3rd Degree the Podcast #299

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Third Degree the Third Degree Nep Podcast. [00:00:14] Speaker A: Third Degree the Third Degree Nap Podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree Nap Podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree. [00:00:26] Speaker C: Look. Review. The podcast is brought to you by Pappy Check, the man responsible for all the amazing music we have here on this podcast. He's back in time for 2025. Available for solo shows, full band gigs, restaurant accompaniment, private parties, lessons for beginners, you name it, the man can do it all. He's certainly doing a residency at the in Bishop Arts at the Taco UV Restaurant. In fact, he's probably doing one of them right now as we're recording this. He's got one more date coming up on the 27th. You can enjoy his work there. Also, follow him on Instagram at Pappy Check for updates on his latest gigs and whatever else the man has going on. [00:00:59] Speaker A: Well, hello there, and happy start of the 30th season for you FC Dallas curious fan. There he is with his wooden spoon, Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:01:13] Speaker B: It's a ladle, actually. [00:01:14] Speaker A: Oh, sorry, Is it? It's a wooden ladle. Yeah. Sporting his golden boot and his Emmy over his shoulder. It's your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of third degree.net and the orig original soccer influencer who gets no respect, Buzz Carrot. Come in, Buzz. [00:01:33] Speaker C: What did Dan get a wooden spoon for? Am I missing something? [00:01:37] Speaker B: That's what I wondered. Maybe it's the one for loot and be an absolute shite. [00:01:42] Speaker C: Fair enough. Maybe that could be it. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Buzz, I just want to publicly tell you that seeing you on the Soccer Wise video podcast with your Emmy perfectly positioned over your shoulder and just off camera, just off center behind your head was the douchiest thing you've ever done. And I couldn't be more proud of you for promoting yourself like that, so. [00:02:10] Speaker C: Well, thanks. Where else am I going to put it? I guess I don't have a mantle. [00:02:14] Speaker A: So you're never going to convince me it was just a coinky dink that your Emmy happened to be just slightly off center behind your head on a national video podcast. [00:02:26] Speaker C: Well, it is the only thing I've ever won, so there you go. [00:02:30] Speaker A: Dan, have you spent any time admiring Buzz's Emmy? [00:02:33] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. [00:02:34] Speaker B: I mean, the past, like, five minutes that we've been on it. [00:02:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm gonna cover it up for now. Out of here. [00:02:39] Speaker B: It's funny because, you know, you always see the, like, any. Any newscasters that jump on all the. The soccer zoom calls. They always have exactly that. It's the completely Empty shelf with the, with the Emmy. But Buzz, thank you for having a functional shelf with things on it. That's awesome. [00:02:56] Speaker A: All your sci fi book collection. [00:02:58] Speaker C: Yeah, some of them. Yeah. I mean the whole thing is mostly books. [00:03:00] Speaker A: And a properly folded American flag. [00:03:03] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. [00:03:04] Speaker A: Okay. And an Emmy. [00:03:06] Speaker C: And an Emmy. [00:03:08] Speaker B: And a neon sign pointing to it. [00:03:10] Speaker A: That's right. Look at my Emmy. [00:03:13] Speaker C: This is all getting edited out, by the way. [00:03:15] Speaker A: No, it's not. If you edit this out, I will be so mad at you, I will be so furious. I've taken a screenshot of it and I will tweet it out and point it out to the world. [00:03:25] Speaker C: Thanks. Right. [00:03:26] Speaker A: Well, we're all jubilant because the 30th season of FC Dallas Burns soccer is nigh upon us and we certainly are feeling a lot better about it these days, Buzz, with all the changes that have happened in the roster and we'll get to that here in a little bit. They did have a final tune up game against Atlanta. Where was that game played in Atlanta? Oh, they traveled to Atlanta for that? [00:03:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:03:50] Speaker A: Was it played in the Robots anus or was it played in one of. [00:03:53] Speaker B: The colleges or Marriott, the training center. [00:03:57] Speaker A: Ah, okay. [00:03:58] Speaker C: I, I. Without having watched one of their Atlanta United 2 games, I assume it's where they land United 2 place. [00:04:04] Speaker A: Okay. Any thoughts about that that we know about that you'd like to report to the peoples? [00:04:10] Speaker C: Well, yeah, Peter Musa did not start reported by FC Dallas as a small knock or light knock and. Oh, you know. Oh, we'll see. They have a, they have a knack of telling us it's a knock and then a month and a half later, two months later, they're still out, but you know, for now we'll take them with their word. I saw a picture of, of Musa down in Houston, so I assume he's actually going to be able to play or else they wouldn't have traveled him because I know, I know Paxton and Kafumana are here and are out. Like, like those are the guys that are listed as out. So they're not there. And so Musa is not. It's not official of course, until Friday, but there was a picture of him that circulated from training and so I assume that that means he's available. So carry that forward. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Is this the sea, the preseason? I mean, this probably was worse back in the earliest days of the league, but I feel like we're going into this season having the least visual idea of what this team looks like. Like we haven't seen any of the games in any kind of complete sense. We've only gotten little bits and pieces here and there. I mean, I, I have no idea what this team looks like under Quill. [00:05:24] Speaker C: Yeah, the Atlanta one was the only one got streamed and it was a stream because Atlanta streamed it. So the other, all the Dallas ones have not been streamed. [00:05:30] Speaker A: I didn't even know it was being streamed. [00:05:31] Speaker C: Yeah, it was on, it was on YouTube, Dan. I can't remember where it was. Yeah, so we got to watch a little bit of it. But you know, know Lucho Acosta and Ramiro, who's been hurt, they only played 30 minutes with no Peter Musa. They put Anderson Julio at the 9 and the Logan Fen started it right wing. Now there's was some discussion among various, you know, people, a lot of it in our discord about are those viable options? Is he trying to quote, trying to confuse things. And so the takeaways for me were from that particular aspect was that, remember that Anderson Julio has played nine before. So Quill probably wanted to look at that. They started with Ferrington on the right and Anderson Julio the nine. And then within 20 minutes it rotated and Julio was left and Pedrinho was up top and then Farrington was up top. So they were rotating through lots of different looks. I would actually really like them to continue to do that. I think if you, when you rotate through different looks, you keep the other team off balance through the course of a game and that's actually a really quality aspect if you can continue to do that. It also gave Quill a final chance to look at some things. So, you know, it'll all depend on whether Musa can go or not, you know, because if he's going, he's the nine. I mean, right, you're not, you're not doing somebody else if you can play. So it was nice to see 30 of Romero who looked, you know, fine, ish. I, I had no complaints about his play. He was in there with legit kind of as a double combo. They didn't look particularly stressed or out of sorts. You know, they, the team over the course of the game gave up some goals. But again, you're looking at pieces rotating in and out. So it's really hard to get a grasp on it being like a whole complete 90 minute game or something. And that's another takeaway for me from the spring is that I don't know that we got the usual final. Here's 90 minutes from the group probably starting. We were seeing mix ups and rotations because of injured pieces and guys Arriving late. So there's going to be less cohesion and less dial in this year than in years past for game one. Is that terrible? I don't know. You know, with all the new pieces around here, that probably was inevitable that that was going to be the case. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Well, it does feel like this is going to be a team that may start out of the blocks slowly just because of all the new pieces being fit together. A new coach is inserting a new system, all of those things. I mean, it certainly has all the ingredients to be a crock pot meal, not a microwave meal. [00:08:00] Speaker C: Yeah, when you have even just a new coach alone. [00:08:03] Speaker A: Come on. I'm not going to get anything for that kick ass analogy. Crock pot versus microwave. [00:08:07] Speaker B: I thought you were going to say croc of shit. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:08:10] Speaker C: It's true that when you're changing a coach and you're changing a tactic, that alone will create some lack of cohesion early in the year. But then you have the guy who we think is going to be the starting center back has just arrived a couple days ago. Lucio Casa just arrived a couple days ago. Ramiro just got healthy a week ago. Cafe Mana is not even in training at all. You know, Paxton's going to be out for quite a while still. You know, there's definitely a lot of pieces that are just still in flux. And we even think maybe there's a couple more pieces to come. So this is definitely a season where what you see, opening day is not going to be holding up long term. There's going to be new pieces, there's going to be changes. And Quilt talks a lot about this idea of competition, but every coach talks about that, so it's hard to really know how serious that is. But it definitely is going to be an early evolution. It's going to be fun to watch and analytically and try and see like, oh, how's it going? What's happening? You know, it's what's. What's looking good, what's not looking good. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think anybody should be surprised if the 11, as we move on to the game starting Saturday night in Houston is Dallas may roll out what appears to be like a preseason B team. Because you could see Musa may not start. You could see that Lucho may not start. Romero may not start. Yeah, the. The new center back may not start. I mean, they could really, you know, understandably, I'm not criticizing. I mean, you could see them make a justification for this is just what we've got that we think we can we can roll with for game one? [00:09:38] Speaker C: Yeah. When we talk about how players get worked in, if they come back from injury or they get signed, usually, you know, that first appearance, 30 minutes, and we saw that from Acosta and Romero. The next appearance, maybe they get 45 or just past halftime. So you have to wonder, okay, if I'm going into a game on Houston, do I, do I go into a game knowing I have to take out Acosta and Ramiro no matter what that's going to happen, do I start a new center back if I know I got. Well, he maybe is different because he's in midseason form and midseason fitness. He's coming from a team that was playing to a team that was playing. So, like, if you, if you've already, as you're starting the game, locked yourself into two subs, you're going to have to make. That's not necessarily a great idea. It's different if those guys are on the bench, and I know for sure they're going to be two dudes I'm bringing in. That's different than locking yourself into. These are two dudes I got, I got to bring out no matter what. Because now you're forcing your hand that you're only down to three subs in order to try and change things. So you can handcuff yourself in a way if you do that, if you start a guy you know can barely get to halftime, probably in terms of your normal fitness. Now, they're pros and you could just say you're in 90, but that's how you burn people out. You want to bring them along. Listen, if you've not watched soccer long enough, you'll want to see this. But we all have seen this time and time again. 30, 45, 60, 90. Right. A progression of minutes over three or four weeks. [00:10:55] Speaker A: So that being said, do before we get into an 11 for Houston. Dan, you got any Houston stuff you want to share with the people? [00:11:03] Speaker B: I think Houston's a bit of a funny one. They've got a very. Their preseason off season rather really mirrors Dallas in the sheer turnover you know, you've had. They've lost Hector Herrera, Sebastian Ferreira, Coco Karrasquia. They've just got shot of Steve Clark as their starting goalkeeper. So now you've got Andrew Tarbelu, you know, was a not even a bit part player. Tom Bogart just reported the other day. Michael, the Brazilian left center back, has agreed to deal with Palmeiras. So at the back, similar to the. The concerns of FC Dallas, they've got 33 year old Eric Sviachenko and 34 year old Daniel Sterez at center back. The midfield, that's kind of where they made their big splash, right? They've had Jack McGlin come in on that big cash transfer from, from Philadelphia to play alongside Artur. That, that may be kind of the key to everything. Last year they were what they scored, I think it was scored 47. Only Austin and San Jose scored less in the Western conference. You know, FC Dallas scored 54 just for comparison. But their defense was fantastic. They only conceded 39, third overall in MLS but you know, they've had their losing a starting center back. They've lost a really good defensive midfielder in Herrera. So it'll be interesting to see kind of what the fall off is there, especially with a team that just hasn't been able to create chances. Even bringing in Nicola Darrow as the the 10. Now he's 35. He, you know, he had very limited minutes last year. Like what can he actually bring to the table? There's a lot of, just a lot of question marks in the same sense as FC Dallas. [00:13:02] Speaker A: I've been interested in watching some of the preseason predictions that as many people have Houston as high kind of up middle of the table as they typically do simply because in my mind Houston's turnover has been a loss of players that were really effective for them last year. You know, Dallas lost Areola and Jesus, which were, you know, mostly your mileage may vary but those guys that they lost were really impact players for them. So Houston's turnover feels to me very much a very different thing. Like the, the floor has dropped for them overall and the question mark may be even bigger because Dallas kind of started poorly is coming from a bad starting place. Houston wasn't per se. So I'll be interesting to see what happens on Saturday and why. Maybe some people in the league think Houston are as good as they seem to think they are. [00:13:57] Speaker B: I mean, you think they lost their three designated players, right? FC Dallas was the only one to keep a single one of the Texas teams. Take Sebastian Ferrero. He was a bust, but yeah, Coco Karraskia, Hector Herrera, huge players. Losing the starting center back now another, another really good player. I think like you say, you know, with FC Dallas, when people said, oh, you know, just lost Arioli, you've just lost Jesus Ferreira, that's great. They didn't factor as much as you would have liked last year, especially Ferreira with the injuries and everything. But yeah, they're losing so much firepower going forward. And then Herrera's impact going, going back to what was their strongest position group. [00:14:38] Speaker C: They changed their keeper too. Clark is out and they brought in, I don't remember his name. You know, they have some, they, they tore the middle out of the team, Herrera and Skia. So it's like, you know, I, you could, you could probably say the same thing about Dallas. But then the pieces they replaced them with are more known commodities in the sense of Lucille Costa and we already know a lot about Sebastian Legette. [00:15:01] Speaker B: So I think as well they, they had that club record signing strikers. Ezekiel Ponce came in for the latter part of the season, settled in pretty nicely. Kind of a goal every other game, but there's no one behind him. If he gets injured that, that's it. If, if he gets tired in the first game, they've got nowhere really to go from there. [00:15:26] Speaker A: Well, the game is Saturday at 7:30. It is on the Apple TV. Um, by the way, we'll talk kit stuff I hope by the end of this. But we do now officially know that they're wearing white shorts with those kick ass new orange throwback kind of designs that they're wearing and it looks mighty good. So I, I don't know anything else about the Houston game that you wanted to get into Buzz or preview or what you think in terms of the 11. I guess we should probably get into that a little bit. [00:15:55] Speaker C: Yeah. Coach Quill said today that has his visa. I think I might just try calling him Oz because that one was hard to say. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Sueze. [00:16:09] Speaker C: Oh, Oz. [00:16:11] Speaker A: Osaze. Yeah, Osasi. [00:16:16] Speaker C: Yeah. So you know, he's been training and coach said that they would make the call today, the day we're recording Thursday, about whether he would start or not. But he did point out that the guy has, is coming out of mid season so he's very fit and has been playing. So it's not like a guy they got to get ready to go. He's been playing in France and you know. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Yeah, but you'd be shocked if a guy walks in and less than a week later starts a league game. [00:16:44] Speaker C: Well, you would. You know, he's had a little bit of training. You know, I don't know that the defense is, has all that much cohesion in place that he really is coming into. You know, you're talking about Lawless Abubakar being the alternative. So I think there's a very real chance that the guy could just walk in and play. I certainly, I think he'll be available on the bench. I mean once he's got the visa and they only have two center box on the roster because the other kid, the 19 year old kid doesn't have his visa yet. Right. So for sure I'm thinking he's going to be in the 18 and so I don't know that it's not entirely unlikely. I wouldn't put it as a, you know, the favorite that he's going to play but I think it's certainly possible that he's going to play and I don't know why you might not just do it. You know, he's probably in better shape than Abubakar right now. Boubacar is coming off of a long offseason sitting around. This Dude's been playing 24 games in Division 2 France at a private level. So you might, I don't know, I don't know why almost I can't really think of a reason not to play him because it's not working into fitness. It's just going to be organizational stuff. [00:17:52] Speaker A: Well, this is where your understanding and relationship and kind of watching Quill grow as a manager over the last several years comes to your advantage, Buzz. Because you, you know, we, we have known other managers in the past that would never ever start. A guy who just walked into the team, I mean Oscar would have, I mean Oscar was famous for bringing guys in and sitting them down and they would play for months. We'd all go nuts. And so, you know, you know, Quill better do. If you think Quill would do this then you know, say so. [00:18:22] Speaker C: Quill's a risk taker, you know, he, and this is the first game now if it was August, you know, and even a guy coming in fit when you're late in a season, I don't think that would happen. But it's game one, you know, it's like what's, you know, no one has any locked in form. You know, I, I would agree with you that generally this is unlikely but when you have a record signing, you know, weirder things have happened. So I think there's a, at least, you know, 50, 50 chance that he would play him, start him. [00:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean if there's an idea that maybe Lucho doesn't start because he just got here a little earlier than that then, then yeah, but Lucho, you know. [00:19:03] Speaker C: You'Re talking about Lucho, a guy who's been sitting around all winter, had three months off. [00:19:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:09] Speaker C: Romero has been hurt. The other dude is walking in game fit, you know, mid season. There's a difference there. [00:19:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:17] Speaker C: Right. Because usually it's about learning team concepts, integrating into the what they're doing. Like, if you're coming in mid season, the team's going to be in flow. You don't want to disrupt that. The guys can be like, I don't know what I'm doing. Well, right now, nobody knows what they're doing. You know, Quill's still talking like, oh, you're gonna. If you watch the video, the mic'd up thing from him in training, he's talking about, oh, you're gonna go here and you're rotate like this and we're gonna go up. Everyone's still trying to figure out what's happening. So I don't like if there was ever a time for a dude to walk in and start. It's the game one of a new season with a new defense anyway, you know, fair enough. [00:19:50] Speaker A: All right, well, then, Mr. Big Talk, why don't you bravely predict what the 11 is for Saturday? [00:19:56] Speaker C: Well, Shack Moore's obvious. Sibiaga I think is a lock. Far fans, a lock. There is no second left back. Sebastian Legit has locked that down. The question would be Ramiro, can Romero go at least half the game, or do you have to go seeking settling because Kafuman is out? And I. I think they'll go Ramiro. I think they'll try and get through halftime. With Ramiro next to legit again, I think that Lucho Acosta will start. I think you can get through halftime. The advantage you would get with him in there against Houston. Houston is right for the taking. You can go into Houston and win. So I think they'll play him and let him go 45 and see how he's doing. See how the fitness. Because it's just fitness with him. Ramiro, other than the injury, was probably coming out of a lot of play, too. So he shouldn't. He should be a little bit ahead of Acosta. Obviously. Pedrinho can be slotted in there just for a Costa if you need to, but I think you hadn't started. Anderson, Julio on the left. I think I'm gonna take them with their word that Peter Moose is fine. So Peter Moose will start on the right. The play in preseason said it was Kamungo. Will it actually be communico? I don't know. Like Logan Ferritin thrown in there at that last little bit on the right wing. A guy I thought should be the right wing. So I. I wouldn't be surprised if Eric gives Bernie the chance to start the season with that job and say it's yours to lose, kid, if you can hold it. And we'll see what happens. Because you know, Eric really likes Bernie. So I think that's more of a question of I'm going to put him in there until he fails and then we'll make a change if we have to because I want to give him every chance because there's so, so much of what Eric wants to do is about verticality, right and getting behind. And I asked him today about switch foot play the way Anderson. Anderson is a right footer playing on the left and Bernie's a left footer playing on the right. And he says while he. Eric said while he does like that, it's more about getting Bernie and, and, or anybody but Bernie specifically into a place that's really good and comfortable for him. And it also is about matchups. So while we might see some changes there, I feel like enough of the times in late in spring training that was the pairing Anderson Julio and Bernie Camingo, that that's what we'll see for this first game, you know, and give Bernie all the chances in the world. [00:22:11] Speaker A: So who if. Who if Anderson Julio can only go. I guess it would be either Farrington or, or Bernie. Whoever doesn't start would end up subbing for him because he's never going 90 minutes. He's coming out at like 55 or whatever. [00:22:25] Speaker C: Farrington, Leo Chu could be. Leo Chu could be Ernie. Yeah, it depends on who's on the bench, of course. Anthony Ramirez, Pedrinho, if Petrino is on the bench. Petrino is definitely a guy that can come in at either wing, but right wing specifically, he plays a nice false swing. He comes inside underneath and that can open up for Shaq Moore down the right. If we see that like maybe that's a late in the gain adaptation perhaps, you know. Although we probably want to save Padrino in our minds for coming for Lucho CASA at like 60, 55, 60 if we can get Lucio that far. And then of course you could move things around up front. If Petrino's in, you could try some other combinations. [00:22:59] Speaker A: So boy, the drop. Lots of questions. Lucho Acosta to Pedrinho is yeah, a drop off. [00:23:07] Speaker C: Well, Padrino is 20 and he has some nice ability and there's some times where he dominated games at North Texas and he had a nice spring but he is not a multiple, you know, leading the league and assists mvp. You know, he's not the same as Lucio Costa. That's a huge fall off. But you could say the same thing about Petter Musa. Look, and Fairington and I don't think we would be that upset about Ferrington having to come in from time to time to play some minutes for Peter Musa. So. [00:23:32] Speaker A: And obviously pause will be in goal. You didn't say that. [00:23:35] Speaker C: Of course I did not say that. But that's of course it looks like for the sake of argument, if I had to guess today, I'm going to say Michael Collodi will be on the bench as the number two. I think that's as much about Collode's mindset and experience. He's a few years older. He's played more games than Antonio. Maybe Antonio needs a little bit of playing time in a league better than North Texas sc, you know, so stay tuned on that. Being on who makes more benches. But they need to try and figure out how to get Antonia Cara some games because I don't know that him playing for North Texas doesn't anybody any good anymore. You got to get that kid some minutes. He's only 20, right? So, you know, plenty of time for Antonio Chris to develop. Whereas Clody at his age is like 24ish, much more reliable and confident and composed and to be the number two. [00:24:25] Speaker A: So thinking back and again, kind of going back to the comment that I don't feel like any of us have really a good grasp on how this preseason has gone. Do we have a sense as to who had a really solid spring showed well or somebody that didn't, you know, like, oh my God, this guy is not fit or fat or just not playing well, not fitting in well? Do we have any sensibility about that? [00:24:52] Speaker C: I don't particularly. Quill pushed a lot of fitness work pretty hard, pretty aggressively. We haven't seen a ton of game action. You know, one of the of the minutes we've seen, I'm not super confident in that center back pair. Particularly a booba card makes me really nervous is one reason why I feel like you might as well go with the other guy. Shaq Moore came in a little bit late, but obviously he looks like he's been there. You know, been there, done that. That's what he's doing. Doesn't really look phased at all. And to me, Anderson, Julio looks really sharp. He looks like he's he and legit look the most ready to go. Most game ready to go. From the one game we saw, I thought both of those guys looked really solid and locked in and dialed in. You know, Ramiro being hurt, really hurt. Cafe Mona Being missing is a big question mark. Packs, I mean, missiles. Obviously it is what it is, but we hope that that's going to be a valuable piece at some point this season. So the biggest underlying factor is I think you're still sort of short of center back. I think right now you're really short in midfield of some bodies. Other than the people we think are starting up front, who do you really have? It's all, it's all kids now. That's what we wanted, right? We wanted kids, we wanted young guys. But those guys are unproven. They're gonna have to do some things to make us really feel confident. So in the meantime, you know, we kind of are, you know, Logan Ferrington is going to be playing a lot of minutes off the bench because he's a little bit older, a little more comfortable, a little more confident. And was your leading assist guy last year coming off the bench? Mostly. So, yeah, I. [00:26:20] Speaker A: To me, the biggest question about this season is who's going to play and who's going to. Who's going to be the Alara Mendy replacement? Because a lot of what helped a pretty poor defensive effort last season was Alara Mendy and now he's gone. And, and even if you're working under the assumption the new center back is really quality and they've got themselves a CB1 or CB2 in that guy and he's, you know, a real positive. And even if you want to say Ibiaga is a serviceable center back. Okay. I still think Dallas has got a lot of problems if. If Sebastian Legette and seeking settling. Are you trying to double up to play, you know, double pivot six or something? [00:27:13] Speaker C: Well, it seems like Ramiro is. Yeah. I mean his replacement and I guess we'll find out if he's anywhere near the player that. Yeah, Mindy is. [00:27:22] Speaker A: But he's not a six by his nature though. He's kind of like a all. He's like a. A multi tool kind of. [00:27:28] Speaker C: Yeah, he's a fielder right six, eight wide mid wide back, you know, can play all over the place. Even played some wing, probably even played some 10. You know, Zenoda talked. Talked about him being a guy who makes everybody around him better. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:40] Speaker C: So I think that's the look. I mean Kafumana is also sort of 6ish, 8ish. I mean legit's not a 6 at all, so. [00:27:48] Speaker A: And neither is in settling. [00:27:50] Speaker C: Right. It's gonna have to be. I mean, right now it has to be Ramiro. Unless Nolan Norris is Going to come in and play a bunch, which is all, you know, entirely possible. Maybe. And maybe we're about to witness the Nolan Norris era. You never know. [00:28:00] Speaker A: So, you know, I just at that idea. [00:28:03] Speaker C: Yeah. So Norris probably is on the bench because he's the only guy you have other than Ramiro, who's a 6ish in profile. You know, seeking sapling really is more just like legit 8 10. So you need. So is Delgado like. I think Delgado is all 10, but other people think he's 8 10. Well, those, those guys are all that same spot. It's the other spot that Ramiro Kaivamana Norris, that's like, okay, what do they have there? Well, who's gonna step up? I mean, right now it's got to be Romero. And he can't go. He probably can't go more than maybe 55 or 60 coming off that 30 minutes last week. Okay, does that mean Norris is coming in and playing 30 minutes? You know, are we ready for that? You know, so there's lots of questions in this team. All over this team. There's lots of questions, you know, about half the lineup, I think looks pretty. [00:28:48] Speaker A: Locked in because Dan is the emotional one on this podcast. So, Dan, my question for you, and you can wear your emotions on your sleeve. Are you more A, more excited about the Lucho Acosta and Peter Musa pairing or B, are you more concerned about a particular missing spot or weak spot that's still in the lineup? [00:29:14] Speaker B: Oh, that's a tough one. I don't know whether to be offended by that, by the way. [00:29:18] Speaker A: Why would you be offended? [00:29:21] Speaker C: Because you called him emotional. [00:29:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I heard. Emotional wreck. I mean, come on. [00:29:26] Speaker A: That's not what I said. [00:29:29] Speaker B: I'm, I'm inclined to be more excited on a curious level than just like, hey, I drank the Kool Aid. It's all gonna be wonderful. [00:29:41] Speaker A: It's about the pairing of Acosta and Musa. [00:29:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. If you can get Pet Musa, as you know, with that fantastic debut season and no sophomore slump, if you can get something resembling 20, 23 MLS MVP Lucho Acosta, that could be incredible. The flip side of it is, do you aim to win every game for three? [00:30:11] Speaker A: That would be a kick ass season, by the way. [00:30:15] Speaker B: Oh, we're here for it. [00:30:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be interesting. As, as I mentioned earlier, there's a bunch of, you know, it's this time of year, everybody's making their predictions and let's see, which one did I read today? Soccer America had Dallas at 22 overall in the league, said the Back line is quote unquote horrendous. Somebody else, Joe Lowry had them winning the wooden switch Spoon and then I saw several of the soccer wise and MLS guys have them as high. I think the highest I've seen anybody predict Dallas so far is sixth. [00:30:52] Speaker C: Six feels a little high wind. Spoon feels a little low. I, I, I, I may I, I might feel and find the defense is shambolic to be relatively close. We don't really have a lot of super confidence. I mean Marco Farfield is a defensive first player, solid defender but not elite. You know how I feel about Sebastian Miaga. We have no idea if the new guy can play at all. And Abubakar is kind of tailing off quickly and Shaq Moore, while an offensive upgrade is not that great of a defender. We don't know who the six is. So like the whole they're right about the defense being a mess now it may be like six months from now. He may be like oz is amazing. What a great signing. This defense is so good. Keep in mind too that Eric Quill is going to play a high risk offensive explosion game and he's going to expose his defense. It's a tactical choice to take risks and play risky soccer and counter press quickly and hope that you don't get ripped in transition, you know, and once you don't counter press then you can sit back and get in that block and they'll be better once they get in the block. But transition defense is going to be tough in the get go in the early. Right. Because they don't have Tafari anymore. And we, while the, while Irigato looks good on tape in terms of quickness, how does that really react in terms of live MLS pace? You know, are Shaq Moore going to get caught up all the time? Is he going to get back? You know, there are lots of questions on defense. So. [00:32:24] Speaker A: This is suddenly starting to sound like post kogloo and spurs. [00:32:28] Speaker C: Is it? I don't know if that's first that's true or not. [00:32:32] Speaker A: Dan, Dan got that joke. [00:32:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:34] Speaker B: Actually on that subject, it's not really on that subject at all. But in, in FC Dallas better than you think. News. Kailyn Kyle gave FC Dallas a new high fifth in the Western Conference. [00:32:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:48] Speaker C: She's drinking the Lucio Costa Kool Aid. Yeah, that's fun. [00:32:52] Speaker A: Fifth. Okay. All right. Well now I like her more. [00:32:55] Speaker C: Well, should we do our predictions? Are we after that? [00:32:57] Speaker A: Well, no, what I wanted to talk about before we get into predictions and stuff, I guess that is where I think this is what I've been thinking about since last week with this Acosta thing, which is, is Lucho Acosta enough of an addition to suddenly have all of us change our mood and attitude about where this team is? Because I swear, the only difference, I mean, two weeks ago we were all really worried about this season and whether or not they'd be anywhere close to being a playoff team. [00:33:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:31] Speaker A: And we pretty much had all of these players in mind, including the center back, because we've known Buzz, we've known about this guy for a better part of a month now. We didn't talk about it on the podcast because we couldn't, but we've known this guy was coming. So is even when we were like, I, God, I think this season's going to be really rough, that was with this guy in mind. [00:33:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:55] Speaker A: So is Lucho Acosta enough to push us all into some sort of new delirious, hey, this is a solid playoff team line of thinking? [00:34:07] Speaker C: Well, you remember I was saying that I thought Quill, even without Lucho Casa, was going to have them competing, you know, just outside the playoffs and maybe possibly for that last spot. I think Lucho Casa is a multiple points in the standings change. You know, you look at his numbers in MLS, he's had over 10 goals 4 of the last 6 seasons in MLS. He's had double figures, assists in 5 of the 7 seasons he's been in MLS. The dude is a legit locked in 30 games, knock on wood, every season player he produces year after year after year without fail. Again, knock on wood. So I think you can pretty comfortably say that like every year he's done more goals and assists, pure production than Ferreira, Velasco and and Paula did other than Jesus's 18 goal season. You know, those guys combined weren't doing what Lucho's doing. So Lucho is definitely an impactful player. I think you're looking at a three or four position swing just on getting that guy in the standings. Does that make them an MLS cup competitor? No. No way in hell. But it significantly alters my perception of how good the team is just with one player. [00:35:27] Speaker B: I think as well, like, you know, you look at the knock on effect with the players alongside. Talked about Anderson, Julio and when he came in there was a lot of yeah, he had some really good spots for rsl. When he came off the bench, he obviously had his was it one or two goal game here last year? Bernie Camungo, can he kind of get back into first season Bernie now that he's playing back under quilt. Well, Acosta is going to take a lot of the defensive responsibility. Well, opposition defensive responsibility off those two and in some ways, Musa, because hey, you've got to concentrate on, on a league mvp. You just, you can't let him just have the ball. So you know you're going to have like. What was the useless guy who is the Belgian one? [00:36:18] Speaker A: Oh yeah, what was his name? [00:36:20] Speaker B: But remember he scored that hat trick. [00:36:23] Speaker A: Come on, Buzz. It's the guy that you. That was terrible. Except he would score goals. [00:36:28] Speaker C: Roland Lamar. [00:36:29] Speaker B: That was it. But remember, he scored that hat trick purely because the opposition defense was like, he's crap. We're going to mark everyone else. And then he just sneaks in the back post and gets a tap him. [00:36:39] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. All right, I want to read a quote for you guys and you tell me whose quote this is. This is a landmark signing for FC Dallas and a statement of commitment to building a championship caliber team. Bringing in a player of Lucho's caliber, an MVP and proven leader demonstrates ambition and desire to compete at the highest level. Close quote. Whose quote was that? [00:37:10] Speaker B: The second you said championship caliber? That is Mr. Daniel J. Hunt, is it? [00:37:17] Speaker A: You are correct. That was Dan Hunt, president of FC Dallas Football Burn Club. [00:37:24] Speaker C: Do you agree? [00:37:25] Speaker A: It's an interesting quote. Huh? [00:37:27] Speaker C: Do you agree? [00:37:28] Speaker A: I think we're. I, I think it's an interesting quote because I appreciate the fact. I find it interesting that the word ambition has been used because I don't know how often I've ever heard and I, maybe I'm wrong about this. So I don't want to be too definitive about this. I don't know if I've ever heard Dan or Clark use ambition before. And I know that we've talked about it a lot. A lot of other people have talked. I'm not saying this is like them reacting to Buzz or I'm just saying just hearing Dan talk about demonstrating their ambition and wanting to compete at the highest level and using phrases like championship caliber and statement of our commitment is all very interesting because I don't think I've ever, I mean, I've heard Dan Hunt be very hyperbolic and over the top and we're bringing in substantial attacking reinforcements and it turns out to be some guy from a second division Israeli league, you know, and so I, you know where I'm going with all this? [00:38:29] Speaker C: I, I think that the actual part of the Lucio signing that is a bit of a statement on that part is Lucio's salary. Because that 4 million combined comp blows away the previous high of 3 million for Frank O'Hara by, by a mill. [00:38:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:47] Speaker C: Or more so that they, they've got this guy through 26 of the 27 option. So this is a three year probably commitment to, you know, a $4 million salary. That is a new level of salary spending on their part. So I give them this one. [00:39:04] Speaker A: But hold on, hold on. I had, I, I had this. So glad you brought this up because this dawned on me the other day because I was feeling pretty saucy for the hunt. Spending $4 million on salary at one guy. But in selling off Jesus Ferreira, Paul Areola and other players, how much money in salary did they save this off season? [00:39:23] Speaker C: Jesus was over two and Paul was under two. Jesus might have been three, some might have been five, you know. Yes. In terms of the savings that they've made. Absolutely. But I also don't think that they're done. You know, it is a multiple year commitment to Lucio and I think that there will be more pieces like they have an open DP slot. Right. So, you know, now granted, there was talk they were going to go 2, 4. Okay, that's a savings. But as we move, like, it's not like you're going to get rid of Peter Musa anytime soon unless some crazy offer comes in for him. Right. So like, you know, they are spending more money on. Presumably the center back that they bought is going to have a TAM level salary. So like there, there is the same level of spend in general, I think, I don't think like this is a massive reduction in spend across the board. You know, it's a little. It was a, it was a reduction in the mechanics. They cut some salaries in order through cap mechanics and able to get them to get new pieces in a cost is one piece. We need to see more pieces. But Anderson, Julio's at a max salary. Leo choose pretty high. You know, Ramiro, we don't know he's going to be. But you know, these are not necessarily the cheapest pieces on the world. [00:40:36] Speaker A: No, but you can see that if they don't add players between the money they say between Areola, Velasco and, and Jesus. Just because you paid Lucho Acosta 4 million bucks doesn't mean suddenly now you've blown out your wage bill. You may have just been awash at that point. You may have even saved a little bit. So that is why waiting to see what this roster looks like come summertime is really the important part of it. When we finally get to look at the MLS salary numbers when they get released later this year. [00:41:06] Speaker C: Well, like I said, Lucio, cost is just one piece. All right? I mean, they're, you know, if you're going to bring back three DPS eventually, probably that's going to be a high salary. [00:41:14] Speaker A: But here we are, we're at the beginning of the season. You know, the season starts, everybody. [00:41:18] Speaker C: It's a multi year project too though, right? Yeah. [00:41:20] Speaker A: Nobody wants to hear about a process. Buzz, we want to win a trophy. Yeah, I know we want to win. [00:41:24] Speaker C: Try to keep it real, dude. Try to keep it grounded. [00:41:29] Speaker B: Can I just make a quick apology? I, I, I claimed that Dan Hunt's middle initial was J. It is, in fact. L. I am, I am sorry about that. [00:41:39] Speaker A: Is that dyslexia? Like the letter direction dyslexia? [00:41:43] Speaker B: No, it is. I think there's a politician who's, Whose name is Daniel J. Hunt, and I. Yeah, it's a character. [00:41:50] Speaker A: On the Simpsons or something like that. [00:41:54] Speaker B: No, that would be Lionel Huts. [00:41:57] Speaker A: Okay, well, I guess, Buzz, it is time for predictions. Let's get through predictions so we can do kit talk. [00:42:02] Speaker C: Yeah, let's do it. [00:42:03] Speaker A: When you say, oh, these are league level. Yeah, League wide predictions. I was looking at your crayon was a little wild. [00:42:11] Speaker C: Sorry. [00:42:11] Speaker A: A little MLS cup winners buzz. Who's winning MLS cup this year? [00:42:17] Speaker C: All right, I'm going to be really boring. Inter Miami's winning MLS cup. They're going to feel aggrieved over last year's failure and they're going to put it all together and this year's their cup. The most cup. [00:42:27] Speaker B: It's also Messi's last guaranteed year. He's got the option for 20, 26, but, you know, I mean, he might want to, he might want to call it early and go out of a bang. You never know. [00:42:37] Speaker A: All right, I'm having Seattle win MLS cup this year. [00:42:43] Speaker C: So, Dan, was that, were you in on Miami too? Was that what you were saying? [00:42:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:42:46] Speaker C: Seattle's a good shout. They got a deep roster. That's really going to help them. Yeah. [00:42:50] Speaker A: All right, so I have, I have Seattle winning MLS cup and I also have them winning supporter shield. [00:42:57] Speaker C: Seattle for the shield too, for the double this year. [00:43:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:43:01] Speaker C: I'm, I'm also going Inter Miami for the double. I, I think that they're going to win the shield too. I really think this is the year it all comes together for them. [00:43:08] Speaker B: I'm gonna go with Cincinnati. It seems like they've kind of got that attack rolling now. And bringing Evander in Might just kind of push him back there. [00:43:18] Speaker A: Okay, the Golden Boot. Who will get the Golden Boot? [00:43:25] Speaker B: Well, I'm not gonna do the Swedish Chef voice, but I've got Evander versus Messi in, like, a little knockdown, drag out. Fun. Absolute mess. [00:43:37] Speaker A: Really. Okay. Yeah, that was an interesting little banger he hit for Cincinnati and Champions cup last night. I saw that one off the post. Yeah, that was good. My Golden Boot winner is going to be Christian Benteke, please. I'll take him. [00:43:57] Speaker C: That's a good one. That's a good one. [00:44:00] Speaker A: No, no, I'm switching. I forgot Wilfred Zaha is playing in Charlotte. Do I want to just throw a wild card out there and say, yeah. [00:44:09] Speaker C: You could do that. [00:44:10] Speaker A: He's gonna go nutso. No, I'll stick with Benteke. [00:44:13] Speaker C: So I'm gonna go with Dennis Biaga. I think LAFC will climb back up a little bit and rebound. I think he's gonna have a lot of goals this year. [00:44:21] Speaker A: Dig it. Open Cup. Who still cares about Open Cup? Buzz? [00:44:26] Speaker B: Everyone. [00:44:29] Speaker C: I have, because sporty Kansas City is not in it. I have FC Dallas getting to Open cup final and losing to Orlando in the final. [00:44:38] Speaker A: What a story. [00:44:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I got a whole story and everything. [00:44:42] Speaker A: Amazing. Amazing. All right, Dan, who do you have winning Open Cup? [00:44:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think when the. When the participants were released and there wasn't Sporting Kansas City there to knock out FC Dallas in the cruelest fashion, that immediately put them one foot in the final. [00:45:02] Speaker C: Okay, so you think they're winning it, then? FC Dallas? [00:45:05] Speaker B: Oh, you know, that would involve seeing what other MLS teams are going to come in on that. Yeah, screw it. Let's go with it. [00:45:12] Speaker A: All right, here are FC Dallas predictions. Let's see. All right, this is the big one. Buzz, you get to go first. What position in the west will Dallas finish up now? [00:45:27] Speaker C: They've added Acosta. I moved them up three or four spots, so I have them in fifth or sixth in the West. Maybe down to seven. Five to seven. Is that. Can I do a band of three spots? Five to seven? [00:45:40] Speaker A: No. [00:45:41] Speaker C: Okay, five's too high. Six and seven. Can I have six and seven? [00:45:43] Speaker A: Just. No, pick one number. This is the game. Pick a number. [00:45:47] Speaker C: Six in the West, Dan. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Well, I also had a band of numbers, but I'll just go with. With ninth. I think three through 15 is so difficult to pick. [00:45:59] Speaker A: And is it. Is it still nine teams get in to the. The nine and ten go or eight and nine of the. Yeah, okay. You had them where, Dan? Nine, nine. [00:46:10] Speaker B: Scraping in the playoffs. [00:46:11] Speaker A: You're Such a pessimist. [00:46:13] Speaker B: Sorry. Not the playoffs, the postseason. You know, let's have that argument again. [00:46:16] Speaker C: No, not again. I'm editing it out if you do. [00:46:19] Speaker A: Good Lord, Dan, you're such a pessimist. I can't believe you have him as low as ninth. I mean, I have him in eighth. [00:46:26] Speaker B: Wow. What the hell happened? [00:46:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I would have said ninth if you had said eighth, so. But I have them squeaking into the play in tournament. How about that? So look at me being shiny and. [00:46:40] Speaker B: Positive, sponsored by Audi. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Who will be the team's mvp? [00:46:47] Speaker B: Dan, I'm going to be boring and say Lucha. [00:46:50] Speaker A: Okay, Buzz. [00:46:53] Speaker C: I will also take the boring answer. Lucha Acosta. The guy's got way too much of a track record of gold and assist combinations to probably pass that up. [00:47:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's probably true. I want to be different. I'm gonna say Musa just to throw in a different name, but you guys are probably right. New player, rookie of the year. Buzz, that sounds like this is not fair, because it doesn't. Isn't Lucho technically a new player? [00:47:21] Speaker C: I mean, yeah, you could be. I mean, I'm gonna say Shaq Moore because I don't think. I don't think Enzo Newman is going to have enough playing time, like, as the high draft pick to get much of an impact. And Diego Garcia I'm excited about for the future. Pedrinho is kind of interesting, but, like, can I. So can I count Shaq Moore as a new player? I think he's a, you know, six assist guy. Bombing on the wing probably like, that's pretty impactful. [00:47:44] Speaker A: What about you, Dan? [00:47:45] Speaker B: I'm gonna go twofold new, new player. Newcomers in, like, new to the league. Must say Asazi as a new. As a. As a center back, I think he's got a much easier transition to MLS and, you know, many of the forward positions. I personally liked what I've seen from Enzo in preseason. I think, you know, given he's kind of that cover for both fullback positions. All it takes is. Is an injury or Marco Farfan to not quite pick up his form and he might get that run in the side that kind of propels him into that position. [00:48:24] Speaker A: Okay, Mine is the rebuilt $6 million Paxton Palm call, like, where your heart's at, who will be coming back at us mid season and play so lights out so well, he will qualify as new players. [00:48:40] Speaker C: You're kind of going with a comeback player as your player. Yeah, yeah, that's fair enough. [00:48:44] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll love that story so much, it'll qualify all right, Defensive mvp Dan. [00:48:50] Speaker B: I'm a go with Ramiro. I kind of like what I've seen from him so far in. In that sense. [00:48:55] Speaker A: Okay, Buzz Martin. [00:48:56] Speaker C: Pause. He's gonna bail him out five or six times a game, some saves. Yeah, I don't think it's an easy one. He's gonna get peppered. [00:49:06] Speaker A: I'm gonna be pos. I'm gonna. I look, I'm gonna look up again. I. I think it's gonna be. Oh, I. I think he. I think this new guy is going to be legit and we're all going to be really, really pleasantly surprised with how well scouted out he was and what a quality fine and signing he turned out to be. [00:49:21] Speaker C: Wow. You guys are all about the new guy. Yeah. [00:49:24] Speaker A: Time for outlandish predictions. Who wants to go first with the outlandish prediction? This could be FC Dallas or league wide. [00:49:32] Speaker C: You do whatever you want. It's almost outlandish. [00:49:34] Speaker A: That's what qualifies it as outlandish. Dan, would you like to go first with your outlandish prediction? [00:49:39] Speaker C: Sure. [00:49:40] Speaker B: I'm going to say the Los Angeles Football Galaxy of Carson will miss the playoffs due to no Ricky Puge, no Joseph Paintsil for all of Spring Day. And Yevlich is gone. Marky Delgado's gone, whatever his name. Brigman's gone. They're missing a few pieces there and just a couple extra injuries. Maybe Marco Royce hobbles around the field or something. And they could lose out in a very weird Western Conference. [00:50:14] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:50:15] Speaker B: Okay, just to note the year I said Seattle wouldn't make the playoffs, they won MLS Cup. So, you know. [00:50:24] Speaker A: Oh, well, here is my outlandish prediction. Note that I did not have Miami winning MLS cup or the Shield. And that is because I will predict that Lionel Messi will suffer a season, if not career ending injury before for the midpoint of the season. [00:50:41] Speaker B: Oh, so many Apple TV subscriptions were just canceled. [00:50:45] Speaker C: Stuck on you, buzzkill. It's ridiculous. Killing all the mojo. [00:50:51] Speaker A: Although, after watching him goof off last night in the -3 degrees in Kansas City and do that amazing skill move to score the winning goal, I'm probably really stupid for having written that one down a week ago and saving it for tonight. [00:51:05] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:51:07] Speaker A: Because if there was ever a time I'd ever thought I'd see Messi mail it in, it was on a night like last night. [00:51:13] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:51:14] Speaker A: Then, you know, he just decided to do that for about all of 5 seconds and won the game. [00:51:19] Speaker C: So he mailed it in for 89 minutes. And then he gave me one minute of greatness. [00:51:22] Speaker A: What kind of idiot am I? [00:51:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Okay, Buzz, what's your outlandish prediction? [00:51:27] Speaker C: Peter Musa will have 15 goals by the summer and be sold for $20 million in the summer window. [00:51:35] Speaker A: Whoa. [00:51:36] Speaker B: And you're back to being buzzkill. [00:51:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Will we be mad about that? [00:51:41] Speaker C: No, because that's a fair price. I mean, It'll stink, but 20 million from Peter Musa is fair. We paid 13 for him. [00:51:51] Speaker A: So does that mean. Is that when the Lucho Acosta freak out, break breaking fallout with the front office happens when they sell off his 15 goal scorer in 3 month guy? [00:52:03] Speaker C: Very possible. But I think Logan Ferrington's pretty solid and by then Anderson, Julio, and maybe somebody else will be have some goals in them too. And I would imagine that when you sell a guy for 20 million, just like last time they sold a guy for 20 million, they will then say, don't worry, we're going to buy another guy for 10 to 13 million. So I'm sure there will be a guy. I imagine there'll be some kerfuffles, if at all, if my prediction comes true. But I'm expecting it to go so well with the Costa Musa that Moose's price will go out of here in the summer. [00:52:39] Speaker A: All right, well, there's all your FC Dallas stuff. They start the season the 30th season of your Dallas Burn FC football club. 7:30 down in Houston. The Texas Darby. Let's go Rodeo. Are they wearing the Burn Baby Burn kits or are they wearing the red kits? Do you know? [00:52:58] Speaker C: Don't know. [00:52:58] Speaker A: We don't. We don't know yet. Okay. Or the purple kits, whatever we want to call it. All right, real quick. Trinity's restarted their season last Saturday at the Cotton bowl against Tampa Bay. And as predictable as sunrise, they drew the game and Lexi Misimo scored within the first three minutes of her professional debut. Just went exactly according as we all thought it would. [00:53:25] Speaker C: Yeah, it might have been her first touch of the game. It was only touch of the game because she was at the ball after that. [00:53:30] Speaker A: No, no. In fact, I think she might have touched the ball three times in the entire first half. And one of that, two of those touches was the touch receiving the pass and the second touch was passing it into the back of the goal. [00:53:42] Speaker C: Yeah, they did not do a very good job of getting her the ball in danger positions. You know, they. They have done a lot of work last fall playing around the outside, and if you listen to her higher press conference, she even Mentioned how much she liked Lexi. Did. How much she liked how they played down the sides and, you know, and she was hoping to be able to have freedom in the middle, but then they didn't get her the ball. You know, they have a really good six. The other. Other third person in the midfield did not do a good job linking between Amber Brooks and Lexi. Massimo. So I think that's going to be something to watch. The. The Nigerian young lady whose name I cannot remember all of a sudden, who came in the second half. Half, I thought was better at that. But that obviously is a project that will need some tweaking, that tactic in order to get the most out of Massimo, I think. [00:54:32] Speaker A: Well, I will say, considering all the pressure and the situation, the circumstance, how quickly. Quickly it happened in the game. Yeah, we have all seen players with way more experience and playing at a way higher level for longer than she has completely blow an opportunity like that. And she took it like a champ without even blinking. She didn't sweat an ounce on it. So congratulations to her, and it's a great finish. They need to win games. They're going to draw themselves to death. Although everybody else in the league is drawing, so whatever. All right, so they play. I think they got a game again this Saturday at the Cotton Bowl. [00:55:12] Speaker C: They do. Against the Spokane Zephyrs. [00:55:14] Speaker A: That's right, the smoking Zephyrs. [00:55:18] Speaker C: Sure. [00:55:19] Speaker A: All right. Is it time, guys? Is it time? Is it time? Is it time? It's time for Kit Talk. I love it. This has been a good week for Tick Tit. It's been a good time. [00:55:35] Speaker C: Has it, though? [00:55:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's been a good time for Tit for Kit Talk, because I got invited onto a. A kit podcast from three guys from England. Well, one guy from Ireland and two guys from England. And, Dan, you would have loved it. They were great guys because they were wanting to do a retrospective of the original 101996 pairs of MLS kits. And we got to talk about that. And if you go check it out, because I was their guest, they asked me. They always do, like, a bespoke badge or episode badge. And they asked me what my favorite 96 MLS kit was. And lo and behold, the Dallas Burn away white and guacamole green shirt is sporting the badge on the badge. So go check that out. I'll send. I'll post links in different places. You guys can go check it out. All right. Overall, how are we feeling about the 2025 Adidas collection of MLS kits? Buzz? [00:56:31] Speaker C: I think it's a pretty good rack of kits. I mean, you know, there's some that are a little boring, but for most part they all have a little bit something going on, some, some branding, carrying through some consistencies. I, you know, overall, not bad. I don't, I don't love the horns on the template thing, but some of the teams did better than others in terms of adapting those into nice looking things. [00:56:50] Speaker A: Dan, what about you? What do you think? [00:56:52] Speaker B: You know, I'm looking at the, the 2024 kits and the 2025 and I like the 2025s better. I think there's, there's definitely a lower low end, but I think there are some absolute crackers, you know, kind of at the top end of those kits. [00:57:11] Speaker A: You know, I was thinking we've told the story that the word on the street is, is that the original submission to Dallas was so bad the Hunts paid the money for them to go back and redo it. And that's what we ended up getting was this thing which is almost an identical replica except for color changes to what like you know, LAFC shirt and D.C. united's and Chicago and the Red Bull and so I'm just wondering how many other teams do we suspect out of this group, out of these 30 shirts or 31, whatever the final number is, may have done the same thing Dallas did. [00:57:50] Speaker C: I mean, a pure guess. I mean it's, it's not, it's not nothing in terms of the money it takes to do that. You know, the team has to pay for the change. So I, I don't know the number that it is. I know that it's, I think that this is the only time Dallas has ever done it. So I, you know, it's probably relatively rare. You know, even though there's some teams that have similar kind of vibes, most of them that from memory really quickly, most of them seem to have a pattern in the horn, for example. So I feel like that those were there probably from the get go of the concept, you know, whereas the Dallas one is just red and blue. Yeah, you know. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm with you there. There are, there is some subtle pattern in just about everyone. I think, you know, with Dallas it's a very standard collar. For the TR25, it's the same. You know, the panels are going to be the same regardless. They might just be. D.C. has that really cool pattern that like street art pattern in, in theirs. I think the only ones that really are comparable or maybe San Diego's away kit, the white with the, the baby blue, which, you know they're on a rush job to get two kits out anyway. [00:58:59] Speaker A: Right. San Diego, I'm not counting. Just because they weren't in the cycle. [00:59:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I think other than that it's the Nashville away very plain navy with the yellow and then the LAFCs. Well, LAFC has the, the fold over collar, so I don't know if theirs was necessarily a part of that. Portland, maybe they've got a very basic kit that, that very dark green with the gold accents. But that's also their 50th anniversary, so they may have chosen to go with. With that very plain, classic clean look. [00:59:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting. Well, somebody in the Discord shared a really cool tool where you could do a little like survey and they would compare two kits and you'd run through the entire system until you actually ended up with a ranking and it would generate a graphic for. For you on how your ranking of kits was. And that was a lot of fun. So sitting here and looking at all of them, I mean, did you guys do that by chance? [00:59:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I was really surprised of how mine came out because it's like just, just ranking them like you know, 1 through. Was it 24, 32. Oh, how however many they actually release. Oh yeah, 32. You're right. Just ranking them like 1 through 32. I. It came out a lot different than I thought it would. Yeah. FC Dallas featured a lot higher than I thought. I think. Whose was lower? Orlando's was a lot lower than I thought. Houston. Portland's kind of plain one was a lot higher than I thought it would be. I like that idea. That whole like, you know, doing one on one kit battles and seeing what really comes out. [01:00:38] Speaker A: Buzz, did you try it? [01:00:39] Speaker C: I did not, but I'm going to now. [01:00:41] Speaker A: Oh, you should. Yeah. I, My. I ended up with Seattle number one, Portland two Inter, Miami three Inter. Miami's pink one ended up higher than I thought it would. And I didn't think it would outrank Salt Lakes which I had at 4 4. Dallas ended up last for me and I, I feel pretty strongly I don't. San Diego's. I can't hold against them because they weren't part of the cycles. So. Debut shirts. I never hold against anybody. But I will say this. Well, we'll. Let's just run through the kits individually while Buzz does this. We'll. We'll just do them. [01:01:11] Speaker C: I'm not gonna do it right now. [01:01:12] Speaker A: Okay. We'll do it in alphabetical order. The five stripes, Atlanta United, the connector kit they're calling it. Any comments or thoughts about this. [01:01:21] Speaker C: Yeah. I like the fact that they made the stripes wider again, so there actually are five stripes on the front of the jersey or not. It's very bold and chunky, which I think really helps. That look good. [01:01:29] Speaker B: Use of gold as well on the trim. [01:01:31] Speaker A: Yep. I guess we're going to say. My only comment is. Is I. It's. I don't know why I haven't dawned on me, but I guess the reality is Atlanta's main color is black, and red is the accent color, because the back panel of the shirt is not red. It's black. [01:01:46] Speaker B: Didn't they go the other way around on their last one? [01:01:48] Speaker A: I don't remember. [01:01:50] Speaker C: I don't remember either. And sometimes the whole black panel, back panel thing, to me, I can't stand that. But it is what it is. As long as you like being punishing somebody for a back panel, it's not really their fault they're being required to have a back panel. Yeah, but you're right. This one is more black than it is red. [01:02:06] Speaker A: Well, getting away from the Negro comes in Austin fc, who I am delighted with their shirt this year. I love the offset vertical stripes of the green, and I love the fact that the back panel is not black, but green. [01:02:22] Speaker C: Verde, this is a really good one. This, again, like, the continuation of their very solid theme. And the. The vertical stripes are. Are, you know, close enough green that it's. They're playing off each other really well. It doesn't have, like, a really weird green as one of the greens. That's a very solid kit. [01:02:39] Speaker A: Do we know what color shorts they're wearing with this? Have we seen, by any chance? [01:02:43] Speaker C: I have not. [01:02:45] Speaker A: I'm gonna. I would like it if they wore it with black shorts. [01:02:47] Speaker C: Yes. I would agree with that. [01:02:50] Speaker A: By the way, the little. The little. The little emblem down on the. On the bottom of the shirt. Have you seen that? It's the beating heart emblem. Have you seen that up close? That's a really cool detail. [01:03:01] Speaker C: I have not, but I'm aware of that, them doing that shtick, you know, And I think it works pretty well. [01:03:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Looks good. Okay, next up, do we want to give letter grades for these? Do we care? We don't care that much. [01:03:13] Speaker C: No. I just think we're kind of talking about the highlights and the low lights of them. [01:03:16] Speaker A: Charlotte has their cool shirt, which is called the fortress kit. The more I see this, especially depending on how it's photographed, the more I like this shirt. [01:03:28] Speaker B: I have a big problem with us, you know, where we Talk about how, like, sometimes, you know, we. We gave the FC Dallas one the kind of benefit of doubt maybe the shorts and socks will even make it or break it as a jersey, I think it's fantastic. As part of a kit, it's terrible because you've got that really flat black shorts and socks that suddenly don't go with the shirt. [01:03:53] Speaker C: I'm not a fan of an all black look, particularly an all black kit, because from the stands, this is just an all black kit. And it's not even an all black kit with good color highlights. It's just black with silver trim. [01:04:05] Speaker B: That's the problem I think I have because it's got a really cool, like, embossed pattern which makes it look almost like dark gray with black shorts. And you're like, well, that doesn't make any sense. [01:04:15] Speaker C: Yeah, I like the pattern and I like close up. Like, as a street wear, I think it'll be nice. But like, as a kit, I think this is terrible. [01:04:22] Speaker A: I like the Carolina blue highlight color, though. [01:04:25] Speaker C: But it's only a tiny little piece on the neck. [01:04:28] Speaker A: It's on the side, too, on the image. [01:04:31] Speaker C: I can't see that. [01:04:31] Speaker A: There's a side panel. [01:04:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the side panel on the website is black. [01:04:36] Speaker A: Oh, the one I'm looking at in the picture I have, it looks like it's blue. Maybe it's on one side or it's towards the back. I don't know. Your point is taken. It's not enough. Okay, next up, Chicago fire in the municipal can hit. [01:04:52] Speaker B: It's okay. [01:04:53] Speaker C: Yeah, it's kind of boring. I don't. I don't know what this sort of V pattern is. You know, it's. It's on the emblem on the back, too. So there's probably something I'm missing contextually, but to me represents the north, south. [01:05:05] Speaker A: And Main branches of the Chicago river and their confluence at Wolf Point. [01:05:10] Speaker C: Okay. I guess that doesn't. Doesn't really look like it's me, but okay. [01:05:14] Speaker A: Is that how. Is that how everybody reacted to the. The. The. The Burns reunion kit with the little light pattern? [01:05:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:05:21] Speaker A: From Union Tower. [01:05:22] Speaker C: Yeah, probably so. [01:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah, sure, whatever. [01:05:25] Speaker C: Like this berries? Yeah. I mean, this is. To me, it's just like, you know, it's just a light blue kid with dark blue trim. [01:05:32] Speaker A: You know, it's got a little red on the collar. Okay. [01:05:35] Speaker C: Yeah. It's all right. It's okay. [01:05:37] Speaker A: Any Chicago thoughts, Dan? [01:05:40] Speaker B: It's all right. It serves a purpose. I like the pattern. It's not. I didn't realize it had a meaning, so that's kind of cool. I just thought it was one of those generic hexagon patterns that Adidas have been using on some of their teamwear. [01:05:54] Speaker A: Next up. And this was my second least favorite shirt of the year. FC Cincinnati. And this is simply because the orange sash is so stupidly oversized. [01:06:06] Speaker C: Yeah. I applauded the concept of trying to bring the slash from their logo into the kit. I don't like that the blues are different. There are three shades. [01:06:16] Speaker B: It's horrible. [01:06:17] Speaker C: There's four shades because the side panel is different than the bottom, which is different than the color above the blue of the. The slash, and it's different than the sleeve. So I'm counting four shades of blue on this thing. So that's. It's a poor execution of what should have been a concept. [01:06:32] Speaker A: I hate the orange sash so much, I didn't even notice the four shades of blue. [01:06:36] Speaker C: And the orange sash even has triangles in it or something. [01:06:39] Speaker B: I'm kind of a weird, like, awkward sash as well. It's not like the whole shoulder. It's. It's like a. It's kind of under your armpit. It's a boob tube that's fallen down on one side. It's. [01:06:53] Speaker C: I think the angle of it is probably supposed to, again, mimic their badge, but, you know, think about the great river plate or Peru kit and how good slash. Slash is this? Ain't that this is a bad slash. [01:07:03] Speaker B: Or LA Galaxy. [01:07:04] Speaker C: Or LA Galaxy. Who owns slash and really should be, you know, not. Okay. [01:07:10] Speaker A: Yuck. Do not like it. Yeah, fair. Next up, it's the kind of the. Of what I think the Dallas failed bloody Wound shirt would have looked like if it had been red instead of green, which is the Colorado Rapids Headwaters kit. [01:07:28] Speaker C: I don't mind the green because that's a throwback to their original colors. And mls, I think it's an alternate. I think that's okay. I can't tell what this pattern is supposed to be. Is it supposed to be raging water? Is it supposed to be trees? I'm not really sure. [01:07:42] Speaker B: It's just kind of a muddy brass stains. [01:07:44] Speaker C: Is that what it is? [01:07:45] Speaker B: It's a mess. It's to save the kit man's blushes so he doesn't have to worry about washing the kit. [01:07:50] Speaker A: No, it's the. It's the. It's when you're going down the rapids. Buzz. It's the white water. [01:07:56] Speaker C: Yeah. I see the paddles that even says rapids underneath there in some sort of white sublimation. I think, which is not the worst part of it. That's actually kind of like that. [01:08:06] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't even notice that. [01:08:07] Speaker C: Under the UC health. Doesn't it say Rapids under there? That part's okay, but it's like, I can't really tell otherwise. It's just a mishmash of green instead of blue. Rapids. [01:08:18] Speaker A: Maybe it says save me. [01:08:20] Speaker C: Save me. Help me. This shirt is terrible. It's just kind of muddy, you know, Again, this one, like the pics they posted on the website, I thought it was green. Then they show a kid wearing it and it looks blue. So it's kind of like, what is it? You know, I don't know. [01:08:34] Speaker A: You know, two details. First off, did. Did the Rapids rebrand their logo and their crest? And I had totally was unaware of this. Or is this some sort of new secondary logo? [01:08:45] Speaker B: The league has been doing secondary, like, alternate logos on a lot of the kits this year. [01:08:50] Speaker A: I've never seen this one, which on. [01:08:53] Speaker C: Their state flag, I think. [01:08:55] Speaker B: I think FC Dallas would have probably had the ball that's on that reversible jacket because a lot of them have had that. That element this year. The. I'm trying to think of an example now, but I can't. [01:09:07] Speaker A: And this also is featuring the single star. One of the one at the expense of Football Club Dallas in 2010. That hurts. Oui versus Yukadoodle Doo. All right, next up, it is the Goosebumps kit for the Columbus Crew, featuring the glow in the dark accent color. If you hold it underneath a particular ultraviolet light. [01:09:34] Speaker C: I really like. This is a way for me that you do a black kid that has a little bit of interest to it, a little bit into it. The glow in the dark part is really fun. The only part I don't like about that is that the sponsor doesn't glow the same as the numbers. If you saw some of the pics of it, it's like parts of it glow, parts of it don't. So that's not as good. But like, I do like this overall execution of black with some flavor. [01:09:55] Speaker A: I find it interesting that there are no photos of it actually glowing in the dark on the. On the league website and the write up of it? [01:10:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:04] Speaker A: At least not that I can see. But it does make me wonder, will Crew Stadium be outfitted with ultraviolet lights so that when they score score they can flip to that. Oh, like, you know how Austin flips to a green light or something. How cool would that be? [01:10:19] Speaker C: That would be really cool. [01:10:20] Speaker A: And that idea is for sale. [01:10:22] Speaker C: You should be in marketing. [01:10:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I should. Yeah, that would be a cool light. Now, of course, somebody will end up falling over in the dark light and killing themselves, and there'd be a lawsuit on their hands. But that part I'm not liable for. All right, do we. Do we even want to bother talking about the Inferno Kit? [01:10:39] Speaker C: I mean, it's boring. I wonder if all of them are going to come with that little pull on the thing. If that's. That was a feature. [01:10:46] Speaker A: Can I. Can I bring up a point that came into my mind via a method I won't discuss as recently as this morning? How in the world did this club end up introducing something called the Inferno Kit and not have an interview or at least get a quote from somebody in the Inferno? [01:11:06] Speaker C: I think you know the answer to that. [01:11:10] Speaker A: No, I don't. [01:11:14] Speaker C: Just in general, people. [01:11:16] Speaker A: I mean, Dustin. Dustin's like the easiest human being on the Earth to find. [01:11:21] Speaker C: I don't know. I know. There's just not a connection sometimes to the history. They try to, but they don't have it, so. [01:11:27] Speaker A: Okay. The reason why I bring this up is the re. Is the fact that I've been really torn over. I want to be thankful that the club took the time to think about honoring the Inferno, but if you didn't. But then they turn out this really awful, boring kit, and they kind of. It's like. It's like they decided to use the throwaway name on the throwaway jersey because they didn't even go through the hassle of really honoring the Inferno by going out of their way to talk to people that were once in the original support quarters group. [01:11:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:57] Speaker A: Is that. You see where I'm going with all this? [01:11:59] Speaker C: I totally see where you're going, and I don't know what to tell you. [01:12:02] Speaker B: You're right. The. The jersey came before the name. Right. If. If it was honoring the Inferno, you would have, like, the star with the flame on the back instead of the Texas flag. Maybe you would have some element Inferno colors, red and black. Okay. Where you've got a light blue slash gray shirt with navy and red on it. There's no connection there. And because there was never supposed to be a connection. [01:12:25] Speaker C: Yeah, this is more of a tornado get to me than it is a Inferno kit. [01:12:29] Speaker A: Okay. Next up, D.C. united's 2025 Soul Kit. [01:12:37] Speaker B: That's cool. That's how you do a white or light shirt. [01:12:42] Speaker A: The cream color with the street graphics. Yeah. [01:12:46] Speaker B: Like, the elements are just so strong in it. [01:12:49] Speaker A: This is. This is a good example of Buzz's point about sometimes details are wasted because until I saw a decent photo of this kit, I thought it was just kind of a throwaway design like Dallas's, but now that I've seen some real photographs of it where I can actually see the detail now, I agree. It's a really, really cool shirt. [01:13:10] Speaker C: The details on the horns are really nice. I. I wonder, the. The pictures on MLS's website looks like the accents are brown. [01:13:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a little weird to me. [01:13:20] Speaker C: I might have stuck with black, but other than that, I really like it. [01:13:23] Speaker B: I love that that whole pattern is actually inside the D.C. united badge as the background as well. [01:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I just see, that's the first time I've noticed that too. That's really cool. That is a really cool detail. Okay, we mentioned earlier earlier, Houston's shirt, which I really like. I love this diamond pattern that kind of rises out of the shirt. I really love the fact that they're wearing it with the white shorts. That's such a great addition. [01:13:50] Speaker C: And brought back the powder blue accent on the horn. Yeah, this is a great kit. [01:13:54] Speaker B: It's such a perfect throwback. And I hate saying that because, you know, those early kits, they had the. They had that little powder blue horn, the one that kind of started at the bottom and then went across the body. You've got that there. They. When they won MLS cup, they had that exact. That curved diamond pattern. Like they've just. Yeah, it's. It's brought back every element for a kit that celebrates 20 years of that franchise. [01:14:21] Speaker C: Yeah, it's really well done. Fantastic execution. [01:14:25] Speaker A: And then the city that stole our idea, Kansas City Sporting, with the blue hoops, the dark blue hoops on the light blue shirt. [01:14:34] Speaker C: Yeah, they're. They've taken hoops and they own it now. This is a, you know, for a jersey that has side panels and has a back panel. You know, there is a little bit of a hoop sublimation in the side panel. This is nice. This is a pretty well done hoop version in a jersey that can't have solid hoops all the way around. [01:14:53] Speaker A: You know, it's funny, I. They continue to do this cool little detail. I believe that the angled line that makes up the hoops is the line that divides Kansas City from Missouri to Kansas. Kansas. [01:15:04] Speaker C: That's clever. [01:15:05] Speaker A: I think that's what that is. That's a really cool design. I think they've done that before in other shirts or something similar. [01:15:11] Speaker B: I mean, it's in the logo and. [01:15:13] Speaker C: They even carried over the diamonds from the previous, you know, versions of their kit. [01:15:18] Speaker A: Yeah, the argyle shirts. [01:15:20] Speaker C: The diamonds is now a thing on the back and yeah, it's just well done. [01:15:23] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, I'm interested in everybody's opinion of this next one. The galaxy's new away shirt called the Ryzen jersey. R, I, Z, O, N. Which is a very LA way of spelling that word, I suppose, like horizon. What do you guys, what do you think about this, Buzz? [01:15:41] Speaker C: I think it's a really nice warm up kit, you know, like, it looks like the kind of thing that you would wear pregame for some sort of celebration of some kind, you know, with this sort of sliding curves of colors and, and, and, you know, it's okay. You know, I like it in that aspect. I don't, I don't like this mismatch. Spilled paint kind of, you know, like you've, like you've spilled some bleach on it before it went into the washer. It's kind of what it looks like to me. It's like it's faded in a couple spots. Like, oh, crap, you know, I got some sunscreen on it and washed it and didn't wash it fast enough. It's kind of what it looks like to me. [01:16:24] Speaker A: What do you think, Dan? [01:16:25] Speaker B: I'm a fan. I think the colors work really well. It's got that nice, like, pin stripe in it that just kind of makes it less blobby and actually like looks like a cohesive pattern. [01:16:37] Speaker A: All right, can we all just take a minute to either goof on, cringe, or admire the obnoxious number of stars they've put on this thing? [01:16:46] Speaker C: All right, Credit to that man. [01:16:49] Speaker A: Wasn't there a period of time MLS had decided to do a designation? So when this, you know, if once you got to five, you got like a giant gold star and then you added an additional star until you got to 10, and then you had two gold stars. Well, now they've got. Is this. What is. I guess it's one gold star and. No, there's five other stars. [01:17:08] Speaker B: The funny part is you've got four silver stars, one gold star, and then one big star above all of them. Those, like, they've just, they're just taking the piss. [01:17:16] Speaker C: I think the big one is supposed to be the current one, and then the, the gold one was for winning their fifth. It should just be one gold and one big one if I'm following the rules. Right. But you know, or maybe they. [01:17:26] Speaker A: Well, it would also be very MLS that they trash that rule. [01:17:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I think they did. [01:17:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:17:32] Speaker A: The other thing I'll just comment real quick is I. I wondered what color shorts they're going to with the wear with this. And in the league write up, there's a photograph of a kid wearing the shirt with light blue Adidas shorts. Now, I don't know if that's just navy blue. [01:17:47] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. I'm telling you, the kit they're gonna wear is navy blue shorts. [01:17:51] Speaker A: Oh, it is. Okay. Navy blue. Interesting. Okay, I'll have to see what. [01:17:55] Speaker C: Well, navy's been there away color for a few years. That's not right. [01:17:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, cool. All right. Dig it. All right, next up. We mentioned it a little while ago, the LAFC shirt, which they are called. What is the name of this? They're just calling it Secondary kit. I love it. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty straightforward stuff. [01:18:15] Speaker B: It's very secondary. [01:18:16] Speaker C: Yeah, it's white, and it's in there with their cult gold accent. You know, it's. [01:18:20] Speaker A: It's pretty standard, but it's not art deco. [01:18:23] Speaker C: Yeah, very art deco. Yeah, yeah. Pretty. Pretty straight down the line. But the gold's got a little bit of reflectivism in it, and that kind of looks nice. So. [01:18:31] Speaker A: And in the messy rule, when you've got Messi on your team, you don't get one kid a year. You get three kids a year. And here are the first two. The new pink kit, which is called the Euphoria kit, and then the away kit, or the secondary, called the Fortitude kit. [01:18:45] Speaker C: I like both of these. I think they're both strong. Again, this is a way to break up black. You know, it's not just solid black. It's got this split sort of gray black combo happening. That. That sort of feels like a Barcelona thing, too, with those two half pieces like that. I think they did that a couple years ago, so all the nods are there. You know, this is a good set of kits for Messi. [01:19:04] Speaker B: I don't like the stripe one, I think. Same as. I'm not really a big fan of the Austin one. I think it's. The tonal stripes are kind of boring. [01:19:14] Speaker A: I. I love everything about both these shirts, but they are plagued, both of them, by that obnoxious cruise liner logo. I hate that logo. It's just too big and too, like a blob in the middle of the shirt. And I don't. And here's the problem. I don't know what cruise line that is. There's no name associated with it. It's just an icon. And I have no idea what it. [01:19:39] Speaker B: Is, that would be Royal Caribbean, hence the crown on it. [01:19:43] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. But I don't. I don't go on cruises. I don't care. And so it's an ugly addition to what I think are two very nice shirts. So I have spoken fair criticism. All right, next up, let me go back. And Minnesota's the Convergence kit. Oops, I spilled some milk on my shirt shirt. [01:20:04] Speaker C: What I really like about this one is that it's at least the blue of the Minnesota's color palette, and they've gone away from, like, the gray that they were using for a couple years. That was so dumb when their colors were blue and white. You know, it's like, this is much better. It's a weird vibe, but it kind of feels like a, you know, almost like the. The trail behind a boat, you know, through the waters. And Minnesota is the land. 10,000 lakes or something. So I buy it. I like it. [01:20:31] Speaker A: Okay. [01:20:32] Speaker B: I think it's the worst one they've had since they do you. Since their first season. [01:20:36] Speaker C: Yeah. I love the big logo. The big loon. [01:20:38] Speaker A: That. [01:20:38] Speaker B: That part's cool. That's. That's the secondary that. Those alternate logos I was talking about. Philadelphia has the same with just the snake. [01:20:46] Speaker A: It's got the cool red eye of the loon. I've always loved that detail. That was one of my favorite things about a Minnesota shirt. Remember when they had a button for their collar and it was a red button for the eye? That was great. All right. Montreal gets the same shirt, essentially, Atlanta got, except with blue. And instead of red branding, full credit. [01:21:05] Speaker C: For that black and blue vertical stripes since they're bit. [01:21:08] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it's a good thing they went back to it. [01:21:11] Speaker A: Yeah. My favorite thing is that it's called the 2025 Montreal Original Jersey. That's the name of the shirt. I love it. And it is very much a Montreal shirt. [01:21:22] Speaker C: What were you saying, Dan? [01:21:24] Speaker B: Well, they. They got away from. From that for a bit. When they first branded to CF Montreal, they. They. They ditched the stripes. So it's good to see him, you know, bring back what was a popular design. [01:21:35] Speaker C: Yeah. For sure. [01:21:39] Speaker A: Nashville. Called the Heart of Nashville kit. I don't know why this shirt is getting the business, because it's just a. It's a solid. I'm assuming this is their home kit. Correct. Or is their home get. Yellow. [01:21:52] Speaker B: The home kits. Yellow. [01:21:54] Speaker A: Oh, okay. All right. I don't think the shirt is awful. [01:21:57] Speaker B: Yes. [01:21:57] Speaker C: I like it. I think it's good. [01:21:59] Speaker B: It's. I mean, it's the same as I feel about the FC Dallas 1 and the Chicago one. It's okay. It's not spectacular. I would love it if Nashville utilized before they joined MLS when they had those Under Armour shirts that had the chest stripe. If they could implement that somehow they would have a brand. Otherwise they just have colors. [01:22:21] Speaker C: You know, the navy is not solid navy. It's got some kind of little tick pattern all over it. So I think up close it'll look better. And yet from the wide, their solid navy shirt is what their thing is. So it, it both has consistency and it has a nice little effect up close. So. [01:22:36] Speaker A: And the next one is one I really liked the minute I saw it until, until somebody said something that it cannot get out of my head and now I can't unsee it. [01:22:46] Speaker B: It's a cheaper toothpaste. [01:22:47] Speaker A: No, it is a can of shaving cream. Gillette shaving cream. The New England Revolution Eastern White pine kit. [01:22:57] Speaker C: Well, they are sponsored by Gillette. [01:23:01] Speaker A: That totally looks like a pattern you'd see on some like menthol shaving cream or something. [01:23:08] Speaker C: I, I can sort of see the pine needle ish kind of effect in there. I don't, I don't like that pattern very much. The palette is not terrible though. That pine green and blue with some white is not bad. It's not. The execution is poor though. I like the color palette. I don't like the execution. [01:23:23] Speaker B: It's a tube of Crest Scope toothpaste. [01:23:30] Speaker A: I like it. All right, next up, Red Bull's straight stone kit. [01:23:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a gray brown thing with some digitalization. I'm not sure what the bit is. [01:23:41] Speaker B: It has food stains. [01:23:43] Speaker C: Is that what it is? Somebody spilled their coffee on it. I can't. [01:23:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it does look like it has 8 bit food stains on it. Yeah, it's like, like old school. Mario spilled some pizza or sauce on it. [01:23:55] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, this, this is one of those things where again like from the stands it's going to look like you have a dirty shirt on. Dirty white, dirty know, off white shirt. Whereas like up close you might be like, oh, that's some cool looking patterns or whatever, like street wear. But like again from the stands, which is what I care about first, then that I care about the up close it's just going to look like how come they didn't wash their shirts or something, you know? [01:24:16] Speaker A: All right, on the other side, we go from New Jersey over to Queens or the Bronx, wherever they're playing their games at these days. NYCFC Excelsior kit. What do you think, Danny? [01:24:30] Speaker B: It's. It's cool. There's a nice pattern in it. It's. It's kind of. Whatever. It's not. It's not spectacular. It's not terrible. [01:24:39] Speaker C: I don't understand this pattern at all. I don't. I don't get this one. I like the little badge in the corner of the New York City football club since 2015. I think that's kind of nice. [01:24:49] Speaker A: It is described as drawing inspiration from the city's iconic skyscraper scrapers. [01:24:55] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, I guess. [01:24:57] Speaker A: I guarantee you Chat GTP wrote that. [01:25:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it might have. They might have designed the kit too. It's just kind of. It's kind of like you. The pattern's in there. Just to have a pattern in there a bit, you know? I guess so. It's. Oh, you know, it's not great. It's okay. [01:25:13] Speaker A: All right, next up. It is wild. It is wacky. It is crazy. It is the perfect storm kit for. For Atlant Orlando City. [01:25:24] Speaker C: I really like this kit. I think it's great. The. The pictures from preseason, they were wearing it with white shorts, which when you have a really dark, solid, basically, what's a solid kit? The white shorts really make it pop. I think this is one of those things where from the stands, again, it's gonna be all purple, which is great. And then up close, it's got some stuff going on. I think this is quite nice. It's not as good as their Tequila Sunrise jersey from a couple years ago, which is still one of the all time great, endless kits, but. But I quite like this one. [01:25:50] Speaker B: I really loved it when I first saw it, and now I'm like, oh, those two purples are too different now. It just looks messy. If they were a little bit. If the tones were a little bit closer together, it would just look like a nice subtle pattern. [01:26:03] Speaker C: That's a fair criticism. That's fair. [01:26:05] Speaker A: So what's interesting is I was reading this description. The pattern is different on every shirt. The foundation of this design is a digital storm pattern that will be unique on every jersey. And if you look at all the pictures, I'll be damned. Yeah, they are slightly different from each other depending on the shirt you're looking at. [01:26:26] Speaker B: That should be the case with most jerseys because of the way that dyes print out of patterns. Yeah. [01:26:35] Speaker C: Yeah. I think that's kind of fun. I like it. [01:26:37] Speaker A: Yeah. I do like the little hurricane logo down on the deal. And I like the thunderbolt made up of the area code on the back of the shirt too. Those are two cool little details. [01:26:46] Speaker C: That's nice. [01:26:48] Speaker A: Other than the fact that the state's been ravaged by hurricanes of late. But they didn't know about that two years ago when they designed this thing. [01:26:55] Speaker C: Right. Fair. [01:26:57] Speaker A: Okay, let's see. Oh, this one. Okay, so here's my story on this one today. This is the Philly voltage kit, which I thought was an interesting shirt. I didn't, it wasn't my favorite. I like the lightning bolt design. I, I, I, I love the fact that they're going with the, the kind of cutout snake. I love all that. And I thought, okay, this is passable. But then today I saw the photo of the full kit. Have you seen the full kit? [01:27:26] Speaker C: I've saw the one you shared and it really sold me on it because I was just kind of okay on it until you showed me that picture. [01:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah. So they're wearing, so if you see the yellow in the shirt, they're wearing those color, that color in the shorts with the blue as the socks. And it is an outstanding standing full kit. [01:27:42] Speaker C: I almost always think it helps to have not be a complete solid head to toe, whatever it is, to have a variation in there really helps at some point. And I'm with you. That short makes it work all the much better. [01:27:55] Speaker B: I'm not a fan. [01:27:58] Speaker C: Baham Bug do you don't even like. [01:28:01] Speaker A: It with the shorts? [01:28:03] Speaker B: I think it's worse with the shorts. To me it looks like that 2012 communist. To me it looks like that 2012 Seattle jersey, the turquoise and Vault 1. Except someone washed the color out of it and then they threw a bit of bleach on it for good measure and then they washed it with a highlighter. [01:28:23] Speaker C: That's how I felt about the LA one. [01:28:25] Speaker A: Dan. [01:28:26] Speaker C: It's okay. Dan doesn't like it. [01:28:27] Speaker A: That's. I hold Dan's kit opinions in high regard. And so, I mean, if you had just seen the shirt, I would have bought it. But when you see it with those kick ass shorts and socks, I, I can't believe you don't like the kit. [01:28:38] Speaker B: I don't like the color. All right, well, I think if they'd have done like that with the navy that they use on the home kit or even like the gold that they use, I think it would have looked better. [01:28:50] Speaker A: Okay, next up, one of the most popular kits and they always have good kits. Portland's new forever green and gold. And this is one of those that goes back to Buzz's point where from a distance it just looks like A dark kit. But when you get up close on this thing, that tree cutaway detail is farting fantastic. [01:29:10] Speaker C: It works in both scenarios. It works from the top of the sands and it works up close. I particularly like the way the tree rings center around the logo. Yes, that's really well done. This is terrific execution. It's. It's in their color palette. It's a nice dark green. It's not messing around. It's the right color green. [01:29:25] Speaker B: So I actually forgot they had the tree ring pattern, but now I'm looking at it. It's got the star for MLS cup in it. It's got 50 and. No, that's not 50, that's 50 on the back. No, no, there's Roman numerals on it, but that's what that's. [01:29:42] Speaker A: Yeah, in the tree ring pattern. They, the, the tree rings are broken up by like a star and a Roman numeral, which I think is the year they were incorporated. [01:29:51] Speaker B: It's 2011, their first year in MLS. [01:29:53] Speaker A: Ah, that's what it is. Yeah. [01:29:55] Speaker B: But yeah, the spirit of 75 thing is just really cool. [01:29:58] Speaker C: Yeah, that's good. [01:29:58] Speaker A: It's just a good looking shirt all the way around. I dig it a lot. All right, Salt Lake Cities. This one has got everybody all excited. The checkerboard kit. [01:30:09] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, this is amazing. This is the number one kit for this year for me. It's just absolutely phenomenal. It looks great in execution too. They work with white shorts and socks that I've seen it pops. It's really good all the way around. [01:30:21] Speaker B: Oh, I've seen it with navy shorts and white socks. [01:30:24] Speaker C: Oh, they've been mixing it up. Okay. And the one I saw was all white, so I just love everything about it. [01:30:29] Speaker B: This is, this is the best execution of a checker pattern jersey for me. The badges all line up perfectly, which is what killed me about that one San Antonio did a couple of years ago. You've got that really cool grid pattern that's in white and then you've got that little, that really subtle red border on each, each checker. [01:30:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I hadn't seen the red border on the blue check until just now. And that is a fair, fantastic little touch. Yeah, it's a great, great, good looking kit. [01:30:57] Speaker C: Amazing. [01:30:57] Speaker A: All right. San Diego got two really boring kits because they weren't in part of the cycle. Any particular comments or notes about either one of these? [01:31:05] Speaker B: I like the home. I think the whole sunrise thing in the, in the trim detail is, is really clever. The, the white one's boring. Let's Just leave it at that. [01:31:15] Speaker A: Okay. [01:31:16] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, again, like, is it black? Is it navy? I can't really tell tell from these pictures. I think it's maybe. [01:31:22] Speaker A: Here's what I hope. I hope that they wear white shorts with the black shirt and white shorts with the black shorts with the white shirt. [01:31:29] Speaker C: That'd be cool. [01:31:29] Speaker A: Or whatever. The opposite of what I just tried to say is that would help. That would be great if they did that. [01:31:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's all navy. The San Diego kit, stupid. [01:31:39] Speaker A: Let's see. All right. Sandy and not Santa San Jose's new shirt, which is the pattern with the newspaper clippings and all of that. They're calling the headliner jersey. Do we care about this at all. [01:31:53] Speaker B: Other than that s that everybody drew when they were 12 years old? No. [01:32:00] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't think this one is very good at all. This is. I mean, I appreciated the idea. Perhaps if the news clippings are like, from their founding kind of year, which even way back, if you want to go NASL founding, I could have bought that, but it's just a muddy mess of junk. I just. Oh, my goodness. Excuse me. That's what it made me feel. Made me burp. It's just almost puked up a little bit there. That's how gross it is. I really. This is like my least favorite kid of all of them. It's terrible. [01:32:30] Speaker B: Of the newspaper clippings, I wonder if there's like a little hidden one that says franchise move to Houston. [01:32:36] Speaker C: Yes. Two trope list, two trophies in the bayou. Yeah, something like that. [01:32:42] Speaker A: And then, of course, I think what many people think is the best kit of the year. Not everybody. [01:32:46] Speaker C: We already did ourselves. [01:32:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Is the Sounders new away kit, the Salish Sea kit, which is. I did not know this until I just read it. A. In collaboration with artists representing three different Indian tribes from. From the area. The Puget Sound area, which is kind of cool. And I just think this is a great pattern. This is really cool, man. [01:33:09] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a well done kit. It's really good. I don't. I don't think it's as good as rsl, but I think it's really good. It's a slightly different variation on the color schemes I think that we've seen from Seattle before. So I. I appreciate that aspect of it. You know, it's. It is very Pacific Northwest, which is on brand. So very, very Sounders, very ocean. It's all good. [01:33:27] Speaker B: Oh, no. What a shock. The Sounders have the best pair of kits in mls. [01:33:33] Speaker A: I mean, this kit with the outstanding. Probably one of my favorite kits of all time in the league. Yeah, those two. It's just unfair how much time, thought, effort, and energy they put into these things. And they always just, you know. [01:33:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:33:48] Speaker A: It's ridiculous and it is. I mean, just some clubs are good at it and some are not. Let's see any of them. What am I forgetting getting? [01:33:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, a couple Canadians. [01:33:59] Speaker A: Yes. Well, more than that. St. Louis, their new red dog food kit. [01:34:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of red. Is that more fuchsia? I don't know. What color is fuchsia? Pink. Is it? I don't know if fuchsia. [01:34:13] Speaker A: It's a very cherry red. [01:34:16] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, I don't. I don't. I don't hate the little stripage pattern that's happening in the. On opposite direction of their city logo. It's kind of a nice little flavor to give the. A solid kit a little flavor, but really it's just a solid red kit, so it's kind of boring in that regard. [01:34:33] Speaker A: And then Toronto's kit, which is. I actually kind of like this design, this kind of design of the red. I don't hate this. [01:34:41] Speaker B: I like that it carries onto the sleeves. It's like what New York City should have been. [01:34:48] Speaker A: Interesting. [01:34:49] Speaker C: Yeah. I think this is a good way to bring a little flavor into your solid red kit. After a few years, you know, you can. You can have solid red be your thing and bring a little flavor into it. And this is a really good job of bringing a little flavor into it. Again, I don't know what the pattern means, but I like the pattern even without knowing if it has any sort of special meaning or not. [01:35:06] Speaker A: And then the last one is another Canadian one. The Vancouver white caps sticking with the across the chest bar theme. And it's called the peak. Yeah. [01:35:17] Speaker C: Consistency of branding. I always applaud that. So, like, of the, you know, the. Of a basically white kid, they kept the solid piece across the back. What I really want to see is, did you keep the red number? They have always done red numbers on this white kit with the blue accents. I hope they kept that because that's a really nice bit for them. [01:35:32] Speaker A: I think the thing that makes me wonder about whether or not I can't figure out if I like it is the treatment of the bar of the sleeves. [01:35:40] Speaker B: I like that. [01:35:41] Speaker A: Okay. But see, it doesn't line up with the bar on the chest. If it was a. If it was a long sleeve shirt and it was down lower in the Sleeve so it lined up with the bar across the chest. I would agree with you. But now here it doesn't. [01:35:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it would be very difficult to line it up and have the whole bar. It would just be like a tiny trim almost. But. Yeah, I definitely see what you mean there. But I like it. It kind of, you know, it does kind of hark back to those old Nike kits that they used to have, albeit with the really, you know, the. The chest thing was a little bit higher up because you didn't have a crest. [01:36:18] Speaker A: All right, there you go. I think we did it. [01:36:21] Speaker B: Yay. [01:36:23] Speaker A: Steve Davis stopped listening an hour ago. [01:36:25] Speaker B: Oh, I guess if we're talking kits. One more thing is obviously we've speculated about the Dallas third shirt. There has been communication from FC Dallas to two fans at both cocktails and cleats, and now by email that FC Dallas is indeed getting a Dallas Byrne themed third jersey as part of the Adidas archive collection, which is the same collection as the third shirts last year. Miami, Seattle, Louisiana, both LA teams and skc. [01:36:58] Speaker A: Mm. Yes, I'm aware of this. [01:37:01] Speaker B: All right, well, they just. They've made it kind of not semi official this week. [01:37:06] Speaker A: I'm just, you know, if anybody wants to ask me a question about what it may or may not look like, I'd be happy to answer those questions. [01:37:13] Speaker B: Oh, Buzz. The Vancouver jersey has navy numbers by the looks of it. [01:37:17] Speaker A: Oh. [01:37:18] Speaker B: Which is a miss. That's a bad. [01:37:20] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a big miss. Yeah. That was a great letter off for me for sure for losing the red number. [01:37:26] Speaker A: Man. Dan, you're not even going to take me up on my offer to ask me questions about the. The upcoming. [01:37:32] Speaker B: You know, we can always do that off the podcast. [01:37:37] Speaker A: Okay. Guys are no fun whatsoever. [01:37:44] Speaker B: Oh, sorry. Just. Just all. I'm emotionally exhausted from talking about all those kits. [01:37:49] Speaker C: We have months before that kits drop. We have plenty of time to talk about that kid as we go forward. [01:37:53] Speaker B: Oh, did you also see Vancouver has a Black History Month kit that's really cool. [01:37:58] Speaker C: I've not seen that one. [01:37:59] Speaker B: They used it for a preseason. It's. [01:38:02] Speaker A: Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Keep going, Dan. I just reminded me of something. [01:38:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it's black with the whole horns thing in like this solar red, green and then green panels and then yellow stripes. It's got. It's got some custom numbers on the back and then they've got the Vancouver logo that's kind of themed in the same colors. [01:38:27] Speaker C: Yeah, that's really. [01:38:28] Speaker A: Are they gonna wear it any other rest of the season or is it just like a one time thing because of February? [01:38:35] Speaker B: So it. The way they phrased it is they will wear it throughout February as they gear up for their MLS 2025 regular season. [01:38:44] Speaker A: Interesting. [01:38:45] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good looking kit that's colored the badge, Peter, which you hate, but that's a pretty good adaptation. I like that. [01:38:51] Speaker B: And it is a kente pattern that they use around the logo. The logo itself is bordered by the pattern, which is. Is really impressive up close. [01:38:59] Speaker C: That's good. [01:39:00] Speaker A: I was laughing when Buzz brought this up because the thing we haven't talked about is I can't tell if this is the coolest, most ingenious thing Dallas has ever done or this is the most cringiest thing Dallas has ever done, which is rolling out in preseason games wearing a jersey from four seasons ago. [01:39:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:39:18] Speaker A: Paired with your black shorts from last season. [01:39:23] Speaker B: Well, it's definitely not the cringiest because the 911 ticket deal still lives on. [01:39:29] Speaker A: Okay. My question was because I don't want to miss, I don't want to misinterpret this because somebody may see this and go, that's actually a really cool thing Dallas did by pulling out a bunch of old jerseys. But Buzz, does this qualify for the list? [01:39:44] Speaker C: No, it's just, it's just preseason's. Whatever. You know, you, you have your, your for whatever reason you don't have enough kits of whatever persuasion you scrap. It doesn't matter. It's meaningless. They could have just worn some practice shirts with a Sharpie on them for all we care in preseason. [01:40:03] Speaker B: Realistically, that was the last jersey. They would have had any that didn't have a sponsor because they had their sponsor change halfway through. [01:40:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:40:11] Speaker A: I don't understand why they just didn't wear their kits. They're like, why are they wearing, I mean, every other preseason, they historically either wear a training shirt for that season or they wear their jerseys for that season. [01:40:22] Speaker B: They wore the, they wore the Burn Baby Burn in Portugal. They wore the, the current home jersey against Houston at home. So. Yeah. And that first game, I kind of figured it was cocktails and cleats. They probably didn't want to wash an extra set of kits. I, I don't understand why the, I don't understand why the other games, though. [01:40:45] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I don't know. I've not investigated into why they did that. [01:40:48] Speaker A: It was just funny. I was. We're all like squinting at the, at the monitor, at our screens, going, what shirt is that? Holy crap, it's 1920. [01:40:57] Speaker C: I even twitted like, Is that the 2020 kid? And. And they responded like, we're not proud of this kid. We know it's bad. They knew it was bad. Yeah. [01:41:06] Speaker A: All right. Very good. All right. Look at us knocking out. This is way too long of an episode, but it's the start of another season. Yay. [01:41:12] Speaker C: We're here really fast. Let me just mention that Tigris is back in the Dallas Cup. Some young kids, Sam Setta and Liam Verjostick were named to the USU16 team from FC Dallas. Xavier Gomez to Mexico U15 from FC Dallas. And then three local ladies are in the US U17 team, and it's Rhiannon Mahone and Kamiyah Beck from Solar and Landon Young from SC Dallas are in the US 17 camp. So congrats to those people. [01:41:39] Speaker A: All right. Excellent. Anything else, boys and girls? [01:41:45] Speaker B: I do want to ask you something. Are you excited for the new mass confrontation rule for the referees this year? [01:41:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a smart. It's a smart addition to the rule. Just the captain's the only one that can talk to the referee in a. In a moment of seriousness, and I think that's probably a smart thing to do. [01:42:04] Speaker B: I don't understand why that rule ever went away. It worked pretty well the first time. It seems like they've enhanced it this time with the whole 4 meter perimeter that the captains are responsible for enforcing. And then what's the other part of the rule? If three players crowd the referee, one automatically gets booked. That's great. That stops it. [01:42:28] Speaker A: Interesting. I wonder who's gonna step off the four meters. [01:42:32] Speaker B: Someone that doesn't understand metric, probably. [01:42:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Just eyeball it. [01:42:37] Speaker A: Just. That's my hand. That's me raising my hand. All right. Any other. Any other. Anything else. [01:42:45] Speaker C: It's a big one, so we might as well wrap it up. [01:42:47] Speaker A: Okay. It is episode 299. Somehow we mistimed this. This should have been 300, but whatever it. [01:42:53] Speaker C: Let's go back in time seven years and fix that. [01:42:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:42:56] Speaker C: Start one week earlier. [01:42:57] Speaker A: Fix that. All right. Well, thank you, Dan. [01:43:00] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:43:01] Speaker A: You're the best. You and your wooden spoon. I love it. [01:43:05] Speaker B: It's technically a polymer, but, you know. [01:43:08] Speaker A: And Buzz and your golden boots. [01:43:11] Speaker C: Yeah, my. And my golden Emmy. Happy. [01:43:13] Speaker A: Your Emmy? Yeah, I just noticed your. Your Emmy has no shirt on. She's topless. [01:43:19] Speaker C: That's how they come, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, you're looking at it way too closely. [01:43:23] Speaker A: I can't help it. You have it so predominantly displayed in. [01:43:27] Speaker C: Your video shot, sir, you're making my edit longer here. [01:43:31] Speaker A: If you take the Emmy jokes out, I'm gonna be so mad at you. [01:43:35] Speaker C: Third Degree, the podcast is brought to you by Pappy Check, the man responsible for all the amazing music we have out here on this podcast. He's back in time for 2025, available for solo shows, full band gigs, restaurant accompaniment, private parties, lessons for beginners, you name it, the man can do it all. He's certainly doing a residency at the in Bishop Arts at the Taco IV in our restaurant. In fact, he's probably doing one of them right now as we're recording this. He's got one more date coming up on the 27th. You can enjoy his work there. Also, follow him on Instagram at Pepy. Check for updates on all his latest gigs and whatever else the man has going on. [01:44:08] Speaker A: Thank you, Buzz. Let's go. Let's have a good season, all right? [01:44:11] Speaker C: It's gonna be fun. [01:44:12] Speaker A: Woo. Yes. And thank you, you FC Dallas Curious fan. You good. Happy new season to you and we will speak to you next week, certainly with three big old points in the pocket on the next and 300th episode of Third Degree, the podcast. [01:44:29] Speaker B: Oh, that was exhausting. Third Degree the Third Degree n podcast. [01:44:36] Speaker A: Third Degree the Third Degree n podcast third Degree the Third Degree n podcast third degree the third degree.