3rd Degree the Podcast #300

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:02] Speaker B: Third Degree the podcast is brought to you by the Dallas Beer Guardians, F.C. dallas's rowdiest supporters club. The Dallas Beer Guardians are cracking open the 2025 season. DBG wants to invite the third degree community to join them on Saturday, March 1 at 8pm at the Derbyshire Pub in Frisco for the annual Kickoff Guardians Town Hall. Join them with the pub right across from Toyota Stadium to meet their leaders, see the 2025 DBG Kit and learn what they have in store for this season. Then grab a point and take in the SC Dallas game at Colorado. If you can't join them, you can always follow them on X Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Discord threads, pretty much anywhere under the name Dallas Beer Guardians Third Review. The podcast is also brought to you by Pappy Check, the man that makes the wonderful music for here on the podcast. He's back in town for 2025 and wants to let all the fellow SE Dallas sickos know that he's available for solo gigs, full band engagements, restaurant accompaniment, private parties and even lessons for beginners. The guy can do it all. You can follow him on Instagram at Pappy Check for updates on all his latest gigs and whatnot. That's the best place to find him. And you can take advantage and take in all the scenes at all the concerts and show he scots around town. [00:01:08] Speaker C: 3Rd degree the 3rd degree NE podcast. [00:01:11] Speaker A: 3Rd degree the 3rd degree. [00:01:17] Speaker B: The 3rd. [00:01:18] Speaker A: Degree NEP podcast 3rd degree the 3rd Degree Never Care well hello there FC Dallas curious fan. Welcome to episode 300. Sound the celebratory trumpets of 3rd degree the podcast. Hello, it's me, Peter. And there he is, your favorite English man, Dan Crook. Howdy Dan. [00:01:42] Speaker C: You blew the entire budget on a trumpet sound effect. [00:01:47] Speaker A: I did. All $3 down the drain. How are you? Good. [00:01:52] Speaker C: Oh good. I'm enjoying the the crazy season that we're having not knowing what's around the corner. Will they win away? Will they just lose 7 nil? Who knows? That's half the fun. [00:02:03] Speaker A: It is. It's going to be a fun season. And there is your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of third degree.net captain of 300 and the original soccer influencer himself, Buzz Carrick. Come in Buzz. [00:02:17] Speaker B: Hey fellas. I I don't feel like a 7 nothing losses in the cards, but we might see a 43 loss or two. I feel like there's be hard to. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Shut this team out that is definitely in the cards. So I'm gonna do a little I'm gonna do something new here on the podcast, I'm gonna do a little billboarding Buzz. I'm gonna preview for people what we're gonna discuss today on the. Obviously, we'll talk about FC Dallas's big debut win at Houston. We'll talk about some IR injury news. Sound the dramatic sound effect. Dallas is being linked to a new signing drop. Dramatic sound yeah. I don't know what that one is. Yeah. Wow. We'll preview the game. Coming up against the Rapids, Trinity lost their game. We have a new team in town and. And maybe even some Dallas cup stuff just because we love Andy Swift that much. But first, let's get into it, guys. Dallas goes down to Houston, the only Texas derby we care about in these parts. And they get a nice solid win down in hu toown. Buzz, what did we learn from this game? Anything? [00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah, we learned some things. There's. There were several good things to learn from this game, to be honest. Like the fact that you can actually win a game on the road is pretty exciting. I mean, FC Dallas last year did not have very many road wins. I think in fact they had one. [00:03:46] Speaker A: One. [00:03:46] Speaker B: So they've equaled last year's road total in the first road game. So that's very exciting. And obviously it's a place where Quill grew up, so that's very exciting and. But yeah, there's things that we can learn from this game. I think the number one thing was the new signing the new center back. Signing Urugatte was. Or Gide, excuse me, was quite enjoyable to watch. So I think that alone made it a valuable game watching experience and a good outing just for him. [00:04:10] Speaker A: Can I. I was thinking about this during the game because I was listening to broadcasters struggle with pronouncing his name and trying to come. Can I submit my recommendation for a nickname? [00:04:22] Speaker B: Sure. [00:04:23] Speaker A: Ou. [00:04:25] Speaker B: Oh, you. I was just going with Oz because it wasazza and then I thought or. [00:04:30] Speaker A: Sooner, which is kind of a spin off of ou. Sooner would be kind of funny, but. All right, we'll stick with OU for now. Yeah. Boy, I gotta tell you, that was a relief to see that guy play as well as he did. That's a really nice debut out of a center back, that's for sure. [00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah, listen. Not flawless. You know, the thing that I was worried about from watching worthless YouTube clips was that he would occasionally overextend and get in trouble and caught and couldn't foul. And he did that once. He did it late in the game. [00:04:58] Speaker A: But probably the worst possible time too. [00:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah, the worst possible time. Perfectly worst possible Spot on the field, exactly the kind of thing we were worried about. But the other 98 of the game was great and maybe he, to be fair, he played really composed, played within himself, play contained, play within the system, didn't get overextended, getting it stretched. Has showed lots of ability as an individual defender and also was good on the team concept. You know, maybe he was just being really conservative and being like because he was a much more of a sort of stay at home patient kind of defender which is not at all what my expectation was. So you know I was, I was expecting a guy that was going to be really aggressive like Nicosa Tafari based on what I had seen, wouldn't like that. And so I really liked what he brought to the table and I hope that he continues to play that way. I don't want him to become overextended like he did late in the game. I want him to be patient and composed and compact like he was most of the game. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Dan, did you have similar reactions to his debut? [00:05:51] Speaker C: From the bits I saw, to be honest, I, I left the Dallas Trinity game, jumped in my car, had to run to a friend's birthday, pop the game on on my phone while I was driving home on George Bush. [00:06:04] Speaker B: That sounds dangerous. [00:06:07] Speaker C: No, no, I was, I was listening to it. I, I heard yeah sure, I heard the goal that Houston scored, got home just in time for, for the equalizer and yeah, I was, yeah, so it was a bit of a bit of an odd one that I, I definitely meant to go back and watch the entire game and just have not had time. But yeah, maybe, maybe I, I, I. [00:06:30] Speaker A: I at the same time thought it was a really impressive debut, especially for a guy that just literally got off the plane a few days earlier. And I also at the same time worried that this was like the defender debut curse. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Why are you gonna do that of. [00:06:48] Speaker A: A new player showing up and have an outstanding debut. But we haven't had this out of a defender yet. That's why I glad he committed that foul late in the game because I think that may have if he hadn't committed the foul late, I think he would have been in line for being the first Dallas player to receive the debut curse. [00:07:04] Speaker B: One of the things I really liked about his game was that he did a nice job picking up extra runners that were coming out of midfield and the, the goal that was scored where he, he tracked a guy over near far fan it was an extra overload player left, you know Ibiaga and, and shock Moore with One guy to deal with, two guys to deal with. They did not deal well with those guys. So there's no, for me, that was no problem with him pulling out of position because he was picking up a guy that was an overload and you got to do that. So, you know, we want to see more out of Iaga in terms of winning that header, obviously. And then that ended up Shaq Moore not dealing with the other guy. Didn't go very well. So, you know, obviously looks defense is still, of course, all in all of our minds, I think, and all of our worries about going forward, how it's going to be. And not just us, I think anyone, any analysis you read of that game would mention that the defensive frailties are still there and are a bit too worried about. So as we go forward in the season, we're definitely going to be an area of concern. We'll probably talk about defense a lot, but UR looked great for, especially for our first game of our guy 24, as you say, right off the plane. Now, granted he is in the middle of what the season he was playing. So he's in shape. It'll be interesting to watch over the course of this season how he holds up because he'll go like a year and a half without a break because he's coming out of the a full half of a season going into now a full season. So hopefully he'll hold up. He's young enough. He should be okay. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. [00:08:30] Speaker A: Now, Dan, I'm going to ask you this question knowing that you just told us you didn't necessarily see all of the game, but I think for the amount that it sounds like you did here, I'm wondering if you picked up on the same thing I did, which was this instantly and immediately looks like a very different team than what we have been seeing for the last few years. [00:08:51] Speaker C: Very much so. Very resilient. Coming from behind. One thing I really enjoyed, I just started chuckling to myself in the second half because, you know, coach goes to the bench and there was depth, there were players that you're like, okay, yeah, he could make a difference. He could, he could bring something in a lot of times. And this, this may have been Nico's substitution pattern as much as anything, but it just kind of felt like going to the bench was a, ah, crap, we've lost it, haven't we? [00:09:24] Speaker A: Well beyond just the fact that they were resilient in this game and that was nice to see. But just straight off the bat Buzz of the 11 players on the field five of them are guys we have never seen in a Dallas shirt before. And that to me was really almost startling and weird to get used to. Just try to, you know, after a while you figure out you can just kind of glance at the field and you go, okay, that's that guy, that's that guy. It took me a while to figure out who was who. [00:09:49] Speaker B: Oh yeah. And guys we have new familiarity with, you know, and you would, you would look at them and it would. My brain at least had to take that moment of like, okay, now wait, who is that in that jersey? And like, what number is that? And you know, because it's one thing to know these players sort of on an abstract paper like level, it's another thing to watch them in the run of play when they haven't been playing here. But I think almost all the ones that were new I think did pretty well. I wasn't too disappointed in Shaq Moore. I'd like to see him get forward a little bit more and maybe more, connect a little more. Romero looks pretty solid. I think there was some questions about getting play through the middle of the field, that Dallas kind of abandoned the middle of the field. And Coach Quill talked about that, you know, talked about how they were. They became sort of a one trick pony when they were getting wide around the outside. And that was kind of all that was working. And they needed guys to be, as he called it in the structure of the game and which is like get into the difficult spots and don't just come check way back for the easy pass, being positioned for the hard passes, those line breaking passes. But you know, Julio brought some nice things to the table. Lucio Acosta went looking for the ball and was going wide a lot, trying to find it particularly wide on his left. The team, the FCL's left. So there's, there's definitely for sure, lots of work to be done. But I don't think you could look at, I don't think you can look at any of these guys that made their debut and think they weren't exactly what we thought they would be. Which is really nice for game one, for them to be that solid. Game one is outstanding. [00:11:15] Speaker A: Yeah, the game was a. I don't think Dallas played great. And I also, and I also don't think Houston is a very good team at this point. Like Dallas, that's a team just filled with a bunch of new guys and missing parts and things like that. So it's hard to really judge Houston. [00:11:33] Speaker C: Oh, come on, Peter. They're Great at playing out of the back. [00:11:37] Speaker A: Well, yeah, they're particularly gifts poor at that. Yes. And. And so I. I found it a bit hard to judge everybody in this game. Obviously, OU had a great game, and that was the real standout, noticeable thing. What I was a bit surprised was, was that I. I came away from the game thinking, I have no idea what Romero's game is or how good he is or. Not that he played badly, but I also didn't see him in any particular moment stand out or do anything in the same way that I saw. Oh, you do? [00:12:11] Speaker B: Yeah, he was. Ramiro was pretty solid, I thought. But again, this comes back to the idea of what Quill was talking about. He talked about both Ramiro and Legette coming back way too far to the defense to pick up the ball, whereas. And not being sort of in the mix, if you will, in the middle. But, you know, Romero was mostly good defensively. You know, four intercepts, good positioning, good recoveries, pretty solid on tackles. He kept it simple in terms of like a 91% pass rate. But of those passes, that's 10, 10 completed passes. A third of them were progressive. So that's one in three passes is a progressing line breaker. That's pretty good. And I think most of that probably came in the second half because the Quill said they made some adjustments at halftime and it got a lot better because I think in the first half, this is when I wrote down my note about lack of transition to the middle. They weren't getting the ball up in there and then getting it off to more pieces. They kept having to go around the outside. They were going to like more up to. Up to the wing or going over. Around the left side. And Faran was finding Acosta. So once they got Romero and Legette more established in the middle, I think it improved. So the. The problem in terms of being able to see Romaro doing any good, he didn't have eight passes in. In the final third, by the way. That's not terrible. But he only had 41 touches and Leged had 67. And you can think back to Yara Mindy having games where he had like a hundred touches, you know, so that's what the Quill was mainly talking about. And why it feels like Romaro didn't do a lot is because he didn't get. Excuse me. Romero didn't do a lot because he didn't get a lot of ball. He didn't see much of it, right? [00:13:49] Speaker A: Yep. [00:13:49] Speaker B: He mainly occupied space and sort of defensively was good and solid, but not. Not the connector and legit, too. Legit. Had more touches and was his usual solid self, but he was. Neither one of those guys excelled or controlled the middle. Houston was able to really control the middle, you know, so that's a thing to work on again, Game one, you know, and Dallas as a collective played fairly well together. There wasn't a lot of glaring, horrible play. And like some of the most glaring and horrible play was guys that have been around for a while that we knew were issues. So I think it's a really good. Now, I don't think Houston's any good, but I think it's a pretty good road debut for FC Dallas in terms of like a good base to build on and try and get better because they did become one dimensional and didn't. Did not do enough varieties of attack. They were. They were resorting to counter attacks and going wide and that's not, you know, you want more variety than that. [00:14:44] Speaker A: Any immediate reaction or response or observations about having a MLS MVP in the middle of the field, Mr. Acosta? [00:14:53] Speaker B: Well, he certainly occupied a lot of attention. You know, I think he had to do a lot of going and looking for the ball, particularly drifting out wide to his left, like I mentioned. And I thought it was a little interesting that Peter Musa actually seemed to also be coming back and looking for. [00:15:11] Speaker A: I'm, I'm. I've got that written down. That's a whole thing I want to talk to you about. [00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah, so, like, I kept. There were multiple times where Costa picked up the ball and, and it made a little quick turn and go, ready for, like, there to be a nine. And like a couple times even made the pass. And then Musa wasn't there or wanted to make the pass and Musa wasn't there. And so there were. There were maybe four or five instances when I was watching the game, I was like, musa, where. Where are you? And I think some of that is probably just new team, new adjustment, familiarity with Acosta. Musa is probably not seeing much of the ball because Dallas is struggling to get up through the middle. Part of this system is that Julio and Bernie or whoever's gonna be on the other side are going to go past Musa. So he's coming back and checking a little bit. So there's wrinkles to be worked out in that zone. But I wrote, I, I literally wrote down Musa walkabout, like Jesus, jokingly, you know, that he now nowhere near that bad, but had a little false 9 in him. The way he was checking out of that zone expecting probably to have, you know, Acosta or Bernie go in there. And so that timing is all still a work in progress, and it doesn't bother me too much. Game one, you know, game five or game ten. And if this is still happening now I'm getting worried, but hopefully they'll be able to get on the same page. [00:16:25] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I don't know if anybody. I mean, don't forget it was Musa who picked up and won the ball five yards outside their own box to play the long ball to Julio Anderson. [00:16:36] Speaker B: Julio for the second goal tackle at air quotes. [00:16:39] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:16:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:42] Speaker A: Should that have been a foul? [00:16:44] Speaker B: Pretty grabby to me, but I don't. I'm putting on the field, you know, I'm not the ref. So it was pretty grabby. [00:16:49] Speaker A: Do you think we would have fussed about that non call if that had gone. If that had been the other direction? [00:16:54] Speaker B: Are you kidding? Yeah. [00:16:56] Speaker A: Would you have fussed, Dan? Would you have said bollocks or something like that? [00:17:01] Speaker C: Worse than that. [00:17:02] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yeah. So Moose's actions of playing deep, I thought was really. So do you. Is that the Blas Perez Jesus effect of just, you know, hey, I got to get on the ball, or is there something Quill is telling him to do? I mean, I guess that's kind of what I'm really curious about. You kind of covered it, but I'm. I really want to know what the. I want to know what the thinking on Moose's part is that was told to do this, or, damn it, I'm just gonna do it. [00:17:30] Speaker B: Well, we'll see. You know, he didn't. He didn't bring that part. He didn't bring. Nobody asked him about Musa in the postgame press conference specifically. So I think we'll need a little more time and minutes to know for sure there. Like I said, there is this component where they want, you know, Julio Anderson. Julio. And then whether it's gonna be Bernie or Chu, whoever. Right now, it's Bernie, you know, playing off of Musa with these vertical runs. So if. If Acosta is moving out of the middle, maybe Musa feels obligated to sort of come back and fill that role a little bit. I'm obviously. I'm hoping that's not going to be the way it is because you don't want Petter Musa to be your big line breaker. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Right. [00:18:06] Speaker B: You know, you don't want him having to check back and lay balls off. Right. It's different if he's posting up a center back, he's laying a ball off. That's different. So it's a slight area of concern, but keep in mind, too, that he ended up with a, you know, 0.6 XG, which is about like, fifth or sixth, I think, compared to last year. Like, if you looked at last season, his xg, that was like his fifth or sixth highest, and his two shots were both pretty, you know, on goal and pretty good. So I. I think a lot of these. These minor concerns are things to just sort of tag and be like, okay, let's. Let's see what happens with that. Let's not make a huge deal about it yet. In general, the way Dallas was vacating the middle, I think it's a much bigger issue than it is that Musa felt obligated to come back into that space to try and fill it up a little bit. [00:18:53] Speaker A: If anybody else find it out where. And this is the continued mystery of xg. But Fat Mob had the goal that he scored, which was essentially just given to him as an XG value of only 0.57. So you mean to tell me a guy given a ball literally just at the penalty spot with nothing but the goalie in the way is only scoring that 60% of the time? [00:19:19] Speaker C: Well, you've got to remember, it's not about the situation. It's about the position. [00:19:24] Speaker A: Well, okay, that makes it 60. Still seems low to me. He's literally standing. He's got the ball at his feet at the penalty spot. [00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I guess that that's a mathematical calculation that people miss it 30% of the time for that position. [00:19:37] Speaker C: You think a lot of. A lot of shots from that position, that's going to be headers at corners, that's going to be trying to shoot through a crowded box. [00:19:45] Speaker A: Oh, okay. So XG doesn't take the scenario into consideration. It's just where you're standing. There could be a wall of defenders in front of you. [00:19:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:54] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Now I hate XG even more. [00:19:57] Speaker B: I know, to me, it doesn't consider things like the ball, like, how's the ball spinning? Is it rolling? Is it bouncing? Is it to your left foot, Is it to your right foot? Or maybe those. Maybe some of those come into it. I just know that's kind of why. [00:20:10] Speaker C: People put more value into post shot expected goals now, because it's the quality of the shot. It's. It's not perfect. It's not that situational, but at least takes out of the equation shots that are off target. [00:20:23] Speaker A: Is that xgot? [00:20:25] Speaker C: It's psxg. [00:20:28] Speaker A: Oh, all right. [00:20:28] Speaker C: But it that's the one that takes into account, like, the position within the goal that, you know, if you hit to the corners, you're going to get a higher number than if you just hit dead center. [00:20:39] Speaker B: I believe I've been told that Petter Moose's post shot XG is higher than his xg, which is a sign of a good clinical finisher. So I, you know, not being a data nerd, I could have told you that, watching him play. So, like, that's the thing to me, like that XG or this, that or whatever, dude, he got a gift. Like, if he doesn't bury that, we'd be screaming like that. That's a. That's a. That's a must finish for a striker that's getting paid when he's getting paid and of his caliber. And frankly, any striker that's under a professional contract should bury that every time. That shouldn't be questioned. [00:21:10] Speaker A: Let's talk about Bernie for a few minutes. Starting off in the right, not a good performance from the young man. And I'm curious as to where you think he's at at this point. [00:21:22] Speaker B: I mean, it's not good. I sort of went into the season thinking, even watching preseason play, I wonder if Quill, because he knows him, has thought, I'm gonna show his confidence and I'm gonna put him out there and I'm gonna leave him out there and I'm gonna give him a run and try and make him feel good. Because that performance, to me, is a performance you get sat for. I thought he was terrible. [00:21:45] Speaker A: Yeah, he passed it barely 50%. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it was not good. He kept getting the ball sort of caught under himself. Now, again, he did struggle some, to quote, unquote, find the game. You know, only 26 touches in 61 minutes. That's, you know, one every two minutes, roughly. But you're right. No shots, no progressive passes, no progressive carries. One shot creating action, I think, in the game. So they even flipped wings part way. Like, I think it was halftime. I think it was to get him back on the side where he usually feels more comfortable. And I don't think that helped. And when you consider that Logan Farrington in 11 minutes had 10 touches, which is like almost half what Bernie had in just 11 minutes of play. So it's like, I. I don't know how. Like, if we were taking that game in a vacuum, I'd be like, there's no question to me, Logan Farrington would start the next game of the right wing. Well, you know, sometimes in team building, you Might make decisions as a coach, particularly early in the season. You might have convinced himself. I'm going to give Bernie a few games. I'm gonna see how it goes. I'm see if I can build his confidence back up. I know that I can always go to Logan. I know right now maybe I need to keep Logan just in case Musa needs to come out or whatever because I don't really have another nine right now. So other than Harrison, Julio. So he may just be. Not every decision, every game is cut and dried. It's just about performance. Sometimes you have to think about these bigger pictures. But man, that was not a good start by Bernie. I, I, I, it made me, I don't want to say yank him either because I, you might want to let him have a couple, but Colorado's not gonna be an easy place to play. [00:23:14] Speaker A: What about Sebastian Ibiaga? You know, now having to, you know, play with another guy, somebody he just met, the journeyman. [00:23:24] Speaker B: I thought he was okay. You know, mostly if you look at pure defensive numbers and pure basic numbers, I think he was adequate. The things I think are his deficiency are still his deficiencies. Dad, Dan had a couple, I think, glaring things that he mentioned about him that made made me really shake my head. He got really exposed by getting manhandled on that corner. That was the, not the corner corner, the cross. That was the goal. That's really troubling because crosses in from the wings, whether it be corners or from off of set plays or whatever, have been Achilles heel for this team for a couple years now. And that particular play, Regida got pulled out of position quite rightfully. He tracked the man he should have tracked. But, you know, Moore and Iaga should have dealt with that stuff and they didn't. [00:24:09] Speaker A: So Far Fan, you know, I don't remember anything in particular, good or bad. The only thing I remember about Far Fan was on the Houston goal, which by the way, I, am I in, is it, am I incorrect in saying that? That starts with Anderson Julio being out of position, way too far forward because that forced Far Fan to have to go try to run over and block the guy with the ball who actually ended up crossing it in because it seemed like Julio wasn't initially trying very hard to get back and that was his guy. [00:24:41] Speaker B: I thought, well, they made a big switch. They made a big left right switch to the guy that was out there, which I thought was Far Fan's guy. And then one of their midfielders made an aggressive overload into that section and that's where Uruguide overloaded to cover that up. And that left. [00:24:58] Speaker A: Dorsey. Dorsey's the one that crossed it in, I think. [00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah, well, Dorsey's the outside back, so that's the overload. And they, they played a com like they followed him and they played a combo back to Dorsey and then Dorsey, you know, fired in the cross and I didn't deal with it. So, you know, when you get those overload situations, like someone has to try and come and help and that was okay. You know, maybe you could argue that Julio should attract more. But it was the big left to right switch that really caught Dallas, you know, with an isolation on the other side. I thought mostly they overcame it. They just didn't do a good job with the cross. [00:25:33] Speaker A: And so while we're talking about Anderson, obviously he had the fun goal. We don't often see Dallas score goals over the top and run in past a goalkeeper. I mean, that's. I don't even know the last time we've seen Dallas, who had been in the last Dallas player to beat a keeper like that and score a goal. Maybe Jesus did it once. [00:25:55] Speaker B: He might have. I mean, the last time it happened consistently was under Oscar when you had guys. [00:26:01] Speaker A: Castillo. [00:26:02] Speaker B: Yeah, Castillo. Yeah. I don't really remember Jesus doing that a lot in the couple or in. In certainly like Maxi Yuruti wasn't really capable of that kind of counter attack. [00:26:14] Speaker A: There's going to be one, maybe Cunningham, I think. [00:26:18] Speaker B: I mean, to be fair, I think Bernie Cunningham did that a lot, but Bernie did that a couple of times in his first season. Yeah, Dallas, he maybe did it three or four times on the left side. When he first came up in 2022. Was that 2023. Whichever season it was, when he had those five goals, a couple of his. [00:26:34] Speaker C: Goals, Minnesota, when he kind of danced around the keeper and. [00:26:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's probably the last time. Really. It was Bernie a couple years ago. [00:26:40] Speaker A: So take that, take, take that moment out of the game, which probably is unfair to Anderson. But what did. How did you feel about his performance in his Dallas debut? [00:26:50] Speaker B: Well, for me, I thought he was good. He was my man of the match. I mean, part of that, of course, was the goal because he was still running and busting his ass and running away from guys late in the game. But when you're talking about a guy that's a wing or a striker, he had 71% passing out of a wing. That's really nice. Two shot creating actions, the goal creating action, a couple of intercepts, which means he's not pressing necessarily, but putting himself in the way to limit build out, you know, and, and Quill seems to put a heavy emphasis on a quick counter press. Like when you turn it over immediately try and get it back and then sit deeper once you, you know, if you can't get it back within a couple seconds. So he's executing that kind of defense. So I thought really he was pretty good all things considered. Even if you take away the one goal. [00:27:34] Speaker A: He was your man of the match. [00:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah, he was my man of the match. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Really Interesting. [00:27:37] Speaker B: A lot of other people picked pick Peter Musa, but I couldn't pick Peter Musa because of the fact he kept vacating in the middle and that was driving me crazy. So I couldn't have picked him. So I, but I, I went with Julio, you know, in part because I thought his game was excellent, but in part because even in the 70 whatever minute, 80th minute, he still had the fitness to make that lung busting full field run and run away from guys. And so that's that. He's ready, you know, he's, he's game sharp and game fit and game week one. So credit to him. Who did you think if it wasn't that one of those two guys, who did you have for man of my Speeder? [00:28:10] Speaker A: Oh, I was, I would have probably picked ou just because I was so impressed with his debut and he was the one player I was so concerned with because we just knew nothing about the guy and he, I was so, I frankly I was shocked he started the game. You know, that tells me a lot about. Yeah. Just because the dude literally just got off the plane and you didn't, did you say he would or do you say. You wouldn't have been surprised if I predicted he would. Oh, did you? Okay. [00:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:40] Speaker A: All right. So yeah, I'm, you know, I, I think that probably would have been my man the match but you know. Tomato. [00:28:46] Speaker B: Who are you on that? [00:28:49] Speaker C: Bernie. [00:28:51] Speaker B: Bernie's event? [00:28:52] Speaker C: No, no. I mean obviously I only saw half, half of the game, but I, I, I liked what Anderson Julio brought kind of carried his preseason form into the first game, which is nice we've seen so many times. Freddy Vargas, oh, Dante Seely. Players like who've had this amazing preseason and then first game comes around and it's just nothing. [00:29:17] Speaker A: Well, very good. Well, Dallas gets the 21 win down in Houston. Man, Houston looks like they've got a season in front of them. [00:29:28] Speaker B: Yeah, they're, they're short two dps, you know, and we discovered last year with FC Dallas what it means when you're short two dps. [00:29:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:34] Speaker B: So you got to give them a chance. And like their GM tweeted today, I think Mendels, whatever his name is, I can't remember his name off top of my head that they, they're after a 10 and a center back to replace Michael who they sold like a week before the season. We also know what that's like when Sedal sold Thiago Sanders like a week before the season. [00:29:51] Speaker C: So it was interesting on the broadcast because they were very, you know, they were talking about as Pat Onstad. [00:29:58] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:59] Speaker C: Is there, you know, it's very specific, like, hey, this, this window runs till April. We are going to be very active until April. There is, you know, however much money in the bank that is just that kind of the way the season shifting. You know, we've talked about players coming in later and later, but just the fact that, yeah, they're going to be a third of the way through the season and still trying to assemble their team. [00:30:23] Speaker A: It is a long window. And certainly that actually leads us into some of the other stuff which was, you know, Dallas, you know, says they're still adding players and still looking to add. And there is Tom Bogart and somebody else, I don't remember who else it was that offered this up the other day that Dallas has been linked to a 19 year old center midfielder from Gremio. And I don't. Help me, guys. Is it Kayak? [00:30:48] Speaker B: Well, I, I googled it and it's. It's a variation of the name Kai. So if you take Kai and ck, you get a name we probably would not want to pronounce the way it probably is supposed to be pronounced. So. [00:31:02] Speaker A: Are you serious? [00:31:04] Speaker B: Yeah, like, because it's Kai. Wow. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:10] Speaker B: I think I'm hoping that's wrong because I don't want to call him that. [00:31:15] Speaker A: That would totally, that would totally make the list. I'm telling you. For 2025 we'd have our first list submission. [00:31:23] Speaker B: I looked it up and it's like, it's a derivative, it's a nickname off the name Kai, you know. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Well, you know what? On this Saturday I will ask Andy, who speaks Portuguese and lived in Brazil. We will find out now. Okay. Ferrero. [00:31:39] Speaker B: We call him Ferrero. That's his last name. Right. [00:31:42] Speaker A: For right now, let's just pronounce. Let's just call him Kai. Ick. [00:31:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Or K ick. And because I got a big question because the rumor is, is they're going to pay $4 million. [00:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:56] Speaker A: For a 19 year old. And I said, oh, he plays for Gremio. And then I read the small print and no, he doesn't play for Gremio. He plays for their U23 team. So Dallas is about to spend $4 million on a kid who has never played first. First team ball. [00:32:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:19] Speaker A: And for only 80 of his past 20 sell on. [00:32:22] Speaker B: So by the way, the first reports came out of Brazil, multiple different people and then Bogart confirmed all that. So that's, you know, it's, it's being reported on both ends, which is, you know, a pretty serious connection. And then you include the Grimios and Zenoda thing, you know. All right, so the only thing I would say about under overpaying for a kid, you know, there are people that have paid a lot more than this for a kid that has never played first team football. But it's not usually FC to Alex, Us, you know, and Solly, yeah, he played first team football. He actually had a Romania cap, but on the side. [00:32:53] Speaker A: Oh, that's true. Yeah. Right. [00:32:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So let's just hope that between Zenoda's connections to Gramio that he's been watching this kid since the dude was like 6 years old. If he came up through their academy and stuff. So I mean, fingers crossed. I mean it is a case where the YouTube highlights look fun, but it's like, man, that's a lot of money. Now granted, a U22 initiative signing is just for this kind of thing, paying a big fee for a guy that at 18 you think is going to be worth a whole bunch of money. Sorry, 19. A whole bunch of money later on. So, you know, we'll, we'll see. Your, this is, people are asking me like this guy walk in and start, dude, he's 19. I mean, how many 19 year olds walk in and start? Not very many. The only one that started did that was Alan Velasco when you paid 8 million for the guy. So if they want to pay 4 million for him, they must really think a lot of him because that's a, a lot of money. It's the other half of Allen's money. Right. Half Alan's money went to get Lucho Acasa, the other half's now gonna go get this kid. [00:33:50] Speaker A: No, some of it went to go get ou. [00:33:54] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I guess you could use, you could, you could do the kind that way if you want. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I, my, my interest here is that if you start adding up now they've spent, they've overspent what they brought in for Velasco and that's a great sign. Obviously. I'm just. Look, it's. It's Dan and Clark's money. I don't really care. It just seems weird to me that they would spend like. This is got to be almost a top five transfer fee for a kid that has never played first team soccer. [00:34:20] Speaker B: Yeah. For FC Dallas, it's above, as you mentioned, and Asali, it's above. Acosta, the other Acosta, Brian Acosta, who at the time you remember was like a 3.5 and that was their record at the time. [00:34:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, I can't really think of like who other than. Other than Musa and. And Velasco. This probably would be your third highest signing. Oh, well, Lucio Cost is more than that. But that's eternal to the league. So nitpicky. So whatever you want to put it, fourth, third, whatever. [00:34:54] Speaker A: Even if it's top five. [00:34:56] Speaker B: Top five, yeah. [00:34:57] Speaker A: And so it makes it all the more mysterious. Now, I don't mean to take it in this direction, but he is a center midfielder, right? Buzz? [00:35:04] Speaker B: He's a six. Yeah, he is a six. [00:35:05] Speaker A: All right. So my question to you is, does this in any way, shape or form inform us at all about the team's actual attitude about the future of Paxton Palm McCall? [00:35:19] Speaker B: No, I don't think so because Paxton's plays a different position. I think it. I think it's more about Ramiro's 32ish. I think something like that 31, 32 show Kafumana, the other six around here, his loan only runs through June, is it? Or July. Right. So what's that buy cost if you actually want to keep him? Who knows? And then it's Norris. And Norris is, you know, while we like Norris, Norris is not a guy. They're spending $4 million to go get this, this sounds. And it feels more like your Carlos Garazo level buy. You know, who admittedly was in Europe and had already been on the World cup roster. So it was a much higher profile than this. But I think it just shows to show you that they really are lacking probably in that lockdown stud six that we've been talking about on the podcast, they have a lot of guys that are sort of 6, 8 capable. But even like a guy this, surely they don't think that the guy at 19 is going to solve problems for this season. I think this is about the future. This is about a year or two from now. [00:36:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm curious because, you know, for 4 million bucks, you could probably dig around some divisions in Europe and find yourself a pretty experienced pedigree. 6. [00:36:38] Speaker B: Well, U22 initiatives are about making money, right? It's the buy doesn't count. Yeah, it's to buy. Not cheap, but to buy. Kind of expensive to sell, more expensive. Because the basic premise of it is that the amount that you paid for them doesn't count on your cap. You're basically getting a high by player with a lower salary. And the idea is that you flip them then for more money. So this is a guy that you're gonna. You think based on the premise of a U22 initiative, which we don't know for sure, that's what's going to be. It's just what we assume it's going to be. Because I doubt this is a DP player. That would be really weird. That would be more along the lines of Alan Velasco coming in as a young dp and that's, you know, was an order magnitude more money. And usually that's more for an impactful kind of guy, not like a holding mid. Although I guess crazier things have happened, I suppose. Carlos Grezza was a DP holding mid too, so we'll have to kind of buy it our time. But this is. This is definitely a player that you're buying at this price because you think you're going to sell for a whole bunch more later, whether it's a couple of seasons of them here and then, or. Or maybe it's even just playing a little bit and then you sell them on. Like Tanner and Testman didn't play all that much here before they sold him. Yeah. You know. Well, this does a few. [00:37:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it certainly does. Testman was a. A homegrown, though, so this, to me, does. [00:37:57] Speaker B: Well, sure. But this is like a foreign homegrown. It's a young player you're getting when he's 18 years old. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah. But it goes back to the NSALI story, which is that blew up in their face. They spent a lot of money on him. He's turned out to be, you know, they have essentially shipped him off in a box somewhere in the middle of the night. We'll never probably see him again. And now they've spent even more money on a guy with even less pedigree and less experience. And we'll see what we get. I mean, look, they've had a really, really good off season. This one, to me, is the gamble. [00:38:27] Speaker B: So far, for sure. A gamble. [00:38:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And their track record on U22 initiatives is not good. You know, the only one that's been a hit at all is Giovanni and of course, through no fault of anyone, he's now out for a second straight season. [00:38:40] Speaker A: Yeah, speaking of that, that is the other word we got is that Geovain Jesus is on the IR officially. And what's the note? So he. Is this his other knee or is this another surgery on the same knee but not acl? [00:38:55] Speaker B: Did they say which knee it was? They did not say. Oh, it's his right. Yeah, it's his right knee. It says that. I don't remember if it's the same knee or not, but. But what was surprising was that the press release specifically mentioned that cartilage operation. I immediately wondered if it's the same one that, that Paxton had. So it's a different energy injury than we, we had sort of heard whispers that he retored the knee. Obviously this is a completely different injury. So that, this is why you don't report whispers on injuries. So it's definitely going to be. It's definitely an eyebrow razor in terms of like he's, he is under contract through the end of 2026, so he's going to be here next year unless they do some kind of buyout for him. But it does make you wonder, you know, will we ever see, as you say, will we ever see him play here again? I. I don't know. It's very difficult to think he will. [00:39:53] Speaker A: Let's see, what else did we want to get into on the list before we move on to the Colorado game? Real quick, did any. Did we talk about last week? I don't remember if this had come out or not. The Dante Sealy somehow signed a deal with an. He's playing in Montreal and he got a, like a decent contract out of the thing. I think we heard. [00:40:14] Speaker B: I don't know what kind of money he's making, but he definitely latched on with Montreal. You know, they, some people were, that I got multiple people were messaging me saying like, wow, they, they list him as a defender. I was like, did you guys not watch the last three years he played here as a left back? I was like, I don't, I don't know why that surprised anybody, but you know, on, on, on paper a lot of the scouting websites still list him as a left winger, but I think the idea is that he's going to be, you know, a left back with Montreal. [00:40:44] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:40:45] Speaker B: He did, he did get a 2 year contract through 2020. Sorry, through 2026. Go to 2027 option well then the. [00:40:53] Speaker A: Other one that is of interest is the somewhat sad story of Alan Velasco and what's happening with him down in Argentina. Yeah, so just to catch everybody up, obviously Alan got sold back to Boca Juniors and after a lot of effort on his people's part and his part, he was clearly homesick and wanted to go back. And playing for Boca was a dream for him. But man, it has gone down bad and so badly that if you haven't seen the footage, they were playing in their big domestic or not inter continental tournament, the Copa Libertadoras, and they were in a knockout game against a Peruvian team and they went to PKs and Allen missed the final PK. Poorly taken, I might add. And Boca is out of any sort of non domestic tournament for the season. And it the, I keep seeing things online buzz of people asking if Dallas somehow scammed Boca or if they ruined Alan Velasco. And I keep wondering, did Boca bother to watch any of his footage here in Dallas other than his magical debut. Messi moment coming off an acl, man. [00:42:09] Speaker B: That is tough, you know, and we saw improvement of him over the back end of the season from when he came back to when the end of the season actually came. But you know, I, I, I, I assumed at the time that Boca was buying him on what they thought his upside was, because you're right, he's, it is not going well. Somebody told me that he, he deactivated his Twitter account today because he's getting such heat and he's just getting absolutely shredded by the fans down there for being, you know, basically fake player. In a sense. I feel really bad for the guy. I mean, we know that he can play, you know, why he, it's not going great is really worrisome. I think we all, we all know and we talk about this all the time. When you tear an acl, it takes a whole year to get back to play and then it takes a whole nother year to get your form back. Pretty much universally, that's true and I think Alan right now is probably a really good example of that. You know, he's not the player he was two years ago. You know, will he be that player again in another year? I certainly hope so. I mean, I don't, I don't have any will, ill will towards the kid at all. I want him to do well because I don't. It hurts Dallas's reputation. It hurts him, you know, it hurts everybody if he doesn't produce at the value that they paid for him because it'll hurt the price of Dallas selling players in the future. [00:43:24] Speaker C: It's all right. He's going to dominate the club World cup and this summer, and he'll score the winner against Bayern Munich, and everyone will be happy. [00:43:31] Speaker A: Sure. [00:43:32] Speaker B: If he gets to play against Messi, he'll probably have a great game. [00:43:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I just. Now. Now with all of this behind us, and we've kind of seen how this has started to play out, I. Now I have this vision of Zenoda just looking into his. The receiver on his phone when Boca called, said, okay, okay, okay, we'll give you $10 million for him. And he's like, where do I sign? Like, right now, you can have him. So we all agree, we like Alan, we wish the best for him. It is not going well. And he looked absolutely gutted after he missed that pk. [00:44:04] Speaker B: Yeah. That's one of the most pained misses I've ever seen. Every. The only thing I can think of that's close is. Is England. When was it Southgate that. Yep. Put it over the. Sorry, Dan. [00:44:16] Speaker C: Yep. [00:44:17] Speaker B: But that kind. That kind of level of pain out of space. [00:44:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, especially because it happened at Boca in front of all those fans in that place in that tournament, and against the. A little, tiny, minnowy Peruvian team. [00:44:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:32] Speaker A: That I had to look up because I didn't know the. The club name off the top of my head. So there you go. All right, Dan, your turn. Let's talk about what's coming up next. Dallas has the Rapids. [00:44:46] Speaker C: Yeah. So I guess first thing I was. I was on Reddit, as you do, and supposedly it's Kaik. [00:44:53] Speaker B: Kaik. Oh, good, that was better. [00:44:57] Speaker A: Or somebody just decided to pronounce it Kaik because they didn't want to say it the other way. [00:45:02] Speaker C: Yeah, that's possible. But, yeah, it's car, like car, and eek, like eek. So kaik. [00:45:09] Speaker A: All right. [00:45:10] Speaker B: I hope that's right. [00:45:11] Speaker A: That's a me. That's still a super close pronunciation. [00:45:16] Speaker B: Yeah. When I looked up the YouTube things, oh, man. I was like, wait, what did he say? I was like, oh, my God, we can't use that name. No, we can't. Yeah. [00:45:25] Speaker A: By the way, before we get into the game itself, when was the last time Dallas started a season with two road games? Has that ever happened before? [00:45:32] Speaker B: Not. Not usually, because Dallas weather is usually nicer than other people's weather this time of year, so they usually start at home. [00:45:38] Speaker C: Wait, didn't they start on the road? 2017 for the south side rebuild? [00:45:44] Speaker B: I mean, that's maybe seven years ago. I mean. That's right. [00:45:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it just, it, it just feels very unusual to see them starting it. Yeah. Because they usually try to capitalize on the. In theory, better weather that we have in mid February, late February. All right. Sorry, Dan, I didn't mean to jump you. There you go. What's going on with Colorado? [00:46:03] Speaker C: No good. All good. Colorado is in a weird position. They've, you know, they've started with the CONCACAF Champions Cup. They are already out of it. LAFC dump to melt. Their last two games though, the goalless draw with St. Louis and the loss to LAFC. They had just seven shots in those two games. None of them were on target. The two goals they did score in the first leg were both set pieces. So it kind of comes up again about, you know, Dallas's weakness on defending set pieces. You know, that sounds great, but let's remember 2015, right, when Colorado scored, didn't score through their first four goals, four games, then walked into Toyota Stadium and won four nil. [00:46:51] Speaker B: Yeah, this Dallas defense might be a good get well defense for everybody. Yeah. [00:46:55] Speaker C: So you know, you've, you've still got some attacking threat there. You've got Georgia. Mihailovic had 11 goals last year. Rafael Navarro 14. They just kind of, they signed him permanently from Palmeiras after like a year and a half loan. The big focus has been the defense because they, you know, they conceded 60 goals last year. Horrendous. Obviously Lalas is out to, to FC Dallas. Moyes Bombito, who actually kind of came in and took Abubakar out at the start, was sold to Nice for something like 7 million. They, they brought in Cheeto Awaziam and Ian Murphy from Cincinnati for about a million combined. Which is odd to see two center backs signed from the same club at the same time with, with injuries. They've kind of been the, the focal point of the defense. Injuries were so bad last week. They had one recognized fullback, Keegan Rosenberry. Reggie Cannon was listed as doubtful. He ended up playing. But yeah, they are. They're absolutely getting torn apart. They're. They're two expected starting center backs, Sam Vines and Andreas Maxim, who should miss the game. I think Vines has a hamstring injury. I'm not sure what Max who had. [00:48:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw that. Their game, their 00 draw. Now they were on the road at St. Louis and that's always going to be a difficult game, especially an opener. But they only had two shots on goal, none on target in that game. [00:48:23] Speaker C: Well, it's funny, I was I was, you know, kind of seeing what the reaction was about that game and a lot of people said, oh, you know, it's really good defensively. Then I looked at the stats and we talked about, you know, expected goals versus post save. Expected goals or post shot, Whichever is. Yes, post save. Sorry. It's recorded after the safe 1.7 against. So Zach Steffen had to stand on his head effectively. Yeah, I think it's gonna be a really interesting test. Chris Armis feels a really similar style right. That 4, 2, 3, 1. It's really intense vertical, strong pressing. There's also going to be as well as like that clash of styles compared to last week. There's going to be the. The altitude. FC Dallas is a team that's not really been physical, it's not really been fit the last couple years. So you're coming into a more intensive style and. And now you go into Denver. [00:49:23] Speaker A: Yeah, the altitude. [00:49:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Did you. If you said that. Sorry. All right. So that game's at 8:30 on Saturday. Buzz, you got any ideas? You think it's the same 11 or does Bernie sit or does something else change? [00:49:37] Speaker B: I. I think it'll be the same 11 only because it's so early in the season and it is a new coach. That combination is where you're trying to build a new team concept and a new way of playing and if you disrupt that with lots of changes, there's. Not everyone should be really fresh. There's no midweek games, there's no man management yet. There's no minute overloads. And Ramiro and Acosta should be able to more go towards a 90 minute game. You know, when they last played the Rapids and the Rabbits were really effective of pulling Far fan really wide and, and opening the gap between Ibiaga and far Fan and they would try and hit that gap with. You can go back even a couple of years. You can go back to when Bresson was there or Martinez was there or Ibia was there. They try and hit that gap with pace when they pull it open. But now this first game, of course Uruguay was on that left side. So that'll be an interesting point to watch. That integration between him and far fan on that side and his coverage when they try and overload that, if they do again trying to attack that space like they have in the past, when they try and spread Dallas out and open those gaps up. So that'll be a thing to watch and, and the only player I think that's up for consideration for alteration would be Bernie Just because this game was so terrible. But I honestly think, like, if you yank Bernie after one game, right now, like, think of it from his perspective. Like, this coach that loves me is in. He's giving me the chance and he's yanking me after one game. That'll be a killer for his psyche. So I don't think he'll do it yet. I think he'll stick with Bernie for a couple of more games before he feels like his hand is really forced. Because then it'll. Bernie himself will be like, I'm not getting it done. I understand. You know, whereas Bernie might look at this first game and go, I, I saw the ball 20 times. I'm not getting any touches. I'm not getting involved. I'm not getting a chance. So you get to give the kid a little bit more before I think you make any radical changes. It might be different if Leo Chu was super fit. We're hearing discussion. He may not be super fit. You know, it might be different if you felt like, yeah, I really do want to move Logan Farrington outside, which I suggested all winter long and apparently is not the choice. Except that's exactly what happened at the end of the game. So in a normal game in the middle of the year, late in the year, multi year coach, I would say that game would get Bernie yanked, but I think my money is on that he keeps him in this time. And I wouldn't change anybody else at all. Everybody else was perfectly acceptable in the role that they're assigned to perform. [00:52:01] Speaker A: Dallas and Colorado in Denver, 8:30 Saturday night on your Apple TV. What a weird time it is because now there's officially 30 teams in the league, 15 games to choose from this weekend. And I did watch a big part of the Galaxy San Diego game, and me too. Yeah, San Diego looked really good. There are a couple of those guys they've bought that I thought were really impressive. They were really standout to me. Mikey Varus managing that team. Maybe we got. Maybe we got wrong about Mikey. I don't know, maybe he's. [00:52:36] Speaker B: What a fascinating story that that guy has turned into in terms of, like, getting out of Lucci shadow and excelling so far. So we'll. We'll see how his career goes. [00:52:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And by the way, since we're talking about former Dallas players, Paul and Jesus appear to be settling in with the Sounders quite nicely. Jesus having, by all reports, a very, very nice game midweek in their Champions cup game against, I can't remember who they played a team, what a Costa Rican Team. [00:53:02] Speaker B: I don't remember who it was. I saw some hilarious tweets though of people worried that they only pass to each other. Come on, man. [00:53:13] Speaker A: All right, very good. All right, let's move on. Trinity had a game against Spokane, Dan, and that did not go well. [00:53:21] Speaker C: No, that was, that was horrendous. I think if Dallas Trinity loses a game, it's because they just don't get going. Oh, there have been a ton of injuries to the back line. They lost a couple of players, young defenders to, to college, Kiara Gilmore, Jordan Hardeman who they really could have used. Amber Brooks had to step into the back line with Hannah Davison out injured. That completely neutralized her game. And therefore the teams, you know, just pulled the intensity completely out of the midfield. A passing range, suddenly you're dropping about, you know, 20, 30 yards. It was, it was not a pretty one. They really struggled to get Lexi Massimo involved. She was kind of walking around a lot, going out wide, trying to find the ball. Just, just an all round absolute struggle against Spokane isn't a good team. It was. [00:54:23] Speaker A: Is that the first time they've lost at home this year? [00:54:26] Speaker C: No, they lost to Brooklyn as well and it was same thing. They just never got going. [00:54:33] Speaker B: Yeah, one of the differences is Brooklyn's really, really good. [00:54:37] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. Just real quick, I, I watched the second half of the U. S. Japan game last night in the she believes cup and I, I'm still thinking about that Japanese performance. I don't know if either one of you saw any of that game. I don't think I've ever seen a team work as hard as a team for 90 minutes as I've seen. I saw Japan last night. That was a fascinating performance out of Japan. They are legitimately exciting and fun to watch and they work their asses off really, really good. [00:55:11] Speaker B: I wondered about that because I saw people complaining about like the lack of talent in the US Team and I go, oh, they must have played somebody. [00:55:17] Speaker A: Good because man, if people are criticizing the US out of this, they are failing to miss. They're completely missing the point of what MJ was trying to do with this tournament. And I think she successfully got a lot of things accomplished out of this tournament with trying a lot of these new younger players. A lot of promise in there. So falling to a full Japanese side that are willing to play like that and with a bunch of players that are all mid season too, by the way, was no shame whatsoever. And now I'm also seeing Buzz, you threw out a map. We, you know, I've talked about this, we've talked about it over on the kick around. Like it seems like we're about to reach some sort of new apex number of soccer clubs to choose from in the Dallas Fort Worth area, which is a massive expanse of space. It's like the size of Rhode island. And we're now it appears getting yet another team that people could go choose to watch. [00:56:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I've heard of this club but not like in any capacity as like a professional level. But there's a team in Fort Worth called FC Revolution. They've been playing in UPSL and I think the Metroplex League and things like that. They're launching a team in, in the new league that is at the. What is that? The D4 level unofficially which is the same level as NPSL or USL2. This is the same level that didn't Diablos are in or Fort Worth Vaqueros are in. This league is called the league for clubs and it's the league that's forming out of the rapidly crumbling npsl. We thought some of the new teams here might jump into this league and obviously this one has. So this team's called FC Revolution. They're playing their home games right off of 820, just off of where 820 intersects 180 Lancaster coming out of Fort Worth. So that's like East Fort Worth basically. They're also going to have an NISA like National Amateur team. So they're obviously putting, putting something into this program. I don't know anything about them to be honest with you, other than that's the level they're going to play with. So we're back to four teams at that level now here in the Metroplex. [00:57:26] Speaker A: But they're not the same league. So. No, Diablos aren't playing in this league. [00:57:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And chupacabras are in yosel 2. [00:57:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:57:35] Speaker B: Vaqueros are in mpsl and this team is going to be in the league for clubs. So there probably might be too many leagues at that level. But you know, the, the problem for a lot of those teams is that travel really adds up at that level because it's you know, pro, semi pro college kids. You can be a mix of those kinds of players and be interesting to see which one they go with. [00:57:54] Speaker A: I'm curious to know what the closest league for club opponent will be for them because I don't know Tulsa, the. [00:57:59] Speaker B: FC Dallas U23 team. Oh yeah, is in that league. And also Tulsa and Coyotes, which is in Temple South Waco of course. So you know, not, not too Oklahoma City, 1889. Is that what it is, Dan? That the other Oklahoma City team. So within three or four hours there's a couple of teams for them to play with. [00:58:23] Speaker A: Is that location got a stadium or is it just like a city park? [00:58:27] Speaker B: No, it's a stadium. It's a stadium. In my, my article I mentioned what it's called but off top of my head I'm, I'm looking as I, as I talk here. The stadium is Scarborough Handley Field, which is just at 820 and 180. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:58:44] Speaker B: In East Fort Worth. [00:58:45] Speaker A: And Buzz, would you like to report from your top secret sources about the Dallas cup super group? [00:58:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So. [00:58:55] Speaker A: Don'T give it away, don't give away your top secret sources, Buzz, but. [00:58:59] Speaker B: The press releases I get Monterey's back for the super group. That's really exciting. The, the secret stuff I hear is that tickets are going to be going on sale soonish for the, the big game in the, the big opening day parade and the big three games in the Cotton Bowl. So that's always a really fun game. So even though that stadium's under construction, it should be half a stadium, maybe packed out because the, how you can only use half of it for, for the, for the fans right now. So it'll be good. Okay. But that's always a big game. [00:59:25] Speaker A: And last thing on the run sheet is North Texas soccer club has signed a goalkeeper. [00:59:31] Speaker B: Yeah, this is fascinating because it was a goalkeeper they had on trial. His name is J.T. harms, he's Indiana's goalkeeper, Indiana University and was their two time captain. The reason it's fascinating is because they now have two keepers under contract there and they also have Nico Montoya who's the U18 keeper that I think deserves some time at that level. So it's all of a sudden really crowded at North Texas sc and I think they, they even tweeted or mentioned somewhere that he's, this kid's the new number one. So that means both Antonio and Carrera and Michael Collodi are pretty much not going to be playing at North Texas SC unless it's some kind of emergency. So those two kids both need to play some. You know, one of them will be the number two and I'll be on the bench all the time behind Martin Paz. But you don't want to have your keepers, your younger keepers stagnate completely. You want to have them playing somewhere somehow. Maybe there's some games at the U23 team, maybe not. Because that, that if that's all college kids that maybe needs. It may all need to be college kids. So I don't know what needs to give in terms of keepers. You know, I'm not. I'm not an expert on how you coach up and develop keepers, but having a guy having your two guys that are now 22 and 24, I think they are your two backup keepers just sort of sit there and not play. Because Martin Plaz is going to play every game for the next five years, you know, doesn't seem like a good idea. So I. Something probably needs to give there in terms of minutes for keepers. Nothing changes the fact that this JT Harms guy seems like a leader listed at 6:1. So we'll see if he can play most of the games for North Texas this year, it seems. [01:01:10] Speaker A: Buzz, I saw you got to. Before we go. I saw that you got your very first taste of cosm. C O S M. Yeah. [01:01:20] Speaker B: Fascinating. Have you been. Haven't you, Peter? [01:01:23] Speaker A: Yeah. You know. So those. For those who don't know up at. In the colony at. What is that area called? [01:01:30] Speaker C: Grandscape. [01:01:32] Speaker A: Grandscape, where Nebraska Furniture Mart is. They have constructed one of two existing COSM facilities which is essentially a very miniature version of the sphere in Vegas. Now it doesn't have the exterior lighted up. The lighted exterior. And it's not a sphere on the outside, but very much a sphere on the inside. And were you surprised how small it is when you see it in person, Buzz? [01:01:59] Speaker B: No, I wasn't actually. No. It's because like for our sports bar it's big. Yeah. [01:02:03] Speaker A: I just. I don't know. I just was. Once you get into. Where did you sit on the first, second or third level? [01:02:09] Speaker B: Third level. [01:02:09] Speaker A: Okay. [01:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So what'd you think? [01:02:12] Speaker B: Well, I first I like just. Just to be fair, completely honest with open it's pretty pricey. [01:02:18] Speaker A: Yes. [01:02:19] Speaker B: There's a lot of amazing big huge cool screens. Great places to sit all over that place. It's just as a sports bar alone. The big huge screen, the fake stadium thing experience is for soccer is fantastic. They. When you. When I arrived they already had the main. What they do basically is they bring back these. These RAW cameras and so they have the main like 50 yard line camera view up for like 40 minutes before the game or whatever it is. And it's literally like you're sitting there in the stands watching the players warm up. They also. [01:02:51] Speaker A: And you were there for Newcastle Liverpool. [01:02:53] Speaker B: Newcastle Liverpool. So they also have. So you have this big humongous wall of this one gigantic huge Camera shot. And they bring in the audio from the venue so you can hear some crowd. You can. And you're watching the players warm up. They also have the broadcast. In this particular case, they had the broadcast off of. I think it was NBC. I'm not really. [01:03:16] Speaker A: I'm sure it was NBC. And they threw it on like a little insert screen. [01:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah, a couple insert screens. And so they have the pregame on that and they're doing their show and they're dying, they're talking and whatever. And so you're. But mainly you're just staring at the shot of the field and it's huge. Huge. And they even have the deck, even has railings like the Rangers do, like the wire railing. So it really feels like you're sitting in the stadium and that was all super cool and amazing. And the game starts and it's. And it really feels like you're sitting there, except that you have the play by play guys in your ear. So it's like you're sitting there, but you maybe you have your radio on, like if you're an old school kind of guy that does that kind of vibe. And I was thoroughly enjoying it until they started cutting cameras, which is what. [01:03:58] Speaker A: You do for a living. [01:03:59] Speaker B: It's what I do for a living. But they're. Whoever's doing it is cutting during play in order to try and give you a better closer look at what's happening. But the thing is, is that this is for me, where they're trying to do two things at once. Because if they're trying to make you feel like you're sitting there in the stadium, then by cutting they jar and ruin that experience. Because now I've just hopped to the corner or I've hopped behind the goal. It's like, oh. And it happens sometimes, right. In a really key moment. And so you have to readjust like, where's the goal? Where's the ball? So I found that incredibly jarring. [01:04:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's because the screen is so high resolution and it's so enveloping around you. It is a completely. A mind screw for a half second because your brain is trying to recalculate what it's looking at. [01:04:50] Speaker B: Yes. And so like when you do that in the run of play, it's super jarring and distracting. Now when they did it, like in a dead ball situation, like if the ball would go out for a corner and then the guy's going around, walking around, nothing's really happening. And then they cut to the corner, I found that smoother and more able, more easily digestible by my brain. When they did it, when the run and play, I hated it. So like I kind of feel like they're trying to walk a line between it's a sports broadcast and it's this immersive in the stadium vibe. I kind of wish they would just go one way or the other hardcore. And I really wish it was the immersive stadium hardcore and just not cut that camera. You literally have like this 100 and 200, 300 seat. If you were actually in the stadium, you're pretending that's your seat. You have an amazing view right there at the 50 yard line, right where I love it, you know, like 30 rows up, perfect sight line to see the whole field, all the tactics. It's like my dream seat in any stadium. Don't. I don't need to go behind the goal. I'm happy right here. You know what I mean? Maybe, maybe other people's mileage will vary about where they're sitting and like they want to cut around to those cameras. But I hated the cutting around of the cameras. The other thing I didn't like was when they would insert a replay. Like if the network did a replay, they would then slam that in like big right in the middle of the thing. And that also was like a jarring thing where I was like, oh, because all of a sudden there's a replay right smack in my face, you know. So 90% loved it, 10% like, please stop cutting during action. [01:06:17] Speaker A: It's a premium experience. It's very expensive. The state that they've got one in LA that's actually bigger than the Dallas one. And I've. I've been told that the. They range in price from anywhere from 50 to 80 million dollars to build. I have no idea how they're going to make any of their money back because of all of the licensing fees they're having to pay to do premier league games, NBA games, hockey games. They've even started doing NFL games. I don't know how they got the licensing for that because they're not using, they're using their own broadcast crew, cameras, team on site to do these things. Yes, they are. They're putting their own equipment in these now. It's a limited number of angles, right? It's not like a, it's not like a Fox NFL game. It's not like. It's probably limited to three or four angles or cameras. [01:07:02] Speaker B: I still know what that cost. Peter, that's a lot of money, right? [01:07:04] Speaker A: Well, yeah, those are. And they're not like four. They're not even using 4K cameras. They're using some proprietary, I think, 8K or 12K camera or something. [01:07:15] Speaker B: That's amazing. Yeah. [01:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's. It is a really interesting experience. The problem is it's so expensive to go. I mean, seats start. I mean, you can find an inexpensive seat in the worst place, you know, depending on the game, for about 50 bucks. But to sit in a place in there that you really want to sit is going to cost you three figures, easy. And then the food's expensive. The drinks are expensive. I mean, it's a premium experience. And, yeah, it's. Your mileage may vary depending on how much you're willing to spend. [01:07:44] Speaker B: Well, that's. In a way, that's why I wish they would double down on the fake immersion. Like, you really want to make it feel like you're in the stadium. [01:07:51] Speaker A: Yeah, Buzz. I would say I could also see other people going and go, yeah, I'm just there. But it's just one camera angle. I want to. I want to experience other things in the stadium. So I, I, I'm with you. You and I are very much the same. I wish it would just be a fixed position, like the premium position in a stadium. Yeah, but everybody's premium position differs from person to person. [01:08:12] Speaker B: And I could see that being a variation for the game. Like, Like a, Like a hockey or a basketball guy might want courtside or glass side instead of. And maybe that's a fan, too, of soccer that's like, oh, I want to be right behind the goal, you know, like, so maybe you're right. It would help a lot for me if you just do the cutting away from action, because, like I said, that made it way better. [01:08:30] Speaker C: That probably leans into the other stuff they do. Like, they just signed a big contract with wwe. Something you can easily cut one thing to another. NFL. So many breaks you can. You can cut away. [01:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:42] Speaker C: NBA. It's small enough that maybe you don't need to until the ball's out of play. But, yeah, soccer's a bit. A bit unique in that it's the larger field with the. The more continuous accent. [01:08:54] Speaker B: It's funny you mentioned the wwe, because the Seamus and one other guy were there sitting right next to me. [01:08:59] Speaker A: Oh, really? Yeah, man. I, you know, it's an. It's a unique experience if you're willing to spend the money or, you know, somebody offers you tickets or there's some, like, in your case, Buzz, you were going as part of a promotional deal. Yeah, not that Buzz took all your Patreon money and went and smelled on Cosm. No, no, I'm not buying that. It's an interesting experience, and it, you know, it's. I have no idea how that company's gonna make any money because they're spending so much money and they're talking about building other ones. I think there's another one coming in Atlanta, I think next. [01:09:33] Speaker B: I mean, it must work then if they're doing more of them because they're. Otherwise they're throwing money down a hole. But. [01:09:38] Speaker A: Well, I, I got to go to. I got invited to the night. They kind of opened it up and they had a, a, a, a party and the owner or the main guy, the president of the company and one of the main investors was there and, man, they are. They are convinced that they are on the the next big thing in terms of entertainment dollar spending. So. [01:10:00] Speaker B: Okay, we'll see. [01:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's over there again at Grandscape up in the Colony, which is also a really weird place to put a very premium experience, by the way. It feels like something needs to be down in, like, uptown or something. [01:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a wall. There's a lot. [01:10:13] Speaker A: I guess there's a lot of rich people in Collin County. [01:10:15] Speaker B: There are. [01:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [01:10:17] Speaker C: And real estate is a lot less for them. [01:10:20] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, thank you, Buzz. That's good. Yep. Glad you liked it. [01:10:25] Speaker B: 3Rd Degree the podcast is brought to you by the Dallas Beer Guardians FC Dallas's rowdiest supporters club. The Dallas Beer Guardians are cracking open the 2025 season. DBG wants to invite the third degree community to join them on Saturday, March 1 at 8pm at the Derbyshire Publish Club in Frisco for the annual Kickoff Guardians Town Hall. Join them with the pub right across from Toyota Stadium to meet their leaders, see the 2025 DBG Kit and learn what they have in store for this season. Then grab a pint and take in the SC Dallas game at Colorado. If you can't join them, you can always follow them on X Instagram, Facebook, Reddit. Discord threads pretty much anywhere under the name Dallas Beer Guardians. Th be. The podcast is also brought to you by Pappy Check, the man that makes the wonderful music for here on the podcast. He's back in Town for 2025 and wants to let all the fellow Seals sickos know that he's available for solo gigs, full band engagements, restaurant accompaniment, private parties, and even lessons for beginners. The guy can do it all. You can follow him on Instagram at Pappy. Check for updates on all his latest gigs and whatnot. That's the best place to find him. And you can take advantage and take in all the scenes at all the concerts and show his Scots around town. [01:11:31] Speaker A: Thanks, Dan. It's good talking to you again. [01:11:33] Speaker C: Likewise. Thank you. [01:11:35] Speaker A: And Buzz, always top notch stuff, sir. [01:11:38] Speaker B: You're welcome. Thanks for being here. [01:11:41] Speaker A: Here we go. We've started off the season strong, undefeated. Not are they in first place? Are they technically first place FC Dallas type? They're okay. Yeah, we'll go. We'll go with that. [01:11:53] Speaker C: Hello, first place FC Dallas. [01:11:56] Speaker A: All right, thanks, Buzz. Thank you, Dan. And thank you, FC Dallas curious fan. We will speak to you next week on yet another episode. This one. And happy 300 to all of you, by the way. And that will be another episode of third degree, the podcast insert this a. [01:12:12] Speaker C: Sparta joke third degree the third degree. [01:12:16] Speaker A: Net podcast third degree the third degree net podcast 3rd degree the third degree never get third degree the third degree never care. [01:12:48] Speaker B: Sa.