. They replaced him with Doug Quinn, who is not a soccer guy. Doug Quinn is a businessman. And they hired Barry Gorman. And this is in 2010 under Shellis. Gorman was a former college coach, Penn State, I think it was. And he was Shellis buddy, and then he screwed up the dak thing and a couple other things, and they ended up firing him. And then, effectively, Quinn and Hindman pretty much picked Fernando Clavio to come in and be the TD, and Clavio worked with Quinn and Hymen until Quinn had his legal troubles, which he just a rep put a bow on. It was found eventually not guilty of. But when that all happened, Dan Hook and down hunt took over. So that was at the same time Oscar came in. So, Dan. Right. You know, which one technically happened before the other, because Dan. Doug Quinn left before, wasn't like the wrap up of a season, but it was basically right near the end of it. So Hunt and Oscar came in to work with Klavijo. [00:37:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:22] Speaker B: And then after Klavijo passed, it was moozy for a little bit, filling in, and then they went and hired Zenada, and then they brought in Zonata came in same time Lucci came in, basically. So Dan Hunt has been in that job since 2014 as the operating president of the club. So, in some ways, he's like Jerry Jones, where he's the. Jerry's the president of the franchise. [00:37:41] Speaker A: Well, at this point, he's probably one of the more experienced club presidents in the league. [00:37:46] Speaker B: Yeah, he's been doing it a decade now. So you would think that now he would, you know, and to his credit, in the early years, he went back and forth in a lot to Brazil and did a lot of observing of Klaviyo working and shellis working and making those connections. And he met and did a lot of things with cap. I'm sure as a young 20 something year old at the time, he probably was not 100% dialed in, but I imagine over the years, he really has become probably pretty knowledgeable, you would hope, about what he's doing, so. But Dan's right, he doesn't like to talk. [00:38:21] Speaker A: What I'm hearing from you, Buzz, is that we should all put trust and faith in Dan Hunt to hire the right manager moving forward. [00:38:27] Speaker B: No, no, I don't think you should do that. You know, the thing about that is that in the end of the day, Clark Hunt has as much or more input than anybody else on levels of decisions of that level from everybody we talk to. You know, Clark was never going to say that, but we understand that that's how it works. Right? Remember I said Dan's the CEO. Clark's the CEO. Not Dan. Dan reports to clark. In that sense. [00:38:55] Speaker A: You know, I had forgotten that you one time Clark told you that Dan and whoever was td at the time reported to him in equal measure. And I just thought that was the craziest thing I'd ever heard. [00:39:06] Speaker B: And the coach, all three of those. [00:39:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I just thought that was. And I thought that can't possibly be right. [00:39:12] Speaker B: But it was. I mean, it was straight from his mouth. [00:39:14] Speaker A: I know. [00:39:14] Speaker B: That's the case. [00:39:15] Speaker A: I know. Yeah, I know. [00:39:16] Speaker B: And that he was the ultimate as the CEO. He was ultimately responsible. But he literally said that. So again, that was, you know, five or six years ago. It's possible that that relationship has changed, that dynamics changed. It's possible that Andre Zonata's formation, that they don't have an.org chart on their website. It's possible Zenata now outranks the coach with that promotion. You know, I don't know the promotion was real or not or on paper or what, but he got a raise for sure. [00:39:39] Speaker A: Well, the long, dark winter or summer is near over as Dallas gets started back at league play, not league's cup, but league play this Saturday at 630 in DC. And we'll see where it goes from here. Nine games, I mean, assuming. It's funny to me that after all of this, the decision not to IR. Allen and he is going to stay here means that he won't even. He'll end up playing effectively at best a third of the season. [00:40:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd be surprised if he plays more than like six or seven games. Like if he plays in DC, I'll be surprised. Pleasantly surprised, but I'll be surprised. [00:40:20] Speaker A: I will never understand. I mean, I think I, I'd like to think that the reason for not ir'ing him is a true inherent belief that they thought he could legitimately be back probably even earlier than this, and it didn't work out or whatever. It works out. The pessimists in me is that by putting them on Ir, they'd have to go out and spend a bunch of money to go find an equal replacement. And they didn't want to do that. [00:40:44] Speaker B: Or didn't have to remember, too, at the time, it was looking like there might be a fourth DP coming. [00:40:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:50] Speaker B: So they might have felt like we're going to have to spend money on that anyway, you know, so there's no reason to irm, they may have thought. [00:40:57] Speaker A: Clark put the kibosh on that. [00:40:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I felt, I probably Clark did. I felt like at the time, like, you know, the amount of impact you're going to get from Alan is minimal, you know, so you might as well irm, that way you can replace him and then next January you worry about the fact that I now have an extra DP and you solve that problem some other day, you know, because not all DP's work. I mean, sometimes you do a DP and they stink. So it's like, you know, you may have to get one out of it. So I just, you know, we've been around that bush a lot and I just, I still can't. I, you know, I still. My problem wasn't that they thought that if they just thought, if they just said, yeah, we thought about that and decided no, but like, the reaction was like, what are you insane? And I was like, dude, that's not insane. It's a relatively smart idea, you know, but in the meantime, you know, here's where we are. And if there's some nice pieces back and you actually have a decent and interestingly decent lineup and they actually have some decisions to make coming back. [00:41:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:53] Speaker B: So in terms of the starting eleven, I mean, you have to assume, right, Musa, of course, you know, if armor can go, he can go. He's in legit and midfield with him. Farfan, Tafari, ibiyaga, those are all no brainers, right. I think ruan walks in and starts. He's in the middle of the league. Right. So he's healthy and fit, so he should be good to go, because that, that allows you to free up Areola, to move him back up to the wing, possibly a net, of course. I think Jesus walks in and starts. So your front three will be Ferreira, Musa and Areola. And Farrington returns to the bench. That's my take. Now, wild card. You could put Ferreira in the hole where under Musa, but that's where Seqi and Svelings been playing. And Luxane likes him number one. But also, more importantly, that's where Alan's gonna play. So if you're gonna go forward with the idea that Alan's gonna come in and play over these last nine games, I think you leave Jesus on the wing over people like Logan Farrington, for example, or over Kamungo, and you leave Seiki in there until. And Alan will come in for him and supplant him over the next two, three, four games. So that's your love and for me, like, that's the x factor. Is that CKI holding that spot for Alan? [00:43:19] Speaker A: Um, okay, so enough of that. Uh, let's move on to the other thing. In the last. Since we last talked, we finally had our very first official Super League match for Dallas Trinity, who went down to Tampa Bay and got a one one draw. They should have won that game by a lot, but didn't. But it was cool to feel like you were watching. History and production quality aside, Tampa Bay, let me ask. Well, hold on, we'll come back to that in a second. My overall observation was I thought Dallas, I thought the standard of play was a grade higher than I was anticipating, at least that of Dallas. [00:44:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I totally agree. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:06] Speaker B: Yeah. The, the trinity eleven is actually pretty nice. The three midfielders they have are really good. [00:44:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:15] Speaker B: Danielson, Brooks and Mezza. Mezza, that might be the best triple head midfield in the league, based on the fact that I've heard. Tampa is probably supposed to be pretty good as well. So they. That midfield boss, that game, the back four was pretty solid. Um, you know, they, uh, definitely one of the. Was the second best group of the, of the set that both outside backs like to get forward, um, play into the box. Could have been a little better. The keeper didn't get enough work for me to be able to tell you anything about her. I couldn't have seen any good. [00:44:45] Speaker A: The front line took out her own center back. Pretty nice. [00:44:47] Speaker B: Yeah, she did credit. She came out hard. The front line maybe could have used some finishing class. They did not finish very well. But, you know, if you start with a really good defense in midfield, then maybe you give yourself a chance, you know, when the european seasons are winding down or whatever. Or the, or the, or the NWSL seasons winding down, maybe you can go spend a little money and get a bring up upgrade on your strikers. Or you could assume that, like, offense, maybe team offense, maybe takes a little bit longer and maybe your soccers are going to come good because they dot, they outshot him 14 to six or something like that. Or 15 to. I don't know, something like that. And it was. You're right. Halftime, it should have been four or five, nothing. And then Tampa Justin was better than second half. But that's an amazing road performance. And I dow string looks really good. I'm surprised how good, Dan, we got. [00:45:32] Speaker A: To see at least the way kits for the first time. My question to you, is that gold or is that kind of an off white cream color? [00:45:42] Speaker C: It's both. It's what they would consider to be, Dan. [00:45:45] Speaker A: It cannot be both. It has to be one or the other. It can't be both, sir. [00:45:50] Speaker C: It absolutely can. [00:45:52] Speaker A: Creamy gold. [00:45:54] Speaker C: Yeah. Look at the. Barcelona had a kit. Jesus, when was it, 2003? 2004. Exact same color. It was considered gold. [00:46:03] Speaker B: Okay, Peter, Peter, Peter. [00:46:05] Speaker A: What? [00:46:05] Speaker B: As a man married to a Purdue graduate, it's called old gold and it's the Purdue gold. [00:46:11] Speaker A: All right. Well, I couldn't. When I first turned it on, it looked more like it. Like aroma. Off white or cream color. Like is in. Like in the scarf they brought us when they came on the show. Not gold. Now, what it turned out to be is that the television production quality was so poor and the cameras were so unbalanced and out of calibration, they were all different. [00:46:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:34] Speaker A: I couldn't tell what fart and color. [00:46:36] Speaker B: They were, but it was so bad. [00:46:39] Speaker A: And I suspect everybody can figure out what the home kits are going to look like now. But what I. What I think is interesting is that they were wearing white socks that didn't. [00:46:54] Speaker B: I liked that. [00:46:54] Speaker A: I do, too. But what I was told was that Nike doesn't make the same color socks, that their home and away kits are. So the socks, I believe in the home kit is going to be a different color than the color of the shorts and shirt. [00:47:11] Speaker B: That's cool. I mean, that's like. That could be a thing. That's a. That's Chelsea. [00:47:14] Speaker C: Chelsea. [00:47:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:16] Speaker A: I totally agree. I thought it looked great. I thought it looked really, really good. I don't have a. [00:47:19] Speaker B: It's funny that if you just, you accidented into it, but whatever, run with it. [00:47:24] Speaker A: Yes. [00:47:24] Speaker B: Makes that your thing. Like, you remember when this goes way back in third degree with FC Dallas when I talked about how pattern could be as important as colors in your branding, and I made all these suggestions and one of which was hoops and all that stuff. One of the brandings patterns people can use is a different color sock in this. Daniel, uh, crook just said, and everybody knows this, Chelsea does that. And you know, like, you can, you can use that as a. In a way you can think about. Manchester United does that, except they have a short different, too. And Mexico with the red. You know, there's other clubs that do it, but it's clearly a thing that you can make a branding element to have your sock be a different color. And I think it's awesome. [00:47:59] Speaker A: Dan, you're the, you're the women's football expert of the crew here. What did you think of the game? [00:48:05] Speaker C: I enjoyed it. Really, really aggressive high line from Dallas, especially with Amber Brooks playing at six, able to kind of. She's a support. She should have got sent off in that game. No, I think solid. As Buzz mentioned, getting the full backs forward again with Brooks there, Weinbrenner as a stay home centre back, Davison able to play that kind of. I mean, you would kind of say it as Sebastian Ibiaga for FC Dallas, the guy that's able to push up a little bit higher and get a little more involved in the play. I thought the forward play was decent enough. Chiomo Ibergago is simply too good for that league. [00:48:55] Speaker A: She is. [00:48:55] Speaker C: Enzi Broussard looked absolutely solid as a kind of a wide pairing. Real shame that she kind of, you know, got curtailed with cramp at the end of the game. I can't think what the. I can't think he was playing up front now, but kind of did a nice job of, kind of dipping out wide and letting the wide two get in and yeah, Sam Mazer was phenomenal. I know a lot of Seattle Reign fans are upset about that loan, felt that she was too good a depth option for the rain in midfield after they lost a couple of players and I. Yeah, they really should be upset. She definitely faded later in the game as Tampa kind of grew into, you know, understanding to kind of mark her out, push her wide. But wow, what a performance from her. [00:49:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it looked, it was a lot of girls you can lay, excuse me, ladies, women that have not been playing 90 minutes. You can tell, like there was a lot of cramping a lot of tire legs at the end of that game. And Dan, I think the front line, as you say, move. Well, they just forgot their shooting boots in Dallas. [00:49:55] Speaker C: That's all I gotta say. You gotta give the keeper credit. She stood on her fucking head. [00:49:59] Speaker B: Yeah, she was pretty good. [00:50:00] Speaker A: Um, they had a couple. Yeah, I. My, my frustration was that they would dribble. They would get themselves in a position to shoot and then they wouldn't shoot. Um. It's not the shots they did take. It was the shots they didn't take that I was frustrated by more than anything else. But, um. And, and, and then, and of course, by not finishing a second one, they left themselves up to that, you know, classic soccer deal where just the other team finally just gets a chance. And that was that corner in the header, which, by the way, I have to, I have to make this commentary about the, the, uh, the game and analyst. Did you guys hear her say in the replay of the Tampa goal that the center back used, quote, the texture of the ball to nestle it near the. To the near post? I have never, ever, ever heard a goal in this sport described in that manner. That was the craziest thing I've ever heard. She was very over the top. It was first aid jitters, I suppose. [00:51:02] Speaker B: Well, I think watching that show and then seeing some clips from other games, I'm pretty sure that the games are being produced by the local team because the quality was quite varied from that game to other games. And I'm pretty sure that commentary crew is basically the home crew because all the promos were, you know, Tampa Bay sun corners are brought to you by Citibank or whatever it was, you know. So we were watching a home broadcast. I think they tried to make it a little bit more, uh, balanced, but they clearly knew way more about Tampa than they did about Dallas. And they were talking about how Tampa was having their share of the game in the first half. And I was like, what game are you watching, dude? They're getting roffle stomped into the ground. It's like this. The first half was utter, like they maybe had like 20% of the ball is like it was a dominant, dominant road performance in the first half. And granted, they made some adjustments, notably like they, they did something in the midfield, uh, with some. I think it was actually their outside backs. They positioned them much wider and that diffused the, um, the Trinity backs coming forward quite a bit and really took the steam out of their play. But, um, you know, it. I am assuming that the broadcast will vary and get a they'll all get better, but some of them are already much better than that particular. [00:52:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:52:14] Speaker B: And it was so bad. There were like. I just have to say this, there were like ten tv mistakes in the first 30 seconds of the broadcast. I was like, this is like, this is high school audio video club. I was like, this is so bad it makes my teeth. [00:52:27] Speaker A: Okay. Did the main field. Did the main field camera, did they replace it or change, or change the settings? Because. I swear. Cause I started the game on one tv and it was like. It was like running 480 p resolution is what I thought they were producing the game at. And then I went downstairs and watched it on another and it got markedly better. And I couldn't tell if it was the difference between my displays or they changed cameras or they finally fixed something. [00:52:55] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it could have been any one of those things. They definitely lost that camera. And considering that they lost the audio at the same time, that implies to me that they lost. They had to either take down something that was the bridge from that camera, including the booth audio together, or it failed on them and they had to make some adjustments or whatever. It certainly looked like from sitting on my sofa that they, like, added a lens to that camera or something at halftime, because it did look. Definitely changed the framing of it. But it wasn't just that. It was like, it looked more capable of getting a tighter shot. And a lot of that is just framing. So maybe they moved something or maybe they swap. You know, without having been there. I really couldn't tell you because it's like five different things that could have happened. But it definitely changed significantly at halftime for sure. [00:53:40] Speaker C: I did enjoy the Dallas Trinity goal, having no crowd sound whatsoever and an awkward silence as the play by play guy kind of just laid out for the crowd noise. [00:53:52] Speaker B: Yeah. That goal came when in the part of the game where they had lost that high camera and they had lost sound. So like there was. That's why there was no, like, game angle. [00:53:59] Speaker A: Yeah, they were showing. The entire game was being shown from a series of cameras in like, the. By the corner flags. [00:54:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And like, the only look of the first ever goal in club history is like, from three. You have to cut three low cameras to make and get like, half of the person in the frame as a score. It's awful. [00:54:16] Speaker C: So bad with the. With the broadcast, when you mentioned the home promos, that's the same thing they used to do with USL League one. Yeah, it would be a central commentary team off site, but then whoever the home team was, they played all their promos. [00:54:32] Speaker B: Yeah, they've got MLS with two versions of that where they. Some teams wouldn't do a road feed. They would just take the home feed and you would get that. Sometimes they, they tried for a bit doing a shared game where pre Apple. Now MLS did, where like you would have your home team commentators, but then they would split the promos. And so you would get both promos and both sets of sponsors on one broadcast. There's lots of very different ways you can cut it up and splice it. It's hard to know exactly what version they're using except that the quality of some of the highlights from like the DC game, for example, are light years better than this one was. So I'm assuming it's a home feed produced, you know, for who knows what amount of money. [00:55:16] Speaker C: Yeah, because the, the production with the Playboy play was done by Vista World Link and then because it was Josh Easton who works for USL primarily. [00:55:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the USL Vista thing. This. Yeah, that would not surprise me if this is all still that same deal and you still get like, you get an MLS. An MLS now on Apple TV where a lot of times it's technically a neutral broadcast, but when you're doing the LAFC games, for example, you're still getting, you're getting Max Britos who did their games for a couple years. So they know way more about the home team than the road team, you know. So that's, that's what it is. [00:55:52] Speaker C: Well, I'm sure. Sure access as well. Because what they're, you know, if it is that, that one in Florida, they're just outside of Miami. Right? So they're only a couple hours down the road compared to Dallas, who doesn't have a coach and everything else. [00:56:08] Speaker B: Right. [00:56:09] Speaker A: This is the nerdiest soccer podcast ever about Amber Brooks. If you didn't love her because of her style of play, I mean, she is, she is within one game already starting to establish herself as Trinity's version of Lionel Alvarez. Did you see her quote in the indie magazine a week ago? [00:56:31] Speaker B: I did, but go ahead. [00:56:33] Speaker A: So this is going to make all of you love her even more because remember, she played for the dash and they asked her about that, you know, now you're in Dallas and in Houston, blah, blah, blah. And her answer was the following. This is awesome. No disrespect to the club and the fans, but I did not love Houston. We had to play a game in Dallas after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. I was thinking like, honestly, the club would be better off moving to Dallas, there were way more fans. There's more of a soccer culture here and all my time there, I think maybe the most we ever got was eight or 9000 fans. And our one game in Dallas, we got twelve or 13 on short notice. [00:57:16] Speaker B: Wow. [00:57:17] Speaker A: Instant hero Amber Brooks. [00:57:19] Speaker B: Yeah, she's awesome. Yeah. [00:57:22] Speaker A: And she'll crack you. [00:57:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I was, I mean, I said in my three things that I was, that I did. I was, I wished Alice had, in relative terms, a six as good as that because she was dominant. [00:57:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it was pretty great. [00:57:35] Speaker B: Person of the match. I couldn't decide whether I was allowed to say man of the match or not. [00:57:39] Speaker C: Player of the game. [00:57:40] Speaker B: Player of the game. Oh, thank you, Dan. Player of the game. [00:57:43] Speaker A: There you go. [00:57:44] Speaker B: I should ask you how to. [00:57:46] Speaker A: All right, well, very good. Well, congratulations. So they, their game against Barcelona is. [00:57:51] Speaker C: Sunday, Friday the 30th. [00:57:54] Speaker A: Oh, Friday the 30th. Okay. [00:57:56] Speaker C: They actually have two weeks off from league play. [00:57:59] Speaker A: Okay. And then they, and then they turn around the following week and play DC power. DC power in at, uh, at, at the cotton ball. All right. Well, I wonder. I have no idea. They made their radio rounds the other day. They were on the ticket and then I think they made a trip over the fan and made some appearances and, you know, promoted the Barcelona game. I'm interested to know how many people are going to show up for that game. [00:58:29] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. [00:58:31] Speaker A: Friday night, you know, I don't know. Interesting stuff. Well, it's fun. It's kind of fun to see the birth of something new like that. Oh, that was the other thing, the little stadium there that they were playing in, in Tampa. Buzz, you brought this up. That's a high school soccer stadium. [00:58:46] Speaker B: Yes, it was a high school soccer stadium that at, at the time before they got involved, held about 1500 people and they put a little money in and expanded it to where it holds about, I think it's approximately 5000 people right there on the river downtown. So it's a great location, great little stadium. I mean, I was lamenting that. Like that's, that's what North Texas needs. A little, maybe, maybe more like ten k, but somewhere between that five to. [00:59:09] Speaker A: Ten k, that's what Dallas Trinity needs. [00:59:13] Speaker B: It is what they need. You know, that. I don't know if they're going to be involved with this Mansfield thing, but they, they, they talking all along about Dallas, Dallas, Dallas. And we know that behind the scenes there have been some rumblings about some, some very couple different locations of maybe somebody's trying to do something, nothing concrete with it, you know, and I know that the city of Dallas talked a lot about how they want to keep them. But the cotton bowl, I'm assuming with, I believe it was a two or three year deal they did. You know, maybe that's a window to try and get something done because to be frank, I feel like the cotton ball is going to be ridiculous. Like way more because like it looked ridiculous when the burn were putting 17,000 in there. And if you're going to only get to put 5000 in there, it's going to look even more ridiculous. So in the long term viability, unless just this thing goes crazy like I would not expect in Dallas, you know, they're going to need to have something more viable. [01:00:06] Speaker A: If you could take what they have in Tampa and, and I don't know, and just be generous and turned into 8000 seats that they pack out and put that over there somewhere in Oak Cliff or near the Trinity or, you know, the, the hobby park rumor that we've heard off and on somewhere inside the loop proper. Man, that would be killer. That would be really great. [01:00:31] Speaker B: And then you could do a whole campaign about how your Dallas soccer team. Yeah, of course, you know, play that up and be like, be good, man. [01:00:38] Speaker A: If you could find just enough space down there somewhere on south and south side. Down there just south of downtown. [01:00:45] Speaker B: There's lots of places to fit in a stadium that size. [01:00:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:48] Speaker B: You know, because that ain't that big. That kind of erector Stadium. [01:00:51] Speaker A: No, that would be really, really cool. Well, congratulations to the Neil family for getting that thing launched. I think the league's working really hard to try to turn it in. [01:00:59] Speaker B: I. [01:01:00] Speaker A: Did any of you watch any of the other games or see highlights of any other the games and know how this, how this game paid? [01:01:06] Speaker B: I looked at a, I looked at a couple high just to look at the quality of the broadcast. I didn't look at them to look at them. So. But, you know, the general discussion was that Dallas and Tampa are supposed to be that people think two of the better teams. So I think that that game may end up being a part of the more quality games. [01:01:21] Speaker A: I know the score doesn't show up, but, man, Dallas was significantly better than Tampa. [01:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And the end, as you said right when you came in, Peter, the game was much better than I was expecting. The quality was. [01:01:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:01:34] Speaker B: I was really pleased by that, actually. [01:01:36] Speaker A: It's funny. And I, and I, and I don't mean this. I mean this in all the right ways. But it's funny to me how, you know, you watch the NWSL or, you know, the big league over in England and then Wrexham spends a lot of time focusing on their women's team. And I think that the television show paints that as some sort of level that it's just not. And like, you know what I mean? [01:02:04] Speaker B: And so that women's team is horrible. [01:02:06] Speaker A: Well that league is just not very good. Even, even after they won their league and they got promoted to the top level in Wales. I don't even think that's anywhere close to what we saw. Dan, you may have played in an. [01:02:18] Speaker C: Eight team semi pro league. [01:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I didn't know what to expect with this because obviously it's been in a big rush to put this team together and the league together and everything. But I thought the, the overall quality of play was, you know, was better than I expected, a full letter grade better than I thought it was going to be. And that's promising. [01:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think you, I actually think that you're already seeing the NWSL react. I don't know if you guys saw that news break today about. I thought that's crazy doing away with the draft. [01:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:46] Speaker B: And I'm hearing some other big things are coming in terms of like even in the next few days that we're going to hear some crazy stuff with NWSL changing rules, reacting to this league because this league is run differently than their league. There's no draft. The USL Super League has open, you know, free agency, you know, complete like autonomy, player control. We can sign wherever you want. You know, that's do, that's more worldwide like, you know, no control of true movement. [01:03:14] Speaker A: That kind of, well, it's on the calendar. You know, the FIFA calendar which is. [01:03:19] Speaker B: Was a smart play about to differentiate themselves. So yeah, come the end of the NSL season when there's some free agents out there, this is gonna be a. [01:03:26] Speaker A: Real interesting, well then go on. DTFC. Are there any chance or nicknames or anything yet? I don't know. I don't know. What's the, what's the, do we have any agreed to way of referring to them? [01:03:40] Speaker B: I mean DTFC seems to be the hashtag that we've been using and I think that sort of is probably going to catch on. Calling them Dallas gets a little confusing. So I tend to use Trinity or Dallas, trinity or DTFC sort of interchangeable. [01:03:55] Speaker A: I don't. Did we decide a long time ago that pregasus wasn't probably appropriate? [01:04:01] Speaker B: I don't know. [01:04:02] Speaker A: Okay. [01:04:03] Speaker B: I think people are calling it. I don't know if it's appropriate. [01:04:05] Speaker A: I don't know either. All right. [01:04:06] Speaker B: I think it's just a Pegasus. I don't think it's a pregnancy. So unless you're trying to be funny. [01:04:10] Speaker A: Dan. Good stuff. [01:04:12] Speaker C: Yay, sucker. [01:04:16] Speaker A: Poor Dan. So beaten and buzz, we will. Good talking to you again. [01:04:23] Speaker B: No, thanks, man. Yeah, it's another. Another round of soccer. [01:04:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. You. You officially announced on the discord that the podcast is going to have a schedule change here. Coming up soon. [01:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we're going. We're going to sometime in the next three or four weeks. I'm not sure when. It may be a couple weeks, maybe three weeks. We're going to shift a recording on Thursdays, and the podcast will drop as soon as I finish it, which will be like, midnight or 01:00 a.m. and then most. For most people, of course, they'll be available on Friday morning. [01:04:52] Speaker A: Okay, so not really that big a difference. [01:04:55] Speaker B: It's only one day. You know, it's. It's because of some personal stuff between all of us. It's just gonna line up better to record on Thursdays for us. [01:05:06] Speaker A: It's okay, Buzz. You could tell everybody you've picked up a Pilates class on Wednesday. [01:05:11] Speaker B: Yep. I got a Wednesday Pilates class. You got your indoor game, so I play on Tuesdays. Oh, well, that's why we don't. [01:05:19] Speaker A: That's why we don't record on Tuesdays. Because I'm busy getting my ass kicked on Tuesdays. All right, very good. Well, good to talk to you both. Look forward to seeing how the second half or the last third, or whatever we want to call it, of Dallas, the season plays out and how the start of the new Trinity season goes. So that's fun. All right, boys. Thank you very much. And thank you, FDA C Dallas. And I suppose Trinity Curious fan will speak to you next week on another episode of third degree, the podcast Dallas. [01:05:53] Speaker C: Has a team to be proud of. [01:05:55] Speaker B: Whoa. [01:05:56] Speaker A: Third degree the third degree Nepochet. Third degree, the third degree Nepoche. Third degree the third degree nepothe. The green. If I can.