3rd Degree the Podcast #285

[00:00:00] Speaker A: But I also really have to admit I love the fact that the very first formation that comes to his mind is just good old basic four four, two. Yeah. [00:00:17] Speaker B: 3Rd Degree the 3rd Degree NEP podcast. [00:00:21] Speaker A: 3Rd Degree the 3rd Degree nerve podcast 3rd Degree the 3rd degree nerve podcast. 3rd Degree 3rd Degree never care. Well, hello there FC Dallas curious fan. Welcome to another episode of 3rd Degree, the podcast the End of Another season. Yep, there's always next year. And this is episode 285. There he is, your favorite Luton Town man, Dan Crook. Howdy Dan. [00:00:54] Speaker B: How's it going? [00:00:56] Speaker A: Excellent. I loved the tweet your club put out today to whatever fan was social media harassing one of its players. I thought that was pretty bitchin stuff. [00:01:07] Speaker B: It's slightly better than the shit talk in Watford after ROFL stomping them, as Buzz would say last weekend. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Did you watch that? With great glee. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Oh, of course. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Of course you did. And your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of third degree.net and the original soccer influencer. Damn it. It's Buzz Carrick. Come and Buzz. [00:01:33] Speaker C: Hi fellas. Another season comes to an end as we now move on to season 28 of our coverage of FC Dallas. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Around these parts pretty much like the other 27. [00:01:45] Speaker C: Yeah, it probably will be very much. [00:01:46] Speaker A: Like the other 27 or this one, I guess. Yeah. I was thinking about this the other day, how this one has ended and how it feels compared to all the others and I guess this is actually this one wasn't anywhere near as bad as some of them have been in the past. Most of them break in like you know, end game heartbreak like MLS cup or a playoff game or you, you know, the last decision day game that you didn't make it happen or whatever. But this was over a month ago. [00:02:15] Speaker C: And yeah, this season went from Challenging Southlake for 2003, worst season ever, which was the first time they ever missed the playoffs, to sort of rallying at least making it somewhat interesting even though it really was over like a month ago. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Yep. So we are in the recapping of the season and the big news that we'll get into here in a little bit was that Dan Hunt and Andre Zenata did hold their season ending press conference as the playoffs were about to begin. And we'll play some audio from the press conference and break it down. Before we get into that, I wanted to ask you guys the news that the at the Athletic wrote about today, which is this idea today, meaning we're recording this on a Thursday or did it come out today or Yesterday, I can't remember. [00:03:03] Speaker C: Oh, I think I saw it this morning, but yeah, it was exactly when it was posted. [00:03:06] Speaker A: Maybe it was yesterday. I don't remember. Anyway, not important that MLS is considering flexing to the international FIFA calendar starting after the World cup in 26, which creates all sorts of questions, the biggest of which is what does that mean for the 2026 season? But just at a very high level because obviously what this means for everybody is that they'll play in August through a part of December and then they'll take five weeks off and then pick back up. And I think it is late February and then the MLS and then MLS cup would be played in May. Buzz, do you like this idea? [00:03:51] Speaker C: I do, actually. The part I like is the aligning of the calendar. I know that there's a lot of people that don't like the weather and how it result for certain teams, you know, but here in Texas, like some of the summer games are just absolutely brutal. We would still of course have a lot of brutal games in the heat and we would have a lot of tough games in the cold. Make it's cold here. You know, the northern teams obviously are going to have way more cold, but like the weather, all that weather stuff doesn't really bother me one way or the other because everyone's going to have bad weather games. So aligning with the rest of the world in terms of the calendar will really help transfers, both buying and selling and teams do business. That for sure would be huge. It also would align with the academic school year, which allows it to function more effectively with its own program, its own academy. It's in North Texas. Sc. I assume that Leap would also switch. I mean, Dallas Trinity in the new USL Super League plays that schedule with that pause in the winter that it was very common in a lot of places. This is not a weird, unproven system that to have this pause in the winter. [00:04:57] Speaker D: So. [00:04:57] Speaker A: No, but, but isn't five weeks and seeming like an exceedingly long amount of time because Germany's what, three weeks, two weeks? [00:05:07] Speaker C: Yeah, it could be, but some of them are longer. I think there's about that same timeframe. I mean, I think one of the biggest advantages will be not losing players for a month and a half for World Cups or Gold Cups. I don't think is five months, five weeks, excuse me, as being a long layoff. I mean, when you think about, you know, what, what the league lays off for the summer sometimes when they now cram leagues cup into that space, but they lay off in A sense, you know, they have in the past for when they were losing players. So I don't, I don't, I don't think five weeks is crazy. I think it's. That's, you know, basically, I mean it's just over a month and if you throw. If you. Considering you're going to have the holidays in there, the holiday week, week and a half and then New Year's two weeks when like no one's doing anything anyway, you're only talking like a couple weeks before that and a week, couple weeks after that. You know, I don't think it's a big deal. [00:05:57] Speaker A: What do you think, Dan? [00:05:59] Speaker B: Well, just to your point about Germany, traditionally the winter break there was six weeks because was it really they'd play an indoor tournament in the middle of it. [00:06:09] Speaker A: Is that what they're currently doing? [00:06:10] Speaker B: I don't know what it is right now, man. [00:06:13] Speaker A: I don't it. For whatever reason, the German break doesn't seem to be that long. Maybe it is. I don't watch the Bundesliga very much, but I thought it was, I thought it was much shorter than five weeks, honestly. The. Or like the Norwegian league or the, or the Scandinavian League. But those, those leagues also, some of the, several of those play in the same kind of. [00:06:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Normally place in the summer. [00:06:33] Speaker A: The MLS structure does. [00:06:34] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:06:36] Speaker C: Immediately that's way further north. [00:06:38] Speaker B: I think a big thing as well is a lot of European that all got messed around with the World cup in 2022 and they're still kind of fair. Just in back. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough. I know, I know the Premier League tried to take. Had like a weird fractured like week long break. Like some of the teams took a week off and then the next group of teams took the other week off or something a couple years ago and they, they kind of, they kind of trashed that. [00:07:01] Speaker C: The alignment of MLS cup with, with less things to compete with is nice. I mean, look at, you know, any system you pick, you're in this country, you're going to be playing second fiddle to other things. [00:07:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:11] Speaker C: And any, any, any window you pick in this country, you're going to have some weather issues. You know, like people that play up in, you know, Boston or Detroit or whatever don't understand how insanely hot it is here in the summer. When we used to have to try and play those 2 o'clock games and it would literally be 140 degrees on the field. [00:07:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:32] Speaker C: You know, and 120 in the stands. It's like. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. They'll complain in the cold or maybe even in the snow with the orange balls. No fun. But so is playing at 140 degrees. So it's not ideal. You know, we've talked about this before. There was this. I never can find it, but there was a study once that had defc Dallas, for example, as one of the hottest home fields in terms of average game temperature in the world. You know, so I mean, for us it would be a lot cool. Better to have a winter schedule down here. You know, admittedly it's different for everybody. [00:08:00] Speaker A: Dan, I felt like I stepped on you and you. I didn't get a chance to hear what your opinion of the idea was. [00:08:07] Speaker B: Honestly, I, I don't know. It's. It's tough because. Yeah, it's tough because that first, you know, we've had seasons begin where Colorado has been postponed. Vancouver is, well, not Vancouver, they're indoors. Montreal's had stadium issues, Toronto Rail, Salt Lake, New England. It's. It can be difficult not only for like the comfort of it, not just playing with the orange ball, but actually getting those games on. So maybe there's a way that they kind of lopside the schedule a little bit so that in the winter months those teams tend to play on the road and you know, as it gets a bit warmer, maybe FC Dallas, Houston, etc there on the road a little more. [00:08:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm curious. I, I think the general idea and the purpose of the idea is good. I'm concerned that the five week break is just gonna put. Is gonna be like pulling the emergency break in the middle of a season. And I'm curious as to how that impacts momentum and interest, et cetera, et cetera, league. So I guess, I guess that's what they'll do is they'll play leagues, cup in there maybe, but that doesn't make any sense because if you can play games, why wouldn't you be playing games? You know, to compress the season a little closer. So I, look, I think it's, I think it's worth a try. It will not surprise me if we find out everybody hates it because the weather sucks so bad in so many of the key cities. Because if you really start to think about the number of cities in MLS that will be negatively impacted by this, I think it's more than you realize when you think about it offhand, because Kansas City is absolutely going to be one of those cities. Cincinnati, Minnesota, all the ones in the northeast. Charlotte, you know, can be pretty dodgy in the winter. Dallas, as you said, Buzz can Get pretty goofy in January or February. So I don't know, we'll see. My big question is what kind of fun ass thing are they going to come up with for the first half of 2026 as the truncated season before the World Cup? That's what I want to know. [00:10:18] Speaker C: Well, you could, you could have just like a mini half season or you could do nothing. [00:10:24] Speaker A: But MLS is back 2.0. [00:10:27] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly, something like that, you know, just like a mini little cup or something or, or play like a higher tier version of leagues cup, you know, over a couple of months with get Mexico involved. I'm just, I'm sure they'll come up with something, you know, however way they want to slice it, they don't want to sit around not play anything. They want to make money. So I mean, when you think about when Dallas got eliminated from leagues cup, they went three and a half weeks until they played again, you know, so that's. If you threw in the middle of that three and a half weeks, if you threw a holiday season that gets you five weeks basically. Right? So it's like, it's not really totally unreasonable to have a five week break. I think the thing that will probably kill it in the end is going to be the weather. But I do think there's a ton of advantages. I really think a lot in the calendar would just be absolutely massive in terms of soccer only. Not play on the field, but the soccer only in the sense of, you know, the amount of players you can get in, the amount when you can buy and sell, and how it would align with the school year and how it would align with everything else, I think is really ideal. It's just a question of can you combat that weather. And just as a side note for the way northern teams in other sports do that, like Maine baseball, for example, University of Maine, they usually start their baseball season with like 20 straight road games. So. So there are people that have to deal with things like that in sports. It's, you know, it's just going to be a collective ownership decision. Yeah, well, none of us are going to have any impact on that decision at all. It's only going to be. [00:11:55] Speaker A: Did they say, did they say when they were going to make the decision? I don't remember. I'm sure it was in the article and I just missed it or forgot it. [00:12:02] Speaker C: I mean, I think they're just kicking the idea down the road, you know, like, you know, they every once in a while they float ideas to see how people react. Like there's been Three separate occasions that I know of where I've heard about the idea of doing the postseason cup style where you had groups to create more playoff games. I've heard that raised with MLS three times now where they floated that idea just to see how people would react. So I'm sure this is just the first sort of floating of the idea to see how the fan base reacts. And they said in the article, I did read it, that they had done a bunch of fan surveying and that now that they've put the idea out, they're going to do a bunch more to get in depth reactions from people. So. [00:12:38] Speaker A: All right, we'll put a pin in that, see where it goes. Interesting idea. Have no idea how well it'll play out, but we'll. We'll see what goes down with that. All right, so season is over. The official Dan Hunt and Andre Zenata hoodoo takes place in the press conference room. I want to congratulate Dan Hunt on growing a nifty goatee. I thought that was very nice. He didn't show up looking like a hobo. I can't grow a goatee like that. I think that looked pretty. I thought he looked pretty good. I think it's not unfair for me to surmise, summarize the press conference by saying they pretty much said exactly what we all thought they would say. [00:13:22] Speaker C: Yeah, right. Yeah. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Was there any surprises at all whatsoever in the 45 minutes? [00:13:29] Speaker C: Surprises? I don't think there was any surprises at all. Some things that I think we should for sure talk about, but there definitely weren't any. Yeah, I can't think of any surprises. I think they pretty much said what we all expected. [00:13:42] Speaker A: Dan, anything for you. [00:13:44] Speaker B: No, no surprises. I was trying to. I was thinking of a witty remark about it, but not even that. [00:13:50] Speaker C: Do you. [00:13:50] Speaker A: Do you have any big takeaways or overarching observations of the press conference since you were, you know, watching it in real time? [00:14:00] Speaker B: Not. Not so much at a press conference. More of the reaction to it I've seen. And people say that it sounded like Dan Hunt was out on Peter Luxon. Others say, oh, he's. He's basically just confirmed that he's going to be the permanent head coach now. So, yeah. Be kind of interesting to break that down. [00:14:20] Speaker C: I think my overall biggest takeaway is that I appreciate the casting of J.K. simmons in the role of Dan Hunt. That was an inspired choice. [00:14:30] Speaker A: Simmons is ripped these days. I don't know if you know this, Buzz. [00:14:33] Speaker C: Well, you know, I. I just meant, like, facially speaking. You Know, he put on some fat suit. [00:14:37] Speaker B: Oh, I thought you were talking about, like, J.K. simmons when he was playing the. The cancer ridden guy in Brockmire. [00:14:47] Speaker C: Ages. Looks a lot like him right now with the beard and the bald head and the whatever else dance in the tan the Dan Hunt had going on. Right. Yeah. I have lots of takeaways of, quote things that they said, but on the overall stance, I think, you know, what they said pretty much was to be expected. It's what we said at the beginning of the season, they're now saying at the end of the season. So no big surprises, to be honest. [00:15:15] Speaker A: All right, let's. I want to roll some of these clips that Buzz was diligent enough to pull. And I think the first one I want to start off with Buzz is Dan kind of diving into the thing that we all thought they'd lean on as an excuse, which are injuries. [00:15:31] Speaker E: But as I reflect upon the season, we obviously had much higher aspirations than what we achieved this year. And look, if you had to boil it down, I think injuries is maybe one of the biggest reasons why we were, you know, we spent a lot of time studying this, thinking about this, and when your DPs miss, you know, more than a season of games and it's more than double the league average, that's hard, that's difficult because those are the players that you're really counting on to help pick up points in those crucial matches. And then also, you know, injuries to Paxton Palma Call, and Giovanni not returning this season, those were gigantic blows to the club. [00:16:10] Speaker A: I. That seems to be the most obviously unself aware answer he could possibly have given as a response or explanation for the 2024 season. Because almost element of his answer, all three of us and everybody else listening has an obvious retort as to, yeah, no, dummy. [00:16:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, we spent all last winter talking about all that. Like, we, we literally, we. We knew that Alan Vlasco was going to be out the bulk of the year, and I even flat out asked him about moving him out off so they could replace him, and they laughed at that idea. We knew Giovanni Jesus was going to miss the bulk of the year. Right. We flat out on this podcast talked over and over about Paxton Pomichol and how we love him as a player, but how worried you have to be and how cautious you have to be with his history. And even though he had one good season a bit ago where he got through the whole season, that you always have to be worried about that season. We talked all last winter about Jesus Ferreira and how he was struggling with that injury and how they were opting to go with a holistic approach and not have any surgery done on him. Essentially, you're correct. All of that stuff was incredibly obvious and predictable. And we talked about it on here and we're not even paid to do this for a living. We're just a bunch of chums with a mic. And we knew it was coming and sure enough, here it was. You know, it's just. And Peter, as you intimated over and over and over again, the back half of the season, too high risk of a roster with too many old guys, too many guys with injury histories and you know, so to act like surprise that like, oh, injuries really hurt us. Yeah, really. No kidding. [00:17:46] Speaker A: So I guess the question is, do you think that is a genuine answer on Dan Hunt's part or is that just him? You know what I'm asking. So my question makes sense. Like, do you think they genuinely were surprised that this has occurred to them? [00:18:03] Speaker C: I think they were. They generally feel like if they hadn't had a bunch of injuries that the team would have been really good. Well, yeah, I don't, I don't know that there's a recognition that they had a high risk roster. I don't know that they said that, that they picked up on that. Yeah, you know, they, they've said that they've learned some things and they clearly made some mistakes and they want to do better. They did not articulate what those mistakes were or articulate that one of those mistakes was, you know, too many risks reward high injuries or guys hurt going into the season. They didn't say that specifically. I really hope that that's one of the things they learned. I guess we'll find out as we go forward. But you know, clearly there's a recognition that, you know, there was a problem with injuries. Hopefully it results in multiple changes. One is to not be so risky with injury prone players or go into a season with guys out for the season, let alone two of them. Or maybe also they've learned to reevaluate their medical staff perhaps. I mean, nobody had time to specifically ask about the entire medical staff, top to bottom and whether it need to be evaluated. You know, they said they're going to self evaluate in all phases, you know, and try and prevent those bad things from happening. So let's assume for now that that means, since that was their number one problem that they. I've identified, that they're going to do something about it. [00:19:17] Speaker A: So next I want to play an answer from Zenada where he talks about what they need to improve more than anything else. And I want to play this because I think it relates to some of the questions Dan specifically asked him. Are Dan, not Dan Hunt asked Zenata towards the end of the press conference. So here's Zenata's answers about what they need to improve most. [00:19:39] Speaker D: Well, we're looking at all the decisions we're making right now and the spots that will be open for next season. But we need to strengthen our defense, something that we really struggled this season. We conceded more goals than many of the years. Last year we were the second overall teams in conceding goals, second team in the west and third overall conceding goals. The year before we're the first in the west and this year we are 14th if I'm not wrong, or 11th and 20th overall in the West. So we consider a lot more goals. And it's not only obviously it's not only the defenders defensively, it's a collective action for all players. But defenders is something that we're going to target very hard this season to, to improve for next season. [00:20:36] Speaker A: So Dan, towards the end of the press conference, you tried, I thought you made a really good effort at a very professional and polite way to get into the question of roster construction and how it got so poorly, how it got so screwed up this year. Related specifically the center back issue. You know, too few center backs now playing a formation with needing even more center backs. And I'm curious if you felt like Zenata answered your question in any kind of satisfactory way. [00:21:06] Speaker B: No, but I kind of wouldn't expect them to. It's a little difficult to say, hey, we're in the process of hiring a coach, but we're just going to lay out what the plan is for how we construct the roster next season. That they are an organization that holds their cards close to their chest. I didn't like the the emphasis on flexibility so much. If you think of Oscar Perez teams, they were really good at one thing, they weren't very good at anything else. There was never a plan B, but they were really good at 4, 2, 3, 1, counter attack, press go. Instead, this season you had a team didn't really know its identity and therefore wasn't really good at any one particular thing. [00:21:53] Speaker A: I'm glad you brought that up because that's another piece of audio that Buzz has pulled, which is both Dan Hunt and Zenad of talking about this concept of wanting a team that is flexible. [00:22:06] Speaker D: First of all, we don't have for this is we need to be flexible. We need to be, we need to have a roster that we can play with Atlanta for a line of three, and we can have, we can allow the coach to have options and play the way he feels. It's the best way for us to win games. So this is how we're going to view the rosters, to allow the coach with this flexibility. [00:22:30] Speaker E: Really what Andre said, you don't want me making coaching decisions, but you need to be flexible. You need to be able to play 4, 4, 2, you know, 3, 4, 3. You pick it, you need to be able to play it. Because, again, a nuance to this league is you've got different pitches, synthetics, playing it indoors, playing in, you know, hot climates, cold climates there. It's just, it is truly the most unique league probably in the entire world, and you need to be able to adapt to who you're playing and where. And, you know, sometimes it's not very easy to turn over your roster. And so stylistically, teams may be incredibly different from you, and so you've got to make those adjustments on the fly. So we want to give them that flexibility. [00:23:19] Speaker C: Yeah. I could not disagree with them more with every fiber of my being. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Yes. [00:23:28] Speaker C: This is, to me, the dumbest answer I have ever heard. And it, and it says to me, and they're going to hate me saying this, it says to me that these two dudes don't understand this league. That's a terrible answer. [00:23:41] Speaker A: I could not agree with you more. And I was really, I was kind of freaked out when I heard this watching the press conference, because I, I, I don't understand why. And I'm, I'm trying to make sure that I'm not misunderstanding Sonata because there's a sense to me that Dan Hunt's just nodding along because he thinks he's supposed to agree on this point, and he doesn't really understand what he's agreeing to. And, and, and I'm trying to make sure that I'm not understanding what Zenata is saying is my job is to supply a roster that allows the manager to pick whatever formation he wants to, whether he wants to stick to it or not. But I am afraid that what he is actually saying, Buzz, is that, no, we need to be able to adjust to whatever team we're playing on any given week. [00:24:31] Speaker C: Yeah. This, to me, is just absolutely crazy. And I'm going to try and explain it. I know you guys understand it. I'm going to try and explain it in a really simplistic way. The goal of sports is to win games, right? You want to win as many games as possible and you do that by being as good as you can be at your thing. And to make it even more clear, there's roughly, I know there's more than 30 games in this league, but let's use 30 as a round number. If you win 20 games and lose 20 game and lose 10 games, you have 60 points. If you, if you mess around and play more versatile and play more adaptability, you might grind out some ties. So let's say will give you 10 ties out of those losses. We'll convert them all to ties and we'll, and we'll only take away five wins. So now you have 15 wins and 10 ties. That sounds awesome, right? We ground out some ties, that's only 55 points, that's less than 60. So like the point is, is like you can't play to be good ish and average at a lot of things. You have to play to be really, really good at one thing. And here's another stupid dumbed down green go version. Let's say you build an NFL roster to be really well rounded and play lots of different versatile ways. And then you go hire Mike Leach as your coach and Mike Leach goes, we're going to play run and shoot. Hey, you guys got three tight ends on this roster. I don't need those. What am I going to do with that? Hey, you got two blocking tackles here. I'm playing the run and shoot. I don't need that. Now that's an absurd example, but it's still the same thing, right? You have to tailor your roster to the way you want to play and get a coach that fits the way you want to play so you can beat the most people as possible and win the most games as possible. Now train some adaptability into your team so that you can if you want, mix it up every once in a while, catch somebody off guard or adapt to something. But the very best teams we ever had here with Cellis went to MLS cup final. I guarantee you he played exactly the same way every single time. When Oscar was here and had two back to back 60 point seasons as Dan already talked about, same system every single time. Maybe some tiny little change ups here and there, but like 99 of the time, same system, right? Be so good, be the best you can be and win as many games as possible. Don't worry about those other ones. It's just crazy to me that you would do this, Dan. [00:26:57] Speaker B: Sorry I Didn't mean to do this. [00:26:59] Speaker C: Not you, Dan. [00:27:00] Speaker B: All right, all right, all right. Yeah. I mean, quite simply, the phrase jack of all trades, master and none. [00:27:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's painful to. I mean, I. It's a weird answer. And, and I. They probably mean well by it, but I. It just makes me curious because here's the other concern that I think I have about it because a lot of the other conversation in press conference was them trying to suggest that they're going to go back to the old FC Dallas model of being really reliant on their academy and youth. And part of what made the academy successful back in the day was that it was a unified style of play all the way down the line. And I don't know how you do that if there is no uniform style of play up and down the academy. [00:27:53] Speaker C: They still do in the academy. They still play the same way all the way up and down. And it's not. Yeah. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Oh, they do. Okay. So it's just not what the senior team's doing. [00:28:02] Speaker C: Yeah, it's always a 4, 3, 3, you know, or some version of that. It can be a 4, 2, 3, 1 occasionally, but it's. It's always a, you know, 4, 3, 3 and 4, 2, 3, 1 are both 4, 3, threes. It's just rotation on the midfield. They play the same way all the time. Like once in a blue moon, you'll see them throw a weird shape out. But it's. It's like everything else. It's like since Oscar came here and started the academy, it's been the same thing up in there. And they always build out of the back. They always try and play. They're never going to hoof it. They're always going to try and play balls on the ground. We're going to pass it. And this is a great example for. For of the team specifically, like if rather than having versatility. Right. You. Every team they've had here, the coaches wanted to build out of the back. In order to build out the back, you have to have center backs that can pass. So if you build a team that doesn't have center backs that can pass, you didn't build to be able to play the way everybody that's come here and coach wants to play. So, sure, we have other capabilities we're looking for, but if you don't bring the ones they specifically need to play the specific way they want to play, it's not going to work. Like, let's say, for example, a coach says you hire you, you build a Nice versatile team. You got some wingers, you got a, you got a, you got a nine like Musa who can post up. You got an off nine like Freya. That's good. What if you hire a coach that's like, I'm playing classic 442. I'm like, my owner just said, I'm going to have Ronnie O'Brien firing in 60, 70 balls into the box a game and I don't have a Blas Perez big time header of a striker. Why bother not firing in 100 balls from the wing a game if you don't have the striker to go with that system? I have Jesus Ferrer playing as an off nine and you're firing in 100 balls. Like that would be awful. Right. So you have to build to fit what you want to do. It's crazy to me that you don't do that. [00:29:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think my, my biggest concerning takeaway from listening to the press conference is I got nothing out of this that gave me any indication that they have any real clue as to what they want this team to be other than flexible. And flexible to me doesn't mean anything. And that really bothered me. I don't think there just doesn't appear to be any real plan. [00:30:03] Speaker C: Right. And that's the thing is that you can, if you take that idea that you're going to be flexible and we have to give people lots of versatility, look back at like the last even six years of building and now you understand that all their roster moves are just gathering assets. Like, listen, you can even look at the position of striker. And now like Dan Hunt mentioned the press conference that they have four nines and how great that was. Well, why you can only play one? Like look, they had, by the way. [00:30:30] Speaker A: Who'S the fourth nine? Because I can only think of three. [00:30:33] Speaker C: I think it's answer, but I'm not really sure how that would qualify as a good nine. But look, you go back to when Nico Stevis was hired here, right? He said, I'm going to use Jesus Ferrer as a false nine. It's going to be great. And that first season Jesus was great as a false 9. He almost broke the scoring record. And then what happened to him is a totally different question. But you went into the next season, you know, it wasn't really working so well. So like, okay, now I'm going to go get Peter Musa and that's going to be a great nine. I'm still going to have Jesus as a nine and we're going to go sign ansa because he can also play a nine. So now you have three guys that can play different kinds of nine of various styles. And then you went and drafted a nine when you didn't need a nine. You already had three, and now you got a fourth nine, and you still don't have any center backs. So you're. They're just. They're just compiling pieces and tossing them in a laundry basket and then handing them to whatever coach they hire and say, here, have fun with all these Lincoln Logs and build yourself a team out of that. Right. There's no cohesion. There's no. There's no. There's no plan. And that does trickle all the way down the academy. You hear from people all the time. I do. Who say, you know, yeah, like, they're not telling us what the plan is. Like, I have no idea what my future is with this club. I have no idea when I'm going to move up. Whether it be from academy in North Texas or North Texas, the first team. I have no idea what position they see me playing in. Look at what we talked about with Nolan Norris. What position does he play? Is he left back? Is he a center back? Is he a six? He doesn't know. That kid has no idea what position he's supposed to be playing for this club. They use them a different place every time. What's the cohesive plan? They obviously aren't telling any individual coach what the plan is for Nolan Norris because each coach plays him in a different position all the time and ask him to play different tactics all the time. There's no cohesion at all. And that's. You can look at every player on the roster. And that's true. [00:32:21] Speaker A: Well, that takes me to some of the audio that you pulled about the coaching search, which does beg the question of, you know, what kind of person is interested in this job? Because is the. Are they. Is anybody interviewing for this job being told, hey, look, you get to decide what formation you play. You just have to go with the players we play. Or how collaborative is all of this? Or is somebody just being told that you have to do it the. This flexible way? What if somebody comes in here with a really strict formation? You see what I'm. You see where I'm going with this? Like, the process in which they're putting this thing together doesn't feel very conducive to hiring what is actually the best available person out on the market. It's like whatever best fits what they think this should be. [00:33:12] Speaker C: Well, that's what I joked about the Mike Leach analogy because like, what if you hire a coach that's got a crazy philosophy like that, you know, and, and in the sound bite, which I'll play in a minute, about when the search started and then, and when they're going to be interviewing coaches, they have a lot of player moves that are going to be decided before that happens. So like the new coach is not going to be involved in all these player decisions that are going to happen over the next two weeks. [00:33:34] Speaker A: All right, well, I do want to play first the Dan Hunt quote about looking for managers with experience because I find this extremely interesting being the guy that has hired five coaches with zero MLS experience. Experience. And now this is his new answer. [00:33:51] Speaker E: Yeah, for me it, it is a big factor. You know, you always want to be open minded. Right. There are great coaches around the world. We've been interviewing international candidates, a lot of great ideas. But MLS is a unique league. It's got a unique set of rules that is so different. So it's always nice to have candidates with some kind of either MLS experience, MLS roots, or an understanding or a personal relationship that we as ownership or the technical staff have. Because we've all seen plenty of international coaches that have come in and, you know, maybe struggled with the structure of this league and how it is set up because it, it's really not a free for all on players. It's a lot more thoughtful process. And so that's been a big, a big part of the conversation. But we also want people who, you know, understand who FC Dallas is, what our ethos is and people, you know, that we feel like we can connect with them and all obviously work together in a positive way. [00:34:57] Speaker C: So. [00:34:57] Speaker E: But it's been a great process so far. And you know, again, I always will commend Peter for his efforts and thankful for his efforts here to. And he's deserved to be a finalist. [00:35:07] Speaker A: So let me give, let me give a little credit there. It's not, he's not saying he needs somebody with MLS head coaching experience. It could be anybody. It could be a former play. I mean, using the way he describes it, it. The. Any, any of the following could qualify under his definition. A former player, a former assistant else would coach, I guess an interim coach and somebody that was an interim coach. Yeah, like scout. Yeah, some. I. That's not, I mean, again, that. And then the other part of this gets back to something Dan said earlier, which is when one of the big overriding takeaways I had was that the way that Dan Hunt kept referring to Peter Luxane in almost the past tense. Like, everything he said to me sounded very similar to the way they talked about Lucci and Nico in the press conferences they held after they sacked both those guys. And it made me go away from this press conference thinking that maybe he is not a leader in the clubhouse for this job, but other people heard it very differently than I did. [00:36:14] Speaker C: Well, he definitely flat out says he's a candidate, but I'm with you like that. When he first said, like, I want to thank Peter and his staff for all their work, but it came up short, I was like, oh, don't throw hitch in the ass is what it sounded like to me. Yeah, you know, and then they said, he's for sure candidate. So I think you could read it either way. But I definitely got some of that vibe you were talking about. Not definitively, but I caught a whiff of it. So I think. I think we're left with what we said before was once he didn't make the playoffs, look, saying he opened the door for everybody else. And when Zenata talks about the timeline, you'll see when that door was opened officially. It's just, I think that I keep circling back to this idea that you can talk about experience and talk about the ML's familiarity, but that still opens the door to a whole bunch of different kinds of people. And if you'll get a very, very different kind of coach and the kind of needs he has, if, for example, Jesse Marsh comes available and you go for him and he's a Red Bulls guy and he has that, he wants to play that intense Red Bull high up the field, Chase, chase, chase press that they do. Or you get a very different vibe if you say Oscar Pereira becomes back available and Oscar was here, he played a low block and he sat back and just waited for you to make a mistake. So he didn't run himself ragged in the heat and he counter attacked. Well, those two coaches are very different in the extremes of how they want to play. They both have a whole lot of MLS experience, you know, so, like, just saying you're going to have MLS experience, which, by the way, I totally agree with, is really important. I. I think the very few farm managers have succeeded here that haven't had at least some familiarity with the league. But that still is such a humongous bandwidth of the kinds of coaches. It could be that there's no definitive takeaway from that statement other than to say, narrow the pool. [00:38:06] Speaker A: Right. [00:38:06] Speaker C: In a sense. [00:38:07] Speaker A: Dan, do you have any takeaway from specifically on Whether or not that was in any indication of how likely it is Luxane is a real candidate or. [00:38:15] Speaker B: Not, I think just the fact that they mentioned that he's a finalist unprovoked, you know, when we've gone through this process before, Right. It's been all vague years. Oh, you know, we're. We're interviewing guys with Champions League experience, and so many people applied here, which is, which is great. And then we later found out that they asked Lucci to make a presentation and pitch for the manager's job. So, you know, we're getting a little bit more of a look at the inner workings of it. Just the fact that Peter is a finalist, you know, they could have easily said, hey, look, we're not going to say he's not a finalist. They. They outright said he is. So that's. Yeah, I guess that's. That's the most positive thing you can take from it. [00:39:02] Speaker A: Let's play Zenata's answer about the coaching search, please. [00:39:07] Speaker D: So we have started already for. For a few weeks already a month probably by now that we started the, the hedge code head coach search process we had. It's. It's amazing. And this happens not only with us, but every team in an MLS that there is so much interest for coaches to come to MLS and be here, and that we got more than 120 candidates interested. And we narrowed down to around 13, 14 that Sandro and I, our technical director, we. We interviewed those coaches and we presented all this process, Dan and Clark, last week, and we will bring three finalists to very. In the next couple of weeks to be interviewed here so we can make a final decision. Peter is one of the three candidates. Yes. [00:40:03] Speaker A: And he also, somewhere in there, said the three candidates that they have narrowed it down to all have MLS experience. Did I not hear that? [00:40:10] Speaker C: Yeah, that was in the Dan Hunt part. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Oh, okay. All right. [00:40:13] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:40:14] Speaker A: All right. [00:40:14] Speaker C: Or maybe it's the part I didn't clip, but they for sure said that. [00:40:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Are we, Are we surprised Luxane is a finalist based on how the season ended? [00:40:27] Speaker C: No, no. But, you know, for him to say that we started a month ago means that they started back, you know, probably even before the club got officially eliminated, probably when that San Jose game happened, probably around, you know, so like I said, when. When Peter missed, he opened the door, basically. And maybe even before, when they knew that it was almost impossible for him to make it, they. That opened the door, they started looking. So he's still in there. [00:40:52] Speaker A: So. So. But before you move on from that, does the fact that they waited to even begin the process as until a month ago, does that indicate to you that they were hoping that Luxane would end up with the job? [00:41:09] Speaker C: No, I think they were giving him a fair shot. Remember when they gave him the job in the first place, they said he has a chance to win it. [00:41:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:41:14] Speaker C: And I imagine at that point they started being contacted by people and they just sort of were compiling the resumes, as they say, and then just waited. Because if you're going to tell a guy who's been around your, your club for that long, they're like, we're going to give you a chance to win it. You really wouldn't want to be behind the scenes going behind his back on that. Because like I've said before, like there's a too good a chance that he would spot somebody walking off when he's walking on the training field, that he would see somebody or that somebody in the organization that loves him and it thinks he's the greatest thing in the world. As one of his best friends would see somebody walking down the hall and then would tell him like, it's almost impossible to come in and out of that building when you're a high profile name without getting seen. So it would be incredibly undermining if you did that when you to him in terms of him and his team. I don't even mean the fans, I mean him and the organization and his team and his other coaches. If you were to do that while he was still theoretically competing to win the job, that would just, it would destroy his ability to. Not destroy, they would negatively harm his ability to coach the team and went with the team when you theoretically have told him he's winning. So I think they respected that. [00:42:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean you can, you can interview other people without them having to come to Frisco. [00:42:24] Speaker C: Sure. And they probably, and they might have, but I believe they probably compiled, you know, took resumes as they came in and put them in a pile. I, I believe they, I'll take them at their word that they didn't actually start interviewing and getting down to those 12 people that they interviewed until within the last month. I believe that. [00:42:42] Speaker A: Do either of you have a guess, speculation or educated or otherwise as to who the other two finalists are? [00:42:51] Speaker C: Well, I don't have any inside information, but I think it's very likely that Quill is one of those options. You hear his name from people that work at FC Dallas. [00:43:02] Speaker A: And just to remind everybody, Eric Quill former North Texas guy. [00:43:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Now at Eric Quill, former North Texas coach, current coach at North New Mexico United has this team. Last time I looked in first place he coached, he was on Caleb supporters staff for like a year. So he has some MLS assistant experience one here with their system. You know, if we get to the actual final candidates we'll, we'll go into more about why Eric Quillslet should be a candidate or not. But I just hear his name too often from people around the org as someone everyone thought would be, you know, in the mix or back. And for that name to float around that much makes means to me that probably he's a guy. And then I would bet outside of that I would bet on some sort of former MLS coach who has not. Doesn't currently have a job that you know, maybe people think a little bit well of here and there that is. But it's somewhat affordable because it's been a bit since they've been like really. [00:44:00] Speaker A: Successful like a Robin Frazier type. [00:44:02] Speaker C: Sure. Robin Fraser would be a great example of the kind of people. I mean, you know, I wouldn't say somebody like Josh Wolf who just got canned but you know, like I can't. I would have said prior to this like a Chris Armis who now has come back into the league and been successful like guys like that that got a run but didn't really pull it off, you know, that could maybe point to like well, the club I was at had this X, Y and Z problem which you guys as the haunts are well aware of, you know, so you never know. You know, I, I can't really come up with a concrete list of who that would be other than to say, you know, like, like if Jesse Marsh didn't have a job right at this minute, I would have said that guy. If, if, if Philly had a part of ways with Jim Curtin like that kind of coach would have been in the mix for me, you know that I think somebody like that, you know, a mid tier MLS guy. [00:44:58] Speaker A: Dan, you got any guesses? [00:45:01] Speaker B: Let's go with Arsen. We. [00:45:08] Speaker C: I don't think that's a real. [00:45:10] Speaker A: I like Dan's taking this seriously. All right, well I, I don't. I. Quill makes sense to me. I guess Luxane makes sense to me. I, I can't, I can't put my finger on who the third would be in my. And I wonder if it's any possibility if it's going to be a name that we hit like somebody else's assistant. Like I'm trying to think of another team Like a Wilfred Nansi assistant that. That's hot right now. Or somebody in the LAFC system or something like that. [00:45:46] Speaker C: Well, I. I would say, like, if. If he. If he didn't still have a little bit more bad blood, I would say like a Jason Kreiss or maybe like Terian Reisman wanting to get back into head coaching. If Bear Halter hadn't gotten the Chicago thing, I would have said that would be a name. Guys like. Well, some guys that have a job now, like a. Like a. Like a Ben Olson would have been free. Or like maybe Wilmer Cabrera, who's kicked around a little bit, which I think would be a terrible hire, by the way. You know, so some names like that, that have been, like, been mls that just were sort of medium successful, I think is Dom Kinnear not doing anything? You know, I mean, there's like, there's guys like that around. [00:46:29] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm curious to how this is going to. I. There's a minute. One minute, I think Luxane is likely the guy that's going to end up the job. The next minute, I'm like, no, they would have just announced it if that's what they were going to do. Because it doesn't make any sense for them to me, for them to drag this out much longer to only end up with the guy they already had. [00:46:49] Speaker C: I mean, Pompadou k could probably be in the mix. [00:46:52] Speaker B: I think kind of arson Venger is more likely. [00:46:58] Speaker C: Sorry, Dan, go ahead. [00:47:00] Speaker B: I think the other way around, honestly, if they did just come out and we're like, yeah, Peter. It's Peter. You're gonna have a ton of people that say, well, we missed the playoffs. You know, you didn't even try. You just grabbed the first guy that was in the club. So at least going through the process, you know. [00:47:19] Speaker A: But isn't that what happened with. With Lucci? Like, we all kind of like went, what are you doing? You spent all this time looking for somebody and you hired a guy that was like, in a closet in the building. [00:47:31] Speaker B: Yeah, but the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. [00:47:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:37] Speaker C: Well, to be very clear about Lucci, Lucci was all set, lined up 100%. He was going to be the North Texas coach. [00:47:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:44] Speaker C: And then when. When they realized that they. When they needed a new coach, they. He basically, they told Lucci to go ahead and go for it. And then Lucci, being a great speech maker, went in and convinced him that he was the guy. And so they went with him. You know, Lucci's a great talker. I'm not surprised that that happened. But, you know, he was already a guy that they were thinking of as going to be a coach for us. He's going to be our North Texas coach. Okay. Maybe we'll just jump him up early. He already been successful and that's one of the things that leans into Quill is because he's already been a coach for us. He's already been very successful for us, you know, and, and I think that's why, you know, you, you might even include John Gall, honestly, because he's been an assistant in MLS now. He's been a winning coach for our academy for a while. He was doing great North Texas before he moved up to be L's assistant. I mean, that's a viable name as any in terms of the way the Hunts hire people. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, well, I guess we'll see. [00:48:45] Speaker C: Yeah, we're going to see, aren't we? [00:48:46] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. The other thing that was, we don't have the audio clip from, but I did want to point out to everybody is that somebody asked the question about the upcoming, you know, tear down and rebuild of the stadium and how that was going to affect budgets. And Dan was very stern and adamant that it was not going to impact it at all. In fact, they had been planning for this for some time. I don't know if I believed him. [00:49:11] Speaker C: Yeah, he talked about the salary cap being everything, you know, and he's right in a certain sense in terms of mechanics. You know, I think that we already would have never seen from the hunts a $10 million player like you see at other clubs. So I think that part is probably true. You know, they already have. They had. Their DPS are all theoretically locked up for, for like three or four seasons. All right. [00:49:32] Speaker A: And before we get into the next topic which is related to that, just final thoughts. Any takeaways? Did you, did you feel any better or worse, Dan, after that was over with? [00:49:45] Speaker B: Oh, oh, oh. Honestly, better. More that there were actually people there asking questions than anything because, you know, how many things have we all gone to where there's been like three people or it's just one of us or, you know, there's just zero interest. It's nice to actually see a little bit of interest generated. Granted, half of the names on there hadn't heard of, never seen them at a game. But yeah, that was kind of my, my big feeling coming out of it, honestly, in terms of what, what was said, it was kind of what you expect. It's the. We were unlucky. Oh, it's going to be better. Oh, we don't have. We have the concepts of an idea to make it better, you know, par for the course. [00:50:33] Speaker A: What about you, Buzz? [00:50:35] Speaker C: The things that bothered me. [00:50:36] Speaker A: No, no. What was your. I mean, did you come away from the press conference feeling any different, better or worse? [00:50:44] Speaker C: Worse. [00:50:45] Speaker A: Really? [00:50:45] Speaker C: Yeah. Because the flexibility answer just absolutely blows my mind. It really crystallized, in fact, the sort of haphazard roster building we've been seeing for years here and how it all just feels like it's kind of just lumped together and, you know, just take some stuff and tape it together. That's. And that sort of crystallized why it feels that way. Because that's what it is. And there was an answer. We didn't play about balance on the roster. And they talked. They talked a bunch about the club DNA and how they have this way that they do things. And he talked. He rattled off some stats about how much of the team is under the age of 23 and how much of the team is under the age of 29, and that they have these older pieces to balance it all. And that's all well and good, except that what matters is the amount of playing time that those old guys get and how they old players break down faster and get healthy slower. And it isn't that you have older guys. Some. Some older guys are fine. It's how much they play and how little the young guys played this year. I mean, they. Zenata100 went in. Sorry, Coach Nico, Steve's100 went in on getting these old guys as insurance policies for this season. And he went that route and he chose not to hardly play any kids at all. And we ended up with the low least amount of homegrown minutes since was the dance since 2013. Yeah, right. And a bunch of old guys playing. Well, think about your FC Dallas history, Peter, you know this. When was the last time that SCD went heavy on old guys? And what happened? The answer is 2017. They went heavy on old guys to compete in the Comcast Champions League. And the minute they got eliminated, those guys all quit and the team cratered in one of the biggest collapses in team history in 2017. Again this year, they went with a bunch of insurance old guys that fell apart. They all got hurt and the team collapsed in one of the worst teams we've seen here. So these things repeat themselves and they. I don't know that like they say they recognize the things they did wrong, but Then they don't talk about them specifically and they talk about some of the things that are clearly also wrong and don't mention that they're wrong. They just kind of gloss over them and say they're not actually a problem. [00:53:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't play that Zenata answer because it's a weird word salad of him trying to, of him to make it sound like that they are youth focused with a little seasoning of veterans on the top. And yet we it it in no way, shape or form addresses the fact that this is the least amount of homegrown minutes this team has put out on the field in a really, really long time. [00:53:27] Speaker C: And in those numbers are five or six young players that never, ever, ever touch the field, touch the field or even were on the active roster. They were all at North Texas. And one of the questions I get all the time is why right now is why is North Texas so good? It's because all those homegrowns and all those young talented kids are all over North Texas. It's like, like 75% of their roster that they play on any given game is either already with FC Dallas or they're on hybrid deals or they're going to be with FC Dallas. [00:53:54] Speaker A: Yep. And probably in another episode we'll have a, an in depth conversation about why that is a weird situation. Because a lot of those guys that are kicking ass at North Texas may not cut the mustard in mls. [00:54:09] Speaker C: They might not. [00:54:10] Speaker A: Right. Because the league they're playing in with North Texas is so far behind mls, you could kick ass in that league and not and absolutely suck at the next level. [00:54:22] Speaker C: Oh yeah, the very best guys on that team. There's probably somewhere between two or three to five or six that are going to be with FC Dallas next year, but they're not going to play 34 games. They're going to play like five, six, seven games. They're going to be in the very first infant stages of their MLS level career at best. Right. The leap is too big. There's just no way that you're, you're, you're going to get one of those guys to become Logan Farrington, you know, one of the best traffics we've ever seen. So. [00:54:50] Speaker A: All right. I really wanted to try to keep this under an hour and I want to get into this real quick because surprisingly enough, today, the day we're recording this, the MLS salary release list came out today and there were some answers to questions we've been wondering forever. Buzz, the big one being show and. [00:55:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, well, so his, his number came in and what's important to know is that this time they've changed the way they do this in the past they would have, they would put like his half season salary and then you would have to extrapolate what it would be for a whole season. Well, they changed their minds this year I guess because people were getting upset when the guy's number would change really wildly. So they, they prorated his number for the whole season and he's on a base of 462 with a bump up to 500 with, you know, bonuses and whatever. I find that number to be right on the mark. That's pretty much what he should be getting paid for me, I don't find that number over the top and I based that on what I saw in the field. Not a lot of his resume. Like I saw a player that's in that solid piece to your roster, going to start a bunch of games kind of player. That's the same sort of money that Marco Farfan is on and Yarmindi is on. You know that Nicosia Tafari is not quite on. So he's a little more than Martin Paz. Martin Paz is underpaid, but other than that, that's probably right on the money for him. [00:56:17] Speaker A: Any other big surprises or observations from. [00:56:21] Speaker C: No, nothing else changed. I mean everybody else we already knew about, I mean Alan's number changed a tiny bit, like 30k or something. And I'm sure he just hit some bonus or something for maybe showing up and playing finally or something. I mean it's not important also to how much he gets paid. Nothing, nothing important happened. And the, the nice thing is, is like when, remember I did the thing about the cap, a little, little bit of cap problem they have and I had plugged in shows number with a number very right on this, maybe just a tiny bit different. So you know, that number still is pretty much true. And they really glossed over cap and didn't talk about it much at all except to say that they have a fair amount of room and they're, they're, they're. I think that was, I think that's a bit disingenuous. I think that by the time they make the roster moves they need to make, there will then be room. I don't think they have the room yet, but they know that some things are coming. They know they're going to dump some players. They know that they're going to have these options to recline. So I think they're not that capable, is not In a situation that's going to hurt them, it just has to be kept in your mind as they make moves. [00:57:18] Speaker A: Yeah. The other takeaway I had, and this is the one that hurts, is all the money being spent on two homegrowns that I love so very much in Jesus and Paxton that you just feel like is not there. You're not getting the value in return. Jesus is on 2 million guaranteed up to 2.2 with all the incentives. And Paxton, where was he on the list? I was just looking at this. Where did go? [00:57:42] Speaker C: He's at 950 up to 1 mil. [00:57:44] Speaker A: Yeah, basically. And it just, you know, when they signed those deals, it was really cool to be able to say homegrowns were making this kind of money. But now here we are, what, two or three years into these deals, and you're starting to wonder, did they overspend? Did they, these bad deals? [00:58:04] Speaker C: Well, Arola's on 1.7 and he's not even a starter at his actual position. They have to force him out of the field somewhere else. Legit's on 850 and he's not a starter. Anz is on 700 and he's not a starter. He only plays like five minutes. [00:58:18] Speaker A: He's even a player. Yeah. [00:58:20] Speaker C: The point is, like, of the top 10 highest paid players, half of them are either out for the year or not. They're not starters or they're being forced out on the field at a different position. [00:58:29] Speaker A: Right. [00:58:30] Speaker C: You know, it's just. It's ridiculous. There's so much misappropriated money. There's guys getting paid $350,000 that have didn't play a single minute, like in a Soli or Dante Sealy, who's on 300 that played a little bit more but was pretty useless. You know, it's. There's just some. Some super weird numbers and all throughout this roster of guys that just make no sense. Like the contribution of seeking and settling on 90k is incalculable compared to some of these guys that are getting paid almost a million dollars. It's ridiculous. [00:59:04] Speaker A: It is weird. Yeah. And it also highlights the absolute bargain they're getting for alarm at 5, you know, essentially a half million dollars a year. It's just ridiculous to me. [00:59:14] Speaker C: Martin Paws Base 325. Are you kidding me? [00:59:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:19] Speaker C: Unbelievable. [00:59:20] Speaker A: It also makes the whole Omar Gonzalez deal really weird because he's essentially making the same amount of money as a Met course, and I don't understand that. Yeah, I. He must have really wanted to come Home, so. [00:59:32] Speaker C: Oh, he really did. That was it. That was like, hey, we'd love to have you, but all we have is this slot for kids. And he's like, I'll take it. Yeah, you know, I mean, listen. I mean, that kind of money for most people was a lot of money, but for a guy that played at his level, it's not. So, you know, how much. How badly he wanted to come here. And I want to double down. By the way, I think I wrote in my offseason moves piece about him. He is just about as experienced as it can get in the U.S. national team pool at center back. Like, do not let that experience get away from the club. You know, hold on to that some. Yeah, yeah, Coach, academy, assistant, whatever you got to do. Keep that dude around. Because this struck. This club has struggled to produce academy center backs. Right. There's been one or two that have come in out at 18, but they let almost all of them go to college and they end up either, you know, picking guys that weren't even before this org or they let a guy come in like Jordan Connell for like a year and then they let him go or whatever. So it's like, how about we get some of that national team greatness? That Omar was great. Don't undersell that. Keep that in the club. [01:00:30] Speaker A: By the way, Buzz, did it absolutely drive you nuts that in the MLS player salary list, Nolan Norris is listed as a left back as his main position. [01:00:37] Speaker C: Is he really? [01:00:38] Speaker A: Yes. Last note on this, for one. Who they got in the middle of the season, he's on for 4, 40. Obviously he wants a much bigger deal. What is the number that you'd be willing to pay to keep him here? If you want to keep him here. [01:00:57] Speaker C: I am willing to let him go. [01:00:59] Speaker A: Because you think he's too much of a wing versus a fullback? [01:01:02] Speaker C: No, it's. I don't think he'll take 400 again because as Dan pointed out rightly, it would be. He wants his last deal, so he's going to want like 6 or 700, and that's way too much for an outside back. Plus, you have Giovanni Jesus in theory. Like, you hope, you sit and you wait and you hope for Giovanni Jesus to come good. And in March, you know, when you're ready to start the season, if it's not happening, then you go out and find a scrap heap right back. Or you go with Urban Lee, or you see what Ima Tuamasi is doing. [01:01:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:33] Speaker C: Or call Ruan back. You know, you don't. You don't throw down 700 just in case Giovanni Jesus doesn't pan out. You know what I mean? [01:01:41] Speaker A: Well, before we move on to the last thing I do want to point out that the way this is shaping up is that with the exception of Velasco being back from his acl, we all do recognize that all of the conversation we've been having all this time about how high risk this roster is is almost going to be pretty much identical for the 2025 season. It's going to be filled with a lot of high risk, older and injury prone players that you are counting on for starting minutes unless they make some significant changes between now and then. [01:02:14] Speaker C: Yeah, because they're locked into some deals and you can only buy out one guy, you know, so you're going to be stuck. Like of these players that you want to try and move on, you could buy out one of them but you know the Hunts don't like to do that anyway so you'd have to try and trade some of those guys. But you're locked into Soli, who hasn't played right. Moussa, that's great. Pause. That's great. But pamical, you're locked into him for two more years and you don't know if he's going to make it back. Giovanni, ZJ Zeus. You're locked in for two more years but you think he's coming back. His should be back on track. [01:02:43] Speaker A: He's already, he's already had, you know, an issue. Come up and had a second surgery. [01:02:48] Speaker C: He did. We understand that's just scar tissue but that you know, you never know. That could be bullshit. You're locked into Kamungo who while is an excited young player. That's only if you play where he can play as a wide wing. We saw this year that he can't. He's not flexible. Right. You're locked into Ariola's 1.7 at right back which is an insane number for a right back or else on the bench, which is even worse. You're locked into Jesus, you're locked into Alaska, you're locked into Legit's million dollars for a non starter and you're locked into far fans relatively high 500 probably going up to 600k for a left back. That's too high for a left back arguably. So I'm actually excited about the fact that they're locked into Kafumana for till at least midseason next year. I think that's good because I like that guy as a player but well. [01:03:35] Speaker A: Everybody can stew on all that, along with the idea of the salary cap issues and having to figure out how they're going to make space for it. One, if not two top quality center backs. [01:03:47] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, we're going to get into that as the winter goes on, but there's a lot to stew on with because there's multiple ways to do it and it's going to be a fascinating question for sure. [01:03:57] Speaker A: All right, we'll do that. Dan, any Dallas Trinity stuff you'd like to bring up and discuss before we go? [01:04:05] Speaker B: They do play tomorrow against Carolina. [01:04:08] Speaker A: Tomorrow being Friday. [01:04:10] Speaker B: Yes, sorry, yeah, Friday at the Cotton Ball. Back after that kind of long road stand. They again are absolutely decimated by injuries in international call ups. The four players at the. Sorry, three players at the U17s, they've now got Sealy Straw at the U19s. Then players like Enzi Broussard and. Oh, I've forgotten the center back's name now. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see what, what sort of team they can put out against Carolina Ascent, who have been largely brilliant is. [01:04:52] Speaker A: With all the injury stuff that's been happening to this team. Is this something that is happening league wide or is this specific to Dallas? [01:05:02] Speaker B: That's a very good question. Carolina Ascent are probably the only other one that's really affected by international call ups. They've got a player on the U17s, their goalkeeper is on the U19s, but I mean, they can't be affected that badly because they're the only team left that hasn't lost a game. [01:05:22] Speaker A: It just made me wonder. The number of injuries got me wondering if it's any sort of reflection of the type of player that this league has been built on and what they were doing in the months or year leading up to, you know, becoming full time professionals. Because it just feels to me so many of these people that are filling up this league probably weren't playing at this, you know, with this kind of regimen and regularity and training levels. And maybe that's a reflection of why these injuries are happening. The way they are is because everybody's just getting used to playing like this. And I just wondered if this was something going on across the league which would. [01:05:59] Speaker B: I'm sure there's an element of, of that, you know, a lot of these players have. Their players have done Scandinavia, they've. They've done Australia, New Zealand or Korea. They've. They've done seasons where maybe the travel isn't quite as brutal, where the schedule isn't Quite as compact. So there's, there's certainly that possibility. [01:06:20] Speaker A: Interesting. All right, and what's up with North Texas Buzz? They won their game. [01:06:27] Speaker C: They won their first game with a little bit of scare in the second half, but they held on for the 32 win. They've now chosen their next opponent and that is the Tacoma Defiance, which is not a bit sponsored by Toyota, but actually is the name of a team. Tacoma. So that game is Saturday at, in Arlington at Choctaw Field. So everybody should come. [01:06:55] Speaker A: What time is the game? [01:06:57] Speaker C: Oh, I want to say it's 7:30, but don't quote me on that. All right. [01:07:01] Speaker A: That pick, play the pick and playoff format that they're doing is genius. And MLS should, should pick up and run with that like crazy as soon as possible. It's such a great idea. Every, every non soccer fan that I explain it to loves that idea there. I can't tell you how many times somebody has said to me, man, that would kick ass in the NFL. [01:07:24] Speaker C: I can't remember who said this. And I owe them credit for the idea of like this thing eventually will catch on in other sports. I think this idea because it's so fun. Like just imagine any American sport that's a high profile pro sport that you can think of if you could pick your opponent. Think about the spice that would add to your NFL playoff game if you know somebody picked your team. The bulletin board material, the back and forth that would cause or didn't pick you. Like, oh, they're ducking us, you know, I mean it would just be so good. I, I can't help it. I think I'll catch on. [01:08:01] Speaker B: Not even that. Think about, you know, all the leagues have tried to make the draft a whole multiple night TV event. You telling me that an every round pick your team event wouldn't be gold in the NFL or the NBA? [01:08:14] Speaker A: Oh, could you imagine what the ratings would be if they had, you know, cameras on teams finding out if they were picked by another team or picking another team? [01:08:27] Speaker C: Well, next pro does that. They do it on YouTube and they have it, it's like zoom style. They have somebody from each team so you see their faces react when a team picks the other team. [01:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's so smart. It's such a good idea. [01:08:39] Speaker B: I mean you've all obviously, you both obviously seen the videos where they'll show like the reactions from the FA cup draw where you've got like the, the non league team sitting in, sitting in the clubhouse at their stadium watching to see and they get, they Pull Man United out of the hat and everyone goes absolutely nuts. [01:08:59] Speaker C: I mean, the NCAA tournament, when the teams are on the bubble and they get in or don't get in, you know, those same shows. [01:09:04] Speaker A: Well, good. Hopefully that continues to go well. That would be a lot of fun. All right, well, here we are. We're at the. This is where the work begins, Buzz. [01:09:14] Speaker C: It does. [01:09:15] Speaker A: Trying to get up with regular podcast content for the next however many months we trudge on. [01:09:21] Speaker C: Well, you know, we, we. Next week we'll. If nothing breaks, you know, that'll dominate the show. We'll do our team awards for the year and if there's some minor news that'll fill up some of that. [01:09:30] Speaker A: Can I, Can I. Yeah, can I just recommend that because this was such a shitty season, we don't give any awards as a punishment? [01:09:37] Speaker C: No, you got to do the work, damn it. Well, you know, if we find the playoffs are dragging on and nothing's really happening, maybe we'll get a guess or something. We'll figure out a way to fill some of the time up. All right, I have a shout out before we go, if that's cool. [01:09:53] Speaker A: Is it to the parent of the player who confronted you at the stadium? [01:09:57] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, that was a new one. Yeah. [01:10:00] Speaker A: Buzz got introduced to the. The dark side of being the finger. [01:10:04] Speaker C: Waving lecturer from a parent. Yeah. [01:10:06] Speaker A: Of being in the media. When you say something that the parent doesn't like. [01:10:11] Speaker C: Well, it's even worse is that it's an apparent of a first team player and a player that I speak very highly of. So they were. They're actually mad about like one specific thing and I'm like, dude, your. Your kid's an adult. You know, they. They have access to me. They can come talk to me. [01:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. One week we'll do worst player parent stories. [01:10:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Can I do my shout out now? [01:10:34] Speaker A: Yes. Sorry. [01:10:35] Speaker C: All right. Natasha Anasi started for Iceland today. Right back. She is from Irving. [01:10:42] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [01:10:43] Speaker C: Irving, Texas. She went to Duke and then after her playing days at Duke, she went and started playing in Iceland, became a citizen and was. Has chosen. She was a USU 23 at one point. I don't know how much, but she's chosen to play for Iceland and. But that's super cool that she's there for their women's national team and she's from Irving, Texas. So shout out to her and congrats on. On that big, big debut or. I don't know if it's a debut. I don't know how many caps she has, but it was super cool to see her play against the U.S. that was fun. [01:11:09] Speaker A: That is cool. Congratulations to Natasha. [01:11:13] Speaker C: Anasi. [01:11:14] Speaker A: Anasi Erling is what I'm reading on. Yeah, I saw it on the recap. That is cool. We must I wonder if we have an Icelandic community that lives somewhere in the Dallas Fort Worth area. [01:11:28] Speaker B: They've probably melted. [01:11:31] Speaker A: Probably not. [01:11:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:35] Speaker A: All right, guys. Very good. Dan, Excellent stuff. Thank you, sir. [01:11:39] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:11:40] Speaker A: And Buzz, another good one. Cheers. [01:11:44] Speaker C: Thanks. Thanks man. End of season 27 on a season 28. [01:11:48] Speaker A: Let's do it. All right. And thank you FC Dallas curious fans. Sorry it didn't happen this year but like I say, there's always next year and we will be back for another episode next week of a third degree the podcast FC Dallas held together with. [01:12:03] Speaker B: Flexiol the third degree podcast. [01:12:08] Speaker A: Third degree. The third degree never SA.