3rd Degree the Podcast #325

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I spilled some water. I'm cleaning up. Yeah. [00:00:11] Speaker B: Third Degree, the Third Degree near podcast. [00:00:15] Speaker A: Third Degree, the Third Degree nap podcast. Third Degree, the Third Degree nap podcast. [00:00:24] Speaker C: Third Degree Third Degree the podcast is brought to you by our fantastic and loyal listeners just like you. If you like our coverage here on third degree the podcast on third degree.net on social media, we got all the pro teams of the metrics covered just for you. Why not join us patreon.com third degree give us the support on with the show. [00:00:46] Speaker A: Well, hello there, DFW soccer curious person. You welcome to another episode of Third Degree the podcast. And because we only have him for a short amount of time, because something important. Becket. [00:00:58] Speaker C: There he is. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Dan Crook. [00:01:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it was because you were rubbing yourself suggestively there. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Right there. Yeah. Myself a squeeze. Thank God this isn't put on YouTube as a video. [00:01:09] Speaker C: Yeah, never happened. [00:01:09] Speaker A: No, no, no. And your hero. My hero. Everybody's here. Oh, yeah, you know the rest. Buzz. Carrot. Come in, Buzz. [00:01:15] Speaker C: Hey fellas. Thanks for being here on a beautiful Monday night. [00:01:18] Speaker A: It is Monday night. It is not a victory pod. It is not a loser pod. It is a kissing your sister pod. But we will get to FC D at hockey sticks in a little bit. But because Dan has to go, we want to start with the most important of all the news, which is the beginning of season two of Dallas Trinity FC starts here real soon and they've got some things that have been happening Dan and thought we'll just pass it off on to you. What do you want to talk about first? Oh, above the game coming up or do you want to talk about the new jersey sponsor? [00:01:54] Speaker B: Well, I mean we can start with a jersey sponsor. A jersey is always fun. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Okay, we'll throw a little kick to. To start with. [00:02:00] Speaker B: So yeah, we got a couple of another healthcare system. Scottish, right. For children. [00:02:07] Speaker A: Okay, are you going to tell me that? Because I see two different brands listed here. They're going to do the same bit Dallas is doing. FC Dallas is doing where they're going to wear both their primary and secondary kits at home. [00:02:20] Speaker C: Some, but not 50. 50. The, the road kit, the secondary kit will be worn at home a few times, but the their deal does not specify an even split like FC House One does, believe me, because I had the same problem you did. I asked, I was like, please don't do that. No, no, no. [00:02:35] Speaker A: Do you hear that? Do you hear my grunts of discontent with this news? I don't like this. [00:02:41] Speaker C: Well, what would you prefer? Like 100%? [00:02:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I want you to wear your home jersey at home. I want, you know, whatever your home color is, wear the damn shirt at home. [00:02:50] Speaker B: The size of the UT Southwestern banners around the cotton ball. No one's noticing the jerseys over those. [00:02:57] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, well, maybe this is a nobody. Maybe people just don't care about tradition anymore, guys. I don't know. Maybe. [00:03:04] Speaker C: Oh, we do. [00:03:05] Speaker A: Yeah, well. [00:03:06] Speaker C: But we're old. [00:03:07] Speaker A: I don't know. I was watching an episode of LEGO Master Junior while I was having dinner tonight, and they had a whole montage of these kids who had a celebrity guest host helping them. And they had a whole montage of these kids berating the host for calling them Legos, because apparently I'm a LEGO master because. Oh, God, that's awesome. Because Lego. Because kids today don't call them Legos. They call them Lego bricks. [00:03:32] Speaker B: What? Little Lego pricks. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Exactly. And they were given the. The adults hassle. Every time they referred to them as Legos, they go Lego bricks. And then there's some explanation, because in Danish, Lego means play fun or have fun playing or something. So the translation doesn't make sense. And I just wanted to punch every one of them. [00:03:51] Speaker B: Isn't the plural of Lego Lego? [00:03:54] Speaker A: Probably. [00:03:55] Speaker C: I figured it was probably one of those brand things like Xerox or Kleenex where LEGO is for blocks, but they're able to make blocks. [00:04:02] Speaker A: This is the same annoying little generation that is trying to tell me that I don't have a record collection. I have a bunch of vinyls. That makes me go nuts when you refer to them as vinyls. Sorry. I digress. I don't know how we got there. Anyway, so Trinity has a shirt sponsor. They got two shirt sponsors. Dan, Actually, I was going to ask you to do this because I saw you mention this in the discord. Somebody said, well, what's the deal with all the health companies sponsoring soccer teams? And you had an interesting response to that. [00:04:36] Speaker B: I didn't. Corey did. Corey said the teams are. I mean, it's smart. It's leveraging service for. For sponsorship. Well, for advertising. You know, the same thing FC Dallas did for years with the Dallas Morning News. [00:04:51] Speaker A: Right. But I thought there was a secondary thing that was brought up in the discord. There was some sort of tax benefit or budgeting benefit or something. [00:04:59] Speaker B: Now, the part I said is, you know, a lot of these health systems are not for profit, so having an outlet for small amounts of money can be beneficial. [00:05:08] Speaker C: I see. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Okay, very good. Well, they have a shirt sponsor. That's a big deal. What about the season it starts off this weekend, correct? [00:05:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:17] Speaker B: They're really unfortunate that they're running directly against the LAFC game. [00:05:22] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. Yes. Okay. I guess the entire Dallas Fort Worth Korean community will be up in Frisco instead of the Cotton Ball this weekend. [00:05:32] Speaker B: Sounds good to me. Unfortunately, you know, we kind of would have a bit of a season preview, but we have no idea how preseason's been because it's been so secretive. We only knew there was a game at the Cotton bowl this past weekend because the opposition team mentioned it and then, you know, went to inquire, like, hey, is. Is open to media then? If it's just closed, the fans. No, no, it's friends and family only. Okay, so you're paying the money to use the Cotton bowl, but you're not. Yeah. Cool. Great. Great. Missed opportunities all around. I don't know. How do you feel about it, Buzz? [00:06:11] Speaker C: The season or the lack of coverage of the preseason? The. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, just how weird the preseason's been. [00:06:17] Speaker C: Like, they went on a series of games up in the Northeast and like, I didn't even know that they were playing anybody. They went out of town, they played two games, and the only reason I knew about it was I went to the SMU game, which was open about. Was SMU game hosting. SMU was hosting. And, and Charlie mentioned to me their owner. He's like, oh, yeah, we went up here and played the. What? What are you talking about? You went up there and played this team? No release, no nothing, no scores. Like, it's just impossible to get any information at all. The. No press releases, nothing. It's like, this is the thing. [00:06:45] Speaker B: I. I kind of go back and forth sometimes of like, is this a serious project? Is it a vanity project and things like that where you don't capitalize on the few people in the area that want to give coverage to your team and, and try and spread the word. You just kind of forget about it. They could have brought in a bunch of fans on. On Saturday because FC Dallas wasn't playing at home. There wasn't a whole lot of soccer unless you wanted to sit to the TV and watch Austin. They could have brought their usual 2,000 in and. And made that little bit of money and just, I don't know, had some, Some build up to the season, some excitement. [00:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Are they running like a dry running or maybe the right way to say it is a test run of pur marketing, just like word of mouth kind of thing? [00:07:34] Speaker B: No, no, they're just built purely on. On volunteers. They have the, they have a great PR company they've hired who have fantastic people that we work with all the time. Do they just refuse to use them? Do they not want to pay the money to, like, their billable hours? And I don't get it. [00:07:52] Speaker C: Yeah. Even in the SMU game, they intentionally play with blank jerseys. So, like numbers, names, nothing. So you had to, like, try and guess who the people were that were new. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Like you say, the only reason people got to see that, the only reason people knew it happened, was because SMU hosted it and publicized it. [00:08:08] Speaker C: Yep. [00:08:09] Speaker A: I, I don't. It is, it is a total mystery how they're running and operating this thing and how they. They must be losing just absolute bucket tons of money. There's no way this thing's making any money, is there? [00:08:23] Speaker B: Come. [00:08:24] Speaker C: I suppose it would depend on how low the player costs are. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I, I suspect Lexi Missimo is on a contract that's worth probably most of the rest of the roster in aggregate, but beyond that, I just. I. The whole thing is just so mysteriously done. And I really like the people and I like the team and I like the concept and everything, but maybe that's the part of it is that they're. They're running at such a financial deficit, they can't afford to use the PR company to help promote the preseason, and they figure out the return on investment of that is relatively low that they've got. You know, they're still selling season tickets. I, I don't know it. I, I hope it works out for them. I, I would hate to hear that this thing doesn't work out past another season. [00:09:07] Speaker B: I, I just always go back to the whole thing. You get Andy Swift, you get Michael Hitchcock, you get someone in the area that can get butts in seats and knows the business of soccer, even if it's, hey, can you help us out gratis do it. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I get a strong sense that the Neil family really feels committed to doing this on their own, that they really have talked themselves into thinking that this is something they're capable of and have the skill sets and understanding and they know the sport and they know business. I mean, obviously they're good business people. They're very, very rich family that have done a lot of things and maybe they're just committed to learning this on the fly and growing it, you know, as best they can. And I. Good. Best of luck to them. [00:09:55] Speaker B: We can say that about Dan and Clark Hunt, but they also had a dad that was in the sport for 5060 years before that and kind of had that base knowledge. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But there's also something to be said for, you know, experienced business people who want to try to go dive into a new line of business and try to learn it on the fly. Why? You know, I've known some friends of mine, we all know somebody that went out and bought a restaurant because he wanted to learn the restaurant business, and he owned a restaurant, independently owned restaurant, for, I don't know, five or six years, and he ran it successfully and decided he was done with it and sold it and moved on to his next thing. So I. Maybe that's just what this is for them. If this, the Neil family. This is like, hey, we've done our thing, now we really want to run a soccer team and we'll see how it goes. Might drive us nuts as, as people in the media, but maybe it's working for them. I don't know. [00:10:50] Speaker B: And that's where I kind of like, keep flip flopping on serious project versus vanity project. [00:10:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:56] Speaker B: Is it fair question, you know, we want to be the Jones family, We want to be the Hunt family, or is it like, actually 100% making professional women's soccer, Division 1 soccer, a huge deal in DFW, a great catchment area for youth talent? [00:11:14] Speaker A: I don't know. I. I guess at some point, if they're business people, if they're just losing a lot of money, they won't want to do that anymore, and they'll either sell it to somebody else who's willing to take it over and try to turn it into a profitable business, or they'll shut it down. But they. I can't imagine that they'll drag this out over a long period of time where it's just if it. If it. If it is in fact losing a lot of money, I have no idea. I don't know what their overhead costs are. I don't know what they made in ticket sales last year. What did they average? Just under three a game? [00:11:43] Speaker C: No, it's not five. [00:11:44] Speaker B: No. [00:11:44] Speaker A: There's no way there was 5,000. [00:11:46] Speaker B: They had the. [00:11:48] Speaker A: I only thought the last game approached 5. I thought all the rest of the games were like 27 or 32 or something like that. [00:11:55] Speaker B: 35, 46 was average. High was 5, 8, low was 1 6. Basically 1600. [00:12:02] Speaker C: Huh. [00:12:03] Speaker A: Well, anyway, obviously that's not the attendance I'm sure they probably were hoping for or imagine they would have at the end of the first season. So I would have anticipated that they would have done things to improve that for year two. But if they're not going to promote the preseason and get people excited about the new season, other than some of the limited social media stuff that I've seen online, I, I don't know what they anticipate or expect will turn out. And on Saturday, I, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. So is the general manager still managing the team? [00:12:38] Speaker C: Yep. [00:12:39] Speaker A: Petrocelli is. Yeah, Petrocelli. And he doesn't want to do it? [00:12:43] Speaker C: No. Well, you know, they're kind of working under the auspice of, you know, for almost everybody else, it's the off. It's not the off season. They're. Everybody else is in mid season, so they're probably thinking they might need to wait towards. More towards the end of the year when they see other coaches come available because colleges will wrap up their seasons and their fall seasons and, and NWSL will come off of their season, so there might be more availability and that's probably when they're really going to try and look for a coach. So I, I think they're okay with Chris for now, but he definitely, you know, every time I've talked to him, he's been like, no, we're definitely getting somebody else at some point, so I'm not doing this. [00:13:17] Speaker A: You know, we all see the writing on the wall. Yeah, they're going to have a good start to the season. They're going to be a good leading team. And he's going to be put under the pressure not to give up the head coach gig. The coaching gig, because they're playing so well at the risk of blowing the season. [00:13:34] Speaker C: I mean, it's. Well, to see how much he wants to stand his ground on that. [00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll see how that goes. So, anything else? Do we know any. Is there additional players that we need to talk about? The Lexi Misimo injury situation. [00:13:50] Speaker C: Oh, Misimo is the thing because that, that hangs, you know, the tactics and everything hangs on that if she's healthy or not, because she's sort of an underneath playmaking 10, you know, so they got Lancaster, you know, sort of midpoint last year and she works really well sort of as an off striker with Thornton. So, like, you know, if you're gonna have Misimo, you kind of need a double pivot behind her. And so that kind of changes things up. You know, at smu, they used a back four. Basically. What is a four, four, two, or depending on how you stared at it long enough. At times it looked like a 433, but mostly it was kind of 442ish. [00:14:25] Speaker A: That could have been a really lazy winger, left midfielder, right? [00:14:28] Speaker C: Yeah, it could have been. It could have been. I mean, the. One of their other big issues is I. I think they're short of center back right now. Hits is your left back basically coming back and they have a couple of people they brought in on the right. I really liked Kylie Delaney when I saw her, but they have Davidson back at center back. But other than that, it's kind of a work in progress. And so like at the SVU game, Amber Wisner, who was Amber Brooks. Amber Wisner now she was playing the first half as a six and second half is a center back. So I think they're trying to figure out, it looked like to me, what is better her at center back with somebody else trying to fill in at 6 or her to 6 and somebody else trying to fill in at center back. And I'm not sure they have the answer to that yet. So that's kind of a work in progress. It'll help a lot because Deborah Abadoon was at the African cup of Nations, I think it was, and she's now back. So that'll change a lot in terms of what you can do in midfield, you know, but they're gonna have. Danielson is back, of course, Bolt is back, Umago's back. You know, they have most of their offensive pieces back other than the injured Misimo. So sort of that question of like how we fix center back will mean we'll change, like what's going to happen in midfield and when Misimo comes back. So there are these big question marks out there floating around. And Dan, I don't know how you feel about their defensive situation, but it definitely has been rebuilt. That's the area they rebuilt was the defense. And we'll see how it holds together, I guess. [00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm interested to see what they do of Maya McCutcheon. She's obviously just come off the A league women's season. So, you know, she's. She's 23 games into a season, immediately coming into Dallas Trinity in preseason. So a gun stand giving her a bit of time off because, you know, we've seen what happened with Asazi Egido on FC Dallas doing exactly that. But she is. She's kind of splits time between the center back in and six much the same as Amber has. So yeah, I'm kind of excited to see that one because she. It felt like she had a bit of a rough go at North Carolina, goes off to Wellington seems to play really well. Obviously very local player from Murphy. So that's, that's my one that I'm looking out for this year. [00:16:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it was Shadia Nankaya. That's the first time I've read that name out loud, so forgive me if I'm getting that wrong. I believe she's the one that got the start at center back and against SMU and then flipped with Amber midpoint and went into midfield. So I don't believe McCutches played at the SMU game. I think I saw her on the sideline. So, you know, again we didn't get to see that was the only game any of us saw in the spring. So there might be all kinds of things happening behind scenes that we haven't seen yet. [00:17:16] Speaker A: How well did they play since you saw them play? How well did they play since you saw them play? [00:17:21] Speaker C: Fine. Fine. I mean SMU rotated through like 45 girls, so they were always fresh versus Trinity. Having to play, you know, with, with pieces that are coming off of that, that trip that they made, you know, they look like a team that was sort of getting it all together still in their preseason. The pieces that, you know, that are coming back all look exactly like they did basically at the end of last season. You know, it's just a question of these new pieces and trying to figure out what they're doing tactically that caused any disruption at all. They're, they're much better I think with Brooks in midfield. Sorry, sorry, Wisner. I'll get that eventually. Than down at center back, you know, and, and they were, they were still missing a player too at that time. And obviously Misimo changes everything when she comes in. So there will be a big fulcrum turning point when that, when she does come back and when they have to adapt the tactics and the whole team around her because she's their star, big pot, big time paid player, whatever that is. [00:18:15] Speaker B: How did they handle goalkeeper that game? [00:18:19] Speaker C: Estrada played in goal. I was told that Foster, Riley Foster had just gotten there like that week and so Estrada played that game. So I have not seen Riley Foster and so I couldn't tell you which one of those young ladies is expected to be the starter. I don't know, it may, that may be up for battle. [00:18:39] Speaker B: Just saying this is not a negative thing. If Gina Miller worked, worked with Dallas Trinity fc, Riley Foster would be on every TV channel. [00:18:47] Speaker C: Oh yeah? Why is that? [00:18:49] Speaker B: Because she was the, when she was at Liverpool, she was the big story of she got in a car crash In Finland after she. They beat Man United in the league cup in a penalty shootout. She got. No, she got ejected out of the car, broke her back in seven places. Like she should not be alive. But it's a great story that she came back. She went to Everton. She came back. She went to I think an Australian team. Oh, it was. It was Wellington. It was with. It was with my Emma Cotchin. [00:19:21] Speaker A: But. But did she play and learn the game using a ball made out of sheep's wool plastic bags and use condoms? [00:19:32] Speaker B: I was like more to Ryan Hollings hair. [00:19:35] Speaker A: Oh. Oh. I was trying to mix all the metaphors, all the stories together, but I. [00:19:41] Speaker B: Mean, that's a hell of a story, right? Like you get ejected out of a car in a car crash. You break your spine in seven places. That is, you have to wear a halo device for God knows how many months. You break your hip and shoulder. I think there was as well. [00:19:55] Speaker A: And how long ago was this? [00:19:58] Speaker B: Four years. [00:19:59] Speaker A: Wow. And she's back playing professional ball. That is remarkable. Hey, kudos to Gina for knowing when there's a good story, a good human. Human. [00:20:10] Speaker B: Yeah. We'll take the piss about it, but like, that's great exposure all the same. [00:20:15] Speaker C: That's right. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Wow. Well, good luck to them. All right, Saturday, what time's kickoff Buzzard? Do you know? [00:20:22] Speaker C: I believe it's 7:30, the exact same time as FC Dallas. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:20:25] Speaker C: So head to head with Son and LAFC and Holly said Nicosi all coming back to Dallas. [00:20:31] Speaker A: So Trinity probably has a better chance of winning. So maybe you can place make your soccer going choice on how you want a bandwagon. So. Okay, well, very good. Best of luck to Trinity in this new season. Cool. They are here. And congratulations on the shirt sponsors. Now buy some marketing. All right, here we go. Dan, do you need to split, dude? [00:20:56] Speaker B: I do. In a minute. [00:20:58] Speaker C: One minute to keep you as long as you know. [00:21:00] Speaker A: One minute. All right. So you have 1 minute to express all of your FC Dallas Hot Sports opinions. Go. [00:21:07] Speaker B: Wow. Load of bollocks. That's honestly it. This is just how life is. [00:21:19] Speaker C: Yeah. At some point. So you have that. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Just that one singular hot sports opinion about. About the burn is that it's all bollocks. Yeah. [00:21:28] Speaker B: Okay, fair enough. [00:21:29] Speaker A: I think that's pretty concise. I don't really know if you need anything. What more do you need? No, really, not much. No, not. Not much at all. Well, thank you, Dan. Thanks for making an appearance on today's episode. [00:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I would say thanks for having me, but I'm here every week, so. [00:21:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:21:47] Speaker B: Thomas Roberts or something. [00:21:50] Speaker A: We'll edit that in at the end. Yeah, yeah. Well, go do whatever you're going to do, bud. [00:21:55] Speaker B: I am going to go to Love Field. [00:21:58] Speaker A: All right, well, say hello to Love Field for us, please. [00:22:02] Speaker B: I. Yeah, that's. That sounded weird. Anyway, lovely as always. Always a pleasure, never a chore. Have a good evening. [00:22:10] Speaker C: All right. [00:22:10] Speaker A: Good night. [00:22:10] Speaker C: Evening. [00:22:12] Speaker A: All right, Buzzard. We will then plow forward with the episode and get into the results of the weekend. We will look at Dallas 1, Austin 1. Now, I'm just going to admit up front to the curious. I'm not going to apologize. Sorry, not sorry. I have not watched the game. I didn't have time and admittedly, not a lot of interest in watching the game this weekend. So I'm going to lean on you to tell me the good, bad and ugly of Dallas one. Broccoli one. [00:22:44] Speaker C: Well, you know, road game. So I actually think FC Dallas played fairly well. They didn't win. But when you get a point on the road that's pretty good, you know, you're playing a team that's a few places ahead of you in the playoffs, so you take the point. You know, watching it play isn't exciting or sexy or entertaining necessarily. So, you know, you can't. I don't think that you can look too unfavorably on the way they play because this is the way this team plays right now. They're clearly playing with this343. Or. They were adamant, actually, on the broadcast that Quill's been calling it a five all the time. And it very clearly is like, because they have so little possession, they're in that back five, that 541, effectively, you know, 70% of the game. It seems like at times it ain't necessarily fun. There are some things that weren't necessarily great, you know, like they. They fouled Austin too much. Austin was falling over a lot. The ref, I think, did a pretty good job of not buying into all that, but they did give up too many free kicks. FC Dallas did, and they didn't create enough chances. They, you know, they. They got. Let's see, they got eight shots on goal, but only two of them were on target. And the bottom line is that both Peter Musa, who came out at halftime, and Anderson Julio, who came out for him, both those guys only had nine touches apiece. So even though you're playing this low block, they did not get forward enough to those guys at their feet. Now, interestingly, because they Started Chris Kappas for the first game. He actually brought a little bit more of a transitional play to the field. And then Kaik, who he replaced, he had the ability to keep his head up, make a nice touch, relief pressure, pass horizontally, break lines, allow a pressure break with players coming out of the back. So they played through the middle more than they have recently. They still are most of the time, a very fast, breaky team. One of the things that really bothered me was that Sebastian Legend got a start, which I'm perfectly fine with because he's a. He's a very good player, although I'm not sure he can go 90 minutes. But he played really deep and really back into that defensive spot on the right. And he did not, for me, get forward enough like Delgado does. And I think it left Farrington and Musa and then Fairings and Julio two alone. And there wasn't somebody up there to help connect that play a little bit. And so I think that actually contributed quite a bit to their ineffectiveness in getting chances created. [00:25:17] Speaker A: So. Hold on, let me pause. [00:25:18] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. [00:25:18] Speaker A: Questions? So the middle three was legit in the. If. If you're. [00:25:24] Speaker C: No, sorry. Legit was on at wing for Delgado. So it was Musa, Delgado, and Fairing's hand up front in the three. Now, that. Because. Because the. The two. [00:25:36] Speaker A: And who were the three in the middle? [00:25:37] Speaker C: There's not three in the middle. There's two in the middle. Capis and Romero. It's a three. Four. Three. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Oh, sorry. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Sorry. [00:25:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:46] Speaker A: Okay. So three across and then four. Okay. Yeah, okay, got it. I forgot there's two in the middle now. These days. [00:25:52] Speaker C: Yeah. And now. Now Quill tends to use the high nine and then a more of a 40. Farrington or Julio and then more of a tennis that kind of drifts underneath a little bit, which had been Delgado recently. And this game was legit until Delgado came in. But really it's a 3, 4, 3. Those. You know, those guys are wings and they take up wide defensive positions. But because, for me, because legit wasn't getting forward quite enough, I think it left them not capable of getting, like, good some. Some of the connective play up front that they really need because he wasn't getting up there. Wing back. Bernie, experiment is still interesting. That's going forward. He looks a little bit better every game. Somebody asked me, like, why he's all of a sudden playing so much better. And really, I think it just comes down to confidence. Like, his coach believes in him, you know, and so for young players, sometimes Just having your coach have faith in you is worth so much in terms of your own self belief. So it's nice to see that go. I actually think that probably Bernie will keep that spot as long as they're in contention to play. I think the back five will stay the same with more on one side and Bernie on the other and, and then IR in the middle. Like the, the broadcasters again had a quote where they, because they get to meet with the Quill, you know, on Friday and talk over all this tactical stuff so they can bring it up in the game. And he said Quill. Quill admitted that one time he had a Ur day on one of the right or the left side. I can't which one it was and what a mistake that was and like how important it was to get him back in the middle as the center back of the back, three center backs so that he can, you know, pass from that position and control the game from that position. And that's really important. One other really important thing was that because Logan, not Logan, Frank, excuse me, Patter. Musa came out at halftime after the game. Coach Quill said that he just had a little bit of tightness in his hamstring and so that was a precautionary sub and they, they thought they got him out soon enough to not be a problem. But you know how it is around here these days every time they say that. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah, they also said, they said Paxit had a knee bruise like three months ago. [00:27:43] Speaker C: Well, Anderson, Julio, they said that and then he missed a game or two and then they put him on, they made him questionable and it was two months before he played that he went back on the out list after that. So like, you know, I, I would not, I'm not ringing alarm bells, but when Musa comes out at halftime as a precaution, you have to be like, you know, there was a lot of talk about Anderson, Julio, you know, still coming back into form and kind of getting to shape after his long layoff. So, you know, the bottom line I think is, is that Quill looks like he's ready to try and grind out the rest of the season in this 5, 4, 1 to stop the goals bleeding. They were giving up and understand that that's not the way he wants to play, that's the way he's forced to play because his defense isn't good enough. His other center backs aren't good enough. Maybe his six isn't good enough. So this is what he's having to do to stop the bleeding. Michael Collodi's feet were again, excellent. Again, his feet are better than positive. [00:28:35] Speaker A: Did he wear the headband? [00:28:36] Speaker C: He did, yeah. He wore Rambo. [00:28:39] Speaker A: Again, what do we think the odds are that he sticks with that even when he doesn't need it? [00:28:44] Speaker C: That's. I don't know. It's a good question. It depends on whether he thinks it's cool or not or if it's. [00:28:48] Speaker A: If it's annoying him while he's trying to play. Yeah, maybe his way. [00:28:51] Speaker C: Yeah, Yeah, I. I would not want to play with that on. But that's not. You know, that's. Whatever. [00:28:56] Speaker A: Maybe you should podcast with one of those on. [00:28:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I should. A big, huge, wide one. Like my giant forehead. [00:29:03] Speaker A: Yes. [00:29:04] Speaker C: Although mine's smaller than yours, I think. [00:29:06] Speaker A: Probably. [00:29:07] Speaker C: Yeah, probably. [00:29:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:09] Speaker C: So, you know, I. I think that a point on the road is acceptable in those circumstances. The Darby game, it got physical. There maybe should have been a handball call. But both. The ref was. His rest positioning was good all night long. He was right on it, and he didn't call it. And the bar looked at it and they didn't call it. You know, I. I think it was. It's one of those cases where every ref you showed it to would look at it differently. [00:29:31] Speaker A: What did you think it was? [00:29:32] Speaker C: I thought it was borderline. [00:29:34] Speaker A: Well, it either is or isn't. [00:29:36] Speaker C: Well, I know, but it's. For me, like, his arm was a little too far away from his body, and Warren Barton, who was the commentator, said the same thing. So I probably was leaning towards it being a handball. But at the end of the day, like, if the ref is right in a good position and the VAR looks at it too, and none of them think it is, then I'm not going to complain too much. [00:29:53] Speaker A: All right. You're. You're old school, like me. [00:29:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:56] Speaker A: We all know how. How handballs used to get called. [00:29:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:00] Speaker A: Hand to ball. Ball to hand. Kind of ideas. The original premise of the handball rule, which is just to try to keep guys from reaching out and knocking shots away from going on goal. [00:30:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:10] Speaker A: The way that you and I grew up interpreting the handball law, was that a handball. [00:30:14] Speaker C: It was because it changed the trajectory of the ball, you know, and it was definitely in the box and he definitely was. His arm was definitely sticking out quite a bit behind him. [00:30:22] Speaker A: But was he trying to handball the ball? [00:30:24] Speaker C: It was not a deliberate handball. That'd be a card. It wasn't that. It wasn't a deliberate one. [00:30:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:30] Speaker C: I'm not one to argue referee decisions, and I think he was on the. In good position. So I'm not going to complain about it. Okay. [00:30:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, if the refs in the var looked at it and said no go, then it probably is what it is and you waste a lot of breath trying to argue it. [00:30:46] Speaker C: Yeah. And they. Their feelings were just as disagreed by the referee as the Dallas fans. Like they had guys yelling them, they had that they deserve 4 PKs and you know, like everyone hates the ref, especially in Darby games. Everybody hates the ref. And I thought he actually did a really nice job of being put. He. He put in enough effort to be on the play the whole game and be in position the whole game and he didn't get baited by guys getting in his face. I thought he did a really nice job of keeping his composure as a referee. I thought it was really good. [00:31:13] Speaker A: Okay, well, good. How did Nico look? [00:31:17] Speaker C: The same as always. You know, I think Nico's a good tactical coach and I think he's a really good second coach. The funny thing is somebody was laughing. It was just like at because even though they dominated the play, they gave up the ball and give up a goal and then. Then they tried to overload to try and get the gol ball back and it was like. Just like watching Nephew when he was here. So they ended up getting a second goal. Like Shackmore giveth and Shackmore take it away. Shackmore had a really nice goal for SC Dallas and then he got absolutely dominated by I think it was Owen Wolf on a header where he. Wolf just crushed him and took the ball away and scored and on a header. So, you know, Shagmore's not a great defender, so that is what it is. But you know, he, he did a really nice play on the goal. That was a layoff from Peter Musa. That was really nice. So. And Dallas had a couple of chances, particularly legit up the right side. Had two or three occasions where he got a really good position across the ball and he missed like three times trying to link up with somebody. So I think that was the. That, that, that rust or that lack of connection right there was what cost Dallas a chance to win it. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Are you surprised at all that when Musa had to go off, they didn't push Farrington to the point and let Julio come in and play that the place he normally plays? [00:32:32] Speaker C: Yeah, they. They kind of did that, but it was like they, they. Because Legit's much more of a midfielder than. Or was playing much more as a midfielder. I think they ended up with a lot of in the first half Moussa, Farrington high together in the second half. Julio and Farrington high together and legit, like I said, wasn't getting forward enough. It wasn't getting up there underneath him. So, you know, you, you, if you ask squeal, he might have told you that he did do that, that he made Julio left wing and that Farrington was the striker. But Julio was so high and Farrington was checking back just like Musa does. So it really was hard to tell the difference, you know, and when you're Talking about a front 3ish sort of hybrid thingy, you know how it is these days. [00:33:12] Speaker A: So you mentioned this earlier and hearing this news, I kind of want to go back and watch the game now that Kappa's got to start in the middle of the field, which is something that you especially had been wanting to see starting years ago. Right. And now you've gotten to see it. And he wasn't plugged out somewhere in a position he wasn't used to. He's got a few weeks of the weather under, getting acclimated back to hometown weather again and everything. How would you grade his performance on the night? [00:33:43] Speaker C: B. You know, a B. A B, A B. [00:33:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:48] Speaker C: Yeah. He wouldn't be an MLS if he didn't have flaws at this point. So, you know, I, I think when you look at he had 82% passing, you know, in a situation where he's basically playing with him, Ramiro by themselves, like those wing backs aren't really getting up there and helping all that much. You know, a progressive carry, which for Cap is a impressive couple of passes into the final third four recoveries. So like I said, like, he did a lot more connecting of the play through the middle than we're used to seeing out of Kaik. It doesn't do a bunch of those. [00:34:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna ask. So talk about the differences of what. What do you. So would you prefer to see Kappas continue in that role over Kaik moving forward? [00:34:24] Speaker C: I don't know. I think Quill's got a tough call because he has basically right now he has three guys for those two spots and Ramiro is the one that's had the most experience and like it's a really big leader and he's basically with the captain right now with paws out, so he probably is going to lean on Ramiro. Kaik has got way more range like his. He's. He makes poor decisions still, but he's got so much recovery range he can make up for it. Capis is. Sits in more like Ramiro So he and Ramiro both were always in the right spot, always there for the outlet, always there to connect all always there for the right play. He clearly knows how to play it. The number one deficiency that stood out is that Capis is not fast either. So he had a couple times where guys ran past him because he doesn't have enough pace, but usually it was when somebody on his team made a massive turnover and he was trying to recover and get some guy that had been blown by somebody else. So, you know, he doesn't have the speed to like chase a guy down. He's just average speed Capuses. So he does have good size, you know, and is tall. So like I think, I think one of the things that the rest of this year is going to be about for SC Dallas is trying to figure out whether he thinks Cap is an answer and he can go with like a double eight kind of thing with Ramiro sort of as an eight kind of look. But at the end of the day, I don't think Ramiro is supposed to be a starter here, at least based on the money he gets paid and whereas Kaik was a huge buy. So like obviously the long term goals, that's going to be Kaik. [00:35:51] Speaker A: I would say that if they get eliminated here soon and it becomes clear they're not going to be a playoff team, I would just, I would love to see a Kappa's Kaik combination in the middle and see if those two guys can't work out. Hey, Kaik, you're going to stay back. You're going to do what you're good at, which is destroying and, and doing that and let Capus play kind of the more connecting guy in front of him. That would be a more. That would be something fun to watch. [00:36:17] Speaker C: It would work, I think over the back half of the season if they get eliminated, you know, you'll see him try to work back towards probably back towards the back four that he wants. 4, 2, 3, 1. He'll probably try and figure out how Nolan figures into that, how Torquato figures into that, how Alvaro figures into that. Can Capus and Kayak be a combination in the middle? Who's this 10 going to be in that 4, 2, 3, 1. Is it Delgado or. If he knows he's not going to get another center back, he may be stuck with this back five. [00:36:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:47] Speaker C: In which case it's got. He might have even more things to figure out going forward. So, you know, for now, clearly for now they're playing for get as many points as we can. Because they're not eliminated. They need. They have eight games left and they need probably somewhere like 11 or maybe 13 points, somewhere between 40 to 42 total. And that means playing at a 1.4 points per game or even 1.6 points per game, which is way, way better than they're like 1.1 they have so far. So they have to get much better really fast if they're going to make it. So they're going to run out of time here after another three or four games, probably, maybe. And then we might see some experimentation in the last four or five if they've been eliminated. So, you know, if they keep getting some results and other people keep losing, we might see them grind out the whole season this way, which almost would be a shame. I mean, I almost would rather miss and have him try some of these other things. So get some answers, right? I mean, get some solutions. Or find out if they're not solutions. Found out if they're. This is capis isn't the answer. And I gotta go get a six or an eight or whatever. You know, what a. [00:37:50] Speaker A: What an unusually forsaken season this has turned out to be. [00:37:54] Speaker C: I. Yeah. [00:37:55] Speaker A: So. So weird. All right, so LAFC comes to town, son. Now, easily the second most popular player in Major League Soccer is here, and I'm sure it's going to be relatively packed. I know somebody said tickets were going on the second secondary market for big dollars. Yeah, I'm sure it's going to be a big deal. I mean, that's the whole reason why they pay all that money to get a guy like that in. And yeah, I've seen some highlights of him running around for la. He looks like he's here to do some business. So. [00:38:24] Speaker C: Good. [00:38:25] Speaker A: You know. And he's off. Now here's the deal. He's on the third game of a pretty significantly difficult road trip, so, you know, he. I don't. And it'll probably be a kabillion degrees, so we. We'll see how it goes. But should be a fun night for everybody. You get to see a guy that, you know is a Premier league great. [00:38:44] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's an exciting player to see in person. I can't wait. I mean, the. The names, the names, the big names that have come in this window, son. [00:38:52] Speaker A: Mueller. [00:38:54] Speaker C: Yeah, thank you. I was like. I was like the German, the Kaiser Mueller coming in. Those are two guys that I would love to see in person. You know, really talented. Obviously from an FC Dallas perspective, you. [00:39:05] Speaker A: Know, Vancouver's not Coming to town before. [00:39:07] Speaker C: The end of the season. They're not. I said I would. I want to. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, no, no, I know. I just couldn't remember if they had a game here. Maybe. Maybe Dallas make the playoffs and they'll get to play Vancouver in town. [00:39:16] Speaker C: Yeah, well, they're gonna be. Let's see. Who do they have left? The double LA teams. St. Louis, Austin again, Colorado, Portland. Oh, last game of the year at Vancouver. [00:39:28] Speaker A: Oh, it's at Vancouver. I knew Vancouver was on the schedule, but that's what it was. [00:39:31] Speaker C: Okay, quick, before the gentleman's get here. So as for this game, like, you know, you can look at the formation and the talent that he's been playing as much as I can. Like, I don't think the way Bernie's going, I think Quill will want to keep going with that. I don't think to be in there, the back three and more are going to be the same. That's not changing, you know. You know, Ramiro's a lock. So, like, how did Capis do? Is kayak back in? You know, I think you might see Capis again just because of the. How that went fairly well, I thought. Is Musa hurt? Huge question. Is Julio back to where he can start? Huge question. Farrington obviously is good to go. Like, so those three guys are for two spots and then the third spot up front is this Delgado legit And like, Delgado played like crap last week and he opened the door and he started legit and legit played okay, but for me didn't get forward enough. I think that leaves a chance for Delgado to maybe come back in because Delgado did about as much in the 30 minutes that he got as. As Legette did in the whole 60 before that. So I think there's a good chance to God will be back in. And that basically is really it. There's not a whole lot of debate when you're this late in the season trying to grab as many points as you can out of your last eight games before you. Before you start to really experiment, because you can if you're eliminated. [00:40:43] Speaker A: Well, Saturday night, 7:30 up at Frisco, it should be an interesting game to see how that goes out with the turnout of the whole thing. It'll be. I'll be interested to see if any of the local media picks up on this in the same way they did when Messi came to town. I don't think. I'm not. I wouldn't anticipate it being quite like that, but he's a pretty significant international. [00:41:07] Speaker C: Superstar oh man, I, I saw a screenshot today of somebody had posted a ticket for like five grand. Just probably on a lark. I'm like, will anybody be crazy enough to buy this? But I mean, the ticket prices are going crazy on that game. [00:41:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:19] Speaker C: Three days left in the window. Thursday at 5:00pm yeah, well, that's what. [00:41:25] Speaker A: I was going to bring up next. Yeah. So, you know, the windows about to close. We're not anticipating Dallas doing. I mean, why would they at this point? [00:41:35] Speaker C: Well, there's not really, you know, the only reason you would is if you already had a guy lined up that you're going to get this winter and he's ready to come. [00:41:43] Speaker A: Well, why wouldn't you even. You're not going to wait until the last second to announce it. [00:41:48] Speaker C: And the thing is, is that like the roster freeze is later. So like, you could still add like a trade in the league. You could still add someone who's a free agent in this window. You could pick them up later. You know, with eight games left, what are you going to do? It's going to help you. You almost might as well wait. So like, what I mean is like, there's no really reason to do anything unless it's like a dude that you already have like a three year deal coming. And it's like, okay, go ahead. You know, they do have a couple open roster spots, so they certainly could move some stuff. You know, if this was a different league, they could be a dumping ground team where they could say, hey, if you got a guy you need to get off your book with for the, for the last three months of the season, you know, give us this and we'll take him and then we'll cut him later or whatever. But I don't, I don't think that, that this, MLS teams think that way. Really. Nobody needs the money space that badly that they don't have. I don't think anyone's thinking that way these days yet in this league, but. So I don't, I don't anticipate a move. [00:42:48] Speaker A: They've also spent and lost a lot of money already this season. [00:42:51] Speaker C: Yeah, and really like losing a, losing a Delgado, losing a dp, like the way it went down where it was like almost like very late in the season, relatively speaking, to this side. [00:43:02] Speaker A: You mean Acosta, not Delgado? [00:43:04] Speaker C: I'm sorry, yes, I misspoke. Of course, Acosta, where they, you know, realize, okay, this is not working, we gotta get rid of the guy. I'm sure they didn't have another 10 lined up, you know, they may have a piece a list somewhere of some names written down. But that doesn't mean that like he was ready to go two weeks later when you sold a custom. Speaking of which, by the way, Pedrinha was back on the bench so out of the doghouse enough to come back from North Texas. You know, he could factor at some point over the back end of the season two if you decide like are you going to be a mature enough kid that we could keep you or not. You know that so that's there is that so I don't anticipate any really moves. There's no reason really to at this point other than unless you had some weird wash a mechanic reason to do it. And I don't really think they do. I think they'll just sit on what they got. [00:43:51] Speaker A: Okay, well that would be disappointing but probably also the right thing to do, frankly. Depending. I know it's a. It's. It's the. It's the most forsaken. I mean I. Can you think of another season in this club's history that is worked out in the the same weird way this one has? [00:44:07] Speaker C: Well, 2003 obviously went. But that was a whole stadium. [00:44:10] Speaker A: But that was just a bad. Yeah, that had a whole bunch of other. Well, that killed all this has a whole stadium juju thing going on too. [00:44:17] Speaker C: It does, yeah. Yeah. I mean all. You remember that many people, not just us, were talking wooden spoon before Delgado entered the picture and it's funny. God dang. Why do I keep doing that? [00:44:28] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:44:29] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:44:30] Speaker A: Have you been drinking? [00:44:31] Speaker C: Just ginger ale. Okay. Before Acosta entered the picture and we thought oh, that gives them a chance to compete the playoffs. Well, it turns out that actually getting rid of Acosta maybe sort of gets them a chance to keep compete for the playoffs. So considering that at one point we were arguing whether it was a wooden spoon team or not, they're actually a little bit better than that. So it's not too horrible, all things considered. I suppose maybe it's not a very good team season. [00:44:57] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's a crap season for sure. [00:45:00] Speaker C: I mean the oscars fall off. 2017 fall off was weird, but that was a different kind of weird. That wasn't weird from the get go. That was weird when they. Because they went for a bunch of old guys for the cognacrap Champions League and put all the bags in that basket. [00:45:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:13] Speaker C: And then when they got eliminated, they fell off after that. Herman Grana and those kinds of guys. [00:45:18] Speaker A: All right. Well, I hope everybody has a good time at the game on Saturday night. It should be a good scene. All right, let's move on. North Texas. They lost again, Buzz. [00:45:29] Speaker C: Yeah, they lost to the best team in the league though. St. Louis City too. They played. The thing is, I'm actually really happy about that game because they played more kids and they played guys that are. Some of the. The foreign guys they have at positions. I like them better. So I actually was more pleased with the game even though they lost. So like sometimes you get to think about North Texas differently. Like it can't just be about the fact that they lost, is about what happened on the field is more important. They're still in the playoff picture. They have LAFC 2 on Sunday. That's really important that it's after FC Dallas plays. So for example, perhaps Alvaro could be on the bench or Sam Sarver could be on the bench and then on Saturday if you wanted them to, and then they could go down and play on Sunday. You know that that's important. I will also throw out there that Isaiah Kakush who's a young North Texas signing that I really like is in the youth national program. He tore his ACL and training this week, so done for the year. And the problem is is that he's in the. He's going into an option year and there's a one year option on him. So his option. So if SCI picks up his option, it'll expire right when he's coming back from the acl. So they probably won't pick up the option. I think enough of the young kid that I would give him a. A hybrid deal, you know, one more year or two more years in North Texas and then homegrown. Because I think he's really, really good. [00:46:46] Speaker A: What's his position? [00:46:47] Speaker C: He's a six. I think he's supremely talented player. Great young player. He was with Barca USA and he actually went over and trained with Barca for real on their academy and stuff. So really talented. [00:46:59] Speaker A: Big kid. [00:47:02] Speaker C: No, no, no, he's under six. He's right around six feet tall. [00:47:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:47:05] Speaker C: Really good player though. Really smooth touches for a six. I really like him. But it just comes down to now, this knee is really going to be coming at a horrible times in terms of contract and going and what Seattle will do is going to be. You know, I see Dallas is sometimes just rather not deal with it, you know, just let them go. [00:47:21] Speaker A: For what it's worth, Kakush is a kick ass last name. [00:47:24] Speaker C: It is. Everybody just Calls him Kush as far as I know. Why wouldn't you? [00:47:30] Speaker A: Why wouldn't you? What's your name? [00:47:32] Speaker C: Kush. Kakush Kush. Yeah. Yeah. Really good player. [00:47:37] Speaker A: That's sweet. Well, best wishes to Kush. And that knee injury, I hope that. [00:47:42] Speaker C: Well, it's disturbing too because there's a. This is again like the fifth or sixth acl. It's like. And a lot of them are North Texas. We've talked about this, right? A bunch of knee, you know. Yeah. It's not good. Something's going on. Like the. Some signs are better with the fitness, but other things are not. Lots of hamstrings and lots of ACL balls right now. So it makes me raise my eyebrows. [00:48:04] Speaker A: Wonky. Okay. Texoma, man, they were on a heater buzz. What happened to Texoma? They lost again. [00:48:10] Speaker C: Yeah, they just, you know, they got really hot and they schooled off some. They lost at home to again the best team in the league. But that's, you know, whatever. So they're tied for eighth and they've got a game. They got two games this week against AV Alta and Greenville. Triumph. Who are the teams in sixth and seventh? So this is a huge week for them in terms of making the playoffs and climbing a little bit. One the. For the Wednesday games at home and the other games on the road. Yeah, it's interesting to watch, to try to figure out what's happening with them. Like, they don't, they don't have like a lot of injuries or anything. It's just not working, I think. I don't know if they got tired or if it's just like what it was that got them. Their keeper still is the same. He looks pretty good. You know, it's like they're not missing any star players that I know of. [00:48:53] Speaker A: So how are attendances going up in Sherman? [00:48:57] Speaker C: Not great. Not good. [00:48:59] Speaker A: No. [00:49:00] Speaker C: Yeah. No, I'm concerned about this franchise, in fact. I mean, I, I don't think they get like what kind of numbers? I think it's a couple hundred. Oh, no, yeah. I don't, I don't think it's even a thousand. I'm pretty sure that McKinney, Chupacabra is like out draw them by significant amounts. [00:49:20] Speaker A: And that's an amateur team, you know. [00:49:22] Speaker C: According to the Internet, their average home attendance is 1200, but I don't think I buy that. I mean they, they have. [00:49:30] Speaker A: Well, 1200 doesn't sound good for trying to run a professional USL1 team. [00:49:34] Speaker C: I mean, well, I think early in the year maybe they had like a peak of like they got like 3,000. But then hearts of Pine the other day they had 200. So you know, it's I think 100. I mean, look at Tex Alma. Like that Sherman Denison area is not a massive, massive media market. [00:49:52] Speaker A: No, it's not even a rated market. That's why this whole idea of putting a. I mean, if you were going to put one of these, you know, like McKinney or Lubbock or Denton idea teams, kind of these summer kids going to college team, semi pro teams, that totally made sense. But investing money in a USL1 team and show Sherman, Texas always felt like such a stretch and I admired their ambition. But holy cow, that's. [00:50:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I can't think that like that. I mean, there are teams that draw less than that in USL 1, but not many. There's only a couple that draw less than them. Two, two in fact, that draw less than them on average, according to transfer markets. So, you know, that's not. You really need to sustain 3, 4, 5, like Trinity does. You know, in USL 1. To me those are similar in stature in terms of like size of organization. You know, they have a youth club, they have training grounds, they have costs that they, you know, they don't own that stadium, so they don't own revenue. So like I'm concerned about that franchise, you know, like they had the whole kerfuffle with their owner slash CEO that got fired as a CEO. So, you know, lots of troubles, you know, brewing in Texoma. I mean, I, of course, hope they survive. I hope they do. Hope they figure it out. But 1200 to me doesn't feel like that's necessarily sustainable in terms of profit. [00:51:24] Speaker A: For revenue to pay the bills, man. [00:51:28] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure, you know, not when McKinney's doing, you know, average at almost 5. Like whatever it was was, you know, 4, 800, whatever it was. I think so, yeah. [00:51:37] Speaker A: Yipes. Okay. In Atletico Dallas, their big news of the week is that their training facility plans in Garland got approved. [00:51:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it actually happened last week and I, and I somehow missed it, but they put an article up on their website with it. It's. It's the same images in the same floor plan and the same stuff that everybody saw when they proposed it in the first place, but apparently it's been proved. So, you know, you can go there and look at the drawings. They look really nice. Some cool images. It's got something like seven fields for training, first team field, seven other fields. They have this, what they call this showcase field. Which is this two SL 3000 seat stadium. You know, it's a nice little facility. It looks really good. So good for them that they got that through the approval and, and, and it's moving forward and cost about 70 mil I think it is. Combined with. Which is, you know, I believe their offices are going to be there too. Or at least some of them. Maybe they're maybe their coaching and training offices, if not their team offices. So, you know, nice to see progress happening. Maybe some shovels go on the ground soon for athletic Dallas. That would be good since they're another year away from playing. [00:52:41] Speaker A: Yeah, well, this is all a bummer of an episode. There's no winning in this episode, Buzz. It's losing and kissing sisters. So just to try to brighten up the scene, I will bring some winning to this episode by bragging that little old me hit the game winner this weekend for borachos in our over 50 Old Man Sunday league Bear league. Jim Jam played a very difficult opponent who are self titled super bad. So there you go. [00:53:16] Speaker C: Congratulations. [00:53:17] Speaker A: One timer, right footed, side netting Buzz from top of the box. [00:53:21] Speaker C: Top of the. [00:53:21] Speaker A: Oh. [00:53:22] Speaker C: I was gonna ask if it was from midfield. [00:53:23] Speaker A: No, top of the box, top of the box. [00:53:26] Speaker C: Was it a real banger? Did you just get lucky? [00:53:28] Speaker A: It was, it was. No, it wasn't like I knew what I was doing. I did it on purpose. [00:53:34] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, purpose. Yeah, yeah. It's deliberate. Yeah. Nice. [00:53:38] Speaker A: It was a tight one one draw at that time, Buzz. We went on to win. I made it 2:1. We went on to 1:3, 3:1. So we start the season strong. First place for right now. [00:53:47] Speaker C: I, I didn't know you were a big overlapping right back. Get the. [00:53:50] Speaker A: I'm not. I was playing left mid. Oh, and I, and I, I, I made the run towards the penalty spot because the ball was coming in and there it just kind of landed right in front of me and my teammate said, hit it. So I hit it. [00:54:01] Speaker C: Hit it. Amazing. Yeah. Nice job. I remember going to an academy game once and a particular mother on the sideline. Every time the team that she was cheering for touched the ball in the offensive half of the field, she screamed, shoot it. It doesn't matter where it was or who it was. If it was across midfield, it was shoot it. I was like, oh my gosh. Okay. [00:54:25] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:54:26] Speaker C: Hey, speaking of kids, the conquer cas 15 championships just happened. Dallas had four kids in that tournament. Two with USA, one with Puerto Rico and one with Mexico. In Mexico and the USA met in the final. The Kid for Puerto Rico is fascinating because he's a center back on the. And a year younger he played. They. They called him up a whole year higher. He's a center back and they play him as a 10 because like that's how talented he is. Is that they. That he's young and so that's impressive to me. And he's a center back rested out. So bottle that one in the back of your brain. [00:54:58] Speaker A: Poor kid goes to play for a national team that isn't good enough. Are very good. So he play. He gets to play as a 10 and then he comes home and they stick him at center back. [00:55:07] Speaker C: That happens all the time. Like Reggie was a 10 for somebody when Nellis recruited play right back. I mean they. They do that all the time. So. And then one other thing. Oh, I put up my college watch list for academy kids in the college. Everyone wants to read that and read some of the great names that are some guys. Two or three guys on there I think could be homegrowns inside the next year and a half. So. [00:55:25] Speaker A: All right, Listen to it, man. The kids get excited when Buzz starts writing about him. [00:55:30] Speaker C: Yeah. I had a couple people message me, actually a couple of kids did. They were on the list, I'm sure that I've written about for years. They're like, hey man, thanks again for writing nice things about me. I was like, you're welcome. It's just. You earned it, man. I didn't. I just write what's true. [00:55:41] Speaker A: You're the modern day North Texas soccer version of Dave Campbell. [00:55:45] Speaker C: Yeah. That's sort of maybe. Yeah. Okay. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I think you are. [00:55:49] Speaker C: Sure. [00:55:49] Speaker A: I think you are. [00:55:50] Speaker C: I'll take it. I'll take it. Yeah. [00:55:52] Speaker A: All right. Well, Buzz, I got nothing else. [00:55:56] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a pretty tight episode, actually. Strangely considering that we thought, well, we were Trinity preview, for lack of a better name for it. [00:56:02] Speaker A: Well, when you don't tell anybody you're doing anything prior to the season, there's not much to go on. [00:56:09] Speaker C: Talk about. We went through the big, huge key elements of their. Of the questions for them. Like there's. There's three or four big, huge key questions and we laid those out and I think that's a pretty good primer and. And we'll all learn together. I'm gonna go to that game this weekend. I'm gonna go to Trinity game because it's there. So opener. [00:56:24] Speaker A: So yeah, watch. They're going to throw out like 12,000 in attendance for the helm opener. We're all going to sound like idiots. [00:56:30] Speaker C: Awesome. That would. That would be fantastic. Yeah, I would love to have them drawing 10,000 down there. That'd be amazing. [00:56:37] Speaker A: It would be. It would be great. [00:56:39] Speaker C: Third Degree, the podcast is brought to you by our fantastic and loyal listeners, just like you. If you like our coverage here on Third Degree, the podcast on thirddegree.net on social media. We got all the pro teams, the Met cover just for you. Why not join us patreon.com third degree, give us the support. Hope you enjoyed the show. [00:56:57] Speaker A: All right, well, thank you. Thank you to Dan for making the time to show up for as little as he could because he had things to do. Yeah. Very nice of him. Thank you, Buzzard. [00:57:06] Speaker C: Oh, you're welcome. And thank you, as always, for being here, my friend. [00:57:08] Speaker A: Yes, you are the best. Thank you, Dallas Fort Worth soccer. Curious person, you. We will be back next week on another episode of Third Degree, the podcast. Insert Dance Whisper here. [00:57:21] Speaker B: Third Degree, the Third Degree N Podcast. [00:57:25] Speaker A: Third Degree, the Third Degree N Podcast. Third Degree, the Third Degree N Podcast. Third Degree, the Third Degree n Podcast. [00:57:40] Speaker C: Sam.