3rd Degree the Podcast #282

[00:00:00] Speaker A: God, what a terrible dismount. Yeah. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Ooh. Oh. [00:00:11] Speaker A: Third degree. [00:00:13] Speaker C: The third degree nap. [00:00:14] Speaker A: I agree. [00:00:17] Speaker C: The third degree nepochet. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Third degree. The third degree, Nepal. Third degree. [00:00:25] Speaker C: Third degree nap. [00:00:26] Speaker A: I can. Well, hello there, FC Dallas. Curious fan. Welcome to episode 282 of Third Degree, the podcast. First off, he is your favorite. Everybody's favorite. It is Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:00:46] Speaker C: Hello. How's it going? [00:00:48] Speaker A: You're way too chipper, Dan. That scares me. And your hero. My hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of Thirddegree.net, which, by the way, just celebrated its own birthday. And the original soccer influencer, Buzz carrot. Come in, Buzz. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Peter, man, I am super excited for the game at San Jose this weekend. See if Dallas can get this thing over the line, get the playoffs. [00:01:12] Speaker A: It's going to be fun. Buzz. Buzz. [00:01:16] Speaker B: What? [00:01:17] Speaker A: Dan? I think it's happened. [00:01:19] Speaker C: It's happened. He's broken. [00:01:21] Speaker A: I think. I think early. I think the early onset has happened to Buzz. He's now hallucinating. [00:01:27] Speaker C: Buzz. Who. Who does FC Dallas play at the weekend? [00:01:30] Speaker B: Is it not San Jose? [00:01:31] Speaker C: That was Wednesday. [00:01:33] Speaker B: Oh. Oh. That game already happened. [00:01:35] Speaker C: It did. It's easy to forget, though. It was terrible. [00:01:37] Speaker B: I must have blocked it out. When I was up at two in the morning trying to record my three things, I was like, why am I even doing this? But I did it. A lot of things to talk about. [00:01:51] Speaker A: So I've been thinking about this through most of the day. First off, uh, I'm just going to be honest with all of you that I've had a pretty bad day. And I'm in a really. I'm in a grumpy mood. Uh, some of it is work related, some of it is. Some of it is, uh, you know, family stuff going on. Some of it is the fact that any of the, uh, sporting teams that I love and near dear to my heart suck. And, uh. And then on top of all of this is the fact that all of this crazy stuff happening with the burn, it just feels like it's a never ending drip of, like, really? Seriously? That, too. Yeah. And I'm going to say this at the start, because there's a lot of. I don't want. I really want to try to make an effort not to pile on, okay? Because this is. It's very easy just to go completely scorched earth and crap on everything and live up to my own personal reputation as the Dallas cloud of darkness. All right? [00:03:03] Speaker B: So I'm gonna. [00:03:04] Speaker A: I'm gonna make a concerted effort not to be that person, but. All right, fair later this afternoon I saw a tweet from Charlie Helms. Now I don't know if everybody listening to this knows who Charlie is or her significance to this club, but I'm willing to bet that Charlie is probably the longest continuous season ticket holder in this entire club's history. She is an original fan. She's probably fan number two after Dustin. She was in the original Inferno supporters group. And she without question has been the singularly most supportive. Never negative, never says an, never says anything wrong about this club. Even it's in its worst mistakes. And today she tweeted out that because that she is living on a fixed income, the price increase will prevent her from being able to buy her season ticket next year. And that absolutely broke my heart. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Yeah, she's been around forever. She's ubiquitous at SC Dallas games. I think you're right. She's been following us since. Gosh, since probably since we started. I mean, certainly really early on, you know, she's. She's had been at every event you could ever imagine. So I. It is pretty crushing. You're right. There may not be a person spent a season two longer, older than her since she's done it from the very beginning. [00:04:35] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, Dustin, Dustin moved away. Now Dustin kept his season tickets for a while. I don't think he still has them. [00:04:42] Speaker B: No, he hasn't. But that's fair. I mean, doesn't live. He lives in Colorado so it's understandable that he has not, has made his tickets. And there may be other people that are 96 ers as well, but I doubt there's a 96 ER that's been as ubiquitous in their support and it's been universally at everything you can imagine, you know, home games away games aside. So it is a tragedy and I feel bad about it. And I, you know, it's the kind of fan that I wish the club could do something for her, but, um. Or maybe some other fans will, but who knows what it'll be. But I'm with you, Peter. It was a bummer to see that. [00:05:14] Speaker A: It would, it would go a long way to repairing a lot if I found out that Dan Hunt singularly just said, you know what, Charlie? We're going to take care of you. I don't know if that'll happen. And I know doing that and look, and to be fair, Dan, if he was to do that, that would open a can of worms that maybe just politically and uh, otherwise maybe business wise is a bigger can of worms than I realize. And I'm. And I'm speaking out of my butt. [00:05:39] Speaker B: It's tough because if they do the one, then where do you draw the line? Well, all of a sudden, there's somebody else that needs a problem. [00:05:46] Speaker A: The gap between Charlie and everybody else is massive. [00:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it's fair. [00:05:53] Speaker A: I mean, have she look on top of everything else that has gone wrong in the last 24 hours of this club? And then to top off the season ticket holder email that was released at about 530 this evening. [00:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Which ostensibly tells everybody, hey, go here to find out what your ticket fate is. Here's the definitive word. And then all of that and the confusion that comes with all of those new web pages that they've asked everybody to go read. I don't know, it's just. It's been a really, really rough day as a fan of this club. [00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Those link pages are a little bit fog of war in the sense that, like, it's kind of, the information is a little bit scattered. But I tried to read through it really quickly, and I think a lot of that information is good information. Whether you like it or not is a different question. But it's all good information. And I. And I believe I did not find anything that we were not. That if we talked about. I think we were correct and everything we've talked about, there's been some things. There's some things in there that we didn't know about or that nobody knew about or that people are learning now a couple weeks after the announcement of all this new ticket pricing and stuff. But, you know, it's. If you really want to, if you don't necessarily take all these other people's words for that, go there. If you're a fan, you can go find, I'm sure it's on Se Dallas website, or look at your email for that ticket rep and get the answers you need for the various people. [00:07:19] Speaker C: I think they've definitely got a point about misinformation, because when we first talked about the price increases, like, you grabbed the 2024 price of 2025, and there was, you know, there is a 50% price increase in places. There's also, in the support section it's 1%. In some other sections it's 10%, you know, kind of digestible numbers. But you also have people on social media who are on the east side where it's cheaper tickets, and they've had a lot of price locked in for a couple of years, and they're like, wow, now it's just going to, you know, this is going to more than double my price, which it is, but that's not the same as saying it's a 100% price increase. [00:08:00] Speaker B: The people with the renewal bonuses are gotten, you know, renewal discounts. [00:08:04] Speaker A: Okay, guys, can I just ask the most obvious question in the world? [00:08:09] Speaker B: Sure. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Which is, where was all this information the day they announced the stadium reconstruction? Why is this coming out? What is it, two or three weeks after the fact and bye. According, and I think because of how it is worded in the email by what's his face that runs ticket sales that it's because it, there's all this misinformation out there and now they feel like they need to put out the information to set the record straight. And I'm like, dude, where was this stuff? Literally the minute this should have been up on a website and in everybody's hands, the second that announcement was made of. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Well, I imagine, and I'm not saying they're correct, I imagine they felt like that they could just contact each person and say, here's your information. And obviously people began to speculate and people began to talk about their individual cases. And then word of mouth got around that some, one person had this, the person had that create. Again, like I described it, it's obviously not war, but the fog of war is a good expression. Like there's a lot of things floating around. And so they obviously have reacted to that. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe this was already in the works and it just took time. For whatever reason, we're not on the inside of the organization. But, you know, in the end of the day, like, you know, if you have questions, I think there's now a place where you can go get some answers. Whether, whether it's clear answers or not is a different question because it is a little bit like multiple different pages and that kind of thing. But I think it's all in there. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Well, I. Because I've tried, I've read through it once, I got a thousand questions that come out of it. But because to your, to use your turn, fog of war, I'm not going to dig, I don't want to dig into the specifics of what they posted on the website. What I would say is, is that part of the reason why they are dealing with all this misinformation is because they didn't put this stuff up to begin with. And even if they had posted it from the beginning, there would still be disinformation because that's just how the world works. [00:10:03] Speaker B: Yes. [00:10:05] Speaker A: Right. But they would have done themselves a massive favor if all of this had been done the minute that all of these announcements went out. And I'm sure there are people in the side of the club or whatever lurker in your discord fu, by the way, is listening to this and reading this. You know, they're like, well, we, we were. And put this. And there's always going to be an excuse, but they're dealing with all this now because somebody or somebody's or something caused this kind of failure of information. And the problem for them, Buzz, is that if you read through the stuff, it's. This is going to be an incredibly painful process for the next three seasons. [00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very complicated. I mean, I was getting into the part where it talks about the, the season where they're going to flip sides, and, and you, you mentioned the part about, like, how even this year, how the people that are on one side are going to be in their normal seats and everyone that's going to be coming across is going to get pick, gets a pick in this order and whatnot, and the other stuff. And, uh, you know, listen, it's going to be a difficult process for everybody. They will get difficult for construction, trying to build while they're using it for games, to get difficult for game ops, difficult for ticket sales guys, difficult for the fans. It's gonna. It's not gonna be easy. You know, it's gonna be a tough three years, but, um, you know, let's hope and cross our fingers and they decide that it's gonna be worth it with a beautiful new stadium, basically. New stadium. Might as well be a new stadium, you know, and, and they're gonna have to work really hard and imagine we'll be dealing with this in a lot of ways for the next three seasons. They're gonna work really hard to try and mitigate it for their fans because, you know, I would assume that part of the reason that they're putting out documentation like this is they have gotten a somewhat negative response from some people or from groups of people or large swaths of people that are confused and upset and not responding as they had perhaps hoped. So they're going to have a pr and community relations battle for the next three seasons, honestly, to get through this thing, because even from the get go, Peter, you talked about how crazy it's going to be in the neighborhood around the stadium as well, and they don't even have control over that. Then you're getting involved with city and county and, and the local businesses, and it's not going to be easy. [00:12:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I just. I have my issues with the hunts, but they've been doing this kind of thing for an incredibly long amount of time, and I would trust that they knew once they made the decision to go ahead and continue to play games in the stadium while it was under constructed for three entire seasons, that they knew what was about to come down the hill and were prepared for that. And it just feels, at least in these initial few weeks, that they. It's almost as if they didn't expect this to happen. And I find that almost unbelievable, which means it probably isn't true, and maybe I'm overreacting to it. Related to that comment, somebody well connected contacted me and said, hey, I heard you ask the question about why they are playing in the stadium and why they didn't go play at the star in Frisco. And the answer to that question was probably obvious from the jump, is its sponsorship issues. So FC Dallas sponsor. Stadium sponsor is Toyota. The stadium sponsor at the Star is Ford. The soft drink of choice for FC Dallas's coke. Jerry Jones. It's Pepsi. And, uh, what I've been told is, is that the idea of playing somewhere else was bantied about initially, but I think it became a very quick non starter when every stadium in the area, minus the cotton ball, has sponsorship conflicts. So. [00:13:46] Speaker B: Yeah, and three years ago and three years of conflicts, that'd be a big. [00:13:49] Speaker A: Money, and contracts are contracts and relationships or relationships and money is money. And that's. And so I. If I'd thought about it and had a better. If I was smarter, I probably would have realized that on my own and didn't need somebody to tell me. But that totally makes sense. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Well, to be fair, we're not front office operations people, you know, so that it would have been hard for any of us to think about that. But it does make a lot more sense than just, like, I ad didn't work. You know, it's. That's why it doesn't work. [00:14:17] Speaker A: All right, well, um, that's all the ticket stuff. I. We have a ton. We have, you know what, ironically, because of what happened last night in San Jose Buzz that you blocked out, we have an entire off season, and, in fact, an extended off season now of an additional three weeks where we can get into ticket and stadium renovations because the rest of the season is absolutely meaningless as Dallas goes to last place. San Jose, the wooden spoon team in MLS, a team that had only won three times at home and was playing a rotated roster. [00:14:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:57] Speaker A: And still somehow managed to lose three to two. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I read that quote from me in wrestling, he's like, yeah, he rotated all the people. Was like, oh, no, that makes it even worse. Yeah. This was not a quality win by, or even a quality loss. This was one of those weird games where in a modern context, we've all learned that possession doesn't really mean very much. You know, Dallas had, what, almost 58, 60% of possession, boatless possession. They ended up creating a large amount for them of shots on the road, which is 17. But the same old thing rears its head where they only get five of them on net, which is a rate of about 29%, depending on which stat group you looked at. I saw one said four, one said five. So it depends on which website. But the MLS one said five, so we'll go with that. 29% on target. That's not quality enough, particularly because they had a really high percentage of their shots. I think it was 60 something percent came inside the box. So with that in close work, you ought to be able to get more of them on that. So the bottom line is it just wasn't efficient until enough of goal creation. You know, they did get enough gold creation. But the larger macro problem is that, you know, we've talked about this for a while now, is a push. Coach Peter Laxan has sacrificed defense for offense. He is a more balanced game, but that means he gives up two, three goals a game all the time. So that's not how you win games. And the defense had its problems against a really, really bad team who's admittedly added some pieces, but not. Not a very good performance by, in the search of imagination. And when you, when you go into the team that only has, I think, three wins at home out of their five, and you can't beat them, one of the teams is competing for one of the worst teams in the history of the league, and you're in a must win situation. You can't go in there and get a win, then you don't deserve to be in the playoffs. That's the bottom line. [00:16:51] Speaker A: So, Dan, do you want to throw anything on top of that real quick before we get into the specifics? [00:16:57] Speaker C: You want me to sling more shit on a pile of shit? [00:17:01] Speaker A: If you'd like to. I'm giving you the opportunity. You don't have to. [00:17:05] Speaker C: Nah, it's not worth kicking someone window down. [00:17:09] Speaker A: All right, Buzz, I want to get back to that point you just made in a second. But one of the things that I think surprised people was the fact that pause. Martin Paws did not play in the game. My order started and you asked some questions about whether or not maybe Martine would have made a difference in this particular game. [00:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:28] Speaker A: And I also want to throw a little bit of the elephant in the room, which is, I was a bit surprised when you threw out the question as to what's really going on here. He was out injured, but he does have a call up to Indonesia on the way. And I think you, you kind of went out there on a limb and kind of questioned the men, the thinking behind that, and I'm just wanting to kind of clear that up. [00:17:53] Speaker B: Well, let's first give some official credit. Garrett Meltzer, who works as digital media guy for the team, says that he didn't hurt his wrist earlier in the week in training, you know, was listed as questionable. So I don't doubt that. You know, my, my question in general terms was, you know, if, if he starts that game over, Jimmy Maurer, does Dallas win? Maurer saved only one of four shots that faced him. And I don't know that I looked at each goal. I don't know that I looked at them and thought Mauer made any, like, critical mistakes. But there's no question that Martin Paws is a better goalie than Jimmy Maurer. So, you know, would he have gotten a couple of them and could they have won that game? I think it's a legitimate question. You. There's no way to know. But certainly the defense would feel more confident they might play better. They might. He might have gotten one or two of those saved, you know, but being a jaded cynic who's been around this game a long time, I've seen people do some nefarious ass shit before, and I'm not going to say this is a red flag. I'm just going to say that I noted this, that, you remember the last time he got called up, we questioned whether he went all in on a couple of tackles that maybe he subconsciously even perhaps pulled out of a couple of hits that he might have made ordinarily on guys that went up being goals. And then this situation comes up where he hurts his wrist. And I don't doubt that it's hurt. I don't doubt that, you know, the team says it's hurt. I believe it because I don't think they wouldn't do that. The team would not do this, but I do. I couldn't help but wonder, like, if this would been MLS cup, would he have taped that up and played? You know, like, well, I just didn't. [00:19:35] Speaker A: Or how about this being that it was kind of a must win for the team. If he didn't have the call up. What do you have taped? [00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah. What? He's taped up in play. You know, I don't, I don't begrudge the guy to be worried about his call up, given the amount of massive impact that's having for him personally. You know, I don't question his commitment to the team officially. I'm not questioning that. All I did was say, okay, I'm noting this. If this continues to be a thing, then we're going to have to talk about it. You know, it's like, it's just, you know, it's now two occasions, wherever I. Five days before the call, I went, huh. You know what I mean? I'm not, you know, and he probably would be mad at me for saying all that. But, you know, you can remember when, not to make a completely unfair comparison. You remember when Jassi was hurt? When Jassi got hurt and flopped down and I asked, I think it was Lucci about it, like two days later. And he goes, man, he looked fine. I'm walking off at halftime and he's in training here today, on Monday. Looks great. You know, so we've seen worse. [00:20:51] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I understand why you're jaded about it. And, yeah, I love, I want to be wrong. Look, I think he's one of the coolest, best signings this club has ever made in my. And the fact that he has been willing to kind of buy into and live the Dallas lifestyle and buy into the sports scene. Hell, he wore a Dallas Trinity shirt before the game the other day in the, you know, in the, whatever the fit check is, the photos that they post. And I just thought that was really, really cool. And I get where you're coming from. I would, it would absolutely break my heart to find out that there was something to it. So I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I see where you're coming from. [00:21:33] Speaker B: He earns the benefit of the doubt. And I'm not making any accusations. I'm just an observer of this team. And when I notice things that are different, I note them. And so I've noticed that there's been a slight difference. Now, twice now, I may be 100% real. I hope it's 100% real. I hope I'm wrong. [00:21:51] Speaker A: Well, I'm also going to throw out there. He's clearly by a large mile, the MVP of this team, because without him, they probably are the wooden spoon team. [00:22:02] Speaker B: Oh, you think so? [00:22:04] Speaker A: Yes. How many times has he absolutely saved this team's bacon this season. [00:22:10] Speaker B: I mean, a lot. But, I mean, you could go the other way, too, with Musa and 15 goals, you know, I mean, it's. He definitely is up there. [00:22:18] Speaker A: It took moose a little while to get going and Martin was playing well from the jump. So I. I mean, I guess maybe it's not as. Maybe it's not as big a difference between him and Musa, but. But I just. [00:22:29] Speaker B: Huge. [00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I just think that. I think Martine is, is MVP for the seed, but we'll talk about that probably on a. Yeah, we'll get into that. [00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:37] Speaker A: Right. Okay. So my next question about it is, is, so how does this happen? How does Dallas in a must win game go to San Jose? A team that is absolute crap, playing their b team and all the other things that you just talked about, how do they lose this game? What went wrong? [00:22:59] Speaker B: Well, some defense went wrong, as it does when you are trying to be really offensive. [00:23:08] Speaker A: It wasn't the line. It does the how he lined the team up. No problems from you from the start. Was there anything weird about that? [00:23:16] Speaker B: No, because Nicosia Tafari came back at right center back and Ibi got into the middle. I mean, there's some big picture things, but not in terms of his individual selection. Iron Mandy was back off suspension. That was good, by the way. It might have been Irmandy's worst game of the year show. Kaifumana was back. He had a really good game. In fact, Juan was there, Areola was there. You had your big three up front. I was slightly concerned, that is Velasco in his recovery mode, ready for a midweek game. I would have gone with Farrington, but they went with Velasco and he was my man of the match. He obviously was. Didn't care what I thought, obviously. So, um, you know, it was a must win. And so, you know, other than pause, he really went with what is become clearly his best eleven in his mind, and I don't have any disagreements with any of that. Like, the. The only other player that's been playing really well that you could make a case for might have been Sebastian Leggett, who might have deserved to be out there, but, you know, over the course of the year, been one of your best players all the time and show Kathy Mana has been really good and is more of the defensive minded player that you probably need in that spot. So, you know, no complaints about the lineup. Actually, it just was a case of what, what plagues this team defensively more often than not is an individual error. That leads to a goal. And those were the same kind of things that happened, you know, on the first goal, they just gave that guy way too much space and didn't close and backed off of him instead. Lopez. Hernan Lopez. And the second goal, Ibaga smashes into coffee, Mana knocks him down, and the guys in on goal again. The third goal was Dallas getting up, trying to get a goal, and they just were, you know, left shorthanded. So, you know, above, see, managed to get the third one. So it's not really. Dallas just didn't give themselves enough real chances to get goals. You know, only five shots on target. You know, their only goal came off of baby August. Header off a corner. Oh, Velasco. Yeah, Velasco is really nice shot, which is a very nice team play. So, you know, when you score two goals on the road, you'd like to think you have a pretty good chance to win. But the defense didn't hold up, so they lose. [00:25:35] Speaker A: Dan, once again, I'm going to turn to you and see if you'd like to throw any additional commentary or observations. [00:25:42] Speaker B: Jesus. [00:25:43] Speaker C: No, I mean, they had the chances to win that game just like they had the chances to win at the weekend, and. No. [00:25:53] Speaker A: So I have found it a bit interesting that the Peter Luxon bandwagon appears to have emptied out alarmingly quick rather rapidly over the course of the last few days. Um, and the, you know, fans are fickle that way. And I guess it does lead me to ask this question, which is, where do they go from here on a managerial hire? Because I. Obviously, I'm one of these people that it was like, yeah, this is not the right guy. He's clearly not experienced enough to do this job. And I. And I'm going to. Just going to point out that I think I was. This all proves that that is the correct way of looking at it. But I also was willing to admit that all signs were indicating that this was the easiest path for Dan Hunt to hire a guy that people would generally like. And now I think, you know, there'd be a lot of bitching and complaining if they do end up hiring him. So now I'm. Now I'm confused. Like, what do they do from here? [00:27:01] Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, he's now got a seven. Seven and two record in MLS playd, and 710 and two at all comps. While that's slightly better than Niko, probably actually a step better than Nico Steph has had, it's still not great. It's not. Not about five. It's right at 500, you know, and if he's the coach for the whole season, they're probably above the line. But, you know, again, he wouldn't have had Velasco like he does at the end here and he wouldn't have had Paxton the whole time. And, you know, he, so things would be different. So it's hard to really make that comparison, you know, under looks on, they, they were before this game averaging 2.1 goals a game, and that may have dropped, you know, closer to two and they were allowing 1.9. So that may have come up closer to. So that's roughly two and two even that gets you that roughly 500 records. So small, small incremental improvement. But I don't think that's enough to lock down this job. I think it's enough that he's a candidate, looks, sounds a candidate. And we finally have started to see ripples and rumors of actual people that might be in for this thing as well. So we can't, none of them are something we can report because it's all ripples and backdoor talk. But it's, that didn't exist two weeks ago and it does now. [00:28:28] Speaker A: So, yeah, I will share that. I was, I was told by somebody in the national media that one of the known names out in the atmosphere of somebody that has MLS head coaching experience is somehow, I'm not saying has been interviewed or has expressed interest. I don't know that level of it. I just know somehow they're in the mixed at this point, which I thought was a bit surprising. [00:28:54] Speaker B: So I think, I think what, what I said last, what we said last week is true, that they were going to, they're just waiting for the official elimination, and now they will open this up to other candidates and you'll begin to see, because now it's fair. Remember I said that it wasn't fair to Peter looks on, that he walks on the training field and watches somebody walk into the building for an interview or hears about an interview. But now that they're limited, now it is fair. And so now you can open it up. I'm sure he will be a candidate. I almost guarantee you that he's a candidate. Well, he was better. But we know of multiple people that are also candidates, so. [00:29:28] Speaker A: Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm, I get why you people see, this is the thing that drives me nuts. People keep saying the team was better. I'm not sure the team was better. The points per game number now, especially when you, and this is the thing that sticks in my crawl when people try to add up Luxane's time as manager and they throw out the US Open cup game and the two leagues cup games because according to Dan Hunt and Andre Zenada, those were key elements to judging him as manager of this team. And when you throw those three losses in the mix, his record is pretty not that far off or that much better than Niko Estebas's were then. I also want to ask this question specific to the game last night. What's he doing when he's subbing out Musa and Velasco? When a game is tied one one in a must win game, like, what is he thinking? [00:30:26] Speaker B: I don't know how you sub off your two best players, your two best goal scores. The only two players that are above like a 0.4 goals per 90 minutes. Both those guys are on .6 and .67 for Allen. Clearly your best two chances to score any seven both out. So that's a question I don't have an answer to. The postgame stuff is just quotes from him. There's no quotes from players. So I couldn't even begin to tell you. That's a whole different question. Musa, by the way, walked straight into the locker room and there's didn't go to the bench. It didn't look like. Was he away? No, I don't think so. Let me read you the quote that Laksan had after that subdivide. Let me grab it real quick. Okay. This is from, this is Pope. Coach Peter looks on after the game, responding to the Musa sub question. It's football. It's a state of emotion. I don't have a problem with that. In the end, they are winners and they want to do their best. And when the group isn't at their best, it's normal to be mad. He's a winner and that's it. It won't happen again. But I can understand the emotion of everybody right now. So clearly there was some discontent with. [00:31:31] Speaker A: So what won't happen again? Him walking straight walking locker room. [00:31:34] Speaker B: I assume there was no more clarification than that. So looks on, doesn't say specifically what it was. I took it as the camera cuts away before he actually is down the tunnel, but it looks like he's heading to the tunnel to me because when it was live, I was like, whoa, was he going down the tunnel? And then they cut away. So. [00:31:51] Speaker A: Well, to me the moment just feels like, I mean, I guess I can, I can. I can somewhat see a justification on subbing out Velasco because he's a kid coming back from an ACL injury. He played a lot of minutes, a few. Yeah, minute load thing. But to do both of them in that manner is really, really confusing. And it feels like that's. That's an example of a guy that just doesn't have a lot of experience and maybe he's not reading the scenario correctly. And to be fair to him, maybe there's some sub context that we're not aware of. Totally that would justify making this move, but just based on what we do know, because the club isn't communicating anything to us or giving us other additional insight as to why it happened. Yeah, it's a really, really bad look for a guy trying out for a job, and it screams inexperienced to me. And a really clear indicator of why maybe somebody like that isn't the right person for this job. [00:32:45] Speaker B: Well, if you want to take off Velasquez for a minute, though, you just put in Ferris in for him. You know, it's simple. You know, you don't have to bring off. Ferrington, doesn't have to be the high nine. He plays off, wing off all the time, especially because you have Jesus who wants to slide back anyway. So that would have been an easy adaptation for me. But to answer the question that you asked earlier about the team being better, when you combine it with the Musa sub question at the same time was, is that under Luxon, legit has found himself again. Areola has improved dramatically. Jesus Ferrer has come back and started playing again. Ruan has been a good ad and a nice piece. Shoke cafe mana has been a good ad and a nice piece. So there's like a. There's five or six qualities to the team that I think are clearly better and improved. You know, whether he gets credit for all those things, not a different question, but I think the team is definitely better. Um, it also is sacrificing a lot of defense for offense that may not be better. That part, that's going to be what it's going to cost in the end. [00:33:43] Speaker A: See, for me, I mean, I know everybody thinks the team's playing more entertaining, more. A more entertaining style, and I'm. I'm willing to say that, but at the end of the day, this is about. This is results based business. [00:33:53] Speaker B: It is. [00:33:54] Speaker A: And. And in. In that way, he didn't really produce any better results than. Than Niko did. And I don't think, you know, look, and all of the games, I think he's up to, what, 17 games total now? Does he have a signature win out of that group. I mean, maybe beating the galaxy at. [00:34:10] Speaker B: Home, that was a pretty big win. [00:34:12] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's a home game, right? [00:34:13] Speaker B: I mean, finally got the one road win. [00:34:16] Speaker A: That was something I always against DC. [00:34:19] Speaker B: Well, when you have zero road wins, if you finally get one road win, that's something. [00:34:23] Speaker A: If you. If that counts as a signature win, that's thin, man. [00:34:27] Speaker B: I'm not saying it's great. I'm just. Signature win. [00:34:31] Speaker A: I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking Oscar putting five homegrowns on the field in Columbus and getting a win, kind of signature win. That's what I'm looking for. [00:34:41] Speaker B: Well, I mean, that LA wind was pretty good, but certainly nothing on the road. Yeah, the gaussian one's pretty good. [00:34:46] Speaker A: So you see where I'm coming from. [00:34:47] Speaker B: Dan, is the team better for you? What do you think? [00:34:49] Speaker C: I. Yeah, define better. [00:34:52] Speaker A: That's my point. [00:34:54] Speaker B: So. No, it's not better for you. [00:34:55] Speaker C: I mean, it's just playing a more interesting style of soccer. That's. That's really it. Yeah, I think attacking soccer is always more pleasing, but the results are important and, yeah, kind of tailed off a little bit from a pretty early, promising start, which, which, you know, is a little bit of new coach bump and just teams trying to refill out FC Dallas. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Peter, the best I can come up with is five three over Minnesota. Minnesota's turned out to be decent over the back end of the season and three one over Austin. Those are the closest I can come up with. Is it other than the Galaxy game? Is the mark you win, your miles may vary. [00:35:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, fair enough. I don't know what else to say. It's a terrible loss. It's. It's a really crummy, weird way to lose a season. And. And I'm just in, in this season, in my mind when this is all said and done, buzz, I really feel like we're going to look back on this season and consider to be the single most needlessly wasted season in this club's history. Like, it just. It. This season just feels like it was so obviously poised for something like this to happen from the very start. You remember how weirdly hesitant we all were back in January and February about how this thing was going down because of the way the roster was coming together. [00:36:27] Speaker B: Well, you know, I think I remember quite clearly saying that it was going to be a wasted season because you didn't IRL in Glasgow. [00:36:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that's. It starts with that, right? Yes. [00:36:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And the fact that you proceeded to not get what I think most people outside the team clearly felt was your biggest efficiency, which was the center back. You don't get one of those, and then on top of that, you go play a back three. So not only you short one center back, you actually short two, which is incredible. And I think there's a gigantic problem with playing a back three in Texas because you guys may not have noticed this. I certainly have. It is really hot here. And you play, when you play wing backs, they have to run the whole field. I remember we spent the first part of the year talking about how the wingbacks that he had weren't playing wing back, they were just playing the back part and they weren't doing the wing part. And he finally got Ruan and Areola to do both parts of it. And those guys have an incredible burden of running that they have to do. And to me, that's a terrible idea in a place that has one of the hottest temperatures for average home temperatures in the world. That sounds awful. You know, I don't, I don't know how you calculate that as the way to go about it. You know, back three system tends to be a very vertical up and down rapid system. Again, not something I'm sure plays well in the heat. [00:37:55] Speaker A: But, but isn't. But isn't that. But isn't the choice to ultimately, because Lexane essentially stuck with the exact same system. I know this is all a reflection of the crummy state of the roster in that both these managers looked at what they had and said, man, if I don't put three center backs back there, we're just going to. We're going to leak goals like a sieve. Or at least that's what they thought the solution was. [00:38:20] Speaker B: Yeah, they legal like a sieve anyway, under Laksan? [00:38:24] Speaker A: Well, yeah, there's a way to play a three man backline and there's a way not to play a three man backline. And, and Peter chose the latter. [00:38:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I just. It's tough. You know, at the beginning of the year, we were kind of all over the place, as you said, in terms of what we were predicting. I think we predicted anywhere from, you know, fourth down to 9th because we just couldn't get a handle on what they were doing and what the team was doing. And there's a lot of disparate pieces on this roster, you know, and at the end of the day, like, you know, any season where it goes bad enough that you end up firing the coach is a waste in season, you know, because now when you're going to have a new coach, it doesn't matter who that coach is. You're, you're starting a rebuild, right? You're starting about another cycle. You know, this is not the kind of franchise where the, the cabinet is full and you're just looking for a guy to massage it into the dough, the dough into the shape for the bread. This is a team where you got to go back and start over from ground zero because of the way the rosters poorly put together. And at some point we'll do a thing trying to explain what we mean by that. That's a long conversation to be a post, but, you know, it's, it's when you're now going to be starting over with a new guy and a new build and a new acquisition of players that play his way. And we talk about this with all teams. We talk about the biggest teams in the world, you know, when the new coach comes in and three years later they're in the Champions League, it's not because that guy coached up the dudes that were there. It's because they spent $250 million. Now, this club can't do that. So it has to do it in other ways. But you're going to see a fairly significant roster turnover because they'll be building for a new guy and a new way of playing. I guarantee you that. Even if it's Peter looks on, it will not be the same roster. It will not be the same guys playing the same way. It won't be. He was doing what he felt was best for this current roster. And given the fact that he was a large contributor into Nico Steve's planning in his locker room, it's not surprising that the plan is pretty close to what it was, which is why, honestly, it's not particularly fair to expect massive changes from a guy that was one of the, if not the lead assistant. He was the number two assistant, you know, so it's, it's a weird state and it is a weird wasted season. And the whole idea of firing the guy midseason because he was going to get him into the playoffs was a bit, to me, is a bit disingenuous, you know, to have done to the. [00:40:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's also probably not fair. I mean, look, this is going to sound harsh, but the best of my knowledge, Peters, the top level Peter has managed a team at was U 14 in the academy. [00:41:00] Speaker B: Yeah. As a head coach. Yeah. [00:41:04] Speaker A: And, and I realize he's been an assistant for a while, but I, man, I don't know. It's so frustrating. Um, and I. And I. It is. It is a weird situation to think that this season we all, like. I just was. I thought it was going to be a dodgy season from the jump, but to find out that this season is going to end, and my perception is, is that Austin with Josh wolfe is absolute garbage and Dallas is going to finish below them in the table. Like, Dallas is the worst team in Texas right now, and. And I just. That is unacceptable. [00:41:41] Speaker B: Well, I don't. I don't begrudge them letting look looks on. Have a shot. If he wanted the shot, I don't mind that because he was the highest ranking assistant they had left and they need an interim coach. And he's like, hey, give me the chance. And they're like, you know what? Okay, you've been our guy a long time. Fine, you get the shot. You know, that doesn't mean you lock it in and give to him 100%. It just means, like, you know, of the people that were sitting around on the staff, who else would you have done? Keyshawn, maybe John Gal was coaching North Texas. You could have done him. I guess maybe he had a little more head coaching experience, but, you know, not much more than, you know. Peters had way more assistant Miko Estevez. [00:42:18] Speaker A: Who was under contract for the rest of the year instead of paying him out to sit on his ass for six months. [00:42:23] Speaker B: I mean, not fire him. [00:42:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:25] Speaker C: I mean, that would be a good way to win the wooden spoon. Well, I guess not. San Jose are that far back, but I at least challenge for it. [00:42:34] Speaker B: Yeah, once you decide to fire the guy, you don't then let him sit around for six months. You know, I can think of examples where that's happened, where they're like, okay, at the end of the season, you're fired, but you can coach out this. [00:42:45] Speaker A: I'm not. No, no. I'm not saying fire him and keep him. I'm saying let him just continue to keep the job till the end of the season. If you didn't have a plan to replace him, I mean, look, to be fair to Nico, Estebiz, Peter looks on had some advantages that Niko didn't in the form of players. And what we don't know is how would have Niko reacted to having Velasco back and Jesus back and Alarmindi back and now suddenly rwandan and show available. I mean, that's. That, to me, is the hardest and most damning part of Luxon's time is that he had a significantly better roster to choose from that Niko Steves did from his 16 games. [00:43:28] Speaker B: I think I tried to think about that a little bit, and I think that it is a little unfair to not have given him the second window to try and write it, which is why when they fired him, when they did, my thinking must have gone back to, oh, this goes back to really middle of the previous year, right? Like, since that Gold cup, that Jesus came back. Not the same player since then. Nikko's steph as his team has been terrible. So they probably came into this season on a short leash, and we didn't. Just didn't know it for them to have ripped him that fast, you know, I mean, like, at the point. [00:44:04] Speaker A: Well, I think also the ghost of Lucci was in there. Like, we. I think they probably thought they waited too long to fire Lucci. And. And maybe that was playing in the back of their mind. [00:44:15] Speaker B: Well, certainly they waited too long to give anyone else a chance to Lucci. At least this time, maybe they figured, we'll give whoever it is an actual chance to get into the playoffs. I mean, they didn't really, but they kind of did. [00:44:26] Speaker C: Well, don't forget, you know, we were talking about this really since April, that, you know, he was circling the drain. He had the win over ten man. Houston kind of extended it a little bit, the. The win against Austin when. I don't remember exactly what happened, but they were absolute dog shit. He then goes and takes a 30 lead against Raoul, Salt Lake, to only throw it away. You get that, that one all draw in Minnesota. That was potentially the most boring game of football in history. No one was surprised it happened at the time. It's looking back now. Oh, you know, it's kind of surprising it happened when it happened, but at the time, you know, he was probably the most surprised person that he was fired. [00:45:14] Speaker B: Well, I will say that, like we heard at the time, maybe a month before he was actually fired, I heard from people very reliably that the hunts were about to fire him and that several of the high profile, big name players went to Dan and spoke on Niko's behalf. I took that to be. And these are. I don't know the names. These are pure guesses. People like, uh, Paul, presumably, maybe legit, maybe Armandi, maybe even like an IB. Uh, you know, somebody. Some players spoke up on his behalf that they liked him and they wanted to keep him and wanted him to stay. And that got him about a month furlough before they finally fired him anyway. So, um, it was actually on the cards earlier than it happened. [00:45:54] Speaker A: Well, I don't think there's ever a really good way to fire a manager with the exception of having a plan of what you're immediately going to do in the aftermath. [00:46:03] Speaker B: Right. [00:46:04] Speaker A: And, and if the plan was to let Peter take over and see what happens out of it, that doesn't feel like a plan to me. That feels, you know, it just, well. [00:46:16] Speaker C: The problem they've got and this is, you know, this is MLS. This is the way the playoffs are or the play in game or whatever you want to call it. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Stop. [00:46:27] Speaker C: You've got half season, you're coming up to the, the trade window. You have Luke San take over as interim coach. Let's say you give him five games to kind of get in while you sort contracts out with someone. They've then got a get used to the team themselves. They're not embedded in the system. They don't know the players that well they've done. They're then going to try and put their stamp on it, figure out if it works or if it doesn't. We all remember Lucci's first preseason when he came in and was like, yeah, we're gonna have this counter pressing style. It's gonna be 90 minutes high pressing. And then all of preseason he tried different shapes, different things, and then rolled around the first game of the season. It was, you're ultimately surrendering any chance at the playoffs. Your best shot at the playoffs is try and have consistency and get some new energy in, which is what they tried. It hasn't worked. But, you know, is it better to bring in a new coach with the promise of, yeah, we're going to completely gut the roster anyway, but can you at least try and figure this out and maybe try and win four of your last five games to sneak in? [00:47:41] Speaker A: Yeah, the whole thing is disappointing and frustrating and a little bit soul crushing, but it is what it is. [00:47:51] Speaker C: Just another day for FC Dallas, isn't it? [00:47:53] Speaker A: You know what, we've said it every year for the last 20, and this is the 29th season. There's always next year. [00:48:00] Speaker C: There's always three years from now. [00:48:04] Speaker A: Yes. And when you begin to think about 2025 and then you now throw in the stadium construction complications and whatever that is going to bring to it, just the next three seasons of this club are really foggy and that's the most polite way I can put it. [00:48:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you're right, Peter, that there's a certain caliber of coach that will look at that situation even if they called in the first place they'll look at that situation and go, nope. Because, you know, home field advantage is impacted by stadium atmosphere. If you have. Have a stadium, you might not necessarily want to coach in that environment. Certain guys. Yeah, money might be affected. Budgets might be affected. [00:48:52] Speaker A: Well, clearly budgets are affect. I mean, the ticket prices. I mean. Yeah. Like, the idea of suddenly losing half your ticket revenue and adding whatever price of a new high dollar manager that you've never paid for before just doesn't feel like the Clark Hunt bottom line business modus operandi. [00:49:18] Speaker B: In a way. They're going to eat a stinky turd for three seasons, but hopefully it's going to be worth it on the back end. The venue might be worth it. Hopefully, yeah. [00:49:25] Speaker A: I don't know. I mean, better be. I mean, are they going to. Do you think they'll even try to go get Eric Quill? [00:49:31] Speaker B: I mean, I assume he'll be a candidate. I mean, it'll depend on what it'll take to get him out of his extended contract. You know, it just depends on. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Well, let me. Let me just say this. If we're at a. If we're at a point. If this club is at a point that a USL C team can outspend an MLS team for its manager, we're. We're in a really, really dark spot. We're in a way darker spot than I thought. [00:49:57] Speaker B: It'll depend on, like, you know, I can't remotely speak for how much Dan and Clark like I. Eric Quill. I think they like him quite a bit. I can't speak for how much that really is. Do they like him like, poppy, go pay Colorado a bunch of money to get him amount, or do they like him just a fair bit? And whatever random XYZ candidates are close enough that, you know what, it's not worth 2 million to get Quill. That's a pure number I made up. I don't know what it is, you know, to get quill out of New Mexico. You know what I mean? So, like, yeah, again, it's like, it'll depend a lot on who else is on the list, you know? Do they like him significantly more than they like Peter looks on? I couldn't. I couldn't tell you. I mean, I do, but that's not. It's easy for me to spend somebody else's money, isn't it? [00:50:44] Speaker C: Ultimately, they also have the problem of taking, to use a racing analogy, taking Ayrton Senna and putting him in a. One of those red little tykes cars that you know, toddlers have. Because that's it, right? You can. You can have as good a coach as you want, but if the person assembling the roster is there to sell, not buy, what they gonna get. [00:51:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I. Dan, you're 100% dead on, which is, at the end of the day, you could have had whatever manager this was. We've talked about it ad nauseam. We've beaten this dead horse into a pulp. This. The core of all of this was never about the manager. It was always about the poorly constructed roster and all of the risks they took and how all of those risks blew up in their face. And that's what really ruined this season. It wasn't Nico Estevez. It wasn't Peter looks on. You know, it was the roster construction and Andre Zonata, who is responsible for that? Who again, you know, it's funny. Last week after the game, Luxon, you know, was in his press conference, and, you know, he's got hung out to dry. Like, where is Dan Hunt or Andre Zenada? Like, speaking to the public at this point. Where are they? I don't understand this kind of weird, naked cowardice. So that's the only word I can come up with, is just their refusal to get out in front of the media and talk about what's going on here and leaving their poor manager out to dry. I don't get it. [00:52:27] Speaker B: I imagine the next time you'll see them, it will be when they have a conference at the end of the season to announce whether Luxand is being retained or not and whether they're going out to get other candidates or not. That'll be nice. [00:52:38] Speaker C: In fairness, when was the last time you saw an owner or a technical director speak at a managers coaches press conference after a game? [00:52:49] Speaker A: Well, I'm not even talking about being at the press conference. I'm talking about just speaking to the. To the media, period. Like, you know, after Luxane has to go through all of that, after that press conference, where's Dan Hunt? Standing up for him or saying something about the current state of the club or Zenada. I mean, Zenada is even more of a ghost than Dan Hunt is. At least every once in a while, somebody in the media bumps into Dan somewhere and he, you know, opens his yap. [00:53:16] Speaker C: Ironically, I did during that press conference. Yeah. I mean, I think that the. [00:53:23] Speaker A: What did he say? [00:53:24] Speaker C: Oh, nothing. I wasn't talking to him about the game. I just bumped into him and said, hello. The problem you get, and this is coming from England more than anything, is when a coach is struggling and the owner speaks. It's to give the dreaded voter confidence. Yeah, he's, he's. Yeah, we've, we've given him his full support. He's the man for the job. That's not a good thing. That's not, that's bad pressure for the coach. It's sometimes just better to say nothing. In that case. [00:53:56] Speaker B: I think we're, we're partially used to Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban around here who get in front of Mike's all. [00:54:03] Speaker C: The time, but they're celebrities. They're not. The hunts and Zenara. [00:54:06] Speaker B: I know. My point is, is that they're not normal. You know, they're normal for us here. They're not normal for most owners or GM's. [00:54:15] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. Maybe my expectations are wrong. I'm willing, I'm willing to. I'm willing to accept that maybe at thinking that Dan Hunt or Andre Zonata are willing to come out and address the fans and the media as to the current state of this club and just leaving loose Luxane to do it on his own, not necessarily in that moment, but even after the fact or beforehand or, or something. It just is. It's really, really weird to me. [00:54:43] Speaker B: The last time I thought we for sure should have heard from Zenada was when the window, when they added two players we should have heard from about why those two players and why not other kinds of players, you know, why they business in the window went like it went. You know, you can look around the league and pretty much every technical director or GM around the league went out and spoke about why they did or didn't do what they did in the window. [00:55:05] Speaker C: In fairness, I, if I was working PR for FC Dallas, I would be like, yep. Andre does not speak to people unaccompanied. That could be damaging. He's, I mean, the stuff post nico fire and he basically threw him under the bus and said, yeah, we have a great roster. It's perfect. Obviously not the case, but yeah, he does. You know, it does more harm than good. [00:55:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And Dan will and of course, we all know Dan, you know, talks in circles. Well, and hyperbole and says things and makes it and makes statements that get, lead people in a wrong direction. You mean what did, what was the one that he said about the new stadium? It's going to be the finest soccer facility in the world. It's like, come on, dude. [00:55:50] Speaker C: Nobody, the best one was at the Cotton bowl for that Miami friendly when he talked about, yeah, the defense is perfect. We don't need to pay any attention to it. What we need to do is have goal scorers. [00:56:02] Speaker A: I don't think it's any breaking news to tell everybody that Dan Hunt is not the classic soccer person, so. [00:56:09] Speaker C: Or the classic. We're gonna get reinforcements. And I mean, like, meaningful reinforcements. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:15] Speaker C: And then they didn't sign a single player. [00:56:22] Speaker A: So. [00:56:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Damage limitation. [00:56:26] Speaker A: Well, we'll see what happens for the rest of the season. I don't think it makes. I mean, I guess there's a scenario where they win these last three games and everybody in the mood changes a little bit, but I don't think that's going to happen. History tells us. Is there only two games left? I'm sorry. [00:56:42] Speaker C: Yeah, no, Buzz, don't forget there's San Jose this weekend. No, no. San Jose and Portland this week, and they're on consecutive days. [00:56:51] Speaker B: Double header. [00:56:51] Speaker A: But, guys, we all know what happens in these situations when the. When the door is shut and there is no hope. What happens in these, these final games, whether it's one game, two games, three games, four games, what, always? Well, not always. 99.9% of the time happens. What happens? [00:57:08] Speaker B: I don't know what happens. [00:57:09] Speaker A: Everybody just gives up. Like, there's nothing to play for. Like, why. [00:57:13] Speaker C: Why that happen on Wednesday? [00:57:15] Speaker A: Well, I think that's. I think. Well, maybe it did. Maybe everybody had already given up at that point, and I think that's even probably more of a problem. But once the door is officially shut and, you know, you can't go anywhere. And it's not just soccer. This happens in every sport when your team is done, the season's done, players play like they're done. They don't want to get hurt. They don't want to risk their, you know, especially the ones that are out of contract, you know, so. [00:57:42] Speaker B: Well, here's the. Here's the odd balance of that is Laksan's probably don't start to prove that he's the guy I know he's not going to play kids or go out there and lollygagging around. He's going to play for wins. [00:57:56] Speaker A: But isn't that what. Isn't that what you and me and Dan and the fans probably want now is start Nolan Norris, throw Antonio Carrera and goal. Get us one of these. You know, who's the badass running around in the midfield for north Texas that you like so much? Yeah, let him play a little bit. You know, come on. [00:58:13] Speaker B: Nolan's probably not going to be here, but specifics aside. Yes. That's what we would all want. But if luxe needs to be able to point to his record, he's going to want to win these two games. He's going to want to leave a look at us blowing people out or something like that on the table as the last two. He doesn't want to lose these two games and then roll in, you know, Owen four after beating LAFC. Roll in Owen four. He's going to want to get some points. So, like, he ain't going to play kids. No way. [00:58:43] Speaker A: No. Ok. [00:58:44] Speaker B: He's going to go for it. Don't you think? I think he's going to go for it. [00:58:46] Speaker A: Well, yes. No, I do think that's what he's going to do, but you and I both know that's probably, you know, he. [00:58:53] Speaker B: Wants to finish ahead of Austin. He wants to get the margin to Portland, you know, as tight as possible. If you beat them, that's a six point game. You want to get it to where, like, they beat you by, like, one point so you can go, look, how's one point out of the playoffs? If Niko would have won a game, I'd have been in, you know? [00:59:09] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. [00:59:09] Speaker B: Right. I mean, you want to, you want a positive goal difference. You want. You want to get your goals scored and goals allowed in the right directions. Like, no way is he rolling over and playing kids. I don't think. [00:59:21] Speaker A: No, you're probably right, but that's not what I wanted to hear. [00:59:26] Speaker B: Sorry, Peter, I. Sorry to pile on your day. My apologies. [00:59:31] Speaker A: Why make my life worse, Buzz? I want something to go right. [00:59:36] Speaker B: Corgi time. You need Corgi time, don't you, man? [00:59:39] Speaker A: I do need Corgi time. [00:59:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:42] Speaker A: All right, let's, let's. So. And then this is the most curious part of this entire story, which is in the midst of FC Dallas having one of their worst seasons in club history, their little second team is having another amazing season, is in first place, qualified as the Oak first seed. They get all their home games. Uh, and, you know, North Texas is actually really good, Buzz tells me. [01:00:09] Speaker B: Oh, they're fantastic. Well, look, part of the reason they're fantastic is the related to what Nico Sevez did with the first team roster, which is he had a bunch of old guys taking up all the spots where you would normally have some homegrowns and some younger, you know, project type players. Those guys are all down at North Texas instead. Even guys that are like, full sign contract players that just need minutes, you know, that might pop down for a game or two. Are now down there permanently. So John Gall did a great job building that team over the first two thirds of the season. Michelle has done really well just continuing what he was doing down there. John Gall was doing and Michelle was just named coach of the month. So that seems really good. There's, you know, they have, they arguably have at that level. They have four starting center backs for three spots so they do some rotation in that regard. When Nolan's around he's great as a holding mid with Carl Santa, who can play center back or holding mid is the first team contract. They got a andalay on the outside. Who's on the right? Who's a first team contract. Players playing down there. They've got Thomas Pondeka's down there a lot. They got Padrino who's leading the team and assists. The brazilian kid is, is finally fully healthy again and looks really good. My favorite da Garcia, who I can't believe it's actually not signed already. Tar Scott's their leading scorer who you guys have already seen with the first team. So that team is loaded for an MLS next pro team. We don't always see them like that. It's more like Quills title winning team back in the very first season where there's a bunch of really good talent there. So they have now clinched home field advantage through the entire playoffs. So if they run the whole thing they'll. The, the MLS next cup, next pro cup will be here in Arlington for the championship. So, so they're going to have a legit shot to win it. And you know, they were thinking about that because they did this weird ass crap where Logan Farrington showed up at North Texas games for like a month and a half and didn't play. He was just on the bench. [01:02:03] Speaker A: That means he qualifies. [01:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah, they put him on the bench, on the roster for enough games that he qualifies for the playoff roster. So they can, if Dallas is eliminated and say today, which they are, which they are, you know, and that North Texas has one more home game and then they go into the playoffs. Why not put Logan Farrington? Not that you don't have already good strikers, but if you can put Logan Farrington down there, you know, go for a championship, get some silverware. [01:02:29] Speaker A: Right. I'm going to guess just off the top of my head, Logan Farrington is a step up in anybody starting for North Texas right now. [01:02:37] Speaker B: Well, they usually play either tar Scott or Pedrino as a nine. Neither one of them are pure nines. But if you put Logan down there then you can end up with Pedrino and Tar Scott as your wings. And you have those guys, your wing, instead of 217 year olds as your wings, which is why they've been doing lately. Not that those 17 year olds aren't great. So it's like, you know, it's. If you're trying to stack a team to make a run, you put yourselves in position to do that. I mean, I thought it was actually quite clever on their part to make Farrington eligible. You know, it's a guy that could use more game. It's not like you've overworked him into the ground. He's a prolific player. He's an exciting player. It'd be good him. [01:03:11] Speaker A: So I saw that Michelle was named next pro coach of the month, but he's not the coach of the team. [01:03:18] Speaker B: He's the interim head coach. Yes. I thought Gall was John Gall's Luxane's first assistant. [01:03:24] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. They moved Gall up to the senior team. That's right. Okay, thank you. [01:03:29] Speaker B: If you remember, when Luxane got the job, they said, who do you want? His assistant? He said the first name he said was john Gall. [01:03:33] Speaker A: Yes. Okay. [01:03:34] Speaker B: So they asked John if he would do it, and John jumped at the chance to be a MLS assistant. So Michelle has been the head coach. Somebody today asked me, if Michelle, you know, coach the month, would Michelle have a chance to be up for the FC Dallas job? And I was like, no, he's been a head coach for like a month and a half. No. I mean, he has a b license, but, you know, other than that, he's only coached 40. You know, he's not. If you want to take a name from that group that you might make a consideration from, it would be Gall, who at least has been a head coach for a long, long time at many levels. But even gall, I would not put in at that level yet. He was only half a season at next pro and business academy. [01:04:09] Speaker A: Guys, I'm totally derailing this, but somebody asked me the question the other day, does Luxane even have the required coaching licenses? [01:04:18] Speaker B: I believe he has a UEFA license. I remember looking it up and I remember being like, oh, a UEFA license. I'm pretty sure I don't have it in front of me, but. [01:04:26] Speaker A: Okay. [01:04:27] Speaker B: You could google it real quick. I'm sure. That's what. [01:04:28] Speaker A: I don't really care enough to google. [01:04:30] Speaker B: I'm sure he has at least a UEFA B, if not UEFA. [01:04:34] Speaker C: Yeah, he's. He's doing his UEFA. [01:04:36] Speaker A: Okay. [01:04:37] Speaker C: Or he's been doing it. He had b already. [01:04:40] Speaker B: A lot of people don't know this, but, like, if you play a certain number of games at a professional level, of a certain quality professional, qualify for light, well, you get to start at b. You get to go right into the b course. And major league soccer, in fact, will facilitate those courses for players. Like Jimmy's doing his. He did an academy course and now he's doing his. He did a UEFA course, and now he's doing something else. So, like, you know, there have been many coaches, like, Jason did the a course when he was still a player, Deering did the b course. I think when he was a player, you know, many guys will do, the league will facilitate it, and that you can do it so that, like, when you're done playing, ready to retire, you already have the b or the a, and you can go right into doing what you need to do. Like, I remember when I first talked to Michelle when he first was coaching, he had not done that. So he didn't have any licenses at the time, I don't think. Which is why he was working for 40 and not the academy and why he jumped in a chance to get on with North Texas, you know, and be their assistant. So I hope I have that story right. I hope I'm not confusing that with somebody else, but. [01:05:46] Speaker A: All right, let's move on to the Dan Crook portion of the podcast, because we're going to talk about the ladies. First off, Dallas Trinity. [01:05:53] Speaker B: Hey, ladies. [01:05:54] Speaker A: Had some good news, Dan, they did. [01:05:58] Speaker C: Add a couple of good bits of news. Three of the amateur roster players were named to the US under 17 Women's World cup team. DFW area had six players in total, which. Which equals the state of California as the largest producer of talent on that 21 player roster. [01:06:21] Speaker A: Wait, so Dallas DFW alone had as many players on the roster as the entire state of California? [01:06:29] Speaker C: Yep. [01:06:30] Speaker A: That's tremendous. That's awesome. [01:06:33] Speaker C: Yeah. So nearly a third of the roster comes from our little part of the. [01:06:38] Speaker B: World, and three of them are the amateur players that play for Trinity. [01:06:42] Speaker C: Yeah. So, Evan O'Steen, goalkeeper. She played in the game against Barcelona. Solar kid. She is. She's no. Seven. I believe you've got. Who else you got? Jordan Hardiman, who's been fantastic at centre back for Trinity. Another solar kid. You've also got Kiara Gilmore, an FC Dallas Academy kiddeh who's at Trinity. She hasn't played for them yet, but I'm sure with the number of injuries they get, that chance will come. And then elsewhere, you've got Trinity Armstrong, who is one of four players to play NCAA soccer right now. She has started every single game for UNC as a centre back, which is kind of impressive. Twelve games. And I think they've kept seven clean sheets in that time. And then the two NWSL players from the area, Kennedy Fuller at Angel City FC and Ainsley McCann McCammon, Seattle Rain, both made the most of the two. Kennedy Fuller is actually the leading scorer. She has like nine goals in eight games amazingly well. [01:07:53] Speaker A: And they had that one game postponed because of the hurricane. When's their next game? [01:07:59] Speaker B: The 6th, I believe. [01:08:00] Speaker A: Okay. [01:08:01] Speaker C: And supposedly they're not playing that friendly the second day of the state fair anymore. [01:08:07] Speaker A: Oh really? I wonder why not. [01:08:09] Speaker C: No idea. [01:08:10] Speaker B: It popped up and then it vanished. So it's hard to really know what happened. It was on the schedule for a bit and then it went away. All right, well, what was the other news, Dan? [01:08:19] Speaker C: The other thing was that they again had two players named to the team in a month, Amber Brooks. And I nearly said Amber. Heard that would have been weird. Yeah. Amber Brooks and Shioma Ibergu both named as center midfielders in the four four two that they so nicely put up. [01:08:41] Speaker B: Which one of those was weird stories. [01:08:43] Speaker C: But okay, yeah, she was put as a center mid last time as well. She plays left wing, but yeah, Cuomo, Uber guy got the first multi goal game in league history with that brace against Lexington before. Christ, I'm bad with names today. That was it. So I'm trying to do this off top of my head. Before Allie Thornton stored a hat trick. She is named to the bench for that team in a month. And also from the area, Addie McCain, who was. I think she came for FcDahl. She definitely played WPSL. She's at Fort Lauderdale United now. She was named as one of the strikers in the team of the month. [01:09:28] Speaker A: All right, well, good stuff. Well, I don't know how well I did in trying not to be the dark cloud of doom about Dallas, but I tried, guys. [01:09:39] Speaker B: Why, I appreciate your attempt, Peter, because. [01:09:44] Speaker A: I said from the beginning, I don't, I'm trying not to just default to that. But, you know, it is what it is, Dan. Come on. [01:09:52] Speaker B: Fired up about the season ticket kerfuffle. I'll give you that. [01:09:55] Speaker A: Well, look, the Charlie thing really, that really broke my heart. I think that's terrible. I mean, look, the idea that you and Charlie are priced out of buying tickets is, is the seemingly the, is like a Rubicon that this. I mean, if in fact this club has crossed the Rubicon that you and Charlie are priced out of buying tickets. The soul of this club is gone. [01:10:23] Speaker B: Well, to be fair, mine wasn't only price, but my ticket was going up $300. So I would have been, you know, that probably would have killed that even if I hadn't already been getting out for some other reasons. Yeah, well, but, yeah, to see Charlie suffering is. [01:10:37] Speaker C: That's mental. I mean, you know, who doesn't see her in the chair along the west concourse? Or. I mean, it used to be a case of, like, racing after Fernando Clavio, trying to chase him down to have a chat with him. She'd come out to practice. Half the time I was there like that there. Yeah, there's that. [01:11:02] Speaker A: Charlie would meet players at the airport. Charlie would befriend players families. Um, not would. Does. I. I mean, I. There is not a bigger, more dedicated, more true fan of this club than Charlie Helms. And that. It just blows my mind. And. And maybe that's what this thing is destined for. Maybe this thing's destined for a whole new generation of fans and this old ones of us are just kind of left behind. Maybe that's what. Maybe that's what it is. [01:11:32] Speaker B: Don't kid yourself. Lamar Hunt invested into soccer because he thought it could be the NFL 2.0. It's like the hunt expectations is that this is going to be the Chiefs. So that's the goal. That's the target. That's what they want it to be. And so whatever you feel about NFL fandom and the availability of the NFL teams to fans, that's what's going to be if they get the target that they think they're going to hit. [01:11:54] Speaker A: Well, I just want to remind everybody that prior to this amazing Taylor Swift thing that's going on with the Chiefs in the Super Bowls, that organization went 50 years without winning squat. So buckle up, kids. [01:12:15] Speaker B: It's better than not having a team, though, isn't it? [01:12:18] Speaker C: Oh, for sure. [01:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm. [01:12:20] Speaker A: All right, we got it to you. You got Dallas Trinity. [01:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Fair. I mean, for how long? [01:12:25] Speaker A: Well, that's a different story. And another podcast. [01:12:29] Speaker B: Yeah. If you're only going to draw 2000, that's going to last that long. [01:12:32] Speaker A: Oh, man. Sorry. Now I've infected buzz. [01:12:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Hey, I'm a realist, dude, Senec. You know that. [01:12:39] Speaker A: All right, boys, anything else before we go? [01:12:42] Speaker B: I feel like there should be something. What? I don't know. I'm going to go out and I'm going to. I'm going to bold limb. And I'm going to predict that Nolan Norris is going to be in the next U 20 team that's going to have a camp in early October, which is why I was saying that I don't know, that he'll be around for those last two games. [01:12:57] Speaker A: Well, good luck to Nolan. I hope that goes well. Dan, you got anything else? [01:13:03] Speaker C: Nah, nah. Let's just end it on a sour note. [01:13:06] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Very good. Well, thank you to you both and thank you and my. My love and support to all of you. FC Dallas curious out there. I know these times are tough. What I would tell you, I think Buzz would concur with this, is people that have been around for this thing since day one. This is more. This it, this is. This is one of the weirder, worse endings to a season. All the endings to all the seasons have been bad for one reason or another. This one is just like the end of a sucky season in a different way. That maybe isn't fun, but it does get. It will get better from here. Somehow. I think I'm trying. I'm really trying to end on a positive note, but I don't think I'm doing a good job. So sorry. All right, we will speak to you next week. I don't know what we're going to talk about. We'll try to find something good and I hope everybody has a great weekend, and we'll talk to you then on another episode of third degree, the podcast, the miserable bastards.