3rd Degree the Podcast #298

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I did it again. All right, let's start that over. You're going to edit that out, right? [00:00:03] Speaker B: No. [00:00:04] Speaker A: Crap. [00:00:07] Speaker B: Third Degree, the podcast is brought to you by Pappy Check, our fellow Dallas sicko and the man who made the excellent theme song for the Degree, the podcast. He's back in Dallas for 2025 doing solo shows, full band gigs, private parties. He can do lessons. The man can do it all. He's got a series of residency shows coming up in Bishop Arts at the Taco Ivino restaurant on the 20th and 27th. Most important, this Saturday, Pappy Check will be playing at the Three Links in Deep Ellum, opening up for a jam band from Denver called Rado. Doors open at 7:00, so if you guys go out there and maybe support your fellow FC Dallas sicko fan, Pappy Check, and then the creator of our great music. Thanks again, Pappy, for supporting us and being a big part of the third degree, the podcast. [00:00:53] Speaker A: Third degree. The third degree n podcast third degree the third degree n podcast third degree the 3rd degree. Third degree third degree. Well, hello there, FC Dallas curious fan. Welcome to the most joyous of all episodes. This one, number 298 of third degree, the podcast. Listen to all the joy, hope and excitement in my voice because, boy, howdy, have things has have fortunes reversed for football club Dallas. So there he is. Speaking of fortunes reversed, he is the good Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:01:39] Speaker C: Hell yeah. Chaos is back. [00:01:41] Speaker A: And your hero, my hero, everybody's hero, editor, founder of thirddegree.net and the original soccer influencer himself, Buzz Carrick. Come in, Buzz. [00:01:52] Speaker B: Peter, I thought maybe it was your birthday or something. You were all joyous like that. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Man, I'm telling you, what a weird off season this has been. And obviously the big news is that Lucho Acosta is in the house. Dallas has its very first larynx tattooed player. I think I'm correct in saying that. Has anybody else had a tattoo across their larynx in FC Dallas history? [00:02:17] Speaker B: Barrios had some stuff on his neck. I don't remember if he had a larynx. Larynx? Yeah, I don't remember that. [00:02:23] Speaker C: That was on the side. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Yeah, the big lips. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Breck didn't have a windpipe tattoo, did he? [00:02:29] Speaker B: Not when he was here. I don't believe. I don't recall. I don't think so. [00:02:32] Speaker A: So we got our first one of those. This is a big deal. What a signing. I said to somebody else back on January 10th, just when the rumor of Velasco being sold was starting to percolate heavily that if you had told me on January 10th that Dallas would sell Velasco, replace him with Lucho acosta, and keep 4 million dol, I would have laughed in your face. But that's exactly what happened, Buzz. And suddenly we have a team that went from a wooden spoon contender to, hey, we may actually make the playoffs. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, when you. When you have a team like Boca come in and money whip you for Velasco and you part ways with him, which, as we said at the time, they should do, that's good business. You then have to scramble and try and find a replacement. And we all knew Alan was moving inside. They needed a 10. And much to their joy, probably, MLS invented a new rule this year just for players like Lucho Acosta and Evander in Portland, specifically those two guys in mind, that gave teams in the league a chance to buy a player in the league. And lo and behold, what perfect timing for FC Dallas, who now is in the market for a 10. And as reported by some very good people, not by me, but very good people, Dallas put in a bid of 12 million for Evander, which was probably, I would assume, all the Velasco money they had. And obviously they didn't win that sweepstakes. And so they turned to a guy who, I'm sure Zenata is being honest with us when he says that he's been talking to Albright in Cincinnati for a year. Like, hey, if you guys ever want to get rid of the guy, let us know. Let us know. You know, like, because that's what you do in this business is you let people know you're interested, just in case. Just the way supporting Kansas City has a file on Christian Ronaldo just in case. And lo and behold, here comes a team that's fallen out with their superstar 10. Dallas has to wait, basically, because Cincinnati has to know they're getting Evander before this is all happening. And. And likely Dallas gets a discount because there's a 7 million dollar difference depending on incentives between Evander and Lucio's price, which is probably mostly related to age and, and perhaps mostly related to Cincinnati's desperation to man, we really got to move this guy because we needed to get Evander. So fantastic. Lucho Casto falls into their lap and it's just spectacular. This is a linchpin player, an MVP player. This guy's going to at least be in the conversation with Maro Diaz and David Ferreira for, like, best playmaking tens we've ever seen here. This is a really exciting player that you Know will. Will prop up you will the front line. And just on his numbers alone last season, 14 goals and 19 assists. Those numbers alone replace Paul Arola, Jesus Ferrera and Alan Vasco combined. So that, you know, those two guys, those three guys were 12 and 15 and Acosta was 14 and 19. So, you know, whatever you think of Anderson, Julio, who I like, whatever you think of Leo Chu, to be determined whether you think of the idea about Bernie playing on the wing, I mean, Acosta is going to make this thing run at least at the same level it was last year. So the offense is going to be looking fantastic because this is the kind of player that should hopefully work really well with Peter Musa. And so if you're a fan at all, you can be super excited about this edition. Even at 30, you know, you should get three or four seasons out of him, I would think, you know, pushing into 33, 34 probably, and still be really good. So great move, great move, great price, Fantastic. [00:06:11] Speaker A: All right, Dan, we got to do this part two, just to be fair, because we've spent the better part of the last two, maybe even three seasons really given the business to one, Andre Zenata. And in fact, I, I think I might have been the only person, I don't think I was the only person that thought he probably deserved to lose his job after how badly the roster was constructed last season. But, boy, this is a reversal of both fortunes and performance. And I think credit is due where credit is due. How about you? [00:06:41] Speaker C: He's absolutely cooked. I think the last two, three weeks might be the best two, three weeks spell of, of any technical director in FC Dallas history as far as, like incoming and outgoing transfers. [00:06:54] Speaker A: You know, I was thinking about this when the announcement came because I, I do think buzz in specific to Acosta, there is a version of this where Dallas decides not to buy him and makes reasonable arguments as to why they didn't do it. So starting off with the fact that, you know, here's a guy that's now on his third MLS team, the way it ended for both his time at D.C. i don't know if you've gone back and reread that story about how his time in D.C. ended. That was pretty, you know, they tried to. He thought he was going to PSG and DC wouldn't accept the deal and so he got stuck there and he was pissed. His time in Cincinnati obviously didn't go well. I mean, it was just, what, a week ago he did an interview where he really ran hard at and named people Chris Albright in particular his age. It seems to run in conflict to the theme and messaging of we're returning to our youthful roots. The fact that he's clearly going to blow out their salary wage structure. I mean, he's going to make at least 4 million bucks in Dallas. I'm going to, I'm going to guess which will blow them out by at least a million dollars. At Frank O'Hara there any of those reasons. But all those reasons together have been, I think, justifiable kind of, hey, look, we had the opportunity. We just didn't think it fit us if in fact they hadn't done it. So credit to the Hunts and to Zenata for stepping up to the opportunity when it presented itself and kind of fell in their lap. [00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah, the, there was a funny moment when someone asked him about handling difficult players and he kind of threw it down and said, I'm from Brazil, you know, I was there when we had. And he rattled off some players. [00:08:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that was, by the way, I got to say, I want to say that was the most baller thing I've ever heard Andre Zen Zenata say. So I, I, I tip my cap to him and he earned a new level of respect for me for that answer specifically, by the way. [00:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah, obviously he's feeling very confident. You know, I, I actually would have said that I felt, I would have said Acosta was more of a disgruntled player than like a difficult player. But then you reminded me, Peter, that he had the difficulties at the end of the D.C. united sort of bit too. Definitely a player with a, not an ego, but a lot of self confidence and a lot of must win and very strong opinions. And Eric Quill seemed to embrace that idea in the press conference. [00:09:21] Speaker C: Oh, he absolutely loved his mentality, didn't he? [00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean the, one of the things that they've talked a bunch about this time, this cycle is this mentality. Right. This. And the thing is though, as I said, there was in the press conference, I was like, man alive, you guys have now said that. Not Quill, obviously, because he wasn't here. But like for three coaches in a row now, even going back to Oscar, they all, everybody always talks about mentality. And like we had to get the right mentality. We got to make sure we got the mentality. And then you have a bad team and you go, well, I guess you guys didn't have the mentality. So, you know, I'm sure there's a different specific mentality that they're looking for this time. And, and hopefully they can actually deliver the kind of mentality that they're talking about. Certainly because it reminds me of those kinds of players with that massive will and determination. You know, you're right that when, when the team is looking at him, one of the reasons why some observers and people that we talk to around the team kind of thought that he wasn't their first choice and that, you know, after Evander, that maybe the 30 year old guy wasn't the right guy when you're looking at a three or four year rebuild. But the thing is that known commodities are worth so much more to FC Dallas. Like when you go off and get a player from Europe, you know, it's a different style of league, it's a different place to live. The culture here in the United States is different. You know, there's all these reasons why it can maybe not work out, some of which have to do with play, some of them don't. Well, when you get a chance to get a known commodity from another team in the league, you know, this guy can do it in mls. He's done it with a couple of teams now in mls, so the goods are there and the chance of hitting is a much, much higher percentage so than it would be to make a crapshoot on a player from a European league, which probably would have cost you more money. [00:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:02] Speaker B: So it's just a phenomenal move in terms of like the, both the value you're getting at that dollar and also your confidence that it's going to, you know exactly what you're getting. [00:11:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, but tell me how Acosta's price got down to 5 million bucks. [00:11:15] Speaker B: Well, my, my assumption is that since he knew they were in trouble with him and he's saying, I'm leaving, I'm never playing here again, basically by slamming the gym like that. And now they're in for Evander. Well, they need to clear his Acosta off of their books. Just like Dallas had to move Jesus Ferreira and so his price was really low. Yeah, same thing. They had to move Acosta to get Evander in. So his price is lower perhaps than it could have been. There are some add ons here, which is probably how you make good on that deal. But again, age difference is fairly substantial here. You know, Evander's halfway through his career, just approaching his prime, whereas Acosa is coming out the backside of his prime, but still should be good for three or four seasons. You know, you don't know what his current contract escalates to. He has a 25 and 26 on his deal and then a 27 option. You know, you don't know what that option might look like. You might be looking at a two year player here if that option is just absolutely ridiculous. Or Dallas could try and redo a new deal with him and maybe even get him to add a year or two and come down on his price possibly or something like that. So, you know, they have some possibilities to do some different things. But, you know, when you get a chance at a guy that operates at this level, you, you go for it, you know, and that's why the price. [00:12:30] Speaker C: Is a little different, I think as well, with the price, like it's a whole new deal. With the, with the, the cash transfer system, YoValich went for 4 million, Jack McGlynn went for 2.1. Where there isn't the, the difficulty of, of having that maximum $3 million to convert to GAM. And then, you know, however the, however the rest works out, you know, it could just be that similar to how TAM and GAM were originally, that the value of one is, is just lower than the other. [00:13:02] Speaker A: You know, the thing is, guys, you know who the happiest mfer out of all this must be other than Zenada. [00:13:10] Speaker B: Who's that? [00:13:11] Speaker C: Musa? [00:13:12] Speaker A: Peter Moussa. Can you imagine what his attitude and mood about all of this? How the shift that has must happened in his professional career thinking like, who's going to get me the ball to. Oh my God, Lucha Acosta is going to get me the ball. [00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty spectacular. You know, I'm sure he probably was trying to focus on training and not worry about those kind of things. And probably you're trying to hope that Pedrinho was looking like he was gonna be pretty good. But, you know, I'm sure he's seen enough of the league and played and played up against Costa last year without looking. I'm assuming they both played in the game when they face each other, that he probably is overjoyed about the idea that like he's going to have a guy he didn't have last year. I mean, they had guys that could get assists, but they didn't have a guy like this that could lead the league in assists. And so Musa must be chomping at the bit to get going on now. [00:14:00] Speaker C: Well, I mean, there's, you know, he may have also started with, man, Jesus ain't gonna give me the ball. Oh, Jesus is gone. Wait, who's gonna give me the ball now? [00:14:10] Speaker A: By the way, speaking of the press conference, when I Went back and watched some of the highlights. [00:14:14] Speaker C: Whoa. [00:14:14] Speaker A: What's going on with Quill? What's up with the hat pulled down over his eyes? Big puffy jacket on the. When they're inside, the whole hard look like, what's going on there? [00:14:26] Speaker B: Well, he just came off the training ground. He's been working. They had a scrimmage that morning. [00:14:30] Speaker A: You take your hat and your jacket off, stay a while. Quill, come on. This is a good, fun meeting we're having. He looked, he did not look like he wanted to be there. [00:14:38] Speaker B: He probably didn't feel like he was dressed appropriately. Like, I'm sure he had just a T shirt on or something. [00:14:42] Speaker A: So crazy. [00:14:43] Speaker B: That's a guess on my part. I have no idea. [00:14:45] Speaker A: All right, well, I think I saw a picture from the event the other night where he was dressed very nicely and didn't have a hat on. So there you go. Well, so here's the crazy part. So we're talking about Lucha Acosta for all the right reasons. But what has also happened very quietly and I think without anywhere near the fanfare or discussion that should have taken place, Dallas signed another player, the player that we mentioned last week and Buzz had, had predicted quite some time ago, Ose or G Day, who is now here in Dallas and He is a 24 year old center back. Is that right? And I gotta tell you, I mean, look, I don't know what he's gonna turn out to be, but I certainly feel better about him than a whole host of center backs they've paraded through here of late, including Lala Sabubikar, by the way. And that's another really good signing for Zenata to hang his hat on. [00:15:43] Speaker B: Yeah, this is the difference between the internal to the league signing versus the external to the league signing. This is exactly what I mean about like coming from League two. You don't really know what kind of competition he was up against you. You know, people like us can watch the YouTube clips and he looks like he's very aggressive, very physical. Looks like he has the pace and the power close enough to like not the pristine 6 4, but at least like a 62 kind of thing. I mean, looks very aggressive. I mean all that looks really nice. But I also just described Nicosia Tafari. So, you know, you don't really know. Three million bucks is a lot of money for a 24 year old from League Two. You know, that is a record for a defensive buy on FC Dallas's part. So it's kind of. We kind of really don't know what we're getting. Like, yes, we would expect that guy to walk in and start ahead of Abubakar, but we don't really know until you put him in MLS competition what he's going to look like. So it's hard to say convincingly, like, what an amazing signing this is. The. When we talked about they needed a center back a couple of weeks ago, like, what would we want to see? This is the second choice, the young guy with some potential to grow into. He's got just 24. He's got a couple of years before he peaks, maybe three, maybe four even, because he's a center back. But at the same time, he doesn't quite have those mature skins on the wall, those high level performances, that high level mentality. Like, I think I, I think I saw somebody added up his appearances. He's got 100 appearances at the pro level and on a first team pro level since. And at the age of 24, that's a little low maybe for a guy that you're, you're hoping is going to be as good as this guy is on paper. So I think it's not unfair to have questions about how good a player exactly is this that we have coming in here. I don't think anybody really knows. [00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd be interested to know the backstory and how they scouted him and became aware of him and what, what. You know, this is one of the downsides that they don't do kind of any introductory, you know, any kind of like reveal press conferences with players much anymore, especially ones that don't have giant names attached to them. So I, I wish we knew more of a backstory about how they honed in on this guy specifically. [00:17:53] Speaker B: Well, somebody else in MLS signed another player from them, like with two days later. So I can't help but wonder if someone that scouts for mls, you know, watch them and said, here's two dudes, you guys should grab up. And then the league might have said, hey, here's a center back. Who needs a center back. You know, like when Cobra came to mls, that was kind of that push from the league through, right? Maybe this is a guy that kind of got said, take a look at this guy. There's a couple players there we're interested in as a group, you know, so it's. Again, we don't know the backstory. It's hard to know. [00:18:23] Speaker A: But, you know, it's funny. I have a, I have a conspiracy theory I'd like to share with you, which is going to take us back to the Acosta, Evander thing that you talked about earlier. I was thinking about this earlier. Like, how did Dallas not end up with Evander if. Because by all reports, Dallas offered the same $12 million that Scentsy did to get him. So why didn't Dallas end up with Evander? And this is where I do think, and I'm a proponent of MLS and its structure, but I do think this is one of those stories where you could quickly spin up a conspiracy theory where the single entity structure of MLS can manipulate the outcomes of these kinds of in league trades and purchases to kind of benefit everybody or a best outcome for everybody. Because if Dallas gets a Vanderbilt, since he's got a world of hurt of trying to move Acosta because maybe San Jose wants him, but now San Jose has got to dump their 10, their young 10 that they just got last year, Everything seems to work really, really well for the league. And everybody kind of gets happy if Dallas gets Acosta for the right price, since he gets a Vander, and Portland can go out and buy the guy that they bought to replace Evander. And I do think that's. It's. I'm curious if. To Maybe there's something to that idea that that's how all this transpired. [00:19:47] Speaker B: You know, that's a. That's a conspiracy theory that has logical legs. I can see what you're saying. I think it's just far more likely that as we discussed when this idea originated, when we first heard that Dallas had put in 12 mil and everybody else, including us, said 10%, maybe even 5%, that Dallas gets him, the flaw, the odds on favorite is Cincinnati, you know, better team, they can give him more money. Whatever the five or six reasons we listed at the time that he was going to pick Cincinnati, in my mind, that's what happened. He picked Cincinnati. Right. I don't. I don't think that there's a, you know, in a way that has helped Dallas in the. In the sense that they now have saved a bunch of money, you know, and they got a player that's older but still very, very good, you know, you're right. Maybe people did go nudge, nudge, hey, this is the way it's all going to go down. But that's the kind of thing I don't think anyone will ever tell you. For real. I don't know how you ever figure that you can find that out. [00:20:39] Speaker A: Well, but I think what's interesting about this was the idea that when the league announced this new cash for trade option in league. What it did at the time was raised the question of, wait a second. The league has specifically tried to avoid this very specific thing for the entirety of the league's existence, which are teams outbidding each other, going into bidding wars for players. And. And when they announced this new rule, that's exactly what was starting. Like, that's immediately what all of us looked at each other and went, holy cow, teams are going to start beating each other up for players and outbidding each other. And that's what I thought was going to happen for Evander. And it sounds like Cincinnati didn't have to do that. [00:21:22] Speaker B: I can buy your theory, but I also remember that all of us agreed that it was a long, long, long shot that he was going to pick Dallas, that Evander would pick Dallas. And we even talked about the only way that we get him is you, if you can convince him that Zenata is your pass back to Brazil and the staff that has Brazilians on it is your pass back to play for the Brazilian Nationals. [00:21:43] Speaker A: I just. [00:21:44] Speaker B: We had that discussion. [00:21:45] Speaker A: Absolutely. I just wonder if it's more than a coincidence that Dallas somehow got a cut rate for Acosta and Cincinnati ended up getting Evander for 12 and didn't have to bid against Dallas in the race for that. [00:21:57] Speaker B: I mean, it's worth wondering, but entirely possible. Yeah. [00:22:01] Speaker A: I mean, they could have said, look, we'll sell you ACOSTA for just 5 million. Name a number. And they said, how about five? And they said, done. We just want to pay 12 for Evander and it's a done deal. That's the kind of thing. And again, it doesn't have to be a single entity structure for those kind of agreements to come into place. And don't over read into the my use of the word conspiracy because that makes it sound very nefarious and negative. I don't mean it that way. I'm just saying that when, when the league is structured this way, those kind of deals are more likely to happen at the benefit of everybody. And again, everybody won in this deal. Right? [00:22:34] Speaker C: Well, I think as well, like, there is definitely precedent of, for teams doing that. FC Dallas has done it in the past. When New York City came into the league and they had the expansion draft, Dallas basically gave Andrew Jacobson to him for the agreement of not taken anyone in the expansion draft. [00:22:52] Speaker B: Here's the thing, though, like, at some point you're going to get a disgruntled owner, TD or coach that's going to talk. So if you start doing that kind of Deal. And if you start making those kind of moves, like for example, we know about the, the league forcing Dallas to trade Freddy Adu on Dallas because Colin Clark was pissed off about it and Steve Mara was pissed off about it, and we knew they were going to take the center back. Who's names? Break it up. [00:23:16] Speaker A: Chad? [00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah, Marshall. [00:23:20] Speaker A: Marshall, thank you. [00:23:20] Speaker B: So, like, because they were pissed about it, they talked about it and made it known. So like, in this particular case, maybe the Hunts and Zenata are team players and maybe they're not going to be the kind of people that are going to complain, but eventually you're going to run into an owner that's going to complain if, if you start doing that kind of tactics. So like, sure, I, logically, I can see you laying out that as a thing that makes you go. I just, I don't, I don't buy it. I don't, I don't, I don't think it works for me. [00:23:49] Speaker A: All right. What I want to get into next is how much this dramatically changes the, how we feel about this off season and particularly the team. And the way I want to do that is I want to frame this question this way. Take Lucho, Acosta and Asueze out of the discussion at this point. Just take into consideration the other players Dallas assigned to date, and you can include Shaq Moore and the younger Portuguese center back that they signed. They also announced today, which by the way, I hadn't mentioned yet, and, and all of that. Am I wrong to say that I think our reaction to that resulting roster, again, not including Acosta, not including A sueze it would be okay? This team's probably about the same, maybe slightly better, and probably not a playoff contender. [00:24:47] Speaker B: Well, last week we were talking about wooden spoon. [00:24:50] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:50] Speaker B: So like I, I talked up the idea that I thought Quill was a good enough coach, that he would get them playing a little better than that and would get them to where at points in the season you'd feel like they were chasing that playoff spot, but then they would fall short before you got these two players. I think that was our philosophy was this, this team was worse than last year. [00:25:08] Speaker A: Okay, right. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Because I talked about, we talked about specifically, you know, looking at the standings. Right. You had lost these pieces and the, the bottom line was you need to cut about 10 goals against to get you from a minus two goal differential last year, which put you outside the playoffs. If you get up to round eight, nine, ten, that's going to get you anywhere from fifth, sixth, seventh in the playoffs. Chase. Right. And that's what they needed to do. And they had not done that. They had gotten worse when the rest of the league is getting better. So like it would have been wooden spoon at probably not, but it wouldn't have been in the playoffs. [00:25:42] Speaker A: Dan, do you agree with that assessment? [00:25:44] Speaker C: I think so. [00:25:45] Speaker A: If it had just been a sueze that had been signed. How do you feel about the team then? [00:25:51] Speaker B: I don't. I'm not supremely confident that the defense is better. And that was even with him in there. Yeah, because at the end of the day, they went into the off season talking about how they needed to make the whole defense better defensively. And remember that while Shackmore is an upgrade at right back, he's an offensive upgrade, not necessarily a defensive upgrade. Farfan is far fan and Ibiaga Zibiaga. So you're betting then that Osaze is a better, a markably better center back than Nicosa Tavare and or Lala Sabubikar or Lawless Abubakar is a remarkably better center back than Nicosi Safari. Either one of those two guys much better than Nicosi then. Then maybe you can begin to have that conversation. But that's not a good bet. That's not a strong safe bet. And there's no six. They let Ermine go. Kathy Mana hasn't trained right. They brought in Ramiro. We have no idea that guy can play. So I don't know that you can make a case even post signing of the center back that this defense is actually any better than last year. You're hoping it's better than last year. [00:27:00] Speaker A: All right now, because all anybody's talked about in the last 24 hours since the Acosta signing was first, you know, promised and then delivered is that now suddenly this team is cooking and the question is, is Lucho Acosta that transformative of a player that we all feel like this went from a wooden spoon team maybe slightly better than a wooden spoon team to suddenly a team that's going to be somewhat of a better than playoff. Maybe not like an MLS cup contender, but you know what I'm saying? Like how far have we accelerated on this just because of Lucho Acosta? [00:27:37] Speaker B: Danny, want to take a swing first? [00:27:39] Speaker C: Pretty, pretty damn far. Let me see where FC Dallas put the the post out yesterday, which I'm. [00:27:46] Speaker A: Really trying to find right now. I've seen all the stats, 90 percentile this, 90 percentile that. I'm not trying to poo poo this in any way, shape or form. I'm just trying to gauge how much of what we're all going through is some sort of, you know, heroin high and, and how much of of us do we need to be realistic in how we're going to see this season play out. [00:28:07] Speaker C: It's kind of the hard part, right, because we're kind of in the same position as as 2022. They've just made a couple of big splashes. The roster is still pretty shallow. If it all goes well and nobody gets injured, you're looking really good. The second anyone gets injured, you're looking at last season upgrades going forward because you had Jesus coming off an injury and not really performing. You had Alan coming off a serious injury where realistically we didn't expect him to be the real alan Velasco till 2026. Paul Areola getting kind of thrown around into right back and not really getting the, the type of output that he would like to now having an MLS mvp. [00:28:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:55] Speaker B: So here's the thing for me. I mentioned that Acosta stat wise replaced Areola Ferreira and Velasco he's two goals and four assists better than those three guys. So a lot of the whether you think this team is going to be remarkably better might depend on what you think about Anderson, Julio and Bernard Camugo or Leo Chu. Because if you look again, look at the goals for goals against goals four for Dallas, 54, that's not bad last year, right? If you, if you improve that, you know, anywhere from five to 10 goals, you know, depending on who you're looking at, that's the teams that are within five or six places in front of you. That's decent, right? The problem is the goals against. That 56 goals against last year was really critical. You have to be able to clean that up. And Lucho Casa doesn't help that. You might even give up more goals because Eric Quill is going to play a very vertical, very attacking system. You might be looking at higher goal output games. So you might score a whole bunch more and you might give up a whole bunch more. So again it's the calculation, it's the balance. Like I, I think Acosta is a terrific ad. I think you immediately have to think about Dallas as that 7, 8, 9, 10 bottom of the playoffs competition for sure in that bandwidth. But if you're talking about top of the league, this team is a ways from being top of the league yet the midfield is missing multiple people right now. Sebastian Legette and Nicole and seeking sampling are your starting eights. So it's like, you know, Bernie's who had a horrible season last year is your starting right wing. Yeah. I'm not saying that like there's nothing things that could come good. Maybe Romario's great, maybe they get in another six or eight that can be real quality. Maybe passing comes back and is a baller. Even though it now sounds like he won't be back until at least midfield mid season. You know, there's just too many things that are not yet on the same tier as the elite teams in this league. Luciocaso absolutely puts you in that 5 to 10 conversation and should be a playoff team, but that's not anywhere near the same as the top of the conference elite team. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Yeah. See the. My concern is there is too much of this team that is. I gotta just wait and see. I have no idea what Julio Anderson is going to bring just simply because he's not been a regular starter that played a ton of minutes for anybody in MLS and he was kind of Salt Lake's come off the bench guy. And so as what are you going to get out of him as a starter? Leo Chu, again, I don't know what you're going to get out of him. Bernard Camungo, look, that's a raw talent. I, I think there's a lot of potential in there. If you put him in a very, very specific use case that maximizes the one thing he's really good at doing. I'm assuming Quill's going to do that. So I think they, I believe they've got a lot of questions in those positions. I do think the biggest, most glaring hole is who's going to play holding mid for this team. Because Lucha Acosta does not play defense like he's, he's not coming back. You know, when they turn the ball over and get into. Into transition going the other way. Peter Musa and Lucha Acosta are going to have a, have a beer at the other end of the field while they all do the defending and he's got to figure out they gotta. I mean whether it's this Romero guy or somebody else steps up in that role or they buy somebody else. That's to me now if you really want this to maximize the Lucho Acosta, Peter Musa relationship, they've got to figure out who's going to do the defensive work in the midfield. [00:32:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And behind them are no center backs that we know are MLS grade starting center. [00:32:33] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:32:34] Speaker B: Ibiaga's three seasons removed from playing an MLS cup and even that year for LAFC he only started 12 games. [00:32:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:32:41] Speaker B: Right. Only once in his career did he have more than 12, and that was way back in New York City in 2018. I mean, he's a workman, like solid, steady guy. But like I was listening to the, the, the Soccer now guys today and they were like saying Nicosi Safari has never played next to an actual ML starter before. And I thought that was really funny. Yeah, because that's kind of how I feel. So it's like you. No one is going to convince me that this defense is any better and no one is going to convince me that you still have, you still are missing two starting center backs. [00:33:09] Speaker A: Now let me just say this real quick. [00:33:11] Speaker B: Or Agade may be that guy, maybe we'll learn that he is, but right now we don't. [00:33:14] Speaker A: Yeah, let me throw this one out because Arman, our good friend Armen wrote an article kind of previewing Dallas's season for American Soccer Analysis today and he threw out this crazy stat, which is Dallas is returning only 60% of their starting minutes from last season. And that is, that is the least amount in the league, third only to D.C. united and New England. So for example, just to kind of put in as a comparison, Portland's returning 96.1 of their minutes minutes played during the 2025, 24 season. Dallas is only bringing back 60%. That is a huge changeover and you've got a brand new coach. [00:34:01] Speaker B: On the upside for Dallas, I think the west is a little bit weaker than they used this year. [00:34:06] Speaker A: Probably. Yeah. [00:34:07] Speaker B: You're looking at the teams in front of you. Austin, new coach, Kind of some weird moves they're making. But they've, they got all three new dps though. Portland's, you know, got a vander who didn't play last year out and a new guy coming in. Right. Vancouver's changed their coach, so you don't really know what they're going to get out of them. Colorado can be really hit or miss, but have hit a couple of times lately. Minnesota, some people are talking about them is a dark horse. You know, like there's a lot of teams between Seattle at the top in la. The two LA teams and the bottom who are have boatloads of question marks and that includes sc. Dallas, there's so many ifs with this team again, right. If you get 23 Chu instead of 24, if Anderson Julio proves to be a legit starter, if we find Bernie's magic again, if you bring in one of these guys you brought in turns out to be a legit 6 if, if legit Or Cafmana has a great season. Right. If, if Moore is a good defender, if the new signing from, from France League 2 is legit. Right. There's just so again, so many questions. You just cannot talk about this team, in my opinion as a top of the table. [00:35:14] Speaker A: But you can say that you feel we all look, we've all enjoyed the immediate after effect of snorting that line of coke of Lucho Acosta is still on a high. Like I want to run and go tussle Clark Hunt's hair. Hair. I want to go give a hug to Zenata. I want to say, look, now we all have a reason to be hopeful that this season won't suck. And, and, but, but at some point we're all going to come down off that high and the season's going to start and we're going to realize there is a whole bunch of. Yeah, I don't really know what we're going to get out of this. [00:35:47] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a beautiful piece to build around as you go forward. This piece does not make you complete top of the table team. It's a great starting point. This is a linchpin guy around which the entire thing can work. Even Peter Musa, like this guy's more important because of the way Peter Musa is that he needs service. This guy's even more important. Lakosa is the guy to build around going forward. Amazing move. But so much more has to happen. That's got to be. [00:36:18] Speaker C: Well, I think, you know, we've talked a few times about this needs to be a true rebuild, not a ban a series of band aid fixes. And this is the, that's the sort of move that is a, a true rebuild. Yeah, he's, he's 30. He's gonna turn 31 in May. If you talk about a four or five year coaching cycle, okay, that's, that's probably his time as a, as a kind of top, top level professional. But you've, you've got those years, you've got, you've just signed Asazi or Aguide as a guy that's going to grow into that role that by the end of that is going to be. End of that kind of five year period theoretically is going to be 29. He's going to be just about hitting his peak as a center back. This is a lot of unknowns, but this is the right direction to be going. [00:37:10] Speaker B: I totally agree. [00:37:11] Speaker A: Yeah, so we did have a couple of. Do we have one scrimmage too? Did we have the two scrimmages? The. Oh, Tulsa and Houston and even the Houston one was kind of a pair of scrimmages if the way they broke it up. [00:37:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:23] Speaker A: So any. Any particular reaction or read or feedback or thoughts from what you saw there, Buzz, you want to pass on? [00:37:31] Speaker B: Well, yeah, from the Tulsa game was closed door and there was no feed of the dynamic game. So we're going a lot on information provided by the teams. Anderson, Julio started on the left wing both times and scored in both games. That's a positive. Feel good about that. Bernie seems to be have locking down that right wing starter job. Pedrinho seems to be have his mitts firmly on the number 10 role, of course, until they brought in Acosta. So now he'll be the backup 10, which means Delgado is pushed down the third at that particular position. Obviously the midfield combo is a massive question mark. Legit looks pretty, by reports looks pretty good as one of those two guys. But again, he's also 30, so you know, Siki, who we love in some cases, like as a starting 68 is not a little problematic. So we really need to get these guys back in. Apparently Ramiro train today and Kafuman is still running on the side. So hold your breath across your fingers whenever one of those. Which other one of those guys will be available, it might be able to get into that midfield because right now it's an issue. There is, I think, reason to believe they might go after another player in that position, perhaps because of some of the issues they're having and particularly because Paxton is not looking like it's going to be anytime soon that he'll be. [00:38:49] Speaker A: So what is. By the way, you sound like you've heard something about Paxton's progress. You said something earlier about he may not be available till the middle of the season. [00:38:58] Speaker B: Yeah, he talked to some people at the cocktails and cleats thing and said that he's hopeful to rejoin training. He didn't say this to me. He said it to people in our discord that he's hopeful to resume training with the team mid season. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Wow. [00:39:11] Speaker C: So he said two months. [00:39:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's a couple of months from now. They'll get back into training and then it'll take a couple months longer. So like that's why I said like, don't expect to see him. We think reading of the tea leaves based on what he said until middle of the season. So, you know, and then like how good is he going to be after basically almost a year and a half, two years off, you know. So let's just Keep our expectations in check and hope for the best, that we're going to see him in the latter half of the year doing good things, you know, again, I don't think anything's determined. And this is not an official club saving. This is what Paxton told people at the CNC thing. So you can see that those double eight pivot is a, is a question mark. None of those guys are really like hard nose ball crunching sixes. Kafumano is a decent six, but he's not really like a Drezo in that way. But if you're playing a double pivot, you can go with a couple of guys that are a little more 8ish, that's fine. But legit is not a 6 at all. [00:40:04] Speaker A: Right? [00:40:05] Speaker B: Neither is. So that's a not, you know, that's a big, big thing to watch, you know. And then, so that's sort of come out of the meetings and then across the back line. It's exactly what you think it would be. Far fan, Ibiaga, Boubacar and more. Because basically that's all they have. It looks like Newman's won the second right back gig. They're still trying to figure out based on their choices whether Collodi or Carrera is number two. Endolay seems to have fallen to not even third right back. They've been putting him in a wing again, which is not great for him. Even if they like him, that's not a great sign. You know, it. They, they are playing just like we expect them to play with Quill, patient. And then when they turn you over, they get forward in a hurry and they get, they move the ball fast and they get on goal quick. You know, that sort of flying wingers playing off of a 10 and a 9 who are knocking the ball down for them to run on, on that and that kind of thing. So higher scoring games, plenty of goals being scored. Nolan's still getting yellow cards, you know, all, all the things that he would imagine kind of getting a vibe that maybe they're content with Nolan as your second left back, even though he's not playing much left back because they've been using the academy kid, Josh Torcata. So we'll see which way they move. But you know, they're definitely working through their paces and there's, there's still a lot of pieces missing. So it's super hard to get like a real concrete read on them, you know, a Costa train for the first time today. So, you know they're gonna have, they have one game Basically to try and put it all together two days from now before they. And then one week of training before they play Houston for real. So it's coming together late. This might be a team that slimps out of the gate frankly because of the pieces missing from injury or sickness or late signings and still pieces to come probably. I think in the media scrum, Dan Hunt mentioned that they might have a couple more signings coming. So because. And they definitely have the room, the cap room in the roster room for it. If you look at our roster dance, you see there's two open spots so they could definitely add a couple players. [00:42:06] Speaker C: When I asked Andre in the, in the press conference, he, he, you know, he made the point of saying, hey, it's a long window, like the, you know, business isn't done. [00:42:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's in April, till April. So we mentioned that before but it's. [00:42:19] Speaker A: Probably, and I know we mentioned it earlier, but in more detail. They did sign the Portuguese, the young Portuguese center back that had been on trial with them when they were in Spain, Alvaro Augusto. And so he's 19, he's 6 foot 3 comes he was, he wasn't even playing in the second division in Portugal. He was playing on a second division teams under 23 team. So they must have seen something and like something and paid a little bit of money for him and there you go, he's on a three year contract. [00:42:47] Speaker B: I mean this is a 19 year old crapshoot. When you're looking at like at best the fourth center back and probably really the fifth, it's a guy that's going to need North Texas time. You know, you put him in your mind as like an upgrade over at Matt Corcha as that last guy on the roster. It's, this is a guy for the future. It's not a guy to worry about aggressively now. If it's for now, there's big problems. Unless the guy turns out to be an absolute baller of a player at 19, which is not often the case or he wouldn't have been in French League 2's U23 team as you put it. So. But still, you know, when you're talking about a bottom of the roster player, you're getting on the cheap for like center back five. Hey, you know what, roll the dice. I actually like this kind of adventurous young signing for this bottom center back position. That's exactly what it's for my mind. [00:43:34] Speaker C: I think this is kind of what we've been looking for from North Texas SC rather than the, you know, Here's a kid out of the, I don't know, Sao Paulo under 19s that we don't think is going to project to the first team, but we're going to throw out anyway. I remember when he first trained, I'd looked around a little bit and I saw that he sixed a little. So, you know, he may even be one of those players that they're like, actually his physical assets translate to MLS a lot better than they do the Portuguese or French league. And you know, he could be that Project 6 that they kind of mold in. However Eric Core wants to mold him. [00:44:13] Speaker B: That would be fascinating. If nothing else, a player that can has played in the midfield probably means he's got above average feet in passing for a center back. So that, that part's intriguing. If he really is a guy they might look to move to a six. Also fascinating. So this kind of young project and not at a high price like a U22. Price is a roll of the dice. Sometimes you find a guy, you like him and great, bring him along. That's cool. [00:44:36] Speaker A: Well, that is an hour of us talking about things that have changed just literally in the last week for the Burn and what a week it has been. I saw Steve Davis asked this question and somebody else asked it in your discord, and this is obviously a question I think we've all probably been asked. Is Lucho Acosta the biggest signing in this club's history? [00:45:01] Speaker B: It's, it depends on whether you, what you think of David Ferreira, because David Ferreira is a league MVP to, you know, and they signed him from Cap. I can't remember if they paid for David or whether he was a free agent. [00:45:15] Speaker A: So as a free agent, he was a free agent. [00:45:17] Speaker B: You know, it's, if you want to say the biggest buy, I mean, Musa might be a bigger buy because of the price and his age. I mean it cost us in the conversation. Absolutely in the conversation. But I don't, I wouldn't put him at number one, I don't think, I. [00:45:31] Speaker C: Think if, if you're going to say like big on stature, Danielson was literally the most expensive player of all time at one point. [00:45:38] Speaker A: See, in the discord I had made the suggestion, in fact, I insisted it was Hugo Sanchez because he's the greatest player in CONCACAF history. And then Dustin crapped all over that by pointing out that Dallas didn't buy him or sign him. He was, he was essentially allocated, which is a cheap out on that, by the way. I, I, I still am sticking with Ugo Sanchez, but, well, I, I agreed. [00:46:03] Speaker B: With you until he said that and then I was like, oh, fair technicality, but I'm with you. Okay, technicality aside, I would agree with Hugo Sanchez as CONCACAF player of the century. Five time La Liga leading score, four or five. Real Madrid, you know. Yeah. For Madrid, I mean, just like in the handful of greatest players in the planet when he played and the greatest player from comcap of all time, without question. So, so, you know, I, I think even though he was a little bit past it, the street cred that Hugo Sanchez brought to Dallas in the particularly in the Hispanic audience was absolutely massive. That street cred that he brought, good. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Lord, was it ever. [00:46:43] Speaker C: But he didn't win a World cup and then flame out at FC Dallas. [00:46:47] Speaker B: That's fair. That's true. [00:46:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's very true. But I do think the question that Steve, I think this was actually Steve's. Davis's more specific question is Dallas ever had a player that is so clearly just grab a game by the neck and dominate it the way that Acosta has a repeated track history of doing for two different clubs in this league? And I, I don't know if there is, if Dallas has ever had a player of that type before, off the top of my head. [00:47:18] Speaker B: Well, it was a much shorter window because of his injury. But David Ferreira was that kind of player. I was listening to Heath Pierce talk about him and he said the entire thing was everybody else, all their 10 players play defense and they win the ball and they just give it to David and that's it. And then they all stand there and let David do his thing. And that was that, you know, cup running team that gave up that astronomically low number of goal, like 14 goals against or something that year. [00:47:41] Speaker A: That's true. [00:47:42] Speaker B: And like only, only lost four games all year. I mean the V Ferreira could single handedly control the game and was mvp, but he only did it for a couple of seasons until he got hurt. Whereas Lucho Casa has been in this league now for a couple of teams doing it. So that's, I'll give him that. That's a. The guy of that longevity. Because even Maro Diaz, as talented as he was, we've talked about how he only started 50% of the games of which he was available for the club because of his. He was always hurt all the time. Right. So this is not that. Right. [00:48:12] Speaker A: You know, it's a different player. You just mentioned this and I hadn't thought about this until now, but now, because Jesus is no longer with Dallas, can we put A pin in the discussion of who was the better and more important player for Dallas, Jesus or David. [00:48:27] Speaker B: Yeah. What's your answer? [00:48:29] Speaker A: I don't. We can do it some other time. I don't want to do it now. I want to think about it a little bit because I'm not sure I have an immediate reaction to that. Do you? I mean, is there an obvious answer to that to you? [00:48:39] Speaker B: Well, I do because I think about importance, you know, more than like it's. It's hard to compare like pure talent over like a 20 year wind change in the game and change in the league, but in terms of like talismanic value and stature and like what he did with the people around him, I think I clearly have an answer. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Yeah, we'll save that. We've got so much, you know, there's so many things to talk about. I don't know if we're going to get to like all like, are we going to save Kit talk leaguewide Kit talk till next week? [00:49:05] Speaker B: Well, there's some kids dropping tomorrow, so let's just wait till there. Even though there's images and leaks and stuff, we'll just wait till we get all of them to do our usual voting. [00:49:13] Speaker A: When do you want to talk about the news that USL is launching an MLS competitor, a Div 1 competitor in 2027? When do you want to talk about that? [00:49:22] Speaker B: We can throw that down real quick. [00:49:23] Speaker A: I've heard this floated around for a long time, so I don't know why today was the day they decided to announce it. I don't know what the importance of today was. But if you haven't heard, USL announced that they intend in 2027 to launch a new same Division 1 tier as MLS in 2027, consisting of 12 to 14 teams. There's a lot to this for all sorts of reasons. But the most obvious thing that I think gets everybody excited, especially anybody who absolutely hates and loathes Major League Soccer, mostly because of its construction, is the fact that USL will now possess and have at least four different tiers of. Of men's soccer that they could in theory instantly put a promotion relegation structure together. But there's so much, too much. There's so much more to it than just that. [00:50:22] Speaker B: Well, the answer to why now is the Cosmos lawsuit got settled. That, that's why now. Know why specifically today? I don't. I don't know. But that's. They even mentioned that lawsuit as impetus for talking about it. But you're right there. There are barriers to that. Idea of pro rail related to what U.S. soccer says is required for Division 1. And it has to do with market and owner cash and stadium size. It's not as simple as just, hey, pro rail. But the. It's going to be absolutely fascinating to watch. I agree with their statement that the United States is big enough to have two professional leagues. I think this country is just absolutely massive. We're not used to having like 50 to 60 Division 1 level professional teams. But soccer is a different sport than some of the other American sports. It'll be. No matter which what happens, it will be fascinating to watch. I don't know that I have any definitive take on whether it's good or bad. Certainly in general terms, competition is good, but it'll be fun. Certainly be fun to watch. [00:51:25] Speaker C: I think it's important not to get too carried away, you know, with the end ASL stuff, you know. One, there was a couple of reasons they never got D1 sanctioned in. One of them was for it to be a Division 1 stadium in the United States, you have to have at least 15,000 seats. There are four stadiums in USL that meet that criteria right now. And one of those, Miami FC had an average attendance of 1075 last season. [00:51:58] Speaker A: It's interesting because those types of rules. And then the question becomes because everybody instantly gets, you know, their pants go crazy. Their promotion, relegation pants go crazy over this idea. But just think about the team popping up in Garland in a couple of years that will be playing in the second division of usl. At that point, assuming that this premier version comes to be, let's say Garland wins the championship and they get promoted to the Premier League version, the premier tier of USL. Their stadium's only 10,000 seats and they just built it. [00:52:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the thing we've seen in other places in the world where teams have been promoted up and then not met the requirements of the league that they're going up to and they end up being, you know, stuck back down. I actually, I was talking to someone about it and they were, and they said, oh, like Luton had to make spend all that money on their stadium to meet the Premier League requirements. I said, yeah, I like that. [00:52:55] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, 30 million. [00:52:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And so you could look at a team like USL Garland, if they were to win their division. It's like all of a sudden we just spent. I have no idea what their team's gonna cost, but all of a sudden it's like, oh, crap, I gotta drop 30 million to add 5,000 seats in the end zone or Something, you know, that, that may not be, that's not an easy thing to do. And I think this idea of pro rail in the United States is going to be much more complicated, much more hard to deliver because the money that it will take to try and compete on Division 1 level with MLS, you're going to run the same thing where the guys with those kind of money, they're not going to be super excited about the idea of being relegated. Like you want me to drop 500 million a billion dollars and then I'm going to get relegated, get out of here. [00:53:34] Speaker A: Right. Well, I mean, and just let's use Garland as a great example of that. This. So let's say the guys that are doing Garland go, well, wait a second. If that is in fact something we may have an opportunity to do, get promoted, why don't we just add 5,000 seats to our stadium now and make it a 15,000 seat stadium so that if we get promoted we qualify for that. But the problem with that is, is I do think the honest conversation is, I think we're all looking at each other going, are they going to be able to fill up a 10,000 seat stadium to begin with, much less a 15,000 seat stadium? [00:54:10] Speaker C: They would also have to have a lot of buy in from Garland. [00:54:14] Speaker A: Well, sure, I mean let's just. Yeah, but let's just assume Garland says yes. Right, that part, let's say that part of it floats and they can do a 15,000 seat stadium. My question is, we're all still worried about them trying to fill up a 10,000 seat stadium and now they're going to build now and using in this scenario, they're going to build a 15,000 seat stadium just on the chance that they get promoted to this new upper tier. But now they got to worry about selling those extra 5,000 seats. And so you can see where this becomes a real business quandary for everybody. [00:54:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what it comes down to is their ability to market and sell the team. Like we looked at FC Dallas be really not very good at marketing and selling the team for years and years and years. And then post Covid they took the Fabio money, they went out and got a guy and they changed. They went from 12,000 over average on one season and then over time they went the next year they had one sell, then they had five, then they had seven and now it's like every game like they built it up. So like we don't know enough about these, the Garland USL situation to know how good those guys are. Marketing and selling a team and they may be like, you know what, we could absolutely submark and sell this team. We're going to pack this thing out and we'll see what happens. The proof will be in the pudding and their ability to deliver, you know, who knows if they even want to try and build a 50,000. [00:55:26] Speaker C: So I think even when you look a little bit further down, this is kind of the problem I think American soccer has is if you want to build a pyramid, it's only as strong as the base. And you know, people always talk about England and England has. The football league is 137 years old this year and there was a lot of football played before that and the Football League had. It's a very similar situation. There was the Football League and the Southern League that kind of competed as all Division 1 teams. You know, in a time where there was a much less cost, there was no professionalism. You kind of had the teams go through those hardships and build that community and build that investor desire over time to kind of get to that point. Even still, it's, it's a common thing every year further down the leagues when you get like below the National League for teams to just say exactly that, like we're not going to invest the money in the stadium, so we're going to decline promotion. Or we don't want additional travel costs so we're going to decline promotion. Thinking another fairly local team with Texoma, they're going to play out a Bearcat Stadium, 6,000 seats. Sherman ISD is going to build a new 8,000 seat stadium. Let's say things work out really well and they kind of, you know, and they outgrow their infrastructure structure. Where are they going to play? They've just got a decline in promotion at that point. [00:56:58] Speaker A: Yeah, See these are all the things and then somebody's going to say, well then why don't they change the requirements for stadium size? But that's the whole point to this, of growing these things is because for you, for people to be able to make money out of this stuff, you got to generate the revenue. And at some point the limitations of your stadium size is a big factor in how you make profit out of. [00:57:20] Speaker C: These, these deals also. So the Premier League, technically the minimum stadium size is 5,000 seats, but that's because the way that grounds are graded in the US compared to England is, is very different. If you guarantee a 15,000 seat stadium, it's probably going to be top level, high school, mid level, NCAA ready. Right. Like Toyota Stadium's having $182 million of renovation. And part of that is for NCAA requirements, you're guaranteeing a minimum standard of facilities for fans, for players, for officials, for everything. The other side of that, when you get into FA ground grading is okay. The seats aren't there, but you need to have a certain amount of the player tunnel covered. You need to have a clear line of sight from the dressing room to the center circle. There's all these like, really, absolutely batshit crazy criteria that you have to fill at every individual level that in a country the size of the US And Canada is going to be really difficult to actually to implement. [00:58:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:35] Speaker A: And see, these are all the kind of the very granular minutia specifics that many of us that have, you know, pooh, poohed the idea of promotion, relegation in the United States for a long time and get mocked and laughed at. And can, you know, we all people tell us we're wrong, but nobody really ever wants to get into this minutia and these specifics because they're important ultimately, when you really get down to it. Kent Teague, the friend of our show who owns Leighton Orient, he and I and Andy have had this conversation multiple times when he looked into buying a soccer team, both at the USL level and the MLS level. And he went into a great explanation about why promotion relegation can't work in the United States. Simply and singularly, because of how stadium deals are done in the United States versus everywhere else in the world because of how they're financed and paid for. And you know, who's going to be left holding the bag if the team suddenly gets relegated to a lower division and nobody's coming to the games anymore? Who's going to pay the bill for that $180 million soccer stadium you just built? And so it's a big deal. It's a big deal. And to his point, Dan, he says the stadium issue in England is about to get much, much more important because of all the new PSR rules, because game day revenue and ticket sales are going to become a major driver, even a more important driver of revenue in England than it ever has been in recent times. And he thinks there's going to become a stadium war between EFL teams here soon. Like they Layton Orient has to build a new stadium for them to be able to sustain or if they do get promoted into the championship here in. [01:00:20] Speaker C: The next few years, I think, I mean, even aside from that, I think the very first point you hit on from Kent about the way stadium deals are Done here. FC Dallas's lease, when it was kind of made public a few years ago, guaranteed that Major League Soccer would have first Division Major League Soccer, specifically Major League Soccer activity in that stadium until the end of the lease. So let's say there was a promotion, relegation system. FC Dallas gets relegated, someone's got to pay, you know, millions of dollars in compensation to Frisco or MLS has to turn around and guarantee that another team can play in mlsta. [01:01:04] Speaker A: Yep. It's a, it's, it's a ridiculously complex problem and isn't as simple as I think many people believe it is. So more about that will come in the, in the near future. I'm sure we'll talk more about it. Now. We, we're not going to talk about league wide kits, but we should mention that the new kit, the away kit, is now official. The one that we've talked about for a while, they did name it the Inferno Kit. I'm very torn about that, Buzz. And it is, it may be the most boring kit Dallas has put out in a very long time. [01:01:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it, there's a couple other kits in the league that looks just like it. And listen, we should remind everybody of the caveat that we've learned from a couple of different people about d, you know, redoing the original design, like paying for it to be redone. And then so it's not surprising they got a relatively boring one. You know, the color does have a little bit of blue. I wish it was more blue. I wish they would call it a tornado kit because it's, there's even like talk about the throwbackness and how some of the things, cues are coming from the tornado, you know, so just call it what it is. You know, save the Inferno stuff for the burn third kit that we think we're getting around these parts. You know, it's, it's, it's perfectly fine. It's a jersey, it's team colors. It's, you know, it's, there's. I've seen worse. [01:02:22] Speaker A: You're letting it off the hook. It's, it's, it looks like a training shirt and. But it, you're right, it is what it is. I do, I do want to point out, Dan, you initially had said that you had heard the original design that Adidas put forth was a white shirt with kind of a red splotchy pattern on it that made it look like a bloody rag. Like a rag used to, to bandage a giant bloody wound. Actually use something more descriptive. But I'm not Going to repeat it here. I'm wondering if it's not what Chicago ended up with, except Chicago's is in blue. White with blue. [01:02:57] Speaker C: Well, I actually wondered if it was more like mls. Not. Sorry, not mls. Adidas doesn't really use the same pattern for multiple teams. Very often. Atlanta and Montreal have the exact same width and frequency of stripes, which is very rare. But I wonder. There's a couple of teams with like, you know, Columbus has got that Goosebumps kit where it's kind of got the dust kind of splotchy, splatty stuff. Philadelphia's got the same sort of thing with their lightning blue and yellow. Well, they've got. They've got that new one that's like reflective water almost. Ah, okay. And Minnesota's got the 10,000 lakes one that's again, it's kind of similar, but if you had that with white, with red, it would just be a worse version of the weird marble one that RSL had a couple years ago where it just looked like someone had died by a thousand paper cuts. [01:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It must have been terrible if Dan Hunt was willing to pay the money to get us a redo. And this is what they ended up with, so. But there are so many shirts that look similarly as lame, like The Dallas and D.C. we're doing next week's episode. [01:04:16] Speaker B: I should. [01:04:17] Speaker A: Anyway, I'll. I'll stop there. All right, so it's the Inferno kit that is now on sale. Everybody go get one. But really, the big hit is the new North Texas away kit. [01:04:30] Speaker C: That's amazing. [01:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's. It's an absolute throwback to 98, 99 Dallas Byrne, you know, white with the. What we call pin hoops. This is a fantastic kit, this for. I think it's the best North Texas kit we've seen. I think it's one of the better kits that this club's house or North Texas has, has done, particularly in a secondary kit. It is fantastically. Well, good. And it's probably just a template, I imagine, and it's amazing. [01:04:55] Speaker C: Well, the, the big difference there, and this is. This is kind of the problem with the way kits are designed in MLS is, you know, Adidas proposes the idea for bigger teams like Seattle. They might get a right of reply to say, you know, like, they want the. The Salish one with the, the. The Weavers patterns, which looks really cool, but if you're FC Dallas and you sell like 4,000 jerseys, you probably don't get that same luxury North Texas sc. They order the kits, they get to choose whatever the hell they like. [01:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:05:28] Speaker A: Well, well, North Texas both their home and away is better than both the Dallas's shirts. [01:05:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think you're right. And they're both just stock templates in a sense. You know, here's the catalog. Pick out a good one. And Dallas and the North Texas one is awesome. It's in the Mansfield City colors and has a reference to the new stadium coming next season, which is great because that it bridges over from this season to the next season. It's a great kit. Fantastic. [01:05:53] Speaker A: Dallas Trinity who pick up their spring season starting this weekend. We'll get to see the debut of Lexi Missimo. I think they're playing Tampa Bay at the Cotton bowl on Saturday afternoon. They have added a some players or a player. [01:06:08] Speaker C: Dan Cameron Lancaster, who was midfielder or forward out of tcu. She's actually the I think record assist holder. She was even the league wide most not most valuable player. They called it most outstanding player in wpsl, the second tier of women's soccer the FC Dallas has played in, in the past. Really sounds really, really intriguing. There was one weird thing, you know, kind of looking her up in between meetings earlier and I noticed that, you know, she's like so the, the leading assist getter. I don't know how you would even say that for TCU of, of all time. But she lost the start three games into the season last year. I don't know if that was a, you know, like a, a fitness thing where she could, you know, kind of lacked minutes or just someone absolutely balled out and just broke into the lineup. But it seemed a little bit interesting but you know, it. They definitely need a little bit of depth up front. It was a little bit threadbare towards the end and obviously there has been quite a bit of. Of restructure really across the league with young players going off to university, NWSL players going back to their parent clubs and so on. [01:07:30] Speaker A: Texoma Buzz signed some. A couple of new players. [01:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah, they snapped up former USL championship MVP Solomon Asante who was MVP for Phoenix Rising. I think it was Dan a couple of years back. He's 36. [01:07:47] Speaker C: He captained them when they had that absolutely balls out four year period where they just dominated the league. Won either the playoff sort of regular season every year. [01:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah, he's definitely what you would call past it, but I'm sure he has plenty of game to go down to USL 1 and maybe teach some of these kids some. Some play. I think it's a good signing for a program like this to grab him. And then they also grabbed a couple of strikers, a guy named Brandon McManus out of the University of Louisville and Layman John. John a. Who is 29 years old. He's played for Phoenix Rising also, but also Atlanta United too, and a Greek team and even played some in the Dominica. So he's kicked around some of the lower levels for a couple of years. So a couple of vets and then a young kid on there. [01:08:32] Speaker A: Okay. And Chupacabras signed Ed Piscaric to their staff. Is Ed. Is Ed the coach? [01:08:38] Speaker B: I think he's came on as an ownership level, did he not? [01:08:42] Speaker A: Oh, I just saw something online him celebrating that he's part of it. And I just assume they signed him as their head coach, but I. Maybe he is part of. [01:08:49] Speaker B: No, that we. We did the. We did the head coach last week. Well, that's what I thought for the kid. [01:08:54] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. [01:08:55] Speaker B: Okay. Just taking an ownership interesting in the club. I imagine possibly there's going to be some economy of scale there with his youth club, Texas spurs, which is run. It runs up to like the U23 kind of environment UPSL and stuff. So he's going to be involved there. So former Burn. Great, great. May your miles may very ungrate but you know, former. Yeah. Ownership level. A former player for the Burn and former interim coach that does people forget about all the time. [01:09:25] Speaker C: Was and assistant avar. [01:09:28] Speaker A: I was gonna say. I was gonna say I didn't know doing var paid so well that you could buy a soccer team. [01:09:37] Speaker B: Well, he probably just bought in. I don't think he bought the whole thing. [01:09:40] Speaker A: And Buzz, why don't you go ahead and use your very personal and direct sources to tell us this big rumor and news about Dallas Cup. [01:09:52] Speaker B: Oh yeah, well, it was a press release. It wasn't a big rumor or news. The. The Dallas cup bought the international girls tournament, which is a big tournament here in town. And so they are. [01:10:02] Speaker A: Their. [01:10:03] Speaker B: Their girl side is now has over 180 teams in it. So they're massively expanding on the girl side. It's a huge, huge upgrade in terms of the number of teams that are involved. And there's some international clubs coming in, so that's obviously cool for. [01:10:16] Speaker A: So would that. Will that be played in parallel to the boys Dallas Cup? [01:10:20] Speaker B: Yeah, exact same time. Yeah. [01:10:21] Speaker A: Where are they going to play all these games? [01:10:24] Speaker B: Same facilities they use now. I mean, I think, you know, there's a. There's a host team for the girls side. I Don't remember who it is, but it's that team will have bring some fields to the table. Just like FC Dallas in a way brings fields to the table as the boys side. Crazy. Yeah, it's a, it's a huge, huge explosion on the girls side. I think I want to say maybe like from 16 teams now, 180 across, like every age group. You know, it's a, it's really nice to see them, the Dallas cup making this parallel move and, and turning in the girl side into a massive opportunity and great tournament as well. So it's super cool. [01:11:02] Speaker A: Okay, well, I think we've hit everything we were going to hit for today. We'll do MLS kit talk and incomplete with all the kits revealed. [01:11:11] Speaker B: Well, since you brought up kit talk, we should throw down. The one more piece of kit talk is that the Chupacabras did throw down their kits too and they went with the one that has the claw marks on the sides, which is a nice. [01:11:22] Speaker A: About that last week. [01:11:23] Speaker B: No, I don't think so. [01:11:24] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [01:11:25] Speaker B: Well, if we did, we're going to double up because it's, it has a nice claw. It's a good brand capture of their jersey. [01:11:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. This, we didn't talk about this, but I do question a North Texas soccer team wearing black as their primary color. Yeah, I just, I don't know if that's a good idea. [01:11:43] Speaker B: That's fair. [01:11:44] Speaker C: I mean the fabrics are good. They're breathable now. It's not like you wear in a plastic bag. [01:11:50] Speaker A: Man. I don't even like wearing navy on a hot Texas sunny day. [01:11:54] Speaker C: That's because you're funny about colors. [01:12:00] Speaker B: They play at night. [01:12:01] Speaker A: You found me out. Okay. Yeah, they'll play at night. That's fair. It is a good looking kit. I do like it. It's a good looking shirt. Did they say what color shorts they're gonna wear with it? [01:12:10] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure it's all black and then all basically white, you know. [01:12:14] Speaker A: All right, very good. All right, so last question before we go. Prior to 48 hours ago, I want you to give yourself a numeric excitement number between 1 and 10. 10 being we're winning MLS Cup, 1 or 0 being we're getting a wooden spoon. Where were you on FC Dallas and where are you now? I'll start with you, Dan Crook. [01:12:38] Speaker C: Oh, I was definitely a three to four and now I'm look, it could be anything. I don't really care. It's going to be a fun season. It's the most excited I've been for the start of a season in quite a while because there's a shit ton of chaos about to happen. [01:12:54] Speaker A: All right, so what's your number? [01:12:59] Speaker C: 11. [01:13:00] Speaker B: Whoa, whoa, whoa. This one goes to 11. [01:13:03] Speaker A: Wow. Listen to you. Spinal Tap. [01:13:07] Speaker C: Yeah. I was like. Well, I was like. I was like, 69's childish. I can't do that. No. I think. I have no idea where this team's gonna finish. And it's been nice, you know, the last couple of seasons has been. Well, you know, they could be. They could be fourth or they could be tenth. We don't know. Now it's like, we really don't know. And it's not just because, you know, there's a frailty of will it work out or not? Based on injuries. It's like, hey, will this team just flame out? Will the. You know, will the. The style of play not. Not agree with it? We're going to have a lot of fun finding out. [01:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Well, I know there was a lot of pessimism from this group, me specifically, but I do feel like in defense, we did say, hey, look, at the very least, we got to wait and see how this all plays out and what they have to start the season with. And now we know. So, Buzz, what was your number, and what is it now? [01:14:00] Speaker B: Well, I was on a three, and now I'm on. You know, I'm. I'm. I'm under 6, but approaching 6, but, you know, more like a 5.7, 5.8. In my confidence about this team being good, but I'm. That's a long, long way from thinking. It's great, because I have large questions about the D defense. [01:14:19] Speaker A: Buzz, middle name Kill Carrick. There he goes. [01:14:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:23] Speaker A: Buzz Kill Carrick. All right. Very good. Well, good times. I'm glad we got to talk about this. It's fun to have something to talk about, like Lucha Acosta. I still, by the way, when he. I saw the footage of him walking into the event last night or off the plane or wherever it was. That dude is impossibly tiny. [01:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:44] Speaker A: Is he the smallest? Is he the smallest player in Dallas history? [01:14:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Has to be. [01:14:50] Speaker A: Like, he's smaller than Joselita Vaca. Small. [01:14:53] Speaker C: He's what, five one? [01:14:55] Speaker B: Oh, they list him at five three, but I don't know if he's five'three. [01:14:58] Speaker C: If he's five'three it's the same as Michael Barrios. I think that's if. [01:15:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I think Michael Barrios might be taller. I've not seen them standing together. But it's. It's gonna be. [01:15:09] Speaker C: Oh, no. Barrios was five'four I don't know if. [01:15:13] Speaker A: It was exacerbated by whatever the jeans he was wearing and the fact that the shirt was untucked or what. It was crazy to me. I mean, look, he's a former MLS mvp. It clearly hasn't hindered his career. It just was crazy to me how tiny he was when on some of the footage I saw today was wild. [01:15:34] Speaker B: Being that short is a hindrance, just like other things can be a hindrance, you know, if you're. You can get past it if you have enough mind, will, gumption, core strength, talent. I mean, he clearly has way more of all those things to be able to get past being. [01:15:50] Speaker A: Didn't I see that he had some sort of insanely high success rate on aerials, on headers. [01:15:56] Speaker B: It's not that he has a high six. The. It's not that the rate is high. It's that he wins aerial duels better than most attacking mids, which is like saying he's the tallest Smurf. You know, he's not. It just means he's really competitive. [01:16:10] Speaker A: He is the tallest Smurf. [01:16:12] Speaker B: Yeah. It means he's really competitive. And it probably means he has relatively good vertical for his size, you know, because, like. But it says 97th percentile. That's not. That doesn't mean he wins them at a 97 rate. It means that he's right. [01:16:23] Speaker A: Well, I get better. [01:16:24] Speaker B: You know, it's not like he's in the box competing for headers. You know, he's probably standing right outside of it waiting. So it's like, I don't know where all these headers are that he's winning, but yeah, he. [01:16:36] Speaker C: He won seven last year. [01:16:38] Speaker B: There you go. Yeah, huge. [01:16:40] Speaker A: I. I just. I knew that he had a high number on one of those rating graph steals, so that's what I thought was fascinating. And the other thing, when I was going back and Rerereading the old D.C. united history, I forgot he was the recipient of the famous Rooney ball. Yeah, I forgot that was Lucho that got that ball. [01:16:58] Speaker B: Well, you may have to remind people of the Rooney ball is. [01:17:00] Speaker A: So there's the. The most famous moment of Wayne Rooney's time playing for D.C. united is when he chase back and slid tackle a ball away at midfield, turn around and played the most mind bendingly accurate long pass to Lucho Acosta, who scored and didn't end up winning the game. [01:17:19] Speaker C: And for them, fifth minute of stoppage time or Something silly. [01:17:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Just if you have never seen it or forgotten what it looks like, just go on YouTube and look up Wayne Rooney, D.C. united, and you will see it. It's all over the place. It's one of the. It really is one of the greatest moments in MLS history. No question about it. It's such a fantastic. And it really is quintessential Wayne Rooney at his very finest. It's great. But I had forgotten Lucho Acosta was the recipient of that magical moment. All right, very good, Buzz. Anything else that we want to get to, man, there's a lot. [01:17:55] Speaker B: We got it all in, I think. [01:17:56] Speaker A: All right, Dan, you got anything else you want to throw in here? You want to sing a song? You want to. [01:18:00] Speaker C: Oh, I'm. I'm all good. [01:18:01] Speaker A: I'm do a magic trick or anything like that? [01:18:04] Speaker C: No, I'd probably just end up breaking a window or something. [01:18:07] Speaker A: Okay, very good. Well, it was good talking to you, my friend. [01:18:09] Speaker C: Likewise, Buzz. [01:18:11] Speaker A: There you go. [01:18:12] Speaker B: Look. [01:18:12] Speaker A: It's gonna be fun. Yay. [01:18:14] Speaker B: Oh, it's definitely gonna be fun. There's gonna be a lot of attacking soccer played this season of Essie Dallas. [01:18:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, and we're getting a third kit, and it's sweet. I don't know about you guys, but I've seen it. [01:18:30] Speaker B: Have you? Oh, I've not seen it, man. You're ahead of me. How'd you swing that? [01:18:36] Speaker A: You know, I know people. [01:18:37] Speaker B: That's true. You do. [01:18:38] Speaker A: I do. So we'll talk about that when the time comes. It should. That should have been the Inferno kick, by the way. [01:18:46] Speaker B: Third degree. The podcast has been brought to you by Pappy. Check your fellow FC now curious fan and the man who made the great music for this fantastic podcast. Poppy is back in Town for 2025. He's doing shows, concerts, gigs available for hire, private party lessons for beginners. He can do it all. He's got a series of residency shows coming up in the Bishop Arts at Taco Uvino restaurant on the 28th and 27th. Most importantly, this Saturday night, three links in deep Ellum, he's open up for a jam band called Rado. You should check them out. Doors open at 7:00. Go out there and support your. Your fellow SC Dallas fan and the guy who made the amazing theme song for this podcast. Thanks again, Pappy, for all your support of this podcast and everything you do. [01:19:24] Speaker A: But thank you, Buzz. Awesome stuff. Thanks for being here and thank you, FC Dallas Curious fans. What a time to be alive. And we will speak to you next week with full kit talk on the next episode of 3rd Degree the podcast. [01:19:39] Speaker C: Lucho Magic Degree the 3rd Degree N. [01:19:44] Speaker A: Podcast 3rd Degree the 3rd Degree Net. [01:19:48] Speaker B: Podcast 3rd Degree the 3rd degree N. [01:19:52] Speaker A: Podcast 3rd degree the 3rd degree N podcast.