3rd Degree the Podcast #309

[00:00:00] Speaker A: What's that Diego Acosta problem? [00:00:03] Speaker B: It's. I don't know if you want to call it a rant or a TED Talk. [00:00:06] Speaker C: You mean the Lucho Acosta problem? [00:00:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm sorry. Not Diego. I don't know why I wrote Diego. [00:00:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:00:22] Speaker A: 3Rd degree, the 3rd degree net podcast. [00:00:27] Speaker B: 3Rd degree, the third degree net podcast. 3rd degree 3rd degree, the podcast is brought to you by listeners like you. If you enjoy 3rd Degree, the podcast, or any of our coverage on 3rd Degree.net or our social media work, why not join [email protected] thirddegree give us a little support, whatever level you might like to lend a helping hand. If you join us at the 3 megas level, you can join our terrific Discord community and all the great fans there. Thirddegree.net patreon.com thirddegree thanks again for your support. [00:01:05] Speaker C: Well, hello there, North Texas soccer curious, aficionado, person, type fan. Welcome to Third Degree, the podcast where we talk about things not just football club Dallas anymore. Hence the new open. Hey, there he is, the good Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:01:29] Speaker A: That was an incredibly AI like introduction there. [00:01:34] Speaker C: I'm impressed. You could tell the difference. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Sometimes it's difficult. [00:01:39] Speaker C: What if. What if we have. What if I have been replaced with AI Peter? [00:01:46] Speaker B: That would explain the positivity of late. [00:01:48] Speaker A: True. [00:01:49] Speaker B: Perhaps. [00:01:51] Speaker C: And there he is, your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, Founder, third degree.net Original Soccer Influencer himself, Buzz Carrick. Coming, Buzz. [00:02:01] Speaker B: I do appreciate your attempt to try the. To spread out the open with the whole Metro. Since there's, what, four or five teams and counting? We're heading towards seven or eight pro teams here. [00:02:13] Speaker C: Yeah, but Buzz. Yeah, you told me to. [00:02:16] Speaker B: I asked you if we should. [00:02:18] Speaker C: Is that what it was? I thought you shoved me up against the wall and said, listen, damn it. [00:02:23] Speaker B: I said, should we think about it? Should we talk about it the next week? You were like. You just did it. I was like, okay, great, cool. Let's try it. If we hate it, we can go back to the old one. [00:02:32] Speaker C: I'll come up with my. I'll come up. I was always very proud of the FC Dallas Curious thing because I just thought it was really funny and it stuck. So now I feel like I got to come up with something else, like North Texas soccer aficionado or something like that. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. The trouble with the FC Dallas Curious was I couldn't put it on a shirt because I did. I know. I did, too. And then they got. They got mad about that, so I had to take it down. Of course they did not see Dallas and Mos did actually. [00:03:01] Speaker C: Strangely enough, in fact, I still sell FC Dallas Curious shirts that you can buy at a location. If anybody would like to own one, I will gladly sell you one inexpensively. Please DM me or send me a note and I will shoot you the link. [00:03:15] Speaker A: That location is the trunk of Peter's car at Moss Park. [00:03:18] Speaker C: That's right. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Would you also like a watch DVD maybe? [00:03:27] Speaker C: Yes. Oh, listen to the good spirits and tones and vibe of this podcast because it is a victory podcast, everybody. As Dallas goes to Miami and somehow takes a lead, goes down two goals, comes back to tie it, and then wins the game, improbably giving Miami their first league defeat of the season. While Messi and Suarez sit on the sideline drinking some mysterious beverage out of coconut shaped drinking bowls or whatever it was. I'm very curious as to what Messi was deliciously drinking and then refilling into that cup that they were drinking out of. Did you wonder that thing yourself? [00:04:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the thing legit drinks, right? Isn't it? [00:04:14] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, South. Big South American thing. [00:04:18] Speaker C: Oh, is it? What is that? [00:04:19] Speaker A: Slightest herbal, caffeiney type drink. [00:04:24] Speaker C: Interesting. [00:04:25] Speaker A: Okay, Like a tea. [00:04:27] Speaker C: It looks like it comes with a fancy straw too. Like at the beginning of the game they were showing him and all you could see was the tip of the straw and the way that. And I thought, what if it's one of those crazy bendy straws that we used to have as kids that was like all looped up on itself that you thought was cool to use and maybe I still do. [00:04:46] Speaker B: Silly straw. [00:04:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Is that what that's called? A silly straw? [00:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that I think. [00:04:50] Speaker C: What if they had panned out and suddenly Messi was drinking out of a silly straw? That would have been quite a fun scene. [00:04:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Apparently that straw is part of the bit with that round. I mean, I never had one. I don't know what it is. Obviously it's a cultural question. [00:05:03] Speaker C: Have you had one, Dan? [00:05:04] Speaker A: No. [00:05:05] Speaker C: Oh, okay. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Well, no, I take my tea like. [00:05:09] Speaker C: Dirty brown English water. That it is. All right. So obviously Dallas got the advantage of Miami having to rest everybody, essentially as they were coming off the defeat to Vancouver and have to play them in the away leg in Miami coming up later this week. So Dallas benefited from not only getting the extra day because the game was on Sunday instead of Saturday, but also because Mash Reno decided to swap out 10 players on that. And I was counting up buzz and we might as well just get this out of the way. The number of guys that have played more than four games this season. Of that, 11 were four of them. There were two guys that had yet to start a game. Fafa Picos only started twice prior to this game. Did you know that? [00:06:00] Speaker B: No, I didn't. [00:06:01] Speaker C: I didn't know that. And a couple of guys that had started three games. So everybody else, it was a pretty. Pretty raw inner Miami, but Dallas gets the business done. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah. You have to go into this game, you know, recognizing that that's the situation. And so there's a slight caveat or taint or whatever you want to say about the fact that they wrote. [00:06:21] Speaker C: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. [00:06:22] Speaker B: Bottom of their roster. [00:06:22] Speaker C: Say taint. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Doesn't always mean what you think it means. [00:06:26] Speaker C: Wait, Dan's the. Dan's the tiebreaker here. Dan is taint. An unusual term to use for describing what Buzz is describing. I want to. [00:06:36] Speaker A: I want your judgment completely appropriate. [00:06:39] Speaker C: Okay. All right. [00:06:40] Speaker A: You just have a dirty mind, I guess. [00:06:43] Speaker C: It's not weird. [00:06:44] Speaker B: Not weird. So continue. [00:06:47] Speaker C: Sorry. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Color. That colors the. The game, for sure. But, you know, one of the things we always talk about there in Miami is that their dudes are better than most everybody else's dudes because a lot of people take a lot less money to go play there. But you got to recognize that they rotated. On the other hand, Dallas was trailing by two goals and in the second half and came back and won. And that's only the fifth time in club history that's happened. So this is a monumental comeback, regardless of who you're playing against, for you to be down and come back in the second like that, five times in the history of this club, and it's the first time since 2011. So you can celebrate it, you know, with the understanding that it's. It's not against what Messi's real. Messi's Miami's real team looks like. But, you know, you have. You get the schedule. You get. They're in the Champions League. This is what happens when you're in the Champions League. The com. Cap Champions League is that you have to play games shorthanded, which is why teams that are usually at the top of the Champions League and go deep in the Champions League struggle a little bit, you know, but this is also their first loss of the year. So it's a pretty monumental win for SC Dallas, which is clearly a team that's not as good as Miami. So you take the victory and you take all the positives from this game, and you can be really excited about the getting result and look as we're on the road is hard, period, at all, let alone coming back from two goals down. [00:08:01] Speaker C: Dan, I'm interested in your observations overall of the game, but I'm going to assume you'd like to start with the same thing you noted quickly, right off the bat, as I did. This was the rare, novel MLS game where both teams are wearing their primary kits and how awesome that is. [00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Unless you have an issue with reds, I suppose. [00:08:23] Speaker C: True. [00:08:24] Speaker B: Yeah. I did see somebody say, screw the colorblind like 10 seconds into the game, and I was like, well, yeah, that's fair. [00:08:29] Speaker C: It did make me wonder, if Dallas's kit was all red like it normally is, what would they have worn in that game? [00:08:38] Speaker A: They would have worn blue and Miami would have worn their black kit. They would have kept the light and dark. [00:08:42] Speaker C: They would. Well, no, no, no, no. If. If Dallas's primary kit was all red instead of what it is now, and they still had the same. [00:08:50] Speaker A: Well, that's what I mean. They would do the. They would still keep light and dark, but they would flip it. [00:08:55] Speaker B: He's saying Dallas is secondary, which is calling blue. [00:08:58] Speaker C: Oh, that's right. You call it blue. I call it white. Okay. I'm sorry. [00:09:01] Speaker A: Either way, both teams would wear their white kit. [00:09:04] Speaker C: Ah, okay. [00:09:05] Speaker B: You know, they've relaxed that dark white structure a little bit. You know, the pink, though, that might be so light. [00:09:11] Speaker C: Sorry, Steve Davis. [00:09:12] Speaker B: You can't wear the, The. The. The blue, white, gray, whatever the Dallas one is, you probably can't wear that. Dan's right. Against that pink because the pink is so light. But you could definitely wear, you know, that blue, white against other soft colors. You know, it's. It's not quite as rigid, dark, light as it would be in the past, and we've seen some dumb color combinations of late, so it's hard to say what would have happened. [00:09:32] Speaker C: All right, I apologize for a second time. I digress. Dan, please continue with your observations. Overall, so bad at this. [00:09:42] Speaker A: I mean, the obvious. First thing is FC Dallas hadn't scored in the first half an hour of any game this season, and eight minutes in Shaq Moore. I mean, you know, of all people, normally it's, you know, obviously FC Dallas makes a habit of going down and coming back, but yeah, we're. We're taking the lead early on. [00:10:04] Speaker C: I was, I was impressed by the quality of that banger, by the way. He got full Shaq more all behind that. [00:10:11] Speaker A: He got everything behind it, and it was, yeah, perfect technique. Lean over the Ball, not lean back and sky it. [00:10:18] Speaker B: I think I was most pleased about that, was that the commentators who get to have a meeting with the coaches on, you know, late in the week, and the coaches are often much more candid. And they flat out said that Quill told them that they needed more from Shaq Moore that he's not. He's been really conservative and really defensive in his focus, and they needed much more offensively from him. So I was actually really interested in hearing that. [00:10:39] Speaker C: Did you guys know that Shaq Moore is originally from the Miami area? Yeah, I did not know that. [00:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah, he only played for FC Dallas for a season. [00:10:48] Speaker C: No, I knew that, but I didn't realize he originally was from the Miami area. That was news to me. I read that. [00:10:53] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure that I knew that. I didn't have that out. If I didn't. If I'm wrong. [00:10:59] Speaker C: How convenient. Since you're the editor of said podcast. [00:11:02] Speaker A: Jago says he was born in Powder Springs, Georgia, if that helps. [00:11:06] Speaker C: He's a man of the world. [00:11:07] Speaker A: He is. [00:11:09] Speaker C: All right, so the game. Yeah. All right. So, Buzz, I. I made a point to count, and I'm trying to come up with a name for this step, but I can't figure out what it is because it's the one thing about this team that is driving me nuts, which is It's. It's oddity. The 8. The goal in the 8th minute is a perfect example of what I'm talking about here, where Dallas gains possession in Miami's half of the field by forcing a turnover, and they go on to score a goal because they're really good at kind of doing some short passing and intermixing, and ultimately the ball pops out to Moore, who bangs it in. But prior to that moment, anytime Dallas was trying to bring the ball out from their own half of the field, either a through regaining possession in their half of the field or be a restart for Martin Paws like a punt or a goal kick or whatever. The team at that particular moment was 0 for 6 in this new stat I'm coming up with of getting the ball past midfield and then completing one pass, at least one pass in the opposing or in their attacking half of the field. And that's what I. And as I go through the game, as I was telling you guys after I can't remember what the total was, I think in the first half, they were six of 22. [00:12:27] Speaker A: Oh, that's what that was. You gave no context for it. You just threw out some numbers. I was like, oh, I Know what does this mean? [00:12:32] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you probably missed the earlier explanation in the thread, but yeah. So by the end of the first half, Dallas had only successfully crossed midfield and completed at least 1 pass 6 out of 22 times. But anytime they win the ball in the attacking half, they're pretty okay. They could do some things. But that's what's driving me nuts about this team. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Yeah, this is something I think we're going to talk about a little bit more later too. But this team has a real problem in terms of its build out, being able to play build out, get across midfield and build out and continue with possession. It's like it can't, it basically can't do it. The, the, the two, the central mids that they're running are basically all sort of ball winning sixes. Even show is really has a lot more six quality than he does eight, eight or linking quality. So there's not a lot of like build through the middle of the park and this Will's been talking about this since the season started, right? That idea of like you got to be brave to play in the, in the mix in the middle if you go to the right you have Ibiaga who's not a particularly great passer these days. You have Kaike on that side of the central midfield who's a 19 year old kid and is not really a passer or progressive dribble or either one. And then up in front of him you have. [00:13:48] Speaker C: That seems like a pretty bad pair of things not to be able to do as a starting memorize especially because. [00:13:55] Speaker B: You'Re playing more as an eight than a six. So. And then up front on that side is Anderson Julio who's a vertical bomber and not a dribbler or passer kind of that kind of guy. And then over on that side also is Shaq Moore who is not any of those qualities. So going up the right side is basically non existent and as a consequence of that that means they can only build up on the left. And if you saw this game and the reason you could build up on the left is because show who's the most competent sort of ball handling linking mid that they're currently playing is over on that side on top of Nolan Norris who's the best passing defender they have and Lucho Costa who wants to play as a second striker always drifts out to that side. So what you're ending up is a team that could only build out on one side of the team and the whole shape. If you look at it in my Breakdown I showed it. The whole shape is like shifted over and then Shaq Moore has like a whole half the field by himself. So Miami recognizes this and you can tell they have a good enough coaching staff to recognize it because they immediately like double teamed everybody over on the FC Dallas left out of the field and so Dallas couldn't build out at all. They turned Nolan Norris over a couple times, they turned show over a couple times. They just. Dallas could not build forward at all in this game and it's a combination of they don't have the players to do it and also the other team recognizes in this case the one place they can do it and snuffed it out. So you're right, it's a, it leaves them as a one dimensional team trying to play verticality wise and without a lot of verticality. So it's not. [00:15:16] Speaker C: Well, I don't know what we want to call this step but I've, I forgot I actually wrote it down. They were 6 of 27 in the first half and 7 of 22 in the second half. And again this isn't official because sometimes the camera cuts away when the ball's being progressed and or I wasn't paying attention. So. But I think as a fundamental idea my numbers are correct. [00:15:38] Speaker B: So yeah, it's just not the nature of the way this team is built in place and admittedly it's a problem because it makes them one dimensional and, and, and we know it's true and Quill knows it's true because he's been talking about it since week one. It's not, yeah, not a new problem and it's not one that the current personnel pending recovery and health changes is going to be able to fix. [00:15:57] Speaker C: Dan, was there any part of the midfield play, at least early in the game that you enjoyed or thought was working? [00:16:04] Speaker A: Oh, crash putting me on the spot there. Ramiro was keeping himself busy. Kaiko seemed to come into it a little bit later on. Sorry, I'm having a real, a real problem. Remembering the start of the game up. That first half was a difficult one to watch. [00:16:19] Speaker B: You know, one of the symptoms of this problem is the, the team trumpeted out a couple of guys today, you know, with some stat lines and one of the guys that they trumpeted was Ramiro and they talked about he had 22 passes into the final third. They had talked about he had 10 final third entries which is slightly different than just a pass in general, 86 touches and 65 passes. Well, the volume of touches and passes isn't necessarily good by itself. But he had some possession wins and some tackles. Those, those parts are nice. We like that part. But the, the misleading part is the idea of these passes into the final third and these passes of progression. It's like, as I talked about, because Shaq Moore's over on the side by himself. He. He quite frequently is quite high on that outside. So a lot of Ramiro's progressive passes and progressive passes into the final third are just outlets literally horizontally to Shaq Moore. So it's not like the ball. So a lot of the things that he's doing, it's not finding Acosta, it's not finding Farrington in this case, it's finding Shaq Moore out on the outside. So, you know, sometimes stats can be a little bit misleading in that sense. Now, I, I think defensively, Romero is doing what he's supposed to do, which is sit in there and clog things up. He's doing a pretty decent job on that, so I don't complain about that too much. But when you watch him play, he really is limited in his mobility, in his range. Kaike and show both cover up a lot of ground in there for him, which is why you're forced to play that three players across there that you really are, you know. So again, it's like there are moments where you like what you're seeing in midfield and there are players that occasionally you like what they're doing, but you know, it's only, it's usually only a one dimensional facet. Like Kaika is doing a lot of defensive work, but he's, he actually has less progression than Ramiro. So there's not. And show had a really bad game on this game. So, like those three guys. [00:18:05] Speaker C: Well, that's kind of why I asked the question is because this is the first time show has started this season. It's first time we've seen that combination three of Ramiro, Sho and Kaik. And I, I, you know, just to be honest, I just, I was like, oh, this is a mess. This is working in any way, shape or form. [00:18:23] Speaker B: It was a little better against Minnesota than it was in this game, but it definitely is not good. Like, you're missing half. [00:18:28] Speaker C: Wait, did those three guys start in the Minnesota game? [00:18:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:32] Speaker C: Oh, I thought this was Show's first start. [00:18:34] Speaker B: No, no, he started a couple. [00:18:36] Speaker C: He did. He has. That's right. He was in the Minnesota game. Yeah. Okay. [00:18:39] Speaker B: This was the worst of his games since he's come back. You know, I, but again, like I talked about, Miami rotated and shifted a Lot of guys into the spaces he was trying to occupy, right. And tighten up that area of the field. He's not good enough to like lead the team and be that fulcrum guy. He's a, he's fine as an extra guy is like, you know, if you got him in there with a legit next to him, he looks a lot better, you know. So it's, there's just not a lot happening in terms of Dallas, in terms of being able to play progression through their midfield at all. It's all very one dimensional right now. [00:19:09] Speaker C: Well, going up early was great and it was a good scene per Dan's stat note. But eight minutes later we get our first. You know, this was kind of the first time I'd seen Nolan Norris in his youthful inexperience get the better of him is he got absolutely nutmegged and beaten by Mr. Frey out on the wing, who then ended up beating Romero on the touchline and then Havoc in the box. And then of course, of all people in the world, FA Pico pokes it in at the far corner, far post. [00:19:37] Speaker B: And this was the big problem for Dallas in the first 60 minutes of the game because they played this very narrow shape. The Miami outside backs were having a field day. Both outside backs were just destroying them up and down the field and there were. It didn't matter who went out there on fray. That guy torched everybody for the first 60 minutes. He had two assists and was playing havoc and he got a little lucky on the bounce on when he nutmeg Nolan. But you right then he run right past Ramiro and he waited and waited and waited and finally Iraqi had to come to him and that let him then play the ball across the middle to the wide open guy right in the middle who was coming out of midfield not tracked and then pause, makes two great saves and the ball bounces off of Shaq Moore's back and then you know, maybe was in his own goal, but either way Shaq Moore didn't help him. And then FAFA poked it in. [00:20:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I wondered if that original ball was over the line. When they did the replay it kind of looked like, I mean it's close. [00:20:33] Speaker B: I mean you would have had needed a goal line camera to really know and they weren't going to overturn it. [00:20:38] Speaker C: It was one one either way, right? [00:20:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't matter. I mean Fafa who hates FC Dallas, of course, yeah, was there. [00:20:44] Speaker C: I saw you exchanging. Somebody asked you that question on Twitter earlier today. Why not just for context. Share with People why Fafa Pico so clearly hates Dallas? [00:20:55] Speaker B: Well, some of it is not necessarily FC Dallas's fault. Some of it is some stuff that happened to him off field up in the, you know, the North Dallas Frisco area with certain civic entities. I don't want to talk about any real details because I'm not privy to any real details, but I've heard about it over and over and over again in the context of Alabico and then some. And the other part of it is. [00:21:18] Speaker C: Just Wait, you mean like he got pulled over by the cops or something? [00:21:21] Speaker A: He's spoken about it a few times. [00:21:23] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's not my place to like go deep into like why he's mad about that. You can imagine as a young, paid, fairly well black guy driving around in North Dallas, what might have been the issue? You know, I don't know that we need to do a deep dive into the social commentaries about that kind of thing, but you can imagine really quickly what some of the things might happen to him that made him upset. Not like the city of Dallas in general. And then on top of that, he has a couple of times. But for sure, in Dallas he had a pretty decent season, statistically speaking, in a bad FC Dallas team. @ the end of the year, they basically just unceremoniously, some unceremoniously dumped him. And so he's pretty annoyed about that. He didn't feel like he got treated with much respect. So, you know, those two things add up to him not liking FC Dallas very much and having another gear when he plays against them. [00:22:11] Speaker C: Can I just. I seem to recall that he was not very good, borderline terrible here in Dallas. [00:22:18] Speaker B: Well, I'd have to google his numbers, but I remember him being. Having a, you know, of a good team, he. A bad team. Excuse me. [00:22:25] Speaker C: I remember he had a couple of good moments, but I seem to remember us just kind of consistently. [00:22:32] Speaker A: He was solid enough. But I feel like a lot of people expected Fabian Castillo. [00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah, like, you know, the, the. That season was a pretty bad season. That's 2020, the COVID season. That's. Yeah. And so he. [00:22:48] Speaker C: That's why we don't remember him because we didn't get to go to the game. [00:22:50] Speaker B: He started 18 of. He started 11 of 18 games and I think he had three goals, you know, so like, it's not an epic season, but that was a season where I don't think anybody really had a very good offensive season. I just remember him being like really surprised and caught off guard because he thought he Played pretty well, you know, and, and I don't think it was a, you know, an amazing season by any stretch on his part, but it was not a bad season. [00:23:12] Speaker A: He'd also come out of that Philadelphia system where he couldn't play as a winger. He kind of had to re. Shape himself into a bit of a wide forward and you know, complete change of role going back to being a traditional winger. So. Yeah, I mean, who would want to be in that position, honestly? [00:23:31] Speaker C: Well, what is that, like his fourth or fifth goal against Dallas since he got let go. [00:23:36] Speaker B: And you can see him, he really celebrates too when it's against FC Dallas. So. [00:23:40] Speaker C: He hates FC Dallas. [00:23:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, keep in mind that like Frank O'Hara led that team in scoring with seven, which I'll tell you how the season was. And then Ryan Holling said at four and Santi Mascara had four, and then Papa had three. [00:23:53] Speaker C: God is a name Mike hadn't thought of in years. [00:23:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, I, I definitely think, I definitely remember Fafa being like caught off guard and be like, wait, what? You're getting rid of me? You know, like he couldn't believe it. So I was like, you know. [00:24:08] Speaker C: Well, the game suddenly turns on its head as Dallas goes from being up one nothing to tied one one. And just about 10 minutes later, Mr. Frey, once again, man, that is an exquisitely good cross into the box. And then of course, we had a Ibi moment. Yeah, he was way too easily defeated by starting his very first game. And who taps it in? [00:24:34] Speaker B: An 18 year old kid, as I. [00:24:36] Speaker C: Have written down here by some unknown guy that I've never seen before. Just shows up and taps it in. Ubano. Is that his name? I can't remember off top of my head. [00:24:45] Speaker B: It's something like that. Yeah. He's. Yeah, I was gonna say obando, but that would have been wrong. A Bando. He is a kid with some potential, you know, and. But they rotated heavily, you know. [00:24:57] Speaker C: Yeah, that's classic. Striker 101 right there. Just run off the. The shoulder of the defender and he'll never know you're coming. [00:25:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's totally. And maybe just lost him completely. It was three yards behind him and just simple. And it was a beautiful cross, your right splitting the center backs, you know. [00:25:12] Speaker A: And then you have Paz has a really weird moment of he. He goes to come out and then he stops and he doesn't really know what he's doing and he falls on the ground and he watches it go in. [00:25:21] Speaker B: This team is terrible about defending. Crosses and part of it is pause. He's not great with crosses. You'll notice that they've. They have him punching the ball a lot more this year rather than trying to grab it as a, you know, as a result, he gotten better at that part, but they're still not very good at it. [00:25:33] Speaker A: You remember that, that the rail Salt Lake game when Collodi dived out and punched that cross away and everyone went nuts for it. Same exact position. [00:25:43] Speaker C: What is going on in your Discord, by the way, with your Discord subscribers Buzz, because there was some significant anti Martin pause commentary going on. [00:25:55] Speaker B: Emotional, man. They just, you know, they got like. [00:25:57] Speaker C: Like things like, well, you know, if they could get a few million bucks for him, I wouldn't mind he seeing him getting shipped out of here. Like, are you effing kidding me? Are you effing kidding me? [00:26:08] Speaker B: It's an emotional game, man. [00:26:09] Speaker C: You people shock me sometimes. [00:26:13] Speaker A: I did have to close the browser tab when I saw 1.8 million. [00:26:18] Speaker B: Is that. [00:26:18] Speaker C: Did somebody really say that? [00:26:19] Speaker B: That's a little low. Yeah, that's a little low. Hey, it's all right. It's okay. [00:26:23] Speaker C: You know, Good grief. [00:26:25] Speaker B: That's a little low. But people in the heat of the moment, man, in the middle of battle, people say things they don't really mean. They backpedaled later. [00:26:33] Speaker C: Oh, did they? [00:26:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, they got it. Got backpedal. [00:26:36] Speaker C: I hope so. All right, very good. All right. So Now Dallas is down 2:1, and Dallas is really having a hard time gaining regaining possession. They keep turning the ball over again and again way too easily. I my, you know, unforced, just unforced errors, just bad passing, weird stuff. [00:26:57] Speaker B: Lucho Casa had seven blown receptions. Seven. That's incredible. [00:27:02] Speaker C: Is this where we insert Buzz as much type? Oh, you want to save that till later? Okay. [00:27:07] Speaker B: That's a totally different Lucha Acosta problem. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Diego Acosta. [00:27:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I wish they had a Diego Costa problem. [00:27:14] Speaker A: The one that didn't play for Chelsea. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:27:19] Speaker C: Now, speaking of Martin, I wonder, I don't know what the Discord members said when Martine saved everybody's ass, when the Dallas defense held way too high, line fell asleep when that guy ran through one on one and they all just stood there waiting for the whistle to blow that was never going to come because he was on side. And Martine saves on a one on one and keeps it from being a lot more than it was. [00:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I don't know if I could statistically back it up, but I feel like Martin Paz Bails them out of, you know, depending on the season, five, six, seven games a year that he'll bail them out with these monster. Was it, was it two years ago then when he had that string of like 7, 8, 9 saves, like back to back to back to back over like a two month period? I mean it was incredible. So, yeah, you know, in the moment's on shot stopping balls over the top. The guy's got phenomenal ability in a lot of areas. There's a couple areas that he's somewhat deficient in. That's why he's in mls. You know, the crosses and the feet, I mean that's. Those are two big ones, don't get me wrong. But the shot stopping ability and he's much better than anybody else they have available right now. Which is not to say that, you know, there is a price for everybody. Of course, like if the right number came in, you would tell him, but I don't think that's going to be happening. So I think he's going to be here for a fair bit. [00:28:27] Speaker C: Well, we get to halftime, it's 2 to 1. Dallas is licking their wounds. We go to the start of the second half. No substitutes. Not quite yet. But it didn't take very long before Miami got in a long ball in behind and Shaqmore is left to try to do everything he can to keep him from doing something before he gets a red card for a dog. So lets him go. And suddenly now it's three one and all seems lost. Buzz. [00:28:54] Speaker B: Well, that was a really awkward defensive moment from Shaq Moore. He's not a very good defender. You know, that was. Scored a goal, thank God. Yeah, it was an old late defense and then he got all grabby and huggy and I couldn't believe he didn't get a card. Even though they scored. And then their, their mid, I think is their central mid crash forward and snipped the ball loose and fired it in. [00:29:15] Speaker C: And I would not have been surprised if that guy had misfired if they hadn't scored, if the ref wouldn't have gone back and called the PK because he was still holding him inside the box. I would not have been surprised if retroactively he had gone back and called. [00:29:29] Speaker B: Yeah, the interesting thing is it's not the goal score that he was grabbing, but you know, it easily could have been called a denial of a goal score. I would have to go back and look at exactly where other guys were to see if he really was the last guy. But it sure looked like he was damn close to me. [00:29:42] Speaker C: I would make the argument that the whole reason why the other guy got to hit the ball in the first place is because Shaq Moore was holding the guy that was trying to get the ball. [00:29:50] Speaker B: Yeah. 100. [00:29:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:29:52] Speaker B: It was not a good no. [00:29:54] Speaker C: And then Eric Quill in the hat said, I've seen enough of this. Even though I can't really see much because my hat's too low on my head, I know I've seen enough of this. And he makes all the substitutions. And suddenly, magically, wonderfully, the game takes a big turn. And Buzz, you got a whole thing as to what happened. [00:30:14] Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah. Listen, there have been some times where earlier in the year for sure, where Quill has made some bad subs, but this one is magical. And basically they. The change of a formation, the two subs allow them go to a 3, 4, 3. And it's not just any 3, 4, 3. It's. It's literally the one from last year. It's the narrow front line one where you have two tens underneath your high striker. And as I said before, the Miami outside backs were just absolutely destroying Dallas up and down the field. And by. And we're going through the 343. You put two wing backs out there, and you have now you have an extra center back that immediately snuffs out the thing that Miami had been killing them on, which is that wide play. The wide zones were completely empty. And all of a sudden there's guys there. You've taken away Shock Moore's defensive liability by making him a wing back instead of a fullback, right? You put Anderson Julio, who's not a wing back, but you put him over on the other side, and he's doing the work because he can run downfield all day. So he gets over there on the other side. And then you bring in Pedrinho as a 10, and now Lucio Casa is a 10. But Lucho Casa is playing as a second striker again. We're going to come back to this. And he likes to go left all the time. He's not playing as an underneath real 10. So you bring in Perdino as a real underneath 10, and all of a sudden the whole thing's clicking and working. And so Dallas is. Because you have Shaq Moore now taking away defensive responsibility. If Anderson Hooley on the left, all of a sudden, you now have the vertical play that you need running off of, in this case, Logan Farrington and past Acosta, all of a sudden, this is the tactic that Quill actually wants. So it completely changes the game. That tactic does. And then, of course, the goal, the next goal, which comes from a defender, but his mentality there, when he's clearly targeting the guy, covered him and points at him afterwards, and then the guy immediately gets yanked because he got whooped by ir. That mentality, you know, the team fed off of it. So like that, that the tactical change and then IR's mentality changed the game completely and allowed Dallas to come back and win. It's remarkable. [00:32:11] Speaker C: I really enjoyed the back and forth between Falcone and ar. [00:32:15] Speaker B: It was awesome. [00:32:16] Speaker C: Yeah, Falcone was giving him the crazy face, stare down kind of thing as they were trying to jostling around and shoving back and forth. I. I thought that was great. And Eric, I thought you said in your instant replay or instant reactions that he headed the ball and I thought he kicked it in. I thought he volleyed it in. [00:32:33] Speaker B: He has the first one, he heads it, and then it bounces off of the defender and drops those feet, shoots it, and it's a deflected shot he took. [00:32:41] Speaker A: I may have called the classic floor shot. [00:32:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a bit of a crap goal, but that. That whole exchange is fun. Not necessarily just because your giddy has scored. It was fun. Even before that, the way those guys were jawing and fighting, it was so much. That was just entertaining soccer between two guys that are pretty decent players. [00:32:59] Speaker C: Did you notice that they. Falcone went up to him after the game and they were exchanging pleasantries like, hey, man, no hard feelings kind of stuff. [00:33:06] Speaker B: No, I didn't, but that's awesome. That's just, you know, guys that can bring it like that on the field, and then the minute the game's over can be like, hey, good job. Good game. Like that. You got to respect that. [00:33:15] Speaker A: That makes that makes the game fun. [00:33:19] Speaker C: Okay, so Dallas now is back in some breathing room. Three, two. It was a great moment. And then the, like you said, buzz. The game just kind of finish. He puts Padrino on who we've all kind of spent a lot of time on this podcast crapping on plays, man. That ball he played to Julio Anderson over the top could not have been more perfect. It was, yeah, Pedrinho, perfecto. [00:33:45] Speaker B: Pedrinho is a very streaky player. He's very hot and cold. There are games where he's just absolutely trash. And you're like, why is probably the Minnesota game actually? It's like, why is he even out there? And then you put him out there and he has a game like this he played just 33 minutes and had 28 touches. So like one touch a minute, but three shot creating actions, two goal creating actions, had his own goal, had an assist, should have had another assist on a fifth goal and didn't get it. A couple of progressive passes and carries, it's just like he was in the zone on this game. And he allowed them to play the way Quill wants to play with, with more on one side and Anderson Julio on the other side playing off of this high fighting, tough striker that today was Logan Farrington. So it's, it's just the front five all of a sudden worked the way it's supposed to work. And it was fun to watch and it was exciting to watch. And you know, you give Petrinio, I give Virginia a lot of credit for the way he played, but it really is the tactical change that made it happen. [00:34:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I also want to give full credit to Julio Anderson for that finish because not only does he have to collect the ball that is played to him so well, but then he makes, he takes at least one, if not two really good touches before he just slots it into the far post. And I mean, how many times in this league have you watched somebody in that exact same situation, you know, blow it into the stand or out into the golf or whatever, or miss it wide or hit it right at the keeper or whatever? So many times. I mean, that happens more times than not. So to see Anderson finish that way was pretty delightful. [00:35:09] Speaker B: And he was playing two ways. You know, he had four shot creating actions, three for five for take ons, which is a huge thing. They've missed take ons and beaten guys. Progressive carries, progressive dribbles. He took the ball into the pinnel area three times. He also had three intercepts and three tackles. So it's like the guy's playing two way game. It's just really nice to see when you have a guy like Anderson. Julio is playing the way that you want to play and it fits the mold you want to play. And you can actually build the tactic around the way he plays. It's. It works, it's great. [00:35:39] Speaker C: And then in the 81st minute, Dallas, on one of the rare times they get past half field, they actually play out of their own half and make it all the way down. And Logan Farrington, with a little bit of extra beaver effort, saves the ball at the touchline and plays it back towards the spot. And Padrino finishes. And somehow, inexplicably, unbelievably, Dallas is leading this game after being down three 1, 4, 3. In the entire Miami outfit. And then the. The classic shot of Messi's face just kind of like shaking his head like, oh, my God, this is awful. I can't believe I need more of the drink that you guys are giving me. As Dallas is leading 4 3. [00:36:23] Speaker B: Dan, this is a typical Logan Ferrington never give up play, isn't it, when he just does not stop going until the very end? [00:36:29] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the fact that, you know, we always see people kind of make that token, you know, it's going out of play, but I'll, you know, I'll have a little swing at it or whatever. Like. Yeah, I mean, he. He stopped it on the touch line, on the end line. I mean, that's. That's quality. And it also, you know, you mentioned earlier about Miami breaking and the whole FC Dallas defense stopping and just expecting pars to save. Same thing happened on that cutback. All the Miami defenses went, wait, what? No, that's a corner. It's got. That's a goal kick. It's got to be bang. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Go. Yeah. Again, credit to Padrino for continuing the run. I mean, he could have stopped running and not followed Logan in, but he did. You're supposed to follow your striker like that. Coming out of zone 14. So right to the penalty spot. Perfect. Logan lays it off right outside the goal box. Perfect position. So you draw it up. [00:37:19] Speaker C: Yep. And then, of course, Petrino, in added time, had that great opportunity to do one of two things. Either pass the ball to Mr. Scott to let him tap it in, or finish it himself. And somehow he did neither one of those things. [00:37:32] Speaker B: So he'd have been man of match if he had. Boy, yeah. [00:37:35] Speaker C: Yes, he would have been. But Dallas, unbelievably. There we go. Dallas gets. Here we are. We are. Now, how many games into the season? 11. How many games have they played? I gotta look at this. [00:37:49] Speaker A: A number. [00:37:51] Speaker C: Oh, 10 games into the season. Here we are, 10 games into the season, and Dallas is undefeated on the road. [00:38:00] Speaker B: This is the most insane stat because ordinarily a 303 record would mean you're like one of the best two or three teams in the whole league. But a 13 and, oh, home record would tell you that you're one of the worst teams in the league. So which is it? Is this team really good or really bad? [00:38:18] Speaker C: Well, you know, I'm sitting here looking at the. I'm looking at the Western Conference, and there are more teams with winning or, you know, or 500 records on the road than you'd think so. Vancouver is oath three. Oh and two. Portland's three one and one. Austin is two three and oh, Minnesota's two one and two. So the 500, Colorado's at 500. Dallas is also at 500. Three zero and three. But once you get south of that, there's only, there's no team. Yeah. Nobody below Dallas has a winning record on the road. [00:38:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Over the course of a season, usually if you have a 500 or better road record in this league, you're usually going to be a really, really good team. [00:39:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:01] Speaker B: And like it's, it's definitely, you know, 30, 10 games is not quite a third of the season. So that's a decent enough sample size, you know. And on the other, the other side of the coin is if you only have one win at home, you know, at some point you're gonna have to ask questions about like, how good is your team? So like there's just so many things about this team that are so confusing. [00:39:20] Speaker C: Well, with, with one win at home, Dallas is only one of four teams in the West. With at least with only one. Or yeah, the Galaxy obviously have no wins because they haven't won yet this year. Kansas City, one win at home, St. Louis, one win at home, and Dallas, one win at home. And that is it. [00:39:40] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:39:41] Speaker C: And there's only two, three teams in the east and those three teams have not won any at home. [00:39:48] Speaker B: Those, those, those three teams you mentioned are in 12th, 14th and 15th in the West. They have 10 points or less each and Dallas has one one at home. But yet, because there, it's just this team is a two headed monster. It's Jekyll and Hyde. It's like sometimes it looks amazing and sometimes it looks absolutely terrible. And it's really hard to get your mind around it. [00:40:07] Speaker A: It's just, you know, Eric Coyle likes to talk about mentality and it's, it's exactly that. You've got the team that's got the best away record of all 30 teams, but only three teams have a worse home record. [00:40:21] Speaker B: Somehow you got to figure out how to bring that home, that road mentality home and not just be like, oh, we're home, we're going to win, because that Cool. You're not gonna. [00:40:27] Speaker A: Oh, actually I guess say three teams have a worse home record. Let's put an asterisk on that because Montreal's only played two at home. [00:40:34] Speaker C: All right, so Buzz, the win is great. Coming back is great. Everything is great. But I, I still possess this weird sense that this team isn't very good in general because of all these kind of inability to be more than just this one kind of thing. And I was wondering this during the game because he just wasn't very good in this game. And then you said, I got this whole thing about Lucho Acosta I want to talk about. And I'm dying to hear it because I'm wondering if what you're about to say is the thing that I've been thinking in my head that I don't want to say out loud. [00:41:10] Speaker B: Okay, it probably will not be, but we'll give it a shot. But just to follow up on what you're saying, remember too that, you know, we're 10 games in. The difference between FC Dallas and second place is three points and FC Dallas and 13th place is four points. So like there's this middle pack that's gonna super compressed, super compressed still. So it's still too early to really know where this team's gonna fit. Okay. So my stance is that FC Dallas has a lucha ocasta problem. And I'll try and explain it relatively succinctly if I can. You guys remember back when the committee talked about flexibility of players, the versatility of players. They want to have these guys that can do lots of different things. We clearly know that Eric Quill wants to play 4, 2, 3, 1. That's his preferred formation, right? Two holding mids and then three across and then a high striker. It's a formation we've all seen a million times. On top of that, he wants to play it with a very, very vertical component. Get forward in a hurry. Not like, not Luchi ball. He doesn't want to have the ball. You can have the ball. We're going to wait for mistakes and then we're going to get it. We're going to go. We're not going to be passing around all the time. So in order to play that shape, that 4, 2, 3, 1. And this comes back to the idea that I think it's important to build your roster with the tactic in mind. And you could relate this back to the fact that, you know, Shaq Moore is not a great defender. They have, you know, a ball winning six, but they don't really. They're. They're guys that can progress through the middle, are hurt, legit Paxton, some high risk older players. It could come down to the fact that the 4231 that Quill wants to play requires two attacking, vertical, aggressive, flying wings like Anderson Julio. And he only has One, right. So again, roster things. And the biggest problem that that is, that fits into this category of buying a player that doesn't fit the system is Lucho Acosta. Lucio Acosta is a former league mvp. He is a spectacular player. There have been people that have argued that he is if not the best player this club's had. It's one of the top five, certainly top 10 in terms of pure talent that this team has. However, he's not a classic 10, or even a modern 10. He plays like an off striker. He plays like Jason Grice. He wants to be up front next to the other striker. And he plays from the middle to the left wing and he works that side, right? So if you wanted to use him as a wing, he doesn't have that vertical component that Quill wants to play the way Quill wants to play. If you tried to put him underneath as the central fulcrum, as a 10 that the 4, 2, 3, one needs, he's not enough of a two way player, a defensive player, a pure 10, a pure 10 that has defensive qualities, which you also need, because in that shape, that 10 is part of the three man triangle. And if he doesn't do the work, those guys get outnumbered 2 to 3 in the Central midfield. Lucha Acosta is none of those things. So Lucio Costa, as good as he is, is a problem that Quill has to solve. It's why he's been trying this 4, 3, 1, 2 tactic, which kind of has worked a little bit, but you still end up with Lucho Casa playing up next to Musa and Anderson. Julio has to come back and play in as the 10 all time. If you look at the average positions of those players game after game after game, Lucha Costa is not playing as a 10, he's playing as a striker. It's why in this particular game, when he switched to the 343, that finally allowed him to have the two outside vertical pieces that he wants. And he brought in Pedrinho to be the actual 10 underneath Farrington and Lucho Costa. So that's why I say Lucha Costa is actually as good as he is and as exciting as he is. And you paid a lot of money to get him, and so he's going to play. It's a massive, massive problem for Quill to figure out how to use him effectively and not expose his defense and not expose all the other problems that he has on this team. So that's why Lucha is a problem and that's why you're seeing Quill try all These different tactics that some games are working and then some games, they're not. Depending on the opponent, depending on who has available. [00:45:41] Speaker A: I'm always. [00:45:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm always curious about this. When you watch teams being constructed and this even. You can even relate this back to last year with Zenata and Nico and the center back situation and switching from two center backs to three center backs and that communication between the coaching staff and the people constructing the team. And this isn't Dallas specific, but again, here we are on another season where the front office went out and got a guy that obviously everybody's super excited about because you say he's a former MLS MVP and he's fun to watch and he's clearly a quality player. But yet you also just hired a coach that I'm assuming Eric goes. Doesn't know what to do in that moment because he can't say no. I don't want Lucho Acosta. [00:46:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:27] Speaker C: But he also is smart enough as a coach to go. But he doesn't fit my system well. [00:46:34] Speaker B: Particularly because the owner and the. And the head of soccer operations clearly said we're going to give you a whole bunch of players that are versatile and can do a lot of good things. You need to figure out how to win with them. That's clearly the. What their plan is, right? [00:46:48] Speaker C: Sure. [00:46:48] Speaker B: Like, to me, like, I'm with you. I think in this league, because of the salary cap, because of the level, talent level fall off, you clearly need to play a defined way, a way to play. And I've gone into depth about the idea of why playing the tie stinks and you have to play to win at the depth of tying. In fact, in this league, if you. Because if you want to get ahead, because there's partially because there's no relegation. So it's. To me, it's. This is just another example of like why. And this is the third coach now that's had this problem. Right. And. And not getting the guys to fit the way that he wants to play. [00:47:22] Speaker C: And you mean here in Dallas? [00:47:23] Speaker B: And here in Dallas. Yeah, yeah. You know, and in order to play the system that you're talking about, even if they like before, before they fired Nico Stavez, the idea was that Alan Velasco was going to come inside, right. And be that 10, would Alan have been able to play deep enough and be like an actual 10 and a 4231. Would he be able to do that and be like a. You almost need like what we call that free eight, that De Bruyne or kind of guy that probably a Paxton could do it, maybe a little jet can do it, you know, but he doesn't have the goal, doesn't have the capability and luxury to do that when your owner. Your owner and your. And your operations guy just spent some $5 million to get a guy. So Quill's having to adapt his system, figure out how to play with what I have, how to make it work with Lucha Casa on the field, with Peter Musa on the field, with the fact that I only have one wing, the fact that my right back is not particularly good defensively. So it's entirely possible that this three four three that we just saw with Pedrinho might become something you're going to see a lot more of. Will it be a starting lineup? I don't know. Will you see it a lot more? It's going to be funny that we're going to go back to this shape again. [00:48:24] Speaker C: Yes, we're going to go back to three in the back after all of last season. [00:48:28] Speaker B: And they're shorter center back. Like Abubakar really is your only other center back like they have. Alvaro Gusto is on the roster. But if you don't want to put that guy in the MLS game right now. [00:48:36] Speaker C: And have you seen him play yet, by the way? [00:48:38] Speaker B: Yeah, in North Texas. Yeah. [00:48:39] Speaker C: Is he any good? [00:48:41] Speaker B: He's super raw. He needs a lot of time, in my opinion. Like, I think if you put him in there, you'd be like, holy crap, this guy's terrible. Well, right now he probably would be terrible. So it's like he needs a lot of work. There's a reason why he was playing on the U23 team of a second division Portuguese team or whatever it was. [00:48:55] Speaker C: Right. [00:48:56] Speaker B: So, you know, they're. They're in terms of pure roster build for me, shorter center back and still shorter center back in terms of like basic coverages you include on top of that that you now maybe want to try and play a three four three when you can, man, there ain't. You're looking at some weird sub patterns if somebody gets hurt or whatever. So I don't think it's going to become the de facto, but I think you'll see a little bit more. And I think Quill's still trying to figure out the magic to get, you know, because Lucho Cost is a talented player, there's no question. But, like, you can clearly see that he's out of sorts. His body language was terrible in this game. [00:49:26] Speaker C: Well, I, you know. Yes. In this game in particular, it was a terrible game by him. I mean, and we knew this coming into it. And it's not like I spent a lot of time watching Lucho ACOSTA Play for D.C. or Cincinnati. And I would be willing to admit that the vast majority, 99% of my watching him play was probably MLS highlight clips from Cincinnati games and DC games. So I only saw the magic moments of Lucho Castle Costa. But when he. But when he was being sold to Dallas, I remember reading a lot of people from Cincinnati going, okay, let me tell you what you're getting. You're getting a guy who isn't going to play any defense. And by the way, because he's always trying to do something creative, turns the ball over a lot. [00:50:09] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:50:10] Speaker C: And when he does, he's not one to kind of like go back and try to win the ball back kind of guy. He's throw his hands up in the air and be mad. And I would also take note. The other really curious thing, or not curious, but alarming thing is is that this game in the prior game, pretty poor. Like two of his lesser showings. But it's also the two games without Peter Musa. [00:50:32] Speaker B: No. Oh, yeah. Fair. Fair. Right. [00:50:34] Speaker C: So not him. He. He so clearly has an interesting little dynamic between him and. And Musa, which is in its own way, kind of. It's its own problem on this team in a weird way. But when he doesn't have Musa, it's almost like he has. He has no idea what to do. [00:50:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, part of that too is that Musa takes more attention from center backs. And so all of a sudden Diego Costa is a little freer. Jaguar did it again. Lucho Costa is more free and can move around a little bit. You know, you really have to think of him as the Jason Christ style second striker and not think of him. Everyone keeps calling him a 10. He's not a 10. He's a. He's that old off striker 10 that doesn't exist anymore. You have to think of two striker type systems like the one, the three, four. Three they did worked yesterday because Pedrinho became the real sort of 10. It almost really was more of three, five, two ways. [00:51:19] Speaker C: I'm guessing people are listening to this, going, wait, this is how we used to describe Jesus Ferreira all the time. But it's kind. But Jesus is kind of different from that because Jesus will. Jesus will run back and play right back if he's not getting the ball. [00:51:32] Speaker B: Different problem, but. Yeah, same. Same problem in a way. Yeah, same issue that they had last season. You know, with that same sort of profile and which is not to say it can't be solved. You know, as a. There's a school of thought, you know, that's perfectly legitimate to say. Goal needs to figure it out. He's one of your best players. Absolutely. But that's why you're seeing these changing formations and why you're seeing like really weird, misbalanced hybrid shapes and flex this is. And like he's trying to figure out how to get the most out of a guy who can't play the role that he really would want him to play, which is like a real, you know, I'm not going to call it a box to box 10, but this, this free eight, this top of the triangle player that you need these days, it's a spot where if you watch Man City over the last decade, De Bruyne or played, you know, like, I think Paxton could be fantastic in there. Legit. Used to play like that. You know, it can be done. They got some guys that could maybe do it. But then, but then where do you do with Diego? God dang it. Then what do you do with Lucho Acosta? Like maybe you got to play him as a false wing. And if you're really going to try and go 4231, but then you won't have that vertical component that he wants on both sides. So again, it breaks down. So Quill's got problems on his hands and it comes from having a really great player and way he wants to play. And like a lot of the other moves they did were built a way that he wants to play. Except this one, this one doesn't fit the model. So, you know, it's part of what. Why this season is going to be, you know, a roller coaster a lot in a lot of ways as he tries to figure this out. [00:52:57] Speaker C: All right, so everybody just. If anybody's taking notes, it's episode 309 that Buzz officially established the quote unquote Lucho Acosta problem. [00:53:08] Speaker B: One might argue it's a good problem, but it's definitely a problem. [00:53:13] Speaker A: So good old fashioned luxury player. [00:53:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Dan, do you buy my shenanigans? My story smell what I'm cooking. [00:53:22] Speaker A: You know, my nose is a little blocked up, but you know, I'll get a hint of it for sure. [00:53:26] Speaker C: Well, Dallas is on the road, so by the way, I had totally forgotten this. We all made kind of predictions on an over and under on the number of points this team was going to collect on the three game road trip. And I think the over and under we picked was four and I pushed. [00:53:43] Speaker B: Because you said push. [00:53:45] Speaker C: Dan said under and I took the over. Look at me, Positive Pete taking the over. And here we are. They're at least at a push at this point. So. [00:53:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. I know you're an AI version of Peter Beat. Is that you were positive. [00:53:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:58] Speaker B: Took the over. [00:53:59] Speaker C: No, if we're all just being honest, I just took the over because you guys took the two others and I just wanted to. Oh. Not that I actually thought they were gonna get four points in these three games. [00:54:08] Speaker A: I'm gonna claim an assist here because if I predict something good, it doesn't happen. So you're welcome. [00:54:16] Speaker C: So to finish out the hat trick of road games, now they have to go to San Diego and face off against that team, which by the way, if we're talking about teams and their home records, San Diego is 21 and 2, interestingly, at Snapdragon Stadium in sunny San Diego. Dan, what you got about El Diego's? [00:54:41] Speaker A: Well, considering I was 10 minutes late for the podcast and have not had a chance to do anything, not a whole lot. I will say San Diego started out really well. There was some talk about Mikey Varas as coach of the year originally. Interestingly enough, they have lost the last three games, including a 31 loss to RSL. Their first home defeat of ever with our boy Sam Junker scoring an absolute screamer. And good old Sammy and Buzz's client in his agent days, Diego Luna getting a brace. Yeah, I mean, it's funny, I saw a quote from iqvaris that sounded exactly like Nico. I know he was, he was Lucci's coach, not Nico's, but he said we're a good team that's losing games right now. [00:55:35] Speaker C: I don't know, Dan, I know you said they'd lost their last three games, but did you say. Did you note that they have given up nine three goals, three goals in. [00:55:44] Speaker A: Each one of them. [00:55:44] Speaker C: Nine goals in three games, that's pretty crappy. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Well, the funny thing is the, the win before that was a three nil win over Seattle. Before that was a three two win over lafc. So I mean, there's gonna be goals. We could have another seven goal game. [00:56:03] Speaker C: That would be great. [00:56:05] Speaker B: So we should probably end up calling changing the name of Luchi Ball from Luchi Ball to Mikey Ball because San Diego plays Luchi Ball and the common denominator course is Mikey various. As you mentioned, they on the season they have 55 possession and they average 580 passes a game, which is 150 more than Dallas per game. So on paper, this will be a game where the other team has the ball all the time and Dallas will just sit and wait. They have three guys in the top three in touches in the league. Yeah, yep, Yep. Turkov has 150. Sorry, 851 touches. Chris McVery has 847 and Patty Manier is 828. The top three touches in the league are three San Diego players. [00:56:52] Speaker C: So it's a team of ball hogs is what I'm hearing. [00:56:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's gonna be. They're gonna pass it around for 5,000 hours and make you try and chase it. And Dallas won't chase, they'll just sit there and wait. So this game could be incredibly boring. Or if it gets opened up and Dallas goes vertical and gets behind them, get some couple goals, maybe it'll be a high scoring game. So it's definitely a contrast in styles. [00:57:15] Speaker C: You got any predictions on a starting 11? [00:57:17] Speaker B: I've been thinking about it and it comes down to that. What I just talked about is like, do you think which one of the tactics is sort of working, will match up best against San Diego? And I tend to think that they're going to try and, you know, control the ball and pass it around and control the midfield. Dallas is going to sit deep. And so I think that sit deep means you're probably going to try and go with this same narrowish diamond thing, this 4, 3, 2, 1, that, sorry, 1, 2. That's been working fairly well. And that means really not a lot of changes because a bunch of the guys that are in contention are, are kind of hurt, hurt. And so you're left with not a lot of choices. I mean, Abubakar has played pretty well, but I don't know if he's played well enough that you're going to sit Ibiaga again. You know, if you wanted to bench an outside back, there isn't anybody. You know, if you really think your outside backs are terrible, then you could go with a 3, 4 again, but then Shatmore would still be on the field. And you're asking Anderson who that'll play 90 minutes as a wing back. So I think you stick with the same tactic and you're going to end up with the same group. The only question will be, is Peter Musa, having missed two games, is it now time for him to come back? So we won't know until we get to like the injury report on Friday, you know, or if we can kind of. Because even if he trains, that's not the same as like they're ready to put him back in there. So, you know, if you think Padrino played really, really well, maybe you try the new, this new 343-ish-thing and see what sort of happens. But I tend to think that as hot and cold streaky as Petrino is and as young as he is, it maybe is not necessarily a good idea to put him against out there against a team that's going to pass the ball 10,000 times. Right. So I think it's better to try and keep this, this formation that's kind of been working and hopefully get Anderson Julio, you know, free from his normal wing sort of position. You know, the alternative would be to think has one of my three central mids been so bad that it's worth it to try and bring back a Bernie, you know, on the left wing and try and get a second wing on there? Man, I just don't know that that's really in the cards because like the, the, the only wing that was at least somewhat serviceable was Leo Chu and he's still hurt with a knee problem. We may not see a lot of him in the next three or four weeks, to be fair. So I don't think there's any changes. You just got to hope better Moose is coming back really. And which not to say the Logan Farrington has been bad. Logan Ferrington's been pretty terrific, but he's not better with not yet. So I actually think there'll be no changes other than maybe coming back. Really? [00:59:52] Speaker C: Okay. All right. [00:59:54] Speaker B: Well, I still want to flip Kaik. I want to make Kaik my six and make Romero and is a little bit of a better passing. I want to make him the other eight with show and have cake be in the middle. I would love to see that happen and I'll be ready for that change anytime. [01:00:09] Speaker C: Is Kaik the only player in MLS that tucks his shirt in? [01:00:14] Speaker B: The only one, yeah. [01:00:16] Speaker C: Seriously. [01:00:17] Speaker B: He might be. That's. [01:00:17] Speaker C: That's like regularly starting that you would, you could easily identify. I, I was thinking about that. I was admiring his tucked in shirt and I was like I don't think I can think of another player in the league that's playing with their shirt tucked in. [01:00:30] Speaker B: Not off the top of my head. [01:00:31] Speaker C: It's a good look, solid look. He just needs to go with the short shorts now. Go like old school Brazilian. [01:00:38] Speaker A: I. I don't know. He gives himself enough of a wedgie of how high he gets his waistband up. [01:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:44] Speaker C: Okay, so the game in San Diego is Saturday and that is at 8:15 on the Apple TV Plus Majigger. There you go. Don't forget the following Wednesday is the Open cup game that Dallas does actually show on the schedule on their website, but really is not promoting in any way. Because right there on the website, the next home match is not the Wednesday May 7th US Open cup game, but the league game against Real Salt Lake. And if you happen to notice, there's an Open cup game on a Wednesday night up at Toyota Stadium, more power to you. But if you don't, they don't seem to mind that either. So. [01:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we'll talk about that game on our podcast next week because we'll, we'll record on Monday right before that. [01:01:27] Speaker C: So true stuff. All right, very good. So there's all your FC Dallas talk since now, since we're the podcast of football in North Texas, let's move on to other things. Trinity got a big win at the cotton ball over Lexington 3 1. And they outshot their. Lexington, by the way, is in last place. And what I think we can all agree is not a very high quality league. It's a brand new startup league. I'm not, I'm not crapping on it, but Lexington is the worst team and not a very good league. And Dallas out shot them 21 4. Holy cow. [01:02:04] Speaker A: In fairness, they weren't the worst team in the league coming into the game. D.C. was. [01:02:09] Speaker C: Okay, well, there you go. And by the way, I don't. Did we mention the fact that Misimo is out for the season last week? Okay. I couldn't remember if we did that or not. [01:02:18] Speaker B: All right, well, yeah, well, it looks like Gracie Bryan is going to be the answer to like who's going to replace Misimo in the shape. That's the person. They just plugged her in there and that changes the least amount of other players. So it makes sense that you tried to do that rather than moving Cameron Lancaster. But you know, they're getting a little bit healthier and it's helping. You know, they're, they're finding their form. You know, they're in, they're in second place and they're playing the third place team this weekend. So that's a huge game down at Tampa Bay. Sun. [01:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah, like the results really went their way. Tampa lost Fort Lauderdale, were playing Carolina. Carolina beaten like 42 in Fort Lauderdale. Could have, could have done. With that being a draw, that still leaves Carolina six points ahead, but with a game in Hand they say it was. They're just having a rough time of injury. I mean the whole league is. Carolina had six points players out at the weekend. Trinity had 10. Chioma Ubabagu was on the bench but let's be honest, she was a breaking case of emergency sub. So you might as well say 11 players out there. Yeah, they, they are going through the ringer. Coach did tell me that she does expect a couple of players back but when I asked her like hey is, is, is this going to come down to who can just put an 11 out by the end of season? It's like yeah, pretty much. [01:03:45] Speaker B: I honestly think it's a case of like a lot of these players aren't used to playing this magnitude of games, this volume of games. You know because a lot of these players were bench players in other leagues or you know are coming out of college. They're just not used to the load. [01:03:57] Speaker A: They're either playing Scandinavia where it's you know, shorter season, winter season. [01:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:05] Speaker A: Playing college short a season again or you know like you say they've. They've been kind of bench players in nwsl. It's kind of difficult going to particularly as you know a more traditional FIFA calendar style that you know, it's kind of rare as rocking horseshit over here. [01:04:25] Speaker C: Well I just was noticing because I was lamenting the fact and I'm just going to admit it. I've yet to go to a Trinity game and I really want to go to one. It's been a. A lot of the games have been on Saturday afternoon when the show's happening and are just other things have gotten in the way. But I'm just now realizing they only have one home game left. They've got three road games in a row starting this weekend and they play their final game of the regular season at home against Carolina and before the. [01:04:50] Speaker A: Playoffs that could be the title decide. [01:04:53] Speaker C: Yeah so I maybe that Saturday night May 31st is. Should be. No, it should be. [01:05:02] Speaker A: Playoffs will be there too. [01:05:04] Speaker C: It should be third degree night. I'm suggesting the three of us should go together. [01:05:08] Speaker B: All right, I'll pencil it in. [01:05:11] Speaker A: I'm always there. [01:05:12] Speaker B: Interesting development by the way. NWSL this has just announced that they're going to develop reserve teams. I saw that basically like the MLS next pro to their main league which is of course probably a straight reaction to the Super League coming out which is going to make you know is really going to deplete the pool. The that it's going to thin out the pool and it'll be really interesting to see what happens with talent. I mean, it's going to be Division 2, not Division 1, but they probably look at NWSL, probably looks at Super League as second to them. So it'll be an interesting question. What happens? [01:05:47] Speaker A: Oh, hey, if you want the most baller thing possible. Cely Strawn played for Solar on Saturday morning, then went and scored the go ahead goal on Saturday evening. [01:05:57] Speaker B: Can you imagine, just for a second, can you imagine an FC Dallas player playing for his academy team and then showing up playing that night, same day? [01:06:07] Speaker A: Paxton back in the day would have done that in a heart. [01:06:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, totally. All right. North Texas got another win. I didn't know San Jose was calling their next pro team the Town. [01:06:19] Speaker B: The Town. Yeah, a lot. MLS has this push to name all their MLS next pro teams. Other names. [01:06:26] Speaker C: Wait, Kansas City's like, wait, hold on. You told us not to do that. [01:06:30] Speaker B: They don't. They don't play in their. That same slow park anymore. So they can't. They don't play there. So it's like they changed the name, which is. Well, that was a great name, which is a shame. But there's also these independents. [01:06:40] Speaker C: You do realize FC Dallas doesn't play in Dallas, right? [01:06:43] Speaker B: No, no, I know, but. Well, that would be like being in. We're FC2 at a stadium, but we play in Choctaw. I mean, it's like, it's a little bit reverse. [01:06:51] Speaker A: You can be. You can play in a suburb and call yourself metro area. You can't do to reverse that. [01:06:55] Speaker C: Oh, okay. Oh, SW park is the name of the facility. [01:06:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:59] Speaker C: Oh, that's the Park Rangers. [01:07:01] Speaker B: They played at sw. At SW Park Stadium. [01:07:03] Speaker C: All right. [01:07:04] Speaker B: In Swope Park. [01:07:06] Speaker C: It was such a good name, though. [01:07:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like Crystal Palace, I guess. Yeah. So, yeah, it was a great name. And there are other independent teams that have names that are. So it can now get confusing about. Wait, whose club is this? Is it an independent team? Is it. Whatever. It's what they want. So you get a team called the Town, which is not really helpful. It's not even named after a location. So it's the town. Yeah. Anyway, so they're getting a couple players back healthy finally. So that's really helpful. They still got one or two guys playing out of position. Turkey Scott scored. That's good. So good win. North Texas is in sixth place. They play Minnesota United, who's in fifth place this weekend. So that should be a good. On the second, technically Friday. So that should be a good game for people to watch if. If you're not going to be at the USL thing. [01:07:54] Speaker C: All right. And Texoma, I saw this so close. So Texoma has only gotten one point all season. They're playing El Paso, which is two levels up from them. [01:08:09] Speaker A: One, just one USO championship and oh, Texoma. [01:08:14] Speaker C: That's right. Texoma's one. That's right. [01:08:15] Speaker B: Y. [01:08:16] Speaker C: And they held them to penalty kicks and ended up losing 6, 5 to El Paso on PKS. [01:08:22] Speaker B: The question I think you're going to be interested in, Peter, is The attendance was 947, which is about half what they get for a regular, normal regular season game. So now whether that decline is continuing because they have zero or one point on the season or whether it was because it was this Jagermeister cup, which is hard for other people to understand or not is an interesting question. Question. But this was their special USL tournament cup thing and so that's a little bit of improvement to hold them to zeros. So they're taking steps in the right direction. They got a game against the fifth place team, Charlotte Independence on Saturday. [01:08:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I watched the, I watched that penalty shootout from the quote unquote press box, the cotton ball. And that was, that was agonizing. The El Paso sees that for the first penalty saving. Like, oh my God, they're actually gonna do it. Their first win's gonna be against the team up in the division above. Granted, the reserve team of that team. But all the same. And then. [01:09:19] Speaker B: Yeah, they rotated a lot. That's fair. [01:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah. On both teams. But you know, you get. They get. They get into sudden death. And then I don't remember who it was, but he just. Sky is. [01:09:30] Speaker C: It wasn't pretty interesting. The idea that Sherman Texas has a professional team and just its ability to attract a regular crowd is fascinating to me from a business standpoint because in my mind Texoma and that ownership group has to put the investment in to build a quality team that wins fast. Because you can see that thing lose steam really quickly if it becomes kind of a slow grow kind of deal. And they can't sustain a business on, you know, a thousand people a game or 1500 people a game or whatever it is. [01:10:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Apparently according to Wikipedia, they have like a 66, 000 people in the urban area in Sherman, which is the 418th market. [01:10:19] Speaker C: Yeah, Sherman's not even a rated Metro. [01:10:22] Speaker B: I know, it's. It's ridiculous. Like it's. I'm sure they're drawing people up from McKinney on some level, but like this is A huge, huge test of the idea that you can put these pro teams in these smaller towns. This is way smaller than I thought that they were kind of targeting. But I, I know, I know that these USL1 teams, they want them in towns that are like 100, 100, 000 people, 150, 000 people. Maybe so, but that's still, this is still half that. [01:10:46] Speaker C: So I mean, I know Austin College is in Sherman, but it's not like there are other things for people to do from a sporting standpoint and on in Sherman, Texas in this time frame. So I, I, I'm not surprised the attendance has been what it is. But it also concerns me that they haven't been able to pull more. Even if it's a cup game. I would, I would, would hope for better. [01:11:11] Speaker A: I mean, in some ways they're going to have the same sort of struggle FC Dallas has on, on a different scale. You know, FC Dallas, sure. You know, pulling from Dallas, pulling from Fort Worth, pulling from, you know, the north of the Metroplex, and then eventually settle on the idea of, okay, it's going to be exclusively Collin county and then kind of changes back again. You know, that, that texaimer region you, you're talking about, if you're doing anything kind of geo targeted, you are, you know, you're suddenly buying ads for two states, not one. Yeah, you, you know, you are. How far out do you want to go? Do you want it just to be Sherman? Do you want it to be Denison? Do you want it to be Durant? Do you want to somehow try and tie on to Choctaw and see what you can get there? I mean, I know some people from Salina that are going up to the games and it's that weird perception that despite the fact that FC Dallas is 10 minutes straight shot, that that Texoma is almost closer. [01:12:12] Speaker B: I mean, that that area between McKinney and there is an exploding area. I mean, it's growing really fast, but like they're way, way ahead of the curve in terms of getting an established foothold like as the town grows around them, I'm sure is the idea especially. [01:12:24] Speaker A: You know, obviously Bearcat Stadium is pretty old. I've, I've not been there. But it's not the, the best pitch, it's not the best facility. They've got that new high school stadium that's going to be built in there. If they can kind of figure out if whether it's their own facility, whether it's that new facility, something that's a little Bit more appeasing to the, the casual fan, you know, like, like FC Dallas is banking on this renovation a bit better than, you know, hey, Toyota stadiums. Kind of. It does look 30 years old. It does look 20 years old. Whatever is that. That's, you know, it's almost like they have to start slow. [01:13:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, I guess. All right, They've got a game on May 3rd against Charlotte and then the last thing in the area is that the USL Dallas Slash Garland team is having their brand reveal party on Friday evening. I'm just going to say this is a media member inviting me to something on a Friday night is not likely to get me to attend. So I already had something planned. I've told them that I'm not going to be there. But if you're wanting the media to come out to your branding party, you may not want to do it on a Friday, Friday evening. [01:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's definitely more of a fan event than anything else. But I'm gonna head out there. It's a, it's. It's got a concert involved in it, which I'm not sure I'm excited about that part, but I'm interested in seeing it. [01:13:50] Speaker A: Well, they were, they were always gonna tie on to, to that music made here thing, but. And here's the thing. Talk about like, you know, getting media out. If they want to get the people that cover soccer out, that's better than like a, hey, we're going to do something at 10am on a Wednesday whenever, you know, when 99% of the people that kind of do stuff about soccer have a 9 to 5. [01:14:17] Speaker C: Yeah, but I don't know, I guess. [01:14:20] Speaker A: If you want like a legacy media thing, then yeah, Friday evening probably not going to be optimal. [01:14:26] Speaker C: Okay, but other than you and Buzz, who are you talking about, Dan? [01:14:30] Speaker A: Well, that could be, you know, a big D. Soccer, Dallas Sports Nation. You know anyone of even that ilk? Because, you know, other than other than Pedro Silva and Paul wfaa, you're not getting anyone out that's going to be from a company that's, you know, a network that's going to give a. [01:14:59] Speaker C: Well, we'll see. Is do have we decided or that Athletico is actually the name they're going to reveal. The logo that came out was just fan made. So it's not Athletico or. We don't know. [01:15:12] Speaker B: Well, I suppose it could be. But you know, when, when that Athletico trademark came out and I sort of asked them about it, they. They intimated that they had done a lot of placement of things to that were not real. [01:15:25] Speaker C: Ah. [01:15:26] Speaker B: To sort of like spoof everybody. Muddy the waters of. I mean, it could be that Athletico really is it and that these people just happen to find the actual one real one was the one they found. But the implication was that was not to put too much faith in that being the name. [01:15:41] Speaker C: All right. [01:15:42] Speaker B: And certainly we know that that logo that circulated last week was a fan submission. We know that wasn't. [01:15:47] Speaker C: We'll keep our fingers crossed that it's something awesome, man. [01:15:51] Speaker B: I hope so. [01:15:52] Speaker A: I hope it's good and not just the. The Garland City logo. [01:15:56] Speaker C: Yes, please. Not the Garland City logo. Seems stupid. Okay, well, I think we've done the business, boys. Anything else before I go? Before we go? No. Okay. [01:16:10] Speaker B: Third Degree, the podcast is brought to you by listeners like you. If you enjoy Third Degree, the podcast, or any of our coverage on Third Party third degree.net or our social media work, why don't you Want to sit patreon.com 3rd degree Give us a little support, whatever level. You might like to lend a helping hand. If you join us at the Three Amigos level, you can join our terrific Discord community and all the great fans there. 3rd degree.netpatreon.com 3rd degree thanks again for your support, Dan. [01:16:36] Speaker C: Thank you, sir. Good to see you. [01:16:37] Speaker A: Thank you. And Peter, you should cancel your plans because I'm going to be at the brand Room reveal as well. We could have a whole Third Degree date there. [01:16:45] Speaker C: Oh, we could have. I'll. I'll look and see if I can. [01:16:48] Speaker A: Get my plans changed at Intrinsic Smokehouse too. I mean, come on. [01:16:53] Speaker C: Duly noted. Okay, I will see what I can do, Buzz. Thank you, sir. [01:16:58] Speaker B: You're welcome. Thanks for being here, buddy. [01:17:00] Speaker C: And thank you, North Texas soccer aficionado type person of a very niche kind of interest. We'll speak to you next week on another edition of Third Degree, the podcast. [01:17:13] Speaker A: Are you mentoring Curious? [01:17:16] Speaker B: Third Degree. The Third Degree. Third Degree, the Third Degree podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree. Third Degree the Third Degree RA.