3rd Degree the Podcast #359

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Third Degree, the Third Degree NEP Podcast. [00:00:14] Speaker C: Third Degree, the Third Degree N Podcast. Third Degree, the Third Degree N Podcast. Third Degree, the Third Degree Ned Podcast. Well, hello there, DFW soccer Curious. Welcome to another episode of Third Degree the podcast. And he's here. And he looks highly emotional in this moment. I don't know why. I don't know if he's still celebrating his EFL trophy championship with Luton Town, but it is Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan. [00:00:48] Speaker B: I actually completely forgot about that. [00:00:51] Speaker C: What kind of a blinder did you go on a couple weeks ago? [00:00:55] Speaker B: None. I had a work conference and then I got sick. [00:00:58] Speaker C: Oh, did you? [00:01:00] Speaker B: I. I had two beers yesterday with Arman. That was like the most party thing I've done in, well, a week and a half since a work conference. [00:01:12] Speaker C: Did you, did you get to watch the game at least? [00:01:15] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:01:16] Speaker C: Oh, okay. All right. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I had it on Paramount plus. [00:01:19] Speaker C: Oh, wow. They showed it there. [00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:21] Speaker C: Oh, good. Okay. Well, that's a high for you, man. [00:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Now we just need to stop drawing in the league and maybe sneak into the playoffs and all be well. [00:01:30] Speaker C: Okay. Well, I hope that works out for you. It's good to have you back. We've missed you the last couple of weeks. [00:01:35] Speaker B: Good to be back. [00:01:37] Speaker C: Okay. Did you miss. Did you miss Buzz? [00:01:40] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. [00:01:41] Speaker C: Okay, very good. [00:01:42] Speaker B: Did that sound convincing? [00:01:44] Speaker C: Yeah, it totally. [00:01:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:01:45] Speaker C: And I'm sure they're all. I'm sure the curious bought it too. And on the highways and byways of the great United States. He's your hero, my hero, everybody's hero. Editor, founder of third degree.net and the original soccer influencer himself, Buzz Carrick. Where in the world is Buzz Carrick? [00:02:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Coming to you from the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as Nebraska. Yeah, [00:02:11] Speaker C: I. You, you told me a few minutes ago what town in Nebraska you're in. And I'm like, I have no idea where that is. You go, it's actually a suburb of something. And I'm like, I don't even know where that is. [00:02:22] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I'm in Greta, Nebraska, which is a suburb of Omaha, which is about 40 minutes from where I need to be tomorrow for the race, which is a track in Eagle, Nebraska, which is population of like five people. [00:02:34] Speaker B: I think the real question is, have you had the Omaha style pizza? [00:02:39] Speaker A: No. Is that a thing? And I just. [00:02:41] Speaker B: Apparently they stuff the crust. It's a cornmeal crust and then instead of sauce, it's creamed corn. [00:02:47] Speaker C: What? [00:02:48] Speaker A: I think I will not be getting [00:02:50] Speaker C: creamed corn stuffed cornmeal no, no, it's [00:02:54] Speaker B: stuff of like sauerkraut and ground beef and onions. [00:02:57] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, that sounds brutal. [00:03:02] Speaker B: And now I've said that. Let me actually google it to make sure that what I wasn't watching was just, oh, this is a piss take. [00:03:09] Speaker A: I actually found a family owned Mexican place that was actually really good. So I would. I scored here in Nebraska. [00:03:16] Speaker C: All right. [00:03:16] Speaker A: With a good mess for you. Not Tex Mex, Mexican, you know. [00:03:20] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. [00:03:20] Speaker A: There's a lot. Yeah. [00:03:21] Speaker C: For those not from this area, there is a difference between Tex Mex and Mexican food. [00:03:25] Speaker A: Yeah. When the place is called Azteca, you know, it's going to be more like, you know, real Mexican, you know? [00:03:30] Speaker C: Right on, 100%. Well, I hope your trip is going well. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Sweet. [00:03:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Are you. Did you drive or fly there? [00:03:37] Speaker A: Oh, fly. Yeah. It's too far to. Too expensive to drive because that's out of my pocket. If I were to do that driving takes like three or four days in hotels and stuff. That would not be. [00:03:48] Speaker C: Will you turn your mic up a little bit, please? [00:03:51] Speaker A: That's as loud as it goes. [00:03:52] Speaker C: Okay, well, you'll just have to fix it in post. [00:03:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:56] Speaker C: All right. Well, very good. Well, here we sit with. Not a victory pod, not a loss pod. It's another one of those stinky sister kissing pods is LA came to town. And for the second game in a row, Dallas took a lead only to blow it and end up with a draw against the Galaxy. And this time they had a two nothing lead. And you know, we always talk about the. One of the worst things you just don't want to do in soccer is give up that goal just before halftime. You know what the next worst thing you can do in soccer is? [00:04:31] Speaker A: Lose. [00:04:32] Speaker C: Give up two goals just before halftime. Yeah, that's exactly what Dallas did, Buzz. And you know, I don't know what to take from this because there were parts of the game where the team looked really good. [00:04:46] Speaker A: Well, you know, this is something I said in my three things and I. And I talked about it. I tried to do a burn about it too. And I think maybe I didn't articulate it very well, but there are times when it's really awesome to have this Quill's love of the warrior mentality or the ex dog or whatever you want. You know, all that fight back and intensity. And it's the thing that makes them good on the road. Good. Ish on the road. Better on the road. But the problem is, is that if that's what you're going to rely on. When you don't have that, it really hurts. You know, there's, there, there comes times where you just need to be better than the other guy at soccer. So you know what they, they all talked about, the coach talked about, the players talked about the previous week. They talked about how they had the wrong mentality and they came out and it wasn't like them and they were flat and all that stuff. And then this game, they came out all fired up, looking good, Moose gets a brace. And then they all just sort of were like, cool, we're good, we're better than this team. And they kind of relaxed. And when you try and when you relax, that's how, when you get people coming back and scoring on you, particularly because LA has basically two really dangerous players up front and, and pencil and peck and, and you got to be able to mark those guys up, you know, those, those dudes. Any second can turn a game and if you relax and sit back and, or get pulled out of position, then you're going to get let up, let in a goal and all of a sudden it's back to 2 to 2 and you're in trouble, you know, so There was the 30 minutes in the middle of the game where they were flat and poor and then at the start of the game and the end of the game they look better. So you got to figure out how to have that mentality all the time. If you don't have that mentality all the time, you're going to have things like this happen. [00:06:20] Speaker C: Dan, do you have dog mentality? [00:06:23] Speaker B: No. That sounds terrifying. [00:06:29] Speaker C: How would you assess Dallas's performance especially? I'd love to hear your perspective over from the last several games because we haven't, you know, you haven't been part of the pod for a while and I'm curious what you think about what's happened of late with the team. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I never got a chance to watch the D.C. game. Didn't get a chance to watch the game last week. So it was kind of, it was interesting coming back into it. First game since Santi Moreno signed a first game with Johansson back. For me it was, I don't know, it was a weirdly like fresh mid season break. But at the same time he came back in great. Two early goals, suddenly, you know, dodgy offside and you're just watching them throw it away. They struggled like anything to deal with with Pancel obviously in his pace, even with Johansson back there and his own pace. Quill talked a lot about discipline. Yeah, it was I don't know how to articulate it honestly. [00:07:49] Speaker C: Well, I think it's fair because one of the things Buzz, that I'm starting to stew on about what's going on with this team is the fact that they seem to be. Thrive off of you call it. They like to wait. They want to. They, they want to out. How did you say it last week? They want to outscore you. They don't want to outsocker you. What did you say? [00:08:12] Speaker A: How did you describe this? [00:08:13] Speaker C: It. [00:08:13] Speaker A: That it. Yeah, like, you know, there's. [00:08:15] Speaker B: There. [00:08:16] Speaker A: This will come up again later in the show, I promise. But, you know, you can, you can win a game by being really good at soccer or you can win a game by just outscoring the other team, getting more goals. [00:08:27] Speaker C: Okay. [00:08:27] Speaker A: And the way, yeah. The world. The way team quills teams in general play, which is a very low possession and once they do, they get. Try to get you a mistake and then they really quickly attack back the other direction. They don't try and out soccer you and play the ball around and play this beautiful Tiki Taka or multiple passes or Rondo, Rondo, Rondo. You know, like that is go. You know, so that's, that's what I say about this team. [00:08:50] Speaker C: All right, so that's what I'm trying to get at, which is all of this stuff that, that maximizes being very direct and getting in behind and. And, and not trying to out soccer people, I think is an interesting concept and I think it relates back to your. The thing you talked about earlier, which is if you're going to have the dog mentality, the problem is if that's what you're relying on when you lose it, you're not any good at the things you need to be good at to sustain. And that's what I think is what we're seeing with this team is I don't know if it's. They lose effort or focus necessarily. I just don't know if they're very good as a soccer team and they're getting away with things because one, they've got an amazing striker. Like, could you imagine what this season would look like if they didn't have Peter Moussa? [00:09:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it'd be pretty bad. [00:09:40] Speaker C: Right? Okay, so. Yeah, so. And I guess we don't really know what they've got. I guess they. We've learned a little bit this week about Valiente and I think we're going to find out obviously about Moreno. But even with those two guys in the lineup, because of the changes it would create elsewhere on the team. Meaning who are you taking off the field to accommodate to have both of those guys on there? [00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:01] Speaker C: When they, I assume they're going to end up selling Musa for a, you know, an absolute truck of money. I just, I have. I don't know how that's going to work and maybe I'm worried about something too early before it needs to be worried about. [00:10:17] Speaker A: Well, a lot of depending on how Farrington's doing too at that point, you know, because there is some redundancy in the Moose and Ferrington in their terms of their game. You know, not a lot of very few people play two strikers anymore and most of the formations we talk about they would take advantage of. The other good players Dallas has are probably only going to have one striker. So, you know, they have some built in solution, some solution with Farrington at that point. You know, it'd be interesting to see where they go spend their money that they get from USA if they get that far. But it comes back to this idea, Peter, you're right that like at the end of the day you win the soccer game by scoring goals, right? So that's what Quill's teams are focused on, you know, and you're exactly right that if you don't have that fight and that will for a minute or two or 30 or a whole game, then you're in trouble because you can't just play better soccer than other people. And what I mean by boat or soccer is the kind of, you know, sort of possession game, maybe the way Lucci would play or the way Oscar play with the rondos and the quick touch passing. And these drills you do that are about being down a man and getting the ball back, or these drills you do that are about decision points in terms of a build out how, how fun do we talk about linking play through the middle and how bad Dallas is it line breaking? Like under Quill, how often do we talk about line breaking? Not very often. Whereas under Nico or Luchi we talk about line breaking all the time and how vital that was and how you get through a team. Ordinarily, if you're going to out soccer somebody, you get through a team through line breaking. It's like that's one of the buzzwords of not to make a joke, but one of the buzzwords of modern soccer. Right? So Quill's not about that. He only has one player in the middle and that's Capis who can link hardly at all. So he's not about those kinds of things. And so when your team is relying on this will and the spite, you know, when that goes away, you kind of suffer a bit. And that's what happens. Like. And you can take it even further. Look at the. He talked about last year. They were bleeding all those goals. They had to change the formation to stop the goals going in. So that's why they play three at the back or really five at the back. We emphasize that all the time. And that's why Moose is so important. You stop them from scoring and Moose scores and you win. And that's what I mean by they're not trying to outsock you, they're trying to outscore you, you know, and that's what it comes down to. And so people ask me all the time, like, oh, why don't they just go back for and play Oz and whatever. It doesn't matter. Because they don't have a good enough center back to do that. Like, if you were to. He's forced into playing, huh? [00:12:34] Speaker C: A better second center back. [00:12:36] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, of course. No, Oz is terrific. I mean, with Oz, they don't have another center back is good enough to let them play a back four. And that's the problem. They're stuck playing a back three until they get a center back that's better. You know, even though Shakmore is doing well as a center back, he's doing well as center back at a back three, not a back four. You need another Oz to play that way. So same with Musa or Farrington. Right. They can't afford to take those guys off because those are the two guys that can score. So it's like they're. They're stuck playing this formation and playing these tactics because the only way they can outscore you is they're. They're having to do it that way so they don't have other options when Fairyton's off or when the defense is off because Oz is overreaching, or they have a problem with pencil on the one side hitting the gaps. Well, they're playing that back five because of those gaps already. So you can't go back six and try and stop it. You know, like if. If you're off on one or the other, you're gonna lose or tie in this case. And it feels like a loss, I [00:13:30] Speaker B: think, even going forward. You know, I asked Quill about the reliance on Logan and Patar. It was the Houston game. It was, you know, it was still at that point, they were the only two players that scored own goal, was the third leading scorer for FC Dallas, you know, and his answer was, you know, I'll take goals wherever they come from. Whoever wants to step up and, and take that moment, they just do it more often than everyone else. Then Logan has a bad game, then nothing's coming through the middle, there's no line break. And like you mentioned, Musa has to drop back to kind of get involved and playmake and who's there. That, that, that's, that's your problem going forward? [00:14:19] Speaker C: Well, I, I guess the, the question that is out there is how. I mean, the team is sitting in seventh place, which is essentially where I think we all agreed at the beginning of the season, where the team would be sitting, you know, by the end of the season. So I don't know that the team is, is bad or worse or better or good than what we thought. I think it's kind of all tracking exactly as we kind of thought the season would track out. And I, I think we are. I think it's pretty clear how the season will continue to track out with or without Musa. I don't think there's. He's about to make some sort of fundamental change in the team. I think this is what the team is moving forward. [00:15:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:04] Speaker C: And here's. Cause let me also, let me throw this in because the change to the team is switching back to the 3, 4, 3, which means you're playing with the two tens, which I assume would be Valiente and Moreno, which means now who's playing that really, really important holding mid position kind of by themselves. And now that Miro's hurt, even if Romero's not hurt, do you really want Romero playing that position by himself? [00:15:28] Speaker A: Well, he has, right now he has three players for those two spots. The double pivot, he's got Capis Kaik and Romero, when Cap is on, it needs to be. Cap is because he's the only one that can line breaking. You saw his assist he had last game. He was better last game, but he not as good as he was when he was on in the first little bit of the season. Hopefully this means he's coming out of whatever injury they wouldn't tell us about that we assume he had. And then the other side is you can, you can play him with either Kaiko Amir or you can play with a double pivot. And if you are Talking about the 3, 4, 3, when you have both Valiant Moreno in front of those guys, if you have a Ramiro Kai combo, you're probably okay with that because those other two guys will come back enough that they'll fill in some of those choices. Okay, that is if you're going to go with that 3, 4, 3. Because I think if you're not in the 3, 4, 3. If you're in the 3, 5, 2, you know, when you have the single Vale in front of you and Farrington's up there, and Farrington does a lot of amazing work up Hot Top, and so does Musa, but they're both going to be higher now. We see them both drift back, but that's not the same as having a guy back there all the time. And that's when you really need Capis, because he really did that guy to help link that play in there. And so, you know, a little bit of the downturn right now is really, honestly, because both, of course, Farrington's a little off for a couple games. We talked about that. But also Capus has been off for two or three games, too, so that's been hurting them through the middle of the field for sure. [00:16:44] Speaker B: Okay, all right. [00:16:46] Speaker C: Well, I. I mean, look, I think obviously one of the big storylines out of the game is that we got to start by Valiente, and the guy obviously has got a motor and has a willingness to put out a ton of effort, and I think on balance of this game, we got more positives out of them than anything else. Like, I think everybody came away from this thinking, all right, they've got somebody, they got a player in that kid. [00:17:10] Speaker A: Yeah, this was the first game where I felt like he was just really influential and just sort of just eye test. Now, I didn't go dig into the metrics or something because I was traveling and working, but I. I just felt walk turning the game off. I was like, boy, Valiant, say, really was on today. You know, he was contributing and cracking some things open, and people were having to pay attention to him. Defenders were. They were tracking him and. And it just overall felt like he sprung some guys and some of his best up. I think was involved in some of the plays that were offside. But, you know, it was there. It was the first time where I was like, okay, yeah, now we're cooking. Well, now we got something there. You know, before we had hoped we did. We saw some moments, but this is the first time I felt like, yep, no, that was good, Good, good game, good by him. Good, solid performance. You know, now, now no longer just a dude, maybe starting to approach the territory where now you'll look at him as like, okay, now I want you to do some things that are going to alter games and affect Games, you know, that was that. That level of good, I thought. [00:18:02] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. Well, certainly we hope to see more. Are you at all curious as to why we haven't seen Moreno start or got more now to. [00:18:15] Speaker A: Well, no, because if you look at the game, you can track the minute build. You know, each game they give it more minutes. So that's, that's trending. That's where you want. You know, Quill is adamant. He's not a guy that sees the DP money and goes up. That guy's in right away. Okay, I'll take him at his word on that, you know, and so far the evidence is that's true, you know, especially in terms of Marino. His minutes have been building, so I would imagine there's a time soon when he'll be starting. You know, he does have this problem that with Farrington and Musa, you know, who's coming off for. And Valiant are now playing well who's coming off from Moreno. And that's a, that's not a simple problem. So you can't. It's not as cut and dried in some places on. In this team as it has been in the past. You know, in the past when you had a dp, oftentimes it was clearly obvious that that guy's going to be in from the get go and play every minute because there's nothing even close to as good as that guy is. And Moreno's got a lot of potential, but like right now, so do some other guys that aren't dps in terms of fitting into the lineup and the team as it is. Because that's the thing is getting Marino on, excuse me, Moreno on means you have to change something. It's all. Or something. So it's not as simple as just plump on a guy in there, you know. [00:19:22] Speaker C: So Dan, you were obviously at the game, covering it or helping out with the coverage and so forth. I'm curious, after the game, what was the vibe or discussion in the locker room or amongst the media members around the blown off side call? [00:19:40] Speaker B: I didn't go in the locker room itself. I went. But in the, the press conference room. Core was very clearly unhappy about it. He made a comment. It wasn't in the, it wasn't in the email probably smartly. [00:19:56] Speaker C: You mean the pre. [00:19:57] Speaker B: The. [00:19:57] Speaker C: The quotes, the press release? [00:19:59] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, yeah. So it was. He kind of wasn't asked about it, but said, you know, there was a missed moment that prevented a third goal and these close moments really harm the effort that goes in from the players. And you Know, those are the small margins that need to be better. Yeah. So he was, he was obviously not happy. I thought about asking the, the question of hey, you know, what do you think about adding more technology in that case compared to other leagues, Semi automated offsides, things like that. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to steer away from the clickbait thing because he got a little flustered by another question that was poorly worded. So you know, certainly in the press box, you know, a lot of micro analyzing the few camera angles we got and there was definitely a sense of frustration there that it didn't go to an on field review. I can't find a conclusive, I don't, I don't think there is a conclusive like eye test. Oh, that was clearly on side. But I think you can look at several angles that and say he was probably reasonably onside. You'd think at that point maybe it was close enough that they would bring the, the referee to the monitor. Yeah, it's just, it's a shame that the review show and everything they do, they only, they only showed a clips of things that were reviewed by the referee. I thought about asking a poor question but you know, 90% of those are cover your ass answers. So it was just going to be inconclusive angle, yada, yada yada. So didn't really feel like it was worth the hour and a half wait or whatever it normally is for those questions. [00:21:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I wish we had asked the question just simply to get them on the record, even if it is a bullshit, you know, inconclusive angle. Because I think we all know what's going to happen. They're going to come back and apologize and admit that they got it wrong. I don't know if you guys saw this because Dan, you were there and I don't know if they, if Buzz when you rewatched it, if you noticed this, but the shots of the assistant that made the call on the horribly ahead of play. Well, no, no, no, no. Did you see his facial reaction in the aftermath? Like he, I'm just reading facial expression here. I think he knew he had blown it. Like he had the look on his face like I don't, I did I do the right thing? Like I don't think he even was convinced himself he had made the right call and he was worried about getting shown up and overruled. And so you probably felt a sense of relief. But I assume they're going to come back in a couple of days and tell everybody, yeah, we blew it. It should have been because it. [00:22:50] Speaker A: Which one did you think was blown? [00:22:53] Speaker C: Say that again. [00:22:53] Speaker A: Which one of the two offsides did you think was blown? [00:22:56] Speaker B: The second one was. Was correct. [00:22:58] Speaker C: I'm talking about the first. I'm talking about the lifted ball over the top where Petter scored in the first half, which would have been the set, which would have been the second goal. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:07] Speaker A: When Farrington was trying to be passive. [00:23:09] Speaker C: Yeah, he was. I mean, he was standing still. [00:23:11] Speaker A: Right. I know. [00:23:12] Speaker C: I thought it was a clear and obvious error that Musa was not offside. And I thought they would go to a pitch side review of it, but I. I never in a million years, Buzz, did I consider that he called it. Cause he thought Farrington was offside because [00:23:25] Speaker A: I assumed he did because Moose was so clearly onside. I was like, well, that's not what it is. It's gotta be Farrington. [00:23:31] Speaker C: I think he. That's. And, and that goes back to my observation about the look on the dude's face in the seconds after making the call, is that he didn't even look like he was convinced he had made the right call. [00:23:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, [00:23:44] Speaker B: I would imagine he's probably. It's probably occurred to him that he's, you know, he's realized he's that far ahead of play that the angle. He's not looking down the line. Yeah, he's looking diagonally. And. [00:23:57] Speaker C: And I would say it's slightly tight. Tight enough because Musa didn't complain. I think Musa thought he might have been offside. [00:24:03] Speaker B: He definitely thought he was offside because he. Yeah, he almost didn't even finish it [00:24:07] Speaker C: in the real run of play. And by the way, because I watched the game and delay and I knew this was happening because I had seen Garrett post the video online beforehand. Even when I watched it real time, I thought, oh, Moose is offside. It wasn't until the replay and they slowed it down, I went, oh, Musa isn't offside. [00:24:24] Speaker A: I guess it just maybe, I don't know, because I thought Moussa was 100% clearly and obviously onside. I thought it wasn't even close. [00:24:31] Speaker C: He was in. He was. When you slow it down or freeze for. [00:24:33] Speaker A: No, no, I'm talking about real time, full speed. When the pass happened, I said something. I said, you know what a pass? And Moose is all. That's all onside. Right away I was like, shit, they're called. And I said to her immediately, I said, fairington's going to get called. [00:24:46] Speaker C: Yeah. I thought it was a beautiful pass. I thought it was a Beautiful finish. All of it was almost so perfect that it fooled everybody and the linesman. And I think that's the thing that we get frustrated as fans is that if the VAR didn't exist, we'd go, man, that's so tight. I could see why that gets missed. [00:25:02] Speaker A: Well, I bet you that that linesman thought that was close and I don't know. So I'm going to flag it. So VAR will take check it. And then they didn't. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Well, even if it went in, they'd check it. Yeah, that's, you know, the whole point in the delayed flag is put your flag up if, if you are convinced because you are the, you know, that kind of margin of error at that point. [00:25:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I, I do think that's kind of explains the look on the dude's face, is that he realized he should have left his flag down and let VAR handle it and so instead he has to. Yeah, I, it's, it's a, it's a mess up all the way around and I know they're getting an apology in a couple. [00:25:37] Speaker A: If only the pool reporter would have asked because I still think they whistled Farrington. [00:25:42] Speaker B: So I think the funny thing is it's, you know, and this is why I was thinking in the moment of asking Quill and I was like, I feel like this isn't going to be beneficial to anyone. You know, we always talk about there's too much technology and that the, the MLS in implementation of VAR is far better than the Premier League. [00:26:01] Speaker C: It is. [00:26:02] Speaker B: Wouldn't you love to have semi automated offside in that much moment though? [00:26:09] Speaker C: I mean, yes, of course. But I still, as a general rule of thumb, prefer how MLS handles off 100. [00:26:15] Speaker B: It is a hundred times better. But it's just that, that this, this moment, it's the same thing as when everyone was bitching about, oh, we don't want to bring technology and we don't want goal line tech. And then Lampards, Lampard has to shot over the line against Germany at the World cup and suddenly it's like, ah, we need technology. [00:26:34] Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it is super frustrating and it is unfortunate. It was a really good goal. But I would also point out if they go up to nothing that early, there's nothing that tells us that third goal shows up. The game probably changes at that point. If they go up too early 2 0. At that point, Buzz does, does Quill take his foot off the gas a little bit. Does the game change? There's no guarantee they go up three. Nothing. [00:26:57] Speaker A: Well, you Know that's the thing is they, they already took the foot off the gas when it went to nothing. So they probably would have done it the same thing. [00:27:02] Speaker C: Right? Exactly. Yeah. [00:27:04] Speaker A: I don't think you can think that, that, you know, that all those offsides calls, I don't think fundamentally change the nature of the game. I think the same things would have still happened. I'm not saying that it's not annoying. I'm just thinking, you know, like the let off at 2 nothing would. It still would have been 2 nothing. You still would have had a let off. Yeah. [00:27:23] Speaker B: Okay. [00:27:24] Speaker C: So how did you feel about the Kappas Kaik pairing on the week? [00:27:29] Speaker A: It's fine. Yeah. Like I said, I thought Kappas was better than he had been in the last couple of games. He saw it back to where he was the beginning of the season. You know, I, I, Kaik is Kaik, he's going to run around and chase the ball a lot and you know, he gets forward a lot is dispositional dis. Discipline isn't very good, which may have been what was talking about a little bit, you know, in terms of that being lack, lacking discipline because he doesn't run around a fair bit. But you know, like the, the pencil goal, Kaik and, and Ibiaga and more were all in good position. He just beat all of them and shot it and it went off of Moore's leg into the goal. I mean there wasn't any horrific defensive breakdown. I didn't think on that the second goal, the pencil goal. So I don't. Sometimes they talk about breakdowns and discipline and stuff. And I'm not, I'm not necessarily sure every goal that goes in by the other team is a mistake by somebody. You know, sometimes they just are good. [00:28:29] Speaker C: Yeah. I think the pencil goal, I think the problem comes earlier. I think it's in the build up to that where the, where the, I think some things happened in the la end of the field or when the play starts where somebody closed fast enough or didn't close a lane and the ball was able to get to him in the first place. That dude is so fast and man, he hit the living crap out of that and blistered it really nicely. So I, you know, I, Kaik is a guy to me who I, There's a funny thing and I don't, I've never noticed this before is Kaik's habit of directing his teammates and pointing where he wants other people to go. New this year, because I don't remember him doing that a lot in his first season. [00:29:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's new. I think that's new. He doesn't be doing that. [00:29:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I was gonna say, shouldn't he be worried about where he's going instead of everybody else? [00:29:20] Speaker A: Yeah, well, he's, he's all, he's so young that he needs to not be doing that. Like, when you're Romero, you can do that. When you've played, you know, 2000 games, you can tell people where to stand. When you've played 20 games, you don't get to do that. [00:29:33] Speaker C: Yeah. It is wild to me that he feels like he needs to be telling people where they should be going, because I'm like, dude, look where you are on the field right now. Or wait, are you trying to tell yourself that's where you're supposed to be? I can't figure out what you're doing here, Mr. Kaik. [00:29:49] Speaker A: So, not to be a dead horse, but I just looked up the stats on Font mob and you were right. They did not get Farrington for that offside. They credit Musa for that. So I, I, you're right, that's just a completely bonkers, horrible call then. But that's for sure. They were getting Farrington because it's so bad that it's like they must be calling Farrington. That's not like, can come up with. [00:30:09] Speaker C: Yeah. And so that's why I'm fear. I'm curious to see what pro says when they do the review because to me, that's a clear and obvious area when you freeze frame the replay. He's clearly onside and I can't figure out how Var didn't tell them to go look at that. [00:30:25] Speaker A: Well, that's what I mean. I thought it was so bad. I thought, that can't be what they called. Yeah, they must be calling something else because there's no way that's what it is. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:30:35] Speaker A: We do that to death. Sorry. [00:30:36] Speaker C: Yeah, so it's, it's a, it's a weird thing. So Kaik, I, you know, I, he's one of those players that I don't think they've got a good alternative for. But I'm not sure that he isn't part of the overall kind of chaos problem this team has. [00:30:55] Speaker A: Well, for sure. And I think if everyone was healthy, in top form, then I think the choice would be Ramiro and Capis together in a double. But, you know, at the same time, over the course of a long season. Ramiro's 57 years old, you know, on campus right now is hurt. So you know, you got it. [00:31:09] Speaker C: Ouch. Says the 57 year old. [00:31:11] Speaker A: Yeah, you need Kaik to play some games and so that's fine. You know, it's like that, you know, they didn't lose this game, I don't think because of Kaik in the middle or you know, an offside call or like a poor defensive breakdowns, you know, it's like they lost the game because they, they switched it off. You know, like if you were to ask me like oh, what'd you think Norris not being in there, how did everybody, everybody was fine. The defense breakdowns weren't. Or because Oz was overreaching and trying to do too much because everybody else is switched off. That's what the problem was. [00:31:41] Speaker C: Right. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Maybe Norris would have been more switched on perhaps. But like I, I couldn't like point at Morris play. I mean he got to pencil shot. I don't think Norris would have even gotten to it, you know, because more was quicker maybe, maybe more. Maybe Norris would have been in a better position perhaps or something, I don't know. So it's harder. I mean that's hindsight's 2020 and all that. So like I don't, I don't think any individual personnel decisions were the problem. I think it was the shutdown that was the problem. [00:32:05] Speaker B: I think even you know, if you were trying to look for like individual errors, the only one that you could point to would be Kaik completely misreads pencils run on their first goal and just, just stops. [00:32:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And Oz overreaches probably in to help cover that and chases the nine out of position. And there's, then there's, there's that mystery hole we always talk about the reason they're playing three at the back. There's that hole and he's right through it. And that's the goal, you know, with the past. [00:32:36] Speaker B: Like you say, there's just, you know, there's, there's not a series of like individual contributors. It's just that they're the sum of the dudes. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Yeah. A couple switch offs and that's it, you know. [00:32:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, it is unfortunate because LA and St Louis both are teams that Dallas, you know, I still think Dallas is in general a mid table squad and they're not met much better than either one of those teams. But I think they're better enough that especially at home they should be getting wins. And as we've talked about since before the season started, this first half pre World cup cycle of games with at home are going to be critical. At collecting points and now here again they've dropped another two points and their record at home is undefeated. But they've drawn more games than they've won at home and that's a problem. And I think it's going to become a bigger problem after the World cup and the, and that deathly run on the road takes place. [00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah. In a zero context situation you'd say there are seven to be. Oh great, that's right where they belong. But in the context of this schedule, you know, they needed to be better than that for this first part of the season before the World cup they need to be better than seven, they need to be about fifth because even though they're pretty good on the road, it's not very likely they're going to be able to plow through that nine game stretch of, of league games. And some of those, a couple of those are in front of the World cup but you include the two Leagues cup games and it's 11 games on the road, you know, that's going to be a tough, tough plow even though you're relatively good at it, you know, in terms of making up some points. So it's like we would like to see them be a little higher than they are right now for sure. You know, even though right now we think this is where they basically more long the schedule means. It's not really schedule means they're a little bit behind. [00:34:17] Speaker C: Yeah, it's interesting because after that weird little three game tough stretch with three tough games of Nashville, LAFC and San Diego where they just collected two points from three games, we came away from that kind of feeling like, you know what, that's not a bad result for the three games that we all thought they'd get stomped. But here we are after four games, two wins and two ties. Houston, D.C. st. Louis and Lake were all like, you know, this is a little weak. So I don't, I don't know. You know what I mean? [00:34:48] Speaker A: Yeah. After Saint and Lewis and D.C. i'm sorry, after Houston and D.C. we all felt like, oh look, this team is who we thought they were. And then now we've had a couple of little stumbles by them on the, the next two home games and then okay, you know, so it's just a team that's still finding its way and finding itself and, and that when you're a team that's a mid table team, you know, you need that fight to sometimes push you over and some days it's missing. So it's like you get results like you get, you know, and yeah, you know, they've only lost one game still, at the end of the day, that's, you know. But we've also talked a million times about how you can tie yourself right out of the playoffs 100% and draw [00:35:24] Speaker B: him four or five at home. [00:35:27] Speaker C: Yeah, that's, that'd be the straight way to doing it. How's the Deetson experiment going? [00:35:33] Speaker A: Actually, really good, strangely. Now, before anybody says Buzz said he played good, that's not what I said. I said the experiment is going well in the sense of, like, you remember when Bernie went in there for the very first time, it was like, holy crap, that's awful. Well, the first game by decent was holy crap, that was awful, defensively speaking. But this game was a step forward. He improved. He's not great, but, you know, it was a step in the right direction. So if you're talking about a bigger experiment for where he's going in terms of long term development and like, could he be a mid to long term replacement for Bernie? And then I think you have to think, you know what? That's not, that's a step in the right direction. That's okay. Because like, again, he wasn't at fault for anything defensively. It's not like there was some mistake he made that allowed them to score or whatever. He was, did his job in that sense and he still provided a little bit going forward. So, yeah, I mean, that's fine. I'm, I'm okay with it in terms of it being what it is, you know, there's not really another alternative. So, you know, okay is good enough for now. That's like, that's people you can talk about. Any of the guys on the team that have fallen to the dude category, you want them to just be solid. And if you get solid out of them, that's enough. Right. You have your difference makers to do the different making things. You're not looking for Deeds to be a difference maker. You're looking to just not get you in trouble. And he didn't get you in trouble, so that's fine. [00:36:52] Speaker C: Okay, Anybody else you want to talk about their performance? [00:36:57] Speaker A: I thought Johansson was his usual solid self up until he got hurt, which is a problem. Somebody told me that Quill looked really pissed off that he had to use his last sub to get Johnson off the field rather than what he wanted to do. I'm not really sure what that was, but maybe it was bring Delgado on. You know, for me, I don't think I need to see a Legato anytime soon. He hadn't done anything to make me excited about that play. I thought Sarver offered enough offensively at wing back that you. I wouldn't mind seeing him late in the game in that role again. You know, he wasn't very long, you know, and he would be a defensive liability. But I was like, well, if you're chasing a game, why not throw that guy in there? That's fine. You know, other than that, everybody was basically who they are. You know, it's. It was a performance that reminded me of exactly what this team is. You know, when they have the right mentality and they fight and claw, they can win games. And when they relax and let off, they don't. Simple as that. And I. I still think Oz is trying to do too much. Your giddy is trying to compensate for everybody on his team being bad at times, and I think that's costing them. He needs to be a little more disciplined. Yeah. You know, it's not like that's a new thing. We talked about that even when we saw the videotape of him when he was in France, that he. We. I remember distinctly talking about, like, oh, he overreaches at times. He comes away off the field chasing the guy. So he was doing that. You know, he still does that. He's always done that and he's doing in this game. And they got in trouble twice, especially because that's how LA plays. They try to pull your center back out of position with their nine, and they hit that gap with pencil and peck, and that's exactly what they did. You know, and other teams are. Other teams are attempting to do that with your. They. Everyone knows he's their best defender and they're all trying to pull him out of position, and sometimes they're successful at it, and that's a problem. [00:38:35] Speaker C: Can I whine about something here for a minute? [00:38:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:38] Speaker C: Is this a safe place? Place for me to complain what you're complaining about? But, yeah, mostly, I swear, I. I don't know what it would take. I don't know what I got to do. I don't know what kind of sacrifice or promise or financial offering or what it is I got to do. But whenever the jersey sponsorship deal comes up for renewal, can we please write a clause in there that it's only one sponsor and Dallas can only wear their home primary shirt at home. For the love of all soccer gods, if I have to watch Dallas wear those awful secondary shirts kits at home again against a naturally contrasting primary opponent like LA in white and Dallas and Red in their navy is the most traditional matchup in the history of Major League Soccer. Or whether it be red and black. You know what I'm saying? [00:39:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:39] Speaker C: Like, it just makes sense. But to see them both out there wearing their secondary kits just puts me in a bad mood at the beginning of the game. It's just. It's just the worst. It's so maddening. [00:39:51] Speaker A: It's terrible. Yeah, I, I know how you can fix that, however, Peter. [00:39:54] Speaker C: How? Please tell me. [00:39:56] Speaker A: $20 million kick around Jersey sponsorship. Write a check. [00:40:02] Speaker B: Cost that much? [00:40:04] Speaker A: Well, if you want to get rid of the one that's on there now, you got to help bid them. I mean, I don't know what they're. Maybe it's only 10. Sorry. Maybe it's only 10 million. [00:40:10] Speaker C: Peter, man, I'm telling you, if I called the Hunts tomorrow and said, you know what? I want a lottery, I want to do the sponsorship, I want to make it the Kick around, there's no way I could get it for 20 million bucks. What would be the number? There has to be a number that they, they, they, you know, give in and go, all right, yeah. [00:40:32] Speaker B: For anyone else, 4 million for you. [00:40:33] Speaker C: And, and it would, instead of the Kick around logo, it would just be a silhouette of my giant melon sized [00:40:38] Speaker A: head right next to United [00:40:42] Speaker C: with that my goofy ass grin on my face. That would be on the front of all the Dallas. Somebody's gonna have to mock that up, by the way. I need that on a shirt. [00:40:51] Speaker A: Well, what, what you could do is you could call and tell them it's a ticket for front jersey sponsorship and they would give it to you for the regular price and then just send them the artwork for the Kick Around. [00:41:00] Speaker C: No, but I am curious, like, if, If Southwest wanted to be the shirt sponsor, what would they sell it to them for? It's 15 million bucks. 20 million bucks. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Whatever it is. [00:41:10] Speaker C: If I, If I went to Clark and said Peter's melon head and the Kick around on your shirt, what is that gonna go for? [00:41:17] Speaker A: I mean, Peter's melon had Pierce Melon head, they wouldn't go for. But you, I bet you could get them to do Kick around if you were serious about it. [00:41:23] Speaker C: For 20 million. [00:41:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, money's money, right? I don't. [00:41:27] Speaker C: Well, I, Well, I guess they did. They, they, they tied themselves to MTX for a couple years. I mean, good lord, I hope they don't. [00:41:34] Speaker A: If you're really serious about it and really had the money, I. And the Kick around to show on the ticket. I don't know why they wouldn't go for that. If you had the money and we're serious about it, like your giant face. No, that's not serious. [00:41:45] Speaker C: All right. Take my giant head out of it. Would they just do the kick around for the same amount of money on Southwest Airlines? [00:41:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Some of the sponsors they've had have not been the most. Coca Cola, you know, Prideful, MTX being the big one, you know, advocate. I mean, look, if they'll do advocate, they'll do the kick around, [00:42:04] Speaker C: man. I swear that just. That makes me cuckoo when they. I mean, have they not. Am I wrong in saying they've worn the, the stupid Inferno dishwater gray kits more at home this year than they've worn their perfect, sweetly perfect new DNA Red and blue dream kits. [00:42:22] Speaker A: I have to check, but I think so. [00:42:23] Speaker B: I think that I was keeping track of it, but that was a minute ago. [00:42:28] Speaker C: That is such a crime. And the thing is, is I don't think either one of those guys sit up and look out of the suite and even think about it. And that's all I can see. [00:42:38] Speaker A: I know. Well, this is why I talk about kits being the 10,000 foot version of the kit really matters. You have to look at it and. [00:42:45] Speaker C: Right. [00:42:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:46] Speaker C: I turn on the TV and I see it and I'm like, oh, this sucks. And I think Dan and Clark are like, oh, look at our new building. [00:42:53] Speaker A: Well, I'm pretty sure it's two years in a row they've worn the, the white at home versus LA and LA's been in blue. I'm pretty sure that's two years. [00:42:59] Speaker C: Yeah. All right. [00:43:01] Speaker B: Thank you for my good news for you. Potentially. Supposedly the, the Inter Miami Jersey sponsorship's only 4 million a year. So you know FC Dallas, that's like $4,000 a year. [00:43:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:43:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So Peter, maybe it won't be 20 million, maybe it'll only be 10. [00:43:21] Speaker C: Whatever the number is, I'm sure they're going to charge me more for it. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Sure. I'm not getting serious about it. [00:43:27] Speaker C: Well, you know, who knows, I may win a lottery or something. [00:43:30] Speaker A: If it's a bit. You're not going to to get it. If it's real, they would probably do it. [00:43:36] Speaker C: You know what if I could, if I won the lottery and I had the millions laying around, I might consider a one year deal. [00:43:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that'd be cool. Well, that's where you might lose. They want a multi year deal. [00:43:48] Speaker B: Well, you know, you know from history you can sign a one year deal. And not pay the money and it's fine. [00:43:53] Speaker A: That's true. That's fine. I think that's a problem, actually. [00:44:02] Speaker B: Is that on the list? [00:44:03] Speaker C: I'd like to be the. Yeah, is that on the list? [00:44:05] Speaker A: Oh, it's gotta be, doesn't it? [00:44:07] Speaker C: No, I don't think it is on the list. We may need to. We may need to include that. [00:44:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:14] Speaker C: What's the. What's the ginger haired folk singer that's on Ipswich's shirts? [00:44:19] Speaker B: Ed Sheeran. [00:44:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I could. Yeah, the Kickground could be the Ed Sheeran of mls. [00:44:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Just gotta write a check. [00:44:26] Speaker C: Gotta write a check. [00:44:26] Speaker A: And that's all you have. It's gotta show up. The money's gotta show. Yeah. [00:44:32] Speaker C: All right, thank you. [00:44:33] Speaker A: You're not. You're not. You're not Boav Vista. [00:44:36] Speaker C: Yeah, right, exactly. [00:44:38] Speaker A: Who can get a player without paying for him? [00:44:41] Speaker C: All right, well, thank you for putting up with my whining about that, but that does drive me nuts. Okay, so coming up, Dallas has another game, and that game would be Mini Sota at home. We gonna get the Moreno start this weekend. [00:45:00] Speaker A: Yeah, this is the game. Yeah. [00:45:02] Speaker C: Oh, is it really? [00:45:03] Speaker A: I think so. Yeah. I think it's time, you know, he's pushed up. You know, subbing a guy at halftime is actually kind of a slap in the face of the dude you subbed at halftime. So, like, you've put. You've pretty much pushed him as far as you can in terms of, like, when he came in, who'd he come on for? Farrington. Oh, that's right. [00:45:18] Speaker C: Okay. [00:45:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's it. That's the sub. It's like Fairytale's had two poor games. Moreno's built up his minutes enough. This is the time, you know, he didn't burn himself out. Like, it's only, you know, he didn't go like 90, he just went, you know, 40 or what it was. Or 35. That's enough. It's time to give him a start. So him and Valiente, the 343 under Musa, you know, see how it goes. And then you can worry about the Seattle game afterwards. Like, then does. Does Moose need a break? Or how did it work? Or whatever, you know, but I think it's time to do it. You know, the 343. The. The real question, other than that, Other than that, I think anytime for Marina would be how badly is Johansson hurt? With me needing to be subbed out at the end of the game. Is that actually an injury? You know, because other. Because that's A problem because there is no other right back really. So you basically would have to put more over there, which means you're stuck with Ibiaga and Norris. You know, which one you would feel like you're being stuck playing is, you know, different mileage and so. So De would be in still, of course. So hopefully Johannes is okay because we want to see him play. But the fact that he had to be taken out, you know, and, and the fact in general, I think actually there might be a little bit of a fitness problem with FCLs. There's too many guys that are kind of getting gassed at the 60 minute mark. And I honestly think that the use of 5 subs hurts you in that regard. Hard because people don't say 90 minute fits as much as they used to. But you know, Johansson definitely struggled so far to be 90 minute player. So you may be looking at more in the back wing back again because Newman's not available. Giovanni Jesus is not available. Bernie's out. So you'd be looking at like Sam Sarver playing 90 minutes at right wing back or something. It's like that. I don't, I don't know where you would go other than that. Like Shagmur's got to do it. Basically the other option would be starting a booba car right wing back or something or changing formations. You don't do that because. [00:47:11] Speaker C: Oh my God. [00:47:12] Speaker A: Too much invested in that. I know it's not good. Like, I don't know what else you put over there. [00:47:16] Speaker C: Oh, okay. [00:47:17] Speaker A: Romero. Romero's got stitches in his knee, right. So probably not him. Unless he's 100. Fine, then he could do it. But you know, he's not injured. Romero, he's just. But you know, when he has stitches in your knee, you might want to give that guy another game, I think, before you bring him back. And maybe he may try and give him to Seattle possibly to bring him back. So. [00:47:34] Speaker C: So Minnesota comes into town with a frightful three game winning streak. They won at LA against the Galaxy, they won at San Diego and a 21 win. And they won at home over the weekend against Portland to nothing. This will be their third road game in out of their last out of their last four. They're, you know, right there kind of in the table with Dallas at this point after a bit of a slow start on their part. This will be an interesting test for Dallas at home. Another game that, you know, look, they got to collect three points. [00:48:06] Speaker A: But yeah, this is a team that's right. With you in the standings and so, like, if you think because of your home games, you need to be a little higher than this and you need to win this game. Well, we've said that about most of these home games. They're not. So, yeah, you need to be one of these own games. So they're in the middle of a tough spot. So we'll see. I mean, that's. That's part of why I think you shake it up a little bit, you know, and go ahead and say, like, you know what random. Let's go. You know, it's. It's about producing. It's about. Especially if you're trying to outscore people, remember, and. And if. If Farrington's had a couple off games, remember, I'm as high as anybody about the season Ferris has been having, but he said two dud games in a row now, so. Okay, let's. Let's try and change it up, see what happens. Bring him off the bench later in the game and see if he can do something. [00:48:47] Speaker C: All right, so before we move on anything else about the team or on field play, before I move on to the next topic related to the team, [00:48:55] Speaker A: well, just, I want to revisit really quickly the idea that we have. We've still seen this relatively small rotation. You know, the only really addition to the rotation is Deanson because Bernie's been hurt all of a sudden. Decent played two games. So like, he's jumped into the rotation, but really that's it. Like, nobody else has cracked it. Like, we saw Simmons get his debut. That's cool. That's nice. But you saw how raw he is. He. He needs time. Still, Lewis, we haven't seen again, Sarver, we're not really seeing still, so it really is. And we may have just seen Patterson, Delgado sort of fall out of the rotation since he didn't even get in at all after he had two. Other than the crazy goal, he had two dud games in a row as well. So, you know, again, super small rotation. It'll be something I want to keep up with this season. Yeah. How it goes. But right now it ain't okay. [00:49:45] Speaker C: Dan, anything else on the field for you you'd like to chit chat about? [00:49:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I think actually one thing. Buzz would have been really upset about this. Obviously, it was the Star wars night. There was no repeat of Michael Barrios pressing the button. Really confused why some people in cosplay were trying to jump ahead of him to press it, but they had a guy dressed as Darth Vader and he actually touched the button. It was weird. [00:50:16] Speaker C: Instead of using the force to press the button. Is that what you're suggesting? [00:50:20] Speaker B: Yeah. For this button that doesn't actually do anything, you're telling me someone couldn't just tie a bit of rope to it and just give it a little tug and give the illusion invisible? [00:50:29] Speaker C: Yeah, that would have been hilarious if they had used some fishing wire and made the button get pressed because of the force. That's a giant. [00:50:38] Speaker B: Details matter. [00:50:39] Speaker C: Yeah, 100%. A wise woman once told us details matter. All right, today in Buzz's discord. One of the cool things about being a part of Buzz's discord is people tend to share stuff that doesn't necessarily get thrown out into the public. And today, season ticket holders were sent a really interesting graphic promoting the new two option plans that Dallas is promoting to get season tickets for the 27 year and into the 28 and 29 seasons. And I'm curious, have you. Have you both seen this and kind of read it? Do you guys know what I'm getting into here? [00:51:24] Speaker A: No. No, I didn't see it. [00:51:25] Speaker C: You didn't see it, Buzz? Dan did. You saw it? Didn't. [00:51:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I saw it. [00:51:29] Speaker C: What do you think about what the team is promoting here? And we'll get into what that is here in a second. [00:51:36] Speaker B: It's one of those funny. We're going to make this needlessly complicated and let you pay for the privileged things. Right. [00:51:45] Speaker C: So what's happened? It's a graphic with a timeline starting in February of 27 that runs through May of 29. And what they're trying to explain here is two things. One, the fact that obviously next year is broken up into a. A mini sprint season of 14 games. It runs from February through the end of May before the official new calendar switch in August happens in 27, which will be the full season from August that were of 27 through May of 28, and then a summer break that picks back up in August of 28 and runs through the end of 29. And what they've done, and this is an interesting idea, is they've broken up and are making two option offers. Buzz, have you seen the graphic? Do you need me to post it for you? [00:52:29] Speaker A: No, I'm looking at it now. [00:52:30] Speaker C: Okay. So the Graphic says option one is that you get 17 matches, you get the seven matches. And it's essentially option one is you're buying tickets for the calendar year of 2027, which is essentially one mini season and half of the next full season. And option two is the mini season all of 2027 and all of the following 282728 season and all of the 2829 season. So essentially the difference is 17 matches versus 43 matches. And the difference in pricing between the two is really low. So they actually break down how much things cost per match. And I'm just going to use a middle. Let's use a middle level ticket here. Let. [00:53:25] Speaker B: We'll go with the east sideline. [00:53:27] Speaker C: The east sidelines are $47 per match for option one. So if you just buy the 27 calendar year on the east sideline, they're 47 bucks a match. If you buy all 43 matches for the next two and a half seasons or two full seasons and one mini season, those tickets are $47. So I can't quite cotton in my head what they're trying to do here. Are they just trying to give people a reason? I'm trying to figure out what the sales strategy is here. [00:54:03] Speaker A: I have a guess. Okay, my guess is that option one, which is just the mini season, that first half of the first half of the 27, 28, that. That's the. I want to change seats when the stadium is opened. So like the option two is. If I'm going to have a seat, I'm happy to stay in it for two or two and a half years. [00:54:26] Speaker B: They're normally pretty good about rehousing people if they're. [00:54:30] Speaker C: That's such an awful way. [00:54:31] Speaker A: I know, but they. Maybe for some reason they want to. They're like. For some reason they have this thing where they're gonna like if you. If you. Only if you want to make an adjustment when the state. [00:54:42] Speaker B: Then you're gonna have to pay way more for. [00:54:44] Speaker A: I know, I'm just saying, like that's my guess as to why. But here's it might be like. [00:54:48] Speaker C: Okay, but Buzz, let me throw this at you. If you do option two and at some point you want to change seats, are you telling me the club isn't going to let you change seats and keep it unless and only charge you the difference if there's a change in pricing? [00:55:01] Speaker A: No, but I, I would imagine that like there's probably going to be a change in pricing when the stadium is completely opened. Is my guess. [00:55:10] Speaker C: Right. [00:55:10] Speaker A: And so if you choose option two, you're going to lock that price in for the longer period of time. But in order to do that, you have to stay in your seat. That's my guess is what the sales pitch is. Right. And so like if you. That's a One time, like we're going to give you this discount for 20, the back half of 28 and all 29, you're going to get a discount. But in order to get that discount, you got to not move your seat and you have to stay on the east side because remember, nobody wants the east side. Everyone wants to go to the west side. So that's. My guess is that they're, they're offering you this, effectively offering you a discount to stay in your seat. [00:55:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:43] Speaker C: And here's the problem with all of this is we have no idea that if you buy the option one plan that expires at the midpoint of the full 27, 28 season, what that ticket is going to cost you moving forward? Like, what is the multiple. What is that $47 ticket going to cost you if you didn't do option two? Is it going to cost you? [00:56:04] Speaker A: That's 80 bucks. Find out if you want to move. [00:56:07] Speaker C: Well, no, even if you don't want to move, what if you just want to renew your ticket and stay in the exact same place, Take option two then. No, no, no, no. But what I'm saying is that's the, that's the problem. If you don't do option two and you do option one and you get to the end of the season, you. You know what? These, these seats are going to be pretty sweet in the new version of the stadium. It won't be 47 bucks, as I'm telling you right now. [00:56:29] Speaker A: No, no, it won't be. Yeah, no, it'll go. [00:56:32] Speaker B: You want to know something funny? [00:56:34] Speaker A: Yes. [00:56:35] Speaker B: The price per match thing, when I looked at earlier, I was like, that's weirdly expensive. So just pulled up a list of the least and most expensive, least expensive, most expensive tickets for every Premier League team. Seven teams offer a cheaper ticket than that. East sideline. [00:56:53] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. But, but as a general rule, things are a little more expensive over here than they are over there. [00:57:00] Speaker A: For sports. [00:57:00] Speaker B: Yeah, just value for money. [00:57:04] Speaker C: Well, wow. I can't believe I'm hearing from Dan Crook that he thinks that the Premier League offers more value because you typically are the anti Premier League guy of. [00:57:14] Speaker B: I mean, I'm not a fan of the Premier League unless the one season at Luton Town decides, hey, we're gonna just not try to stay up. [00:57:21] Speaker A: Well, part of, part of the difference is, is that there's a, there's a tradition of the local team in England, like the blackouts, that you couldn't watch teams all over. You have to watch your local team and the Money from those. For the Premier League, the money is in tv, whereas the mls, the money's not tv. The money's in the tickets and Sands. [00:57:37] Speaker C: Yeah, there's also a lot of options over there in terms of teams. You may have a local team, quote unquote, but if they. If you don't like them, man, there's not a. There's another local team right around the corner. [00:57:47] Speaker A: Five minutes. [00:57:48] Speaker C: Like Dan. If you hadn't been a Luton Town fan, what other team would you have been a fan of that would have been local to you? Relative? [00:57:56] Speaker B: You mean like professional or just in general? [00:57:59] Speaker C: Professional. [00:58:00] Speaker A: Professional. [00:58:05] Speaker B: Stevenage would have been 15 miles. [00:58:08] Speaker C: Okay. See, you don't have another MLS team that close. Yeah. So the way the pricing breaks out, just so everybody knows, if you haven't seen the graphic and Buzz can choose to share it or not, I don't, you know, whatever. The east midfield club, which are sections 126 through 28, which is only two sections, those are 85 bucks per match. If you pick option two, they actually drop down a dollar in price. They're 84 bucks a match. If you go to the long 43 game plan, the east bench, which is sections 125 and 129, not through 129. It's those two sections right behind each of the benches. Those are 68 bucks in option one, 66 and two. East sideline is 47. The corner terraces, which are sections 121 through 123, 131, 132, 40 bucks or $39. And you just might as well just do the 43 games, kids, because that does feel like that's the bargain. [00:59:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, except that the price isn't. You know that. Yeah, that's exactly. [00:59:20] Speaker C: Because I'm telling you, those prices are. These prices are going to be way higher if you try to buy them outside of the option 2 plan. [00:59:28] Speaker A: I bet money that it's going to be because they're going to ask you to stay and you your seat. That's going to be the requirement to get the discount. This is not move. [00:59:35] Speaker C: Probably. Yeah. I'll leave the last one last because I want to have a conversation. The all you can eat Premium plan is 74 bucks or 73. The general all you can eat is 56. Approximately the same. And then if you want to stay in the hall of fame area level 200, those are $162. But if you want to go the full 43, they'll drop it down to 55 bucks. So the last one I want to talk about is the supporter section. And these are promoted at $26 or $25 a game, depending on which of the options you pick for. And I think one of the things that we all are. I'm interested, Buzz. I don't know if you guys know, are. Are interested in finding out the details of what the supporter section ultimately is going to be because they've not really shared a ton of information or. We know the supporter section is moving back to the north end where the old beer garden was, but what they showed originally in 24, the way they talked about it again in the remodel in 25, and some of the stuff we've been hearing behind the scenes about some potential changes of scope of. In the plan, I'm really fascinated. I mean, they've spent a lot of time telling us about how awesome these expensive premium suites are going to be, how sweet the suites are going to be. But I haven't heard anything about the safe standing sections. I haven't heard much about the supporter group sections. [01:01:00] Speaker A: Well, the impression we're getting from lots of people we talk to is that the plans are there and that section are still evolving. You know, like, they're definitely not what they were in the beginning. You know, there's been some cuts, it seems, what it was going to be and what it is now. Like, no one's articulating any of that stuff. It's all just been sort of vague concepts and ideas. So I think it's still in the vague concepts and idea stage. You know, there's. There's a structure there that's easy enough to make it, to fill it in in a couple of different ways. So I think they're probably waiting until they see where their costs are and what their overruns are before they commit to what. How much money they're going to spend in that section is my assumption. [01:01:36] Speaker C: So, Dan, you're the one of the three of us that's closest to the supporters group. Supporters groups. What do you think their expectations of what they're going to get out of this remodel are? [01:01:49] Speaker B: I think that I would hope that they are suitably tempered after the. The bolted together bike racks that they got initially on the move to the. The south side. But it'd be shocking to see anything more than the old bleachers from the beer garden. [01:02:09] Speaker C: Oh, real. Oh, you think? Okay, because I. My. My impression was everybody's anticipating some. Some proper, safe standing area, like an improved version of what they get now, a larger More consistent what we've seen across the league, proper safe standing area. Maybe not like what Austin has or what Portland has in terms of just pure size, but relative to what Dallas can expect for supporters group turnout and attendance. [01:02:38] Speaker B: I haven't really had many conversations with anyone, but it's really just, you know, there was just not, not really expecting anything interesting. [01:02:50] Speaker C: Okay. [01:02:50] Speaker B: It's always with, with the supporters groups. It definitely always feels like a. See how they change their mind today and see, you know, see what, what they get offered. You know, they be in FC Dallas, not the supporters groups. [01:03:04] Speaker C: Yeah. I had worked up in my head at some point in 24 when they made the original announcement, they had actually talked about a safe space standing area and the supporter and, and gone through some exercise of talking about the features of the North End in terms of how they were going to, you know, build something out like that for the supporters groups. But it, you know, when a lot of this was going on and the ticket stuff came out and I saw the tickets were only 25 and 26 bucks, which by the way seems like an incredibly good deal to me. Dan. I would assume they've got to be. People in the supporters groups would be happy about 25 bucks a game. [01:03:40] Speaker B: I would hope so. I mean they were, they were trying to hit what, 35 the last couple of years. Yes, that's a great draw. [01:03:47] Speaker C: So when I saw the price drop like that, that was the next signal that, oh, is this, are they trying to kill us with kindness before they break the news that what you're getting is not what you're hoping for? [01:04:02] Speaker A: You know, originally there was some word of mouth discussion with the teams in terms of like what they were going to try to do. There are people that worked on the team. And then over time, like we saw there was a little bit of delay. We knew that one of their, some of their companies changed at the last minute. We know of some problems on the west side that have caused some cuts. Like, so you just, we hear, we keep hearing about these cuts and stuff. And so like there is no definitive thing that tells us 100% what's going to be. But you're right, Peter. This price change at the last minute sort of like is like, okay, you guys, this is what we've been telling you. Like, you know, you're not going to be getting this. You're not getting the LAFC 34, whatever it is, 22 or something. I don't remember the numbers. You know, that incredible. Or the, or the wonder wall in Minnesota. You Know what I mean? Like, you're not getting that. So just, you know, be prepared for it to be like it has always been for FC Dallas, you know? [01:04:49] Speaker C: Yeah. That's the part that I'm curious about and what I'm worried and this would be a very classic FC to Dallas thing to do is spend all this time and all this video and effort promoting all these fancy suites and then we're all going to look and see what the supporter section looks like and they're going to end up lighting themselves on fire because nobody on social media in the suites is going to post a bunch of influencer stuff talking about how awesome the suites are. You just know what's going to happen if the supporter section doesn't live up to some sort of expectation. Everything is going to be comments about how upset people are that they didn't do a better job with the new North End stuff. I mean, I just feel like if they don't accommodate that in a proper way, they're going on balance, they're going to regret it. [01:05:37] Speaker A: I mean, I think there'll be some positivity just from returning to the North End, but some people really don't like that South End position. Oh, yeah, I think that'll be a little bit better. There'll be. Some people will be excited for that, but I think there'll be if. If you haven't been paying attention and you're still thinking like those are early initial sort of promises and some of which came at supporters meetings, you know, with the team and stuff, back when this idea was just on paper. So, you know, hopefully people have tempered their expectations enough to not lose their minds. But you're right, Peter, it'll be. It'll be a mess. [01:06:05] Speaker C: Or the club surprises and they end up constructing something in that section that blows us all away. I guess I just. The fact that they haven't told us anything about it and the price dropped dramatically. At least I think I'm saying that correctly, Dan. The price at 25, 26 bucks is a. Is less than what it is now, right? [01:06:24] Speaker B: I think so. I mean, the problem is they, they got really funny with their pricing and supporters groups. The support section was like an early bird special and it wasn't available after that. They obviously bank on renewals as much as anything. [01:06:43] Speaker C: Very good. The other thing, just real quickly, and I'll make this the last point, is the document, the same graphic promotes the fact that while the seats now is 11,000 total seats during the renovation, new Toyota Stadium is 21,000 seats. That's the first time I've seen, like an official new seating capacity number, but it also says that it opens at the beginning of January 2028. Now, I'm just trying to do some visual math in how long it's taken them to get to this point of where they're at on the east side. Considering they started essentially on April 1st of 2025, we are now a year past that. In a few weeks, y' all take a visual note of where we're at. Do we actually think they can get the new Toyota stadium complete and up and running between now and January 2028? Weather craziness aside, something catastrophic causing, you know, massive weather delay or something like that, that seems really difficult for them to achieve. [01:07:53] Speaker A: I'm not optimistic because it's almost complete teardown of the western side, certainly the press box and the club. There's a whole rework of the underpinning of the western side because of the way the whole thing's sliding downhill. There's a bunch of infrastructure that has to happen before they even start to rebuild. You know, the standard. Yeah. So that structure has to be rebuilt because it's got to hold the weight of the roof. Can't leave it out. And it's a bigger roof on that side, too. And it's got more suites and a bigger press box, I think, too, so. And not to mention the big TV screens. So there's a lot to be done in basically a year and a half. So I don't. I'm not optimistic they'll be able to get it done. [01:08:29] Speaker B: But, you know, and they've. They've got to take full advantage of the gaps when the stadium's not actually in use. That's going to be huge. And that's going to also depend on the. The UFL schedule, Frisco, isd, everyone else that. That uses that stadium. Because we've obviously seen how slowly things move when, when it's in use, when their construction days are limited with the [01:08:58] Speaker A: World cup break coming up and then those extensive road trip Dallas is going to go on. They can actually. It's not like they're going to sit around on for the west side to wait for the east side to finish. They'll start on the west side. [01:09:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:09:08] Speaker A: You know, in that window and they're doing the whole thing at the same time, you know, and just finishing the east side in the bit. So it's really not going to be like a season and a half. It'll be a season and 2/3 or something. For the west side. So because they'll get a jump on it, they won't wait for the east to be finished in that sense. And a lot of those suites and stuff on the east side can be finished later too. They only have to get, you know, by the end of, by the start of 2028, they really only have to have the, the seats and the concessions and the concourse finished. They can still be doing sweet level crap as 2028, you know, starts, basically, I think. [01:09:42] Speaker C: All right, very good. Holy cow. This thing is drug out way longer than I imagined. But who doesn't love to chat about season tickets? Let's move on. Burn Jr. Got a tie. [01:09:58] Speaker A: Yeah, there's not a whole lot to say with that team right now. They're missed. They're still missing three or four other battles. Best players who keep getting stuck hanging around FC Dallas. Caleb Swan was on the bench for FC Dallas because of the Romero injury basically. And then Simmons got his debut, but no Lewis, no Ricky Lewis, no Alvaro down there. So they're making do with a little bit of limited roster. However, Eric dimeira, their keeper, they have this year from Duke. He has not done much to really make a case for himself in my eyes. But in this game he was phenomenal. He stood on his head and all of a sudden you're like, oh, this. That's a great performance. Now I'm actually paying attention to what you're doing because now I think you actually have some value. Really, really strong. He saved a PK in the game and he saved a PK in the, in the post game PKs. So really strong performance by him, which was nice to see. Eduard. Nice, nice. Excuse me. Duanese, who's the playmaker? He now has six goals on the season. He's tied for the lead in the league and score scoring. He's that playmaking 10 that we've joked about. Dallas found their 10 down there in North Texas, which is not necessarily true. It's a big leap up to the first team, but he's playing really well. So North Texas is up to fourth in the West. 11 points. There's a big gap up to the first place team which has 19 points. That's at St. Louis. Their, their second team is always really good for some reason. So Dallas is doing really well. Excuse me, North Texas, he's doing really well, even missing a few pieces. They're. They're 2, 2 and 3 with two shootout wins. So another solid road performance. I mean, they got a point up there in Portland, which is not easy. Place to play necessarily for Dallas teams. So there's your short version. [01:11:36] Speaker C: All right. And we inch ever closer to the opening of Mansfield and I'm very excited about that. All right, Pegasus. A loss to Carolina and they've now lost four of five. [01:11:49] Speaker A: This is important to talk about because this is the exact opposite of FC Dallas. They soccered the out of Carolina. They out soccer them all over the field. It was money. They outshot him 24 beautiful. And lost one nothing because they could not score. And Carolina ran down the field one time, whipped the ball in and Giddy lost her track and or got beat on the track and she did a Shaq more. All right. Side right back and. And they lost one nothing and they outshot shot him 24. But it was some beautiful soccer. I mean Trinity looked fantastic. Yes, they're in this tailspin. They lost four or five, but the soccer was really good. They got Flynn healthy at center back. They were able to move Wisner back up in the midfield. So all of a sudden the midfield is Wisner staying back and missimo. It looked really great. Missile was able to play higher. She looked better than she's looked in a month. They had. They started Hamid on one side and, and on the other and they flip sides multiple times and were dangerous. It's like the soccer of it looks really good. They created boatloads of chances. They just right now don't have anybody they could score. So at some point this is the. It's a perfect example of the complete flip coin of what Squill's got, which is dudes that can score but they can't really soccer anybody. So [01:13:09] Speaker C: I'm now going to get a tweet from somebody going, yeah, see Peter, if you want pretty soccer, go watch the losers at Trinity. And just don't be thankful for Dallas winning and getting points. [01:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that's the thing, right? That's, that's, that's soccer. Sometimes it's like that. It's on what you look for in a value of a game. But Trinity was. This was the best they've looked in a while. Is beautiful. Unfortunately, they now have to go back to Brooklyn and play on that post stamp field, which is really, really narrow where they lost three nothing a week ago and now they got to try and win there. So Journey is still in fourth place, but the gap to third place is huge. It's 10 points to third place. So basically there are three good teams and a bunch of everybody else. Trinity's the best of everybody else at this point. They have, I think it's four games are left and three of them are. And their teams are all teams that are behind them, them. So basically they control their own fate. They take care of business and they'll be in. Not that it'll matter anymore because they're going to get stopped by the first place team if they make it in this, the four. But you know, there's some. When they have everybody healthy, there's some quality play. And this is your last four games to see Amber Wisner play because she's retiring at the end of the season and she's a really nice player. So just take a chance to go watch her play while you can because she's quite good. [01:14:23] Speaker B: So just about the Brooklyn game coach to say after the game that they are taking a lesson from that. They are going to adjust the training field. You know, kind of. They weren't happy with just the freedom that Brooklyn had with their press and how narrow things were. So they're going to kind of do the old arsenal thing and have the adjustable field to prep at least. I'm just blown away that you, you have 24 shots, 14 in the box. You can't score. You've been okay, so yeah, no one there to put the ball away. You had the league's golden boot winner from last season just kicking around on the bench. She has not started a game, ali Thornton, since February 21st. Who the hell did she piss off this team in that time, Dallas Trinity has been shut out three times. They've only scored more than one goal once in, in that span. And yeah, lost four of the last five is. It's kind of mind blowing that, you know, you, you sitting there dwelling on not being able to score, but you're the league's leading scorer, who is still your joint top scorer is on the bench. [01:15:50] Speaker C: Before we finish up, did you guys see this program that they're launching to try to. I'm not. I don't know what. [01:15:58] Speaker B: The influencer thing. [01:16:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like they're trying to build a little army of influencers for Trinity. They're calling it the Brand Ambassador portal and they've got a page in their website that you can go check out. It's up now. It's up there now. And it talks about helping advocate and you know, be essentially an influencer for the club. And in exchange they'll give you access to, you know, discounts on merch and tickets and stuff like that. And they're trying to, they're trying to build essentially a hundred Influencer army that [01:16:38] Speaker B: seems to have been their strategy for a while, is those little TikTok and Instagram influencers that have eight followers and, you know, oh, follow me as we get coffee at this place. But, hey, I'm going to soccer. Not that you're interested. Any of that, but I'm going to a soccer game. [01:16:54] Speaker C: Like Pete Delkis talking about Trinity and the weather when he puts the logo in the forecast. [01:16:58] Speaker B: There's a reason for that, at least. [01:17:00] Speaker C: Yeah, um, it is interesting. And I. I don't. I'm not saying this is a good or bad idea. I was just curious if you guys had any thoughts about. About it. [01:17:09] Speaker A: Well, it feels like a team that's really trying. Desperate, to get some coverage, and they're trying to sort of manufacture their own, in a sense, and create some buzz in the neighborhood, in the market, so I can understand it. It doesn't sound like a terrible idea in the way the modern media works. [01:17:22] Speaker B: So I just thought at halftime, in the game Saturday, they. Sunday, they did the Boots rodeo thing, right? Where all the mascots from, all the different teams. Tux, Hooper, a bunch of others. The weird crime dog that looks like he's probably pervin on someone that's somebody's mascot. It's the Dallas Police Department. [01:17:45] Speaker C: Oh, it's like. [01:17:46] Speaker A: Oh, I thought you meant Groove, the North Texas mascot. [01:17:49] Speaker B: No, no, he wears a trench coat. He's probably, like, totally grooves on people. Flash someone in a minute. But, you know, they've got the. The rodeo girls there. They're lassoing them. They're. They're trying not to wipe them out like they did last year. And. And Boots is in gold for these penalties and, like, doing what, you know, if you've seen Boots, kind of giving it all the attitude and that. I was thinking, what is the largest makeup of support in women's soccer? [01:18:18] Speaker C: Lesbians. [01:18:20] Speaker B: I was gonna say the lgbt. LGBT community, but, yeah, we can go with that. [01:18:26] Speaker C: Okay. [01:18:26] Speaker B: Why would you not? All right, so I've noticed this before. The last time they did Dallas Pride, Trinity stayed clear of. Which is very strange for women's soccer. Just tape boots to round up saloon in. In the Gabor hood. It's just such a perfect fit. And you've got, like, a crowd of people that are gonna be like, yes, women's sports, absolutely. Take my money. But no, we're gonna. We're gonna do influences. [01:18:51] Speaker C: Well, maybe they'll get a bunch of lesbian influencers. [01:18:54] Speaker B: There's a joke about a Subaru tailgate, and I don't want to say there's a joke about what a Subaru tailgate. And I don't want to say, okay, [01:19:02] Speaker C: my wife drives a Subaru. [01:19:04] Speaker A: Wait, that's telling. [01:19:07] Speaker B: Well, that's the cold open. No, I just think sometimes there's. There's some really obvious things that. Obvious avenues you can play. You know, when I talked about going to the Radio SC brand reveal and said they played all the treat. All the cheap tricks, you know, God, soccer and rodeo, Salina High School orange. Those are the cheap tricks that you need to play when you're building a fan base from literally nothing. [01:19:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:37] Speaker C: Interesting. Well, they got a lot of work [01:19:42] Speaker A: work to do before we move off of Trinity. We should give a shout out to the Carolina goalkeeper Sydney Martinez, who kept a great many of those 24 shots out of the net. She was really, really good. So shout out to her. How many? Damn. [01:19:55] Speaker B: Seven. [01:19:56] Speaker A: Yep, that was seven. That's a. That's pretty big. [01:20:00] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that wasn't like a. That wasn't a criticism. That was. Yeah, seven saves. [01:20:04] Speaker C: Good. [01:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:04] Speaker A: She's a Puerto Rican international. She was just off at a CONCACAF thing right before it came back, right before this, so. [01:20:09] Speaker C: All right, very good. Well, I'm sorry. [01:20:13] Speaker B: Go ahead, Dan Son. Kind of just stemming from the Dallas Trinity game that I realized their biggest obstacle and Atletico Dallas's biggest obstacle isn't going to be making the Cotton Ball cool to go to. It's going to be fair park management and how incompetent they are. They had. They had an event at the Cotton Fair park this weekend. Foodie land. It was. The Footprint was kind of like Dallas pride. Any kind of parade thing that goes around the. Around the side of the Cotton bowl and where Big Texas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From the midway around the side where like the main stage is for the. The state fair. So not massive. You know, you can have multiple events going on and I've been there a lot of times when there have been multiple events on. They flipped everything. They changed the parking up. They had everyone in. In Lot 5, which then they're competing with a bunch of other things. You know, you've got like Broadway, Dallas and everything going on at the same time. They did this whole thing of. As well as sticking everyone in Lot 5, had everyone go down to Lot 6 to do a U turn and coned off every turn for Lot 5. Lot 6 was also the rideshare lot, so naturally the busiest lot. There was no reason they couldn't use 12, which is the normal lot they use for Dallas Trinity games. It Took me. So I tried to get there early because they. They had the game between OU and Texas and then they were doing a coaching panel and I wanted to go to the coaching panel. I walked in the gate and crossed paths with the players coming out of the tunnel because you have to go in that same gate. So it took me over a half an hour to park because Fair park management is completely stupid. And for teams that are building an audience, those are the things that can be like, this isn't worth the hassle. I'm not coming back again. [01:22:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Didn't they just Dallas, didn't they just fire the group that was managing the Fair Park? [01:22:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And took it over themselves. And it's worse. [01:22:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think that's part of the downside of both of those clubs choosing to partner with the city of Dallas and play at the Cotton bowl is all of their. The complications of the Cotton bowl aren't just it's Fair park in the Cotton Ball. There's a bunch of structural and procedural and executionable kind of stuff that become a real hassle, I think. I think the Neil family has learned a tremendous amount in the last year and a half or two year, however long it's been, what they got themselves into and all of that. I love the Cotton Ball just as much of everybody else, but it's. It's not a cut and dry kind of thing, man. Not at all. [01:23:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Particularly in the. In the. In a climate, in a context where there's not really another option. You know, you can't play at smu. You can't play. If you want to play in Dallas, of course, you could always go play. I mean, there are other places, but if you want to be in Dallas, it's really. Not really. [01:23:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, you know, those of us I don't remember, but. Dan, you weren't here at all during the Cotton bowl years, were you? Yeah. Buzz and I could tell you all kinds of stories that we learned in. In the Burns time, having to deal with the city and the Cotton ball and all that. And I assume it's not too much different in 26 than it was 30 years ago. So we'll, you know, we'll see how it all progresses and all it goes, but I think that's that. Dan, I think you make a really, really good point. Very good. Thanks for sharing that. [01:23:55] Speaker B: All right. [01:23:56] Speaker C: In fact, we don't have any Atletico stuff. We don't have any clown stuff, rodeo stuff to talk about or anything like that. [01:24:03] Speaker A: I don't Know, I don't know. Clown is. There's no rodeo stuff. [01:24:06] Speaker C: And, uh. So there you go. Somehow we cracked an hour and a half of this ridiculousness. So congratulations, Buzz. You've got some editing to do. [01:24:14] Speaker A: We spent 20 minutes talking about Peter buying a jersey. [01:24:16] Speaker B: Well, I guess we got some kit talk out of it. [01:24:19] Speaker C: You can cut that out. [01:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I made sure you can cut that out. [01:24:23] Speaker C: I don't care. [01:24:25] Speaker A: You should. [01:24:25] Speaker C: Yeah, trim it fat. Be the butcher. Be the butcher. Okay. Well, Buzz, I hope you get home okay. When do you back. When are you back in the upper northwest? [01:24:35] Speaker A: Wednesday. [01:24:36] Speaker C: Okay. We'll have a good, safe trip. [01:24:38] Speaker A: And there's a good chance I'm going to be at the Seattle game. At Seattle? [01:24:43] Speaker C: We. Well, I. I would be surprised if you weren't, sir. [01:24:46] Speaker A: Well, it's. It's, you know, five hour drive, so it's not. It's like going to Houston for a game. So I think I'm winning. We'll see how it goes. [01:24:52] Speaker C: Is it five hours from Spokane to Seattle? [01:24:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's across the state, so all the way on the side. [01:24:58] Speaker C: See, as a Texan, I just assume all states are tiny. [01:25:01] Speaker A: Other states, well, it's tiny compared to Texas. I mean, it's not 10 hours to El Paso, but it's. It's like going to Houston, you know? Yeah. [01:25:09] Speaker C: Do they have BUC EE's in Washington state? [01:25:12] Speaker A: I have. I don't think so. I have no idea. I'm not a Buc ee's guy. It's a gas station. [01:25:16] Speaker C: Neither am I. Yeah, but do they. Is there like a Washington state version of Buc EE's? [01:25:21] Speaker A: Not that I'm aware of. No. [01:25:23] Speaker C: Moose? Beavers? [01:25:25] Speaker A: No. Well, we have. They have those. Yeah, they're all over the place. Yeah. [01:25:28] Speaker C: Okay. Very good. All right, boys. Dan, thank you. It's great to see you again. Thanks for joining us today. [01:25:33] Speaker B: Thank you. I'll try and stay healthy this time. [01:25:38] Speaker C: I'm sorry, I have to. I'm just gonna say it. I'm a little disappointed we didn't get a little EFL trophy shown up on the screen here. Like celebrating. Like a little one you made out of tinfoil. [01:25:49] Speaker B: A cup. It's a spaghetti. [01:25:51] Speaker C: Okay, we'll pretend that's your EFL trophy. Thanks, bud. Buzz, travel safe. Have a good time. [01:25:57] Speaker A: It's funny you say that. Thanks, but funny said that I have a little like 4 inch tall MLS cup I got at some media thing one time. So I have one in se. [01:26:05] Speaker C: And you didn't even earn it. [01:26:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I earned it. [01:26:11] Speaker C: Thank you, buddy. It's good talking to you. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. DFW soccer. Curious. We will speak to you next week on another episode of Third Degree, the podcast. [01:26:26] Speaker A: Trying to trim here, not add. [01:26:27] Speaker B: Oh, sorry, not even following that up. Third degree, the third degree n podcast. [01:26:34] Speaker C: Third degree, the third degree n podcast. Third degree, the third degree n podcast. Third degree, the third degree n podcast. Sam.