3rd Degree the Podcast #355

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Third Degree. [00:00:11] Speaker B: The Third Degree. Nep Podcast. Third Degree. The Third Degree Nap Podcast. Third Degree. The Third Degree Nap Podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree. Well, hello there, DFW Soccer Curious. Welcome to another episode of Third Degree, the podcast. Pending he gets his computer situation handled and straightened out. Potentially scheduled to appear unless we notify you otherwise. Should be Dan Crook, but he's not here at the moment, so hopefully he'll get his computer problems troubleshot and on with us here in a little bit. But we do have your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of third degree.net and the original soccer influencer himself, Buzz Carrot. Come in, Buzz. [00:01:05] Speaker A: Hey, Peter, calling in tonight from 45 minutes west of El Paso, being serenaded by the loudest hotel air conditioner in the history of the world. Because it's a thousand degrees outside. Oh, yeah, Happy to be here. [00:01:19] Speaker B: And you're traveling because you're working and you are doing big time TV for what? Sporting event. [00:01:25] Speaker A: Dirt track racing. Yeah. No, no. Carl's go room. And they go in a circle. That's all I got. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Are you out at the dirt track getting covered in dirt? [00:01:37] Speaker A: Not the minute. [00:01:38] Speaker B: No, not now at this minute. But when you're covering the. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Are you and this one, our. Our little trailer. TV trailer truck is going to be on cement. So thankfully I will be all right inside of a thing that will get covered in dust from the dirt track. I think they water it down. I think it's not. [00:01:56] Speaker B: That's hilarious. Well, welcome back down to the southwest from the Pacific Northwest. [00:02:04] Speaker A: I'm certainly not here for my dirt track knowledge. I'm here for my TV ability. That's very different things. [00:02:09] Speaker B: What climate shift you've gone through in the last six weeks. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. I was like ankle deep in snow like four days ago and now I'm in 90 degree weather in El Paso. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Hey, I thought we would take the opportunity to pimp something right off the bat, Buzz, because we opened the show by saying DFW Curious and nudged by a comment I made offhandedly a couple of episodes ago this week in the third degree T shirt store, you have launched a complete line of Curious shirt Curious. Wear the curious line. [00:02:45] Speaker A: I rolled out using some colors and fonts. I rolled out on Let it Go Curious. A rodeo Curious. A trinity Curious. And I'm even working up a DFW Curious to match the actual tagline these days. Yeah, just come out a couple days from now when I get home. [00:03:01] Speaker B: And if you look closely, somewhere in the store, you might find another Curious Shirt in there. [00:03:06] Speaker A: Yeah, you might. [00:03:07] Speaker B: That shall not be named out loudly here on the pod. [00:03:10] Speaker A: The original. [00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. But I do like the idea of just a generic DFW soccer. Curious. [00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah. We took a vote. I put. I did one with the. Using, like, the DFW airport logo for style, and then I did one using the old 90s US soccer with a soccer ball flying through the US for style. And that one won. So that's what's going to look like, is it? [00:03:33] Speaker B: I dig it. I dig it. I dig it. I dig it. Well, hopefully Dan will join us here before too long. We will get to those clubs. We'll get. There's athletico news, there's rodeo news, there's Trinity news, obviously, North Texas news. But we will start. Start with what? I will, Buzz, in 30 years, you and I have seen some really weird, effing MLS soccer games. [00:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:57] Speaker B: But what happened Saturday night at Toyota Stadium between Dallas and Houston for the Texas Darby goes right up on the list, is one of the weirdest soccer games I have ever watched. And I was there in person for it. Dallas takes a lead, goes behind, ties it up, goes back in the lead and wins the game four to three over the Dynamo. And what a 90 minutes that was. [00:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah, just a bonkers game of swings and changes and. And really, if you look at the. The ebbs and flows, you'll see that Dallas had a pretty good clamp on the game, except for about four and a half minutes in the first. Later in the sort of mid to late first half where it went sideways for a good five minutes, and then they recovered and found their way again and then got their hands back, clamped on the game. And from there, there was a red guard involved and there was, you know, just fabulousness of, you know, in terms of pure, beautiful soccer. This is not, you know, Barcelona versus Man City. This is. This is slugfest, MLS rivalry nastiness. And it was fun. [00:05:08] Speaker B: You know, it was wild because up until. Well, yeah, for the, you know, while Dallas took the 2o lead. Dallas was dominant in that period of time, and Houston just did not look up for the game at all. And there was a moment in time before the Collo howler that I thought, okay, this game could get out of hand pretty quickly, and we might be watching a remarkable Texas Darby, but in a completely different way than it turned out. And when Collodi made the passing error, which, by the way, everybody in the stadium saw he was about to do other than Collodi himself. In fact, people around me Were like, no, don't, Pat, don't, don't, don't do. Oh. Oh, shit, he did it. The crazy part of it was Buzz is in that second when that goal was scored by Houston because of the error, you could literally watch the life force go out of the team and the crowd for that matter. And it, it stayed that way almost through the entirety of the second half. And of course that's. Yeah, excuse me, the first half. And then that's when Houston just started, you know, rolling in goals. And before we knew it, we went from a 2,0 dominant lead that I thought was going to go really wild to being behind 3, 2. And man, it just. The life force was just gone at that point. So kudos to Quill for whatever he did at halftime that. Well, I know what he did at halftime. He put. He put his best player back out on the field is what he did. [00:06:38] Speaker A: That helps. Yeah. I was picturing the scene from Necessary Roughness when the assistant coach starts throwing the trash can around and says he's going to puke down their necks. Right. [00:06:49] Speaker B: Hair dryer. Hair dryer treatment. Were you surprised Musa didn't start the game? [00:06:54] Speaker A: Yes. You know, I was surprised that after the one week experiment of the 343, I thought for sure that everything about this team that makes it really good is the double forward combo. I thought for sure you would go back to Musa and Farrington and then, you know, the word is that Musa had some sort of little knocker problem or. You know, sometimes there's a difference between things that hurt and things that are injuries. And it probably was. I'm just going to guess it probably was sort of a scenario where he was hurting a little bit. You know, I, I'm pretty sure that it was a game day decision because they kept Simmons back. The, you know, the gas forward they have picked this year, that's a big, huge, physical striker. They kept him back and did not send him with North Texas. So I'm assuming they weren't even sure that Musa would make the bench. So they probably did some kind of test and then realized he could play. But maybe let's just hold him out, you know, from the start and that'd be fine. We can stick with that 343. That worked really well. It'll be before that gives you a whole nother problem, by the way. But it's not like they really missed him. I mean, Logan Farrington stepped into the role and did a phenomenal job. So. [00:08:01] Speaker B: Holy cow, before I get into the Farrington part of it, I, before the game, it was interesting because one, I had seen the note that, that Musa wasn't starting, and two, during the warmups, he was, like, off on his own. Like, he wasn't even with the substitutes, who were all kind of gathered in a group on the far side of the field. And Moza was just kind of off by his own passing the ball against the advertising board, which I don't know if you're supposed to do, but that's a different thing, I guess. You're Musa. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Musa can do what he wants. Right. [00:08:31] Speaker B: And, you know, I thought, man, is he. Is he pissed that he's not starting? And then I thought, oh, you know what? He's getting ready to leave to go join Croatia for the international weekend, and maybe there's a reason why that's. That plays into this or whatever. And then I saw him, you know, having a laugh with somebody, one of the medical staff, and then he got involved in one of the final warmups pieces with the starting 11. And so he seemed fine at that point, and. But, yeah, it was. So I, I, I'm just gonna chalk it up to probably a combination of that and the fact that they knew that they wanted to keep him healthy for the Croatia. Croatia deal because they really need him to make their Croatia team so they can sell him in the summer for a billion dollars. [00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah, you certainly don't want to risk him at this late stage if he has any kind of issue at all, you know, and if. And certainly having had Logan sort of sit out the previous game, it's okay to rotate him in effectively. That's what it sort of, sort of became. You know, Musa didn't seem to react negatively to it, so that's fine. [00:09:32] Speaker B: You know. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah, you might want to get a little bitty glimpse perhaps, of what it looks like with Logan and no Musa, perhaps. [00:09:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And credit to Musa, he was a big celebrator on the bench when Logan just absolutely went bonkers. And that first goal happened so early in the game and was out of the blue, out of nowhere. I actually initially missed the start of it. I only saw it literally as he was crazy. First touch. Holy cow. Yeah, Beaver. Where'd you get that first touch? What a sweet, romantic first touch that was so beautiful is that he sat his. [00:10:09] Speaker A: Like somebody said, yeah, yeah. [00:10:11] Speaker B: Sat his defender, finished it sweetly. And within, like, I don't know, less than five minutes in, the team's up one nothing. And like, who needs the moose when you got the beaver? [00:10:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to paraphrase but even Farrington was surprised by his own touch. He said something in the postgame like, you know, he knew what he was doing. He's trying to bring it down, but he would, he was surprised by how good it was and it was like, you know, and that's, that's a punch in the face punch right in the mouth to the other team. And then they, oh, they got caught and then he immediately turned around and caught him again and that was, they were staggering. They were out of it. And then Chloe let him back. [00:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah, Houston, I'm telling you, man, Houston showed up, had no, they were just not ready to play that game in any way, shape or form. So. Wow. And then halftime and the changes are made. I was somewhat surprised he took Capis off. [00:11:02] Speaker A: I, I, I think, yeah, I think Cap is, you remember a couple of weeks ago there was a game where Cap is kind of got subbed out with a little bit of a knock and then the next game he was questionable. We didn't think he was going to play and he played. I kind of feel like he's maybe been carrying something for a couple weeks. He didn't have a great, he wasn't great Capis. But I was a bit surprised that he was the choice to get Musa on. But you know, part of that too was Kaik and Valiente were both playing really well. So like, you don't necessarily want to take one of those guys off and Kai can easily drop back. You know, you can just do a little rotation with Valiente to get it more looking like a two striker with a ten behind really easily. So it's like, it's fine, it's okay. You're not. Cavs doesn't even play 90 minutes every game. It's okay. You know, it was not his best game. Campuses. I don't think they were bypassing the midfield quite a bit. Yeah, but the, the other person to give a lot of credit to is Michael Goldfish Clothing because he really quickly forgot about the whole thing and was great. And at the end of the game he made a save that kept the win going. That was a spectacular, man. [00:12:04] Speaker B: If they, if that goal had been scored and ended up four, four, that would have just been the biggest gut punch. An absolute heartbreaker. And yeah, and it was a bit of redemption. Well, not a bit, a whole bunch of redemption for Collode for the, for the save. Yeah. You know, it's funny how that four or five minute period when the games shifted like that, it's weird how those things happen. And you can almost feel it in the stadium. You know, the first one happens and you're like, man, now it's two one and two. Oh, is the most dangerous lead. And you could almost just see it happening in real time. Well, I mean, you could see it happening in real time, but it wasn't a surprise when the second goal went in and then the third goal went in. And the team just looks so disconnected in that. And how it all ended up turning out, I thought was maybe the biggest credit to not just Quill, but the players themselves for getting head right with ball and figuring it out and just getting it right. Now, obviously the red card card was a probably the most pivotal change or moment of the game because it really changed everything for Houston, who then suddenly just tried to park the bus for the next 20 minutes or whatever it was. [00:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah, but Dallas had tied it up by the time that red card came out, you know, so. [00:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, but they were just trying not to lose the game. And they just kept throwing the ball out to midfield and Dallas would come back and they'd throw the ball out at midfield. It was just. It was. It was quite crazy. By the way, Ben Olson, I was watching him. I don't know why this is, but Ben Olson appears to do nothing except turn around and argue with somebody or everybody on his bench all the time. That's all he appears to look to be doing. I can't figure out what else he's doing over there. [00:13:51] Speaker A: The commentators are making fun of him because he was even has back to the field when the goal. One of the goals happened. [00:13:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause he's. He literally every time I look down, he's turning around facing and having an argument with somebody on the bench. Or at least he looks like he's having an argument. Yeah. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Maybe he's just asking what the hell is wrong with these players that I. That I have. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that one guy that scored the first goal. What's his last name? [00:14:15] Speaker A: Gins, with a G. Yes, it is. [00:14:19] Speaker B: He's a nice player. We'll figure it out. I can't remember it. I apologize for not thinking of it off the top of my head. Gillen or something like. That's it. [00:14:28] Speaker A: G U I L H E R me. Yeah, I'm sure we're Anglo and butchering the crap out of that. [00:14:33] Speaker B: You know, anybody listening knows he's a nice player. They got a good one in there. [00:14:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah. That dude's legit. Yeah. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Yeah, he's. He's a good dude. [00:14:41] Speaker A: Good player. Yeah, for sure. [00:14:43] Speaker B: Very nice. There was a good Houston crowd, by the way. They showed up with. I'd say they probably had 40, 50 people show up. They were all the way at the other side of the west stands from the brine. And so that was cool to see that those guys show up. And other than that, it was just. It was nuts, man. I. I mean, I could go through and talk about all the different, you know, different players. We could run through the different players and stuff. [00:15:08] Speaker A: I. [00:15:09] Speaker B: But Beaver was the star of the show. But then Musa comes on and, man, he's just so. He's so clearly. And this is, you know, this because it's seeing this in person, seeing him play in person. Buzz, he's just so obviously a different level player from everybody else on the field. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Yeah, well, he's got a pedigree that they don't have and he has a nose for. This is the thing about great strikers. A lot of it is just you have to be born with it. It's instinctual. You know, Pepe was the same way you would say, what does Pepe do that are people who don't do? You're like, man, it's hard to say other than the ball goes in the net. You know, it's like, right, there are other players that can run. There are other players that can body up. There are other players that can trap the ball and bring it down. There's other guys that can dig it out. But put it in the back of the net is not something everybody can do. You know, it's. It's. Even players that are really talented can come to an MLS team and just not ever get the ball in the back of that. You know, let's use Christian Coleman as an example. A dude that did everything right can play every part of the game probably just as good as Patter Moussa, except the ball doesn't go in the back of the net. You know, it's just something different about Gas. [00:16:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I kind of felt bad for Beaver because he was clearly the star of the show and had said such a wonderful performance. But Musa in many ways ends up being the headline because he's, you know, he scored the winning goal and all of the effort and skill and foresight to create the tying goal that he'll never get. I mean, that's kind of the crazy part of this, is that, you know, four years from now, nobody will remember, you know, the record books won't remember the fact that that's essentially a moose a goal because, you know, he makes the run he gets all the way to the end line. He just dribbles to the post, and then he puts the ball across and hits off a Houston player. Looks like he did it on purpose. And it, like, it's just tremendous, man. It was. It was so much fun to watch him play. [00:17:06] Speaker A: Speaking of Farrington getting disrespected, I have. I have a TV broadcast to make. Because they had for deficiency Dallas as their man to watch at the beginning of the game. They had Peter Musa. I was like, dude, you guys got the starting lineup an hour before the game, and you're so lazy, you couldn't. Now, granted, they built a little package like, whatever you have it. You have tapes in the truck. You have digital files around tapes anymore. You could easily put together two Farrington things or whatever. You could easily have made a graphic, but you stuck with Moussa. It's like, dude, he's not shorty. He might not even come into the game. You don't even know if he's got a knock. He may not play. And then at the end of the game, they pick Moussa for the player of the game. And I'm like, dude, Barrington had an amazing game. What are you doing? And it's like they were just so dialed into the moose is the only player here that matters narrative that they just couldn't even see their way around it. It was awful. Made me mad. [00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah, there were lots of interesting performances. We've spent a lot of time kind of asking out loud about the Valiente character and how good he is. I. You know, this was obviously one of his better performances. And the pass that he made to start the second goal was a really nice slicing pass through ball. And Johansson's cross, by the way, that's interesting that those two guys that they got in the off season were critical to that. And it was. It was Valiente's best game so far. There are still things about his game that I'm. I still have some questions about in terms of him being more impactful, but at least there was some impact this. This particular time. [00:18:43] Speaker A: Well, this is the first game where I really felt like you could see him, you know, specifically doing things to the game where there was a game impact. I mean, obviously two assists, one of them is a secondary, but still two assists. And this is where the goals added stat is dumb. He had the lowest goals added stat on the FC Dallas. Meanwhile, he had two assists. So whatever, you know, he was making some line breaking, he was doing some switching. It was the first time, like, to me, he was clearly trying to dictate to the game. I maybe would have liked to see in a little more pace control, but it's been like four games. Let's give the guy a chance to work his way into it. Johansson is very hit or miss offensively. Obviously he's a huge component. He has the primary assist on Ferrington's second goal. I think he was involved in the own goal build up, you know, he won't get credit for, you know, obviously offensively, he's got a lot in his bag. Defensively, he has one significant problem, which is that if, if Dallas is playing in their low block and just sort of standing there waiting and a dude on the other team just tees him up for like a 40 yard run at pace. Johansson is such a big guy. He's large. He has trouble, you know, turning and then going instantly at full speed. And so he has guys run by him a couple of times. And that's why he got burned on that third goal where he was to not hold the line because he was trying to run with that guy. And that was a poor choice where he should just let the guy go because the guy was blasting past the offside. But a million miles an hour, granted, that pass is ridiculous. [00:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that pass from Jeremy or whatever [00:20:10] Speaker A: his name is, and then Goula May. [00:20:12] Speaker B: I'm just going to call him Golem. [00:20:14] Speaker A: Yeah, sure, Bobby Goulet. And they, you know, maybe that was why Cabis was listed because usually Capis closes down in midfield and he did not close that one down and Romero never does. That's not understandable. So maybe that was part of why Capis was like, okay, you know, he's not moving very well. Let's go ahead and bring him out. So multiple mistakes on that goal. But go to go back to the point is the Johansson, like Bernie is still sometimes hit or miss. A little defensive frailty here and there. You know, mainly in that regard is inability to turn like on a guy, full breaking on him, you know, it takes him a minute to warm up, to get up to full speed, so. But otherwise he's, you know, he dominates guys in the air. You can see it in the pictures all the time. He's smashing guys by jumping them back in circle margins. And then the second goal, of course, was even worse with just, I hate zonal marking. And that's not even an individual person's breakdown. It's a team collective breakdown, you know, and in particular, when teams crash it in two layers like that, the second layer doesn't get picked up. And that's exactly what happened on that goal was like everybody went with the first layer of guys and left the second layer wide open. He wasn't the only player wide open. The dude that scored, who's also got a name I can't pronounce. [00:21:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it was obviously, it was a miserable, a very short period of time. And to see five goals happen in the first half was not anything anybody had anticipated. And again, as I was saying earlier, if, if, if literally five minutes before you had said to me, there'll be five goals in this game, I would have went, wow, Dallas might actually score five goals because that's how dominant they were in that opening part until the collode error. And so it is pretty crazy. So did. When Musa comes in and they take Kappas out, what is the tactical shift there? Did this formation change in any way or. Yeah, why don't you explain that? [00:21:59] Speaker A: It's a shift back to the two striker system that's been the bulk of the system this year. The Musa and Farrington combo. The. The Parrington as they've been calling it. Perfect Barrington the team's been calling it, which is a funny nickname, you know, without Valiente dropping back into a single sort of 10 roll. So basically you're returning to the 5, 3, 2 that you. Has been your base system most of the time with that sub, they're in that system and they get their own goal and that ties the game. Gets them back even at three. And then Delgado and Benjamin come in and that's a swap where they took out Norris, they took out a center back and they actually went to a back 4, 4. And so at that point it was literally a 4, 4, 2. Although they were playing so aggressively. It really was almost like a back two. It was almost like a two, four, four, if you will. Yeah, because they had guys so far up the field, no one actually plays a 2, 4, 4. It's a 442. But you're, you're getting forward in an offensive manner, you're overloading into space. That's pretty standard 442 stuff. So they grab the game winner from Musa and they bring on Ibaga, back on Sebastian. Not back on. Excuse me, they sub in Sebastian Iaga. And that switches it back to. Because they take off Fairyton, that switches it Back to the 3, 4, 3 they started the game with, which gives them that high press capability, gives them their normal sort of back five with a couple guys in front that they're sort of used to playing by. This point. So it's a pretty nice adaptation by Quill to bring on effectively an extra mid and take off a center back to give himself an overload in midfield and then dominate the possession even more. And it's the first time we've seen and Dallas out possessed somebody and God, since Quill got here, maybe 51% and it worked. [00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah, and they were out. I mean that's not just because of the red card. They had clearly more possession of the game and control of the game even prior to the red card. Yeah, it was an impressive performance all the way. I, I will say, I'm sure, I'm sure he felt like he had to make the substitutions just to get some fresh legs on. But the Delgado Benjamin insertion was not an improvement. You know, Benjamin was turned the ball over three or four times. Really bad turnovers. Houston was able to counter obviously that late opportunity Houston had on the collode save. [00:24:13] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:24:17] Speaker B: I'm not a big fan of either one of those guys yet. I mean Delgado I've always obviously had issues with since last year. Benjamin just feels like he's still trying to figure it out. [00:24:25] Speaker A: No, he's 20, he's, you know, he must be an academy kid, you know. [00:24:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So it, it's not like they've got a lot of depth in these. My point is, is that the team is lacking in depth in these situations where they're trying to close out games and that kind of. Not that Dallas is. Yeah, in that position very often. [00:24:43] Speaker A: The only. The thing I liked about it was by bringing on the extra midfielder, it allowed them to overload the mid center section and then it made it really difficult for Houston to build out at all. Houston had a resort to sort of thumping and chasing it, which is probably what the goal was, and not let Jeremy or Hector Herrera or whoever else. I think Arturo's hurt wasn't in the game, but ordinarily he would be a handful at midfield, you know, so. And you saw as a result in the collective game for top to bottom, Dallas ends up with 15 shots, which is what you want, seven on target, which again is like half. We always talk about that. Right. We want to see them at 50% chances at home. And they limited the road team to only 10 shots and only four on target. So that was, you know, that's the balance. You want, you want to be able to make it difficult for them to build through the middle of your field. Houston's a team that doesn't have high possession, but when they get the ball, they Want to play through their midfield, they want to play through those dps they've got in there. So like, you know, they made it hard for him and that was a nice tactical switch up by Quill. Even though I'm with you, those guys, two guys that weren't great. But it's what he has. And we should talk at some point a little bit about how shallow his bench is. Quills is. He doesn't have a lot of really great choices on the bench these days. [00:25:47] Speaker B: No. And you know, this was. The Moose's situation was interesting because to your point, if Moose is hurt, you know, Farrington is obviously a number one choice and shows a lot of promise but after that I don't know where they're going at that position. You know the rookie who I've yet to see. So I don't really know much about him or anything. [00:26:08] Speaker A: Super raw. [00:26:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And now that he's a lot of [00:26:11] Speaker A: nice traits that you like in like two years you like. [00:26:14] Speaker B: Sure. [00:26:14] Speaker A: Anderson. Julio's hurts decent is more of a wing like really like if you don't have Moose and Farrington the two striker system becomes sort of obsolete and not worth doing. Perhaps that's why we're seeing this three, four, three a bit. You know, because we know Quill has a fair number of wings. We know right now he likes that back five. So. Okay. That three, four, three lets you bring on sort of two wing ish guys. You know, they need to play as those tens. They need to. We Talked about this two years ago when Nico Sevis tried to play 343 and. But the. The two wings were like Bernie and somebody else Obrion and so they were both played like really wide and like hug the line. That that's not what you do in three, four, three. You got to come underneath and play like Valiente and Kaik are and you can still do that with a Sarver or a Deedson or whatever if you don't have your two strikers anymore. So partially it's been tactically effective probably partially to Quill's looking at the what am I going to do if they do sell Musa on me if I. Or if he's hurt and I only have one striker. What am I going to do? What. How am I going to use all these wings and I don't have a wing in my shape. Let's try some things and see what we got, you know. [00:27:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:22] Speaker A: So it's interesting to watch them all similar experience experiment a little bit. But I did not have Kaika being a 10 in my bingo card by any means. But you know, he's not doing it to be a playmaking 10. He's doing it to be a high presser. You can almost call him a high six in the sense that like he's busting his ass up there and winning balls back and turning guys over and high pressing. [00:27:44] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, playmaking. I'm glad you brought this up because it was my observation from this game and when he played that same position, watching it on tv is that in some ways it actually maximizes. The thing that Kaik does that drives us nuts, which is he's just running around the field chasing the ball all the time and not always necessarily in a really good position to defend. And so if he playing this more high position area, the impact of that is lessened. At least it's not in a more, it's, it's in a lesser dangerous area of the field. How about that? And, and, and you get the benefit of him putting everybody under pressure, which is, you know, in their half of the field, which you know, to, to be fair to, to be fair to the guy. It actually worked out in the prior game because that goal was created when he was putting pressure, that guy in the box against San Diego. [00:28:37] Speaker A: So yeah, credit to Quill who's invented a, a new position like Pep thought of like the free eight. Well, Quill's got high six or ten, six dog or whatever you want to, whatever you want to call. Yeah, [00:28:50] Speaker B: attacking third defensive midfielder. [00:28:52] Speaker A: Yeah, attacking demon. I don't know what you would call it, but it's certainly unique in it or it optimizes that kid's Billy. And let's give Valiente some credit too. He, he's a really nice high presser. [00:29:05] Speaker B: Oh yeah, he loves to run. [00:29:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:29:08] Speaker B: 100. [00:29:08] Speaker A: You know, listen, I have questions about that much high press holding up long term in the heat and the load of MLS and the high number of games when you get into leagues cup and obviously the mid summer break will help a little bit for FC House in that regard. So it's probably not sustainable forever with that level of high press in it. But you can still play a 3, 4, 3 in the way Dallas usually plays which is this load of mid block and sort of sitting back and waiting encounter. You can definitely do that. That's a viable thing for sure. You may just have to limit a little bit how much you high press out of it, that's all. [00:29:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Now we haven't talked a lot about the defense and there's this is a game where Dallas does give up three goals. And you know, we got another start from Nolan Norris, which. This was interesting because this wasn't a start caused because Urge Day isn't available like it was the last time. This was Urge Day starts. Shaq's on the right, Nolan's on the left, Ibiaga sits. We all celebrate and we get to watch the kid play a little bit more. And I think. I think this is a passable setup, but, you know, they gave up three goals and we still. [00:30:19] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the three goals, they're not coming from those three dudes. You know, it's. It's codes, gaff, which would. Doesn't matter who's in there, Malini's in there. It doesn't matter. That goal's all's going to the goal. The. The. The man marking. Not man mark. Excuse me. The zonal marking on the corner is a team collective meltdown. That's really not those three guys, I don't think. It's more of a system problem, I think. And then the Johansson goal, that's not the three guys in the middle either. That ball comes from a mistake. A little bit of lack of pressure and a gorgeous ball no matter what. And Johansson missed playing in terms of whether he should have played the high line or not, so more irrigated. And Nolas did a really nice job. So has Ibiaga when he's been in there. I love Ibiaga as a late game defensive sub way more than I like him as a starter, mainly because I like Norris's long passing and his aggressiveness. Like his average position is quite high. He loves to come into midfield and win balls back and then play those spraying passes and getting guys on the run, you know. Could you make a case that he's outplaying Ibiaga other than the passing? I don't know that he's outplaying the guy. But at the same time, this team is not MLS cup winning right this minute. And I. You cannot play him into being better than he is. He's 34. [00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:32] Speaker A: Norris is at 20, right? Norris has upside in future and potential. I'm very happy to live with some Norris mistakes defensively. Not that we're seeing a lot of them, but if we do, I'm very happy to live with that in order to keep progressing that young man who's a phenomenal passer. And so far he and Bernie have been fine. You know, we. Norris yells at Bernie less than Iaga does, but, you know, the gap has been Perfectly well protected with those two guys as it is with Ibia again there. So I don't. I don't see a deficiency of either one of those guys playing. So for me, you might as well play the kid who's got a future, [00:32:04] Speaker B: you know, well, in the team is. If he's. If we're going to say he's not out playing or equal to Ibiaga defensively, the big upside is his passing. And he's such a good and nice passer, and he. And. And he helps get the team restarted in a way more comfortable way, I feel, than when I watch them play with Ibiaga, who's just not a good. A very good passer at this level. [00:32:29] Speaker A: And oh, yeah, the bill was heavily shifted to the left in this game. [00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:34] Speaker A: With through, you know, because Capus is also on that side, you know, and Bernie is too. Bernie's not ideal in that scenario, but the Norris cap is. Triangle with Bernie is working pretty well, to be honest with you up there, you know, and whether it's Barrington or Musa in the middle, those guys are doing a nice job of going up that side and getting into him. The other side's fine too, you know, more to Johansson, that side's got some quality in as well. Ramiro's not as good as Capis as the transition, but because Johansson is pretty good at it, you know, it's more of a traditional, like Johansson running the line and crossing, but it's working pretty well too. So they have a nice balance right now. I see Dallas does. It's a good quality to have. [00:33:08] Speaker B: All right, so Dallas goes on to win the game. 4, 3. Lots of drama in the stadium. Couple of observations. First off, thank you to our MLS overlords for putting a correct, traditional and valued kit assignment on the field. Seeing Dallas in their home kit and Houston in their home kit was a sight to behold. I was mighty pleased by that. Somebody said to me, man, it's kind of weird, the orange and the red's a little too close. And I thought, well, I can get that. But here's the problem. MLS allowed Houston to have a dark away jersey. So this is technically their light kit. And yeah, this is a problem of the league's own making. That didn't have to happen. [00:33:53] Speaker A: Houston's light kit has been orange for a long time now, right? They had the black aways and now they have a. The purple, the purplish. This is a purple and orange, which looks a lot like blue and red. You know, the white shorts really, really help. It Be a light combination and I can live with it. I think it's fine. I certainly like seeing Dallas in their home hoops more than I do that white, whatever, blue, faded denim wash, whatever [00:34:18] Speaker B: straw, dirty, dirty dishwater is what we [00:34:22] Speaker A: call color, you know, whatever it is. Yeah. So, you know, I think the kit, kit wise, I think it's about as good as you're going to get with these two teams having the kits they have. You know, short of house being able to wear their throwback burn jerseys, which they can't. That was a one season deal, which is a shame because the Dallas and all black versus the orange would be nice. [00:34:42] Speaker B: So I. This is the first time, I think this is the first time I've been in the stadium since the roof line went up. No, I've been in it since then. It's come along, along. It's come a long way since the last time I was in there. I think only some of the framework was up or something the last time I was there. And it's impressive to see and you do begin to get an idea of where this thing is headed. Although it screamingly reminds me of the time my wife and I made the terrible decision to live in our house while we had the kitchen, bathro and another part of the downstairs renovated. That was a really shitty, stupid decision on our part. [00:35:21] Speaker A: I remember that. [00:35:22] Speaker B: Yes. And that's what that place gives me the vibe of the entire time. I mean, it just, it does, you know, I know they don't want to hear it, but it does impact the vibe of that entire game day experience. Getting in and out of the stadium isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. And maybe that's just because there's half as many people trying to get in out of the stadium. But just the overall experience, it's hard for the, it's, it's hard to get a real, a sense of energy building in there for whatever reason. But. But the good news is, is this new gigantic roof line and this one that's up now is what, half the size of the one to come? [00:36:10] Speaker A: Maybe more than half, but yeah, it's much smaller than the other one. [00:36:12] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, I mean, you really get, you're beginning to get a sense of just how kind of more intimate the entire thing is going to feel when it's all done. The other observation is something that you said from the jump on this, and I never really picked up on it, but this is where it became so apparent to me and evident is that the thing that I don't think we've talked about out of this remarkable project is at the end of this project, the capacity of the stadium is only going to be slightly more than it was before this entire thing. [00:36:43] Speaker A: Two grand more. [00:36:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And almost all of that is going to come not from general seating out in the, in the stands. It's going to come from these fancy suites. [00:36:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Added suites and a little bit of space returning to the stage. That's basically it. [00:36:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And we, at this point, we don't even know how much of the stage, that whole north end's coming back because it may not be this. It may. Yeah. Some of it's coming back. Yeah. [00:37:06] Speaker A: Yeah. But not the original plans though. No. [00:37:09] Speaker B: Yeah. It is funny to me that we're spending all this money to redo the stadium and get a roof in a bunch of suites. [00:37:15] Speaker A: Well, I've talked about this a lot. This is the thing that's happening in modern sports is the upgrading of the game day experience. So you can charge more. It's. It's more suites, it's more amenities, it's better food, it's different food, it's more entertainment value. It's the big huge scale screen that people like it. Rather than say, I'm going to build a 50,000 seat stadium and have it be empty half the time, I'm going to have my stadium be the same size. I'm just going to make it way nicer and charge more. [00:37:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:42] Speaker A: So that's, that's mod. There's even people that are like, the famous example right now is the Buffalo Bills are building a new stadium. It's actually smaller than their old one, but it has a bunch of amenities. The prices are going way, way up and a bunch of the local bill stands that have been there for a million years are getting priced out because it's going to be businesses incorporate and luxury suites and stuff. You know, hey, whatever. It's their team. They're going to make a bunch of money. That place at 22,000 is pretty cooking. I mean, it's going to be fun. Like it is like, oh, with that [00:38:09] Speaker B: new roof line and stuff, it's going to be. Yeah, it'll be great. Assuming they can fill it up. And yeah. [00:38:15] Speaker A: Remember from the very beginning there was always this idea that you could add a second deck. [00:38:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:19] Speaker A: To that place all the way around. That's been a possibility the entire time. And they've completely tossed that and gone with this upgrade idea. Instead, they're tearing down the whole thing. They could have done whatever they wanted to and they're just going to make it really fancy. Okay, that's cool. I mean, it'll still be a good vibe, you know, I guess they're not planning on Sunday and needing a stadium that holds 50,000 people, but you know, if they have the level of demand, the ticket prices will just go up more, so. [00:38:46] Speaker B: Well, the other thing that struck me as interesting will be to watch how this thing goes forward. Forward when they move everybody to the east side after the World cup and they begin to tear down the north and west side. And what that game day experience is going to be like when that giant structure comes down and everybody's just glaring off into the setting sun. [00:39:07] Speaker A: A flat parking lot with the setting sun above. Yeah, it's going to be brutal. [00:39:11] Speaker B: They've got to have some. Something planned to help block that off and keep people. A giant scrim having all like 20,000 retinas go dark because they wear your sunglasses. [00:39:22] Speaker A: Yeah, Some blue blockers. [00:39:23] Speaker B: Maybe that's what they do. They'll hand out FC Dallas. [00:39:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:28] Speaker B: Paper ones like the 3D ones you get at the 3D movies. Everybody's wearing those, so they don't. That'll be great. Now the other thing to talk about is word that Dallas appears to be on the precipice of acquiring a player. And I find this one weird. Buzz, if this ends up being true. Well, you predicted it the other day. [00:39:53] Speaker A: I predicted it? [00:39:54] Speaker B: Yeah, you predicted it. I guess I am just curious. Santi Moreno, who is the Colombian player who was playing in Portland and got sideways with them for whatever the reason was, got sold to Fluminense down in Brazil, has played barely zero down in Brazil. And now apparently this. Okay, this is the part of the story that I think. I don't think is unfair to take a closer look at. I think, Buzz, just kind of investigate the meanings and purposes behind this because yes, this is the exact same club that magically showed up out of nowhere right when you needed to get a certain high paid player off your roster to take him off your hands. And now you're cutting a deal to take a player that they need to get off their hands for about the same amount of money. [00:40:47] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's. It's the thing. It's a loan deal, but the buy is reportedly basically the same money that they sold the Jocasta to. The same. Huh. You don't say. What a coincidence that that's how that worked out. [00:41:00] Speaker B: I'm sure it's just the. [00:41:01] Speaker A: Just tell the. [00:41:02] Speaker B: Cue the money yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:41:05] Speaker A: I mean, I'm sure, like, look, I. I don't know anything about Fleming and say in their money situation, but I'm sure they're not drowning in money. So they probably were quite happy to be like, can we send you a player back? Sure. Now, here's the upside. This dude was a U22 initiative player for Portland, but really good, like, really produced, and was, you know, on the cusp of being like, oh, we're going to pay you more money and then want to leave for whatever. But the other side of that coin is that he had a green card when he was here before. Now, I don't know jack squat about immigration stuff, so don't ask me if that holds over or whether he has a resident card or whatever. I don't even know. But he was not an international before when he left, so let's presume that that can happen again, right? So that's not an issue. He's going to be on a loan. So this first half of this season, or maybe this even whole season, he'll basically be really, really cheap on the cap. So that's not a hit, right? You're talking about a dude that, because he was in this league, you can scout him easily. You probably have books and tape for miles on this guy. You know exactly what you're getting. The reason I predicted it is the minute I saw that player linked to MLS at all, I was like, oh, that's going to be Dallas. Because A, he plays for a Brazilian club that Zenata already knows very well and has good relationship with. As you mentioned, they sold the Joe Costa there. B, he's a winger. And Zenana can't stand not buying every winger he can get his hands on. He's Colombian, which again, South American. Like, he'll be comfortable here. This club has a really good South American flavor. Right now, it's a little more Brazilian than otherwise, but, you know, Patrick Delgado's from Ecuador. You know, they've got a long tradition of Latin Hispanic players here, fans here. So, like, that's not a problem. There's good community in Dallas. I mean, it ain't Miami, but whatever, you know. So I think there's a lot of things that. The minute I saw the name I like, oh, that's gonna be Dallas. And sure enough, it was. So everyone's reporting that it's happening. So it's gonna be quick when he gets here, it'll be quick. [00:43:00] Speaker B: So I got two questions. One, is this a player that's gonna show up in a Bad mood because he got the deal he the movie wanted only it not to work out. Now he's back in a country that or a place he didn't want to be not that long ago. [00:43:13] Speaker A: Some of them go ahead sorry. [00:43:15] Speaker B: And two, he's a winger and this team doesn't play with wings. It doesn't need a winger. It that's what isn't what the Deetson dude does in theory. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Well, okay, number one, there's lots of reports that he was not he was really lonely in Brazil and it has not gone well in terms of him and being happy that way. Well, you know, if he was here for in the United States for a bit and maybe he'll be more comfortable. And again like I said, there's a pretty good Hispanic community at FC Dallas in the team. Right. So I think that probably will be a little bit better for him perhaps. Hope you hope. But the second part of that question is yes, well remember that Anderson Julio is out and there were some shots the other day of he posted on Instagram of himself on a bike with a big old knee brace on his knee. So let's say he's out through the World cup maybe Anson Julio. And remember too that there's a good chance that you're going to sell Musa. We've been talking this to death. Well, at that point you're only going to have one striker and there's no reason not to go back to like we've just been talking about this 3, 4, 3 or maybe a 4, 3, 3 a system that he's going to use a whole bunch more wingers. And I think it's very plausible that you could use this, this guy, the Santiago as a that underneath role where Kaik's been playing, particularly if you're not going to press quite as much but you want to and you're going to sit a little deep and have some verticality out of that. So spot. He can definitely give you that. So the difference between him and Deon is that he's. Moreno has proven it in MLS at a pretty high rate and Diesel never has. Not in mls. He has for Haiti, but not for mls. So you know, again, Zenata loves himself some wingers so he couldn't help himself. But I think it is a player that will fit a longer term vision of how Quill would want to play. So I'm, I'm okay with it and all those parameters. I don't have any complaints about it. [00:44:55] Speaker B: All right. Well, you make me feel better about it because my read on it was. This was more of the standard operating position, operating procedure of acquiring players to sell them on at a profit down the road kind of thing, and less about quality roster building. And if you're willing to give Zenoda enough credit and foresight to bring in a winger because he thinks he's going to need wingers for a formation change down the road, then, okay, I'll, I'll follow your lead on that one. [00:45:26] Speaker A: Remember too, that Anderson Julio is 29, which is not super old, but he's also out of contract, he's out of options. And there was always, there was talk when he first came here that Anderson wanted to go back down somewhere south, you know, for the final phases of his career. So I think it's very likely that Anderson Julio at the end of the season will say no thank you to a new contract and want to go. So he's probably out of the question, you know, So I, I would, I would anticipate that. The idea of this player, you know, for the, for the loan right now, you can fit him in at a really good number and help get you through the, the Aniston Julio injury, help getting through post World cup while you're trying to figure out where to spend your DP money and then longer term, you know, because he was a U22 initiative and the loan will come in initially and the price is not too bad in terms of the buy. Like, I don't think he would be a dp. I think you could get him in a TAM level, which means, like, you don't have to burn one of your DP spots on the guy. So you would still have potentially two or three open DP spots depending on when boost of sale goes in the U22 system, you know, so there's some positivity to that. Fits like, listen in a total vacuum. Is this the guy that I would say like. But given the way the team plays, given the way they manage the team, given the ways in snow to manage the team, given where they spend their money, this guy's a pretty good piece of business, I think. I don't. I'm okay with this one, you know. [00:46:44] Speaker B: Okay. [00:46:44] Speaker A: Some of them I'm like. Some of them I'm like, what are you doing? This one feels right to me. Feels like a fit. We were just talking about not having anybody on the bench that was worth the day coming in. [00:46:52] Speaker B: I know, but if you're going to fill the bench up, can we get it in positions of needs for the formation? You're playing like another Like a center midfielder or a center back or. [00:47:00] Speaker A: You know, the timeline on a two striker formation is probably very short, Right? [00:47:06] Speaker B: Yeah, you're probably right. But that also bums me out that they may not replace Musa with a Musa like striker. [00:47:12] Speaker A: I think they would replace Musa with Farrington. I mean, he just tore it up. Right. So. Yeah, wouldn't you? [00:47:18] Speaker B: Okay. [00:47:19] Speaker A: Spend that money somewhere else. [00:47:20] Speaker B: With the win, Dallas leapfrogs Houston. Yahoo. And now in eighth place on eight points. And next up is a road trip to D.C. united, who sit in six. Then I was doing a little bit of research. The last time Dallas won a game four to three. Oh, not the last time. I'm sorry. They won a game against Miami 4 to 3. That game, that, that interesting game against Miami last April about a year ago. But the time prior to that, Dallas beat D.C. united 4 3. And then the following week they lost 5 3. So keep your mind on that. And then I meant to say when they beat Miami 43 last April, they turned around and lost to San Diego 5 nothing. It so. [00:48:07] Speaker A: Well, that Miami game is referred to as the Alaska sale game. [00:48:11] Speaker B: That's right. [00:48:12] Speaker A: They got sold because of that game. [00:48:15] Speaker B: That is correct. So that game is, as Buzz said, there's international break. There's no Dallas game this coming weekend. So we'll talk more about the D.C. united game in a the next episode of Third Degree, the podcast. All right, let's move on to the next subject, which should be the juniors, Byrne Jr. Which will be North Texas and Buzz. Is the start of the season not going well for Byrne Jr. No, not particularly. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Not against Houston. They went down there and got dominated. The problem, the downside is that Alvaro Gusto went down there and was terrible. Again, one positive, Enzo Newman started the game, but it's clearly on a minute restriction. He only played like a little bit in the second half, which by the way underlines the point that there's no backup right wing back right now because Newman is basically with North Texas for a bit until he gets his legs back and. And Giovanni Jesus, as near as I could tell, is doesn't even. I mean, who knows what. So Ricky Lewis also went down there and instead of starting at wing back where we expected, since that's what he's played with the first team, he started at forward and they use Natty James, who's a forward, as a wing back. So that was a little weird. Du Garcia started again. Caleb Swan was with the first team with SU Dallas. So that's remarkable. So not a really good performance. The Most interesting thing that happened was that Benji Flowers made his pro debut. [00:49:39] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:49:40] Speaker A: He's. He's not under contract. But it's a pro game. You made an amateur contract. But he's the second youngest player to ever play for North Texas. I wanted to bring it up because I've been talking about how he's the next. He's the best prospect they've had since Ricardo Pepe. He's an absolutely phenomenal talent. [00:49:56] Speaker B: How old is he? [00:49:56] Speaker A: Huge. Huge. He's 14 and something. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. [00:50:00] Speaker B: Hold on, hold on, hold on. A 14 year old played for North [00:50:05] Speaker A: Texas and that's only the second youngest player to play for North Texas. [00:50:08] Speaker B: Who's the youngest? [00:50:10] Speaker A: Well, I'll get to that in just a second. [00:50:12] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:50:12] Speaker A: I have a little story to tell about that. This is why it's important to note all some things here. So again, Benji Flowers is a humongous phenomenal talent. Massive upside. Best player since Pepe at least. [00:50:23] Speaker B: Is he a true Dallas, Fort Worth local kid or did he come in from somewhere? [00:50:27] Speaker A: No, no, he's from here. His brother plays football for Oregon. [00:50:30] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. I. Okay, yes, now I know. [00:50:32] Speaker A: Phenomenal kid, 14 years old. So for the first youngest player in club history was Matt Corcoran. You remember him? I read about him. He plays for Nashville. Dallas let him go, right? His record was beaten two years ago by Steel Cook, a player I've talked a bit about a bunch period. Number 10, Ball Handler Wizard. Dallas let him go. He left the academy over the winter break and he's now with FC Cincinnati. So yes, be super crazy hype that Benji Flowers is going to be the real deal. But Dallas has not been locking these guys up. You can look at those two, you can look at Eyestone, you can look at whoever else you want to look at that's come out and we've been crazy excited about them and they're not getting it done. Dallas is not as a club. So yes, be hyped about Benji Flowers, [00:51:23] Speaker B: but was this maybe in an attempt to get him to stay or. They can't sign him to a deal. [00:51:31] Speaker A: Oh yeah, you can. Oh, you can? Yeah. Inside the states, you can. You can't. He's not, he's not going to another farm club right now on a professional contract. But you can sign an MLS contract right now. Now, absolutely. [00:51:45] Speaker B: Do you think Flowers is seen the. Seen the pathway of other people and is considering doing something similar unless he gets. [00:51:54] Speaker A: I would say I don't know for sure, but I would. 100%. Promise you, based on how I know this works, is that there are European clubs banging on his parents door offering them jobs to come work. We'll get you a job, come to wherever and you can join our academy and then we'll pay you in when you turn 18, you know, we'll pay your parents bolos of money to do nothing and sit around. That's how this works. So the, the thing is, is that I already had planned that this summer when I did my next homegrown watch list, that Benji Flowers was going to be on it. That was my plan. He was not on the last one. I knew he was going to be on the next one. Well, now he's gonna be number one because if you make your debut with North Texas and he's gone from coming into the winter, he was playing for the U15 team and coming out of the winter he's been playing for the U18 team and he starts all the time and he scores goals all the time. So this guy's made this massive, huge leap forward. He's ready for a homegrown deal, none of this hybrid garbage, full homegrown deal. And he'll be probably be 15 by then. I don't know for sure. I don't know his birthday is. But Dallas has on their hands a real problem. You have a phenomenal talent that everybody in the country knows who he is, and there's going to be lots and lots of people trying to get him signed and get him money, and you're going to have to step up to the plate. You can't nickel and D this kid. I mean, I don't know what's going to take, but it ain't going to be easy. They're going to think, you know, because when, if somebody comes around, like, look at Sullivan in Philadelphia, right? He didn't sign with Philly, sign with Manchester City, right? He said you can stay with Philly, right? That's what happens. You know, Sullivan's not 18. So you see what, how this works now. [00:53:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's. This is the crazy part of this and you know, this is something we saw early with Dallas and now we're seeing it with other MLS clubs that are starting to produce talent that the, the rest of the globe is, is this weird situation where they're producing, they're finding and producing talent that they may never get to monetize. We've talked about this ad nauseam over the years. It all started back with the Weston McKinney situation and how we back Then we said, okay, this is the problem going forward. The Hunts chose Dallas to be their MLS club they keep for a reason, because this is the hotbed of talent. Way more than Kansas City and Columbus combined times two. And the problem is, is you're going to have such a. An overload of talent. When you get to your best Tier one guys, you're going to have to be ready to wheel and deal to keep those kids. And some of those kids, no matter what deal you put on the table, aren't staying because they want to go to Europe or they want to do something different, you know? [00:54:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, you have to make it clear to them that when it's time, we'll sell you. You know, that's one of the reasons why Dallas does sell kids, is because they want to make that clear. But this is. This is that level player. This is Weston McKinney. This is Chris Richards. This is. [00:54:39] Speaker B: Oh, wow. You put in that high. [00:54:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:54:42] Speaker B: Okay. [00:54:43] Speaker A: This is that level of talent. Yeah. And I'm not the only one saying this. There's lots. [00:54:46] Speaker B: Oh, no, I believe. Yeah. [00:54:48] Speaker A: Yeah. This is, you know, this is the best guy since Pepe easily, you know. [00:54:52] Speaker B: Well, too bad for his debut. They got dominated by Houston and lost two. [00:54:55] Speaker A: Yeah. But it was important. And then you play like 10 minutes. That's what matters. It's like, you know, because this is. This is part of the FC's way is they give you a taste at this level, maybe give you a couple of games, and then they sort of take you back to the lower to the academy and they see how you react. That's part of the test, right? You don't want to see a player go back to the academy and then pout and quit and be like, I don't need to be here, I need to be. No, no. You go back to the academy and score five and make it look stupid that you're back in the academy. That's what you do. Right. So that's the. That's the reaction they want to see. So they'll give him a little taste, see how it goes. You know, this is a kid that's already getting first team training. 14 years old. This is legit. This is a guy. Now, listen, there are other dudes between his age and the first team that are really, really nice. Some of them are signed and some of them are about to be signed. These are really quality players that are going to be pros, but not that Pepe level. This is. This is the guy that, like, people will be Paying attention, you know, when you get there. Okay, so if they can even get them at all. [00:55:47] Speaker B: Well, little burn sits until April 10th and that is when their next game is. Next up it is Pegasus. Dallas. Trinity had a game against my other USL SL team, Sporting Jacks. I lived in Jacksonville for a little while and man, they got woman handled and lost for nothing. Yeah, is this the worst, is this the worst loss in Trinity history? [00:56:16] Speaker A: Oh gosh, I don't know. It's certainly one of the worst ones at home. They may have lost more than this somewhere. But the weird thing was like watching the game, they didn't get out soccer like they played some decent soccer, but there were these individual mistakes that would happen like one on one, like one. One defender getting beat or one defender not quite close to downtime. Now coach Thackeray talked a lot about how tired his team is because they've been playing a few more games than other people and the team's coming and playing him around 10, 10 day, 2 week rests coming in, playing them when they're on like a four day rest. And so he wasn't happy about that. Maybe that's the difference. But then again, Sporting Jackson, the first place team in the league, they, they're, I think they have one loss on the year. They're very, very, very good. [00:56:55] Speaker B: So they're an expansion team too, by the way. [00:56:57] Speaker A: Yeah, they're not. This is not a team that where you go, this is not a bad beat. No, they're awesome that team and they beat Dallas deservedly, Trinity deservedly. So you know, Trinity is in fourth place still. They've had some nice pieces, but they're not at the level of Sporting Jacks right now. But then you know, they're in the first season of this league. The hot number one best team all season pulled the shoot and class in the playoffs and somebody else came through and won. So remember there's always going to be playoffs. You just got to get hot at the end. So Trinity has done some nice things with their roster. They have some new pieces that look good. Pretty sure they'll probably hold on and make the playoffs, but they're not the level of Sporting Jacks. You know, even though Dallas is capable of playing soccer at a pretty good level, there's some individual talents that are standing up for Jacksonville that are breaking games open that to turning doesn't have. [00:57:52] Speaker B: So I am interested in hearing this note that you have written digitally and not in red crayon and I'm sure, sure Buzz, you don't mean it. In the. [00:58:04] Speaker A: Stop. Don't do that. [00:58:09] Speaker B: Don't do what? [00:58:11] Speaker A: What I know you're gonna do. [00:58:13] Speaker B: You wrote, let's talk about the elephant in the room. [00:58:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:17] Speaker B: And put somebody's name next to it. [00:58:19] Speaker A: Yes, you can talk about that part. But I knew what you're gonna do. Right. So we need to talk about Lexi. Mimo. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Okay. [00:58:25] Speaker A: Because Lexi Misimo out of ut was a spectacular goal scorer and assist maker player, baller, dominates games, smashes people, smashes games. And she is not doing that. She is their highest paid player, probably one of the highest play players in the whole league, if not the highest. [00:58:46] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. [00:58:48] Speaker A: Way up there. And like this season, she has two goals and one assistance. That's not good enough. The entire team is built around her. It's built to play through her. And with her, you know, they have some nice pieces in other positions and their whole offense is just not functioning. And at some point you have to start asking questions like, why is it not good enough when you have this player who should be significantly more impactful than she is? And it's not like it's been three games now. It's been. She got hurt last year after a couple of games, missed a whole chunk of time, but she's been back for the bulk of. She missed a few games at the beginning of this year, which Journey lost most of, but she's been back for a big, big chunk of time now and it's just not good enough. You know, maybe that's a little harsh, but these are pros and she's the highest paid player and she needs to be better than she is. And if they're going to win crap, she's got to be better. [00:59:39] Speaker B: Are her performances one where she's making a lot of errors or mistakes, turning the ball over, not completing passes, or. Or is it, hey, here's a player that clearly is better than the rest of her team and they just can't keep up with her. And she can't do it by herself. [00:59:53] Speaker A: She's better than some of her team. She's off. Sometimes she's better than all of them, but sometimes she's not better than all of them. Sometimes you can't even tell she's in the game. She's just not. She's not. She should be clearly better than everybody else at the price point she's getting paid relative to her team and she's not. You know, when you're investing such a chunk of money, you know, in a team that is not. Does not have the budget of actually soccer doesn't have the budget of the. In the other league. You know, this is a player who passed up the nwsl, pass that up to play in USL with Trinity, which is, you know, for all intensive versions, the second level. And she was playing like this in the nwsl. She wouldn't be playing. [01:00:35] Speaker B: No, no, she wouldn't. And, and you know, she, her injury situation was curious because it was protracted, went on way longer and there was some, you know, some questions as to how easily recoverable from it. It was. And I'm curious if maybe she's still hurt or maybe she's just never going to be the same player. I mean, sometimes you get those types of injuries and just end up not being the same player. [01:01:05] Speaker A: Yeah. If someone wants to tell me that like, oh, just wait like six months, eight months from now when she's a full year back that she'll come alive. Like, you know, Jason Christ was that way with his acl. It took like a year and then all of a sudden he was like killing it, you know. But okay, you can tell me that. I'll be like, okay, I'll wait. But you know, we're. She's been back for a good six months now and it's like. It's not. There's not. You watch her play and I don't see anything special. And that's a problem when you're clearly the highest paid player on your team. [01:01:34] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. All right. [01:01:36] Speaker A: I mean, if we're going to be ruthless pro game. Right. This ain't. [01:01:39] Speaker B: Oh, 100%. Yeah. I mean, look, there's a part of me, there's a part of that story where you do wonder where a player's brain is at when they make a decision to pass up an NWS seal as an NWSL deal to come play in a new league that is clearly a step down. Like, what's that? What is that? I don't want to. I don't. It's a weird conversation because you can paint it as a lack of ambition. You can paint it as somebody who's trying to help a new league grow and the fact that it's her hometown and she's. She's attracted to that compartment, you know what I'm saying? Like to me, there's always this part of it. Like if you're really the most competitive minded, I want to accelerate and go as hard as I can. I want to play at the best level I can play at. When you choose to do otherwise, it's gonna cause some idiots like Me to ask questions as to why you made that choice and maybe. [01:02:41] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I mean, she was just in U23 camp. You know, she's definitely part of the US futures program, you know, a talent people recognize. But, you know, like, if. Well, let's do some little. Comparatively, if Jaden Shaw was playing in this league, she'd have 20, right? [01:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah, but I don't know if she's Jaden Shaw. [01:03:01] Speaker A: Well, of course not, but she's, you know, comparative terms. She's the highest played player in her team. The expectation was that she would be their talisman, their. Their Musa, their. [01:03:10] Speaker B: Yeah, Ferreira, whatever it is. But my question is how many other USL SL teams would have paid her the same amount? Dallas would. [01:03:22] Speaker A: Well, not obviously, but you know that there's a question that's kind of the question I'm trying to raise is like, if you're gonna invest a big chunk of your potential into one player with a lot of money, you need to see a higher return. [01:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah, 100. [01:03:36] Speaker A: Yeah. At this point, we have to start to ask questions of, is it she's not good enough? Is it. The injury is a real problem. Is it. Is it just she doesn't have the burning desire to beat the hell out of whatever to you since she went to Texas, I'm just feeling, you know, like you would think, like, give it like you read her resume. You know, about the signing, you know about the hype around her. You go watch them play, you'd be like, great. I can't wait to see Ms. Mo. This is gonna be awesome. Compare. Compare even to Sam Mezza who got loaned here. She's not even close to Sam. No. [01:04:08] Speaker B: I think that's the most remarkable piece of this story, is for all the hype, I created them. I mean, hell, I was hyping the crap out of her on the radio show. We had her on the show. You know, I just. I forget for long stretches she's with the team anymore and. And I. There's a long list of players we spend more time talking about on that team that aren't anywhere near as hyped. And we just haven't talked about, let's see, Lexi anymore. And we're finally at the point where, like, well, now we got to talk about her, but not necessarily in a good way. We got to talk about her in a concerned way. Way. [01:04:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Celie Strawn's out playing her, who's like 16, you know, academy player for Solar, I think Caroline Swan is. Is even younger and is now starting to play in midfield, you know, it's just. You're right for the hype level, for the money level, for the name level, for the everything. Where's it at? [01:05:02] Speaker B: Is she playing in her best position? [01:05:05] Speaker A: She's playing her natural spot, that advanced midfield, underneath the striker. [01:05:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:08] Speaker A: You know exactly where she played with Trinity bars and at ut, you know, so. [01:05:13] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Well, there you go. [01:05:17] Speaker A: Had lots of goals and even more assists. She was an assist king at Texas and yeah, she's got one. How do you have one assist? [01:05:26] Speaker B: Not good. Lexi, Come on, girl. [01:05:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, attorney just signed this striker boss who was in the NWSL and was like rookie of the year or something and score. Scored like the most goals in the league over the last three years or kind of crap like that. And she hadn't scored because they can't find her. This one can't. This is like total disconnect on the front line. It's not there. Okay. [01:05:45] Speaker B: Trinity don't play again until a week from Tuesday. So we'll talk about everybody, I guess. [01:05:51] Speaker A: Yep. [01:05:53] Speaker B: All right, next up, Atletico Dallas, which we haven't heard a lot from of late, but today, as a matter of fact, we're recording this on Monday evening, did put out a press release and a statement notifying everybody the launch of their actual youth academy team, which will be limited to two very young age groups, ironically, two age groups that FC Dallas doesn't necessarily formally have academy teams for the U9 and U10. Is that by saying that correct? [01:06:21] Speaker A: Yep, yep. [01:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And so they're going to launch these and they're making a big deal that they too will become another club in Dallas that are offering free academy structure for players that get selected to be a part of the team. It will not cost them to participate in this. [01:06:38] Speaker A: I traded some text with Brian Corcoran to make sure that, you know, we were all that I had all my ducks in a robot talking about this. And that's true. It is going to be free. They are going to have. I don't know for sure that they'll have tryouts, but they definitely will be picking players. This is not like, I can go, oh, I want to play for you. No, no, you can come try out, but we're going to be picking the players. They've landed these two coaches who both played in Spain. One of them came through Valencia's youth academy. The other one came through Athletico Madrid. They both played in the Spanish league and apparently they both were in Dallas and had been coaching and no one had really tapped them. Up to be coaching at this high of a level. Their resumes are spectacular and Corcoran was telling me some great things about them as coaches based on some guys that he talked to in Spain. So they're really excited about that. That'll be fun. So they're, they're, they're making an investment. They're not going scorched earth. Like, remember when Dallas came in, they started with a U18 team. They just took everybody's best player. The more Phyllis Moore brothers were on that team. [01:07:34] Speaker B: Well, they absorbed another club to start. [01:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, no, but not for the Academy, they didn't. [01:07:40] Speaker B: Right, right. [01:07:41] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Because I thought it would do the same thing with Renegades. They just put their name on Renegades. Same thing. No, this is. The Academy is different. Se. Now, Scott, Victor, Yola, they got Woodbury, they got the Funus Mori brothers. You remember, they stacked that team with everybody else's players. Well, these guys are not doing that. They're coming. They're going more of a foundational up from a U9, U10 and grow these kids up and grow their academy as they go along. So we'll see. You know, they're probably not going to walk in and play at the very highest of highest levels, but they're probably going to try to be pretty aggressively about what level they play out and move up pretty quickly over the years. It'll be fascinating to watch over a decade that it takes this first group to get to the age where you would look at those professionals, you know, 18, 19 years old, and see what happens with the landscape. I mean, if one thing we know about youth soccer, all it does is change. So, like, if there's a second pathway to the pro game in this town, what's that going to look like? Will they end up playing ucnl? Will they end up at MLS Academy League next? I mean, who knows what's going to happen? So it'll be fun, something to watch. It'll be fun to watch. And it's another, hopefully give me another really quality economy for free, because that's important. Like, you can't have everybody pay to play. There's plenty, plenty, plenty, plenty of talent in this town to be able to put together some really nice teams to take advantage of situations where some guys might not be able to afford this level of soccer if it weren't for the free academies. So I think it's great. It's gonna be good. [01:09:01] Speaker B: Buzz. Ten years from now, I don't want to talk about how old I'm gonna be that Sucks. [01:09:06] Speaker A: You, me, both, dude. 65, 67. In your case. Be retired, I hope. [01:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Why did you have to say that out loud? [01:09:17] Speaker A: No, because it's the elf in the room. [01:09:22] Speaker B: Stop saying that. And then, last but not least, clown. That's my nickname for this rodeo has a brand launch party coming up, Buzz. [01:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah, we've been talking about. About this for a couple of weeks. It's coming out on the 27th, which is, you know, this basically week. And coming up, the events at the Silos in Salina. Anybody wants to go, we're gonna have somebody there. So we'll have a little color on a little flavor. It's gonna be fun. I just can't. Their brand is so unique. I can't wait to see what this logo looks like. Good or bad? Dumpster fire. Amazing. We'll see. It's gonna be fun. So it's not really newsworthy because we were bringing it up, but I'm just. My hype level is really high because the, the rodeo clowns thing is so awesome. And the. Yeah, it's going to be good. [01:10:01] Speaker B: Good or bad? [01:10:01] Speaker A: It'll be good. [01:10:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know if you saw it today, Buzz, but, you know, you, Dan, myself, the radio show, your Discord. We've been talking about the forthcoming pro soccer storm that's about to launch onto the Dallas Fort Worth area in the coming year or so. And I feel like we're the only ones that have been trying to talk about this or paying attention to what's getting ready to happen. And I suddenly had an epiphany today that the rest of the world, local media is starting to figure that out because D magazine actually wrote and published an article today talking exactly about this and running through the list of all the teams that are here or, and. Or coming in the next few years. Now, they did not include the one thing that we keep talking about. Hopefully we don't end up with egg on our face about Fort Worth and both of those USL men and women's USL teams that are, we assume, are going to be announced here sooner than later. But yeah, it's interesting. And, and, and, and if you just go look at D Magazine's website or Buzz can tweet out the link or something. [01:11:08] Speaker A: I shared it this afternoon. Yeah, the thing about the fourth thing is we know that it's there and we know that it's in process. Not just from the people at that group that we've talked to, but people around the USL that know about it and have told us about it. So it's. It's a legit thing now. They're waiting. From everyone we've talked to, they're waiting so they get all. All of their things in a row. Because I think they've seen a little bit. This is my conjecture on this part. They've seen a little bit of how Athletico came out with situation in Garland. We're going to have a stadium. Oh, wait, no, we're going Division one. We have to do a different stadium. Oh, wait, that practice facility part. Okay, we're going to go to the Cottonwool now. Like, I think they're going to wait until they get everything lined up, venue, teams, all that kind of stuff, and then they're going to come out. So I think it is still on the cards to be a men's and women's USLT both. It'll just be a little time. So, like, it may not happen, but that doesn't mean that we're not completely right, that it is currently happening. It's just not fun. [01:12:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:02] Speaker A: So, okay. Probably a year behind Athletico, maybe. Like, we know, we've heard talk that they're. They're definitely not going to come out in USL Championship. They're kind of waiting for USL Premiere to happen. So that could be a little bit of a factor too, because since that's not even ironed out yet, I mean, how much do we know about that league officially? Right? Hardly anything. [01:12:21] Speaker B: Not much. [01:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah, not much. So, you know, there's lots of nebulous things around it, but it's definitely there. You know, we've. We've found the videos of the company that's been hired to renovate Farrington Field. Like, we know that that's a thing. So has it. [01:12:35] Speaker B: The. Hasn't the renovation begun? [01:12:39] Speaker A: There's some things going on where the city's getting some bids for stuff around it, and I've been told, I've heard that maybe the way the. For stuff's gonna happen is gonna happen has changed a little bit. So, like, all that's part of why we're not hearing about this team yet. So, you know, just stay tuned. It'll. You know what? Maybe it won't happen, but they're certainly putting all the pieces in place for it to happen. Something could always derail it, but. [01:13:04] Speaker B: All right, very good. Well, obviously Dan didn't make it today. We'll have to hopefully pour one out for his companions computer because I guess, [01:13:14] Speaker A: should we talk about the third elephant in the room, which is the Frankie Olive to the Chupacabras Yeah, thanks. [01:13:22] Speaker B: That wasn't in. I didn't see this in your. [01:13:24] Speaker A: It wasn't in the rundown. I just remembered just now. [01:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I. We've been going back and forth on this. I have to assume there's some sort of other part of the story to this because none of it makes any sense. I mean, I realize Yallup's been floating around from gig to gig for a while now in the lower tiers of U.S. soccer, but to end up at McKenney on a amateur team in, you know, suburban Dallas, it just makes zero sense to me. And I just have to assume there's something tied, there's something else to the story. Like he's got family here or, you know, he's got a medical condition and his new doctor is from Dallas or something. I'm just making stuff up, but you know what I mean? [01:14:11] Speaker A: One low key. But I was. I texted Hitchcock earlier. He just got back to me, but he didn't really have anything to add about it. He did invite us to come out to the thing. I was like, well, you got to give us more than 12 hour notice. One thing to consider is that their. Their head of Sporting is Ed Buskarich. So I would bet that Ed knows Frank from early MLS days. Yeah, he played against him. You know, MLS is that Frank was in MLS as a player. Frank a couple of years before. [01:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like, I'm g. My assumption is that that's the connection that Ed kind of called him, said, hey, would you want to come to McKen for two months? I mean, because remember, it's a short season, right? It's. It's like May, June. Yeah, two months, basically. You know, they play. They play 10 games. It's not. Yeah, it's college summer fill in. So, like, it's not like Frank, y' all have to move there, move here and get paid $6 million. It's like, hey, come here for two months and wrangle up some teenagers, some college kids for 10 games. You know, here's a 5% stake in the team. I don't know. [01:15:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess because it's not a money. It can't possibly be a money thing, you know? [01:15:24] Speaker A: No way. It can't be. Yeah. With you. [01:15:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, it's cool. It's. I mean, it's a. It was. It blew my hair back. Not very often soccer clubs make announcements around here. And I go, oh, wait a second. That's weird. That's unusual. [01:15:38] Speaker A: That's cool. [01:15:38] Speaker B: But somehow nab nabbing former MLS head coach Frank Yellup. And, and I think India Canadian international didn't play for Canadian national team. Yeah. [01:15:51] Speaker A: So played in England for a long time. [01:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So all right, Kudo, I mean I, I guess if you figure out a way to make it happen and he wants to be here even if it's just for that weirdo little two month season, then more power to them. [01:16:03] Speaker A: Congratulations. [01:16:06] Speaker B: Weird stuff. Okay, well anyway, last but not least over the weekend on the radio show, I want to share this news with everybody here because I hope you guys care. God, I hope you guys care about this. But we were able to officially announce our programming plans for the kick around World Cup. Kick around, which is the origins of the radio show once again. Back in 2014, Andy and I first got hired by the Ticket to do a nightly wrap up show during the 2014 Brazil World Cup. And we've. And then it turned into the weekly thing. But we've done a nightly wrap up show for the entirety of each of the last three World Cups. Yeah, unfortunately last World cup was the one that was stuck in the winter which was right in the meat of the American sports calendar. So on airtime on the station wasn't available so we had to do it all online. Well now because it's back in the summer and it's natural habitat of June and July, the sports calendar is a bit empty and we have all. So we are going to be doing a nightly wrap UP show starting June 10, 7pm Monday through Friday on the Ticket after the Hard Line and they will do our natural slot on Saturdays 2 to 4 and we're doing a few of the Sundays in the tournament on Sundays that have a particular level of importance, I. E. Like the final and we'll be making appearances. And the other big piece of news is that Lars Siverston is flying over and will be living here for two months to do the shows with us. So Andy, Lars and myself all in studio will be making some appearances. We'll be doing some shows on remote the night of the US Games, things like that. It's going to be a blast. I hope everybody gets to listen live. Every episode will be be made available via podcast as well. And it'll be a great way to kind of keep up with the tournament. You know what's happened that day, what's coming up or what's going on. It's because the calendar of the schedule, the schedule of the tournament is really unusual and I don't know how many people so far have taken the Time to look at this. But on any given day, games could be starting as early as 11am and on some days there are. There's one game that doesn't start till 11pm Dallas time because it's it. It actually starts over on the West coast at 9pm so you know, there will be nights where we're on the air and there's games to talk about that have been completed, games that are actually in progress and then games yet to even kick off. So it. Our hair is going to be on fire. We're doing 30 something shows, 45 hours of programming over the course of the tournament and it should be great and I hope everybody joins us for that. [01:18:46] Speaker A: So I should mark you down as not doing third degree the podcast for June and July? [01:18:52] Speaker B: Well, yeah, probably not. I mean, you know, like the team is going to be out of function. Nobody's doing anything other than World cup for those two months. So you may decide to put third degree the podcast into hiatus with everything else so we can talk World Cup. Well, you and Dan can. I will be busy doing World cup kick around. I'm sorry. [01:19:11] Speaker A: Yeah, apparently I will pencil that in. Dear Owen, how are you doing? Want to do some podcasting? [01:19:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:21] Speaker A: Oh, a new Kirk, by the way, friend of the podcast, sometimes guest. [01:19:27] Speaker B: So there you go. What else do we need to start a GoFundMe for Buzz for Dan's computer? [01:19:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm still crying about this. No Peter Wilson for the World Cup. [01:19:39] Speaker B: Well, are you gonna pay me? No. Well, the ticket is. [01:19:46] Speaker A: Well, one other thing I wanted to. Yeah, I know. I will double what I pay you. Now. One of the things I want to mention is Dennis McCown who covers Trinity for us. I don't know if people know this last game they had a. They had a panel before the game about the 1984 Dallas Sting team. And a good chunk of the team was there to be honored before the game. And so Dennis did a nice post today on the history of the 1984 style sting. Who are the. Who represented the United States at the first ever world championship for women and won the world championship as a club team basically playing in US jerseys in that way back when. So it's an amazing story. There was no women's national team at that time. It didn't exist. No. And this was a team that had Carla Overbeak was on it and the Sting team, that's the name who. There were two players that from the Sting team that made it into the next national team that actually played in like the next Cycle of world championships, Carlos. The one that went on to. You've been heard of for years in the hall of Fame and stuff. So that team was amazing to go to China and the story is incredible about their travel and who they played and all this stuff. So it's well worth the read on the website right now. [01:20:55] Speaker B: The other thing, I don't know if you know this buzz, but on that team was Ellen Weinberg and she caught a lot of attention this week because she is the mom of the kid that scored the winning goal for the hockey team and has all the brothers that are pro hockey players. Ellen grew up in Dallas. She's on that Sting team. But what a lot of people didn't know at the time is that she was also playing hockey. She was the only girl hockey player in the area when there was just one rink in Dallas and she was playing with all the boys. And she went on to play college hockey, I think is what it was. Ultimately got married to another athlete and ended up having a trio of sons who now are all pro hockey players. But. And everybody was celebrating her. But part of her origin story is, is that she was a really, really good soccer player and was part of that Sting team back then, too. [01:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it's an amazing story, but basically, like, I think it was China that really put this tournament together. And they tried. They called the US to send a team and there was no women's national team. [01:21:59] Speaker B: No. [01:22:00] Speaker A: And so the invitation sort of trickled down to U.S. soccer and somehow or another they ended up picking this basically Sting. It was their women's team. [01:22:08] Speaker B: Yes. [01:22:09] Speaker A: Back in the mid-80s that had won something like 900 games and lost four or something over like a four year window. So they're like, let's send that team. And they did, and they ended up winning the whole thing. [01:22:19] Speaker B: I don't think we as a soccer community celebrate or recognize or discuss how critical Dallas Fort Worth was to the growth of women's soccer in this country and why this country is so good at women's soccer. Because, you know, this story is the, you know, the best part of it, which is when the United States decided they wanted a team to represent the country, they came to Dallas and said, can we have your best club team and just call them the United States? [01:22:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:22:53] Speaker B: And they added a couple other players on top of that. Sure. But it was really staying. And it's a really cool story. And I, and I don't think we talk about it enough. [01:23:00] Speaker A: Their record was 409. I looked it up. The article 400 wins and nine losses. [01:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:05] Speaker A: And so they're like, you guys can go. They're like. Yeah. So this, like, the story of the travel is phenomenal. Like, the food there and like the. The. Their parents had to go basically because most of them were teenagers. You know, it's a crazy story. And those women were all out of the game by eternity, which is awesome. My trinity have done that. And it's a phenomenal story that doesn't get told enough, and people should pay attention to it. You know, the early women's national teams were amazing. You know, there's some. Some of the greatest players of all time and those early teams. But this was before that even existed. Yeah. Wasn't a program for women, which is crazy. That there was. That was the case in 84 for the songs of your programs. [01:23:42] Speaker B: Yes. Just to put it in perspective, the. The kind of hallmark team of the US Women's National Program is the 99. The 99 team. The. The team that won the World cup with Mia Hamm and everything. [01:23:59] Speaker A: Right. [01:23:59] Speaker B: This was 15 years before that. [01:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:03] Speaker B: Isn't that crazy? [01:24:04] Speaker A: It's a crazy. Yeah, it's a crazy time. They were. They're. Most of them were teenagers or maybe like 19 or 20, 21 at most, you know, I think so. Like, it's a ridiculous story. And they just shipped them off to go play Italy and China and all these countries national teams, and they won it. They wanted. [01:24:23] Speaker B: Very good. I love ending the episode on that note. Buzz, thank you very much. Well, once again, if we throw it together, be on the lookout on Buzz's Twitter account for Dan's GoFundMe or Kickstarter or whatever for his computer to get his computer fixed. And hopefully he'll be back next week. Thanks, buddy. Hope you're doing well. Don't eat too much dirt out there in New Mexico. [01:24:47] Speaker A: I won't. Thankfully it's not too windy and I'll be inside of a truck, which will. Hopefully the air conditioner will work. [01:24:53] Speaker B: All right, and thank you and travel safe. And thank you. DFW Soccer. Curious. We do appreciate you listening. And we will be back for Another episode of 3rd Degree, the podcast Stay curious. Buy a curious shirt. 3rd Degree the 3rd Degree N podcast 3rd Degree the 3rd Degree n podcast 3rd Degree. Sam.