3rd Degree the Podcast #316

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:09] Speaker B: 3Rd degree, the 3rd degree NEP podcast. 3rd degree, the third degree NAP podcast. Third degree, the third degree NAP Podcast. Third degree, the third degree 3rd degree. [00:00:26] Speaker A: The podcast is brought to you by. You are fans. We here at Third Degree don't have a advertising budget. You are our advertising budget. If you like what we do, if you like this podcast, share it with your friends. Share it with the other FC D House fans in your life. Spread the word. Spread the gospel. Third Degree, the podcast. Enjoy the show. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Well, hello there, DFW soccer curious person you. Welcome to Third Degree the podcast. I am sad to report, right off the bat, I don't mean to be a bummer, but we are sans one Dan Crook. I'm not sure where Dan is. Do we know where Dan is? [00:01:02] Speaker A: Well, other than working on only dan's.com, i'm not really sure. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Oh, right. I think he had a big OnlyDance.com event down in the Keys, I think. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Is what it is. [00:01:12] Speaker B: Yes. Lots of glitter and Speedos, I think. [00:01:17] Speaker A: Yes, yes. [00:01:18] Speaker B: And mushy. Peace. And there he is. You heard his voice already. Your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of third degree.net and the original son soccer influencer himself, the good Buzz Carrot. Coming, Buzz. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Hey, Peter, thanks for still being here since, you know. [00:01:33] Speaker B: Why wouldn't it? You think I wouldn't do it just because Dan wouldn't hear? [00:01:36] Speaker A: No, no. I mean, you know, sometimes people can't do things, you know, this is when. [00:01:41] Speaker B: You need me more than ever. [00:01:44] Speaker A: We tried to get Armand and he was sick. [00:01:46] Speaker B: Oh, yes, Poor Armand is. Yeah, Armand must be really sick if he passed up making an appearance on the podcast. [00:01:55] Speaker A: I tried to do this once by myself and it was not great. I mean, I, I, I really, really talked a lot and I maybe got like 20, 25 minutes. It was like, it was. It was painful. [00:02:06] Speaker B: It's not fun. To do. [00:02:07] Speaker A: Not solo is not hard. It's hard. It's not. It's not easy. It's hard to have a conversation with yourself unless you're. [00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Cracked up 100% for sure. Very good. Well, Buzz, believe it or not, we are doing a victory pod. Their first win since April 26th. Their first win in eight games. Dallas goes back on the road and does it once again as they go to Kansas City and end up winning 4 to 2. I don't care about all of the asterisks that go along with that, Buzz. Yeah, a win on the road is a win on the road. And this team is good on the road. And we got to feel good about that, man. [00:02:50] Speaker A: It is, is ridiculous. I mean, they have four wins and four ties on the road. That's 16 of their 21 points. With just one win at home and two ties for five points. That's twice as many losses at home as on the road. That's crazy. I mean, like, we talk about a good team, like the top of the table team is 500 on the road and they are blowing 500 out of the water. They're like, it's incredible. [00:03:14] Speaker B: I will be fun to watch as this season progresses because if this track keeps going, this has got to be some sort of MLS record for having a way better road record than you have a home record. Because I, I, when was the last time an MLS team had even the, the same amount of road wins as home wins? Maybe on a really, really bad sucky team that only had a couple of wins in each. [00:03:41] Speaker A: I would have to, yeah, it would be a team that was really, really bad, that had like maybe one at home and two on the road or something. But it's so rare that like, I mean, very obviously at this point, Dallas is the only team in the Western Conference that has more road wins than home wins. And it's not even just like a little. It's, it's by, it's so far. It's just incredible. It's like, I've never seen anything like this in my life that I can think of. And I bet you if you went back through MLS history that you'd be hard to find a team that had even done it where they had even by one win more on the road than home, let alone by what is already by mid season, three more wins on the road than home and way more ties and just all those points. It's just incredible, you know, and I don't know what it says about the team other than it, it has some resiliency and the ability to come back and when they feel challenged, they respond. You know, there's, there's some positivity about the team. The post game videos they post, those guys are all fired up for each other and, and having a good time in the locker room and all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, you know, you are what your record says you are. To quote the, those parcels. And I don't think you can discount that. Of the wins this season, he has five wins. And one of the wins is against Houston the first season. [00:04:50] Speaker B: See, here you go. You're doing the asterisk thing. [00:04:53] Speaker A: Before the, before they had Their dps, two against Sporting Kansas City, one against rsl. So all those three teams are all worse than them. And then the one good win is against Inter Miami, who was in the middle of their cratering. So like, listen, I get it. Like it's super exciting because a win like this makes you feel like this team has grit and they have fight and they'll be able to punch above their weight or they should be able to punch above their weight and be able to fight and get into a playoff spot. Which is what we predicted. Right? We predicted that those bottom like seven, eight, nine, the three of us. Yeah, that's where we thought this team was going to be. So we think, I think this kind of win shows that that's where they should be. They should be able to put together a couple more wins and get into that chase. But you know, they, what it says that they can't win at home is really almost as scary as what it says that they can win on the road because why is it they can't win at home? [00:05:45] Speaker B: I don't know. And I was really afraid you were going to throw out the stat that of their five wins this season, how many of them came against teams dealing with a red card or playing down a man? Was it at least 2? If 3? [00:05:58] Speaker A: Oh gosh, I didn't even think of that angle. Yeah, that may be. Yeah. [00:06:01] Speaker B: So RSL had a red card and I swear there's another red card in there somewhere, but maybe those ended up being draws, I don't know. Anyway, that is what happened in Kansas City as. All right. Well, I, I, I just want to try to feel good about this because it's been so long since we've had a three point thing to talk about and yes, I know it's Kansas City. Yes, I know there was, I mean they benefited from all of the referee decisions on the night for sure and, and probably balanced out some of the injustices that have happened to this team earlier in the season. But I will say I thought, you know, there's a bunch of surprises from this game. First off, Augusto getting the start was. You got some crow to eat, sir? [00:06:54] Speaker A: Well, I certainly do in the sense that like that was a phenomenal performance. I was really, really worried about that kid starting because tweeted it when the. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Alignment came, when the lineup came out. [00:07:04] Speaker A: It makes me ner because he has been nowhere near that good with North Texas. I mean down there he's very nervy, very much like not sure what to do, struggles with decision making. My, my Assumption. My guess is that down at North Texas they're asking him to be the leader. They want him to organize. He's probably their best center back. I don't think any question on that group. So like everyone's looking to him. Well, when you come up to FC Dallas, it's like, hey kid, just, just relax. We're going to put 38 year old Iaga next to you on one side and Shaq Morris played for the national team on the other side. You're going to be fine. Just listen to those guys. And he was able to sit a little more conservatively, a little more deeply. Like if you look at, just use your eyes and watch him run. He always sat a little deeper than Iaga. If you go look at your passing maps, you'll see the same thing. But he has the physical profile and the athleticism that he was able to close those gaps really quickly. So he was able to be conservative and keep it simple. Now he didn't keep his passes short, but he kept them simple. He didn't try and do too much and he just had an absolutely phenomenal game. I mean, by any measure he had a solid game. Forget about the fact that it was his first ever MLS minutes, he, they, they played through him. They look at the pass map, pause plays to him. Every time he passed it like a 96% clip which was like 8% better than IB they clearly know already he's a better pass the Navy not, which is not saying a lot, you know, two for two on tackles, seven clearances, zero dispossessions, zero miscontrols, zero defensive errors that led to a shot, you know. Now granted he made a mistake on the, the goal, the Kansas City goal, the second one, he made a mistake there. But overall, just phenomenal performance by him when a rookie's thrown into Mercedes heat and did pretty well. [00:08:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I was really relieved that it turned out that way because based on your preview of him, I was quite concerned he was going to get embarrassed and rinsed a few times. You mentioned his stats, which brings up something I don't think I knew. And when I watched the game and I thought, man, everybody's saying he had a really good game and I do think he had a good game. I wonder what his passing stats were. I was surprised it said he had only missed two passes because I know I saw him miss more than two passes in the game. His first pass was, was a miss. Like he made this really good, groovy, athletic decision to cut a ball out. Like he saw it he was reading the game really well. It's like 30 seconds into the game. He cuts the ball out and then he carries it like 10 yards and he tries to pass it up to, I'm assuming Acosta. And it's a bad pass and it's a turnover. But it dawned on me when is a clearance decided to be a clearance and not a bad pass? [00:09:43] Speaker A: That's a good question. [00:09:45] Speaker B: Because I do. That's what I think is happening is things that I see as an incomplete pass, like a guy trying to play a ball long to somebody. I wonder if the stats people are calling clearances. [00:09:56] Speaker A: That's a good question. One of the things about stats is there's in soccer in general is things like that. And there must be some sort of vague idea. [00:10:03] Speaker B: I'm sure there is. [00:10:04] Speaker A: If it's not within 10 or 15 yards of where a player was, then they're not going to call it a pass. Or maybe it's how long it is, you know, like he did have one absolutely gorgeous long pass to up there. Boy, did he ever just, oh, my gosh, reminded me of George John just ripping those balls out of the back. Tanner Testman, you know, so, like, there's so many great signs here. And I'm telling you, like, he does not play like that in North Texas. And all I can think of is that the comfort level of simplifying the game for him must have been a huge difference. Or maybe he's just a guy that's clutch. Maybe he just rises to occasions, you know, but whatever, it was awesome. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Does that mean, Buzz, that Andre Zenata is a hero and good at his job and we've solved now our center back problem. [00:10:47] Speaker A: No part two of that. It definitely has not solved your center back problem. You need one more. Just by math, even if the kids are ready to play, I don't, I don't think he's ready to like all of a sudden play the next 25 games. But just the math of it says you need another one. Because look at it, look at this game right now. Like, you had a guy suspended and a guy hurt. You had two guys playing and no backups, right? So this is why you need five center backs. Forget if you want to play three at the back. If you play three at the back, you need to have six center backs. And the other thing was, is that they found this guy. You can give us an auto or somebody some credit of calling around a local club and saying, hey, send us three bodies. And they sent him three bodies and one of those bodies turned out to be impressive in training. And they went, oh, crap, let's keep that kid around, you know, so like, how much of that was somebody scouting ahead of time? I find very, very unlikely that anyone scouted those players ahead of time. They just called the local club and said, we need three guys who can keep up. And they sent them their best. Three guys, you know, so well. [00:11:49] Speaker B: Come on, Buzz, let's, let's give them. So we, we. We dog on him quite a bit. So when they. Something good happens, we have to give them credit for that too. Just to be fair, I don't know. [00:12:00] Speaker A: When a player falls out of the sky and lands in your lap, I don't know that you get all that much credit for it. I mean, credit that someone watches training, you know, probably the coaches and said, hey, this kid's legit, Try and grab him and they get a deal done. So I'll give him that. [00:12:13] Speaker B: All right? [00:12:14] Speaker A: But he was playing for a U23 team of a Division 2 Portuguese club, so it's not like I know they were over there scouting the guy. [00:12:22] Speaker B: I'm just trying to be fair, Buzz. [00:12:23] Speaker A: I know, listen, we can give them credit for some things, but not, not that one. I'm not giving him one. [00:12:28] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Well, it was a delightful treat. The other, other thing that I really. I'll get to the big, most obvious one in a second. I do want to point out that I thought the team worked tremendously hard for Eric Quill in Kansas City. I thought Lucho really put out a ton of effort defensively, more so than I've seen him do lately. Especially even after turning the ball over. There wasn't a lot of that traffic cone thing or flowing his, you know, throwing his hands around. So I thought that was improved. But obviously the other kind of tying factor to the last time this team was winning games and getting results was the return of one Sebastian Legette, who, you know, I, I don't know if you were surprised started this particular game or not, but man, what a difference he makes when he's out there on the field. [00:13:17] Speaker A: No, I'm not surprised. I predicted that he would start. You know, they were missing so many bodies and he had know he was on the bench and available two weeks ago. And so when you have two more weeks of training since then, there's no problem for him to start. He clearly was on a 60, 65 minute restriction the way they lifted him like that right on time. But you know, with, with Legette on the field, they are now 4, 2 and 4 for 14 points. And then without him they are 1, 4 and 4 for 7 points. So like, clearly there's a humongous advantage to him being on the field. And it's Delgado. Let's give some credit to Delgado too. In general, you have to consider that in the midfield they basically played with an 8 and 2 tens and no sixes at all. So like the connectivity in the midfield came way up. And between him and Delgado, who was also excellent, and Pedrinho who was excellent like, all three of those guys passed at a really high rate. They all had nice progressive passes. Padrino was the worst of the three, but Legit and Delgado were both really, really good. And they're also playing this shifty sort of shape too. So the guys are doing a nice job moving around as the shape flexes. The ability to connect through that midfield was what led to, I think, the number of times they were able as a team to make a pass into the penalty area, which was higher than normal. It was maybe their fourth or fifth most high highest passes into the penalty area. Which just goes to show you that of the like nine shots they had with four of them on target, all four of those on target ended up being goals. So that was some incredibly good chance creation. Not at all like the usual. Not, not usual, but sometimes that we see this blasting from distance, hopeful balls, you know, like that, like that best shot like three weeks ago. These are all like, get it in close and get really clean, nice chances. So that was the biggest part, the midfield control, the midfield connection, the midfield passing was the biggest part of the improvement in this game in particular compared to some recent ones. When you have these for a while you had show Kaikin and, and Ramiro was just like three sixes. So it's like, it's very, very different when you have that. And, and Sebastian Legte did a really nice job as basically playing the six, which is incredible. Like they, they had him play six, which I thought was amazing since he's not as remotely a six. [00:15:33] Speaker B: Well, as I say, a win is a win. And I, I, there was lots to, I thought Musa looked energetic in the game. It was just lots of really good things that came, came out of it. Again, it's Kansas City. They're not very good. Yeah, well, I will say that opening goal for Kansas City was amazing. That was a fantastic hit. Yeah, the one from the choppy from their right side. [00:15:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, from there in a solid. Yeah, it's actually good. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Yes, their little Russian dude. Yeah, yeah, it Was a fantastic hit. Yeah. So overall, I was real. Obviously, there's no reason to want to get into it too much in terms of anything, but I thought the game was good. I guess the question I have is, when you see the team perform like this, with not playing without playing a real six, how does Eric Quill make that work going forward? Because he's going. I mean, it's not like he's going to play two eights and. Or an eight and two tens. No, forever. [00:16:29] Speaker A: He's going to. He's going to want a six in there, at least one. You know, obviously the ideal situation, of course, is that he wants to play, you know, with two wings up high, you know, outside of Acosta, but that's tough because of the way Acosta plays. Yeah. So he's kind of stuck in this form, this, this. This hybrid 442. I'm actually going to write about it this week because the way it flexes is kind of fascinating. So he's kind of stuck with that in a lot of ways. But if you can put a six in there and flank him with a couple of eights, you know, rather than flanking him with a couple of sixes, you're actually going to be able to raise the level of the passing. You know, you'll actually be able to keep some of this connectivity. You know, other teams are going to be better, of course. You know, I mean, honestly, this. This game was really positive across the board. I. I hardly had any bad things to say about anybody. You know, I. It annoyed me that far Fan had shot be closed down on that first goal, and then for some reason, he drifted away and just let him get back into free space. And Guy got open for a blast. And then Norris, late in the game, had an absolutely sublime pass for the goal, but also had three or four balls where he was overly aggressive and, you know, played balls hopeful balls way out in front of runners that were just ridiculously optimistic. And I'm sure the team was. Coaches were probably pretty mad, like, what are you doing? It's three to one. Stop doing that. But, you know, overall, I think it was hard to really point anyone that had a bad game. To be fair, you know, it was a game where Dallas controlled the play and controlled the game as you showed up. A man, but the man, the red car wasn't until later in the second half. So they were doing really well most of the game already, even if they weren't scoring as much. [00:18:04] Speaker B: I. I did want to bring up how delighted I was, and I thought Buzz's pants went crazy when Nolan Norris subbed in as a holding mid. [00:18:13] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, that just goes to show you where they, how badly they wanted a six late in that game that they took Norris who like for Quill Norris hasn't really been a six, but they know that he can do that. They know he has done it for the U20s at some point. They know they've done it a lot for SC Dallas at some point. So he's perfectly capable of that. And, and you could tell the way they were talking to him that they kind of had that as a plan. They knew this was coming. And then of course he made a couple of bad passing choices, but you know, one really great passing choice that led to a goal. So you know, passing his is his best asset. And like Ramiro, you know, we know that Norris's weakest spot is the fact he's, he maybe is a touch step slow, you know, but you can, when you put him in the middle of that three man midfield, the space is tighten up and then all of a sudden it's no big deal. Just like Romero when you play that same formation. So, you know, good management of a young player coming in and being able to help you. And interesting that they thought about that so far in advance that they signed Josh Trocado, who's the North Texas's left back, just so they could have an extra outside back to bring in if they needed to so they could use Norse in the midfield. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Well, the team now has a little bit of time off. In fact, people were floating pictures around a Lucho Acosta at the Boca Juniors game down in Miami tonight. We're recording this on Monday evening, by the way, Alan Velasco sighting starting for Boca. [00:19:37] Speaker A: Yup. [00:19:38] Speaker B: I also happened to go back and look at some of his performance records on Fat Mob. Not great. [00:19:45] Speaker A: Not great. [00:19:46] Speaker B: No. He had a few games in there. I will say he had a few games in there where they gave him over a seven, but he had a lot of games in there where he had a five something. So his average I think is 6.21, which is pretty mediocre. But I'll take the 10 million bucks. So Dallas has like the rest of the league has quite a bit of time off. They don't play again until a week from Wednesday on the 25th when San Jose comes to town. [00:20:10] Speaker A: Yep. [00:20:11] Speaker B: At, at Toyota Toyota Stadium and we'll see if they can't pull off some sort of point collection and improve their home versus road record. I guess my question is Does Augusto start that game Buzz? [00:20:25] Speaker A: Probably not. You know, I think you recognize the fact that he had a good game and you tell him, hey kid, that was awesome. Keep working hard, you know, you're gonna be on the bench and you know, you try and bring him back in late in the game, you know, keep the flow going. But center back in particular is so much about experience, so much about game reading, you know, and a 19 year old kid is going to struggle in that regard. You know, you're playing a team. I mean, Quill talked about Sporting's nine being, you know, pretty, pretty good nine. But the way Dallas play, they play very conservatively like they do with their, their line of four in front of the line of four. So they really limit the opportunity to have balls come into the feet of those strikers. Well, at some point you're going to play teams much better than Sporting Kansas City and you don't want to proceed to get this kid blasted over the next month a whole bunch of times. So I think that you would bring back in this particular case, since the boubacar will be healthy, I think it makes sense to bring back a boot car, you know, and just, and have Alvaro be on the bench and try and bring him in for minutes here and there. [00:21:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm still mad at Lawless for the stupid red card. So yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna predict Augusto starts a week from Wednesday. Yes. Just to be contradictory and create tension on the podcast between you and me. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah. So there San Jose Earthquakes. [00:21:53] Speaker B: How about them apples? [00:21:54] Speaker A: I mean, you know, maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. [00:21:57] Speaker B: Okay, so that is on when any other particular lineup issues you think that we should, I mean we'll obviously do a podcast before then, but anything just, you know, any, anything about that that you just want to get out there off the top, off your chest. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Well, that's the tough call actually. I think is going to be Kaik and Romero. You're going to want to bring one of them back. But Delgado is playing lights out the last three or four games. Legit. We've already went over his numbers like how much better the team is with legit. So you want to have legit and Delgado in there I think think based on their performances. Okay, so you only need one of those two sixes. So you, you bring in your 30 year old slower than molasses Brazilian six or you go with your 19 year old Energizer bunny, run around kicking everybody Brazilian six. [00:22:48] Speaker B: Or how about you just won your first game in your last eight. So maybe you play the same starting 11. Boy, you know how love a coach loves consistency and to reward success. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Yeah, there's something to be said for, you know, rewarding guys that win a game. But it is at home, right? Is it? [00:23:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it's at home. [00:23:12] Speaker A: So like. So already you have the home thing and then you have the home thing. [00:23:17] Speaker B: You mean the home disadvantage. [00:23:19] Speaker A: Home disadvantage. And then you have to. You know, San Jose has got a pretty good record. You know, their. Compared to. Oh, they're three, four. [00:23:30] Speaker B: They're three, four and two on the road. [00:23:33] Speaker A: Yeah, they're, they're pretty tough on the road. You know, they're, they're, they got six wins on to Dallas's five. So they're a little bit better than Dallas. I don't know. I just, I think that, like, when you have a longer gap, like you do when you have. Follow along the lines of Ramirez, one of your veteran leaders, you know, Kaiki paid a lot of money for. Do you, do you lose a job because you got suspended or because you got hurt and they both got suspended? In this particular case, you can make that argument. I just, I just. [00:24:03] Speaker B: Lane without a. Dallas has a game at hand on San Jose, too. So they're a point behind in the. See, now where are they? They are two points behind in the standings. They have a game in hand on them and San Jose is three, four and two on the road and three, three and three at home. [00:24:18] Speaker A: So I just think that, like, I, I really want legit to play legit's actual position because that'll make the team even better. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:24:27] Speaker A: You know, so you want him, you want him. And I think the way Bill Delgado's playing, I want. You want those two guys releasing forward out of midfield, and so you're going to want somebody behind them and cleaning it up, whether it's Ramiro, you know, in his sort of stay at home, be really defensive kind of thing, or whether it's going to be Kaik is the question. I, I would bet it would probably be Romero, maybe. [00:24:48] Speaker B: Okay. [00:24:48] Speaker A: If I had to flip a coin. [00:24:49] Speaker B: We could talk more about it next week when we're closer to the game. [00:24:52] Speaker A: Yeah, good. That's a fun question. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Something to stew on for sure. All right. Anything else? FC Dallas specific you want to get into that? We haven't talked about. [00:25:02] Speaker A: Well, the academies in the playoffs right now, as we speak, there are. All four of their teams are still alive. They've advanced to some of them into the quarterfinals already. So they're all doing pretty well, so there's, there's. There's two games tonight as we're recording. So by the time you're hearing this, one of them could possibly have been eliminated. But we'll. We'll see how. [00:25:21] Speaker B: And this is the national playoffs. [00:25:22] Speaker A: This is the MLS Next cup, they call it. It's single elimination. You know, if you get eliminated, you drop into like some showcase games that have more games for everybody to play, but it's single knockout, single game. And, and where are they playing? I think they're in Tennessee, but it's been getting rained out like crazy. They've had a flooded fields and they've had to move games around. It's really chaotic, the schedule and because of all the weather they're having, I think it's in Tennessee. I'm not 100 positive. [00:25:52] Speaker B: Okay, very good. North Texas, the B team, the second team, the juniors, the kids. [00:25:59] Speaker A: Very first thing we have to say is the. A slight correction. You remember last time we talked about how they were playing that friendly and the tickets were 30 bucks, right? Well, it turns out that there are tickets for as cheap as $5. However, the email that was sent out did not make that clear. The emails made it seem like they were all $30. So we'll offer a little bit of connection correction that you can get cheaper tickets to that game. You just couldn't tell based on the email they sent out. So that was. They. They played Austin 2 this week during, During a midweek game. Sorry, this weekend. Yeah, not good. They got handled pretty heavily in their defense, you know, because Alvaro was up with the FC Dallas and Josh Turkata was up with FC Dallas. They actually played three center backs and a six across the back line. They had a center back at right back. They had a, a six at right center back. They had. Oh, they, they had a regular center back in there with him too. And then they had another center back at left back. So they, they only. It was really weird, you know, so it's not surprising perhaps that they didn't hold together very well defensively. And they allowed a goal, a couple goals. And right now they're missing a bunch of pieces because some kids have gone with the academy and then some guys are up with first team because of all the suspensions and injuries. So North Texas is a little thin, so they can do very well. And they got, they got the Rapids too, on Wednesday, so we'll see what kind of team they can put together. [00:27:21] Speaker B: Very good. And we don't have any Trinity to talk about. Their season is over. [00:27:26] Speaker A: Yeah, they haven't made any moves that I'm aware of. [00:27:28] Speaker B: So they've been doing some nice social media selling of swag with some fancy photography. [00:27:35] Speaker A: I've noticed they did have the, the real league best 11 come out and both Ali Thornton with the golden boot and Amber Brooks were of course in the first team, all USL team as. As should be. And Chioma Abubigo and Hannah Davidson were also in the second team. So much more in line with the way things should be in terms of who should get honors out of that team. And also Celie Straughan was named the USL Super League Young Player of the Year. So that's the national best young player. [00:28:06] Speaker B: How young you gotta be to qualify for that in a league filled with like high school kids in it? [00:28:12] Speaker A: Is she 12? Yeah, well, I think she's 17. She plays for Solar, you know, so. Yeah, she's a young, she's a legit young player of the year. [00:28:21] Speaker B: Seems like an open tournament in that league. [00:28:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I know she won it, which I'll tell you how good she. [00:28:26] Speaker B: Yes. But it just, you know, a lot like a typical young player where there's only a few number of teenagers. It's like half the league are probably also going to prom in the middle of the season. [00:28:38] Speaker A: So yeah, they had young ladies go to college, they had players that, you know, went back to their academies for whatever reason, but she stuck it out the whole year and earned that big non. [00:28:48] Speaker B: All right, beautiful. I love it. Well, good stuff. We look forward to a new season and in fact I've got a, I've got something to talk about specific about Trinity in the mailbox before we finish the show. Oh look. Break up Texoma Football Club. They are on a five game undefeated streak. [00:29:13] Speaker A: Yep. [00:29:14] Speaker B: They got a 2:2 result against Tormenta over the weekend and they have second place shot. So where is Texoma in the standings now? [00:29:23] Speaker A: They still sit eighth, which is the bottom last playoff spot. So like considering where they were, the fact that the discussion for a playoff spot is incredible. They're, they're, they changed keepers basically about a month ago and that guy proceeded to become maybe Javier Garcia. He was voted USL1 Player of the month for May, which I'll tell you how good he's been since basically he took over that spot. And he's probably the biggest single reason that they've had this resurgence other than they've had greater emphasis on not caring about possession and playing more like I guess actually. But they really have turned their season around and when you go Five straight without losing a game. That's tremendous. Big, big test this weekend, however, because the second place Charlotte Independence are coming to town. That's, that's, that's a better test than they've had the last couple of games. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Well, that is pretty sweet. So everybody, is the game against Charlotte here or there? [00:30:16] Speaker A: Leave it here at 7:30. [00:30:18] Speaker B: Okay, well everybody hop on i35 and go up to Sherman and check out Texoma effort for their sixth straight point collecting result. Congratulations to them. And we talked about MLS next cup. We talked about North Texas. All right, let's talk about the other thing that happened this week in our little soccer community. We mentioned it last week that we finally got confirmation that Atletico Dallas, the new forthcoming USL Championship or whatever club that is coming in 2027, will officially be plying their trade in the Cotton Bowl. But what happened also was the Dallas City Council hearing that went, God, some people ended up hanging out 12 hours that day. Unbelievable as the whole part about this thing didn't come up until like, like 7:30 that night. And you can actually go back and watch it. It's, it's stored on the city of Dallas servers and if you go to the city of Dallas City Council website, you can run down and check it out and, and you can watch it for yourself. And there's some bookmarking in the video so you don't have to like manually find it. You can just click on it. It'll take you straight to the whole thing. I would tell you it's worth watching if you're really into this stuff for a whole bunch of reasons. And I want to say this straight up front because I have my really strong beefs with Dan Hunt. I have personal reasons to be very unhappy with him. And I would say that to him, to his face, if I ever got the chance to speak to him directly. But I want to be fair to Dan Hunt because he stood up and defended his club and his position. And for the first time that I can ever recall, Dan Hunt stood up in front of a public audience and spoke without notes. I mean, he had a notebook in front of him with notes in it, but he did not read from the paper. He spoke from his mind and his heart and his head and, and he defended his position, rightly or wrongly. And I was really impressed by that because the first time I've ever seen Dan Hunt do it, and it actually gave me the sense for the first time ever since his brother made him president of this club, that he might actually be capable of doing some Leadership. So congratulations to him. I thought it was quite good in the way that he spoke. I thought Gina spoke really well on behalf of the team. I was really surprised at the number of people Dallas brought down for the city council meeting. And it was all for naught because it was pretty clear by the body language of the city council people in particular that were fighting for this and even in the way that some of the city council members that were clearly thought this was a weird deal to begin with, and how they were, the questions they were particularly asking and then how. How quickly it all just went unanimously in the way of the doubt that Dan Hunt didn't want it to go. So what it means is that Atletico Dallas within the next six months will take over management control of Money Graham park over off of Walnut Hill and I35. [00:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a fascinating day. Originally, the Dallas, the Moneygram section, the Athletico Cotton Bull and Moneygram were tied together. Originally they were on this in the early morning, you know, normal sort of session. And I think because FC Dallas brought so many people to talk, as is their prerogative, and because there's a time limit, they brought a bunch of people so that each one of them could focus on a particular aspect of their presentation. They moved it all to an evening session, that particular topic. And obviously, I think from the FC Dallas's reaction, they were not happy to be losing money grand. Their complaints weren't about the Cotton bowl and about Athletico Dallas plan there. It was all about their management of Moneygram. It's also, as an outsider, pretty clear that the city of Dallas, at least the parks and rec park were pretty upset. There was some pretty strong language flying around and some of those quotes about the whole thing. You know, I don't, I don't really have any stake in any of it. I think it's a lot of talk considering we're just talking about some youth fields. But, you know, maybe as a Peter, as a person that has. Has played, played in adult leagues that struggle to get access there, or other people we hear about have struggled to get access there, maybe you have a point of view on that. But, you know, Athletico is partnering with a firm that runs a bunch of complexes. I hear that the, the owner of that, one of the owners of that company is the same group that owns Surf the Club Surf, which is literally all over America and has literally tens of thousands of teams, massive organization. So some people that I understand are really familiar with running youth complexes and youth clubs. So, you know, I totally understand, you know, people's perspective that might be worried about, are these complexes going to be maintained? It's a legit question, you know, are they going to hold up with a new club running them? I don't have an answer to that question. I don't think anybody does until somebody tries it. But clearly the city of Dallas, at least the Parks and Rec part, were not happy with what was happening there. [00:35:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I really feel caught in the middle of all this because I talk to people from both sides of the coin and I got really compelling cases from both sides. And I wish I had had an opportunity to get both sides to talk and go over items that the other, you know, against each other so that I could suss out what is real and what's not real. I, I, you know, as far as the city goes, there's a couple of things out of the meeting I would want everybody to put a pin in. So, first off, the voting was unanimous, and I thought that was weird based on some of the body language and questions that were being asked by some people who then voted yes. Well, I found out after the fact that the reason why you may want to put a pen in that is because of two things. There were certain members of the council that night who. It was their, literally their last day on the city Council. There will be a new city council forming in the coming weeks, and if you voted no on an item, you are then not allowed to bring that back up as a city council person for reconsideration down the road if some sort of new news or things come to light. So the reason why I was told some of specifically one woman city council person who seemed very concerned and, and asked a ton of questions, but then voted yes. Confusingly, I'm told the reason why is because probably what she intends to do is bring it back up later on when the city council membership changes. And maybe there's some different bodies or different people with different attitudes or points of view on this down the road. So I don't think this item, I don't think this is a done deal. I think it still is likely to come back up. But ultimately, what I do think is fascinating is the, the question that was brought up was why was this done as one deal instead of two separate deals like a leasing deal and a tenant deal? And, and then the city council person asked the Parks and rec, well, would Atletico Dallas just have taken the Cotton bowl without Moneygram? And the guy kind of hemmed and hawed and finally had to admit that, yeah, they probably would have done that. So I think what we saw on that particular night was a byproduct of having a mayor who has been clearly trying to get his people that are working underneath him to do two things. And they were trying to kill two birds with one stone. One, bring more pro teams to Dallas proper and two, do something about our contracts with vendors or partners that, that we don't think are working for us and working better for them and make them more advantageous for us. So I think they killed two birds with one stone. But frankly, I think FC Dallas kind of got screwed in the process, especially considering how much time, effort and partnership Dan Hunt in particular has put forth in helping the city of Dallas with World cup stuff, the broadcast center, and even more recently with the batch plant thing that came up in the meeting adjacent to Money Grand Park. So I don't know where all this. [00:38:55] Speaker A: Is going to go. You know, I don't, I don't think. I'm certainly not qualified to begin to tell you like anything about city contracts for complexes and who may or may not be getting the short of the stick on that deal. It's very clear that the city of Dallas thought they were. [00:39:07] Speaker B: Well, so there are a couple of things you should know. The contract with Dallas clearly had a six month notice for convenience, which means the city could cancel, cancel that deal whenever they wanted for whatever reason as long as they told FC Dallas six months in advance they did that. But it can also come back up for decision again down the road. Oh, the other thing we found out I didn't know this, is that in the state of Texas city agreements on real estate deals do not have to be put up for bid or RFP request for proposal. So that's a state law that was brought up at the very, very beginning of the meeting because I think that was the first thing everybody wondered was why did this not go out for bid? So, you know, again, I don't think I do believe that if you start to dig into the math and the numbers, FC Dallas and the Hunt family were getting some significant scheduling and financial benefits out of this agreement that worked in their favor that I think they're probably disappointed to lose. [00:40:13] Speaker A: Probably. [00:40:14] Speaker B: But I also do think it's a little weird that the city of Dallas is turning over its crown jewel sporting facility to a group of people that aren't even officially in business yet. [00:40:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm curious to find out and I don't know who to ask to get the definitive answer whether Athletico Dallas asked for Money Ram or the City of Dallas was like, hey, would you like to have money ran too when they were talking about the Cotton Ball. Because I bet it's the second one. [00:40:41] Speaker B: I'm fairly certain with little effort we could get a confirmation it is the second. [00:40:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think it is too. So it'll be, it's gonna be interesting. Again, like I say, at the end of the day I'm way more concerned about the Cotton bowl in terms of what matters to me. You know, the Cotton bowl and the professional team playing in it. [00:40:59] Speaker B: Well, in talking to people from the Athletico side, they seem excited to take over. They seem to. They have a. They have, they make a lot of promises that they are going to make a tremendous effort to improve access for everybody. You know, the ecrl, no, the rl, the lower division they're talking about giving immediate access to. You know, there's just a whole bunch of weird minutiae stuff that I think 99% of the world won't care about it. My feeling is, is if, you know, I would love to be able to go play at MoneyGram again if that improves and makes it easier for me as a 50 something to go have a Sunday beer league out there again, that would be great. But at the end of the day, as long as the facility stays in good shape and people have access to it and it's all relatively equal, then I don't care who manages it. [00:41:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's that. Maybe we're going to be in a couple of years is we'll be like, does it hold up? Is it still good then who cares? You know what I mean? Yeah, for most sure. Yeah. By the way, before we go too far on the city council thing, let's also mention that Dallas Trinity was involved in some stuff in the morning session. Right. The Dallas City Council approved at Joey Georgius. [00:42:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's a two phase project, at least initially. What was approved was phase one, which is a training facility for the Dallas Wings, the WNBA team and some soccer fields. Dallas Trinity was not mentioned in the technical documents, but the city council people kept bringing them up. So I double checked. They're involved in phase two, which is not approved yet. It's in the planning stages. Phase two will be training fields for Dallas Trinity and some more soccer fields beyond the original four. So that complex is going to have a starting section that's it's not going to have for something specifically for Trinity. And then if the next section gets phased, it will. So. And with everybody talking about it, it sure seems like that's the plan so good for Dallas Trinity, you know, the while it's not over the finish line yet, you know, the plans are in place, plans are in motion to give them a nice training facility there in West Oak Cliff, which, so the whole complex is, it's a 200 acre site, you know, and it's going to be less than that. It'll be involved for these fields in this training center for the Wings and version Dallas Trinity and again like a giant complex for women's professional sports, which is terrific. [00:43:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it would. And I also felt like they had been listening to the pod because I think we talked in the last episode about the idea of the city of Dallas investing in a, like a, like a mini Arlington, of just spreading things right there in, in the Oak Cliff area. I thought that made a lot of sense. So even this version of it makes some sense. That's pretty, that would be very cool. I guess. Obviously this leads to a lot of questions about, you know, is one or both of these clubs going to announce their own soccer stadium to play in? And I, I, I'm, I've been running under this premise that at least Atletico has a plan to put a stadium. I don't think they're going to build a stadium in Garland anymore. I don't know how they can afford to not build a stadium in the Dallas proper area after all of this stadium stuff has happened between them. I mean the city of Dallas would look really stupid for going all of this distance only for Athletico to build a stadium in Royce City or Mesquite or Garland or whatever. So I'm assuming. But then it dawned on me, Buzz, the following. What if both Trinity and Atletico can make the numbers work? Why build a stadium when you've got the Cotton Bowl? I understand that it's a 92,500 seat facility, but if between those two organizations they can improve along with the modifications that are already underway that are going to make some significant improvements to the stadium in terms of game day experience, but also do some other modifications to make that even better and they can make the finances work. Why build a new stadium? You're downtown, your biomass transit output, you've got a great field in there. You're connected to the communities that you tell everybody you want to be connected to in the form of south and east and west and West Dallas. Why build a stadium? Why not just stay at the Cotton Bowl? [00:45:24] Speaker A: Well, the reason is the same reason that FC Dallas didn't say at the Cotton Bowl. And that's the reason that for Most of soccer in the United States still the majority of profits are not tied to broadcasting. They're try, they're, they're tied to revenue control and butts in the seats, operational control of the stadium. And if you talk to people that are creating these teams within the last decade or so, the last 15 years or so, they all understand this. It's the economies of scale of having your own venue and having your control of the merch and the food and the beverages and renting the stadium to other people. You know, it's the operational control that makes the money flow. It's the reason why Everybody above the USL2 NPSL level, which is the semi pro college kids, everything above that. Everybody talks about having their own stadium and building your own stadium. Now you can do it in partnership like FC Dallas did with isds and things like that who need to have access. But it's the FC Dallas's ability originally to have concerts and sell concerts and lease the thing out to bowl games and lease the thing out to other. It's the same sort of stuff. It's the ability to maximize your revenue streams because broadcasting, like other major pro sports in America have the broadcasting on the soccer side is not there, the revenue is not there. So that's why, you know, yes, the semantics of a 3,000 to 5,000 attendance number for Dallas Trinity right now, even if they grow to 10,000, 12,000, which would be bigger than anybody in NWSL, let's say they do all that. You're still sitting there in a 9,000 C stadium where the city of Dallas is pocketing the money from the merch and the, and the food and the, and the drink, you know, so that's it at the end of the day is control the stadium, control of revenue. And that's why it's the only way it works. That's why they put them in these mixed use complexes. That's why they have ancillary fields like look at FC Dallas, all those fields out there, FC Dallas, we know the money comes from the youth, man. They may, they may turn a profit with SE D, but it ain't much. All the profit is on the youth stuff. [00:47:38] Speaker B: It is going to be fun to watch because at least the Cotton bowl gives both of those clubs a buffer of time to figure out their best stadium resolution. And I think we all can agree what would be best for everybody, but I, I don't think either the Neil family or the Atletico ownership group would agree with this, is that the best thing to happen is for those two parties to build a facility that they can share together. [00:48:03] Speaker A: Yep. [00:48:03] Speaker B: But I have a feeling that neither one of those parties want to do that. They want their own place for all the reasons you just mentioned. [00:48:10] Speaker A: Yeah, the influence from the city or the, or the ISD or whatever that are going to think, well, it wouldn't make any sense for us to build two things. You know, there may only be one thing available with the city of Dallas and they may have two clubs. This is purely conjecture. We may have two clubs fighting for that. Right. To get that. You know, they do have by rule the, the USL Premier as we're calling it is a 15,000 seat requirement. Requirement. The USL Women's Division 1 is only 5,000. So there's a significant difference in the amount of money and the size needed. But we also know that people like Dallas Trinity have ambition. They think from talking to various people, I believe they think 5,000 is not enough. So I think you're totally right. I think one venue for both of them makes complete sense across all economies of scale. Well then you're going to get into questions about who has operational control. Are they sharing operational control? Because all of a sudden now that gets really complicated and the finances get more complicated. If one of them has operational control, the other is leasing a spot in there. All of a sudden maybe they're not really so excited about being in there as a lease subleaser. You know, look at the way. Remember when the San Diego MLS team went in and took away first choice of games from the San Diego wave? How mad they were that the MLS team became the primary. Well, it still belongs to the school. So they're all, they're both secondary, but the MLS side got first choice, first dibs and they were really mad when they we were here first. So teams don't like that stuff necessarily. So there's some complications there. Still, you know, I, I, I would hope that they could be great partners since it is USL and USL will come in together and go, please, guys, let's get together, let's figure this out. So that, that may be the, to me that makes the most sense, but I'm not, I'm not a billionaire or multibillionaire, 100 millionaire or whatever that owns a team. It's easier for me to say, well. [00:49:58] Speaker B: I'm pretty old Buzz. I'm hoping I'm still alive by the time whatever the resolution is works out and there's a new stadium or not. [00:50:06] Speaker A: I, I imagine you will be okay. You're gonna make it. Shouldn't take more than three or four years. [00:50:11] Speaker B: What will happen? A new stadium for the USL teams or FC Dallas win MLS Cup? [00:50:16] Speaker A: Oh, a new stadium for the first. Yeah, you bitter old f. Yeah, I, I, I don't think maybe it's not the place to say this. I don't think GFC Dallas will ever win the most cup. [00:50:27] Speaker B: Whoa. [00:50:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:29] Speaker B: Buzz. People that listen to this podcast are FC Dallas curious first and foremost. Sir. You've just crushed so many hearts, man. I hope young Doc isn't listening to this episode. You may have just snuffed the poor kid out. [00:50:43] Speaker A: I just have come to believe that the way they choose to run their franchise handcuffs them. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Yes. [00:50:49] Speaker A: Handcuffs them too much compared to the new. [00:50:51] Speaker B: I'm with you. [00:50:52] Speaker A: Teams that run different ways, you know, because those, those smart. Not smart. That's the wrong word. Those teams that are willing to spend that extra money, they all now also do the academy thing. So like the advantage Dallas used to have. They don't is not advantage anymore. Now everybody does it. [00:51:06] Speaker B: So I am with you. Now. The other thing that happened, and this happened literally as we were starting the kick around on on Saturday is that one Buzz Carrick decided to break the news of all news, at least of recent time, that the much speculated USL Fort Worth team is actually a thing by uncovering the USL Fort Worth website that I don't think was supposed to be out live open in the ether for people to find. [00:51:37] Speaker A: Now to be fair, I've been saying this for about a year now that this was a real thing. [00:51:42] Speaker B: Yes, you have. [00:51:42] Speaker A: And, but now we actually have some evidence. And by the way, I did not go fishing for that. Somebody sent it to me, so I'm not going to take credit. But, and, but it was not somebody with an organization. It was a fan that found it and sent it to me. So I, I don't want to say their name in case they don't want their name said so, but I just shared it because the, the, the one thing was a yes, verified. What I've been saying is that this USL Championship slash premier tip was coming. But also much more interestingly, it mentions a super league team. [00:52:15] Speaker B: Yes. [00:52:15] Speaker A: Which I was not aware of. And, and I only became vaguely aware of that like within the last couple weeks. And not in a way that we could talk about or use. It wasn't a way that we could announce as news. Now we can because this URL is sitting there saying, you know, and it says USL Championship. Because that's what there is now. The other thing doesn't exist yet on Paper. So that's why it says that we only believe it's going to be the premiere, just like Athletico Dallas is going to be the premiere eventually. So, yeah, super league team in Fort Worth 2 Panther City, it says, which is super cool. [00:52:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Just to be very clear, what the website essentially says is that there is a men's USL team and a women's USL Super League team, which means the following. Trinity now has a crosstown rival and Athletico Dallas has a crosstown rival and the ghost of the Fort Worth Fire and the Dallas Freeze. Darby. [00:53:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:11] Speaker B: Says hello. [00:53:12] Speaker A: That's how old we are, Peter. That we know what that is. [00:53:14] Speaker B: I know I actually mentioned that on the radio the other day. And the other guys in the room, they were all younger, you know, in their 20s or early 30s, were like, what? There was a minor league hockey thing, and I'm. [00:53:28] Speaker A: I've always wanted a Fourth Fire jersey. [00:53:30] Speaker B: Oh, See, in my. And maybe I'm. Maybe I'm overhyping it for the purposes of hyperbole of this particular thing, but I, I swear I remember that despite being minor league hockey back in the day, when the, When Dallas and Fort Worth played each other either in Fort Worth or in Dallas at either the Will Rogers Coliseum or the Coliseum at Fair park over there by the Cotton bowl, it was a huge, huge deal in town. It was on all the local television stations. Everybody talked about it. It was a big deal. Even though it was super minor league hockey back then. [00:54:06] Speaker A: This predates the Fort Worth Brahmas, which was a later hockey team that played over there famously. The. The way I I most people will have be aware of the Fourth Fire. Is that the original Toady's video for Possum Kingdom? That song that got one of the bass players wearing 4th Fire jersey? [00:54:25] Speaker B: In that video, the female bass player for the Toties used to wear a Fort Worth Fire sweater in their shows more often than not. Yes. I can't remember her name. I think her name was Lisa. Can't remember. [00:54:36] Speaker A: But yeah, I never. I don't know any of their names, but, you know, Toy's is our generation, you know, and they're still around, so that's super cool. [00:54:42] Speaker B: So, greatest rock song of all time. [00:54:44] Speaker A: Is it really? Oh, that's a strong Possum Kingdom. I mean, it's good. [00:54:48] Speaker B: Absolutely. Okay, maybe not greatest, but easily top five rock song of all. [00:54:53] Speaker A: Certainly top five greatest Fort Worth produced rap song. [00:54:56] Speaker B: Sure. [00:54:57] Speaker A: Yeah. But the other thing about the URL is that it mentions Panther City specifically, which is the game for Fort Worth. So everybody would love some sort of branding along those. [00:55:08] Speaker B: How crazy would all our pants go if they end up calling both these teams Panther City Soccer Club? [00:55:14] Speaker A: Oh, I mean. I mean I would get why I wouldn't for branding, but Panther City? Yeah. [00:55:20] Speaker B: Hell yes. [00:55:21] Speaker A: Yeah. With purple and black as their colors. That'd be great. [00:55:24] Speaker B: What? Yeah, dude, it would be awesome. And so is this all going to end up being tied to the Farrington field project? [00:55:31] Speaker A: I don't. I think so. But I'm not 100 sure, you know that that project's cruising through the city council over there. [00:55:37] Speaker B: Okay. [00:55:38] Speaker A: I. I have not. I went and looked at what it says about Fairings and Field. I don't see specifically soccer and a USL mentioned, but it's entirely possible that it isn't in the project somehow. You know? You know, it's a massive project. [00:55:51] Speaker B: There's a track around that field too, which is. [00:55:53] Speaker A: There is currently, but I would hope that Renault will get rid of that because track around soccer field is awful. I really would hope that that wouldn't be the case. It's so bad. [00:56:03] Speaker B: Super bad. Well, that is super exciting because it is possible that in 2027 we will have a Fort Worth men's team and a Fort Worth women's team playing off against a Dallas men's team and a Dallas women's team. Even if it's USLC to start with. USLP we told aren't gonna. Isn't gonna start till 28 anyway. I guess the question. The question then becomes, well, do Dallas and Fort Worth win their way to promotion or do they become one of the teams from the USLC that automatically go to P because they paid their way up there, I guess would be the next thing we're all gonna have to figure out. [00:56:40] Speaker A: Well, they, you know, how promotion and relegation will actually be implemented has yet to be determined. You know, obviously when you're going to launch a division one league, you're going to need more than one, two or three teams. You're going to need eight, 10, 12. [00:56:54] Speaker B: Supposed to be 12 teams. [00:56:55] Speaker A: Is it? 12? Okay, it's supposed to be 12. [00:56:57] Speaker B: Yes. [00:56:57] Speaker A: So you're going to need 12 teams. So that means that's the first season of. That is not going to be promotion. Relegation, you know, that's going to be. It'll be teams that are going to be. That are going to be picked out because they're in the top 20 media markets, they have a certain amount of money behind them that those are going to be off the field reasons why they'll be picked or not? [00:57:14] Speaker B: Well, I think it's very likely that there will be teams of whatever market size just because the ownership group is willing to spend the money to go ahead and move up there. That also puts them at great risk of getting relegated back down to the championship. [00:57:27] Speaker A: Well, that's the difference between founding 12 teams and teams that can win their way in. Like I don't think you found with Texoma in a town that has 50,000 people. You found it. Well, they don't have Dallas and Fort Worth with 5 million and 2 million, you know, metro each or whatever. I mean that's a very different prospects in terms of, you know, if they really are going to have pro. Well, they're going to have to have. They have to have the ability to have small teams come up. But that's, well, that also different than. [00:57:53] Speaker B: Founding and that also is part of the reason why I think the idea of Dallas staying at the Cotton bowl for a while makes sense because it gives them the opportunity to really suss out what the market is like without investing a lot and getting into a deal with the city of Dallas over a stadium that then creates a problem if they end up sucking and getting relegated. Because don't forget, they could not in this model. It couldn't just maybe fall to the USL championship in two seasons. They could be playing USL 1 down with Texoma and Texoma could be in the championship. So. [00:58:25] Speaker A: Well, that's another reason why a two team stadium makes more sense if you have two people that are, you know, occupying it. Particularly because they have, as far as we know, right now they have opposite seasons too. So there's less conflict for games because Trinity is winter league. [00:58:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:42] Speaker A: And USL probably, don't quote me, is probably a summer league like they are now. All right, so. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Well, that's good stuff, Buzz. We haven't read anything from the mailbag in a while. You mind if I read a letter from the mail, please? All right. This letter comes from Lori. It's sent the other day and Lori writes hi. I can't find another way to email the show, so I hope this finds the right audience. I really enjoy your podcast. I primarily listen for the FC Dallas coverage but have also enjoyed how you are covering other teams in the area, including Trinity. However, and there's always a but in these emails. [00:59:19] Speaker A: Yeah, there is. [00:59:20] Speaker B: I have turned off two different episodes recently when Peter refers to Trinity players as girls. It's one thing to have a host discuss teams that he admits has never been actually even going to see, but then to refer to them as girls when they are playing the game professionally is not a good look for the POD as a whole. I don't hear Buzz or Dan referring to them as girls, and perhaps this won't bother most. I also realize that this feedback might be dismissed as overly sensitive too. If you're trying to build a broader audience, this is something you should maybe consider discussing as an internal team and. And being more mindful in future episodes. No, Lori, we're going to talk about this publicly. [01:00:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:01] Speaker B: Now, I wrote Lori a note back and I said the following. Thanks for reaching out and speaking up. This is for me, by the way, I wrote this, not Buzz. Buzz didn't tell me to do it. He didn't ask me to do it. Buzz forwarded the email to me and I did this on my own accord. Laurie, you are super mean and hurt my feelings and I'm going to cry. No, it's not what I wrote. Okay, I completely recognize your concern. Not to excuse it, but it is simply old habit since only recently was. If I was talking generally about women's soccer, it was usually youth teams, hence girls. It's genuinely not considered at all to be a slight or a dismissal or an insult as you have perceived it to be funny. In fact, the other day, I think I even caught myself on buses pods saying girls and correcting myself and followed that up with women. You're completely right. And. And I promise to work on it. So there you go. [01:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I would agree with this. I try very hard not to say girls. I've caught myself usually and corrected myself. I try not to. She's right. We shouldn't do it. So we will endeavor, quite honestly, to be better about it. [01:01:03] Speaker B: Please always write your feedback to the show to Buzz. I don't want to read it. If Buzz thinks it's important, he can share it with me. It's buzz athlete third degree.net and that is. And whatever pertinent or important information I need to get from Buzz will be forwarded to me. I do. I very much do appreciate that. Lori sent the email, spoke up, spoke her mind, and I. I will do my best not to use the term. [01:01:30] Speaker A: Girls on that topic. Quite interesting. I was discussing with my wife, who, you know, who used to work with U.S. soccer. There is a break point in which the U.S. soccer changes from women's national team to girls national team. And I believe off the top of my head, it's the U17 women's national team, whereas the U16 and U15, those girls. So I try Very hard to say other than officially referencing the team. I still tried to say young ladies and young men, referring to all those. [01:01:56] Speaker B: National teams so not to be too grant. So if you refer to the U14s as the women, do they find that offensive? [01:02:07] Speaker A: I don't know. It's not. I've never really dipped in. [01:02:11] Speaker B: Really is. [01:02:11] Speaker A: You know, I don't have kids. [01:02:13] Speaker B: We don't have kids, and we're both old white guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Well, anyway, I really do genuinely appreciate Laurie sending the email, and I hope she keeps listening. And I look forward to the rest of you writing complaint letters about me soon, because that's what I'm here for. Trying to keep the heat off Buzz. [01:02:30] Speaker A: Thanks, man. [01:02:31] Speaker B: All right. Very good. Got anything else you want to talk about, sir? [01:02:35] Speaker A: Well, I'm checking my crown. Right riding on the script. [01:02:39] Speaker B: All right. Do we have any kit talk? [01:02:43] Speaker A: No, not only that, like, a couple of times now, people have taken these FC Dallas teasers that they're doing when they're. When they're reminding everybody about the gold as People have taken them as, like, look at this banger. New kid that Dallas is doing. No, no, the. These are just old kits that they're putting out, you know, as a rolling teaser up to this July 16 announcement of the new. [01:03:03] Speaker B: I'm not going to be baited, Buzz. I know. I know. I'm trying to be baited into. Into being fished into. Not going to do it. I don't care how hard you social media people over there up in Frisco try to bait me into this one. [01:03:18] Speaker A: We will get into the gold versus yellow combo when we actually see the real thing, and we can talk about whether it's gold or yellow, but. [01:03:23] Speaker B: Okay. [01:03:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:24] Speaker B: For the record, yellow has never, ever, ever been a color used by this club. Yellow. Look it up in the dictionary. Yellow. [01:03:34] Speaker A: It's definitely not yellow, but I love. [01:03:36] Speaker B: The effort, and it made me laugh out loud when that showed up the next day, by the way. All right. I got baited. I got baited. I got it. Damn it. [01:03:44] Speaker A: I do love how good those kits look. Those old kids. [01:03:46] Speaker B: Oh, those old kids are awesome. [01:03:48] Speaker A: So good. It's so much better than the junk that they've been. [01:03:51] Speaker B: The ones that I. You mean the ones I have in my closet and I know what color that actually is on there. Yes. [01:03:56] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:57] Speaker A: I went and dug mine out and took pictures of them, and I didn't. [01:04:00] Speaker B: Take pictures of mine, but I dug mine out. I was like, oh, I did love these shirts. These shirts were great. They were awesome. [01:04:06] Speaker A: Whether you like, you know, the thick wide hoops or whether you like the early burn version of the pin hoops, you know, whichever, you know, that's the history of this club, man. Don't throw it away. If you don't like the big wide ones, that's fine. Do the pen hoops. That's cool. It goes back to the beginning. [01:04:23] Speaker B: Amen. [01:04:24] Speaker A: Everybody loves it, man. [01:04:25] Speaker B: Amen. [01:04:26] Speaker A: Stick with your history. [01:04:27] Speaker B: All right, well, I hope buzz is buzz. I hope dan's only dan's.com convention is over by the time we record next week. [01:04:35] Speaker A: He just sent a picture on, so, you know, it's. [01:04:37] Speaker B: Oh, my God. I don't want to look. I don't want to look. I can only imagine it doesn't look pretty right now. [01:04:42] Speaker A: He says, oh, no. [01:04:47] Speaker B: Something about a bald spot or bald patches or something. [01:04:51] Speaker A: Yeah, no, no, this is definitely like a ball brown patch in the middle of this picture. [01:04:55] Speaker B: Stop it. Damn. [01:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't want to see that frayed looking. Definitely more bronze than gold on this one. [01:05:04] Speaker B: Not good. [01:05:04] Speaker A: Not yellow. [01:05:06] Speaker B: Not good. All right, well, hopefully Dan gets back well from. From the Keys. [01:05:11] Speaker A: Third Degree, the podcast is brought to you by. You are fans. We here at Third Degree don't have a advertising budget. You are our advertising budget. If you like what we do, if you like this podcast, share it with your friends. Share it with the other FC House fans in your life. Spread the word. Spread the gospel. Third Degree, the podcast buzz. [01:05:28] Speaker B: Thank you, sir. Always fun. Fun to talk. [01:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah, man. Thanks for being here hosting. Appreciate you. [01:05:34] Speaker B: Oh, wiggle butt stuff. We're gonna launch it soon. The samples came in. They look good. I'm pretty happy with. I'm making a couple of little adjustments here and there, but then we will have them up for sale on the kick around store website here. Probably sooner than you realize it. So everybody go get you some wiggle butt stuff. And that's it. That's all I got. I got no more. Thank you, Buzzard. [01:05:55] Speaker A: Thank you, Dan. [01:05:56] Speaker B: Come back soon and thank you, DFW soccer curious fan you wear. We will speak to you next week on another episode of Third Degree, the. [01:06:05] Speaker A: Podcast all the Glitters is gold. [01:06:10] Speaker B: Third Degree the Third Degree N Podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree Net Podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree N Podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree N Podcast. [01:06:27] Speaker A: Sam.