3rd Degree the Podcast #353

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Probably two hours. I mean, that's going to be a long podcast. [00:00:02] Speaker B: I will not be doing two hours. No, no, no, I will not. You guys can chat all you want, but I will not be doing two hours. Sorry about that, Buzzard. All right, here we go. Three, two, one. Yeah. Third degree, the third degree podcast. Third degree, the third de podcast. Third degree the third degree. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Third degree, the third degree. [00:00:41] Speaker B: Well, hello there, DFW soccer. Curious. Welcome to another episode of third degree, the podcast, episode 353. It says here in digital letters and fonts on a computer screen, no more handwritten red crayon. Goodness. [00:01:00] Speaker C: Wait, what did I get in the mail? [00:01:02] Speaker B: Oh, are you getting them in the mail, carrier pigeon? [00:01:06] Speaker C: Maybe? [00:01:07] Speaker B: All right, there he is. You hear him in his dulcet tones. It is Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:01:13] Speaker C: Hello. [00:01:14] Speaker B: Good week, sir. [00:01:15] Speaker C: It's a week. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Okay, we'll take that as it is. And your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of thirddegree.net and live from some outpost in the Pacific Northwest, it is Buzz Carrick. Come in, Buzz. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Hey. [00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:30] Speaker A: It's 40 degrees here right now. It's lovely. It's beautiful. [00:01:35] Speaker B: I'm at a point where I'm trying to figure out if other people in the DFW area have started turning on their air conditioners because we're right in that weird spot of it being in the 70s. And at night or close to the set, I'm like, is it too warm? Is it warm enough to turn the air conditioner on at night? Or not? I can't figure that out. Or not. Should I just, I guess, open the windows? [00:02:00] Speaker A: Open the windows. [00:02:01] Speaker B: What are you doing, Dan? [00:02:04] Speaker C: Apartment AC with the whole. You know, it keeps it in a certain range so it stays all year round. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, neither one of you or any help. Very good. We got lots to discuss today. All across the north Dallas or north Texas area, all the teams appear to be trying to do something. But we will start with the one that's nearest and dearest to our hearts football club, Dallas. As they went out to LA and bravely fought at a place they've never won before in all the few years that place has been open. And they dropped another one, Buzz. One nothing. [00:02:41] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, when. When you. You're talking about a place that Dallas is now 07 and one, I believe it is outscored 14 to three. Look, it's tough. It's. You know, when you're going over to these west coast teams that are really, really good all the time, you know, they have similar numbers in Seattle and similar numbers in Portland. You know, it is what it is. Inside of that context though, I thought the strategy was probably pretty on point and worked pretty well. It's hard to argue with what Quill rolled out there and there's some stats that we can talk about in a minute that indicate that it, it worked. And Dallas played about as good as they can. And honestly, it took a pretty amazing goal from Martinez to win the game for la. [00:03:26] Speaker B: How much of the fact that the team appeared to play considerably better and in a place, you know, that they've not played well against a team that everybody considers as a real contender. How much of that was taking Kaik and Delgado off and putting on Romero and Valente? [00:03:46] Speaker A: Well, certainly I think Delgado the previous game did not do very well. Valiente looked better. I don't think he impacted the game a ton, but he, you know, the, the biggest effect in terms of the ability to play through the middle was moving Romero back into the six, which allowed Capis to be Christian Capis to be an actual eight. And his decision making he's doing in midfield right now is spectacular. I'm not going to claim that he's as good as Yara Mindy, but in this particular asset, he's really smart about when to burst between some players, when to take a touch and turn, when to try and play a splitting pass to allow essay Dallas to maintain some possession, actually lengthy midfield. So that it was remarkable. Watching him play this last game, I saw him a little bit. He was just doing really, really good job in there. And, and him as an, having Cappas as an 8 versus a 6 is a big difference in midfield in particular. [00:04:42] Speaker B: Let's see. Other things were all pretty much the same with the exception, exception of a bit of surprise that he inverted or switch out his wing backs on different sides. [00:04:54] Speaker A: Yeah, this is the first time we've seen, you know, a whole game of the switch foot, wing back. I, I wrote in the game that I thought Bernie on the right in this game played the best that he's ever played on the right and actually was playing better on the right than he has been all this season on the left, which is remarkable because Bernie usually is awful on the right. [00:05:17] Speaker B: But, but can we, can we admit or can we agree that up until somewhere late in the first half when he took that one really good hit from outside the box, up until that point he had been awful. He was awful on the right up until that point. [00:05:34] Speaker A: Well, he wasn't good. There's A difference between saying that he was better than he'd been on the left and saying that he was actually good. Because I don't think Bernie was good. I think he was better defensively. He seemed to really have a, do a pretty good job on Dennis Wanga, I thought. And just to say that he's playing better on the left means that I saw an improvement in him. I still don't think he was good and I thought Johansson was, was, was taken out of the game a lot by being on the left and he was so much better. Johansson was, when they put him back on the right, they need to not do that experiment again because he was, he, you need him on the right because he's a really, really good player over there. So I, I, this is not a solution. It just was a small ray of light on Bernie. I still think that there's, he needs to sit, but that's a totally different discussion. [00:06:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I, I mean, I want to be clear. I thought Bernie overall had a, a really good game and I do think it was his best performance of the three this year. I just thought up until he took that really good confidence inducing hit from outside the box. He just really looks like he was struggling on the right. I don't know how much he liked or I don't know how much playing on the right hurt him or helped him or whatever it was. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Well, it allows him to go onto his good foot when he comes inside and it allows him to line up some, shoot some shooting from there. He doesn't get to do that a lot, usually on the left. I don't know why they've, he's played his whole career on the left actually, but he has and his comfort levels over there, you know, so just for him to not look like he was completely shell shocked for most of the game was actually an improvement. And, and, but I don't think it's a solution because you pulled the teeth on Johansson, which is one of your best players through the midfield and you can't be doing that. So like you, the minute he went back over to the right, it just came alive like, okay, that's, that's what needs to be. So like they have to find a different solution than flipping Bernie. That's not going to work. I think, you know, part of that discussion I think was the idea of like, you know, with Martinez on the other side, who's going to go watering all over the place. They didn't want to necessarily drag Bernie out of position and also his head to head Pace with this. Bianca was going to be important, I think, because there's one thing he can do defensively. The only thing he can do defensively is run with a guy. And he was able to do that on that side, I thought fairly well. [00:07:49] Speaker B: Yeah. I, it's just up until that point I just. There was nothing in Bernie's game so far this season that really led me to believe that he was an MLS starting quality player yet. And then after that hit, there were little things. He was beating guys on the ball, he was pass, you know, he was touching the ball past the defender and running past him and he just seemed, I don't know what happened in that moment, but he'd suddenly now, oh, that's what Quill sees in him. I still don't know if he's MLS starting quality for a team that's really serious about contending for anything. But I also think you're absolutely correct. The problem is, is that if Bernie for some reason is good on the right, well then what in the world did you do buying Hansen? Because that's his spot. [00:08:30] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and, and it leaves you like Johansson. Left isn't the solution either. It doesn't seem to be because that's not. He can do it like he was fine, but he wasn't great, you know, and it wasn't. And that's one of your best attacking moves on, you know, is to work through that side and Bernie, you know, up the left, well, it's not great. You know, he does get into the box and creates a little chaos, you know, and when Cavis is on that side over there with him, he can kind of hold together fairly well. So I don't, I don't think that you're going to see that, that switch foot thing much or in the next game. I wouldn't think based on what I saw, what I saw anyway in this game, did Bernie do enough that he can keep his spot? That's a tough call. You know, if there was a guy that was ready, other than Deedson, who's not a great wing back and Ricky Lewis, who's not a great wing back yet either, you know, we might be having a completely different discussion, but so [00:09:27] Speaker B: I want to, I wanted to take a few minutes to go back and get, and dig into this center midfielder thing because I mean, I think the midfield is generally Dallas's biggest problem in many ways because it's so critical to both going forward and defending. I'm just curious is I, I, my observation is the three guys that were out there in LA on Saturday night, were Worlds better than what we've seen in the first two games? [00:09:53] Speaker A: I would agree with you. Well, maybe not Worlds, certainly. Romero, you know, does a good job in terms of standing right in the middle and not particularly moving. But as you saw on the goal, he didn't close down the shooter either. Now he's not. I don't know that anyone is at fault, particularly on that goal, because that goal is just spectacularly good. There's about four or five different people that they'd have made, you know, a tiny bit faster of a reaction. [00:10:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Or a little bit more of a close down or clothes a little bit taller, you know, like lots of things like that could. That's such a really good goal. It's hard to really complain. [00:10:26] Speaker B: That's a tip. Your cap to the dude. [00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Capus is out there shielding that side and the ball passes past him. He turns around and Martinez is there picking it up. Capis tries to close and Ramiro's too far away. I guess he decides it doesn't try to close and then get amazing hit. I don't blame any of those dudes. That was such a good. [00:10:45] Speaker B: Well, nobody. I mean, if I'm either one of those guys, I'm like, there's no way he's going to try to hit this from here. [00:10:50] Speaker A: Well, he sure did. Yeah, it was. [00:10:52] Speaker B: He did. [00:10:52] Speaker A: It was delightful. It was, yeah, yeah. But, but outside of that, you know, I, I thought Valiente, I thought he had a nice first, like full game, but not like, not enough to make me think like, oh, that's that. Wow, huge. Let's. This guy's got all the answers. No, you know, there, there's some nice things there. There was some nice touch, some nice movement, there's some nice potential, but this wasn't like an unlock the game kind of performance, you know, But I think this trio probably is the way to go for a little bit. With the possible exception maybe of if you can get Kaik to over the next, you know, several games, maybe relax a little bit and not be quite so energized. Or Bunny even more so than the impression he already, the improvement he already has made, could he be in for Romero. But in the meantime, you know, they brought Valiante to start. Capis is basically the quill on the field, you know, and Ramirez the captain. So I think you're probably right, Peter, that this, this trio is going to be the trio for a bit, you know, See how it goes with Valiente, because he did show some Promise and some good looking movement and some, some willingness to jet into the box and a little squirt. I mean it's funny how tiny he is, but you know, the commentators had a quote where they said Quill said that he's. He's like Lucho but you know, younger and maybe wants to be here. So I'm not sure that that's a great endorsement because Lucha didn't work out very well when he was here. But you know, I, I'm willing to give that guy some more, lots more minutes and see how it goes. [00:12:32] Speaker B: So moving to the back line, obviously the three is what the three is, but a lot of credit has to be given and we'll talk about collode here in a little bit because he obviously was a huge of stifling LA for most of the night. I, you know, this was not their worst performance and I, there was, I don't remember a moment where I was like stop it or, or Shaq or whatever or. I just. It seemed like they were a little bit more settled in this game. [00:13:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that has to do with Romero being back in there in front of him, Cappas being in his natural spot. You know, after the first game they switched Ibiaga back to the left and more that more on the right, which is how they played all spring. So there's some comfort level there. You know, Ibiaga spent, did not spend the entire game yelling at his wing back as he did the previous game. So probably he's a little more focused on his own play, which is really good. Maybe part of what he. Why that went so well. But you know, this is the strategy, right? This low block. Matt Dole called it a bunker, but that's a little unfair. You can play a low block and honestly be like 11 guys behind the ball, you know. And just to back that up, Sam and Discord found a couple stats where LA had. Even though LA had 61 possession, LA still had 28 clearances to Dallas only having 25. And Dallas had 30 touches in. The opponent boxed only 16 from LA. Dallas did a really nice job of keeping LA out of the box. We've talked about that a lot last year. They want to make teams shoot from range. Usually that's a good strategy other than Martinez hitting a banger, you know, that's what it took to win this game. But that, that's, you know, in the end of the day, like if you buy the xg, I'm not a huge fan, but if you buy it, Dallas was 1.6 to LA is 1 according to major League Soccer. So, you know, there's. There's a lot to like about this performance. There's a lot to like about the, the defense and the, and the solidity of what Dallas is doing and the ability to keep LA limited like that. And then end of the day, LA just had a guy, a special player, do a special thing to win the game. And if you can keep Son that shut out and Martinez that shut out for most of the game, that's pretty good. [00:14:45] Speaker B: My bigger takeaway was the difference between this and the Nashville game, which was at home. And again, it goes back to the three in the midfield because I felt like Dallas was just better. And again, I want to also address this issue between bunkering and playing a low block, because you're right, everybody who's having this conversation on your discord should understand that there's a significant difference between parking the bus, which is bunkering, and playing a low block, which is just playing more defensively and playing out. And that's what I thought. Dallas was doing much better in this game. Again, I think it's because to your point, Cap is playing a true eight and Kaik isn't running all over the place with his head cut off like a chicken. And Delgado the same. There's just much more organization with those three guys that I think makes the team just look more cohesive in total than what we've seen in the first two weeks. And that, to me, was the biggest promise, along with the fact that there were just periods of time where they were the better team. [00:15:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we're seeing right now a state where the. The U22 initiative guys, 23, 22, 20 years old, those guys are not really ready to carry full loads yet. Well, they all sort of have potential, but Ramiro is the answer. Camaro's campus is the answer. Valiente at like 24 is a little more mature. And just to show you how effective you're right here the midfield was, Dallas ended up having 15 shots and. And five on goal. That's a pretty good shot total on only 39 possession. The problem in this game was people were missing their shooting boots a little bit. Not very good. Finishing only 5 on target, whereas LA had 6 on target out of their 10. That's much better performance. Percentage of shots on goal, 3 to 1 for Dallas. Shots on goal versus shots is not what we want to see. We want to see a much better situation than that. Usually Musa and Fering Jenner are better for that, but just in this game I felt like there were quite a few chances Dallas had that they just failed to maybe got a little panic, maybe got a little excited because they're not used to getting those kind of opportunities in la. So you know, I think, I really think like even though it's a loss, I think this is a really good performance. I think the Quill and this team can look at this performance and say, hey, if we can do that, we're going to be in games and we're going to win games, especially on the road, we're going to be in stuff, you know, just because it didn't break our way this time, if once we get, you know, settle down a little bit maybe in front of net and maybe keep out that world class goal, which sometimes you just can't but you know, just you to break your way in this one. [00:17:19] Speaker B: I'm probably being an asshole for saying this, but I'm gonna say it. I agree with all of this and in the context of the moment that's absolutely true. But as a long term fan I'm burned out on moral victories. [00:17:29] Speaker A: I know we try and stay in the moment though. [00:17:33] Speaker B: I mean, you know, I get it, you almost pulled a, pulled something out of your butt in LA where you've never won before. But I think if I'm just trying to look at this through a positive lens, they played way better. I don't think any of us thought they would, that would end up being a 10 kind of battle the way it played out and there were parts of this look, I, I, compared to the other two games, there were way more things in this game that I thought were good indicators and positive signs than anything I'm, I took from the first two games combined, even in the win. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Frankly, yeah, LAFC is a legit cup contender and that was a pretty good showing against for a team that basically is a mid table team, FC Dallas. So that was a good performance. [00:18:16] Speaker B: You know, I, I, the other thing that dawned on me was now we've had two games in a row where they've played real contenders, one from the east, one from the West. And my other takeaway that I think is the common thread is I was disappointed in the performance of both of those opponents. Like I was kind of like, is that really Nashville? Is that really lafc? And then it dawns on me maybe that's just Dallas making it hard for both of those teams to play and I'm not giving Dallas enough credit. [00:18:42] Speaker A: Yeah, remember this formation is about locking it down, right? Five across the back three across the front, right in front of them. [00:18:48] Speaker B: It is a 5, 3, 2. I don't want anybody trying to sell me this is a 3, 5, 2. It is not. It is a 5 in the back 3 in a flat line right in front of them and a two guys way up front and a lot of space in between them. [00:19:02] Speaker A: It's a quill Christmas tree. The gift that keeps on giving. [00:19:04] Speaker B: I'm not even sure it's a Christmas tree. [00:19:07] Speaker A: It's definitely not a Christmas tree. It's a quilt tree. [00:19:09] Speaker B: It's like a tree that's had its top end lopped off and thrown way down the field. [00:19:14] Speaker A: It's a really wide base with a tiny little two dudes of him. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I would say that's my other. That's. If I do have a running concern is is the fact that this formation is set up that it's going to be hard for them to build consistent attacks because there's so much space between the back eight and the front two. [00:19:36] Speaker A: This is why we've been saying all spring why wing back play is so huge and why we really like what Johansson's bringing to the table. Some of those crosses he was putting in were phenomenal late in the game. Once he was. More crosses, more crosses. This is why it's such a problem that Bernie is not doing very well on the left. Like you have to solve the left for this to all work. And this is why it was really important to get Cabis back as I'm linking 8 and it's really important to get Valiente to become this aid or free aid or whatever you need him to be like. You got to fix the left for Bernie and you got to get a Valiante going and I think you're going to be in pretty good shape for a team that's a mid table team that you're going to hope is going to start to push a little bit. You're not going to be la like a legit 100% cup contender like this year, but you're going to get yourself into the middle and up and start to push towards those better parts of the standings. I think if those two things can happen. [00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And the problem is they don't really have an option beyond Bernie on the left hand side. [00:20:34] Speaker A: Not yet. But Ricky Lewis has potential. Deetson's obviously got some verticality over there. You know, let's talk about Nolan Norris, even though we're not going to get into the 11 yet, but let's talk about why we don't talk about him at left wing back because coach doesn't talk about him at left wing back. Like, they just did this profile on Nolan and he talked about left back, left center back, center back. 6. He did not mention wing back. He's. He lacks the verticality that Quill needs in this particular formation. So, like the idea that, like, oh, just put Norris out there, that doesn't work. Like, Norris could be left center back in this system. He could be in for Ibiaga and that, or maybe as a 6 if you need him. But like, you know, other than. Other than Deedson or Lewis, then he has started talking about Torcado and now Del Cardo has some verticality, but he's so inexperienced in Raw that, you know, like, he got some minutes last year. You don't want to have to go back to him yet. You want to let him play at North Texas for a while. And then after that you get into, like, ideas like, can you. Can somebody else center back? So Shaq Moore could go with it. That's getting really desperate. You want to have one of those three guys that we've been talking about come through for you and become equivalent of Johansson on the other side. [00:21:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And then I think absolutely, we need to spend some time talking about the. The great night. Mr. Collode, had you mentioned this in your three thing reaction video after the game was there was a real coming out of Michael on this evening. There was just kind of a vibe and a look and kind of a, I don't know, glow coming off the guy. Yeah, that was really apparent. And he was great, man. I mean, he could do. No. I don't know if any keeper in the world saves Martinez's banger. That thing's unbelievable. That's an almost perfect hit. But I thought Clody was really, really solid all the way through, and I was feeling plenty pleased about his performance. [00:22:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not. Five saves is good. Right. And some of those saves were on people that are really talented. But it wasn't the saves, as you say. It was the way he carried himself. Like the first couple of games this [00:22:41] Speaker B: year, we needed the bandana back. That's how badass he looked. Right. [00:22:45] Speaker A: He needed. He was a little nervous, a little uncomfortable the first couple of games, but this game, he was back to last year's confidence. The way he carried himself, the body language, the eyes, the look like staring down people when he was making saves, like he was feeling it. And that's the quality you need when Cody's like that you're great. When Cody's nervous and everyone's looking him like, what are you doing? Versus like in this one where he's, everyone's like, you're the man, we love you. You could see the defense feeding off of it. I thought all game, I thought it was this presence alone that got a man of the match for my me. [00:23:15] Speaker B: I, I. The other observation I had was how many of these come out and punch the ball away, would pause, even have tried. [00:23:24] Speaker A: Yeah, he's not. That was one of Pa's weaknesses. His cross is, you know, when Khloe started doing that last year, Pa started trying to bring it more to his repertoire, but he's not as good at it as clothing, which is really funny because he's like 3 inches tall at Glody. [00:23:39] Speaker B: But yeah, I know it's weird. [00:23:41] Speaker A: I don't think any of us, I mean clothes, I mean, Pa seems to be doing great. I actually, hey, good for him. Awesome. He's starting but Clodi's having, doing a great job here and, and if he plays like this, he could be. I've seen also starting keeper for a long time. It would take a really remarkable set of performances to knock him out by somebody else coming in here. [00:23:58] Speaker B: Well, he almost took Chris Capis head off coming out for one of those punches. So I look, take them all out. I don't care. I love it. I think, I think it's great. Moussa and Farrington up top. You know, one of the weird substitutes. Okay, explain to me the substitution of taking Farrington off. And who else did he take off in that substitution? It was Farrington. [00:24:21] Speaker A: And who was. There were two Valiante. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:24:26] Speaker A: Oh, Romero was five minutes later. Yeah. [00:24:28] Speaker B: So who were the two that he took off? Farrington and him. [00:24:30] Speaker A: Farrington for Ricky Lewis. Ricky Lewis went and played like a high nine with Musa underneath, strangely. And Valiente went off for Kaik. [00:24:38] Speaker B: Okay, I don't, I don't get that. [00:24:41] Speaker A: Well, five minutes later, Delgado came on for Romero. So like it just was, it was basically putting, you know, some energy in Kaikan as a six and Delgado and for Valiant is basically what happened over a five minute window. It wasn't. [00:24:54] Speaker B: But I don't understand the Farrington sub. Like why take Logan off? Logan was, I didn't feel, I mean neither Musa or Farrington were having a huge night and obviously Logan's probably ruing his one chance that he probably should have tried faster. That Larisse just, you know, did a better job of. I just thought it was a Weird sub in the moment. [00:25:16] Speaker A: Well, sometimes you just. You don't take a guy out because he was poor specifically, but you bring on another guy just to be fresh. And Lewis is a guy that can play over the top and run. So, like, if you're playing pretty low block, you know, and LA is coming on and taking more and more shots and you need to extend the field and run, that would be why Lewis would be in over variants. [00:25:40] Speaker B: Are you saying to me that Eric Quill had a mission for Ricky Lewis to immediately run out on the field in his debut and stomp on the toes of a World cup winner right off the bat is his very first thing as a professional soccer player? Is that what you're telling me? [00:25:57] Speaker A: No, no, I'm saying that, like, not all subs are because the guy coming off was playing bad. Sometimes it's like I just want to get on a fresh attacker and I. What I have on the bench is Ricky Lewis. Because that's all he had at that point. Right? I mean, you know, well, it's the [00:26:11] Speaker B: only thing he did all night was step on Larisse's toes 30 seconds after stepping on the field. [00:26:17] Speaker A: Well, he did have. Let's see, he had four shots. No, he had four passes. [00:26:24] Speaker B: I was like, there's no way he had four. [00:26:26] Speaker A: I saw the four and I thought maybe it was shot. He didn't. He didn't see much of the ball. You know, I mean, it's not his fault the ball didn't come to him. You know, it didn't work, obviously, but, you know, he's trying to freshen it up, trying to get some legs on there. You know, if you look at the bench, you know, the pieces he had available. Well, Norris is not an attacking piece. Delgado, he brought in for Romero to get some attack going. Sarver, maybe, but like, Sarver is not a high nine. Like, he could have brought Sovereign and played him sort of underneath, but, you know, was Deetson already in the game at that point? Let me check the feed. [00:26:58] Speaker B: No, I think the. I think the thing that you're talking about here, Buzz, is exactly the thing that we've been worried about is there's just not a lot of options. No, once you get past. It's, you know, once you get past, like 12, maybe 13, you just don't have a lot to. To. To get yourself back into a game with. There's a lot of really young players, you know. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah, he had decent available, but Deetson is not a nine. DSIN's A wing. Like he wants to come way over by the sideline and come cutting in. Like, Lewis is the only, like, center channel forward that he had available. And so, like, without changing the shape. That was the choice. [00:27:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it was funny. You know, Dunny was on the call with Max for apple, and, you know, Dunny obviously is from Salt Lake and spent a lot of time as their TV guy. So he's really pro Anderson Julio, and he was very much making a big noise about how Anderson Julio got hurt and it was out for the game and how that was going to really affect Dallas. And, you know, I'm just not the biggest Anderson Julio fan. Sorry. [00:28:00] Speaker C: I just. [00:28:00] Speaker B: Yeah, but I do think he's really good. I think he could be an effective player coming off the bench. And I have to admit, this was a game. Maybe they could have used Anderson Julio. [00:28:09] Speaker A: Yeah, Anderson Julio would have been the sub instead of Ricky Lewis if he hadn't been hurt. Yeah, I thought it was interesting that they said they claimed that Anderson Julio was going to start that game. I thought that was if that's true. That's really surprising. They definitely said that. Talking about an Julio, I wonder if [00:28:24] Speaker B: they just wanted the, the speed of him versus Logan, maybe. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Maybe make him sit back. I'm not sure. Like, I, I find it unlikely that that would be the case because Farrington and Musa both have been playing really well. Maybe one of those guys had a slight knock or something and they were going to give him a little rest, you know, versus until Anderson got hurt. So, you know, secondhand. Like, listen, when Quill has those player. Those meetings with those commentators, he does not tell them the truth. I mean, we've seen those guys come on the air and be like, oh, yeah, Ben Yamin's gonna play left wing back today. You're like, no, no, he's not. You know. Oh, no, Quilt told us. No, I mean, he may have, but he's not, you know, I mean, like, it was, oh, last year, it was Delgado was gonna play wing back, and I was like, no, no, he's not. So, like, you know, they. He may have been like, oh, yeah, yeah, we're thinking about starting Anderson Julio up top. No, he's hurt, you know, so you can't believe everything that Quill tells those guys, or even half of what Quill tells those guys. But yeah, I, I. Speaking of daddy and Max, I couldn't believe they did plain old greats and left out Chad. I mean, like, two great u. S. Greats. I mean, I mean, greats relative, but still, like, cheering. Played at a World Cup. William wins. Got a bunch of caps. [00:29:42] Speaker B: You know, Jeff, Vegas was Pierce, right? He wasn't Plano. [00:29:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to say Richardson Pierce [00:29:47] Speaker B: and Keaton Parks wasn't Plano either. Keaton Parks is from Frisco. [00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Parks is the Frisco kid and played for Amando Perles who hates FC Dallas. [00:29:57] Speaker B: Yeah, they. They butchered all that. [00:29:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:59] Speaker B: More than they should have. [00:30:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:30:02] Speaker B: To leave Deering out and. [00:30:04] Speaker A: Yeah, next time check with us. We'll let you know. [00:30:06] Speaker B: Yeah, guys, just call Buzz. [00:30:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Or Peter. You don't want. You know, they got your number. I know he's got my number. He can hook me up. Let me know. [00:30:14] Speaker B: Oh, hi, Dan. [00:30:17] Speaker C: Hello. [00:30:19] Speaker B: Sorry, I didn't mean to feel. I hope you don't feel left out. I haven't addressed you or talk to you or included you at all. I'm terrible at this job. [00:30:26] Speaker C: How to. Very busy weekend and unfortunately I didn't get to watch Luton, didn't get to watch FC Dallas, didn't get to watch North Texas at Sea, didn't get to watch Dallas Trinity. So I'm about as much use as a chocolate teapot right now. [00:30:40] Speaker B: Oh, wait, a what? [00:30:45] Speaker A: That's pretty useful. [00:30:45] Speaker B: Chocolate teapot. Okay. [00:30:47] Speaker C: All right. [00:30:47] Speaker A: Pretty useless. [00:30:48] Speaker B: I dig it. Well, I, I hope whatever else you were busy doing got done successfully and to your satisfaction. [00:30:56] Speaker C: Mostly. Unfortunately, part of it was playing. Playing soccer yesterday morning and got a real nice dead leg. So that's fun. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Oh, no. How are the Husky Hive doing this season? [00:31:10] Speaker C: Unbeaten so far. [00:31:12] Speaker A: Wow. [00:31:13] Speaker B: Have you hit a banger? Have you hit a Martinez banger? [00:31:16] Speaker C: No, I had a tap in yesterday though. [00:31:19] Speaker B: All right, good for you. [00:31:21] Speaker C: Does that help? [00:31:21] Speaker B: All right. Did you score a hat trick on your weight loss program? [00:31:26] Speaker C: Yes. [00:31:30] Speaker B: That's awesome. I think that's cool. [00:31:33] Speaker C: We just found out today some guy in one of the UK leagues hit 55 of his body weight. [00:31:39] Speaker B: Meaning he's lost 55% of his body weight since he started doing this. That's ridiculous. [00:31:44] Speaker C: It's crazy. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Wow. [00:31:47] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Very good. Congratulations. Well, anyway, Dan, do you have anything you want to throw in here or question you want to ask about the game in some way? I just want to make sure you feel included. [00:32:00] Speaker C: No, no, not really. I mean, I've been. Just been kind of absorbing. [00:32:05] Speaker B: You know what? I was pleasantly surprised to find out that LAFC was not wearing those God awful gold shorts matched with that new shirt that they debuted because in some of the original press photos when they were showing off the new shirt, it was paired with shorts the color of the gold and that was awful. But they weren't wearing that last night. They were in black shorts last night. [00:32:28] Speaker C: Yeah, those, those are definitely make or break that kit. That's why when we were doing all the kit ranking stuff, I had them down bottom five in the league because the combination I'd seen was that God awful gold. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Yes. And I really do not like the Inferno kit. I'm just gonna say it again. I'm gonna keep saying it until we get out of that thing, but I, but my hope is, is that the, the new DNA kit is so good and so best level that they've got an equally good plan for replacing the Inferno kit next year. [00:32:58] Speaker A: Man, I hope so. Okay, go back to the Ranger one. That's. That was the best secondary, just without [00:33:07] Speaker C: the quality control issues this time. [00:33:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:33:10] Speaker B: All right. Anything else about Dallas's loss in LA? 1 nil, that we want to discuss? No. Covered that pretty well. [00:33:18] Speaker A: I think so. [00:33:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Good scenes. I think the guys like the weather looked amazing. The, the field looked great, the atmosphere looked wonderful in that stadium. It's. I, it's such a good spot. If either one of you haven't been yet or anybody who's listening hasn't had a chance to go to bmo, please, by all means, experience that. It's really, really good. It's a, it's a lot of fun. [00:33:42] Speaker A: Yeah, some of this. [00:33:44] Speaker B: So Saturday they come back and have another very important home game. Guys got to collect these points before that brutal summer stretch begins. San Diego. And then of course we say all that and we think they've had it bad luck by having to play Nashville and la. Now they got San Diego and Mike rolling into town. Your former assistant coach is now, you know, coach of the year contender is showing up with the San Diego wave. So Dan, what do you got for us on that? [00:34:15] Speaker C: Two weeks in a row playing a team that hasn't conceded a goal yet this season, that's, that's always fun. What? First week, 5 nil against Montreal, 2 nil against St. Louis, who are terrible. 1 nil against SKC this weekend, who are terrible. I guess the, the encouragement is, you [00:34:39] Speaker B: know, trending down in goal scoring. [00:34:41] Speaker C: Well, that and Sporting Kansas City kind of held them to a pretty, you know, the possession was hugely lopsided, but they held them to a pretty low ish xg and you know, they, they kind of disrupted them in the middle quite a bit as we, well, as we've seen them do to FC Dallas over the years. I Think that the big concern, right, is you've got Anders Drea on the right. So, okay, let's say Bernie goes back to the left hand side. You've, you've got your MLS newcomer of the year matching up against Bernie Camango. And then you mentioned previously about the, the midfield being the problem area. You've got only Valakari coming out of midfield. So you know, do you have Ramiro there and hope he can keep up? Do you pull Capis back and then, you know, suddenly you're worried about, okay, well, how's, how are you progressing the ball in the midfield? It's, it's going to be, I don't know, that's, there's, there's definitely a couple of, of tough decisions that Kroos got to make. [00:35:49] Speaker A: The, I think in that midfield you got to stick with Ramiro and just not ask him to go anywhere. Just tell him to stay put, you know, which really helps because you know, campus and Valiente can react and then you can bring in, you know, and tell Ramiro up front, hey, you're only playing like 60, you know, put it all out there. Kaiko come in with like 30 minutes left. I mean, that's. That performance in LA, I think was really strong across the board. You know, I don't think there's anything that needs to be changed other than putting Johansson back on the right. And you just got to continue to let Bernie do it or else, you know what, roll the dice and put Lewis out there and see what happens. You know, let decent grab a game and see what happens. Given that so far neither one of those guys has come in and like done something that made you go, oh, screw Bernie, go with that guy. It's kind of a crapshoot really until you play. And that means Quill will, I think will probably stick with Bernie just because that's been his guy and he's had the, the reps and the experience and the comfort level would sort of with Ibiaga, maybe I'll yell at him less, that'd be good. But I don't, I don't know that Deetson or Lewis gives you a better option right this minute. You know, there would be something he was said for just let Lewis play in, let him just have the games, you know, and accept some mistakes. Except how often we talked about this. You got to pile up these points at the beginning of the year because after the World cup your schedule is going to be a disaster. So like you have to be grinding if you, even if you have to Grind at home. You have to get points here and so you, that's why you stick with Bernie. That's why you don't do something else and mess. Because that's the least bad right this minute choice in terms of like a starting 11 and a comfort level with the coach. [00:37:32] Speaker C: So yeah, I think if you're going to start messing around with the lineup, you've kind of got the mini run of games coming up after Houston where it's D.C. st. Louis, LA Galaxy that you could, you know, you, you could have a little bit of experimentation and you can, you can give up a few extra minutes potentially. But yeah, you don't. I mean obviously last season they got smacked both times by San Diego. They, you know, they don't have a good record against that team so far. They really do need to put something right there. It feels like the building blocks are in place. You've seen Farrington and Moussa drop back more often so far this season than previous. That will help them break up, you know, really pressure the build out from the back for San Diego [00:38:26] Speaker A: and you can't let them score five. [00:38:28] Speaker C: No, no. Yeah. And the low block as well. That seemed to have some success for, for Sporting Kansas City. Granted the keeper stood on his head, which Collodi can do. Yeah, that's, that's not beyond reason but at the same time Dallas is, is a top to bottom team than, than Sporting Kansas City for sure. [00:38:52] Speaker A: For sure. [00:38:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:54] Speaker C: Yeah. And you know we see me say this every week but hey, you know, San Diego the week. So maybe, maybe they say oh yeah, piling up the games early on. Need to, need to rest somebody. [00:39:08] Speaker A: Yep. [00:39:09] Speaker B: Well we'll see how it goes. Saturday night, 7:30 Toyota Stadium. San Diego comes into town. Dallas with the loss fall to 1. This is the most symmetrical and very FC Dallas way of state 1, 1 and 1 with a goal differential of 0. And they are right there on the Mendoza Line in ninth place in the play in at this particular point feels like home does. It's the natural confines of right there on the border. The Galaxy or ahead of them. I don't know why they have LA in front of them because oh to go there. Their goal differential is also zero but they've scored more goals so that's probably [00:39:52] Speaker C: best team in Texas right now though. [00:39:54] Speaker B: Yes. Austin down in 11th and Houston in 12th. So. But Houston has a no. They've all played the same amount of games. All right, so there you go. [00:40:03] Speaker A: All right. [00:40:03] Speaker B: That's it for football club. Dallas move. Move on to other Stuff. Well, I guess probably before we go we should mention the leagues cup because that's the other thing that came out since we last mentioned and we got a lot of. I, well, I'm not even sure we had anything answered because you know, the big question was, look, they're going to get this league cup schedule announced and they're going to end up playing Mexican clubs. But where in the world are they going to play these games? And we assumed Mansfield, but August 5th Quintaro, August 8th at Chivas and then August 12th at Toluca. So is the Chivas game officially. Yes, it's an at game for Chivas, but we don't know where they're going to play it. [00:40:44] Speaker A: It's in the U.S. yeah, it's, it's, it's not a home game for FC Dallas, but it's in the U.S. the Toluca game is at Toluca and. Right. And the Cantero game is a FC Dallas quote unquote home game. But again, can't use Toyota, so it's going to be at a US location. So both Katero and Chivas are in the United States at yet to be determined locations. [00:41:10] Speaker B: All right, I'm going to speculate they'll play the Qataro game in Mansfield as part of debuting that new, you know, the new stadium over there and trying to help him. That seems to make sense because that fan base isn't sizable enough to, to feel like you're leaving money left on the table at 7, 500, no maximum capacity. But Chivas is the one that creates all kinds of problems because the idea of trying to play chivas in a 7, 500 seat stadium, as nice as it is, seems like you're leaving all kinds of money on the table. But then you start asking questions where. Well, so they can, can they play that game? They can't play it at AT&T Stadium because the, the World cup field will almost certainly have been torn up by then and they're not going to play it at the Cotton bowl. At least I, I can't imagine the Hunts are up for doing business with the city of Dallas. So I, Are they going to play this in a completely different city? Like go down to Houston or. Yeah, that's, God forbid, Austin. [00:42:09] Speaker A: The rumor is Houston. That's what I hear. You know, that's not like a confirmed [00:42:16] Speaker B: report at the Dynamo at Dynamo Stadium. [00:42:19] Speaker A: No, just in Houston is all I've heard. I don't, I don't have a venue is. That's just the leading idea is In Houston it might be an rng. I don't know man. I don't know where it's gonna still have grass in it. You know the Cowboys have a preseason game you know within like a week of that date. So like you're right. The World cup of field be gone. It would have to be. They could roll in that turf that they use for like the Gold cup but I don't think I'm also want to do that. League of X won't want to do that. [00:42:47] Speaker B: Well, there's also a big K pop band rolling in for a two night stand like the week after. So I can't imagine they're going to want to go through the hassle of rolling dirt and grass and everything in and out while they're trying to build a. Want to, you know, Korean Taylor Swift is coming to town and maybe the [00:43:07] Speaker A: Dynamo Stadium is the place. I mean that's, you know it's, it's a mess. You know, we don't have any real concrete reporting to do here other than like some backdoor whispers. So like we're going to be as mystified as anybody else when we get a real answer. But it's apparently not going to be in Dallas is what we're getting this DFW but flex at all. So that'll be fascinating. Particularly that's why, that's part of why I think it's called why they label it as at Chivas, you know, because that way there's the out of like oh well no, Chivas picked the venue, you know, kind of thing, you know, more than it is like Dallas picking the venue. Because it's not Dallas's game, it's Jeevis's game. [00:43:45] Speaker C: Remember in previous editions they've had the regional hubs and, and she was. They've. Their hub has been in California primarily and then it was I think Tigrest. It used Houston. [00:43:58] Speaker A: Yeah, Chivas in la, that's a massive, massive market for them. So maybe they'll try and do something in la. [00:44:04] Speaker B: They may play it. Yeah, they could play it at the Coliseum. [00:44:08] Speaker C: Yeah, so they even played a Levi stadium a couple years ago for it. [00:44:12] Speaker B: Well, I'm just trying to think of a place that is a grass field that wouldn't cost him any money to have to do a grass installation. [00:44:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know enough about the LA stadiums off top of my head. Not the World cup venue because that'll be the one that's coming apart too. They'll go back to turf for the Rams. [00:44:28] Speaker B: So No, I wouldn't surprise me now that I'm thinking about it, that they announced something like the Coliseum in LA or something like that and make it just a true Chiva's home game. Yeah. Interesting stuff. Okay. I don't know. So do we know what the, the. How the tournament is structured in terms of who gets out of groups and everything? Like is it just the first place team goes out or the first and second? [00:44:54] Speaker A: I believe so. Don't quote me, but I believe it's the first team because, you know, they can't have knockouts forever, you know. [00:45:00] Speaker B: Right. [00:45:01] Speaker A: They have to shorten a little bit. [00:45:02] Speaker B: It's probably just the first team in every group. Okay. There's only six groups, so let's see. Yeah, see. Yeah, six groups, first in each. So you'd have through. [00:45:14] Speaker A: Maybe it is the first two. Google Cook. [00:45:17] Speaker C: It does go to a quarter final stage, so probably do. Yeah. [00:45:21] Speaker B: Top two. [00:45:22] Speaker C: Well, yeah, top one and then a couple of second place finishes. Something like that. [00:45:27] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Well obviously there will be interesting. [00:45:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Because they also. It's going to be fixed so it's all MLS versus Liga. Mickey set up. Regardless of positions. They'll have to be four of each. [00:45:45] Speaker B: Okay. I asked this question last when we started mentioning this and I need to ask Andy Swift this question because he would have a real answer about the idea of going to Toluca to be there at that game. Is that a good travel idea for an American? [00:46:00] Speaker A: I have no clue. Andy would know. But why me? [00:46:05] Speaker B: Interesting. All right, there you go. Leagues, cup schedule. Let's move on to Dallas Trinity. That has. [00:46:11] Speaker A: Well, you want to at least give Patrick Moussa his prosperous call up to Croatia while. [00:46:16] Speaker B: Oh, see, I'm just not used to this. Not in red crayon. That's right. They did announce. They did make the big announcement buzz. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah. It's just two games down there at Camping World Stadium, Orlando, but a nice camp. You know, it's probably what you'd have to consider a tune up camp or like a last chance camp. But they're. They're playing Colombia and Brazil on Thursday and then the next Tuesday. He won't miss any games for FC Dallas. It doesn't sound like. So that's good. I think that's true. [00:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah. No, he. [00:46:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Because he leaves after the Houston game. So, you know, a nice tuna for him and a chance for him to make the team. So let's cheer for him and hope he does well in those games. So for sure. [00:46:58] Speaker B: You mentioned Camping World Stadium and you mentioned Orlando and I saw the news that I guess Oscar's having a real bad run with Orlando City. And after getting pummeled by New York City 5 Nothing. There was a lot of speculation that he was going to get the boot. I thought, could I. Could Oscar just sit around and just take a sabbatical until the beginning of next season maybe? [00:47:22] Speaker A: Well, it's not like they're gonna have an open position for him, I don't think. I mean if, if FC Dallas craters and crashes and burns, maybe they would, they would fire Quill if they, if he misses the playoffs. I don't think they're gonna fire Zenada because Oscar, when I talked to Oscar last about FC Dallas and would he come back here someday, he told me he would come back someday as a sporting director to run soccer operations basically. So like unless, I don't know. Well, everyone needs a job. So if he's out of a job and FC Dallas needs a coach, would they call them? I don't know. I would hope so. But I think he would want to come back here when he's ready for to be Zenata's job. And so that is not getting out here anytime soon. [00:48:02] Speaker C: So. [00:48:04] Speaker B: All right, well, let's move on to Dallas. Trinity Pegasus had a big game and a big win on the weekend. Buzz. [00:48:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:48:14] Speaker A: Winnie Balata and Amber Wisner both were the team of the month for February for the league. That's pretty cool. And Gracie Bryant retired at 24. Less, less cool. But that old lady. Yeah, apparently she was, she got married over the off season or over the winter and was just ready to move on with what was next in life. And there I had a bunch of players and perhaps this is my speculation, perhaps she was losing some playing time and was like, you know what, I'm ready to go do whatever's next, so good luck to her. But yeah, they took on Lexington Sporting Club, which is the second place team in the league and they on the road. And one of their newer signings, Heather Stainbrook, who I am in soccer infatuated with, she's an absolute baller, places a six. [00:48:57] Speaker C: She's. [00:48:57] Speaker A: If they can hold on to her. She's Wisner's long term replacement. Obviously late, but this game was incredibly boring. It was absolutely awful. It was two teams playing really defensive and nobody did anything for 90 minutes. And then all of a sudden Caroline Swan did a nice dummy run through the box and left it for Stain Brook and she scored in the 90th minute and they basically stole the game on the road. So Trinity now sits in third on 27 points with one game in hand. They were already in third before, but they closed the gap on Lexington in front of them. So this is a kind of gritty road performance that really can, makes a big difference when you're trying to climb in the standings and knock it off. A team ahead of you is a six point game, if you will. So strong performance in the sense of not letting Lexington get it a goal and stealing it late. You know, it's, it's nice to see that team gelling with all their new pieces and we're hearing some chatter there might be one or two more pieces to come too. So stay tuned. [00:49:55] Speaker C: On Trinity, they are third with a negative goal difference. That's crazy. [00:50:01] Speaker B: Well, we noticed all those kind of oddities last season in the, in this league. [00:50:05] Speaker C: I mean, Lexington still ahead of him by three points, 17 goals difference between them. [00:50:12] Speaker B: Crazy. [00:50:14] Speaker A: Trinity's having a real trouble on the offensive end this year. You know, they had the gold boot winner from last year and she's not even starting now. They really struggled getting her to ball and they're really struggling creating chances, which is crazy because Misimo's back in there and so far not producing a lot of assists or, or key chances. I think part of it is that they've, you know, they've been struggling to replace Wisner because Wizards were playing in the back and they struggle to play replace Deb Abadun. Winnie Balata keeps making leagues teams of the month, but she is not the same players that they had there before. So it's just not offensively working really well. So it's good to see them clamp the defense down, but they're going to figure out the offensive end if they're going to get going. [00:50:57] Speaker B: Well, it says here that four of their next five are at home and those are obviously very important since they had to play a lot of road games last fall in the first half of the season. [00:51:08] Speaker A: Yeah, they got, they got a road game this Thursday at DC Power, which is at 6pm and then, then they get four straight at home after that. Check out the White Rock Brewing Company for the watch party, if any was into that on Thursday. So I don't know a lot about DC Power except to know that they're much further down the standings. So this is one of those road games where you think you can go in there and get a win and they're going to need to do that because it would give them good momentum when they're coming into the four straight games with Cotton Ball when they could actually make some hay. [00:51:38] Speaker C: Well, first tier as well, against Lexington and then Sporting Jack. So you're playing second again. Them first. [00:51:46] Speaker A: Yep. [00:51:48] Speaker B: All right. Go Pegasus. Let's see. Moving on to North Texas. And I don't know how we didn't actually just start the whole podcast off with this news because we didn't talk about this. I think it happened since we did the last episode, is that the return of club legend Matt Hedges is coming back within the fold as an assistant at North Texas. And it dawned on me, did Matt not sell his house here when he was off playing everywhere else after he left? [00:52:15] Speaker A: Not. I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that he kept it and that his family was still here [00:52:19] Speaker B: because his kids were really okay. [00:52:21] Speaker A: I believe so. Yeah, I believe so. I'm not obviously, you know, what year [00:52:25] Speaker B: did he, what year did he start playing? How many years did he play? But not for Dallas. Three more. [00:52:32] Speaker A: I want to say two. One with Toronto, one with Austin. I think it was okay. Okay, I think. [00:52:41] Speaker B: Well, what's everybody's reaction to this news? [00:52:44] Speaker A: Oh, it's great. You know, like when Hedges was playing, he and I talked several times about how he wanted a coach when he was done. He, when he, when they actually hired him, he talked a little bit about making a decision about whether he wanted this to be his career. But we talked about it way back, you know, when he was a player. At that time, he was more interested in coaching kids, like, you know, 12, 13 year old kids. But, you know, he, they, they've been using him at North Texas for three or four months or so and he apparently really liked it. So they added him and that's fantastic because the dude was an absolute phenomenal center back and, and played with his brain, not just his body. So he, if he can pass on some of that understanding and ability and so much about playing center backs, about learning and experience and being able to see the game and if he can impart any of that stuff, you know, it'll be fantastic. And right now with Slade Starnes there, they have the same physical profile. So I'm really excited about that, that coaching to, to player matchup and see if they can turn Slate into the player that I think he's going to be, that'll be exciting. [00:53:51] Speaker B: Certainly. Chance, he's an emergency center back fill in for the senior team. [00:53:55] Speaker A: No, no, stop it. [00:54:00] Speaker B: All right, and then the team, I guess. Was this the first game of the season or second game of the season? The game over Rapids. [00:54:08] Speaker A: Second is the second game of the season they open on the road at real Monarchs. [00:54:13] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. [00:54:14] Speaker A: Second game of the season. Yeah. Remember they lost a shootout after a late goal. No, this 1 they dominated 31 edu. Nice is still killing it. He had a hat trick in this game. He had a. He had a goal in the first game too. So he's got four goals on the season. He's doing an absolute phenomenal job. It was an absolutely fascinating to me quote in our report from the game where G basically said that he sat down with this kid. I did an interview with him before the draft and tried to sell this kid on how he should come to North Texas and play for him and basically be the point guy and the lead guy, lead the offense and how it would be a really good thing for his career. So they went into the draft with Gaul having identified and wanting to sign this guy. So they, they picked him just for that team, you know, and. But he's already doing fantastic things like you have to dominate if you're going to make his mls, you have to dominate MLS next pro. And I know it's only two games, but he's doing that, you know, at, at a clip that Sam Sarver did last year and Sam Sarver is now with the first team. So this guy's from Belgium. Edis. He went from Belgium to a community college in the United States and dominated. Was like community college player of the year for whatever league he was in or, or whole, whole conference and then went from there to uic, University of Illinois Chicago and tore that league up and then now has been drafted. So he's got a really weird path. But he's a striker. No, he's a 10. [00:55:43] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:55:44] Speaker A: So we were joking. They're like, hey, we found Dallas FC Dallas is 10 because he's phenomenal in these two games. So obviously, like there's a big jump between North Texas and FC Dallas. [00:55:53] Speaker B: What's his physical profile? [00:55:57] Speaker A: Taller than Valiente, but about like that, you know, similar sort of player. Lots of movement, lots of energy. Like Dallas loves those guys that'll move and. And this kid works hard all over the field. So really talented so far, two game sample, but super exciting when you're talking about, you know, a developmental team. And the other player that's standing out for me is that there's two other players stand out for me. Swan went down and finally played and looked great. Of course. He's basically beating out Diego Garcia in the Dallas pecking order, which is fascinating because they really like Diego Garcia and swans a couple years younger and beat him out and. And then Slade Starnes is doing a great job at center back captain of that team. It looks the part looks exactly like I thought it was going to be. Obviously he needs to progress and get better and better. But Alvaro Gusto is not playing down there right now. Bizarrely, I don't know why he's not because he's not playing for us either. So Slade's carrying the load because I've [00:56:50] Speaker B: now I've seen them both kind of in action photos and everything. I'm curious if either one of you have developed an opinion as true you which version of the blue and red hoops you prefer? The senior team or the second team? [00:57:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:04] Speaker B: Okay. [00:57:04] Speaker A: Dan, you want to go first? Go ahead. [00:57:07] Speaker C: I mean I like the first team [00:57:08] Speaker B: ones honestly with the white in between. [00:57:10] Speaker C: I do. It's a nice touch. [00:57:12] Speaker A: Yeah, same thing for me. I like that little white trim. And the Dallas one, the North Texas one is great. It's good. But it needs. Because it is just red and blue. It needs something. It needs like the white shorts even more than the first team was the first team one with the little white mini hoop pen hoop looks, you know, gives it a little flare, which is nice. [00:57:31] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. Dig it. They play Austin in Austin on Sunday at 7:30 and Austin apparently is terrible is what it says here. The odds of M. It says Austin effing sucks love buzz. [00:57:48] Speaker A: It just says they're winless with one point. It does not say this. [00:57:51] Speaker B: Oh, sorry. [00:57:52] Speaker C: Same thing. [00:57:52] Speaker B: Whatever. [00:57:53] Speaker C: Okay. [00:57:55] Speaker B: See. Oh, and then Rodeo is at it. They're starting to make a little bit of noise here and there. [00:58:01] Speaker A: Yeah, they got. Well, they and Athletico both put out stuff. You know, one year from today we're playing but Rodeo has a brand lunch party. Excuse me. Brand launch party on the 27th at the Silos in Salina, 8pm you can be out there and be one of the first people to see their logo. I hope they stick with the brown and tan color palette. The cool font that you're using is like it's. It's so good. I'm hoping the logo is gonna live up to the rest of it, you know. Anyway, I'm excited to see that. And if you're love. If you're excited about for that you should get out there at the Siles and salon at apm. [00:58:35] Speaker B: Excellent. And then last but not least, they finally got around to announcing all the plans for the fan festival for the World cup which will be out at at Fair Park. And a lot of it is being held specifically at the. What I use, I call Starplex. [00:58:51] Speaker A: Yeah, me too. [00:58:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's called Dos Equis Pavilion. It's so weird to me that like, like I saw this in the press release and I'm like, what the f is the Dos Equis Pavilion? And I'm like, oh, oh, it's Starplex. And I realize it's been around for so long now there's an entire generations of kids who've never even heard of Starplex. So they're just as confused when I say Starplex as I am when somebody calls it Dos Equis. [00:59:19] Speaker A: So that's otherwise known as the place I saw the first lalapaloosa 35 years ago. [00:59:23] Speaker B: That's right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So many great nights at the Starplex. Back in the day. [00:59:29] Speaker C: 100. [00:59:31] Speaker B: So it'll have, it's going on. It's open for more than a month. It opens on June 11 and runs through July 19. All kinds of stuff is going on out there and it should be. And it's, it's free and it should be a really, really good time so that they're gonna be showing games. And I think they're gonna start showing games early in the morning all the way through the evening. Except for games that start in there. By the way, if you haven't looked at the schedule yet, there is a fair share of games starting at 9, 10 and even 11 o' clock central time during the tournament. So the ones that start at 10 or later, they will not be showing at the, at the Fan Fest. [01:00:09] Speaker A: They have some super cool renderings of the, the Star Plexus Peter, as we call it, with these big, huge TV screens all over it for the, with the big crowd. And it looks phenomenal. It looks like it's going to be an absolute ball for everybody out there. [01:00:21] Speaker B: Yeah. We've been finalizing all of our broadcast plans for the Kick Around World Cup Kick Around. We finally got it done and it's. We're pretty excited. We're going to be doing a live wrap up show every evening with the exception of a few Sundays during the run of the tournament. We're going to be doing over 30. I think we're doing 36 episodes and over 40 hours of programming over the course of the time. Andy will be here and if you haven't heard the great news, Lars Severnstead is coming over and will be here with us in studio during the entire tournament. So. [01:00:59] Speaker A: Wow. [01:01:00] Speaker B: It's, it's gonna be a big deal and it will all be live on the ticket and we may even have a video streaming partner. We're waiting to try to finalize those details as well. [01:01:10] Speaker A: So everybody, what time of day is the show? Peter, you said this after the every [01:01:14] Speaker B: night, Monday through Friday, the show will be at 7pm after the hard line. There is a couple of except so there is a game where if the US finish, I got to think about this. If the US finished first in their group, they would play on the 1st of July and that game would start at 7:00pm Central Time, which means we would probably go at 6, something like that. So there'll be, there'll be a little bit of flexibility needed over the course of the tournament based on how things going. We'll be doing some remotes too in the group stage games when the US Plays and some other remotes. And yeah, it's going to be a blast. Man. I'm going to be really tired because I'm doing all the updates on the station during the run of the tournament as well. So it's, it's going to be a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to having Lars back in town. And everybody's. We're going to do some nights where people are going to get to go meet Lars in person and see him and come out and see him. We're going to try to do that in various locations all over DFW because I know everybody loves them a little Lars. [01:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. [01:02:18] Speaker B: So we'll have all that announced and finalized here in the next couple of weeks. So there's a sneak peek for you. And then the other thing that got announced since the last time we talked is that they, they've essentially said, look, we, we nobody picked any of the Dallas locations. So we're just going to assign Mansfield and Toyota Stadium to whoever wins a couple of these different FIFA playing groups. So we could have anywhere from Albania to North Macedonia to the Irish to the Danish to living and playing somewhere between those two places essentially. Clark Hunt brother out little brother Dan Hunt when it comes to, to World Cup Base Camp winners, you know, because for those who don't know, Clark is in charge of the local organizing committee for Kansas City. And Kansas City got Germany, England and the Netherlands staying there. Dan is in charge of the top of the Dallas organizing committee and, and they did not get any. Anybody that flashy? [01:03:21] Speaker A: No, it's a little hotter here. [01:03:24] Speaker B: It's not really. [01:03:26] Speaker A: No. But you could, you could end up with, you could end up with Sweden or Ukraine Or Denmark. Those are all quality clubs, man. It's not. It's not the hype of. [01:03:34] Speaker B: Andy and I talked about this on the show, and Andy makes a really good point. First off, base camps are for the teams themselves and not the fans. Fans don't base where the team's based. They base where the teams play. And so that's why, you know, it's not. I mean, the facilities are making the same amount of money, whether it's Albania or the English, so that they all pay the same rate to. To get the facilities. So it's not that big of a deal. You really are more worried about what games you got. And we are so overflow flowing with amazing games for the World cup, you know, and we also got the broadcast center and everything else that we've been awarded. Not getting Argentina to be up at Frisco is really a minor note in all of this. [01:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it'll be fine. It's not like it's. As you say, Peter. It's not like it's like this team's going to show up with the fan fest or something. You know, they're going to be sequestered away and, you know, they're sequestered. [01:04:33] Speaker B: The. Yeah, the practices are all closed. It's not like you get to go watch anybody practice all of that. It's not like you're going to see Messi at H E B, you know, or at the AMC watching a movie or anything. So, you know, it's not. I don't think it's that big of a deal, only. [01:04:52] Speaker A: Was it a big deal? [01:04:53] Speaker B: Well, yeah. Cause I'm sure there's some brotherly competition in there. But, you know, I mean, if we're all being honest, those three facilities in Kansas City are amazing. They are really, really good and top notch. [01:05:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:05] Speaker B: All right, Very good. What else? Anything else we got going on? Dan? Got anything else? Oh, I'm sorry. What you want to say? [01:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah, this is just a little piece of color, and I wanted to bring it up because it's related to me. But also it's related to the fact that FC Dallas can't play their own stadium. You know how they're hunting around for the league's Cup. [01:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:23] Speaker A: Okay. So Seattle, the Sounders apparently are not going to be able to use their stadium coming up because of various whatevers probably related to the World Cup. Maybe it's related to the Seattle Seahawks for all I know, but they're playing a CONCACAF Champions cup game against Vancouver. They're playing it here in Spokane. At the little bitty 5,000 seat Spokane Zephyr Velocity Stadium. [01:05:52] Speaker B: Oh wow. [01:05:53] Speaker A: At one Spokane stadium, that stadium holds 5,000 people. About, you know, maybe a standing room gets to seven or something. [01:05:59] Speaker B: So that'll be an interesting scene. [01:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah, tough ticket to get. I tried to get one, I couldn't get one. So it'll be funny to see. So it's not just FC Dallas is having this issue because of the World Cup. Lots of people are going to be having stadium issues coming up, you know, and maybe not they're not getting really looking for something like leagues, cup or this concaf game, but it's just an interesting thing to see happening or see these MLS teams sort of not being able to play on their own plays well, it's all. [01:06:23] Speaker B: I mean, I, I'm sure Seattle's the same situation as is New England, which is they're installing all the field fields in these facilities and you know, New England had their game postponed because there had been so much snow. The installation of the field didn't happen in time for them to play their MLS game on it. So they had to postpone that game. I guess it was against Austin. I don't remember who it was supposed to be against, but I'm sure that's the reason of what's going on in Seattle is they're installing the grass for those stuff. [01:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that kind of stuff. And it also fascinates since you mentioned New England. What's going on there in Foxborough with them button heads with FIFA about we're not letting these games happen unless you pay us. [01:07:00] Speaker B: That'll all get taken care of. [01:07:01] Speaker A: Hadn't yet. It's fun to watch. [01:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll see. There's probably bigger problems looming on the horizon than that, but I'm. Yeah, that's just somebody, you know, pushing a button on their bank account, so. But it is fun to watch them go through this process and we're starting to see leaked pictures and stuff about what's going on inside the stadiums as they install these fields and learning more about the graphics grass that they've developed and grown for these surfaces and how it's a hybrid and all of this stuff. And I'm really fascinated to see how AT&T finishes out when it's done. Yeah, I think, I think everybody's going to be pleasantly surprised at what it looks like when it's all said and done. I'm very excited. [01:07:46] Speaker A: Yeah, me too. [01:07:47] Speaker B: Very good. What else, Dan? I know you had a whole long list of stuff you wanted to chit chat about maybe a story to tell, some jokes, impersonations. [01:07:56] Speaker C: You know, maybe it's best to save those for another week. [01:08:00] Speaker B: Okay. You're not going to sing us a song? [01:08:02] Speaker C: Not today. [01:08:03] Speaker B: You don't want to sing us out? No. [01:08:05] Speaker C: Papy Chap does such a good job. I mean, I don't want to take money out of his pocket. [01:08:10] Speaker A: Hey, we should give Poppy a shout out. By the way, he's got a new release out on his Spotify. You guys should go check it out. Little DP I think it is. [01:08:17] Speaker B: What's it called? [01:08:18] Speaker A: I don't know. Came out a couple weeks ago. [01:08:19] Speaker B: I love third degree. [01:08:21] Speaker A: No, no, it's not that good. Not that kind of. [01:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah, congratulations, Pappy. That's good stuff. I'll have to. I haven't heard that yet. I'd like to. I'd like to check that out. Buzz, do you have one thing about living in the Pacific Northwest now that you've been there for a few weeks that like you weren't expecting good or bad? [01:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah, Spokane's fascinating little town because it's kind of crammed into a valley, so. And it's an old valley, so the [01:08:53] Speaker B: whole thing echoes a lot. [01:08:55] Speaker A: No, no, it's just that it's kind of built up the sides of the thing. So it means that like the amount of people here are all compressed a little bit, so. And the town predates, you know, it's old enough with the railroad coming through here that it wasn't a built with cars in mind. So bizarrely on the west coast it's [01:09:13] Speaker B: got like consider where you came from. [01:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it's got an east coast vibe. It's like it feels more like Boston than it does California really because the way the town's laid out and the way the roads are laid out, so it's kind of fascinating and it makes it a sort of crammed in communities in that sense. But then it's also got the. The west coast sort of artisanal kind of vibe with the restaurants and the little boutiques and all that kind of stuff. So I'm really enjoying it so far. [01:09:41] Speaker B: Spokane used to be one of my. One of my wife's travel destined business destinations on a regular basis. She loved going to bespoke can. [01:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good town so far. I'm liking it. I've only been here two weeks, but it's all good, man. [01:09:53] Speaker B: You got to scrounge up a ticket to that Vancouver Seattle game. You got to figure that out. [01:09:56] Speaker A: I'm working on it. I'm working on it. [01:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Amy's got to pull some strings for you. [01:10:00] Speaker A: I might be working it. I'll let you know. [01:10:02] Speaker B: All right, very good. I, I, and since we're just sharing this weekend, I, I'm not a cook, I'm not a baker, but I saw this recipe for chocolate chip banana coffee cake bread, and I made it, and it's so good that I think I need to be on a future episode of the Bear. [01:10:25] Speaker A: I think you need to send me one. Make one and send it to me. It'll ship. [01:10:30] Speaker B: It's so good. Really good. I wish you were here to share it with me. I'm quite proud of it. [01:10:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, package it up. I'm ready. [01:10:37] Speaker B: Okay. I'll make one for you, Buzz, and ship it off. [01:10:39] Speaker A: Thanks, man. Yep. [01:10:41] Speaker B: All right. Dan, would you like to share? [01:10:43] Speaker C: Always. [01:10:44] Speaker B: No, no, no. Would you like to share something? Buzz and I were sharing? Would you like to share? [01:10:50] Speaker C: Oh, sure. I, I, I, I, I have nothing. I have nothing. [01:10:58] Speaker B: Okay, Dan would not like. We have rattled on for enough. All right. Anything else? So, Dan? No, obviously. Buzz, you got anything? [01:11:06] Speaker A: No. [01:11:07] Speaker B: Okay. [01:11:07] Speaker C: I can be a real kit nerd. I bought my, I bought a pair of, like, proper Adidas predators for the first time. [01:11:15] Speaker B: Whoa. [01:11:15] Speaker A: The things you, you love them. [01:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:18] Speaker B: What color? [01:11:19] Speaker A: Those are good shoes. [01:11:20] Speaker C: The was the, it's the 2024 releases, but it's like the citrus, whatever, the bright ass yellow ones. [01:11:27] Speaker B: Oh, awesome. Yeah. [01:11:29] Speaker C: Really? I, I, as a kid, I went on a field trip to Germany and, and it was like 1998 Predator, I think it was accelerators for the World cup. And they had these really cool bright yellow ones. And I was like, oh, it's, they're cheap. It's Germany. It makes total sense. Never bought them. Bugged the hell out of me for like 30 years. So. Yeah, just bought some the other day. [01:11:50] Speaker B: Popped and bottom. Good for you. [01:11:51] Speaker A: But in my unpacking, I came across my soccer bag I've had since I was in high school and in there Smells good for literally 30 years. Oh, it smells like soccer. [01:12:00] Speaker B: Smells like soccer. [01:12:01] Speaker A: Got my kangaroo copas I've had since the 80s in there. [01:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Awesome. That's great. Hey, by the way, did I notice that a player on Dallas is wearing Skechers? [01:12:11] Speaker C: Chris Capuses. [01:12:13] Speaker B: It is Capus. That's wearing Skechers. [01:12:17] Speaker A: Wow. I didn't know they made soccer shoes. [01:12:20] Speaker B: Well, yeah. Oh, those are nice, Dan. Congratulations. Those are the turf. Are they the turf ones? [01:12:26] Speaker C: Not FM grounds. [01:12:27] Speaker B: Oh, you're wearing on. You're Wearing those on turf. [01:12:30] Speaker C: All right, good. [01:12:30] Speaker B: You're breaking. [01:12:31] Speaker C: I tried them on turf to break, see if they'd break in, and they don't need breaking in. All right, perfect. [01:12:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Harry Kane is the face of Skechers, Buzz. He, like, started, like, two or three years ago, and they launched a football shoe line with him as the face of it. Now, nobody believes that Harry Kane is wearing the exact same shoe that selling in retail stores for sketches. [01:12:53] Speaker A: Imagine not. [01:12:54] Speaker B: No, but I. I was having this conversation with some of my teammates. If I showed up wearing Skechers, everybody would make fun of me. [01:13:02] Speaker A: Because you can't finish like Harry Kane. [01:13:04] Speaker B: Well, I just, you know, there's just certain brand names that people like to give people crap about. You know, it's like if you showed up in a pair of Patrick's back in the day. Well, okay. Well, that was back in the day. [01:13:16] Speaker C: Those are new battles. Balance. It was like everything. [01:13:20] Speaker B: So when I saw somebody on Dallas wearing Skechers, I was like, okay, well, I wonder if. I wonder if Chris has got a deal with sketches. [01:13:26] Speaker C: They. They signed up a lot of the Luton players in the Premier League season. [01:13:30] Speaker B: I've never seen them in person, so I don't know if maybe they're a really nice boot. I don't know. [01:13:35] Speaker A: Could be great. Hard to know. [01:13:38] Speaker B: Okay. [01:13:39] Speaker C: Probably really comfy. [01:13:40] Speaker A: That reminds me of one of my favorite soccer boot, [01:13:45] Speaker C: Snoop Dogg's advertising. [01:13:47] Speaker A: There was a guy who had signed for, I don't know, Adidas or whatever, and. And they showed a picture of him playing the game, and he's running and his foot's coming up behind him and clear as day. On the bottom is like the Nike swoosh on the bottom of the cleat when he was. So he was wearing a brand that he wasn't because he was just blacking him out on the side. Forgot to block out the bottom of the soul. Oh. So they put it in the paper and we're like, oh, guess who wears Adidas or whatever they were. I don't remember this one. It's a great. [01:14:13] Speaker B: Well, good talking to you guys. Hopefully we'll have something more fun to talk about next week, but. Or maybe we'll just see nice progression and we'll feel good about. [01:14:22] Speaker A: Homewit will be good. [01:14:24] Speaker B: Homewood Home win would be good. All right. Thank you, Dan. [01:14:28] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:14:28] Speaker B: Thank you, Buzz. [01:14:30] Speaker A: Hey, man. Thanks for being here, guys. [01:14:31] Speaker B: Yes. And thank you, DFW Soccer. Curious. We'll be back next week on another episode of Third Degree, the podcast that was a marathon. [01:14:38] Speaker C: No. [01:14:39] Speaker B: Third degree the third degree N podcast. Third degree the third degree Ne podcast. Third degree the third degree NE podcast. Third degree the third degree N podcast. Sam.