3rd Degree the Podcast #354

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You don't want to wait for Dan? No, [00:00:03] Speaker B: I don't think Dan is coming. Yeah. [00:00:14] Speaker A: Third Dee. [00:00:16] Speaker B: The Third Degree NE podcast. Third Degree. The third Degree NE podcast. Third Degree. The Third Degree. Never guess Third degree. Well, hello there, DFW soccer. Curious. Welcome to another episode of Third Degree, the podcast. Now, I don't mean to start off with bad news, but I do have bad news. We are going to have to do this episode without Dan Kruk. I'm not sure why. I'm sure it's very important. But I can report that he is still alive. So there you go. But we do have your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of third degree.net and the original soccer influencer himself, Buzz Carrick. Come in from up there, Buzz. [00:01:06] Speaker A: Hey, Peter, thanks for being here. Yeah, no damn late notice. So we don't have a replacement. So you all are stuck listening to me blather on for an hour, man. [00:01:14] Speaker B: Just you and me, old school chit chatting about the burn school. Good lord, this is going to be [00:01:19] Speaker A: a good 29 seasons of this malarkey. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Yes. [00:01:23] Speaker A: Or 31 if you considered that you and I both were around for 96. We just.3rd degree didn't exist, but we both were around the league and I was working on it, you know. [00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:01:32] Speaker A: Up in Boston. [00:01:33] Speaker B: All right, well, let's hop to it. As it appeared that our football heroes, young football club Dallas, had a. A rather unfortunate assignment at hand, which is having to host the league leaning San Diego Football Club in town with Mikey Varus wanting to rub their faces in it once again. And I. Let me just say this right off the bat, Buzz. This was a weird game and it turns up all sorts of weird conversations and rabbit holes I don't think anybody really wants to get into because they're not all fun to talk about. But I do want to focus on the fact that, look, they just kind of ground out and weirded out another game and they got a point against the team that you probably. I know, I don't. Didn't think they were going to get it against. So three. Three. Dallas, San Diego. [00:02:27] Speaker A: Yeah, there's some grains of salt which we'll get to in a minute, but for me, the big macro takeaway watching this game was how different or what a display this was of the different sort of ways you can play modern soccer. San Diego plays, what for like 30 years of my adult life, I would have considered rec. Really good soccer. You know, they just are talented all over the field and they play the good game. SE Dallas plays very modern soccer that uses very specific, advanced, new, modern tactics in this game, which were an alteration of their usual sort of modern tactics that look terrible on a. In a lot of ways. They look terrible in some stats, they look terrible sometimes in play. And yet it's the new modern way a lot of times. And it can be super effective, as we saw in this game. So it really is like so much of my brain, like when I'm watching this game, my instincts are like they're getting creamed. And then the other game is three, three. And you're like, well, I guess they weren't. This is a weird game. [00:03:28] Speaker B: Yeah. I have so many thoughts about this. First off, I want to. This is a side comment that's related to this a little bit. I was going to bring this up later, but you said something here that triggered it in me, so I'm going to bring it up here. And I've noticed this this season on the Apple TV broadcasts. Is it just me or are the play by play guys that they've hired, do they commonly. Do you ever feel like you're listening to a coaching license class and not a description of a soccer game in terms of the advanced terminology they're constantly trying to throw out and the advanced way they're trying to explain the tactical development that's going on before you? And it's almost like if you don't know what triggers are, impress this and all of that stuff is. I feel like I'm listening to a coaching class and not a good layman's, understandable, enjoyable presentation of a soccer game. [00:04:27] Speaker A: Well, certainly some of the guys, and some of the guys that are former players are more apt to do that than they are. Than are some guys that have. From the older school. Stop it. Well, the thing is, is that like, if I actually like being in this business, I actually think it's okay because I, I think that it's important to assume your audience is knowledgeable. And I'll use two examples. Like if you watch the NFL, they'll be, you know, think about Romo, like, oh, defense is in the COVID too. Here comes a split wide 43, you know. Right. And that's considered a really good trait. [00:05:03] Speaker B: No, he's terrible at that job. [00:05:05] Speaker A: Well, no, a lot of people really liked him when he first started out. But if you watch any color commentary, they don't go explain what a cover two is. They just talk about it. And I remember watching when I'm. When hockey, when you and I were kids, kids in college, I Guess hockey sort of came back onto espn, became like a national thing again. [00:05:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:25] Speaker A: And we. We all started watching hockey in Texas for, like, the first times in our lives. And I remember sitting there watching like, okay, I have no idea what that rule is, and nobody bothers to sit down and explain it. And I actually really hated the early days of MLS when they would explain rules. And I'm like, you don't need to explain the rules, man. Stop acting like your audience is dumb. [00:05:43] Speaker B: I'm not. I'm not suggesting anybody needs to explain something, Buzz, but I do think a lot of the terminology. Heath Pierce was really guilty of this this weekend. [00:05:51] Speaker A: He's just guilty of that, of just. [00:05:53] Speaker B: I mean, I know what a press trigger is, but I, as a person in this business, I have a suspicion that maybe less than 10% of people watching the game understand what it is, much less the concept and the execution of it. In the course of a soccer game, it just feels like a very adv wave. And the reason why I think this is important to what you brought up, which is maybe this is just me and maybe the game has changed so much. [00:06:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:18] Speaker B: That people do know what this stuff is, and they do want to hear the game called in this way. And I'm the one that's got the issue. [00:06:25] Speaker A: Well, I made the same tweet. I literally at one point tweeted out like, oh, it looks like the press trigger is on the new center back. The right center back. Making his first start. You know, just assuming people will kind of know by now kind of what a breast trigger is, particularly if you've been following us. I think we talk about this tactics, and a lot of times we explain them. We write pieces. I write pieces about explaining that, the basis of tactics and stuff like that. But at some point, I think you have to just sort of assume that your audience gets it and knows what's going on, and I think that's okay. Now, Heath is overly intellectual about it. Heath is a very, very smart guy. He, you know, maybe he could bring it down a little bit and be. Be. Be better about talking to the everyman, perhaps. But, you know, being a smart man is probably part of who he is, part of his shtick, too. So I don't. I don't hate it, you know? Yeah, I think it's okay. [00:07:09] Speaker B: And I didn't mean to derail us into a television game day broadcast, play by play discussion, but the reason why I think it's important is exactly what you were talking about, which is two teams playing a Very modern style of the game. One appears to be doing it better than the other. And that gets into the whole discussion about all these different tactical things. But I just kind of an old school eyeball guy. The difference to me between Dallas and San Diego is that San Diego is just far more consistent in some of the simple stuff like passing out of the midfield. [00:07:42] Speaker A: Yeah, they're better at soccer. You know, that's what it was. But you know, soccer doesn't win games. I know that's weird to say that, but that's not what wins games. Not anymore. You know, like look, they had 60, 60 possession and they had over 700 passes. Dallas had, they owned 750. I think Dallas had 39% possession and only had 400 passes. Okay, the ball, they had twice as much of the ball, twice as much activity San Diego did. And they were better in normal sense. They were better at almost every phase of the game except for the one that matters, which is scoring. You know, and this is why the young guys like Armand get so fired up about things like xg, because Dallas had double their XG and double their shots and shots on target without having any of the ball. And that was partly because of the tactics that they changed and did, which they've never done before. And so we can talk about that in a minute. [00:08:34] Speaker B: But yeah, just real quick on the xg, I think it's really important that people drill down into the XG of this game because while the overall number was somewhat close, Dallas 2.7 to San Diego's just over 2. What you really want to look at is the Open Play XG, which is because they had two penalty kicks. So Dallas's was 1.69. San Diego only gen. Wow, that's crazy. And I kind of felt like this is 0.46. That's pretty impressive. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Well, the things to think take away from that too is that, you know, the importance of XG for me only works in a macro sense. And we use it in a context like this to say how good were your opportunities you gave yourself? And so Dallas, even without the ball, gave themselves good opportunities. San Diego gave themselves less good opportunities. But you know, the Coach Quill after the game said, you know, that they got a little lucky or the Dallas put themselves in a hole with the PKs. PKs happen because the other team's in an attacking, dangerous attacking position and so your guy fouls or makes a mistake. So like PKs don't happen in a vacuum, even if you don't disagree with the call. And Both those calls were correct, by the way, if they were not a bad call in those two PKs. [00:09:46] Speaker B: So I hate the handball call just as a general rule, even if my team. [00:09:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you can hate it conceptually, but it recognized the fact that it was the correct call given the current rules. I don't think there's any question that his hand was in a non standard position. So I was like, granted the, the hard. The handball rule sucks. It's, you know, it has to be there, but it's current. There's never been a good execution of the handball rule, really, honestly. So it is what it is. But you know, that's the thing about like, oh, they just had PKs. Well, I mean PKS happen because your center forwards in the box about to score and your dude drags them down, you know, those are. Everything's relative. But nonetheless, it proves the greater point of the game, which is because of the high press that Dallas implemented that they've never done under Quill that I can recall. They, they recognized that guys were going to rotate and San Diego was likely going to have a bunch of fresh faces in the back line. And Dallas even went into a new formation that they've not used on a quill. A 3, 4, 3. Played it correctly with two tens, which is really important. Put a guy in there who's not a 10 but is a good defender and Energizer Bunny, the rabbit running around. Kaik and Valiante has some really nice qualities in that same area. And they just press the tar out of San Diego. And then like if San Diego got past them, they would then drop into their low block, which they're used to doing that back seven that we see all the time or eight that we see all the time. But that, that press was fantastic. And like most of their good chances came off that press. There was only one really good attacking play that happened from. That happened to be a goal that came from across midfield. And it was still like a turnover that could turn into a transition. And they went up the left, the one Bernie dribbled in from like halfway midfield. But just a phenomenal tactical adjustment by Quill to play a way that San Diego wasn't expecting. They're probably totally focused on Toluca that clearly they were both before and after maybe didn't put a time into this game that they perhaps should have because they got caught off guard by that, that trigger, that press. Just super effective. Really, really great job by Quill on this one. Coaching. Yeah. [00:11:46] Speaker B: And this was really the most remarkable part of the game. And I think we should dig more into this in detail. I want you to really kind of spell out the formation and what he was trying to do. But I want to say this up front before we get into it. They can't do this often. [00:12:01] Speaker A: No. [00:12:02] Speaker B: And they could probably only do this for a few more weeks before the Texas heat suffocates them to death. I don't know if you saw at the end of the game, but Johansson collapsed to the ground. [00:12:13] Speaker A: I did see it. Yeah. [00:12:14] Speaker B: And I thought to myself, oh, that's not a good sign because it's not a hot night in. In Frisco. And I know he ran a lot and I know he played the 90 minutes, but if he's this bad after 90 minutes in early March, I can't imagine what he's going to be like come, you know, August. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, in particular, there's a really heavy workload in this version of the high press because it was still a back three, you know, five. You still had wing backs. Right. And so asking wing backs to get up and down and be involved in a press is ridiculous. Now, most of the time, because it was this 3, 4, 3, which is just a variation of the. What they've been doing this, this five, three, two. I know that that's a very different set of numbers, but the two wing backs are still there. The three across the back are still there. You still have a double pivot. Now, what they've been normally doing is this three across, but in this game it was just two in the midfield. In the midfield, the two holding mids were Ramiro and Capis. And then up in front of them, underneath, they benched Farrington and Musa was the high nine. And then underneath him were two tens. Joaquin Valiante on the right and Kaik on the left. And those two guys spent most of their energy jumping on the backs. In particular, they look like they were pressed. They were triggering the press, which is what a press trigger is. When the ball was being passed to the center, right, center back. That was making his first ever league start. There's like, from Sweden or something. They just got him. Yeah. So that was the press trigger. And they would really work their tails off up there in that shape and they would. When, if it got past them, then they would all drop back and they would take up their usual formation. So it's. It's just a variation of the tactic they play normally, the shape they play normally with this extra 10 in there. The change is the press that they couldn't do and the reason you mentioned that you can't do that is because it requires an insane amount of energy, particularly when you're doing it with wing backs and in the Texas heat, you cannot expand that kind of heat and still be able to hold up and play. We've seen these dial seams break down all the time, even ones that play slow and don't put expand energy like that. But you know, it's, it's tough here and you have to adapt your tactics to the heat, I believe. And every coach has come here, has tried to in one way or another. So it's a, it's a good tool to have. They won't be able to do it every time. [00:14:32] Speaker B: So San Diego and Varus's insistence to play out of the back, especially in this game where they've got a bunch of new guys trying to do it is very much a high wire act. And you know, more times than not they get away with it and they got away with it more times than not. Against Dallas they just happened to get caught in a moment here or two that, that were all because of Dallas's pressing, which is, is impressive that they figured that out. I, it's just so hard to think that I hope people didn't watch this game going, we need more of this. [00:15:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:09] Speaker B: You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Because not every team needs this to. That's. You don't have to play everybody this way. But I'm just worried people are going to go next week when they play. Whoever Houston or whoever it is, they're not going to get this same thing and they're going to wonder why they're not trying as hard or something like that. [00:15:25] Speaker A: Well, you know, it'll, it'll be, it's a tool to have in your pocket that you don't want to do it all the time. Not here in Texas. In part. You can do it when. This is one of the caveats. San Diego rotated six players and they had like two guys out of the back line making their first ever start in the league. Their keepers, their backup keeper. Both Wings are making their first ever starts in the pro game at all. You know, they definitely had a lot of kids out there, a lot of young players out there, but then they tried to play their way. So okay, applaud that. But the trigger, the press only has to work like one or two times. You, it can fail like 98 of the time, it works twice and all of a sudden you're scoring and you're winning. So it's like, yeah, you work more than that because they didn't finish 100%. But it was one thing when we talk about this team all the time, they need to finish close. They need to get shots on target. Close to 50. It was closer to that. I don't have it in front of me, but I know it was better. And that's why they ended up scoring more again against the backup keeper, too. So there are some caveats in this game, but, you know, good adaptation. And they also had some. Some triggers based on the way Dallas is playing, too. They were clearly targeting Bernie Camingo for one thing, because, like, when he and Johansson flips, like at the start of the game, they came out in the flip again with Bernie on the wrong side. And you could see the San Diego guys recognize that. And they flipped their wings because they clearly wanted some specific wing on Bernie. And then when they. Right before hat I think it was, they switched the wings back, Johansson and Bernie again. And that player, those two wings immediately flopped so that the same guy was going at Bernie, you know, and so they clearly went at him specifically. But, you know, so they had some tactical ideas in mind about Dallas's weakness, which is playing on the back as well, and the defenders, they have back there. So, yeah, it's not a formation or tactic you can use all the time, but it's good to have in the back, back of your pocket because eventually you'll play teams that are too good at passing that you'll just pass it right around you and then you're in trouble. You'll be caught. [00:17:17] Speaker B: So it's. It's such a weird game because of the style Dallas played, the fact that he drops Farrington and pushes Kaik up top and Kaik and Valiente just running around like two crazy people constantly. It. It feels it. The whole thing felt very, very, very chaotic. And the game was. Was wild in the fact that suddenly Dallas found themselves down by two goals on one on a, you know, crummy PK and the other one by a clumsy challenge on Johansson. And the whole thing just felt very strange. And then suddenly Dallas is back in it at 2:1, and we get to have. The whole thing is just a weird game. But what I'm trying to sort out of my head is how much do we want to feel good about the fact that Dallas faced off against San Diego and got this result, but also, don't we need to recognize the fact, as you've mentioned before, Dallas, San Diego was coming off a midweek, you know, tournament game and they sat six of their best players, including their goalkeeper and dryer and everything. And, you know, and so are we going to be glad or pleased about the fact that Dallas's best team scratched it against a B team from San Diego? I don't know. Is that wrong? Is that wrong way to say it? Is that unfair? [00:18:38] Speaker A: No. Somebody commented to me that like they watched the Toluca game, which was San Diego, who San Diego played, and they said that was one of the best MLS teams they've ever seen watching San Diego play, and then they were watching them play. Ellison said that's on the same team. So you have to understand that, you know, you have to understand that San Diego is one of the elite four or five teams, maybe even the most elite team in the league right this minute playing the best soccer. Dallas is better than last year. I think they're a mid table team, but that doesn't mean they can hang with these. They've been playing some of the real elites of the league. And so the takeaways that are positive is they're in these games rotating or not because LA rotated a little bit too. They're playing these really, really good teams and they're not shying away from it. And I think you have to give some credit for, even though you recognize you're not getting the very best version of these teams, you have to admire. I think Quills instilled this never quit mentality. Like they were down 3:1 in the 50th minute. That game should have been over. Yeah, San Diego playing more experienced players would have just walked that game out and nothing would have happened for Dallas. But Dallas was playing. San Diego had young guys. They're making mistakes. Dallas is taking advantage of those mistakes. Okay, they're not quitting, they're fighting, they're celebrating. When they're scoring goals. The team Crowdery is good. So like if you're, if you're talking about this team getting better and you enjoying a better season than last year, there's some nice signs there I think you can be positive about. Tactical adaptations that are working effort, not quitting, guys fighting for each other. Opportunism. You know, Peter Musa is designed for this kind of chaos game. He's really good at taking advantage of chaos in the box and loose balls and bouncing things and guys getting drawn out of position, which Burns Ernie is certainly capable of helping with, you know, so, like there's some good stuff in there to enjoy. You can enjoy the fact that the, the greatest striker this club's ever had is here now, and you get to watch him play. Even Quill said, we thought it was quite funny that he's the greatest nine he's ever coached. I said, yeah, you've coached in the usl. Of course he is. But we should remind everybody that he did coach. Yeah, he did, coach. Sorry. We should remind everybody he did coach. Ricardo Pepe. I thought he was 17. That's a little different. So, yeah, no, coach, it's the best United you've ever had. You think? [00:20:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. There's some dude in Miami going, this messy guy is the best I've ever coached. [00:20:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But nonetheless, nonetheless, you know, recognize that Musa is indeed the best nine this club's ever had. No offense to Jason Christ, Ariel Graziani or whatever, this guy is better. Jason Christ is the Goat because of his longevity and franchise importance. That's different. You know, this is the best nine they've ever had, and you should enjoy it while it lasts, because if he's playing like this, he's not going to finish the season here in Dallas. Just resign yourself to that. [00:21:20] Speaker B: All right, I'm going to, I'm going to open this can of worms, Pandora box, whatever, and I want everybody to understand that's listening to this on the onset. I'm, I'm not doing this to inherently just be negative Nelly. I don't even know necessarily know if I believe all of this stuff, but I do think it's an interesting conversation, which is when you watch the performance of Dallas the other day, it is a roster filled with a bunch of guys who are just wildly inconsistent. Bernie, Kaik, Valiente, Delgado, the Benjamin Kid, even Johansson, to a certain degree, who I'm going to give a little bit of a break, too, because I think he's still trying to figure it out. I do think he is a quality player that, that Deedson dude who did, by the way, put in the only. A really sweet cross that Farrington should have finished. You see? Right. So, yeah, I, I. And there's this one thing on top of all of this, which is Peter Musa, who I agree is the best nine this club has ever had. And I'm. And I can't believe I'm saying that, because there's some other people that this club has had that I love dearly, but he clearly is a step above these guys, and it's really hard to envision a fall where he's still playing for this team. And I don't know. And nobody would fault the Hunt brothers for selling him for an absolute Sam's club truck sized pile of money because that's exactly what their business is. But at the end of the day if they don't have Musa, you know they're going to really struggle in the second half of the season. And then the other part of the problem is is they don't really have the proper support currently for Musa. You see where I'm going with all this? Okay. I feel like we talk about this a lot in little bits and pieces, but I think this game in particular was really not alarming but spotlights this conversation in terms of what is it the Hunt brothers are trying to do with this team and is it simply just be a selling club that buys and then grows and sells players and that's what if you're going to be a fan of this club you have to be comfortable with. [00:23:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's true. You know we're looking at a version of this club too where right now where and we joke about this, it's a bunch of dudes, you know. Well that's the nature of the thing when you have one DP and a bunch of non dps that's the relatively speaking those are the dudes now I I think they've upgraded in the dude category that has made some improvements. Certainly Iraqi Day is a top end MLS starter. Kristen Kappas looks terrific. Like he should be an MLS starter. I think at this point Shaq Moore's done quite well as a center back. I must admit. I like you. I think Johansson's got some nice things. But then that's the thing is like some of those pieces that you're kind of counting on are new like Johansson and Joaquin Valiente who clearly is here to try and see if he could be a budget 10 for you not to spend a DP on it. You know those guys are still trying to figure it out. Bernie is not coming out of the game because of the things like at the end of the game like the whole first half of the game is awful but the end of the game he gets the helps. He's a big part of the goal that gets you the tie so that Bernie's not coming out A lot of times the the problem is is that there are still three or four pieces in the lineup that are not Ms. Starter capable or caliber really Romero is not mentally he is physically he's not anymore. Bernie is a one dimensional player. His defense is terrible. Right. You have Collodi looks the part right. He looks legit but then you Ferryton when he's in there yeah, but he went in there. So you had Kaik, you had. That's the thing is like the U22 initiative guys are not paying off yet. There's not another DPs. That's what Dallas is lacking in terms of this idea that like they're going to be able to compete at the top end. It's not there. But given this is what they have, it's entertaining sometimes. But you're right, if they lose Peter Musa and then Logan Farrington is the guy at nine and you're now you're trying to piece together a tactic that maybe that's what this shape would end up looking like, would be a four, this three, four, three again, because you don't have a second nine to play with Farrington to keep the three, five, two on the field. So again, Quill, quite clearly up front we had to pile up points before the World cup and 90% of that is because of the schedule. But maybe in the back of his mind this is more than 100%, but 10, 20, 25% of it also is like, holy crap, I'm going to lose Peter Moussa after the World cup up. I better have all my points before that happens. [00:25:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:57] Speaker A: So, like, you know, it is what it is, man. We know that right now. Ever since the stadium deal was announced, they've not said this. They claim everything's the same, but we see little moves that indicate that the budget is not quite what it was when the stadium is full. Little things on and off the field are indicating the fact there's only one dp. I know you. You would say that the cap is the cap, the roster spins, the roster spin, but it's not, you know, there are certain people in the front office that have not been replaced, things like that. You know, quite clearly they're running a little bit of ship right now. So it is going to be what it is, you know, and if you lose Peter Musa, then you have to try and find two DPs in the summer window. And that's going to be really difficult and I don't think they'll be able to do it. [00:26:38] Speaker B: Yeah, we talked about this at the beginning of the season. The great catch 22 is the more Peter Musa is successful in banging goals to help them collect points before the World cup, the more likely he is he's going to make the Croatian national team and, and end up getting sold. I mean, that's just the reality of this weird situation leading into the rest of the season. Now, let me also say this history tells us that the Hunts have been pretty good. Clark Hunt has been very good about, hey look, we just made a bunch of money that just came in the door. Let's find a way to spend it. I mean, that's, that's how a lot of. [00:27:14] Speaker A: They're putting 200 million in the stadium. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Well, yes, but I'm, but I'm talking about on the field. Like, we sold a player, we've made some money. Let's go out and find a, let's go find, spend this money on other players. I mean, and that's how their business works. The problem in this scenario is it's, it's going to be difficult for them to find somebody to replace him for this season. But is this a season you really think you're going to be a contender? Then you've got that weird little mini season next season. I don't want to get too far ahead of us ourselves, but again, this game in particular was a really weird kind of microcosm of this larger question that I think myself, you, Dan and other people that are fans of this club have just been kind of wondering, which is what is the plan? Because I, that part of this is. I, I can't figure out what that is. [00:28:00] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you can't begrudge them if, you know, they spend what, 10, 13 mil for most of depending on what metrics he hits. If they can sell him for 20 to 25 and double their money, 100. And that, that pays for the loss of revenue for three seasons of this reservation, right, Don? Our books are even for this three seasons. [00:28:18] Speaker B: But I'm going to give them credit and say that they would even, they wouldn't even measure that against loss revenue. I think they will just say, okay, now we've got an additional $15 million. Let's go spend it or whatever the number is, let's go spend it on more players. [00:28:32] Speaker A: Yeah, keep in mind they got their money back for Lucio Costa too. And you know, they've spent some of it on, on these younger guys, but not in terms of salaries and you know, not, not anybody that requires, requires like a crazy high DP level buy by any stretch, you know, and then you're right there'd be this half season. But the other weird thing is that like you could look at this summer coming up as the beginning of your rotation to a new calendar if you're FC Dallas, because you can think of the back end of this season and the little mini season at 2027 as a season combined together, contractually speaking, you can think of it that way, right? So like you could go to a guy and go now I can do a three year deal. The back end of 26, first half of 27 is, is year one, season one, as I put air quotes around that. So you can, they can sort of change their thinking already and you can see that in some of the deals they have that have been announced where their back ends run to these with sort of an extra half on it so that they convert to the new sort of calendar that's coming. So it's an interesting question. My instant instinct is that you, that they'll continue to see what's going on with Valiente and like, do they like him at that point? You know, hopefully by then they can make a judgment like he can be our 10, you know, you have Petter, you know, you'll have Logan Farrington, can he be our nine by himself? If Quill maybe eventually wants to go to a four three three. His formation he prefers. We've got a bunch of wings in our team. They'll think to themselves, these Deetsons, these Sarver, these guys they bought Bernie really, you know, we've got lots of wings. We're, we're, our roster really is built play that way, you know, and then they'll be able to say we get, we got a couple of dps. Where are our biggest spots? Maybe it's a gigantic world beating six. Maybe it's that other center back. So I can go with ur in a center back. You know, they'll, they'll have a really blank slate if they sell Musa to say, what do we have that's working? What do we have that's not working? And where can we, what holes can we plug in? So that does not bode well, as you say Peter, for like your chance to compete and win this season. But again, I think the, the minimum will still be the same. It's like this squasher should be good enough and this coach is good enough to make the playoffs. Probably, you know, it ain't gonna compete. You know, they're, they, they love all this talk about championships, but I'm like, oh come on man. I was watching this video they just put up. It's a really excellent video. And Quill does a lot of talking about how he doesn't care about the DP model or whatever. He cares about the good player model. I get the dog model. You have to understand how roster building works. Yeah, you have to understand how roster building works. And we on the outside that are Analyzing your team care about how you're spending money, you know, and to try and fill these roles, you know, and this idea that like, if you're not here to compete every day, get better. We're competing for championships, man. Just look at your roster. No, you're not. You know, it's like you're running like a 15 deep roster right now. The bottom 15 on your roster are not usable. Maybe in a couple years they will be, they'll be great, but right now they're really not. So he's running a shallow roster and the season's going to get hot. It's going to have a nice break in the middle where you can get everybody refreshed, you know, and depending on how serious you take league cups, maybe even longer than not. But it's going to be a really, really weird year. And so in a lot of ways when I watch these games, I'm like, I think to myself, I love how this team competes and doesn't quit. I love that Quill will throw stuff against the wall and try it. I love that. It makes for entertaining soccer. It makes for entertaining, for me, an entertaining game to watch, even without the possession, even without like some of the beautiful game type stuff. But, you know, I would get why some people wouldn't enjoy it, but I really do enjoy it. I think it's going to be a fun season in that sense of like, man, what are they going to do? You know, it's like, is XYZ going to happen? What's the break going to do? How's the stadium going to look? You know, it's going to be. That part's going to be fun, I think. [00:32:21] Speaker B: Okay, I kind of got us off track because I wanted to dig in a little bit more about the game itself. So talk a little bit about some of Quills decisions in the substitutions and some of the what appeared to be kind of weird decisions he made. I'm sorry, did he put Deetson in as a center mid at one point in this game? [00:32:40] Speaker A: It's kind of what he ended up playing because that's really all he has, you know, like in, in the shape that they were using. There's no wings, you know, and the wing back decent didn't come in a wing back. So he came in at like one of those. That box four in the middle and he ended up playing. I think he was in the. Where the whole Valiente was in, except that he didn't really know what to do. So he was kind of weirded out about it. And kept trying to kind of go wide or kept trying to come underneath, you know, but yeah, he was definitely in that shape at the end of the game. He was definitely on one of those center. And that. That gets us back to the idea of. We've talked about this before. There's not a lot on the bench right now necessarily. Like, he had Farrington, but. So he brought Farrington in one of those 10 spots, which is fine. And then he had Deetson come in, you know, and Delgado come in, and like. So the, the midfield kind of got a little jank. Like Kai, I think, dropped back at that point. So it got a little out of whack and it was sort of hard to track exactly who's playing but where. But it's like, who else did you have? Like, Caleb Swan was on the bench. Who. You know, a player I, I really like. But like, man, that would have been a tough assignment. Like, I, I get why he put Deon in. Like, that's a guy. At least that's been in your training all the time because. And not playing for North Texas, you know, by the way, side note telling that Caleb Swan has been starting over Diego Garcia and got this chance on the bench over Darcia. That's a turn of affairs, certainly, if you're into the progression of younger players. Really. I guess the, the. It just sort of got a little sloppy in the end that. I don't know that I would have necessarily looked at any of the subs and thought, oh, great, that's going to really help. You know, some, some of the time we've talked about these week where you're like, why did that stuff happen? I'm like, man, sometimes it's just because the guy's fresh, you know, and if you're trying to fight and battle and high press at that point, it's like, whose legs that I have left, they can run and chase, you know, I think that's all it was. [00:34:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And I do think there's something good if you're trying to find bright spots when San Diego is now subbing on their badass starters. [00:34:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:51] Speaker B: Quill is left having to sub in Deetson and Delgado and Benyamin and, you know, all these other spares, and they still manage to fight back and, and tie the game. And I, you know what? I'm just. I don't think Quill's the issue here. I think Quill is perfectly good. He's got these guys playing hard and all that stuff. And I think that. And into a. In a weird Way. Entertaining way. So I, you know, I guess that's really the thing that I want to make sure we say is that there. There is a lot of really good things that came out of it. There's just this larger macro thing dangling over the whole thing that I think this game really put a spotlight on. [00:35:31] Speaker A: Well, when they held up the car for Benjamin to come in and it was for Biaga, I was like, wait, what? [00:35:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. He went back. [00:35:39] Speaker A: Yeah, back four, by the way. Interesting. And maybe there's a little knock or something, but interesting that I came out and Norris stayed in because I think Norris played really well. We should definitely talk about. [00:35:50] Speaker B: No, Yeah, I was gonna ask you. I thought. I thought Nolan played a really solid game. I thought the own goal was unfortunate. I thought it was unfortunate he didn't get the goal, the header, because I thought his header finish was really, really nice. But he stepped up strong. I think he had some foul calls go against him unfairly, and I thought he. I thought he was really solid. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Yeah. The thing is, is like he's 20, you know, he hasn't started a lot, so he's not perfect. He's not flawless. He made some mistakes, but there's some really bright spot. His game reading is terrific. His coverage of. For Bernie on the outside is really good. His passing. [00:36:23] Speaker B: Passing is so good. [00:36:25] Speaker A: It's such an elevation, like, you know. Yes, I'm. I'm very happy to live with the flaws in his game, for the fact that he's young and inexperienced. Just to get him experienced and play him more like, I'm. I think that, like, you're. When Iraqi comes back, I would love to see Nolan stay on the field because I think, yes, he would. He might make more mistakes than Ibiaga in terms of team concept, defense, but his passing on the back relieves so much pressure and helps them so much in terms of covering for Bernie and helping Bernie get out and like, you know, people checking back, like, he can relieve these passes, plays these long switches to Herman, Monster, Johansson, you know. Yeah, I just thought it was a really, really nice first step, you know, of. Of more playing time, we hope. And. And to be fair to Ibiaga, not a bad game by Ibiaga. But Ibiaga is Ibiaga. He is what he is. No one still has upside that we need to see developed and that played into. And that's what I want to see happen, particularly the passing. [00:37:26] Speaker B: You know, the. The other thing that I, I think is low key, gone undiscussed. We mentioned this a little bit earlier in relation to the San Diego game, but I also meant to me, this mention this at the same time. Do you realize that over the course of these four MLS games, Dallas has yet to allow any. And this includes not, I mean, Toronto, your mileage may vary, but Nashville, LAFC and San Diego, all four of those teams played Dallas and put out less than one XG of open play. Xg? [00:38:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And those are three teams, all three in the top three of their conference. [00:38:05] Speaker B: Right. [00:38:05] Speaker A: I mean, that's the thing is like in Toronto's 8th, they're better. So, you know, yes, we talk a lot about. And you can see it clearly see from these games, FC Dallas is not at the level of those teams yet, but they're in the games and they're fighting. And so that's a real positive because, like, that means to me that they're at least mid table and maybe a little bit better. They're not at that level yet, but they're clearly improved. And it's, it's just nice to see them competing and making life difficult for these really, really good teams, all of whom probably are looking past them a little bit to be fair. But that doesn't, you know, you play who you play. They, they who. Who they put out there. So you play. So good job by Dallas, I think. And I think the first four games show that they have a good chance to be a decent team this year. [00:38:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:53] Speaker A: The problem is, is that the first half of the season they need a lot of points and they're not getting them. And I don't know that the schedule is going to get a whole lot easier necessarily. They get a, they get sort of a break with Houston coming up, but then after that it gets kind of tough again. So it's not going to be easy. But I love the fact that they don't quit, you know, that's awesome. [00:39:13] Speaker B: All right, so here they sit, they're in ninth place, they've got five points, They've only lost one game this season. They've kind of made it through a really what we thought initially at the beginning of the season, a rough schedule run of teams has not been a disaster. And I think that's a check, that's a win. Right. So next up, Houston comes to town, the Texas Darby. I immediately am annoyed because I'm just going to assume this is going to be one of those weirdo MLS kit assignments where they're both going to be forced to wear their away kits, which means. No. [00:39:49] Speaker A: Nope. [00:39:50] Speaker B: What. What's so what's the assignment? [00:39:52] Speaker A: Both in primary. [00:39:53] Speaker B: So they're going to allow them to wear both primaries. Okay. Do you realize that. Do you realize that Dallas has not won their worn their primary red kit in a Texas Darby at home since 2022? [00:40:07] Speaker A: Yeah, but they're going to this time. They get the. They get the full red and blue thing and then Houston will be in the orange top. White shorts look interesting. [00:40:15] Speaker B: Well, that's good. I'm glad to hear that. I was really worried we were gonna have to suffer through another home game of that awful kid. [00:40:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Believe me. I think you're gonna get more of the white kit over the next stretch because they have. After they have Houston here, then they go on the road to D.C. as you mentioned. But then they have three straight home games again and you know, with the chance to make a lot of points because you got St. Louis, La and Minnesota who are not the lead of the league. Good teams but not the leader elite. So. [00:40:38] Speaker B: Yeah, you do realize it's not a white kid. It's a dirty dishwater. I know. [00:40:42] Speaker A: It's white. Whatever. It's whitish. It's not red and blue. It's white. [00:40:47] Speaker B: I hate it. And I hate it even more that they call it the inferno kit. [00:40:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:51] Speaker B: Hurts. It's like double punch. [00:40:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:55] Speaker B: So what do you think they were looking towards in the game against Houston? Who by the way is a little bit ahead of them in the standings. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Just barely. You know, Houston is a very low possession team too. They're right. They almost have the exact same possession percentage as FC Dallas. So that'll be an immovable logic meeting irresistible force of who doesn't want the ball more in that one particular. But both G. Both teams have a zero goal differential. FC Dallas has this one's for Herman Armand have twice the XG of Houston. So they get better scoring opportunities but have not scored more. That's important, right? Houston has beaten Chicago and Portland, but they lost lafc. This game in Dallas is their first road game. They've had all three games at home. So tougher assignment for them to come to Dallas. But they're. They're two DPs. They have are producing Matthias Bogos, I think maybe how you say that Buggers. Yeah. And Gilles, they both had a goal and assist last game. So their two two two dps are kind of getting in their groove and fitting in. Jack McGlynn is obviously a nice player too. So you know they're. They're similar to FC Dallas in some ways. They've turned over a lot of their team, but a lot of the way they play is kind of the same. So, you know a team that doesn't necessarily want to possess the ball. So it'll be interesting to see what the tactic is and which team wants to try and maybe build out of the back. The thing is, is like we've watched Quill's teams, they do kind of want to build from the back, but not ticky tacky. They want to go vertically, but they don't want to just boot it. Right. So they may try and play a little bit. We'll see how that goes. I don't know that Houston's back line is necessarily great on the ball, but I don't know that pressing them is the idea either, because they don't want the ball a lot. So you might just be happy to let them let you have the ball and then attack them quickly when you get it, which. Which could be a lot. So it's kind of a weird game in that sense, but hopefully be good. [00:42:50] Speaker B: Is Hector Herrera not a DP for them? [00:42:53] Speaker A: No, he came back as a non dp. [00:42:54] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:42:55] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure. [00:42:58] Speaker B: Sweet deal. [00:42:58] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, they figured out how to get him. I mean, he's a thousand years old, so I'm sure it was a question [00:43:03] Speaker B: of is he as old as Annabelle, as Galoy? He's 30. [00:43:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:07] Speaker B: Godoy is 39 years old. He's almost as old as you are, Buzz. [00:43:13] Speaker A: Well, no, he's not. It's not even close. So anyway, so in terms of Dallas, I mean, obviously Moose is in there. I, I think you, if, if you're Quill, I think you go back to Farrington and Musa because I don't think you want to high press Houston because they probably would be happy to just booted a bunch, so that's my guess. We'll see. But. And then you sort of end up with your same Ramiro Capus and Valiente in midfield because they're starting to make Valiant a starter. You know, they plan him a bunch. Kai won't be in there, I don't think. Bernie's not coming out of the lineup, man, I'm telling you. So the only question is, how healthy is Oz? Your Gide? I don't know the answer to that. He was just questionable. But, you know, they. They listed him as lower leg, but then the, the pregame podcast added it as a groin. So you know how groins are, man. Those are super dangerous to like, if you have, you know, any risk at all, you could really pop it and be bad hurt if you are. Are in any kind of trouble. It's supposed to be warm, which will benefit Irigidi if they do decide to play him. So if he's in, obviously Ibiaga could go back to left center back. I would really like to see Norris get that chance, but that really is for me, the only spot that's a question is Ibiagi versus Norris. If irrigated can go so. And I don't have an answer to that question. And he was just questionable, so you'd think he would be back in. But there have been times where Dallas has listed a guy as questionable answers specifically. And then the next week he was out. And he was out for like a month and a half. And because they're kind of disguising how bad the injury is initially. So we don't know how bad irrigated his injury is. And we will find out that this weekend because Dallas is very, very secretive about injuries these days. [00:45:06] Speaker B: A run without Little Pogba would be rough. [00:45:09] Speaker A: That would be trouble. And just as an example, I've been trying for a month and a half to get them to tell me something about Giovanni Jesus and his cell situation, and I cannot get them to give me anything. I've heard he's quote, unquote, in training, but not all of it. So, you know, he's not even showing up on rosters. I have no idea where he is as a player. You know, Enzo Newman made his play twice now for North Texas, but he's not close to being ready for FC Dallas. So really, Johannes is playing without a backup. You know, the guys on the left behind Bernie, be it Deedson or be it Ricky Lewis, you know, or Takado. Just got a red car for North Texas. We'll talk about that later. You know, so there's some, you know, injuries around here are weird these days. They won't talk about them. So I really hope he's not out long. [00:45:55] Speaker B: But I. Yeah, I assume the ghost of Juan and Jesus. Yeah, Jesus situation is that feels very Paxton Palmacali. Like they're just trying not to tell everybody the obvious that he's done it again or it's bad or he didn't the way they thought. Yeah, yeah. And. And even. And here's the crazy part, even if he's healthy, it's been two full seasons. I mean, what could you possibly expect out of the guy? [00:46:21] Speaker A: I don't know. Not, you know, but remember, it's not a. Said he was playing like gangbusters. Okay. [00:46:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you believe anything says about this stuff? No. And I don't expect it's an auto to be honest about stuff. I'm not, I'm not criticizing him if he is fudging or whatever. He's got to do what he feels like he's got to do. It's just, you know, I don't, you know, I don't believe anything out of that guy's mouth. So at least when it comes to this stuff. All right. [00:46:45] Speaker A: Not like that. Yeah. [00:46:46] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. Good talk. Good, good talk. Let's go back to the list here. Next on the list, let's see. North Texas had a game at Austin. [00:46:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Apparently the wind was incredibly bad. I, I didn't even bother to watch the highlights because I actually talked a couple people about. They said it was. Wasn't soccer. It was like a 30 mile an hour wind. [00:47:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that was bad. [00:47:08] Speaker A: And Trinity, sorry, Austin got their first win of the year because poor Josh Turkato got a second yellow in the first half and got so Dallas, North Texas, me played down a man for, you know, 70 minutes or so. So that in the wind, it wasn't good. They didn't have Caleb Swan as mentioned because Caleb was with the first team, so that hurt him a bit. You know, it just wasn't a good situation with the win. And by all reports, Slade Stars played really well and is doing a great job as their captain in the middle of their back line. So I can't wait to see how that kid develops over the first half of this season. Maybe we'll see him before. [00:47:44] Speaker B: Is Diego Garcia playing for North Texas? [00:47:47] Speaker A: He started for North Texas this game because Swan wasn't there, but last game he did not start. Swan started over him. So I think Diego's in a spot where he needs a loan to USL championship team to find his legs, find his way. I still think he's very talented. I just think Swans maybe has more game because Swans a little bit younger and it's basically past him already. So, you know, some of the, the, the, the Simmons, the big huge draft pick they had, has been really looking the part in the sense of like, there's a lot of potential there. A little raw still, but there's a lot to like in terms of like his ability to be really something interesting in the future. Hattie James has been very vertical if also young though. So a guy who is an international, so that's tough. But maybe one for the future, like if they're selling a striker and also they don't need to have an open spot. Maybe something can happen with him. But basically it was a trash game, so I didn't even go back and watch it. I heard it was so bad. [00:48:42] Speaker B: Okay, Pegasus had a game and has signed a new player. [00:48:47] Speaker A: They did. They signed. What is her name? [00:48:50] Speaker B: Sydney Cheeseman. [00:48:52] Speaker A: Cheeseman. [00:48:53] Speaker B: You have Cheeseman on here. There's no. [00:48:55] Speaker A: There's no E in there. My man says you have C H [00:48:58] Speaker B: E, E S M a N. Yeah, there's no. Oh, you pronounce that chess. Okay. [00:49:05] Speaker A: E. It's not S E M a N. It's just S M a N. So I think it's Chessman. But granted, I didn't look it up because I thought it was obvious it was Chessman. [00:49:13] Speaker B: Tomato, tomato. Well, wouldn't that be C H e S S M a N? [00:49:19] Speaker A: I don't know. Maybe it's cheese. That'll be fun. If it's cheese. Everyone word. Cheese Heads. We'll find out. Sydney. We'll call her Sydney. [00:49:28] Speaker B: What a lovely young lady. Apologies to Ms. Sydney. [00:49:31] Speaker A: She played at LSU and you and Unc. She's a center back who apparently likes to get forward and manages to get goals and assists. So can she play for Dallas? Yeah, she. She was in U23 camp with Lexi Misimo a couple weeks ago. So a player of some. Some talent. The question will be how quickly will she be ready to start? Because I think the goal is to get Amber Wisner back into midfield. So that'll be a real progression step. If they can do that, really help their team because she's a really good player obviously, too. And then if they could solidify the back line a little bit with Chessman or Cheeseman, that'll be good. Anyway, they played D.C. power, Sydney C and. Yeah, and Bethany Boss. Their new nine plays. I was surprised to see this watching the game. She plays as a false 9. She plays like Jesus Ferrer, like, running all over the place. I was thinking she'd be like a regular, like main channel nine, but nope. She plays like a false nine, which I don't like, but whatever. [00:50:28] Speaker B: Who has more hair these days, Bethany Boss or Jesus Ferreira? [00:50:32] Speaker A: Have you seen Bethany Boss? For sure. She's got a lot of hair. [00:50:34] Speaker B: Have you seen how much hair Jesus has these days? [00:50:36] Speaker A: No, she's a down to the butt. Long hair. Yeah. So she's got more hair than Jesus. Okay. And Tyler McCammie and that. Their new keeper this year. She had five saves. That's like a third of her saves on the whole year. Happened in one game. She had a really good game and they end up getting a point on the road and so now they have four in a row at home. So get out and see Trinity. They're going to play this next Wednesday, which two days from when we're recording, the day after the podcast comes out, play Lexington sc, who's two points ahead of them in standing. So it's a big six point game, big swinger if they can pull it off at home. They just played them last week and won on the road against Lexington, so that's a be a revenge game for Lexington too. So anyway, good. That should be a really good game on Wednesday. And I think it's also like dog night. So you can bring your dog out to the game if you'd like dog night, which is cool. You should bring your dog. I know you're going to go with your corgis here. [00:51:26] Speaker B: Corgi. [00:51:28] Speaker A: Oh, just one. [00:51:29] Speaker B: Just one. [00:51:30] Speaker A: Sorry, man. [00:51:31] Speaker B: And the one that's left is just as old and I don't think she has any interest in going down. [00:51:38] Speaker A: She was just telling me how much she wanted a corny dog. [00:51:47] Speaker B: All right, we'll go. Go Pegasus, go. We don't really have much anything else. Our USL teams have all been very quiet of late, I will say, related to that. If you. Have you read the article that was in the Guardian the other day, kind of discussing USL and their plans and everything? I tweeted it out. [00:52:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Skimming. [00:52:09] Speaker B: You skipped it. [00:52:10] Speaker A: Skimmed it. [00:52:11] Speaker B: Oh, you skimmed it. It's a really, really good discussion about how USL operates and some of the, you know, realities of what they're trying to do and how it differentiates and says a lot of the things that we've been saying on this podcast. But if you haven't read it, maybe Buzz can retweet it or something. It's a really, really solid. It's one of the better kind of primers about the current state of USL and what they're trying to do and what it kind of looks like going forward. Forward. And I encourage everybody to read. [00:52:40] Speaker A: It's really, really good. Yeah. In a way that's why I skinned it was because I would start to read a section, I go, oh, I know this part. And then I would skip ahead. I read, oh, that part. Scale me. Read that. You know, so. And by the way, Peter, your. Your tweet thread about the AT&T Stadium and the. And the WUP grass is phenomenal. [00:52:54] Speaker B: I had to delete it. It's a long story. I can put it I. There's a version of it I can put back up. [00:53:01] Speaker A: The. [00:53:01] Speaker B: The long and short of it, which I can talk about, is that yet two days ago, the installation company that is putting the field in AT AT&T Stadium tweeted four photos of the current. Of what's currently going on inside with the. With the construction of the field. And they were remarkable photos because they finally started to answer a lot of the questions that we had about how they were going to do this. And what we found out was I still. I'm still mystified by this. I don't know how they got that much pea gravel inside Texas Stadium. And I. Let me just put it this way to everybody listening. The surface area of the concrete floor of AT&T Stadium is 92,000 square feet. They have put at least two, if not three feet of. Of pea gravel on top of that. [00:54:01] Speaker A: Yeah, lots of rocks, I guess. [00:54:03] Speaker B: Now, I don't know what that is in cubic footage, but it's a lot of effing dirt and a lot of effort. And now that they've got that done by covering up the ground suites, they walled off the ground suites, they filled the cavities of the ground suites with these really cool styrofoam blocks to help level that out to the concrete level. And they've done all this in bringing in this just in insane amount of dirt. And you really begin to understand how tall this new surface of the floor is. Because if you go back and look at any footage or pictures of how cowboy players walk in from the player tunnel onto the field, that's a flat surface from indoors to out. There is no step. There is no ramp. Well, now it's a set of stairs that players are going to have to climb. It's five steps, which is probably about 35 inches up in the air. And they still have yet to put the perma void, which is the blocking system with all the plumbing and everything, and then the sand and then the grass on top of that. So I think by the time all of this is done, from where the concrete sits is the base of AT&T Stadium to where the surface of the field will be for the World cup, could be as close as four feet in the air. That's amazing deep of. Of all that stuff. [00:55:20] Speaker A: And they consider when they brought all that gravel and Peter, they were doing it while they were getting ready for the Arlington Grand Prix IRL race going on. This is a monster setup. Yeah. [00:55:30] Speaker B: I mean, when they said they were doing $350 million worth of renovations to the stadium to for the World Cup. I was like, what in the world is that going to? And now I think I know what it is. It's going to that field. [00:55:44] Speaker A: I know they were doing a bunch of upgrades to the screen too, in the. In the. In house entertainment, you know, because I've been involved with those guys. [00:55:49] Speaker B: So they need to. They need to swap that giant stupid box out for one of those circle ribbon boards like in Atlanta and in SoFi. Because when I got to see that one at SoFi, it is some such a better user experience than that box, which is just a Mac eyeball magnet. [00:56:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. I don't. That would be crazy expensive. Maybe that's for the second generation of AT&T. They renovate the whole thing. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So thanks. Sorry. Hopefully I'll get to repost that. Oh, the reason why I got pulled was because the pictures that the installation company posted, FIFA found out and made them pull the photos because they're not supposed to be posting the photos. [00:56:32] Speaker A: I blame you, Peter. [00:56:33] Speaker B: It's my fault. 100, 100. [00:56:35] Speaker A: It feels like when we had the. The renovation of Farrington Field photos, they were like. Which reminds me, like a Rogan Dino. How do you mispronounce Farrington? They call him Farrington. And I was like, dude, it's Farrington. Everyone knows that. Maybe because we have a Farrington field, we know that, but it's like. And I wanted to yell them for mispronouncing Petter. And then. And then Quill calls him Petar is also. So that's where they get that. [00:56:59] Speaker B: I heard Batar and I'm like, where does Patar is Patar? Really? No, no, no, no. When I heard them on the broadcast say Patar, I thought, wait a second, have I been saying it wrong all this time? Because you know, I'll do that occasionally. Every once in a while I'll mispronounce a name. Buzz, I don't know if you know this about me. [00:57:16] Speaker A: I've noticed. [00:57:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Occasionally, you know, it's nothing serious, but [00:57:22] Speaker A: that's the thing, is that FC LA has the clips of the guy saying it now. He does not say Patar. [00:57:28] Speaker B: I don't know, man. [00:57:29] Speaker A: It's just always like, come on, man, come on. Anyway, by the way, just as a note for all you curious out there, there are actually 10 days left in the first window of the season. It closes March 26, which is as of recording, this is 10 days away. [00:57:45] Speaker B: They might as well just go ahead and close it. They're not bringing anybody else in. [00:57:48] Speaker A: But then I. I know. I'm just saying theoretically, it's. It's open, so. And then the next one opens July 13th. [00:57:54] Speaker B: All right, before we go, I know Dan's not here, so pour one out for Dan because we are going to talk real quickly. Kit talk. Today is the day they introduced officially the worst cast secret in the world, the US Men's national team. Actually, US Soccer Federation kits. Buzz, would you like to give both the new primary called the stripes, which is the red and white, and the secondary called sword stars, a grade, A letter grade. [00:58:21] Speaker A: Yeah. The stripes is an A because they did something that FC Dallas did not, which is to use the blue to give it some variance. The blue collar, the blue trim and then the blue shorts makes it work. Like it's just red and white candy cane. It doesn't work. So there, the blue numbers. It looks phenomenal. I love that kit. The blue secondary I is a C for me because I don't like the. The amount of stars. They're too busy, they're too strong. Like, I would have, like, if you could have given me just what was basically from far away, a navy kit with maybe like a sublimated stars, I would have bought into that. But like the pictures I've seen, the stars are clearly silvery or reflective. And I think from far away, it's going to make the kit look like a washed out gray color and not like a navy color. So that's my take on the two kids. [00:59:11] Speaker B: Okay, let me start with the secondary kit. First, a couple of things. One, I've told by. I've been told by a few people that have seen it in person. It's way more navy blue in person than it appears to be. Not as charcoal gray. I would also tell you to go to the soccer website, the US Soccer website and look at the replica versus the match shirt. They are clearly different. The match. The game match shirt is far more what you're looking for, which is the stars are very hard to see and especially when you get more than a few feet away from it. I think I actually tweeted that photo out, Buzz, or I may have put it in the. In. In the discord. It is remarkable how different those two shirts are because you can clearly see the stars in the. In the replica shirt, you can barely see them. And this is from the U.S. soccer Federation website. Side by side in the store. It's. It's crazy. [01:00:08] Speaker A: And. [01:00:08] Speaker B: And so maybe that's to look forward to. I also give it a C. It's just too dark of A kit for me, maybe. [01:00:15] Speaker A: Maybe that's the key. Yeah. [01:00:17] Speaker B: I just think it's too dark of a kit. I just wish it was a more proper blue. The Star the stripes kit for me, I gave it an A minus. I'm still not sure I'm 100% sold on the wavy stripes. I want to see that in action. But the crazy part of this is that if you go to the stripes section of the U.S. soccer Store, there are 32 variations of this shirt for sale between men, women, youth, infants. And then there is two versions of both the replica and two versions of the authentic one with and without the number cut out on the front. [01:01:06] Speaker A: Yep. [01:01:08] Speaker B: It's the most confusing thing I've ever seen. I don't know why, because I don't know why Nike chose to sell a version of the shirt where it's all the stripes on the front, yet kept the black, the blank panel in the back. [01:01:24] Speaker A: Well, my guess is that, you know, if you didn't have the blank panel, you wouldn't feel like it was an actual jersey. Whereas the hole on the front is really just about, you know, or you can stick a number or not. And if, if you're getting the replica, you're probably not getting customized numbers on it. So, you know, but you also, like, if you didn't have the back panel, you'd think, oh, it's completely different. It's not the same as the one the players are wearing. That's my sort of guess on it. [01:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe it's kind of wishy washy, but, you know, it's very confusing. [01:01:53] Speaker A: I like the one, the one with the hole for the number. To me, I like that one way better. And like, if I'm going to get one, it's going to be, I'm going to wait for the customization where I can get a name and a number that I want on it and not one of their predetermined numbers. [01:02:06] Speaker B: Now, I agree, Buzz. The one thing that came out of this this morning that I thought you would enjoy the most, and I don't know if you saw this, but in Henry Bushnell article about the how the kit came, these kits came to be, which is a really fascinating story about how the players all hated the 22 kits and complained vociferously, like, the whole story about them almost boycotting the photo shoot of the 22 kits was really kind of interesting, which led Nike to getting Everybody together in 24 to show off designs to them. And the thing that came out of this, Buzz, that you will Love, because you in particular have been harping on this for a generation or generations. [01:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:52] Speaker B: Is Tyler Adams specifically making a comment about how they were annoyed by the fact that every time there's a new kit, it's so different from the one before and they wanted Nike to get around to just doing one thing and being consistent and they all agreed that that's what they were going to do. So maybe, fingers crossed, striped, red and white striped home primary jersey is here to stay for some time being. [01:03:20] Speaker A: Well, that would be fantastic because, you know, that consistency of ran is something I've harped on for a long time and I've complained about that with Seattle. I've also complained about it with the US national teams, both of them. And the Waldo kit, as we call it, the first time they did that was. Was really not the first time, obviously, 94 was the first time, but when they brought that back with a Waldo kit, as we call it, it was really successful. People really like it. It gets voted one of the best kits all the time. And mainly it's because, as I talked about, they use the third color the Dallas had failed to use. It was why Dallas's wasn't good. So I would love to see that happen where that red and white stripe is our main kit primary all the time. And the. The dark navy or, or bluish and darkness, maybe whatever variation you like of that is the other kit. So I think it's a really great idea. [01:04:04] Speaker B: Yes. Now, I will throw out a couple of side notes about this design, that there's a downside to having a red and white striped primary kit. [01:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:12] Speaker B: Which is. It suddenly now runs into problems with FIFA's historically pretty strict adherence to trying to keep things very contrasting in their matchups. And in Group D, for example, Paraguay is not a problem. While they have a red and white striped kit, their secondary kit is blue traditionally. And in Dallas, the United States is the home game. In that first game, Australia is not going to be a problem. The third game, though, United States is listed as the away team, even though they're playing in the States and they're playing. We're going. I'm going to guess the team that's going to come out and qualify for Group D is going to be Turkey. Turkey's kit is an all red kit primary and an all white secondary kit. So if the US ends up having to play Turkey, I'm going to guess the federation is going to be forced to get them to wear both. Like Turkey will wear all white and the United States will Have to wear this charcoal thing. [01:05:11] Speaker A: So you don't think the all red for Turkey could go up against the all charcoal? [01:05:15] Speaker B: I, it would be two real darks. I think the. No, and here's the other crazy part of the story is that that's not the only time that could happen. This is the same problem the US Will face if they get paired in the knockout stage against Canada, Poland, Morocco, Egypt, England and Spain. They all are kits. All those national teams have a red primary and a white secondary in the tournament this year. [01:05:38] Speaker A: Well, that's obviously it's an issue for FIFA. I mean, I, I think it's okay if the US has to wear their charcoal slash navy, you know, top to bottom sometimes, you know, versus. [01:05:47] Speaker B: I would. [01:05:48] Speaker A: That's fine. [01:05:48] Speaker B: I would love to. I would love that too. But that would fly in the face of what we've seen out of FIFA over the last few World cup tournaments. [01:05:55] Speaker A: Well, well, what would be the alternative would be that red and white stripe with a white short? I guess. I mean that would be. Make you kind of all white. But that's not better. [01:06:03] Speaker B: No, I think, I think in, in against a lot of these teams, it's going to force. Well, so England's not a problem because England's primary is a white. So you can wear your. But in the case of Turkey, I think what's going to happen, Turkey is going to be forced to wear their secondary despite being the home team in the United States will have to wear their secondary as the away team. [01:06:22] Speaker A: You know, that doesn't bother me. Like, I think if you pick your kits and then let FIFA worry about it, you know what I mean? Like, you know, I think it's okay. Argentina, Argentina should be their, you know, vertical light blue and white and then the, the dark blue shorts or black shorts, depending on which version of it they're wearing. You know, like when they, when they force Argentina wear white shirts, I think that's dumb, but they do it. You know, it's like. So the same thing would happen with the US there's going to be a version that's going to be like a kind of all white with the red and white hoop is going to be a version that's a mix match. There's going to be an all navy, obviously. Yeah. [01:06:57] Speaker B: I'm, I am curious if Nike will supply them white shorts because what they could do is wear, you know, against some of these teams the red and white stripes with white shorts because now it becomes a really vastly light colored kit, you know, because the socks are white. The shorts are white. The back panel's white. The only red is on the front. [01:07:15] Speaker A: Think about. Think about Croatia and what they do with their red and white checks, you know, or who is. Who's the country that looks like Athletico Madrid? Is that Panama? [01:07:30] Speaker B: Paraguay. [01:07:30] Speaker A: Paraguay, yeah. The red and white with the blue, you know, I mean, there are other countries that have mismatched kits. [01:07:37] Speaker B: Paraguay's secondary kit is blue, though. [01:07:39] Speaker A: No, I know, but, you know, there are times where they just. They. There are teams that have, you know, eventually you're going to run into problems. Eventually there's going to be some teams that are not going to line up, and then people will have to make some decisions. You know, I don't think you should do something weird or sacrifice your brand because FIFA wants you to do whatever. Well, that's FIFA's problem, you know. Wear what you want to wear. Wear your thing and make them change. Yeah. [01:08:04] Speaker B: Just makes you wonder how often they'll end up getting to wear the stripe kit versus the star kit. [01:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah, we. We don't. This bothers me about all those World cup teams is because a lot of the times we don't see teams get to wear, like, they're more traditional sort of look, you know, that they've relaxed that stance because they've allowed more mismatch. Sorry. They've allowed more match shorts. They care more about the socks and the jersey and the shorts they're kind of ambivalent about. We've seen, like, navy blue versus navy blue shorts before. That's not really a big a deal. I don't think so. It just depends, you know, they were really tight for a while. There was like World cup or. Or two back. They were super stringent on the all light versus all dark. They've eased that up a little bit, just like MLS has. People have realized that people want to see these classic combination kits. They don't want to see these hybrid kits, you know. [01:08:53] Speaker B: Very good. Okay, so sorry, Dan, Kit talk without [01:08:56] Speaker A: you, but I know it's good stuff, though. I love good kid talk. [01:09:00] Speaker B: All right, well, that's it. You got anything else you want to get into? [01:09:05] Speaker A: There's a kid named Luke Marley who plays for the SA House Academy. They got called up to the Ghana U17 team. That's a bit of an unusual call. So. Wow, congrats to him. [01:09:13] Speaker B: That's a trip. [01:09:13] Speaker A: Kind of cool. Yeah. [01:09:14] Speaker B: I mean, literally a trip. [01:09:16] Speaker A: Yeah. He was like, they're not real good about putting out, like, what the Rock Foster was for or where he went, but I'm pretty sure he went to Africa somewhere and played in a couple of games. But, you know, he. He had a couple of people posted on Instagram some pics of him and him and his Ghana uniform, and he looked really excited about it. So he's born here, but, you know, it is. Guys have their ancestry and they go play for their native team. Yeah, that's cool for him. Shout out to Marley. [01:09:39] Speaker B: Good stuff. All right, well, thank you very much, Dan. I assume we'll be back next week. We'll get to reconnect, cap the big Texas Darby game. Hopefully Dallas will have collected a win. [01:09:50] Speaker A: Well, that's if we have a podcast. [01:09:52] Speaker B: Oh, no, I have. [01:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I have my first big work thing since I got up here, so it's in danger, but we'll see. I'm hoping to work it out. Stay tuned. We'll let everybody. [01:10:02] Speaker B: All right, we'll figure it out. Very good. All right, well, thank you, buddy. [01:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you for being here. [01:10:08] Speaker B: Good talking to you, Doo Doo, Dan. And thank you, DFW Soccer. Curious. We will speak to you sometime in the future on another episode. The next another episode of Third Degree, the podcast Dookie Dan. Third Degree, the Third Degree Net podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree podcast. The Third Degree the Third Degree Nap. [01:10:39] Speaker A: I guess Third Degree the Third Degree Never Gas. [01:11:02] Speaker B: Sam.