3rd Degree the Podcast #283

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Ooh. [00:00:05] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Oh, third degree, the third degree nap, I guess. Third degree, the third degree nap, I guess. Third degree, the third degree nap, I can. Well, hello there, FC Dallas. Curious fan. Welcome to yet another episode of Third Degree, the podcast. We are without the Dan today because he had apparently a custom request on his OnlyFans page that took priority today. So Dan will be participating in that private session versus doing the episode. So it's just me and your hero. My hero, everybody's hero. And the editor, founder of Thirddegree.net, and the original soccer influencer himself, the good buzz carrot. Come in, Buzz. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Hey, Peter. Yeah, it does take Dan a long time to get that beard trimmed up and groomed perfectly for his OnlyFans work. [00:01:08] Speaker A: Well, I think I heard the request involved braiding it into, like, cornrows or something, so. [00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, and then putting them between his toes or something like that. I think. [00:01:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm the one that's supposed to cross the line, Buzz. Not you, not. That's my role on this podcast. [00:01:25] Speaker B: Just a mile. [00:01:27] Speaker A: You're the ever stable, dependable, clean. What's the one unsullied one on the podcast? [00:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know about that. [00:01:37] Speaker A: All right, very good. Well, here we are, Buzz. The season is over, and Dallas lost another game. I know there's another game left, but really, come on. The season's over, so we can start talking about post season stuff now, can't we? [00:01:52] Speaker B: A little bit. A little bit. Uh, we do have a long winter to fill, so let's not go too crazy. But we can start talking a little bit about where we are. [00:01:58] Speaker A: It does seem ridiculous that we're back at this weirdo MLS quirk again, where between the penultimate and last game of the season, there's an international break. So now Dallas, who are literally have nothing to play for, have to wait two full weeks between last Saturday in the game against Kansas City. It's so stupid. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Well, they did this under Lucci one time, and I remember they were, they really liked it because the, they were in a playoff hunt and so they were well rested for that, you know, season final that they really needed. Obviously, this time it doesn't pay off because now you're going to sit around for a week doing nothing. I mean, I know the team was given several days off of training, for example, and then they're going to come back and get ready to play a meaningless game against another teams in the bottom of the cellar. Uh, that'll just probably be nothing more than a glorified kick around except, of course, that, um, you know, one of those coaches is not necessarily fighting for his job because he is the technical director, but the one here certainly will be, is still fighting for a job and he'll want his team to perform. So he's going to have a real tough task to try and get them up for that game, I would imagine. [00:03:03] Speaker A: So the team goes to Portland. I think I said they lost. It just feels like a loss because they did get a draw in Portland. Nell nil, weird lineups. Lots of things are weird about this game and I'm just going to be straightforward, honest. I totally forgot the game was even happening because it started so late and I, and it. The season's over, so I'm going to have to lean on you, Buzz, to kind of explain to everybody how we ended up at donuts on this one. [00:03:28] Speaker B: Well, the reason they ended up at Donuts is because Jimmy Maurer stood on his head again. You know, you know, he had seven saves. He was not the broadcast player of the game because the, the homekeeper was fairly decent as well. And, you know, the crew being home, I'm not surprised they picked the home guy, but Jimmy had seven saves and was phenomenal again. You know, I think it was sort of like he looked at that San Jose game and was like, not that he was terrible in San Jose, but he wasn't, you know, great. And he probably thought, you know what? I had that great mic drop, you know, a month and a half ago. I'm going to do it again. So he did, and he was phenomenal. He, he made multiple saves that kept them in it. But then again, so did the other team. Dallas had a really nice offensive performance. They, they put up a good xG, if that's your thing. They got a high volume of shots. It wasn't quite as efficient in terms of on shot on target as we would like, but it was not terrible. You know, they, they made plenty of opportunities. One of the criticisms when we talk about Logan Farrington, we'll bring this up again in a second. But, you know, overall, it's just, it was a pretty solid performance. They, by Se Dallas, they controlled the ball fair bit. They had a nice control of midfield. The defense didn't break down too badly. But other than Mar having to make a bunch of saves, it wasn't, you know, the amount of chances they had was in line with the amount of chances that Dallas had. Both teams were going for it. You know, both teams went after it and both teams just got blanked by the other teams. Keeper. [00:04:55] Speaker A: Were you surprised? I mean, I know the season's over, but it was a weirdo lineup, especially because he was playing four in the back with Areola as the right back. [00:05:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's weird to have gone through the whole Lou sane part of the season with a back three, pretty much the whole, not all, the majority of it. And then now once you're limited, then go to a four. And that was really quite surprising, honestly. You know, there was a little bit of rotation. Logan Farrington came in for Petter Moussa, but we'll talk about that in a second. You know, the. The idea that you would go back for and then not use a real center back and continue with this Marco Farfan thing at center back and Juncker being the left back feels weird. You know, there's obviously some things going on there and we have some stuff on that, too, in a minute. But Kamungo got a chance to get in there in favor of Jesus Ferreira, who did sub in for him at some point. So, yeah, it was a bit of a weird one. You know, four three three. A single pivot. I mean, it's. Our. Mindy spent part of the time in there by himself as a single, and show was playing higher as an eight with legit. It was kind of a weird situation. But, you know, I think. I think once they were eliminated against after the San Jose that looks on. Has sort of started tweaking towards what he would actually want to do, I think. And again, another big talk we should talk about is why it's been a back three all this time when maybe he really wants to back four. [00:06:34] Speaker A: Okay. But if this is what he really wants to do, why wouldn't he do this in a time when the game counted? Because he doesn't know if this is going to work or not. [00:06:42] Speaker B: No. He's made several comments over the last couple of weeks about how he wishes he'd had the team for a whole season. He didn't have enough time to implement it. What he wants. He has a shape in mind. He wants, you know, and didn't, couldn't get it going because he didn't have enough time with these players. You know, when you're playing a back three and saying, I have a shape of mind, I want to play well, obviously it's not the back three then. And the minute he's eliminated now we see the four again. So I think this is where he would like to go if he were to continue as the coach. Um, I think he just felt like he didn't have time to evolve the team from, away from a back three because they had spent the first, you know, eight months of the year basically since, since camp opened when the players started gathering back, way back in what, January or whatever they were working on back three. [00:07:27] Speaker A: So, so we're, well, I'm sure we'll talk about, you know, Luxane and his coaching situation or his, his chances of getting the job, but this isn't a lineup for a guy that appears to be still fighting for his place in winning this job by sitting Jesus and Musa and putting in Kamungo and Farrington. [00:07:47] Speaker B: I think he benched Musa for that locker room stunt. You know, he said that he understood it, you know, and it was okay with it. And then he says, not okay with it, but he says it won't happen again. [00:08:01] Speaker A: You know, and then, and you're talking just for people that may have missed last week when he got subbed out in the game that ended the season, he walked straight to the locker room. [00:08:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:12] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:12] Speaker B: Right. I, uh. And, yeah, Musa did. And Luxan said that, you know, he was, he understood why it happened, but it wasn't going to happen again. And sort of, it sounded like that they were kind of over it for a big extent. But then the next game rolls around and Musa doesn't start and then you're in, you're in this game and you're zero. Zero, you know, and you have a chance to win it on the road. You know, you're a coach playing to win a job and you don't put him in. You don't bring him off the bench like he brought Jesus off the branch. Presumably he wants to give Bernie a little bit of a chance at the end of the season to sort of prove something. So you gave him a game and then you bring Jesus in, but you don't bring in Musa. Oh, okay. When you don't bring him in, that says to me that, okay, you know, you benched him. You know, there's nothing official that said he did. This is just my read on the fact that he didn't start him and then didn't play him in a winnable game. You know, that's, that's alarm bells. You know, you're not hurt. You know, that's, that's. You've been benched. Yeah. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Okay. Well, it's a, I mean, the result means nothing. It probably means more to Portland than it does to Dallas for playoff positioning purposes, but it is, it. I don't know, it's a, it's a, it's a frustrating end of the season. Anything else? But I guess the other big obvious question is the tafari situation. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I want to talk about Fairington a little bit, too, but let's talk about tafari. Yeah, the, uh, Dan got on the postgame, uh, press conference, Zoom conference call and asked about that, and looks like it has a relatively long winded, winding answer. And I will paraphrase it basically to he's choosing to play the center backs that he feels are most consistent, um, which is, and he talked about how he thinks very highly of, um, Nicosi and thinks he could be really high end, big time center back. It is a big time center back. And he just said that, you know, over the last bit, effectively, he's saying that the, that Ibiaga and even Farfan had been the more consistent pairing. I think a part of that he must be. He really is a strong believer in a left footed guy on that other side because I don't know how you, you know, run out of 510 guy who gets beat on corners for goals and think that's a good idea, but, you know, there's something to be said for Nikosi when he is playing really aggressively. He does become a little bit inconsistent, you know, and you could point to the Zeros goals allowed and say, oh, look how good the defense was. But then again, they gave up a fair number of shots and Maurer had to make seven saves. So I don't know that the defense was much better in this one than it's been lately, other than your keeper performed for you and kept it clean, you know, so, so Nicosi, I think with this coach, is in a position where I, I don't think if looks on continues, I don't think it's like he just diselects Nicosia or anything. I just think is right now he wants a more stable, consistent performing set of center backs that I would imagine he probably thinks, like all of us, that they just. [00:11:06] Speaker A: Is it just me? Is it just me or is this now the second coach that has had this kind of given off a vibe that maybe they don't jive as much with Nikosi as the fans do? [00:11:18] Speaker B: Well, the team certainly doesn't. They pay Ibi Yaga, you know, basically a DP salary. He's like, I don't know, $75 below a DP and so he's not a DP, but, you know, he might as well be. It's effectively the same salary slot and Nikosi is like half that. So clearly they think Abiyaga is the guy as an organization now. I think both these coaches, from time to time, between interviews and quotes and whatever else, they feel very, really highly of. They think really highly of Nicosia. I think his teammates do, too, the way yarming keeps giving him the captain's armband. But they know that there's so there is some inconsistency there. There's some volatility to Nicos play, some up and down. Some days he's phenomenal and some days he's not as good. And I think Luxlan in particular is willing to trade a little bit of the up for to eliminate some of the down, it seems, especially when he was fighting at the end there to try and salvage every point he could to get it. Gets himself a playoff shot, which didn't obviously happen. So, you know, Nicosia is just now hitting his prime play window, so he won't get significantly better than he is right now in terms of, like, pure game, but he'll continue to build wisdom, and so he should mature over the next three or four seasons and hopefully become a little more of that smooth, day to day, reliable, even killed defender, you know, and it'd be really good for the next four or five seasons if he can. If he can do that. [00:12:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it just makes me wonder after this season and kind of this, if I remember correctly, there was a kind of a spotty run with him. And Nestev is at the end of last season, too. [00:12:54] Speaker B: A little bit, yeah. [00:12:56] Speaker A: Just makes me wonder if he's potentially trade bait and will actually be here next season. [00:13:03] Speaker B: I suppose that's possible. He. He does have a good salary value. Um, he is not too expensive for a center back starting level, center back. You know, he's, um. It depends on, obviously, what anybody else's teams has available, you know, and who out there might have the need for a guy and have the assets that could. They could pry him out. But the same time, the things that make him appealing to other teams would make him appealing to FC Dallas. You know, for a team that is. [00:13:31] Speaker A: Well, unless they know something about him that the rest of us don't know, or there's something about his game that just is like, for example, keeping him off of getting call ups to the national team. [00:13:41] Speaker B: Well, you know, the national team's another whole nother level, you know, and I think it's honestly, that consistency. Like, you know, there are some games where he's. He looks fantastic, and then there are other games where he gets caught two or three times, you know, overreaches or makes an error, you know, and not everybody can be a national team player. Sometimes you see the guy that's just right on the outside of that who will frankly not get called up as much, you know, so that can be a positive for your team. You want. Sometimes you can make the case that you want a team full of guys that are so good that they at least get talked about with the national team, but they don't actually get the call ups, you know, time. Yeah. Matt Hedges is a good example, you know, and, and his contract value is good for FC Dallas just like it's good for, could be good for other people, you know? And he is just now at his prime, so you have to think he's got, you know, four, five, six good seasons ahead of him at what is still a pretty good value american, you know, doesn't cast an international spot, is super athletic, you know, super rangy. You can cover tons of ground, you know, you can pair him up with different kinds of guys and he can play both sides. So there's a lot of value there. [00:14:45] Speaker A: And he's got some ball skills with the ball at his feet. The guy can dribble and beat people. And, you know, we talked about this at the end of last season, which was this idea that maybe they could let him carry the ball out of the back more often. And I don't think, they obviously didn't do that this year, probably because they were so worried about their center back moving out of position and leaving a gaping hole there. But I don't know, I just think there's more to Tafaries game than this club has explored. [00:15:12] Speaker B: I think so, too. You know, the Dallas's defense is not great at passing out of the back. Starting with Paws is not super great at it, and most of their center backs are not really very great at it. And when you play a back three, you end up with wing backs being up in the midfield and wing backs aren't as good at it as central midfielders are, you know? So you kind of have a team right now that is actually not that great at playing out of the back that yet wants to play out of the back. So Nicosi is actually one of the better players back there in terms of progressive passing. His overall passing percentage is low, sorry, not low, lower than ibagas, for example. But abiograph plays it much safer. It just kind of goes back and forth and goes to the keeper and then goes to the other guy, whereas Nikosi is trying to actually get it forward and split lines more. [00:15:51] Speaker A: So, yeah, Nikosi also has this bad habit of trying to ping long balls deep and he overheads them or misses them, and sometimes he hits them, sometimes he doesn't. But that, that is a shortcoming of his games. Is that part of his decision making? [00:16:04] Speaker B: He's not as good at that as like tenor Tesla, for example, but at least he's trying it. And he's the only other player in the back that is decent at that is Sam junk is pretty decent at it, but no one back there for Dallas is elite at that. You know, I, Nicosi and Sam, I don't mind trying that a little more than some of the other guys, but there really isn't anybody back there unless Paul's playing like full on fullback. But that only happened in this one game, really. It's just not really. Again, that's part of Dallas's weird roster construction, is that they, they want to play out the back and yet they don't have great passing center back. So, you know. You know, which way you want to go with McCosi depends a lot on how you feel you need to do with your other center backs and if you already need one center back, because if you're not getting any younger and if you're going to play three at the back, then you need two. And that's before you do something like trade Nicosi, where you would actually need to do all three. That's. That's a big ask, you know, whereas Nicosi is, you know, american domestic, good value contract, athletic, covers ground, like lots to like there if you can coach him into a way that works for your team. [00:17:02] Speaker A: Interesting. I just realized the last time Dallas held somebody scoreless was that road game in Vancouver. They've only done that a few times this season, kept a clean sheet. Now, this is the first time they. This is actually, this is the interesting part, I think. Let me go back and look at this. This is only the third time. Yeah. This is only the third time since Luxain became manager that he. That they did not score in a game. They didn't score against Cincinnati, they didn't score against Vancouver, and they didn't score against Portland. Every other game they've scored at least one. But more than that, I think their average is like two point something a game. [00:17:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. I think, you know, in the big picture of things, Dallas's defense is nothing particularly great. I mean, they have 55 goals allowed, which is about in the. About in the one third mark in terms of like the season, of this, of the. Sorry, the league. They're like, that's right around, you know, 20th out of 30 ish. And I think the same thing is true for goals. For. I mean, they're, they're, they're more sort of middle, a little bit more middle of the pack goals for. And I think that was boosted a little bit about by Luxain being so offensive over the batter latter third of the season and, or maybe even it's half a season, although the leaks happen there makes it look funny. You know, it's both of those categories. They're sort of middle to bottom third, you know, and both of them could use improvement. I don't think there's any question that, you know, it's not any surprise that there's not very many shutouts on the Dallas list this year because their defense, honestly, is not that great. And that's with Martin paws playing really well. [00:18:40] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, I want to talk about. Pause here in a second. Um, but you said you wanted to mention something about Farrington and his start. [00:18:46] Speaker B: Yeah, Logan Farrington, uh, you know, did a pretty nice job for filling in for, um, uh, Petter Moussa. Like, for example, um, he had 30 touches and he managed to get four shots, uh, off and one of them on target, which literally matches Moose's 90 minutes average. Four and one. Um, Logan had two for two on take ons. He had three progressive carries, five shot creating actions. He made four progressive passes. He did a lot of things right. He actually had an xg of 0.7, which is, was really high for that, for the team and the biggest one on the team. And that's so, that's a pretty good, solid performance. Except that in a zero zero game, they needed a nine to actually convert. And this is the difference between a guy that gets paid 70 grand and a guy that gets paid 2 million, or whatever it is that Musa gets. [00:19:38] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:39] Speaker B: This is where, you know, a lot of the things look good. And that's not to rip Logan Farrington. That's just to talk about the difference between Logan Farrington being a very exciting young player, that we're very interested in his future. But the reason he's not starting example over Musa is that Musa probably gets one and he didn't, you know, the ability to come up with something when you need it and convert when your team needed it and the game was winnable, is why is the difference between Hammond and Musa? And it's the difference between Jesus and Bernie, frankly, this season, too, even though Jesus has had his worst season in like five years, Bernie's had an even worse season than that, right? [00:20:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And I, you know, Kamungo, I saw him in the lineup and I thought, man, I don't even know. I guess he came in and substituted in a game recently. But over the course of the season, talk about a guy that has fallen off the face of the earth after, you know, getting a lot of media attention for all the obvious and very good reasons. But I don't know what happened. Probably mostly the formation change, but of anybody on the team that really benefited the least from all of that, it would had to have been Kamungo. [00:20:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Bernie Kamungo plays with natural ability, a natural game. He does not a player that has had high level coaching until very, very recently. So when you take him out of his natural, instinctive position, which is left wing in a front three, which is what you got in a four three three, which is why I think he went ahead and started him in this game in the three four three. The other shape Dallas plays, those high three guys, remember, they're not real wingers. Those guys are Allen and Jesus. They're asked to play underneath like a double ten. The width comes from a wingback, which is why they've tried Bernie at wingback, but it's a disaster because he doesn't know how to play wingback. They tried him underneath. He doesn't know how to play underneath. He knows how to play that wing spot. So when you. When you. When you actually had the formation that benefited, that fit him, he looks immediately threw him right on there. So if anything killed his seed Bernie season, it's that. And he's a player that will either need a whole bunch of coaching and time and playing time, frankly, probably for something like North Texas, in order to figure out how to play somewhere else other than high wing. Or you just got to play a way to play high wing if you want to take advantage of him, and I'm not sure you do, because as long as you have Allen and Jesus kicking around and you got guys like Patricks and Delgado and you got Farrington rolling around, all of a sudden, those spots are pretty dang competitive, especially if he can only play in one particular formation. So that's going to be tough for him. [00:22:08] Speaker A: Well, like I said, ended up doughnuts. That didn't help Portland a lot, who are holding on to a lead over Austin for that final playoffs. But I guess they finally. No, they clinched, didn't they? Yeah, they did. Yeah. Did clinch. [00:22:20] Speaker B: I'm sorry. They're just playing for sceneing, you know, they have. If they would have had a chance to get out of the play in game if they would have, you know, won that one and then won the next one. But I think now they're knocked down to where they're stuck in the playoff game, so they're still going to be fighting for the home field. I think, you know, I would settle, study with their needs were, but, yeah. [00:22:38] Speaker A: They'Ll either go to Vancouver or Minnesota, but I think we'd all love a Cascadia game for that playing game, for sure. Yeah. [00:22:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:22:45] Speaker A: All right. Anything else about Dallas? Zero. Portland zero. Before we talk, move on to the next subject? [00:22:52] Speaker B: Um, not really. Um, there wasn't a whole bunch else in it. Um, let me look real quick. I, you know, I would not have. This bothers me a little bit. I would not have started Allen on this game in turf, not when he played on Wednesday. [00:23:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:08] Speaker B: And sure enough, he pulled up lane at halftime, basically. And I don't know whether he was faking that or whether, whatever, he sprinted off the field, and then he did not come back in the second half. And the stat line between him and settling, who replaced him is just insane. Like, if I gave you a. Here's. Here's a line, right, for a player. Okay. 78% passing, six progressive passes, four shot creating actions. Five balls into the final third, two for three on tackles for progressive receptions, one for one on take on. That's a fantastic half of a game of soccer. That's amazing. That's unsettling. [00:23:46] Speaker A: Hmm. Wow. That's fantastic. That is good. [00:23:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Allen had one progressive pass, zero shot creations, two possessive carries. He was terrible by every metric. See, he outplayed him by, like, 100%. And that's incredible for a guy who's as good as Alan Blasco. So what's going on there? Okay. Probably workload. It would have. It's his third game in a week. It's on turf. Maybe something went wrong in terms of why is he's running off at halftime like he's terrified. Because I've got. I'm feeling something in my knee. We don't know. Because it was on the road. You know, they didn't talk about it at all, so. And then settling was a baller. It outplayed him completely, and he was. Settling was the big catalyst for this better second half performance styles had. You know, they didn't get it done. But, you know, credit Susie for being such a good performer, you know, because, and really, the real takeaway from this is going to be like, man, if something happened to Allen here, if this is a setback, and that's pure conjecture on my part, other than how often does a player sprint off the field at halftime and especially when he was. Had some sort of concern that may or may not have been real, possibly that he was faking that. I don't know. I'm not privy to that, but, yeah, that raised a little bit of like, uh oh in my head and I. And hopefully it's all for good. And also, Sebastian Lin Jet was pretty good, too. [00:25:05] Speaker A: Pause. He didn't start, obviously, again. He ended up leaving, going with his national team, and I'm assuming he'll end up playing. Did that game actually happen yet? [00:25:14] Speaker B: It was today. That was today he played. Yeah. [00:25:19] Speaker A: Do you have any follow up thoughts on the whole? They ended up tying in brain, by the way, too. Did you, do you have any thoughts about that follow up to why he didn't play or should have been playing? [00:25:29] Speaker B: Well, he got back in training and they showed a picture of him in training. He definitely has, you know, the glove on the one wrist was huge. He definitely has it taped. You know, once Dallas was eliminated, I 100% was on board with leaving him out. You know, don't, don't play him again, but again, like the San Jose game, like, if that would have been an MLS cup day, would he have played him through that pain? You know, I get it. You know, it's supposed to be club over country, but I know, I understand why maybe for him it's not, given how much of a massive financial windfall it must be for him, given currently. And I get him wanting to reserve that, but it kind of bugged me a little bit. [00:26:06] Speaker A: I mean, Grant, of all the miles he's getting for his frequent flying club. [00:26:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But, you know, Jimmy came in, did a great job, and I was once. Once they were eliminated, I was 100% okay with positive plan. That's fine. And, and by the way, I just. Just to follow that up, Jimmy was phenomenal. I would now let Jimmy, you know, have that be the walk off game. I was 100%. No way do you play Antonio Carrera on the road after you've just been eliminated on turf against in a situation where your team might get shelled going in. I totally bought into, like, not playing. That kid Oscar prayer used to say, is he really careful? When you give kids their debut, you can't just throw them in anytime. You got to be careful. And so now you come back to Dallas, you have a week and a half, two weeks off. You're against a team that's even worse than you, who's male in the season in. It's at home. It's on grass. Okay, now. Now you put Antonio Kerry, and now you give Antonio the last game and you let Jimmy have that road game walk off. Dominant performance. I'd be okay with going Antonio on the next one, but I would not have 100% done it in Portland. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Okay. Well, it'll be interesting to have a conversation about the overall season and as we do, grades and reviews of players and so forth, because I think there was some surprise that pause wasn't listed on what was the list that Dan was talking about? [00:27:28] Speaker B: Well, yeah, the league put out there the nominees for end of season awards. [00:27:33] Speaker A: That's what it was. [00:27:34] Speaker B: And Dallas is not a very good team. So you're not expecting to have a lot of people lucky in serious consideration. But the thing is, is that, like a lot, all those awards had, like 20 or 25 nominees, some of them multiple nominees for team. For a team. Now, I get like that, you could say positive goal of the year. Yeah, sure. I buy that. But to not even be in, like, the 25 candidates listed, that's ridiculous. [00:27:57] Speaker A: Well, who are those nominated by? The clubs themselves? [00:28:00] Speaker B: They are. [00:28:01] Speaker A: So, like, how does that mean Dallas didn't nominate him? [00:28:04] Speaker B: I guess, or there's some technicality I can't fathom. I don't know how he's not in there because Petter Moussa is in there for newcomer of the year. Again, Patta Moussa is not going to be newcomer of the year, but he's a totally legit candidate, like Martin Paws. Like, if you want to have an argument, like, he's not top three, he's not top five, whatever, you can have those arguments, but there's no way he's not a top ten keeper in the league. So for him to not be nominated, to me, there's got to be something we're missing because there's no way he's not top 25 keepers in this league. [00:28:32] Speaker A: Yeah, 25 I would agree with. But, man, I, you know, because Dan was. Dan made a reference to somebody voting stefan fry over pause. And I, and I pause and I went and looked at all the stats. I was actually kind of shocked how consistently down the line pause is in all the important goalkeeping stats this year. It's worse, way worse than I would have thought considering how much we talked about him saving Dallas's bacon, time in, time out, which is probably a bigger reflection about how bad the team was defensively, et cetera, et cetera. But statistically pause did not have a very good season. At least just kind of my scanning the numbers earlier today. [00:29:10] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I did not scan the rankings, but there's been a note in the FC Dallas media notes for, you know, the back half of the season. That pause has been leading the league in saves for a giant chunk of the year, basically. So, like, you know, I would. He probably is down in goals against save percentage and other things like that, but the volume of shots he's playing is, like, really, really high. He's saving a lot of shots. So, you know, I. I would admit, and I freely admit that he's not. He shouldn't be actually in the real conversation for goalie of the year, but for him to not be on the 25 listed is just absolutely ridiculous. [00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't realize it had gone down to 25. I thought we were talking top five or ten. [00:29:57] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, even top ten, I think you got to consider him. Yeah, I think he's in the top ten. But it does raise a fun, bigger question, which I think we'll talk about when Dan gets back. Was. Was that how many Dallas players at any given position are in the top ten players in the league at their given position? And I think the only one that's under consideration is possible. [00:30:17] Speaker A: All right, just. I was. I'm looking at it right now. Just so he knows, stuvers in first with 124 and then McCarthy with the Galaxy at 120. And then I. Pause is tied with freeze from NYCFC with 117 for third place. [00:30:33] Speaker B: Yeah, he probably fell off since he didn't play the last two games, and. [00:30:36] Speaker A: Those are the number of saves. But if you go into some of the more other goalkeeping stats, that's where it kind of falls off. And I'm kind of surprised sometimes, especially when you get into expected, allowed and things like that. He's a little further down the list than you would probably anticipate, so. [00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah, probably. [00:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, so there you go. Dallas Zero, Portland zero. One more game against Kansas City sometime in the distant future. We'll sleep many, many times before that game happens. The fallout of this game that I started getting into was this idea of Luxaine's performances. Manager of this club, because there's been an ongoing debate. Like there was up until know they bombed out and didn't make the playoffs. The bandwagon for. For Peter to take this job was absolutely brimming with everybody. And now it's, I think, like Luxaine and his wife in the front two seats and the rest of the car is empty. And that got me to sit down and start doing some numbers and comparing, comparing it to Estevez. And I'm not sure points per game is the ultimate stat to pull in this because there's other things to go along with it. But I. It's interesting to me that when, depending on how this final game goes, I don't know if everybody realizes that Luxane, if he was to lose this game against Kansas City, his total point or his points per game total for 18 games versus Niko's, I think he's on 16 games is only slightly better. It's like 1.14 to 1.3 if he loses the game. If they win the game, Luxane's MLS only total goes up to 1.5 versus 1.14 for Estebas. And I guess you can, some people will consider that considerably better. But what I do find interesting, because I do think it's fair to include all the games which include the cup games because that was in there is. If you include all the games, it really, if he, even if he wins this game, the difference between him and Estevez is not very different. It would. Let's see, how do they have this. If. If Lexane wins the last game versus Kansas City, his league only points per game point jumps to 1.5. But when you include his cup losses, it would match Niko's at 1.29. They would essentially have the exact same point total of 1.2. Time. If you include the Open cup games that Esteve has won this season and the Open cup game and the two League cup games Luxane lost this year. And I also think the other important part of this is, is that if you split Luxane's run into two halves of nine games each, he was five, three and one in the first of those. But six of those were home games. And in the latter half of the season he's two, four and two. With only three of those being the last one, obviously he'll have four home games. So at best, his second half of the season will be three, four and two. [00:33:56] Speaker B: Yeah, well, obviously there's an underscore there of home versus away and what a massive difference that is. [00:34:01] Speaker A: I hope I didn't give everybody tired head, but you see my point. I think my point is that ultimately, no matter how this season plays out, the team performance under luxane versus what it is under Estevez, the difference is more stylistically than results based. And this is a results based business. Business. [00:34:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it's almost like the coaching didn't make all that much difference. That really, it's about the players, which is something I always have said for years and always do say. [00:34:29] Speaker A: It's crazy, isn't it? [00:34:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's crazy. Like, what's the famous quote? I'm going to paraphrase it. I think that, like, a good coach only can make like 10% of a difference, but a bad coach can make like 30% of a difference. But I think that's even, that that might even be stretching it a little bit. You know, it's like you, you only have the players that you have. You know, the, this league is very difficult to make. Massive changes to a roster is like when you're playing for coaching big clubs around the world with tons of money, you can make massive changes over. Well, you still be able to do more than you can now. Now the fair play stuff is handcuffing people a little bit. But, um, you know, it's much more difficult in this league to change your roster over because you can't just go buy whatever you need. You have to develop it from your academy or draft it or sign it as a free agent, you know, or trade for it. It's not, not as simple. And, you know, I think that there's a little bit of an unfairness, if you will, to the idea that, that Peter Laksan had to win his way into the playoffs to get this job. When you had a team that only had, was it three wins at that point of the season? [00:35:30] Speaker A: Right? [00:35:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's, we were having discussions over the first half of the season about, is this the worst team in club history or not? You know, in terms of points, you know, in terms of performance on the field, uh, wins and losses, which is what, in the end of the day matters, you know, and, and to ask a guy like, oh, it's your job if you can turn that into a winner. We, and at the time, we said it's going to be astronomical. Look, amount of wins it will take to pull that off. I mean, the, what did the Western Conference bottom team end up being? Um, as I look real quick right now, it's Portland. Yeah, it's Portland. And they're on 46, so that's, they got a game to play and that's already over. What I thought it was going to be, which was 42 when we first started doing it, and eventually I raised it to 44. And at the time of the coaching chance, we were like, he's going to have to win, like, you know, eight of his last twelve or something to pull that off. And sure enough, that's what probably what it would have taken. I mean, to get above Portland's 46 when they have one game to play, you would have had to gotten to, I don't know, 48, 49. And they. At the time they were on 30, was it? At the time, I mean, well, 20. It was awful. [00:36:38] Speaker A: I mean, it was, no, I mean, it was, it was such, it was the odds of that and it, which also then makes me wonder how seriously they ever have been considering Luxane for this job in the first place, considering they kind of really threw him to the wolves to make the race. I'm fascinated to know what between Dan Clark and Andre, the thinking is on how they're going to go about hiring somebody for this, for this job. And is Lexane still a serious candidate? [00:37:08] Speaker B: Oh, I think so. I think he did enough, as you say, in terms of style and did enough when they were, when they, when they, in that first part of the thing, like at home in front of the coach, you know, immediately routed the team and improved the performance of several important players. I think those things all get him in the conversation. I don't think that he's won it by any, even though a lot of the national guys seem to think he has won it. I don't think he's won it. I think he's gotten himself an interview. You know, you and I both have now heard of people coming in here, you know, that are going to be candidates. So there, it definitely is an open thing. He doesn't have a lockdown, but he's also talking about next season a lot already. So, you know, he certainly thinks he's in the mix and I think he's in the mix, too. Okay, so we'll see. You know, it's going to come down to, you know, the cell. You know, the problem for Laksan is that he has to go in there and convince them that what I did was based on what was here, the players that were here, the formation that was here, the work they had done all year. I can't turn it over completely overnight, like, but if you give me the right players, I can play the way I want to play and it's going to be great. You know, look at how player x, player y reacted. Hopefully he's going to walk in there with a plan like here, here's the four or five positions I need turned over or whatever it is. You know, he'll have a leg up in that sense and of knowing the roster, whereas, like, if a guy comes in from who knows where else? You know, if Caleb Porter gets fired and he gets an interview, they're going to go, okay, Caleb, what's your plans like? Dude, I don't know anything about this roster. You know, I mean, it won't be that way. Any, any MLS coach will know, but, you know, somebody from outside the league won't know, you know, from somebody from other conferences or other countries, they're not going to know. So it'll, it'll depend on how he performs in an interview, I think. I don't think there's any candidates that we're hearing about that make bus go. Wow, that's crazy. That guy's way out of the normal. It's all the normal crap. We're always hearing about this with this team. It's the budget. We know what it is, you know? [00:39:14] Speaker A: So question. [00:39:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:16] Speaker A: If in fact they offer luxe in the job, do you think he gets paid exactly the same as Estevez or do they save some money there? [00:39:26] Speaker B: I would bet they would save a little money there. Cause Estevez, remember, came out of a national team job, probably was a little more high profile than Luxane, who's coming out of, you know, an internal club candidate is always going to be lower paid than a guy external. I used to say this about, people have always said this to me before about business. As you work your way in your career, if you stay the same place where you started, someone at that company will always think of you as the intern. Right? Whereas if you get headhunted, you go somewhere else. You're the savior coming in the big gun that they found and hired. Like so, to the hunts and to Zanat. Maybe not to Zana, but to the hunts. Look, saying is always going to be the former player that they gave their first job to a decade ago in the academy. Whereas if you're going to go out and get somebody else, they're the hired gun you went and got. So that guy's almost always going to be higher paycheck, probably. [00:40:19] Speaker A: Well, moving on to the next related topic, no matter who is the manager of this club next season, the most imperative improvement needs to come in roster construction. And I want to congratulate you on this week for putting digital pen to digital paper and writing up a blog post kind of outlining this conversation that you, Dan, and I have been having since before the season started, which was how ridiculously poorly this roster was constructed this season and what a high risk overall value it was that just kind of blew up in their face. And I thought, and I think based on all the reaction that I saw online to it was that I don't. I think you did a really good job. Buzz of detailing the giant, massive problems this roster had even before the season started. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I just felt like that we had been saying all year that the roster was poorly constructed, and it's like we never really had the bandwidth on a podcast to break the whole thing down because it is a monster thing to break down. Why it's particularly bad. Any one of those comments that I put in there, any one of those little things, I. I put them there. You know, there's ways you could refute any one of them, but by itself, but when you add them all together, it adds up to a gigantic soup of crap because it's just. It was so many things that were off or tweak bad or high risk, low reward. It just all compounded into awfulness. And it just was like, you know, you could. You could read it and you go, oh, I disagree with that one. I disagree with that one. And that's fine. You could disagree with a lot of them. You could even disagree with my takes on how they should have addressed it, but you have to recognize that there were, like, seven or eight different problems I listed, and even one or two or three of them could derail you a season. And to have seven or eight of them was obviously just a huge misfire across the board. [00:42:22] Speaker A: Well, I think it's a story where you could look at this, you could say, see them in the office, look at this roster and go, you know what? If we're lucky, if we get lucky on the injury front. [00:42:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:34] Speaker A: And the wear and tear front, this is actually a pretty interesting roster that could make some noise. And even if this happens, or if Allen doesn't come back fast enough or we don't get Giovanni Jesus back, you know, we could still pull something off. You could see them talking themselves into why this roster could work this season. But, man, I'm telling you, I. I think across the board, when you go through and you look at the, uh, all the potential of how it could go wrong, I can't think of one instance that didn't blow up in their face. And then you tack on just the natural, you know, occurrence of injury that you get anyway, like the Liam Frazier injury or EMA being hurt a lot this season. All the other things blew up in their face with almost without exception. [00:43:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that you're right. I think, like, of all those seven or eight different problem areas, I think all of them went sideways. The only one. The only one that I think went better than I expected was Alan Vlasco came back faster than I expected. And even then, he missed 26 games in all comps. So even though he came back faster than expected, it was still way too late. And you could. You can disagree about how they should have gone about it, but to make that bet. To make that bet that, like, all three of my DP's are going to hit, and then when one of them was going to be out for the bulk of the year, even when he came back with eight games left, that's not enough. And then Jesus combined that with his worst season since like, 2018. That's two out of your three dp's and you're screwed. [00:44:04] Speaker A: Yeah, but here's the problem with Velasco. He did come back, and maybe he came back faster, quote unquote, than you thought he would, but his overall addition to the team wasn't significant this year. It's not like he banged a bunch of goals or created a bunch of assists for the season. And the whole point to not. The whole point to him rejoining the season was to. To do those things like they were counting on him being an important part of them making the playoffs. So that's the reason why I feel like this is such a wasted season. Because they could have dramatically improved this team by ir'ing him for the season and going out and getting a replacement. And I think that's really where. That's the. Probably the number one failure on Zenada and Hunt's part 2024. [00:44:48] Speaker B: He had two goals and one assist in those games. And that was my stance way back in the winter, was that, you know, the value of DP's is so incredibly massive that if you put him on season ir, you can replace him with another DP and then you can get out of that problem next year. You can use your gam, you can do a buyout, you can trade somebody, you can sell somebody, like, you can burn that bridge later. It's like, you know, but instead you sacrifice this season, you know? And when you include that on top of all the other things, it only got worse. If that had been the only thing, you probably could have gotten rid of it. But it wasn't the only thing. There were like seven or eight other things. [00:45:24] Speaker A: I know. [00:45:25] Speaker B: It's just awful. [00:45:26] Speaker A: If you haven't read it, go find it on Buzz's [email protected]. it is good detail and really finally explains, uh, to the nth degree why this season wasn't total failure. And that does fall on the shoulders of one Andre Zenada, for sure, because this next topic really is. [00:45:46] Speaker B: Hold on, hold on. [00:45:46] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:47] Speaker B: Let's talk about Zenada first. Well, right. [00:45:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Okay. So somebody commented that my piece sounded like I was blaming Zanada for all the problems. And I want to say that he is definitely culpable of it. But remember, at this club, player personnel decisions are made by a committee. So 100% Zanata is at fault in this, but so is Dan Hunt and so is the coach. Those three people make player decisions. It was Niko in the second half. It was Luxon. Now, Zonata got promoted, and so there's also a TD. So now there's probably four people that are involved in those roster decisions. If you. If you start talking about the academy, then Chris Hayden joins the committee. So you're talking about three, four or five people on a committee that are making all player personnel decisions. So 100%, yes, it's not as culpable, but so is the entire committee. And maybe that's the problem. Maybe it's the committee that's the problem. The fact that there isn't one person driving the boat. [00:46:48] Speaker A: So whether it's Zenata by himself or a committee, the other part of what happened this week that is really damning is the fact that the MLS 22 under 22 came out. And for the first time in as long as I can remember, not only is Dallas not like, at the top of the list, they don't have anybody on the list. And I can't remember the last time that happened. And when you add that on top of the fact that they didn't make the playoffs, man, that just. That's a lot of egg on club. [00:47:16] Speaker B: Yeah. One of the problems in my roster build was the fact that they went with all these insurance old players that took away the playing time from a lot of the young, developing players. And that was a direct contributor to why, to this roster. Awful roster build situation. Patrick Skindelgato got some votes, so he might have been right outside the 22, but you're talking about a club that has had your Jesus Ferreira's, your Pepys, your Allen Vlasco last year. Alan, not eligible this year. Neither was Bernie Camougo. They both turned 22. But, you know, you're. You're. We are in the period where we had a little bit of this gap in the academy, but at the same time, you have had good players come through now. So, like Nolan only played four games, 194 minutes and away. A younger player. No, he's a little bit older. Let's. Thomas Pandecka, three games, 116 minutes. Tariq's got two games. You had a whole litany of all these homegrowns. Carrera gi Jesus, not even a homegrown. U 22 initiative zero games. Ennisali U 22 initiative zero games. Another homegrown Alieozura zero games. So it's compounded that a, you haven't found a way to get these guys minutes, and, in fact, you ate them up by having these old 30, 35, 36 year olds taking up spots that should have been occupied and minutes that should have been occupied, these young players. So it's, it's led to a situation where the only really exciting young players are guys you found from outside the organization, like Delgado, you know, and otherwise, they're down in north Texas. [00:49:00] Speaker A: Well, I mean, Delgado was the only one that even got any kind of consideration. And I think, by and large, we're all not super high on Delgado in terms of potential. I mean, I think there's, he's got little nice moments about his game, but I don't foresee him becoming a MLS starting eleven type player. [00:49:18] Speaker B: It's an interesting question. He is only 20. But I think a lot of the problem, too, is that, you know, remember we had this whole discussion where we found out he was a ten, right? Not, not a six or an eight, which is where they were playing him, and they still continue to play him. Like, how is he going to get minutes at his real position when you've got Allen around and Jesus around and now Logan Farrington and Bernie, and, like, these really talented young player, younger players in the organization are ahead of him in the pecking order for the spot. That's his natural spot. It's like, why is even here? You know? I mean, they used him all year at a place where Paxton should have been playing, or legit should be playing, or once show came in, show's gonna be playing. So it's just, you know, it's just a weird spot for a kid who, uh, for, for them to have brought in a kid in a, in a position where that they already have boatloads of young talent, and they produce boatloads of young talent from the academy, too. [00:50:11] Speaker A: Well, it, it does. I have a. I was thinking about this today as I was driving back from lunch, which is, I'm, I really don't, I didn't care about the fact that they played Portland. And I really have zero interest in what happens against Kansas City. What I'm really, what I really am reserving all of my enthusiasm for is figuring out and watching how Dan and Clark hunt play their cards for this club over the course of the next three seasons, because, I mean, I think you could build a story that because of the stadium renovation and the fact that the stadium will be in some state of 50% operation for three entire seasons. Yeah, there's two ways of looking at that. Do you just kind of take your foot off the gas and realize it is what it is and save your pennies and run this as a bottom line operation and take your lumps and work towards trying to put together the most exciting 2028 season you could possibly imagine with probably another new coach and maybe a big signing? I don't know. Or do you run the risk of this becoming Southlake 2.0, where the game day experience and the team on the field and everything about this becomes so funked that you risk really damaging the excitement over the new stadium when it finally opens in 28? And that part, to me, I can't. And if you decide that you can't afford to have that happen, and how will Dan and Clark going go about trying to maximize their potential over the next three seasons? And I honestly have zero idea what their plan is. [00:52:04] Speaker B: Well, I think that they have perhaps learned their lesson from the Zenata. Not the Zenata, excuse me, the Niko Stephens era, in the sense of go signing these veterans and these older players and trying to compete, you know, and get these playoffs spots. I think they've maybe learned their lesson from that. And I will say that because there is this new, unannounced, publicly initiative inside the club to have half of their roster be from the academy, that that is their internal stated goal as an organization. So that goal is a doubling down and a betting on the idea that your academy makes you better than other people, makes you sustain a. Maybe it's because they make money from it or they think they can make money from it, but if you're gonna have half your roster be from your academy, you have to sell less than you have been of those players. So I think you also can't really afford to be perceived as treading water for three years. I think you still have to try to compete. I think that. I think that they will carry forward this playoffs is the minimum we consider to be acceptable. And so I think that they will. They will. Whatever coach they hire, I think the stated goal is going to be, you're going to make the playoffs every year, and we, as an organization, are going to double down on the academy and continue to try and bring through and give you better players that way, as well as these other more recent things we've done with U 22 initiatives and your Allen volume and your anisalis and these other kinds of interesting signings. The trick is going to be the budget probably will be impacted. I don't think we can any of us say that. It won't be for sure in a ticket, in a league where ticket sales really matters a lot because the tv revenue is not the NFL. Right. So it's going to be affected in some way. So unless they sell somebody else for 12 million, you're not going to get another 12 million signing. You know, the key is going to be efficiency of signings because I think, I think they're going to double down to their, their old ways, which is smart signings in the proper positions. You can't have wasted cap, wasted salary, luxury players. Again, all part of the bad roster build. Um, you have to fill a certain amount of your roster from academy or else you're going to lag and you continue to do decent ish things in the draft and you'll be, that'll be how they'll be competitive. They're not going to go spend even more. So over these three years, they're not going to go sign a $15 million a year player like Toronto does, you know, or things like that. So it'll be a lot of ways they'll be similar. I mean, Musa and Alan and, you know. [00:54:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And probably less answers, hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man. [00:54:55] Speaker B: I mean, that. That's clear. If you're going to have. If your goal is to have half your roster be academy, you can't have your reserves, deep roster players that backups be 30 year old dudes from Israel, okay, you know, or 35 year old journeyman center backs or 36 year old reserve keepers. [00:55:13] Speaker A: But let's have a, let's have an honest conversation about that concept of half your roster being academy players. Buzz, I don't know anybody on this planet that doesn't work for the club who has the level and depth of knowledge of the academy than Buzz Kerik. Could you look at me square in the eye and tell me that in 2025 or even 2026 or 2027 that they actually have MLS quality enough players to pull that off? [00:55:46] Speaker B: Not, not by 24 or 25. It'll take. [00:55:50] Speaker A: Well, we're in 24 now. [00:55:52] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry, not by 25 or 26. It's why it's initiative. It'll take three, four or five years to pull it off. You have to stop selling Testman and Brian Reynolds. You probably can't stop selling Pepe because you need the 20 million, but you got to stop selling these guys that are only worth a couple mil, you know, or otherwise it's going to be. Otherwise the 15 players they're talking about are going to be the bottom 15 players and then that means nothing for you. Okay, but you could do that tomorrow if you wanted to, but it'd be worthless. [00:56:21] Speaker A: But, but let's also, and let's introduce into this conversation the reality that players appear to be getting smarter as to their own value. And can Dallas continue to sign that type of player because it appears, you know, with Gojo and the kid that went to Birmingham and a couple of these other kids that have left without signing contracts. Yeah, Corcoran Eyestone. Can Dallas put deals on the table that will keep some of these kids here long enough to be, to make up that 50%? [00:56:56] Speaker B: Well, nil may change this landscape a little bit because I think at some point you'll be able to have guys that have futzed around MLS next probably, and be able to go back to college if it doesn't work out. So that's possible that that's going to change the landscape. But the, the key thing is that since the pandemic, or maybe even just the last two years, even Dallas has, FC Dallas has aggressively gone out and recruited and tried to bolster their academy in terms of depth. So, like, the classes that are coming through now, instead of having two or three guys that could potentially be pros in each team, there's like ten guys that potentially be pros now. The trick is, of course, is identifying them and hitting on them. I also think that they're doing a little bit of, like, because they have north Texas, they can actually do a little bit more of like, spraying of candidates and, like, just signing a fair number of guys and hoping that one of them will pan out. So I think that while, like, at the top of the academy right now, there's not like a clear peppy, but there's like the current UAT team. There's literally five guys that are already under contract and there's another seven or eight that could end up being pros. Now, they may have them choose to go to college. You know, there's still greater depth. And by pros, I mean get paid to play soccer. That doesn't mean they're going to make it to MLS or Europe. So it only takes, you know, two or three guys to get to MLS a year to get to this stated goal. So, like, for example, last year they signed two homegrowns, Norris and Tark Scott, right. And then the next year it was Al Azura. Right. So, like it. There's a couple of guys down there at North Texas right now on hybrid deals. So, like, over the next season, you're going to see two, three more that are going to turn out to be homegrowns also from that group. So, like, if you continue to have two, three homegrowns a year and don't sell them at such a high rate as they did a little while ago, then you'll really not, not overnight, but within three or four, five years, you'll get so close to having half your roster be from the academy. It's an achievable goal in my opinion. [00:59:04] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting one. It also begs the question of, can you be a serious MLS contender when half your roster is made up of a bunch of kids? [00:59:12] Speaker B: Totally different question. Yeah, well, yeah, that's a totally different question. [00:59:18] Speaker A: And I, you know. [00:59:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. I know. [00:59:22] Speaker A: I think it's a romantic idea and I think I. There's a. There's an aspect of it. I love it. But as somebody, you and I have been watching this league since day one and I think you and I have a pretty solid handle on the type of roster that can. I think if you go through and look at all 28 winning MLS cup teams, there are kind of running threads that run through them and, and one of those is not a bunch of 20 and 21 year olds that have all been playing professionally for a year or two. [00:59:54] Speaker B: Yeah, but if you. Let's think if you took SC, Dallas's team now and forget about Pepe because he's an outlier, but let's say you kept Testman Reynolds. Let's see, who else have we sold out? What if you. [01:00:06] Speaker A: Cannon. [01:00:08] Speaker B: Reggie Cannon. What? You know, what if you had four or five of these guys that you sold for money that you, in your team, like this team, would be so much better? [01:00:16] Speaker A: Well, okay, see, that's. Okay, here's the thing. I think you could make the case that you're correct there, but you're also working off what you know about those players after they left Dallas and went and played in faraway lands. I mean, Tanner Testman, as a guy that has been playing in Italy, I suspect, is a vastly different and superior player than the Tanner Testman you would have gotten if he had just stayed in Dallas and continued to play in Dallas. [01:00:45] Speaker B: Maybe I'm telling. [01:00:47] Speaker A: I just think the level of competition, coaching, the environment, the culture b dude, I'm telling you, I think that's way. I just think the overall impact of that is, is I just, I don't think Tanner Testman is the same player. If he just stayed and played an MLS for the last three or four. [01:01:07] Speaker B: Years, it's impossible to say it is. Right. But it's not like, and you may be right, it's like he's living at home. I mean, he was out of his comfort zone here as an 18 year old on his own. [01:01:15] Speaker A: No, I get it, but. I know, but I also say thing, the same thing about is, is Reggie the same player he would have been if he had stayed here is, well. [01:01:24] Speaker B: Reggie's case, everything went sideways for him. [01:01:26] Speaker A: Maybe he would have been a better player if he had stayed. [01:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe he might have been. [01:01:29] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:01:30] Speaker B: Reynolds. I don't know. Because Reynolds, you know, that stand at Roma now that is different. You know what I mean? Like, that's a different, I mean, I. [01:01:35] Speaker A: Would make the, I would make the argument that there are several players or not several. There are a few players that would have been better if they had stayed here because they ended up going overseas and getting very little, little time. Who are the two defenders that ended up going to Germany and playing in like the 11th german division? What's that kid's name? [01:01:51] Speaker B: Well, Nico Carrera. Antonio's brother. [01:01:54] Speaker A: No, no, no. The, the one that really just insisted on going to Germany. [01:01:59] Speaker B: Oh, Justin Shea. [01:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:02:02] Speaker B: Chris Richards. I guess you could include him in that. So, you know, Chris Cappas, he could have been here, right? No, he couldn't have almost screwed them over. [01:02:08] Speaker A: Like, is Chris Richards this? I mean, Chris Richards probably, arguably is a better player because he's now playing in the Premier League than if he had stayed in Dallas. So I. Again, I think that's a romantic idea. And at the end of the day, I think really putting a wrench in their plans is this stadium thing. And I find the whole, the more I think about how this whole stadium thing has come together, the more curious I am about how long this has been in the works, how it ended up getting so delayed. And I mean, is it. I think it's just ultimately a function of, look, we have to do this, and this is not a good situation of how to do it, but we're just going to have to figure and do the best of it we can over the course of the next three years. [01:02:55] Speaker B: Well, let me first tag that this idea of this kids thing with saying that, like, there's a difference between an initiative, which is a admirable goal, and, like, a rule, like, they're just, they're everything to move that direction. So, um, you know, I'm with you that I don't think you can just do it and have it happen. But then let's talk about the stadium specifically. Now we know that the hunts are making a bet because they waited and waited and waited for this thing, for the World cup to be official. And then the World cup was official, and a month later, here they come. We're going to do this stadium. Remember, we're going to capitalize on the World cup. They're betting that the soccer in the United States is going to get a bounce like it did after 1994 World cup, that this World cup is going to be the same effect. So they're dropping, you know, 180 million. Is it into this, just the stadium part of this reno and all this other money, billion or whatever it is, into these ancillary things around the stadium. They're betting on the World cup bounce, which is why I think they planned this. As long as they've known that the US was trying to get this World cup, they've been planning this. [01:04:01] Speaker A: I'm of the belief, Buzz, that the Hunt brothers have been trying to pull off this stadium renovation for a long time. I think. I think the fact that the stadium isn't going to be done until two years after the 2026 World cup was never, was never in the plans. I think they wanted to have all this done by the World cup and things, just business and politics and this, that and the other all got in the way. And. And I think. I think the knock on effects of all of this is the fact that now they're having to do this in the middle of the World cup. Like, I just. The hunts are too good at business to try to end up pulling off a stadium reconstruction while the World Cup's actually happening here. Like, that just doesn't make any sense to me. I just think that too many things got in their way, and this is not the. This is not really how they wanted this to go. [01:04:56] Speaker B: I think when you said politics, it triggered in my brain, you remember, that they were waiting for the gambling thing. [01:05:00] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [01:05:01] Speaker B: They were trying to wait for the Texas to pass the sports book thing, and then it got shut down. And I think they probably had to rejigger the whole plan once they realized they couldn't get the sports book to wrap the whole other part around. [01:05:15] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [01:05:16] Speaker B: That may have been. What I'm thinking of last summer was that that got defeated. They were kind of waiting for that. [01:05:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it. I'm. The next three years are going to be fascinating, whether you're a fan or not a fan, you know, outside observer, whatever. How Dan and Clark approach these three seasons is just utterly fascinating stuff. [01:05:40] Speaker B: Well, you know, us talking about it makes me more convinced than ever that they're not going to write a big check for a superstar coach. [01:05:51] Speaker A: Well, it is a superstar. I mean, because here's the other component to this problem. How many, you know, what kind of coach wants to come and, and have to manage in that situation with a stadium like that? Right. What kind of big name player wants to come play in a stadium that's under construction like that, man? [01:06:10] Speaker B: Hopefully the players that they do have that signed on here knowing that this was coming, I don't know. I hope they did. [01:06:17] Speaker A: I mean, we'll talk about what players are coming and going, staying or leaving in a future episode for the next few weeks or so, but there is just so much up in the air about how this plays out into the lead up for the 28th season. But I just keep, I just can't get out of my head that this is going to be an ongoing issue both for the players, the fans and the front office for three entire seasons. That just seems so ridiculous to me. [01:06:48] Speaker B: And that's if it stays on time. [01:06:50] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, exactly. I think the way the plan is written, it's supposed to be done in the middle or somewhere amongst the 27 season, but I think we're all just assuming that the actual finished product won't be ready to go until the beginning of the 28th season. [01:07:06] Speaker B: Well, this is how you know that this really is a bet by them for the long term. This is not a short term bet. This is a long term bet that they're making, you know, for sure. [01:07:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:07:16] Speaker B: But I mean, it's going to be beautiful. I'm excited about it. [01:07:18] Speaker A: Sure. It'll, it'll be great. I. Yes, I'm. I'm sure it'll be fantastic. But they've got to, they've got to figure out a way to continue to maintain some level of competitive interest in this club for three seasons while they wait to try to sell, you know, an extra 3500 seats on top of what they're already trying to sell, which, you know, look, here's the reality. By the time 28 comes here, the new stadium, no matter how good or bad the team is, I think interest will be very high, especially because there's a safe standing area, and I think there'll be a lot of interesting interest in that. But the success of launching that new stadium will be made far easier if over the course of these three seasons they don't repeat 2024 over and over or two of the three seasons, you know? Yeah. [01:08:12] Speaker B: It'll be, it'll be fascinating to see, like, we talk about this from time to time. The most coaches do a three to five year cycle, right. You take over a team, it takes you three seasons to put the roster into the shape that you want it, and then you get a season or two to compete at the highest peak of that roster. So if you, if you're going to give a guy a three year build, that three year build is going to end right when that stadium is finishing and you're going to have your four and five of your build and when you should peek out right when that thing's done. [01:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:40] Speaker B: Or, or is this the new. Because it is an honor. Is this the Central and South american model of I do the team building? You're just here to get the team into the playoffs every year and compete every year. And every year your job's up for hiring or firing like it is in Mexico or like it is in Brazil. You know, that's, that, to me, is a more interesting question. [01:09:01] Speaker A: Well, we can save this conversation for next week, which would probably be more appropriate because we'll have a much better handle on, on the full slate of Luxane's performances. But with Austin firing, hiring, firing Jeff Wolf, which, by the way, I don't understand why Josh Wolf one game before the end of the season? That's really weird to me. Um. [01:09:22] Speaker B: Oh, they got eliminated. That's why. [01:09:24] Speaker A: Well, yeah, but. Okay, you still have a game to go. I mean, it just seems just stupid. It's like you're so mad at him, you're going to fire him and make him stay home and collect money for doing nothing for a game. [01:09:34] Speaker B: It's just so. I have a theory about that. Go ahead, though. [01:09:37] Speaker A: But the second part is, is that with Chicago showing some ambition and hiring Greg Berhalter, and who is Austin going to go out and get? And how is Dallas and Dan and Clark hunt going to look if Austin goes out and hires a Viera or something and they go hire Peter Luxane or something? [01:09:57] Speaker B: My assumption about them moving when they did is based on a small piece of news, which is the off season calendars. You have to start to make your moves by November 27. November 27 is when your options and your bona fide offers are due. And then within like two weeks after that, there's a half day trade window and then you get the expansion draft coming up in mid December. The college thing is in mid December, the showcase. So like, okay, if I wait another two weeks to fire my coach, it's now the end of October and now I have exactly one month before that. Whereas if I fire him now, I now have six weeks until. So I can, I can take two or three weeks and get my coach in. And now my coach has almost a month before those roster moves have to have him. So I think that's why you do that now. And it raises an interesting question for me, is that since the hunts are apparently waiting for the season to actually end before they start interviewing people, like, we hear names that we don't know of anyone actually doing anything yet, they're obviously quite content to wait and not have that coach in place. With a lot of time leading into when those decisions are going to be made, their organizationally going to be making those calls between the TD, whose name I can't remember, and Zonata, who's the director of soccer operations now, and Dan Hunt and whatever assistance they have still around. If it's not Luxanda, they tell him you're going to be an assistant. Is it John Gall? Is it Hayden? You know, they're going to be pulling triggers on this stuff while they might still be interviewing the coaches. So different organizational philosophies probably is what led to them pulling the sugar on wolf the minute he got eliminated so that they can go get a coach, like in two weeks, go get him and have him in place and Dallas will still be playing at that point. I mean, they might have a coach before Dallas has finished playing sporting because they don't play till the 19th, right? [01:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:57] Speaker B: And if you were thinking, if you're a forward thinking owner, you might have already had a very short list of your candidates ready to go when you fired wolf. And you might have five interviews this week and make a call next week. Hypothetically. [01:12:09] Speaker A: No, that makes. That's a fair shout. That that would, that would be interesting, for sure. All right, so we've spent a lot of time talking about a game and the situation on the end of a season, and we'll talk more about that. Let's just real quickly, Dallas Trinity won a road game over Spokane. I don't think. I did not see it. Did you see it? [01:12:31] Speaker B: No, I did not. Cause there was a North Texas game and an FC Dallas game with exact same time. [01:12:35] Speaker A: And speaking of which, North Texas did win their game eight to two. [01:12:40] Speaker B: Yeah, they absolutely smashed Minnesota. They played. [01:12:44] Speaker A: So you have in your note here in the run sheet the red crayon that they choose Vancouver. [01:12:51] Speaker B: Yes. MLS next pro does a very cool bit. I think it's cool where the top four seeds get to pick in each conference from the bottom four seeds who they want to play. So Dallas was the number one seed and number, and Houston was the number eight seed and they did not pick Houston, the number eight seed. They picked the number seven seed. [01:13:10] Speaker A: It has to travel from Vancouver to come here. [01:13:12] Speaker B: Fascinating. Well, it's more than that. They, in the little media show they did the little live YouTube game. You know, they said something about, oh, it's a good team. We haven't seen them much. We want to challenge ourselves. Whatever, dude. That Vancouver team has only won one game in their last twelve. And over the last six, they were one, seven and four. So it's like that team is cratering and dying fast and almost crashed out of the playoffs. That's why they picked that team. And Houston Dynamo got really hot at the end and like won the last three of the last four or something and got in. That's why they didn't go with the eight seed. They picked a seven seed. So I think it's super cool because now you're going to have like, oh, how dare you pick us? It's like all those different fun things that can happen that is traveled to other sports. Imagine the NBA, if you're the Lakers and you can pick number one seed, you can pick who you want to play in round one. I mean, imagine if that happened, right? I mean, if this concept could take off in other leagues, I think it'd be crazy fun. [01:14:10] Speaker A: That is pretty cool, actually. Yeah, that is fascinating. [01:14:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:16] Speaker A: All right, well, good. That'll be fun. Maybe I'll go to one of those games. [01:14:19] Speaker B: You should. It'd be fun. [01:14:20] Speaker A: Will you take me? [01:14:21] Speaker B: Yeah. It's on the 20th. Is the game against Vancouver. [01:14:23] Speaker A: Okay. [01:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah, come on down. [01:14:25] Speaker A: Very good. Can we walk from your house? [01:14:27] Speaker B: Yeah, we could. I mean, it's. It's a little bit further than cowboys. It's, you know, a whole mile and a half over there, but we could. [01:14:34] Speaker A: Okay. Anything else, Buzz? [01:14:37] Speaker B: Well, I just want to talk real quick about why North Texas is so good. They're freaking amazing. [01:14:43] Speaker A: Sure you don't want to save that for another pod because we've been going almost an hour and a half. [01:14:46] Speaker B: Well, it's just real quickly because it's related to the bad FC Dallas roster. [01:14:50] Speaker A: Okay. [01:14:51] Speaker B: It's because FC Dallas brought in all these veteran insurance players that forced down a bunch of players that ordinarily would have filled all that, you know, garbage time and extra time and bonus time. Those players all got forced down to North Texas soccer club. And somebody I know who's into the stat stuff sent me like a breakdown and I'm just gonna give this really quick. Almost 50% of the north Texas soccer club roster is 22 or 23 years old. Right. Those are college kids. Those are. Those are Logan Farrington's, although not him, but it's guys that are at the end of their college time. So that is a very mature team that is full of players that should have been like Noel Norris and Carlos Santa playing a lot for essay Dallas and did not. So they only had like 25% of their team that was 1819 years old, which is the kids just out of the academy. So it's a heavier, older, experienced team with a lot of talent that all are homegrowns and players they've signed from North Texas previously that are supposed to be their up and coming players that all shuttle down because of this bad SC Dallas build. So the beneficiaries of that, of one part of that is North Texas soccer club. So they're really, really good. And they've got five, six players that, you know, or more that'll easily be contributors to this team over the next couple of seasons for sure. [01:16:16] Speaker A: The problem is MLS next pro is just not a very good level overall. [01:16:21] Speaker B: Right? That's the thing. Those, these guys need to be playing at a better level. Whether it be garbage time and MLS or something else, or just being like with the first team more than they were and having them down. Like Nolan goes down there and he bosses those games when he's down there. You know what I mean? It's like, that's why they're really, really good, because they have really, really good players that should have been with Seattle. [01:16:40] Speaker A: Very good. All right, well, we missed Dan. I missed Dan today. I'm sorry. Dan was not here. [01:16:46] Speaker B: Yeah, but you know, only you got to pay those onlyfans bills. Give the only fan money right now. [01:16:51] Speaker A: I know. Those are big checks he makes. [01:16:53] Speaker B: They're much bigger than ours for those. [01:16:55] Speaker A: Fancy cars he drives. All right, well, thanks, Buzz. That's a good time. Good stuff. [01:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah, man. Thanks for being here. And next week we'll have to figure out what to talk about. No game. I have an idea. [01:17:07] Speaker A: Okay. I hope it's fun. Can you make it fun. [01:17:10] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll probably play dump or keep. Oh, always fun. [01:17:14] Speaker A: We love dump or keep. [01:17:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Usually we wait till the end of the season, but it season's over and we have nothing to talk about, so we might as well start, right? [01:17:21] Speaker A: Me, dump or keep. Sonata, dump, capital ump. That's right. All right. Thanks, Buzz. [01:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. [01:17:33] Speaker A: Thank you, FC Dallas. Curious fan. Have a great weekend. Go team. Although we don't have a game this week. Hey, it's the week. It's the debut of Pochettino this weekend for the us men's national team. Yeah. [01:17:45] Speaker B: And his assistant. [01:17:47] Speaker A: Yes. And his new. And his son. Where's all the cries of nepotism now, everybody? [01:17:52] Speaker B: Oh, they were there. They were there. [01:17:53] Speaker A: Oh, were they? Okay. Yes. Okay. All right. Very good. All right. And so, thank you, FC Dallas. Curious fan. We will speak to you next week on another fun filled episode of Third Degree, the podcast. Dan, hurry up. Third degree the third degree. Net podcast. Third degree the third degree nepothe third degree degree. Never get.