3rd Degree the Podcast #350

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Did you say this is 350? [00:00:01] Speaker B: It is. You did 350. [00:00:03] Speaker A: All right, 350, yeah. [00:00:14] Speaker C: Third Degree, the third Degree NE podcast. [00:00:19] Speaker A: Third Degree the third degree never podcast. Third Degree the third degree Never get Third degree. [00:00:31] Speaker B: Third degree. The podcast is brought to you by the Dallas Beer Guardians. 24 Hour Tailgate. We're just days away from the biggest tailgate tradition in Texas. 24 hour tailgate that kicks off Friday, February 20th, 7pm in the red lot at Toyota Stadium continues until kickoff on the 21st when Nessie Dallas takes on Toronto. This year's party features food for all 24 hours, a live DJ to keep the vibes up, extra vendors, games and surprises, and always free beer for everyone over 21 from our friends at Pentacles. Bring your friends, bring your passion. Be part of the tradition that Dallas Beer Guardians is known for. It's a 24 hour tailgate. Don't miss it. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Well, hello there, DFW soccer curious. Welcome to another episode. Oh my God, it's a big one. It's number three. 50. 350 episodes of third degree. The podcast. Along for the ride today is Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:01:27] Speaker C: Hey. It's a lot more lonely this week. [00:01:30] Speaker A: It is very lonely, but not so lonely that we don't have my hero and your hero. In fact, he's everybody's hero. He's editor and founder of thirddegree.net and America's original soccer influencer himself. It's the Buzz Carrick calling in from somewhere out in the hinterlands. Howdy, Buzz. [00:01:52] Speaker B: Hey, I'm halfway there. Well, actually more than halfway 3/4 of the way there. But you'll notice today's rundown is not in red crayon. I left the entire box of red crayons back in Dallas on accident. So I'm out. [00:02:04] Speaker A: It's a super lame WhatsApp group digital message sucks. [00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Maybe it's time to retire the red crayon bus. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Probably not. [00:02:18] Speaker A: Man, last week was so great. It was so much fun doing that episode in front of all the curious. Thanks again to Pedicolas for having us and make in making their place available on a day that is closed. Thanks to Scooter for being a one man show all day. And thanks for all the curious showing up and just having a good time. It was so good to see people again, meet people for the first time, blah, blah, blah. I just. It made my heart grow two sizes bigger. [00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that was fantastic. I really appreciate you putting that together. It was a lot of Fun to see a lot of the people in person that we've been talking to in discord or been talking to on the social medias forever and ever. So it was really nice way to get out of town. So. But we're still here, still doing what we do. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Yes. The other thing that may have gone missed by many people is that if you were there in your presence was, I think I'm saying this correctly. Five of the eight who traveled on that very, very, very, very, very cold night in Indianapolis when the Burn bested the fire, excuse me, D.C. united for the U.S. open cup championship in 1997. Five of the eight were there in. In attendance. And that was pretty cool to see those guys again. [00:03:42] Speaker B: That's such a colossal moment in the club's history back in 1997, because D.C. had, if I remember correctly, Peter, correct me if I'm wrong, D.C. united have won the Shield and MLS cup. And the Open cup final was like a couple weeks after the end of the season after MLS cup. And so, like, they were the clear prohibitive favorites going into that game. Oh, and Dallas did an amazing job of keeping a blank sheet and a relatively boring game, but keeping them out of it and then stealing it with a. With. With a shootout win. It was, you know, the club's first ever silverware in their second season. It's just crazy to think about and. And took a long time to get another one. [00:04:19] Speaker A: It's a night I know I never will forget. And it's marked also by, you know, the. I don't know if. I don't know if this has been told enough or it goes forgotten or whatever, but it also is the night Mark Dodd literally put on one of the greatest sporting performances of bravery I have ever witnessed in my life. One is the Emmett Smith shoulder game from way back in the day. And the other one is the night Mark Dodd stood on his head and. And helped Dallas win its first piece of silverware. In the aftermath of his mom unexpectedly passing away, he was playing on literally like, I think it was within 48 hours after his mom had died, un, unknowingly. Was it a car accident? [00:05:00] Speaker B: I. I don't know the details. I remember the next day, it was. [00:05:03] Speaker A: Like the next day and somehow some way, with her hand on his back. I suppose he was un. Real that night. That video, that game is up on YouTube. You have to go watch it. If you've never watched the Burn winning the Open cup in 1997, you know, go for the championship and lifting of the trophy, but stay for the miraculous performance of Mark Dodd back then. It's one of my favorite things. I will never, ever forget that night and seeing that in person. [00:05:33] Speaker B: And Peter, when you're really old and bedridden and it's going to rain and your hip hurts, you'll remember that night as why your hip hurts. [00:05:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So I was sitting next to Tommy Sones, two very Chicago brothers. And when that final whistle blew and they had won, we all ran to go, you know, rush the field. And I had a. The giant inferno flag of greatness in my hands. And as I got right past the advertising board, one of the brothers hip checked me into the board and almost broke my hip. I had a bruise this. A size of a soccer ball in my hip for like three weeks afterwards. [00:06:09] Speaker B: If you know what you're looking for in the highlights, you can see Peter go, yeah. [00:06:15] Speaker A: It'S. It was great. And all of that was fun to think about and reminisce about and see those guys. It was fun to see everybody and, and even. Even the best current Burn fan in the whole world. Doc was there and it was cool to see him too. So thank you. [00:06:30] Speaker B: 97 open. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Oh, no, no, no. At your. Your. At the recording session. [00:06:36] Speaker B: I'm joking. I know. [00:06:37] Speaker A: I hope we get to do another live recording of third degree somewhere down the road. [00:06:41] Speaker B: Road someday. Yeah, someday for sure. [00:06:45] Speaker A: Dan, did you have a highlight moment from the recording session you'd like to reminisce about? Discuss? [00:06:53] Speaker C: The giveaway was. Was great. A lot, a lot of fun there. Yeah, it was aman. Surprisingly winning and then abdicating his win. So ashamed. [00:07:03] Speaker B: People immediately yelling fix. Fix. [00:07:05] Speaker C: That. That was you. [00:07:07] Speaker B: Me too. Yeah. I was like, you were the one. [00:07:09] Speaker C: That picked the name out. I know. [00:07:11] Speaker B: Well, Jenny was not coming down to get her items, so yeah, that was. [00:07:15] Speaker A: That was pretty great. So. Okay, that's enough. Thank you. I can't say it enough, so I'm gonna stop. Now let's move on to more important things. And yes, since we last spoke, we can now fully get into the most important thing, which is the reveal of what is without question, period. The end. The best FC Dallas shirt since the rebrand back in the early aughts. Oh my gosh. The DNA kit is perfecto. Buzz. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. It's unquestionably the best FC Dallas kit for sure. I would say that the Burn throwback is really, really good and it's right there with it. But the FC Dallas current one, this red and blue hoops, even with the little white pinstripes, this is basically exactly what we've been talking about for since 2005. Yeah, right. The only thing that we're not going to get is the white shorts. You know, it's going to be as good as it's going to. Could possibly get. Now the trick is, will they maintain this consistency of this brand and that will they, will they carry this blue and red hoop forward? You know, and the thing about a great brand in, in the kit is that you can change it up all the time, vary it in ways to make it different so that every year it's got a different vibe, different flavor, and still keep the core concept of it. You know, you see that all the time with these big clubs that have the, the same sort of basic pattern. I mean, you can just pick any one of the major ones like that has a pattern. Let's say Juventus, for example. Their black and white stripes are subtly different every single time. They're always black and white stripes, but they're always changing. For an example, in mls, Atlanta United with their red and black stripes. They change it every time, but it's always Atlanta United. You always know what it is. Always red and blacks. [00:09:01] Speaker C: Right. [00:09:01] Speaker B: So that's what do with this red and blue hoop. Stick with it. Be special. [00:09:06] Speaker C: It's too perfect. Just do an iax, absolutely identical. [00:09:09] Speaker B: Never change, without fail. I'm okay with that. Yeah, but I bet you, like, if you looked at the axis jersey, I bet you there are little tweaks and changes and subtle things. So like people will say, look, I want all the 100% fresh, the one that we're right the second, you know. [00:09:23] Speaker C: They do little things. They went back to an old, old logo, they changed the color up, different trim levels. That Adidas does things that you would expect. [00:09:32] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:09:33] Speaker C: FC Dallas, previously with, with the hoops, you know, 2012, 11, whenever it was they had those, like the little separations in the hoops. They had those weird angled ones back in 2008, 2009, whenever it was, they've, they've had variations before that they could kind of lean back on. [00:09:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:53] Speaker A: You know, going back to Iax, I was thinking about something, you know, because a lot of people will make the argument the reason you change up your jersey is so that you can sell new jerseys. Because if the jersey just looks the same, why buy a new one? I'd be interested to go back and do an. Find out if there was any way to do an analysis of IAX sales and if their sales percentages track differently from new home kit to new home kit than another club that changes them up, like Arsenal or United or whatever. Or there's, you know, maybe they're somewhat the same, but they're still different shirts. I'm just wondering if that holds true with IAX or not. Like, do they just not sell as many shirts and they're just okay with that because sticking with tradition is more important to them. That would be an interesting question to. [00:10:41] Speaker B: Get an answer to. I bet you the variance is small would be my guess. [00:10:46] Speaker C: I think with soccer it's always difficult, right, because you sometimes you buy a jersey because it was a momentous season and you want something from that. American sports, obviously everyone has a player name on it, so that is your difference. Basketball jerseys can be identical every year. The Cowboys jersey is identical every year. But, you know, someone might want a Michael Oven jersey versus a Dak Prescott jersey. So, you know, FC Dallas, you could get that. You could get. Someone wants a Valiente jersey now. [00:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that here in a minute and let you know who. What Dan is talking about the jersey, by the way, the quality of it is really, really nice. The. The badge for both the sponsorship Adidas logo and the FC Dallas badge, at least on the authentic, is really, really nice. I think for transparency sakes, we should all just announce here that the. The club was really, really kind and supplied us each a shirt. That was really cool of them to do that. They didn't need to do that. [00:12:01] Speaker C: And so we really. They told me we had to share. Oh, not the same size. So I was confused how I worked out. [00:12:09] Speaker B: You two are sharing. I got one. [00:12:11] Speaker A: So what days do you need it, Dan? And what days can I have it? [00:12:15] Speaker C: Every day that ends in Y. [00:12:17] Speaker A: Okay. So thank you to them for doing that. I didn't. I don't want to. I feel like that's only fair to be transparent about that. I. And here's the deal. If they hadn't given us one, I would have gone out and buy one and bought. [00:12:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:31] Speaker C: So would you been at sucker 90 on Wednesday. [00:12:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. So anyway, it's great. And of course, you know, the interesting thing that's coming out and we're. And we'll save next week to go through the entire league run of all the different jerseys that have come out. But one of the things that's really interesting about this year and gets me excited about what MLS seems to be loosening their grip on is allowing teams to not get stuck in the monochrome, you know, know, red shirt, red shorts, red socks, and allowing Teams to be, you know, multicolor in, in the way that they're laid out. And of course, we wish that Dallas could be red shirt, white shorts, blue socks or red socks or whatever it is, but instead we get the blue shorts. Fine, whatever. But man, some of the combinations that I've seen of photos of some of the clubs, obviously the best one is NYC FC with kind of the darker blue shirt, the, the white shorts and the orange socks. It is so kick ass. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really good. That means when. When we thought hoops was dead for a while, that would never come back. One of the things I suggested was something similar to that, which was like, you're a red team, you could go with a solid red top, white shorts and blue socks. You know, they're, they're. Those sort of patterns exist. Manchester United, Mexico, like it's a, it's a common idea and they've done that with the New York jersey. It is spectacularly good. There's obviously blue on top of the orange socks and stuff that. But it's really, really good. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a bunch of them. And it's an interesting year for, for the shirts. So we. We'll talk more about that next week. But good Lord. And the DNA kit, Home run, grand slam, you know, don't. Just like that could be the last shirt they ever make and I would be over the moon ecstatic about it. It's exactly the shirt that we've been dreaming of here on third degree, the podcast for 15, 20 years. [00:14:23] Speaker B: I don't. Well, the podcast's not that old, but other than that. [00:14:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. [00:14:29] Speaker C: They just saved it for the perfect time, getting the climacool plus stuff that the World Cup's gonna have. And you know that, that upgrade in technology, the, the logos you mentioned having the little holographic elements, just amazing details. [00:14:43] Speaker A: It is. And Dan, by the way, credit to you once again, your predictive mock up was spot on. So kudos for your great and excellent work leading up to it. [00:14:55] Speaker C: Thank you for all the whispers. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Whispering is helpful and powerful. All right, so we were planning on talking about the final scrimmage of the season, but right on schedule, Mother nature got in the way and Saturday's scrimmage got canceled even after the team tried to move it away from the pending storm. Although I think they kind of moved it right into the middle of the pending storm. But whatever. That whole thing went on for so long, they would have had to have wait till probably 2 o', clock, 3 o' clock in the afternoon to have played it. But I'm confused around. Dan, were you at the stadium? [00:15:35] Speaker C: Yes. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Okay, so provide some context about how this takes place because they delayed the start after moving it earlier only to then actually kick off and then essentially abandon the game just five minutes in. How did that all go down? [00:15:52] Speaker C: So they moved the game up an hour to try and get it knocked out before the storms hit. I guess. I guess the notion was that the storm system shifted east from what they'd expected and that kind of put the stadium more in the path. So they were hoping, you know, it started to rain a little bit lightly. Game kicks off, starts absolutely bucketing down. Five minutes in, we, you know, we're watching lightning in the distance and it's getting closer and closer and closer and then the referee points, waves everyone off. Five minutes in, you get that classic 30 minute countdown. We're hearing that the North Texas SC Games been canceled entirely on one of the practice fields. Tulsa and San Antonio were due to player friendly. They just got back on the bus and went home. That's unfortunate drive. There was an ECNL tournament. They all stopped play immediately. And yeah, it was, you know, you're watching that 30 minute timer start again and again and again. And then eventually it was, hey, yeah, just calling it not happening. [00:17:11] Speaker A: Ah, okay. I didn't realize they actually did kick off at 11 only to stop it at 5. I thought they had postponed it at 11, waited a whole bunch of time, then kicked off and played five minutes and then quit. Now that makes way more sense. Okay, very good. Well, it's unfortunate that that's how it all happened because now Buzz Dallas doesn't have a final preseason tune up. [00:17:32] Speaker B: Hey, we talked about that. [00:17:34] Speaker A: I guess we did that last week, huh? [00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we, we talked about, I talked about this, the preseason schedule not being great, but you know, with, in lieu of having a game, we at least got starting 11 and it sort of reinforced what we've seen the last couple of games on paper or if we had a powered feed or whatever. Basically you're looking at what I, what I call a 3, 5, 2. But you could call it a. Or coach sometimes does call it a 5, 32 and it's a 10 less system this spring. There's no, like the end of last year they had Patrick Delgado playing sort of as a 10. He tends to go kind of walk about all around the front line, but he was forward more in, more of that capacity, at least in the offensive sense. So if you look at the same group of Players starting the last two or three games even you know they didn't get the whole game in. You know, Claudia's in net and then you have your Gidde is the middle of your back line. You have Shackmore and Ibiaga are your other two. You know what we used to call the marking center backs or the right and left center backs. And then Herman Johansson, the new wing backs on the right and Bernie's on the left and then across the midfield you have these three sort of six, eight kind of combo guys. Ramiro has been in the middle as the stay at home sort of six and Capus and Kaik are both playing sort of eight ish, but they're they definitely defensively they sit back in a three on top of the back five and when they go forward you're not seeing Christian Capus run forward into the zone 14 and becoming a pure 10. He's not doing that. He and Kaik are both kind of sort of drifting forward like a double eight sort of combination. And you have Logan and Peter Musa up top. Now Musa missed that game but we know that he's going to be the guy with Logan Farrington all the time. So there's a reason why in my book they went out and got Herman Johansson who's one a better attacking wing back, a guy who can score and can pass, you know, because you're still going to have Bernie over there who is a physical force in terms of his ability to play over the top but he's not really refined in terms of his assisting. So you're going to, you're going to be looking at Johansson and probably Logan who's a relatively high assist making striker as the two guys that are going to facilitate because Christian Capis and Kaik and Romero, none of those guys are string pulling midfielders. They're not creative midfielders. Those guys are hardworking. Some of them box the box, some of them sort of stay at home but those are defensive minded warrior type central midfielders. This is not going to be like a possession oriented team as the season starts. Look at that back five. Is there much build out capability in that back five at all? There sure as hell wasn't when we watched them play this spring. So you're looking like your team to start the year is going to look a lot like it did at the end of last year with a soup sit super deep and be super patient and not have hardly any of the ball games with like 30 possession. You want better than that. But you can see a lot of that you can see a lot of this. If they turn the other team, turns it over, Dallas will get it and play really quickly vertically the other direction, it's going to look exactly like the end of last year. So that's what you can expect to see as the season opens. Will it be the same by the end of the season? Probably not, but that's what they're starting with. That's what's going to be is this 10 list. 3, 5, 2, if you will, is. [00:20:41] Speaker A: The fact that Delgado doesn't seem to be included. All of this and the, you know, not playing at a 10, is that the surprise of the start of the season at this point? [00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah, because, you know, he, he did a decent job. He does not get a high number of assists, but he at least gets forward into the attacking zone and creates a little havoc. And for him to be dropped in favor of basically like a double eight, you know, look, or really like three sixes in a lot of way right across the middle really raises some red flags in terms of like, how much offensive pattern building or capability are you going to have? And again, you would now understand why that Johansson was such an important piece for them because of his ability to get forward and create, you know, perhaps as a more of an inverted sort of wing. Even though most of the time it looks like he's going to be on the right, we have seen a little bit of switch for the left out of him. So, you know, it's not going to be a beautiful possession, ticky ducky play. It's going to be a track meet kind of play. You got to get forward fast. Both Logan and Musa are the guys that can take advantage of chaos. You know, balls in there that are bouncing around. Those guys are both dudes that can get on the end of stuff and get. Poke them in and get gold conversion going. So, you know, expect what you saw the last, what was it, 10 or so games at the end of last year, it's going to look just like that. So whether that's any better than last year, man, I don't know. I don't know if it's any better. And as we always say in this league, if you don't get better, you get passed by. So we'll see how it goes. [00:22:06] Speaker A: Daniel, what are your thoughts about all this? [00:22:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's a lot more structure, right? Taking the 10 out, you shore up the midfield, you have a true front two. Getting Moose and Farrington on the field all the time, you're looking for more output from your wing backs, having Johansson there. Be interesting to see how Bernie kind of kicks on if there's any possibility that Ricky Lewis even comes into the picture if Bernie has a rough start to the season again. [00:22:41] Speaker B: Do you mean Dietzen there? [00:22:43] Speaker C: No, I actually didn't. [00:22:45] Speaker B: No, I know. [00:22:46] Speaker C: No. Yeah. I don't know where Deedson lands. I know, I know. The idea is for him to play more wing back against New York. He was, he got absolutely torched by River Carbon twice in the first five minutes. It was, it was not pretty. And you know, with. Especially with him going off to the World cup as well, I think, you know, there's. His mind is going to be elsewhere. It's not necessarily going to be can I adapt to a new position. It's can I play right wing, left wing for my national team on the biggest stage there is. But yeah, every time I've seen Ricky Lewis at wing back, been really impressed. Was really disappointed when he got moved into a front two for that, that second 11 with. With Nick Simmons. So, yeah, we'd be interested to see. There was one interesting quirk actually from North Texas in their brief attempt to play a game was that it seems that Simmons is. Is now fully with North Texas SC and not FC Dallas, whereas Ricky Lewis is obviously with FC Dallas. So does. Does he become the de facto third nine? Do they look at Deedson as that option? You know, those two are going to fall in interesting place one way or another. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Yeah, you've even got like a Sarver who's not tall, but he could probably nine a little bit. You know, you can. You have Anderson Julio who's more of a vertical style, but he's obviously in that conversation up there too. So you can see why Simmons would be much further down the depth chart than Ricky Lewis might be when Ricky Lewis probably is now second at left wing back, probably ahead of Josh Torcato, maybe. That's hard to tell for sure, but certainly there's some potential in the high generation to do this pick like that. But Josh Ricardo's got talent too, so we, you know, we'll see how that goes. It wouldn't surprise me, of course, if Josh sees a lot of time at North Texas beginning of the season because he is still only, you know, 18 or so or whatever he is, you know. [00:24:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Not expecting to be starting there. [00:24:51] Speaker B: Yeah, you would think. Yeah, it depends on the shape they play. But you know, the. Based on the paperwork we've been seeing, it looks like North Texas is playing the same 3, 5, 2, so that you know, not a surprise that they're going to emulate that system. You know, they didn't do it last year, but that was because it was so late in the season. It's not surprising you're going to see it again this year. We'll come back to North Texas later. [00:25:10] Speaker A: All right. So as I look at this lineup, Buzz, I think I probably have the same concern just based on paper that most people would. Because it. There are. If you look at it the wrong way, it looks like there's seven guys behind the ball and two in front of the ball. [00:25:26] Speaker B: Yes. [00:25:27] Speaker A: Which is disconcerting. Which. So is this going to be a park the bus and just try to win and transition thing? [00:25:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's you looking at the correct way. That's what it is basically. Oh, those. The. It's actually eight guys behind the ball because. [00:25:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm not counting the keeper. [00:25:42] Speaker B: Yeah, well, no, it's a back five with three in front of. So like. [00:25:46] Speaker A: Oh, right. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's eight with two in front. Yeah. [00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Math isn't my strong suit, Buzz. Yeah, right. [00:25:53] Speaker B: Radio Texas Tech radio is not getting that. The Remember too that like a lot of times when you see it, you would even see which one is it Logan. You would see. Look, I can't remember which guy was Logan would often check back and become like a right mid or something like that. And that midfield three would even slide over and you'd even get a five, four a lot of times. And the cap is. Would take up a position outside on top of the. I mean you guys watched the end of last season, right? I'm not making this up. This is what happened. This is what they. This is the sacrifices they made to clamp down the scoring. It's not a surprise that they're going with the exact same thing going into the season. [00:26:30] Speaker C: I do think not having a 10, they. They will get more aggressive with the wing backs that seem to be, you know, in those first five minutes was. Was bombing forward pretty nicely. We've seen it across a few of the games. [00:26:44] Speaker A: Now I'm curious because I've not seen him play yet. I'm dying to know if part of the game plan because we're told this particular attribute of his is such a high level skill set. Is Johansson crossing the balls in from deep to Musa and Farrington who are both, you know, Musa in particular is good header of the ball. Farrington's pretty sizable himself and I just wonder if that's now going to be one of their weird Attacking, not weird. One of their new attacking methods that, you know, they have. We've not seen them do very much in a long while. So that will be interesting to watch. [00:27:17] Speaker B: It certainly could be. And of the games we've seen, we've also seen Capis, who is lining up on the left of that three man midfield. He also plays a lot along because Bernie doesn't the wing back on that side, but Capus does. So like you've seen, Cap is whipping these balls into the box to guys on the break, to guys into the box and chaos happens when that, when that, when those guys do that. But again, we've also saw not the whole game, but we saw a lot of inverted backs where the Johansson and Bernie would switch sides and then it's come underneath and shoot, you know, so there's an opportunity to play multiple flexible shapes and mix that up. And it's no question that Johansson's ability to assist was a big part of what they wanted out of him. [00:27:56] Speaker A: All right. The other big kind of area of concern or, and I think a, a surprise is the fact that it does appear by all accounts that Eric Quill has made the choice to stick with Iaga as the other one of the starting three center backs. I think a lot of people, we talked about it here quite a bit along the idea that Nolan Norris would become a regular starter, but it doesn't appear that's going to be the case. And I'm curious if we should be surprised by that. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Well, I'm, I'm not surprised, I'm just disappointed. And I don't want to talk about this too much because I've sort of said my piece on this organization in Ibiaga for four years now. I feel like it's been four years. Hopefully it's not actually in four years. But if you really think that you're competing to make a deep playoff run and you think like getting every single point right from the jump really matters, then I understand why you pick iga. I don't think that's true. I don't think this team is anywhere close to being able to compete deep into the playoffs. And part of that is because I so like, to me, you, I think it's more important to see of the younger guys that I have who can I develop and so they can become a much better player down the line than Ibiaga. [00:29:10] Speaker A: So that's it. [00:29:11] Speaker B: That's my beef. That's like, I don't. It's just, it's just a perception of how good you Think the team is clearly the coaching staff and the front office, technical, technical staff think this team is better than I do. So in their minds it's important to lock down defensively and go with the veteran experience right out of the gate. They've made that choice and I think by the end of the season, we'll see who was right about that, you know, so that's what I think is happening. [00:29:35] Speaker C: I think part of what you touched on there is kind of knowing what they have, that trust. Supposedly Nolan was dire in Portugal and that took him right out at the start and over the rest of preseason he hasn't been able to win that back. He hasn't been able to win coach's trust back. [00:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah, Quill's huge on trust and if we could see these games, we might be able to talk a lot more about how what's actually happening and not having to guess the fact that no one's playing poorly and maybe I was playing better. But we can't see the games and no one in media can. So. [00:30:10] Speaker C: No, I mean that, that was, that was discussions with people at FC Dallas, like, of what happened there. Yeah. So whether he kind of earns that trust in the first few weeks of the season, that would be great. We'd all love to see that. But yeah, I mean, obviously he's, he's, he's huge on mentality and, and mentality is, is often based around trust. [00:30:37] Speaker B: Hell, I'd even rather see Alvaro than DiBiaga again. I don't think there's much use in paying a 34 year old center back when you're going to be well out of any real point competition. [00:30:48] Speaker A: Well, I guess that's part of the question is, is the fact that they're paying him, what is it, $600,000 a part of? Like, hey, we're paying this guy a lot of money. He better be, you know, if you're not going to start Nolan, you better start him or you better start him. [00:31:03] Speaker B: Anyway, that goes back to the original miscalculation in my mind. When they signed in the first place, they thought they saw a guy that like, oh, this is an MLS cup starter. I saw a guy that's a journeyman who's only been in MLS half his career and barely can start over 15 games. So like there's a complete misvaluation at the beginning of the contract. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you're right. And I think that's the part that is concerning, which is they feel like he is an MLS starting quality center back and we all don't think he is. And that also then begins to make you wonder, well, if nobody else behind him is even good enough to beat him, then they're really weak at that position. [00:31:41] Speaker C: I think part of it is they know what they're getting. You know, Abubakar, you don't know if he's going to be good or bad. Alvaro was either fantastic or God awful. If Nolan was up, you know, if Nolan was really up and down in Portugal. Meanwhile, you've got Ibiaga. It's, it's slow and steady. It's not amazing, but at least that's, that's the position you need. A steady header. [00:32:08] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting because I think it earlier today, where was that? I was looking for this. Oh, there it is. They put up all the different Apple TV talent predictions and without going through them in all of them, I'll just tell you that the lowest had Dallas finishing 14th. Miguel Gallardo had him had them finishing 14th in the Western Conference. And the highest that I see here is a couple of people who have them picked 8th or 3 people who haven't picked 8th. Everybody else has them 10th, 9th, 10th and 11th. One person has them 13th. So I think, I guess this is the show we need to make our predictions buzz as to where you know, Dallas is going to do. Are you surprised that the national media or at least the MLS TV people have them kind of in, in that muck? [00:33:11] Speaker B: No, not at all. [00:33:14] Speaker C: Did you see that one of the announcers pick for support shield was Vancouver or Atlanta? I'm not sure I want to watch any game he calls. The ball is round, the ball is kicked, goal. [00:33:34] Speaker A: Well, maybe he just wanted to be different. [00:33:36] Speaker C: Did everybody else pick Miami, Cincinnati, lafc, Miami? [00:33:41] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe he just wanted to be different. [00:33:43] Speaker C: Vancouver, anyone that's not been living under a rock for six months know they've been absolutely decimated. [00:33:49] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I, I, I think it's interesting to think about. I think there's a couple things about that list that I find interesting is there is the consistency of people kind of having them as just below the playoff line. Like there's more people that think they was it nine is the breaking point. So I think it's about 50, 50 between people that think they'll squeak in and not squeak in. I'm a little surprised somebody has them as low as 14th. That seems like a complete outlier. But what I'm very surprised by, there's not at least one person out of there that does the have the opposite outlier of them. Finishing somewhere like fifth or fourth, like the highest. Being eighth to me is pretty interesting. [00:34:34] Speaker B: Well, I think if they would have landed a DP10, that you would have seen a lot of different opinions about that. You would have seen somebody outlier, maybe a few more people going high, but they didn't. They're going in the season with open DP position. [00:34:46] Speaker A: Okay, but here's that. I think that really interesting question about that. So this time last year, FC Dallas went out and shocked the world and spent 5 million doll hairs on a former MLS MVP to play that attacking stylistic role. And, and everybody's attitude went from oh my God, this is a wooden spoon team to hey, we might actually do something this year. Now we know how that story played out. But my question is, do we really think that this team is fundamentally in a position that if they just got that one guy, they go from a team that may or may not squeak into the playoffs to being a top four or five contender in the West? [00:35:29] Speaker B: Sure. Because in the grand picture of the season and where you're going to finish how many games you're going to win, it comes down to quite blankly, goal differential. And so if you add a guy who can bring in 10 to 15 assists, your goals, four is going to jump by 10 to 15 goals, you know, and if you, if you continue to play the good defense you did in the last season, your entire goal differential is going to swing by like 10 goals. And if you're a plus 10, plus 13 in goal differential, you're going to be fourth or fifth in the West. If you, if you go even like a zero goal differential, you're gonna be right on the playoff line. Eight, nine. If you're like a minus 10, you're gonna be down like 14th. So that's it, you know, it's, it's, it's simplistic. [00:36:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:11] Speaker B: But if you got a guy that can get assists and pull some strings, Dallas would make a 10 goal swing and their goal differential and they're going to be a team comfortable in the playoffs. But they didn't do that. They didn't go out and get a 10. So basically you're going to the season with exactly the same team as you had last year. Like, we can come back to the guys they added in a minute. But like, are any of them right now, this minute better than Patterson, Delgado? No. [00:36:33] Speaker A: I don't know. I haven't seen them play. [00:36:35] Speaker B: Right. And they drop Patrick Delgado out of the lineup and they're going with three defensive minded players in midfield so, like, you know what? Why would anyone be picking them to be like this high team in the playoff chances? This. It's just not right. Yeah, it's basic stuff, you know. Okay, well, there's predictions. [00:36:53] Speaker A: Well, let's do it now. Let's. Let's do that. Buzz, what do you have? How do you have them finishing this season? [00:36:58] Speaker B: I have them. Eight. Nine. Yeah. [00:36:59] Speaker A: Eight or nine. [00:37:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that. I. That. In the play. The play in game. Yeah, I have them in the playoffs, but in the play on game and that's it. [00:37:08] Speaker A: Any. All right, all right. [00:37:10] Speaker B: One thing at a time. We got other predictions to make as we go forward. [00:37:12] Speaker A: No, no, I understand, Dan. [00:37:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:37:15] Speaker C: Seven, eight. [00:37:16] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I think I'm stuck at eight, nine. And I think a lot of that is because, I mean, if you told me they were going to go out and get a Morrow Diaz level kind of guy, I think my attitude would slightly change. But I still have a lot of questions. I got questions about Bernie on the left. I obviously have questions at center back. A lot of the season is going to depend on a guy who I think we're all a little bit surprised is now the starting goalkeeper. Not that he's not good, but. But Michael Collodi. It's not like Michael Collodi is a career path that anybody predicted. [00:37:51] Speaker B: Crazy path. Yeah. [00:37:52] Speaker A: Right. Like, you know, if we started. If I told you three years ago Collode would be the starting goalkeeper for the 2026 season, you would have. [00:38:02] Speaker B: No. Yeah. No way. [00:38:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So I, I, you know, I'm hoping he does well, but I do think that's a big question mark on the season, is how good Collode can be over the course of a season. [00:38:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Clodi coming out of Columbia, I wasn't even sure it was going to be a professional soccer player. He didn't get drafted. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:38:18] Speaker B: You know, FC Dallas, in my opinion, assigned him to North Texas just because he'd been in the academy. It's like, oh, we need a guy. We like him. He's a good leader. He, you know, they knew about him. It was when we saw how amazing his feet were. And then that when in a modern game and the way Cole wants to play. That all made too much sense. And you remember at the end of last season, we talked about this idea, like, okay, do you get rid of. Pause. And for one, I think a couple of you guys too were like, yeah, get rid of them. Because the NASA on the bench doesn't do any good. So, you know, from the end of last season till now. I'm not surprised at all that clothes the starter. I'm not surprised at all. They get rid of Pause, that's what they should do. That's proper roster management. [00:38:53] Speaker A: Well, it's kind of like what is happening with what happened with Pause and now Collodi is kind of what we kind of wish was happening with Ibiaga and Nolan Norris. [00:39:03] Speaker B: Yeah, basically. [00:39:04] Speaker A: So it would be interesting to see how those two things play out. Like, does one bite them in the ass? [00:39:09] Speaker B: Well, Collode earned the spot and I don't think I could say that Nolan is in the spot or Alvaro's earned the spot. I just don't think it's worth playing a 34 year old when you're not competing for. Like you're not one player away from MLS cup, right? You got a lot of players you need, you might as well find out or develop. This is the same thing they did when Nicostafari. They didn't play him either. Like you got some. At some point you have to play these young players to let them develop and they're not doing it. They're acting like they're one player away from ML scupping. [00:39:35] Speaker C: They're not. [00:39:36] Speaker A: So the one thing that we haven't talked about yet is at the team event Tuesday night. Was it Tuesday night? What night was that? [00:39:44] Speaker B: I don't remember. [00:39:45] Speaker A: Whatever night it was last week. Oh yeah, Thursday they surprised everybody by announcing that in fact the much rumored acquisition of 24 year old attacking midfielder and Uruguayan Joaquin Valiente from defense or SC had been done and he was in attendance for the party. I. Here's the thing. So are. Do we have any sense as to how good this guy is? Is he the 10? Is Dallas going to roll with just one DP until they decide they've found somebody to fill that? And, and is he good enough to even be so close to good enough that they could apply a DP usage for another position like center back or holding or a big time six? [00:40:36] Speaker B: Well, these are all questions we're going to find out the answer to, we hope. Because this is not the DP that I was looking for in the sense that like I was looking for a dude that was an established, proven player at this level or better. You know, we don't. I don't think the Uruguayan league, at least top to bottom is as good as mls. So like there's. If you sure, there's some great video on tape and stuff. We have no idea whether this kid is going to be able to compete in the MLS level. You know, we have no idea whether he's going to be good enough. He's certainly not going to walk in and be the 10 that's going to solve all their issues. Now it could be that he's great as everybody. We're going to wait and see how he performs in mls and then we'll make a judgment of whether we think he's good enough or not. Right now, obviously he's not the answer. So, like it may be the six months from now we might be going, this is the greatest signing of all time. What a steal, you know, but like, there are guys like Alan Velasco who at, you know, 18 or 20, whatever it was, you pay $10 million for it, including DP DPS. This kid's not even a DP. It means nobody really valued him that much right now. It could be that they just made an absolute steal. Crazy amazing. Kai was 4 million and this kid's cheaper than that, clearly, because he's not a dp. So expectations are set reasonably, I think quite low. Hopefully he'll exceed those expectations. It'll be awesome. But Dan, this is not on paper what we were talking about when we were talking about a DP10. What is it? [00:42:03] Speaker C: No, it was. It's more what we were talking about when the, the expectation was almost adjusted to. To get you through the World cup and see where Moose is going. Then do you need to build the rebuild the team around another attacking piece? [00:42:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the key is like this hints that they have no idea what's happening with Moussa. And so they're kind of like, we better not shoot all of our bullets in the preseason when we might have to be completely rebuilt. This team in the middle of the season. [00:42:32] Speaker C: I think it's, it's. It's almost like when they had Felipe Melia. Meliaro, you know, they bought him in. He was going to go off to the Olympics, play really well for Brazil, and then make a boatload of cash and then he never made the roster. There's a chance Musa doesn't make the roster. Yeah, he goes, you know, as a chance. He repeats Davosuker in 98, wins the Golden Ball and suddenly makes an absolute shit ton of money. I mean, you can't, you know, as much as the one DP thing is annoying you kind of. If they threw everything into a win now 20, 26, then lost their most valuable piece halfway through it, we'll be livid. And you know how to see the next Two, three seasons are screwed because of this decision. So it's, I don't know, it's hard. [00:43:24] Speaker B: You know, I can understand that. Risk mitigation. Which leads me back to the idea that, like, well, clearly you're not all in on 2026, so why bother playing Ibiaga? [00:43:36] Speaker C: I was going to say, the only thing I could rationalize is that they, like, last season, they think they're going to be that close to the playoff line that they just, they don't want to risk silly goals and losing more in a goal difference. [00:43:53] Speaker B: That's totally fair. That like a couple of points at the beginning of season might be the difference between making the playoffs or not. That's fair. Totally fair. [00:44:00] Speaker A: Yeah. This, this signing just feels a less like a Moro Diaz signing and more like a Pablo Aragi signing. And we all know how that went. And he just, you and, and I hope it, I hope he works out. I hope he turns out to be a baller. But, you know, it's just that there's just been so little about it that, and I don't watch YouTube highlight videos. Buzz, you know, that's number one. [00:44:21] Speaker B: Yeah, but I, I, I'm like you. I hope this is a signing where like two months, three months from now, we're like, man, what a steal. [00:44:27] Speaker A: God. [00:44:27] Speaker B: Well, you know, that'd be awesome. But it's like, it's not high probability. You know, it's not. [00:44:33] Speaker C: At 24, you go back to Mara Diaz and, you know, all the, the money, the River Plate link, everything else. Six months in, he. What did they waste all this money on? He keeps getting injured. What's going on? He looks miserable. It took a very long time to see the guy that, like, you know, was, was solid in 2016. This feels like taking a punt on a guy that had a good season on loan in Ecuador and if it pans out, great. Make some money. If not, you didn't lose anything. [00:45:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I, it, unfortunately, I think we're all frustrated with them taking punts on players and key positions unless there's some sort of master plan for them to bring in a real name and, you know, at some point and we just don't know how that's going to play, how the season's going to play out. I mean, I, there's just too many obvious questions about the, you know, the state of the team in terms of, you know, paying for buildings and stadium. Yeah, the stadium and all that chopped. [00:45:29] Speaker B: Up season, Moussa leaving, you know. Yeah, all of it. [00:45:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, in fairness, I do think that the Musa, the specter of Musa, you know, being sold off makes acquiring somebody like that difficult because you, if you lose Musa in many ways, you can make the argument that you've got to go like essentially start over from scratch in a lot of ways because you now you got to replace a 10 and a 9 and well, I. [00:45:52] Speaker B: Mean that's a conversation for a different day. But I think you might rethink that and just make Logan Ferington your nine and then rethink your whole formation because Cole doesn't want to play necessarily a two striker system. What he has. You know what I mean? Yeah. [00:46:02] Speaker A: And I'm a, I'm a fan of the Beaver is. Wait, that boy. That's going to be taken out of context. I'm a friend of Logan Farrington as much as the next guy, but even he, to a certain degree, Buzz has a lot to prove and, and he's a bit of an unknown entity. [00:46:17] Speaker B: First season as a lock starter, 100%. [00:46:20] Speaker A: So I get it. I understand why the, the, the general media. I don't think it's unfair to have them as eight or nint. There's very little on paper right now. I think that if you're just being honest and take off your red and blue hooped sunglasses for a second, that's what this team looks like at this point in time. Now things could change dramatically, so we'll see where it goes. I mean, we've been watching this league for a very, very long time and preseason predictions are not a lot of fun and they tend to get laminated. [00:46:56] Speaker C: I'm told the hard part's always, I guess for FC Dallas with the way they build a roster, is who is doing more to overtake FC Dallas more than. Who is FC Dallas trying to overtake? [00:47:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair. [00:47:09] Speaker C: Yeah, you're looking at, you know, you're looking at Colorado. What are they doing? Houston, add in bogus. On paper it seems like they're doing pretty well, but the other week they got outplayed thoroughly by North Texas sc. San Jose is always San Jose, LA Galaxy. How well do they rebound? It's. Yeah, that's it. [00:47:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I think part of what's going on that concerns me is that this thing grinds down to just a really unattractive, unentertaining team in the middle of a period of time where they've got the whole problem with the stadium and the game day experience and limited number of seats and all that stuff. And they don't have a really Big name to hang their hat on. And I just, you know, you begin to see how this thing quickly becomes very irrelevant in the marketplace and easily forgettable, especially when it's going to just completely stop dry halfway through the season because of the World cup and everybody's going to forget about it. And by the time the World Cup's over, is anybody going to be excited about the restart of the season? You know, that's the part that I think is going to be interesting to kind of watch play out. [00:48:25] Speaker C: I think that the impact of MLS players on the World cup, you know, if, if FC Dallas's three players go to the World cup or you know, all have good games, come back and there's. There's some buzz around it, then, hey, you know, it's possible if everyone shits the bed and it's like, oh, MLS is a terrible league, then, yeah, you, you stuck behind the eight ball. [00:48:53] Speaker A: All right, well, there we go. The other thing is that they did sign a goalkeeper buzz. [00:49:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Surprise, surprise. Brooks Thompson showed up at the Cocktails and Cleats and was introduced to the team and everyone was like, what? I mean, he was, he's a, he's a keeper under contract, AlexC, in the USL Championship. I mean, at the time he was under contract. So it's like he. There he is wearing FC Dallas jersey, being introduced as an FC Dallas goalkeeper, when there's been no announcement of any kind of transaction or anything. So here you go. Cool. Awesome player. I mean, I have no idea about him. He's. They've now since announced a loan deal for him. I can't say anything about him, but they needed a third keeper, so here he is. Right. So we'll see how he holds up and competes. [00:49:39] Speaker A: All right, well, since the Atlanta game was a washout, what are we looking forward to on Saturday night? Buzz against Toronto, which, by the way, will probably wear their new white kits and that'll be a perfect contrast to the new DNA kit. [00:49:56] Speaker B: Well, it's pretty obvious from the last couple of games what's going to happen. Michael Clodi's in goal. You're going to have Bernie, left wing back, you're going to have Shaqmore Azir, guess the middle of the back line. Johansson will be a right wing back, left to right, across midfield. Christian Capis, Romero and Kaik and Moose and Fairytale Top. That's it. You're gonna, you know, even at home, probably they'll sit back and play in their defensive five man shell with three in front and then they'll they'll do exactly what they've done, like the last three games in preseason from the clips, the limited clips we've seen or, or, you know, the one or two games we caught snippets of. You know, that's what it's going to look like. So, you know, be prepared for that to look exactly like they did in the last season, minus the fact that they added a nice. What appears to be a nice looking wing back on the right and They've dropped a 10 for three man across the middle. Dan, as you quite rightly pointed out, I think that's going to allow Bernie and Johansson to be quite free up and down the wings. So we'll see how that goes. [00:50:52] Speaker C: Yay, stability. [00:50:54] Speaker B: Yep. [00:50:55] Speaker A: All right, well, before we move on to other things, just finishing up predictions, let's just run through these real quick. Golden Boot seems like the dumbest prediction. [00:51:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Who you have? [00:51:08] Speaker A: Well, it has to be Musa, right? [00:51:10] Speaker B: I'm gonna go with Logan Farrington because Moose is going to get sold after the World Cup. [00:51:14] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:51:15] Speaker C: Okay, so I'm going Musa and then the goals dry up if you get. [00:51:19] Speaker B: Sold, which will leave Logan Fairington. Oh, you think of Musa. [00:51:24] Speaker C: If no one's dead. If no one. [00:51:26] Speaker A: That's how bad the second half of the season is going to go. Is that Musa will be leading the team before sold and will still be leading the team at the end of the season despite not playing this. [00:51:35] Speaker B: No, I think Logan will. I think Logan will pick him by the end of the year and logo will be Golden Boot. [00:51:38] Speaker A: All right, who's mvp, Dan? [00:51:43] Speaker C: I left that blank. I mean, that's me. [00:51:50] Speaker B: So for me again, Logan Ferrington gonna have a breakout year. He's gonna go 10 and 10. [00:51:55] Speaker A: Man, you are pushing all the chips in on the bee. [00:51:58] Speaker B: I am. I am all in on. Even if Musa does not get sold, I think Logan goes 10 and 10 and has a really great, amazing breakout here. 10 goals, 10 assists. [00:52:06] Speaker A: Is he also your defender of the year, Buzz? [00:52:09] Speaker B: No. While I considered Collodi, my defender of the year is Iraqi Day because he's going to be doing a lot of saving of people's butts back there in the back line. [00:52:17] Speaker A: Okay, Dan, who's your D man of the year? [00:52:22] Speaker C: Oh. Oh, my. I went for Herman Johansson as a defender. [00:52:27] Speaker A: That's sad. I'm telling you right now. If. If Johansson ends up being defender of the season, the shit hit the fan at some point. [00:52:36] Speaker C: No, I mean, I think if you. If you quell attacks from the outside. That's always, you know, a positive thing and potentially you can. [00:52:44] Speaker A: I know. But if that is your best defender. [00:52:47] Speaker C: Of the year, I'm going on the basis of. Do you remember the year that FC Dallas and this was. This was a Gina Miller thing, weirdly put a. Put a midfielder as defender of the year and it was a really good year for Reggie Cannon defensively. But they said, well, he doesn't qualify as a defender but someone who plays midfield does. So I'm going with that logic. [00:53:12] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Dan is on the. Is will note that Dan is using Gina Miller logic for his defender of the year voting. That's all good and fair. All right, young new breakout player. Dan, you go first. [00:53:27] Speaker C: Ricky Lewis have no idea where he's going to play, but he's going to play somewhere and he's got something about him. [00:53:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Buzzard. [00:53:33] Speaker B: I'm actually also going Ricky Lewis because I think that Bernie is not going to. I think. I think Bernie is not going to get it done at left wing back. And so I think Ricky Lewis will end up being, you know, by the World cup. Ish. Probably blue can. Lewis will be in the starting line instead of Bernie. [00:53:50] Speaker C: All right. [00:53:51] Speaker A: And then we'll go to league predictions. Who do you guys have winning Major League Soccer Cup 2026? Buzz? [00:54:00] Speaker B: San Diego. I like what they're doing. [00:54:03] Speaker A: Whoa. All right, Daniel. [00:54:06] Speaker C: A certain Mr. Messi with. I think that's a little bit much for most teams. [00:54:14] Speaker A: So you think Miami's gonna do the double? The back to back? [00:54:17] Speaker C: They're gonna repeat. [00:54:18] Speaker A: Wow. [00:54:19] Speaker B: Messi's gonna get hurt at the World Cup. Not gonna repeat. [00:54:21] Speaker C: You're gonna get hurt at the World Cup? [00:54:23] Speaker B: Probably. Probably. [00:54:27] Speaker A: So Dan, does that mean that Messi and crew are winning the shield too? Because that would be. When was the last time a shield winner won MLS Cup? It's been a bit. Again, it happens very rarely. So will Miami do the double? [00:54:43] Speaker C: No. I've actually got lafc if Denny Buanga plays nicely after not getting his move away because him and son, I mean that's. That's you. Yes. Potentially your top two scorers in the league there. [00:54:57] Speaker A: Okay. Buzz. [00:55:01] Speaker B: I think the World Cup's going to cause utter chaos and I think somebody that doesn't have like a heavy World cup impact will consistently win more games. And so I got FC Cincinnati as my shield winner. [00:55:12] Speaker A: Wow. [00:55:13] Speaker B: They only have a couple of guys that are sort of fringy World cup guys and not like a heavy load guys. [00:55:18] Speaker A: And so who's going to win league. [00:55:20] Speaker B: Cup Buzz, I think league cup will be somebody really unexpected. Like just for grins, I'm going to. I'm going to say that James Rodriguez will stay with Minnesota and Minnesota will win the league cup after the World Cup. [00:55:34] Speaker C: Okay, Dan, if no one's around to watch it, does it really happen? [00:55:41] Speaker A: We'll get back to that in a second. [00:55:44] Speaker C: I don't care enough. I league at Mickey's team. [00:55:47] Speaker A: All right, so I assume that means that you do care about open cup. So who's winning open Cup, Dan? You don't know who's playing in it this year? Hearts of pine. [00:55:56] Speaker C: This, this, this season's really crazy. [00:55:58] Speaker A: El Paso Peka USL team. Come on, I dare you. [00:56:03] Speaker C: Wait, which MLS teams are playing the. [00:56:05] Speaker A: Teams that didn't make the playoffs? [00:56:08] Speaker C: That's what I'm trying to figure out. Like Houston. Houston for example, are doing some good things. There's a chance they win it again. [00:56:17] Speaker A: Okay, Buzz, who you got for open Cup? [00:56:19] Speaker B: LA Galaxy. [00:56:21] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Although have they replaced. [00:56:25] Speaker C: Oh, Atlanta United's winning it. [00:56:26] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Have they replaced Puige? [00:56:31] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't think so. [00:56:33] Speaker A: All right, wild stuff. I. I do want to mention the other thing that came up because I don't think we talked about this in the last podcast is the news that the league cup. So a lot of the questions around FC Dallas I noticed that none of you picked up. How deep do either one of you think Dallas is going to get in leagues Cup? [00:56:53] Speaker B: Not very deep at all. [00:56:56] Speaker A: Dan. [00:56:57] Speaker C: Group. They're going to get grouped one of the. Yeah, they're going to get one of the bigger teams and they're going to get. Yeah. [00:57:03] Speaker B: Going to have to go to Mexico and play a game. [00:57:05] Speaker A: Yeah. See this is the thing that I think is an interesting deal because word started to leak out that the organizers are talking about having you know, because leagues cup's never been played anywhere other than the United States. But now they may be playing some of these games in Mexico. And that immediately got the three of us looking at each other like well, that almost certainly has to be Dallas because as we know the timing of the leagues cup falls right across that period of time of the project plan for Toyota Stadium. That not only is like the side being torn down, the whole stadium is just closed. [00:57:36] Speaker B: Period. [00:57:37] Speaker A: Period. The end. That's why Dallas is on the road for so much of the start of the second half of the season which then begged the question, well okay, they're going to play games in Manfield which by the way I think is a kick ass idea. But then the question was, well, wait, what if Dallas gets paired with the Chivas or a Club America or a Tigris? And now you're trying to play that in a 7, 500 seat stadium. Are you really going to leave all those dollars on the table? And the answer to the question, and because you really literally have no place else to play it in the Dallas Fort Worth area, somehow you can't play it. And you're certainly not going to give the city of Dallas the gratification of hosting games in the Cotton bowl after what happened with Moneygram. You can't play it at Choctaw, you can't play it at AT&T, you can't play it at SMU like where there's no place else to play it. So why not go to Mexico? And I have a feeling we're going to find out here in short order. Dallas is playing at least one, if not two of their games south of the border. [00:58:38] Speaker C: One thing to keep in mind is it's not even as simple as Dallas leaving dollars on the table. It is mls. [00:58:43] Speaker A: Yeah, MLS leaving dollars on the table. [00:58:45] Speaker C: So they are the ones that make the decision on where fc. [00:58:48] Speaker B: Yeah. That's why we all think that they're going to play in Mexico, and that's why Dan and I both think that they won't get out of the group is because they're going to have to play like two games. Games in Mexico or whatever. So. [00:58:55] Speaker A: So the question is, if Dallas goes to play a road game at Club America or Chivas, do we road trip to Mexico, is it safe enough to. [00:59:08] Speaker B: Go to those places? I'm. [00:59:13] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:59:15] Speaker C: I'm not worried about getting out there. I'm worried about getting back in. [00:59:18] Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough. Man, that'd be kind of fun to go on a road trip and go watch Dallas play in a foreign land. That would be kind of cool. [00:59:27] Speaker C: I went. I went when they played Oklahoma City and a friendly few years ago. [00:59:31] Speaker B: Fair. Totally fair. Yeah. [00:59:33] Speaker A: I was in Toronto and MLS Cup 2010, boys. [00:59:37] Speaker B: It's true. [00:59:37] Speaker A: I've done this. I've done this trip before and man, Canada was very scary. I was very worried about my safety and in Canada, very, very worried about. [00:59:47] Speaker B: Before we move on, I have one more prediction I want you guys to make. Over under Paxton Pomakol games at 4.5. You got the over or the under? [00:59:57] Speaker A: Oh, I would take the under all day. [01:00:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm on the under also. [01:00:03] Speaker C: I'm gonna give it. I'm gonna give a super Optimistic post World Cup 8. [01:00:09] Speaker B: Hey, that would be a massive, heartwarming win if we get to watch eight games out of Paxton this season. That'd be awesome. [01:00:16] Speaker C: Does he hit 30 minutes in any of those games? Who knows? [01:00:19] Speaker B: It can be eight subs. That's fine. [01:00:20] Speaker A: Let's. Let's play this out this way. What benefit would it give the club if they paid out his. Use the buyout on him now. [01:00:29] Speaker B: Well, you could clear all his money off the cap and his. In his, you know, dp. Not, not dp. It's a tam. They buy him down. Can use that roster spot. You know, like if you, if, if halfway through the season, even if you needed a DP spot, you could use his spot and buy him out, basically. You know, you don't get an international spot, you don't get a DP spot. You just get a max salary contract slot. [01:00:51] Speaker A: So what's the benefit to keeping him on the roster if he's not going to play? [01:00:54] Speaker B: Well, the only reason they've kept him on the roster for three years, they think he's going to play. That's all. They think he's going to eventually because like, you know, if, if he were to recover, he's a fringe national team level talent. You know, he gets paid that much money for a reason. So it's not. It's his talent level. So like, that's why they keep trying, you know, and maybe someday it'll happen, but, you know, I'm just not optimistic and so that's why the over under is only like four and a half games. [01:01:20] Speaker A: So, Dan, have we ever. Have we ever gotten any insight as to what happened in Portugal with his knee since he was training really well and everything and then suddenly just kind of dropped off the face of the earth? [01:01:30] Speaker C: No, it's a mystery. He got there and some kind of setback occurred and he didn't. Didn't train, didn't do anything. [01:01:37] Speaker A: Okay. [01:01:39] Speaker B: And we've not seen him even on a bench since coming back either, so obviously the travel was not good. [01:01:45] Speaker C: Two flights, what, three hour coach ride, whatever. It was like, yeah, I could totally see if you've got a bit of a, a dodgy knee. [01:01:54] Speaker B: Well, maybe they could get it to where they don't ever travel and they just use a home player only. Maybe that'll make it work, you know. [01:01:59] Speaker C: Well, it's a little easier when you're on domestic flights, I assume. [01:02:02] Speaker B: I mean, long flights. [01:02:03] Speaker A: The last thing I saw him was in the social media video where they were trying to get people to Discuss for Valentine's Day, describe their love life in soccer terminology. And he's sitting there with Chris Kappis and Chris Kappa says, man on man. [01:02:17] Speaker B: Man, I'm at high press. Like, whoa. [01:02:22] Speaker C: You'Re married. [01:02:28] Speaker A: That was quite funny. All right, well, let's move on to other things. Dallas Trinity's game got canceled because of weather in wherever it was they were supposed to play Lexington. Is that what it was? [01:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah, the field got trashed or saturated or whatever was unplayable. So, you know, basically weather. [01:02:45] Speaker A: And now they've got their game on Saturday against Carolina, who are in fifth place on 20 points. [01:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to talk about it much when their game got canceled, but, you know, Trinity's got a three, four new players now, and three of them are starting and the fourth one, they probably will soon enough. You know, they just need to continue to integrate those players into their squad. They're making some great strides and they're in a good direction. You got to really like what they're. They're doing. They stomped that team for nothing. Last time out was one of the Florida teams for la, for Lauderdale. Thank you. On Tip My Tongue so, you know, really positive about the direction things are going back. Half a season lost some momentum with the game cancel, but. But they got a pretty good team. Carolina sent to play and he was in fifth place on 20 points. But it doesn't matter so much about how good the team is at this point. Trinity's in a position of, in my opinion, do what you do and continue to get better what you do with these new players and get yourself locked in with these new players because they're good enough now that they can dictate to the opposition how we're going to play the game and how the game should go. So that's a positive place to be in when you're looking towards the a push for the back end of playoffs. And they're going to have a bunch of home games coming up, not this part coming up, and then we'll get to see him in action up close. [01:03:55] Speaker C: Not only new players. Nathan Thacker is obviously, you know, still asserting that that new attacking style that, you know, complements the team that Chris preciously put together. [01:04:06] Speaker A: All right, so I guess it was Thursday night. [01:04:10] Speaker B: I went down same night as Cocktails and cleats. [01:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that was, uh. Do you think that was done on purpose or just by pure not paying attention? [01:04:19] Speaker B: I think it's not paying attention. [01:04:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Athletico. Dallas had a big soiree down at Happiest hour, which has the worst parking situation you could possibly imagine. [01:04:30] Speaker C: So much so I turned around and went home. [01:04:33] Speaker A: Yeah, if I didn't have parking, because it's right by the radio station, if I didn't have free parking already set up there and I walked over, I would have turned around and left. Left too. It was the parking was brutal. But they had a nice little turnout. Kyle Martino showed up to kind of MC the event as Matt and Sam, the owners of Athletico are the main owners for Athletico introduced Peter Luxane, Peter Lucine, whatever, Luke Song, Luke son, whatever as the new manager, which is a really interesting signing. I didn't have, you know, we talked about this last week. I that's not even a name I had thought. I think it's an interesting one. I felt bad for Peter because he had clearly just I, I attended the event as I said. So I went and I was a bit, I felt bad for Peter because he clearly had just gotten off a plane. I guess he had been over in Spain vacationing or something. So he was clearly jet lagged and I felt bad for him. But it's an interesting signing. I I I I There's a lot of reason to have a lot of promise. Brian Cochran was also there. So Brian is the sporting director and he is, I always forget his son's first name. MATTHEW COCHRAN FORMER FC DALLAS PLAYER it's his dad and he went through a whole spiel about a lot of things that we can get into in a second. But the one thing he really wanted to hammer home for people is that they believe in Peter Looksane so much that they are being very public about the fact that Peter will have the final say on all signings of players or players they don't sign. And they want to make a big stink about that because they really believe in his pedigree and resume and so forth. And I thought that was, that was interesting. But other than that, I'm happy to answer whatever questions you guys want to ask. [01:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really remarkable because, you know, to give a coach that kind of 100% control like that, especially with a new franchise in and, you know, you have a new head of soccer operations, you know, you think that those guys would be really stickers for how they want to have their team built. But maybe that just shows how much confidence they have seen Peter up close the last, you know, several years and his even his work in the academy, you know, because Corcoran's kid is of the same age to have I don't know if he actually played for Lucine or not, but looks on it or not, but he was, you know, within an age group one way or the other of him. So they would have seen him play a bunch, so know exactly what it's all about. So what did you think of, you know, their sort of methodology, Peter, about what they talked about? They wanted to play. Like, did they get into that kind of thing? [01:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah, they talked about it a little bit. Look, the whole event, when it came to talking about the future of the team and what the team's going to be, man, there's a ton of hope and, and looking forward to it. A lot of excitement. It, you know, I, I think what I was pleased to see because I wasn't. I haven't had a chance to talk to any of these guys before, and those guys being like Sam and Matt, I'd never even met either one of them before that night is just trying to get a sense of how realistic, like, what expectations they've set for themselves. And I feel like a lot of the answers they gave about that kind of stuff, including attendance at the Cotton bowl, were all stated in a very reasonable way in terms of, you know, what I think they, the internal expectations they're setting, which I think is good news. Now, that doesn't, you know, Kyle Martino, they were talking about something about player signings and buzz. You're breathing right into the mic and it's really loud and it was distressed. [01:08:07] Speaker B: Sorry, sorry. Yeah, Martino. [01:08:14] Speaker A: Kyle Martino was there, as I said, and at one point, I can't remember exactly what they were talking about, but he, like, stopped everybody talking. He said, look, I, you know, I'm an owner here, I have an ownership stake in it, but I don't get to say anything and nobody cares what I think. But I've seen the list of the type of players that these guys are shooting for, and it blew me away. And he finished the sentence by saying is, I can't tell you or reveal anything. But what I will say is, holy shit. Now, I, you know, I don't know what that means. I don't. I, you know, are they going to go out and sign guys that would normally be signed in Major League Soccer? Are they guys that would be playing in the championship in England or LA League? I don't, I just don't. I think we're going to have to wait and find out. But I, you know, there does. See, there's a lot of things to like about the club. Like, they, at one point, I Don't remember who was. I don't remember if it was Cochrane or if it was Valentine that said, look, we realize that all we are and have been to this point is, is a marketing company. You know, they've been selling merch and trying to sell tickets. They haven't played any soccer to this point, so they got a lot to prove and a long way to go. But they seem very invested in the facilities. The, the, the bar set up downtown and they're calling it Expo Park. That little area right outside Fair park they claim will be open before, by the time the World cup is here and there and planning on having all kinds of watching parties and events at that facility. And the, and the headquarters, the office across the street from it should be open a little bit after that. The only two pieces of news they kind of let out that I was unaware of. One, I didn't realize the MoneyGram partnership deal at the, the, the, the fields that they inherited, that was all an FC Dallas deal. So that was lost in the transition to Athletico. So that is no longer called MoneyGram. It is now called Dallas Soccer Park. I'm sure they'll go out and find a new sponsorship for themselves. That's an interesting loss of revenue that went back to the city of Dallas in many ways too, by the way. And two, they announced that they are in the final stages of signing a deal for their training facility and training grounds in, quote, South Dallas, close to Fair Park. So that's good. I think that's great news. [01:10:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I have no idea where that would possibly be, but yeah, that's. Those are fantastic. [01:10:44] Speaker A: Man, there's a lot of places down there you could put something pretty cool, but you know, that's an investment in that area. So I think a lot of that is my just kind of driving home thinking about what I had witnessed was, is that there's a good vibe. All of their merch looks kick ass. The branding is really good. They've really come a long way in solidifying the snake and wolf logo and trying to, you know, make that identifiable and a little bit more useful with the Atletico Dallas word marking and things like that. So there's lots of promise there. I, I just, you know, there's a. But they got a. Man, they got so much more Runway to run down before this thing takes off. [01:11:24] Speaker B: I am absolutely fascinated by how they're making almost every decision a polar opposite of way S.E. dallas did. S.E. dallas is out to the burbs. They have a small stadium. Their marketing is if you build it, they will come. It's like, it's families, it's corporate. Athletico is going to be big, huge cotton ball. Everything is grassroots. Event after event after event is a grassroots low level, street level, street teams, personalities. Dallas, FC Dallas never has personalities involved around their club. This is all personalities around the club with guys like Martino, with guys like Evra who was involved. Right. Patrice Evra. The marketing is all guerrilla style. The urban, the young, the people that are into soccer as a young urbanites, East Dallas, Hispanic, Latino, none of that like it's complete opposite from what SEO House has chosen to do over the last 25 years. [01:12:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:12:24] Speaker B: So it's gonna be fascinating to watch those two teams and I don't know that it's on purpose. I don't know that they like said, oh, do the opposite. Dallas, no matter what, it's just has worked out that way. Their approaches are completely different. It's going to be absolutely fascinating to watch how that plays out over the next several years in the soccer landscape. Not to mention whatever Fort Worth does when they come in. [01:12:43] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead, Dan, if you're going to say something. [01:12:45] Speaker C: I was going to say I think it has to be the opposite. FC Dallas has a built in customer base. You know, the vast majority of people that go to have gone to live soccer regularly in the Metroplex have had some affinity with FC Dallas. There's a built in support there. They have an extensive youth academy of, you know, thousands of kids and families. Atletico has the challenge of these grassroots elements. It's not only like, hey, you like soccer? It's hey, you like soccer? It's a TV show to you. But we've got the real life thing coming in a little over a year and we want you to be a part of that. There's a big conversion that they need to make. So they've got to make those moves to make it happen. Because we've seen with Dallas Trinity they haven't really made those moves. It's like they, they took the, if you build it, they will come approach and there's a massive chunk of their fan base that is FC Dallas fans that will go to literally any local team and they will also go to Atletico, Dallas. But that's 2,500 people. That's not anything that's sustainable. [01:14:03] Speaker A: You know, I think the element of this in terms of them doing it the opposite of FC Dallas is very much on purpose. But I also think it's easy to forget there's a reason why FC Dallas doesn't do it. This way because, you know, there was about eight years of established attempts to try to do business at the Cotton bowl and work with that community and try to make money from it. That was not working for the organization back then. And so they, you know, they flipped the script and said, okay, we're moving elsewhere. And so I think that's the challenge now. Part of what I have to admit up front is, is that while I feel like I am watching something I've seen play out before 30 years ago is the fact 30 years have passed and how much have changed in terms of demographics, the attitudes about the sport in our country. And if you're going to focus on a south and east Dallas community, largely Latino community, and you're really going to embrace that. Are they prepared to be more season ticket buyers than game day walk up? Because that was the burns big problem back 30 years ago was that while they led the league in walk up ticket sales that was wildly inconsistent because it was so dependent on weather, day of the week opponent, et cetera, et cetera. You can't run a soccer business or any sport business on game day revenue walk ups. You've got to have season ticket sales to help drive sponsorships and everything. It's your budget and everything. And, and so the question is, will that community support Atletico in that way? And I think internally, based on some things that they said at the, at the meeting, I think they've got their expectations set correctly and properly. But then my question is, do the fans by and large have their expectations set properly? If Athletico tends to follow the trend of other USL teams at this level, averaging, let's be generous and say 10,000 people a game in a 92,500 seat stadium is, are they going to be excited about that atmosphere and that game day experience? [01:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. I'm glad you brought up the season tickets thing because I was going to, you know, I know that from what Athletico have told me that they have a, you know, a high number of deposits that makes them really happy with the situation their season tickets are in. Because you're right, Dallas would have 12,000 a game, 15,000 a game. Whatever they were doing the first couple of seasons, those numbers are legit. Like, you're right, it would completely fall off whenever there was rain. [01:16:29] Speaker A: Right. [01:16:29] Speaker B: So dependent on those factors because it was such a humongous walk up kind of game day ticket buying crowd, you know. But at the same time, like we often saw many great game day experiences down at the Cotton Bowl. Granted, the Same is even bigger than it is now. And I, I've had some, some conversations with them about how, some ideas they have about how they're going to make the experience in the Cotton Ball good. We'll see if they can pay it off, whether that's really gonna happen or not. But like you look at the event that they just had, that look fantastic to me. The pictures we had on the website were from Mike Brooks were phenomenal. The video clips that you see are. It looks like an amazing sort of pageantry and event. And the parade thing we went to when they were doing their, their brands and their colors and all those kind of things have all been phenomenal. So like, I have no doubt that they're gonna be able to pull off a really good experience. You know, whether it's good enough to get to compete and get the audience they need is gonna be fascinating. [01:17:17] Speaker C: You know, one thing we, we keep talking about with FC Dallas is like, you know the, with the stadium renovation, the number of seats isn't going up, but the number of suites is. That is something Dallas Trinity has not been able to take any advantage of. They've just now got that kind of fan suite thing open. Their VIP area is, is a gazebo on the end of the field and, and someone serving a cold buffet. How can Atletico Dallas differentiate from that? To bring in corporate sponsorship, commercial revenue, the things that can help drive them even if they are dependent on game day revenue like walk up sales. [01:18:04] Speaker B: Those are some questions I don't have. [01:18:06] Speaker A: The answer to that I'm going to keep beating this drum until my head explodes. Uploads. And I know people are tired of it, but I think they have two main things they be should be shooting for. One is they got to figure out how making going to the Cotton bowl is cool again. And I mean that very literally. And two, they've got to set expectations about quality of play, quality of players, game day experience. I think there's a way to tell that story where you don't make it look bad. It's okay to be a new league, a fresh look, a fresh start, and you're starting from this new place and helping set people's expectations that this isn't instantly going to be mls, a direct MLS competitor. The reality is I'm, I'm, you know, we've got a long way to go. But I'm so convinced that what this is going to look like in 2027 or 2028 when Premier launches is that the gap between MLS play and USL Premier is going to be a far wider gap than between USL Premier and USL Championship. And I think that actually plays into their advantage because it means that if they are going to introduce some form of promotion, relegation, the competitiveness between those two divisions is going to be much greater and I think will make for a more entertaining product. [01:19:31] Speaker C: I think that plays into them having Peter as coach. Yeah, you know, obviously they're all, you know, as an ownership group, as a group operating a soccer team, they are. They are new to this, obviously, you know, a chief soccer officer, a sporting director, whatever. They're only as good as their contact book. And if you don't have someone that's seasoned in it, the next best thing you can have is someone that is a very seasoned coach with a amazing contact book from a playing career as well, who has been tapped into youth soccer in the area for, you know, a decade at this point and can help you assemble that team to develop from the championship into Premier, into whatever Premier evolves into as a standard. [01:20:24] Speaker A: I also want to be clear that my other takeaway is that all these guys involved are very smart. They're deep in the soccer community. Cochran in particular, they know their stuff from both the. The game itself and from the business standpoint. I think they're all smart cookies. I think they have a. They've all worked very hard to kind of develop a plan that they're trying to execute on. They said it at the deal their success is going to live or die on whether or not the marketplace comes out to games. They. [01:20:54] Speaker C: The. [01:20:54] Speaker A: The quote was, I'm asked all the time, what can I do to help? And the answer is, come to our games. And then Martino said, and buy our merch. Because right now that's the only thing that's really sustaining them in terms of revenue is the sales of a lot of their sweet stuff. So, you know, that is. That's the trick. And if they. And, you know, and The Burn and MLS really struggled with that 30 years ago, and it'll be, like you said, buzz, the keyword is fascinating to see how much the market and everything else has changed. Because the other thing, the other thing that I noticed, and I think this isn't going to surprise anybody, the mood in that room in particular was so very thickly anti Major League Soccer. Like it was. Yes. It's like somebody. Several people brought up, oh, man, promotion, relegation, that's really going to be the thing. And you, you know, just another somebody talking about how the system in FC Dallas and the academy system failed them as a. A Player trying to become a professional and, you know, just all the other. I mean, and I think this is all healthy and good, but a lot of people are arriving at this just because they've been so anti mls. Well, okay, here's your chance. If you, if you want a downtown core urban stadium next to a train stop, you're going to have a soccer team to go to. Now it's up to you, consumer to, you know, put your money where your mouth is. [01:22:20] Speaker B: It's not my business model, but I would love to see, as a consumer on the outside, I would love to see them make a real competitive product in terms of ticket affordability. You know, we talk about leagues around the world, like the German League in particular, that tickets are all really affordable. [01:22:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:22:34] Speaker B: You know, I know a lot of people that have been FC Dallas fans for a long time that feel really priced out and that like every single year for like the past decade, there's a bunch of people that drop their season tickets because they get priced out. [01:22:45] Speaker A: And I buzz, you were priced out. [01:22:47] Speaker B: I was priced out, yeah, for sure. I was one of those people. So, like, you know, I just think it would be really great to see, you know, particularly if you're going to be more urban, if you're going to be more East Dallas, if you're going to be, you know, these, the, the core, the young and not suburbia, not corporate. You know, you need to have your ticket. In my opinion, you need to have your tickets based, of course, certainly. And those guys at Athletico, they're phenomenal storytellers. They love to tell a story leading up to any sort of big announcement. I'm quite sure, Peter, that they're going to have all kinds of stories leading up to their launch about the. Just so you'll know the players and you'll know the level you're going to be getting and all that kind of stuff. I mean, almost looking forward to it from the outside and just soaking it all in as it comes to pass. So it'll be fun. [01:23:26] Speaker C: I think one thing is one thing, I think you can add it as your, your 0.5 to the standard in the league is that those people that are, you know, anti MLS and we want, we want pro rail, what promotion and relegation looks like in USL is not going to be what they envisage and it's going to be a difficulty for all the clubs to set the expectation and to deliver the. Hey, look, so maybe it's not what Tim Foil Ted told you about on, on Twitter years ago, but but it's good. It is still a meritocracy and everything else. The other. And the other thing I think is. I know there's the. The fun, edgy FC Dallas has its own fan base 3,000 miles up the road. Whatever they want to say, they're going to make more money off of people that have or have had some affinity with FC Dallas and maybe been priced out or have, you know, maybe just didn't want the tollway or something along those lines. [01:24:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:35] Speaker C: And that you. You really do risk alienating a lot of people that will spend a lot of money on your product, you know, if you, if you struggle to deliver the wrong message. [01:24:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Definitely don't need to be like an anti FCD house message. That's not what you want to go for. You just want to offer an alternative. [01:24:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:56] Speaker C: You know, our Discord server, everyone in there will go to FC Dallas. If FC Dallas is away, a massive chunk of those people would go to Atletico, would go to Dallas, Trinity, we'd go to Denton Diablos, McKinney, Chupacabras, wherever. They just want to support local soccer. And. [01:25:12] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's. [01:25:13] Speaker C: There's no harm in. Yeah, there's. There's no harm in being the alternate product for people that enjoy both. [01:25:22] Speaker A: You know, there was an interesting moment at the event where Cochran said, hey, you know, we just need everybody to come out and enjoy the fact that while it's a giant stadium, we can make 8,000 people have a really good time. And you could kind of tell that everybody was like, oh, please don't say 8,000 people. And then he said, well, why not 10? And then somebody said 15. And then. And then one of the two other guys leaned over, why not 20? And so I. It's like, look, it may be 8,000 people a game. It just may be, you know, I mean, Trinity has been in that place for a year now, and they're really struggling to get literally enough people that you can't just count them by pointing at them in the stands. So, you know, they've got to, they. They've got to help set those expectations. [01:26:07] Speaker C: Didn't you get the numbers the other way? You can find that no team in USL championships broke a 10,000 average this or this past season. [01:26:16] Speaker A: USL last year, nobody broke 10,000 average. Correct. Not a single team. And in fact, if you go back several years dating to the pandemic, the regularity of any team breaking 10,000 was typically just one or two teams. Sacramento, El Paso did it once. And I think maybe the Battery I don't remember. But it's not like any significant number. [01:26:39] Speaker B: Number. [01:26:40] Speaker C: But that's it. That, that kind of realism is, is, is healthy because otherwise you get the situation you had with Trinity where they thought they were going to sell out the entire cotton ball for the Barcelona game and sold 5,000 tickets. [01:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think if they don't set their expectations properly internally and figure out how to communicate that externally, I think that's where people walk in and go, well, this is a bummer. I wasn't, I was expecting something more than that. [01:27:06] Speaker B: This. [01:27:07] Speaker C: So, yeah, it's like saying Frisco. Oh Yeah. It's a 20,000 seat stadium. They've had 30 consecutive sellouts. Whatever else. And then someone comes in on Saturday and they're like, wait, there's just maybe 10,000 people here. What's going on? [01:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like going to a brand new movie theater and you think it's going to have all the kick ass new stuff and you find out the seats don't even lean back or you don't have cup holders or whatever. [01:27:33] Speaker C: That is the most Peter analogy ever. [01:27:36] Speaker A: The subwoofer is broken. [01:27:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:40] Speaker A: And you want your money back. [01:27:41] Speaker C: Everyone else is like, this movie is cool. [01:27:44] Speaker A: And I can't pay attention because the stupid subwoofers busted and buzzing around. All right, well, anyway, we'll talk. [01:27:52] Speaker B: I, I'm sure we're going to talk. [01:27:53] Speaker A: Way more about this. I'm super. Yeah, I'm super. I, I and I really don't want anybody to come away from this thinking that I'm not negative or pessimistic or anything. I am super enthusiastic and enthused about the opportunity those guys have to do something really, really cool at a place that I truly love. The Cotton bowl is so important to me. I was married in Fair park, for Christ's sake. So I have a reason for it to be successful. I want it to be successful. I'm just really curious about how they plan to move forward and make that all the things we want it to be. [01:28:27] Speaker C: So I know everyone loses half their income every year in Fair park, but kind of took the piss there. [01:28:37] Speaker A: Something like that. Yeah. [01:28:39] Speaker B: Very good. [01:28:39] Speaker A: All right, well, let's see. North Texas signed a player. Buzz. [01:28:44] Speaker B: Yeah. This is one of the house's draft. [01:28:45] Speaker A: Picks and he's eight years old, it says here. [01:28:48] Speaker B: No, he's an eight. [01:28:49] Speaker A: Oh, he's an eight. [01:28:51] Speaker B: I believe he played for Virginia, who had a pretty good year. Dan said somebody told him that he was the best. Aiden College soccer or Something. So, yeah, we didn't even actually know he was in camp because, like, I guess he reported late. He wasn't on the initial North Texas list. I got. And we've not been. And they've been putting trials, trials, trials, trials, trials, trials on their stupid game things, which is so dumb. But it turns out he was in camp and he played well enough that they signed him. And so that's a. You know, on paper, when they picked that guy, that was an interesting looking pick. So we'll get a good chance to see him in. In North Texas. [01:29:25] Speaker A: Okay. [01:29:25] Speaker C: That was the last draft pick account for. And they also signed a goalkeeper. They got Eric DeMora from Duke. [01:29:31] Speaker B: Oh, was that since the last podcast? Yeah, that's. We knew he was. Yeah. [01:29:36] Speaker A: Okay. Have we seen the man. Have we seen the North Texas schedule yet? When do they start playing in Mansfield? [01:29:43] Speaker C: Officially? July 4th. [01:29:45] Speaker A: Really? Right in the middle. So wait, that league is playing through the World Cup? [01:29:51] Speaker B: No, I think they have a. They have a break in there too, and then they come back and July. [01:29:56] Speaker A: 4Th is in the middle of the World Cup. [01:29:58] Speaker B: I know what I was saying was like, mls, they're going to start playing again before the World cup is over. They're only taking off part of the World Cup. [01:30:07] Speaker A: Oh, I thought MLS was taking the entire World cup off. [01:30:10] Speaker B: No, they got lease cup too. [01:30:12] Speaker A: Right. [01:30:13] Speaker B: So this is going to pick up in there. [01:30:15] Speaker A: Okay. [01:30:16] Speaker B: Towards the end of the July. I don't think they're taking the whole World cup off. They're just taking up a good chunk of the group stage. [01:30:22] Speaker A: July 4th is the day after. Yeah. Okay. That's right there at the end of the group of 32 stage. All right, well, fascinating. I'm excited about Mansfield, by the way. I think that'll be a lot of fun. All right. I don't think there's anything else to Jim jam. Oh, my good Lord. We went hour and a half. [01:30:38] Speaker B: Somebody got very excited about the athletic party. [01:30:41] Speaker A: I spent too much time talking about thanking people for showing up to the party last week. [01:30:46] Speaker B: No, you didn't. That was appropriate. The party was awesome. [01:30:50] Speaker A: Well, thank you both for showing up. [01:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you guys for showing up. [01:30:57] Speaker A: Our pleasure. How much driving you got left, Buzz? [01:31:00] Speaker B: One more day? Like six hours? Six. [01:31:03] Speaker C: A half maybe. [01:31:03] Speaker B: All right, how much snow comes in the next 12 hours? [01:31:05] Speaker A: Since this is like the umpteenth time you've made this drive one way or the other, what's the. What is the pinnacle? What's your favorite part that you look most forward to on the drive From Dallas to Spokane and back. [01:31:18] Speaker B: Well, I go a different way every time. So it's not like, you know, I always. [01:31:21] Speaker A: How many ways are there to go to Spokane from Dallas? [01:31:24] Speaker B: I've showed you that map I have that has like, all the orange tracks all over it. [01:31:28] Speaker A: It's so great. Crazy. [01:31:29] Speaker B: It's such a crazy man. [01:31:30] Speaker A: So insane. All right, well, I didn't know if there was like, one thing that you make sure you pass every time just so you don't miss it. [01:31:40] Speaker C: A gas station? [01:31:41] Speaker B: Yeah. You know. No, no, no. I don't do Buc EE's. Bucky's is just a truck stop now. Nothing specifically. It's just to, you know, I. I try as much possible to not be on the interstate all the time, but sometimes on this moving package, I've been a hurry and trying to get there, and so I'm more interested than I like. [01:31:59] Speaker A: Well, I missed you already. And you already made me cry this week when you posted the photo of you standing in front of the welcome to Texas sign. [01:32:06] Speaker B: So, yeah, that was a goodbye Texas sign. [01:32:08] Speaker A: F you, Buzz, for making me weepy. [01:32:10] Speaker B: Sorry, man. [01:32:11] Speaker A: F you too, Dan, for making me weak. [01:32:14] Speaker C: Thanks. You're welcome. [01:32:17] Speaker B: There to be. The podcast is brought to you by the Dallas Pure Guardians 24 Hour Tailgate. We're just days away from the biggest tailgate tradition in Texas. 24 hour tailgate that kicks off Friday, February 20th, 7pm in the red lot at Toyota Stadium. Continues until kickoff on the 21st when SC Dallas takes on Toronto. This year's party features food for all, 24 hours of live DJ to keep the vibes up, extra vendors, games and surprises, and always, free beer for everyone over 21 from our friends at Pentacola. Bring your friends, Bring your passion. Part of the tradition that Dallas Beer Guardians is known for. It's a 24 hour tailgate. Don't miss it. [01:32:54] Speaker A: All right, very good. Well, thank you both, Buzz. Travel safely, get there safely. Give Amy a hug and thank you. DFW Soccer. Curious. We will be back next week with a much shorter episode. Oh, and three points, no doubt, of Third Degree, the Pun Podcast. [01:33:14] Speaker C: Season's back. [01:33:15] Speaker A: Yay. Go. Burn. Go. [01:33:19] Speaker C: Third degree the third degree ne po. [01:33:24] Speaker A: The third degree ne podcast. Third degree the third degree n podcast. Third degree the third degreen podcast. Sam.