Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Third degree. The third degree NE podcast.
Third degree. The third Degree Net podcast.
Third degree. The third degree Net podcast.
Third degree.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Well, hello there, DFW soccer Curious. Welcome to another episode of third degree, the podcast. He's here. Dan Crook. Howdy, Dan.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Hey, how's it going?
[00:00:38] Speaker A: I'm good. And he's there.
Everybody's hero. It is Buzz Carrick. Come in, Buzz.
[00:00:44] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm upset, Peter. It hit 80 today. I'm happy about that.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Was it? No, I think it was warmer than that here today. We've had some amazing weather lately, but.
[00:00:54] Speaker D: Yeah, no, I know you guys have, I hope. Yeah. I was just disappointed to hear. Apparently the super El Nino means it's going to be warmer here than normal.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: So sucks for you.
[00:01:04] Speaker D: Yeah. Oh well.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Very good boys. Well, good to be back with you both. We've got lots to discuss today, but starting with it's a victory pod.
The guys go up to New Jersey, play Michael Bradley's very, very young Red Bull New York squad feel featuring three teenagers, if I'm counting correctly. Was it three or four, I can't remember.
And end up coming home with a 2 nothing win, which is their first win since their last road trip which happened up in D.C.
and they got a 4 nothing win there. So Buzz, what did you take away from football club Dallas to energy drink? Zilch.
[00:01:48] Speaker D: Well, before I give you my takeaways there, there's something about that you just mentioned that I actually was thinking as I was watching this game and noticing how young the pieces that New York has running out there and it reminded me that I'm, I'm constantly disappointed a little bit by the way, FC Dallas chooses to almost require this you better make the playoffs bit. And so like they never try and they never like completely tear it down and play a bunch of kids and try and build up over three or four seasons with a bunch of young people. They always are trying to reload and they're always trying to bring in, you know, these mid career sort of people. You know, there are a few that are younger now because of the U22 initiatives, but we still, we never really get, I don't think like a full blown, like rip it all the way down here in Dallas and get like a complete like couple years of suffering to be paid off like three years down the line. It's always like a no, no, one year is enough. One year we can get back one year. You know, that kind of bothered me, has always bothered me a little bit. And I was watching New York do It, I was like, man, that's so cool that Bradley's playing a 18 year old kid at the nine. You know what I mean? Like, I love that.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it, it definitely had early teens, El Papi vibes back in the. Back in those days when he was rolling out a lot of the academy kids.
[00:03:00] Speaker D: And to be fair, maybe Dallas would do that if they wouldn't sell the guys. Maybe you keep a Pepe, you keep a Tanner, maybe we feel like that is what's happening, but they choose to profit on them and, oh, okay, it's their club, you know. But for my enjoyment, I think it would be fun to sort of ride some of those young guys for a while, like New York seems to be doing, even though they're not great in the standings. It's like, I'm going to put up with that. We talked about that way back when they were rebuilding Peter, when they had Lucci. Remember we were talking about like, you could, you could have this narrative of like, look at all these young local kids. How fun is that? You know, you can sell that narrative. But they never really did it. So anyway, as for this game specifically, you want to talk about those more then.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Well, well, yeah, because, you know, to be fair, Dallas had two of their own homegrowns starting in that game. But is it because they're a goalkeeper and a center back and not an attacking player or a creative player that we, we tend to have lost that admiration for what Dallas is doing?
[00:03:54] Speaker D: Well, it's not. They're not 18, you know, they're. They're. We saw that with Pepe way back when, but that was about it. Like, we never really saw like, I feel like they've never really like torn it all the way down and gone with like young guys and built up like over a couple of years.
[00:04:09] Speaker C: I think to your point, the youngest starter for FC Dallas was Nylah Norris, 21.
New York had five players, 21 or younger.
[00:04:18] Speaker D: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: But, but I guess my. I guess the question is, Buzz, is the academy or the.
Yeah, the academy. The family of players. Is it in a position where it actually has five guys under 21 that could be starting MLS quality?
[00:04:36] Speaker D: Well, not, not right at this minute, no. But, you know, the part of the problem is Dallas is trying to use this heavy U22 initiative, and that's taking up a lot of the spots that might be taken up by some of these guys that might come through. You know, like, for example, we've heard a lot of people talk about how good we thought Diego Garcia might end up being, you know, and I've talked a lot about how good I think Caleb Swan is and the spots that those two guys played is taken up by Benyamin and Delgado and, you know, so it's just they've chosen to go with this other route.
The U22 guys who tend to be a little bit older, they're not 18, they're more like 20 to 22.
So I, I can't. I don't know that I can go all in like blasting them. I just watched New York and thought, man, that's fun. Yeah, I kind of wish we got more of that and less of this, like every year you must make the playoffs bit, you know, and so looking
[00:05:31] Speaker C: at the benches as well, even further to that point, you know, Caleb Swan obviously comes on 19.
Sam Sarva's your next youngest at 23.
There were four of the five subs for new York Red Bulls, sorry, Red Bull New York. Now they've changed the name back order again with 20 or 21.
That is the production that you used to, used to really enjoy whether the team made the playoffs or not.
[00:05:56] Speaker D: And you almost can't count Collodi in this particular scenario because he is a guy that went to college for five years, four seasons. Missed one because of COVID but five years in college. So he's not 18, he's 23, 24, you know, so like that's the thing is I just always. Well, it's been since Paxton, Jesus, Brian Reynolds, all those guys came through at once that we sort. Oscar was when we last sort of saw this mentality that you come through. Maybe that's a golden era. Cereo in that time, Tanner, shortly at the end of that, you know, maybe we'll just never see that era again. But I just, that was all. I don't, I don't want to hammer on it. I just was watching New York thinking, man, that's cool. I wish Dallas still had that, you know, or would do that, you know.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: Well, I think we've, we've talked so much about philosophy, you know, what is FC Dallas philosophy these days? And it's like you get, you get it kind of rubbed in your face. What it was at a time when FC Dallas won trophies and, you know, everyone kind of felt really into what FC Dallas was doing. There was a lot of national attention, a lot of big transfers, just, just a lot of feel good moments. So it's, it's easy to look at that and say, oh, that was great. When it was like that.
[00:07:06] Speaker D: I think they're trying to do that with the U22s, but so far those guys haven't really paid off much. I. I feel like Kaik is the first one that's really paying off. The others haven't really paid off as much. Although, you know, obviously we saw some positives from one of them this week. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's like. It's just a different kind of methodology they've chosen. It's just not the one that I'm. I enjoy the most. So it's. That was all.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Before we move on to the game, I want to. I want to make another observation about this because we're sitting here talking about how much we admire the fact that Bradley and Red Bull are doing this. But one of the things that I spent a lot of time thinking about as I watch this game, because I love that stadium.
I. If we had that stadium in Dallas, it would be a crown jewel. And if you haven't been to, I guess it's now Sports Illustrated Arena. It used to be Red Bull Arena.
It's a fantastic place to watch a soccer match.
And, man, it was starkly empty in that place. And I, And I can't, as we talk about this, I can't escape the idea that that's part of the reality of playing a bunch of kids and not having a very good team.
Yeah, you might have Forsberg out there, but that's the only name on that roster anybody really knows.
And they're not very good. And the. The attendance re. Kind of reflects that, I suspect. And, yeah, that's part of the. That's part of the reality of. Of doing the kid thing.
[00:08:29] Speaker D: Well, that's true. You have to be willing to sacrifice that a bit. That's why it's easy for us to. For me in particular, to save this, because, you know, the Hunts are trying to make some money. I understand that. You know, Dallas is on 16 points and they're on 12. You know, going into that game, Dallas is one point ahead. So you can talk about, like, they're not very good. Well, they were one point behind D. Dallas until that game happened. You know, they're in 11th, so it's not like they're. They're technically tied for ninth with New York City FC and Columbus. So it's not like they're, you know, horrific. Not like they're Orlando or Philly, you know, but now that I say that Orlando's only two points behind them, now that Orlando has rallied a Bit, but, you know, you for sure have to suffer a bit if you're going to go that route. You have to be willing to miss the plays for a couple of years. And that's what the Hunts aren't willing to do, they say. And that's proven to be true. Like when guys miss the playoffs, they get fired. So that's their. Their way to go about it. I just kind of wish for the other sometimes.
[00:09:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: I'm also highly annoyed that Red Bull is wearing black home kits. I.
That's. That's a no no for me.
[00:09:30] Speaker D: Would you prefer red or white?
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Red. They're called Red Bull New York. They should be wearing red shirts, period.
[00:09:36] Speaker D: Disagree. You didn't say so. I was just asking.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: The other thing, I was trying to think, and I don't mean to go back in MLS history.
Help me remember. Did. Did they flip from the Metro Stars directly to Red Bull or was there something in between that I'm forgetting?
[00:09:51] Speaker C: No, they, like, changed the way the Metro Stars name was. They. I think they dropped the Mynj or something.
[00:09:57] Speaker D: They dropped the New York New Jersey, and they were just Metro Stars for a while. They didn't have a city.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:03] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Somebody was wearing one of those old original Metro Stars jerseys in a picture on the line the other day, and it was really sweet. The black one with the red and yellow.
[00:10:12] Speaker D: That's a really good one.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Y. Very, very nice. I see Metro Stars can wear black as a primary. Red Bull New York should not be wearing black Lava shirts. No, they shouldn't. Yeah, I. I thought that was a real disappointment that the attendance in that place has gotten so poor. I mean, even the supporter section, which used to all. Even when attendance was bad, the. The supporter section was always very full. And. And from the. What they were showing on TV the other night did not look good there. And I think that is just a reflection of people being frustrated. And a lot of people are.
[00:10:46] Speaker D: Right.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: I mean, they're this far away from being the little brother in that New York soccer scene, especially in a few months when, or whatever it is, pigeons open up their box in Queens. Because that thing looks stunning.
[00:11:02] Speaker D: Looks amazing, doesn't it? Yeah.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it really, really does.
Okay, we'll move on to the game itself. Big success. Lots going on.
Buzz, you had a lot of praise for a guy that this time last week we were crapping all over. Benjamin showed up and played out of position. Or I don't. What's that?
[00:11:22] Speaker D: Well, they changed the tactic a bit, but part of his success is related to Quill's choice of the tactical shift they made and how they deployed Benjamin on the field. So it's both the coach effect and the players effect. He was just better in general. His touch was a little tighter. He looked a little more comfortable. Now, I think in part that's because they moved him out to the wide part of midfield. And when you do that, you. You basically eliminate half the field of play. Like the whole field's in front of you. When you look towards the middle, you know, I mean like you cut out like half of the responsibility. So that can really simplify things for a guy that's part of it.
Quill also changed the tactic. This is the first game where they did not use a back three as the base or as Quill's been calling it forever, a back five and I and it was a flex formation. It was a flex tactic. So at times they were in a back three and a three fourth relook. But Steve Davis also called it a back four and I called it a back four because they only had like 40 possession. So that meant the bulk of the time they set up in their defensive low block and it was quite clearly a 4, 4, 2 instead of a 5, 4 one that they've done all this year up until now, right. Those close always call it a back five. We always saw the swing backs sit back. This time when they sat back, Norris was left back and you had U Moore and Johansen was your back four quite clearly and Benyamin was your left midfielder. Then you had your two holders, your double pivot, Kaik and Ramiro. And then on the right side was Joaquin. Valiente was right midfield and then as they would get the ball they would progress and flex out of that back four and. And Johansen would go up and become sort of your right sided midfielder and Valiente would jump up and become the 10 underneath Musa and it would sort of flex into the 343 they're playing. But that only happened a little bit of time. So most of the time they were in this back low block 442 and that again allowed Valiante to simplify his game. Editor Buzz, I just said Valiente, I'm still talking about Ben Yamin. Sorry for the break.
You don't have to, you don't have to play wing back. You don't have to run the whole field. But he's got good energy so he could if he needed to and most of the time it just allowed him the freedom to be able to play combination and. And Dallas Was heavily lopsided that way in terms of play because when Joaquin would balance it would flex up and then Ben Yamin would step up a little bit. You ended up with a high level possession up the left side and combination play.
So that change of tactic allowed him to really, really excel.
And I thought overall it was a really nice compact shape. That the 442 lens itself is a really good, easy, simple defense. Everyone's played that their whole life. Everyone knows how to defend in that. It's not a problem and it works really well. It really established the ability for New York because they basically put a box around Julian hall, who's the young kid and they just really denied a lot of balls into him. He just didn't. Wasn't really part of the game almost. So that worked really well. Really stop at what New York was doing.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Dan, what was your thoughts and review on the win?
[00:14:16] Speaker C: I mean on the very surface level it's kind of funny because you're looking at a win at a place you never go against a team that you, you never beat, which looks.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: And we bring up that ridiculous stat that they admitted to which with the last time Dallas beat Red Bull or any New York team in New York was how many days ago?
[00:14:40] Speaker D: Oh, 7,283 days.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: 7,200, 283 days.
[00:14:49] Speaker D: Yeah. So to, to put that into more easily digestible terms, New York had, it was on a nine match unbeaten streak against Dallas and they last lost to them in 2012.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: So that wasn't just, that wasn't just winning in New York, that's just playing Red bull, period.
[00:15:05] Speaker D: Well, 2012 was Red Bull, period. The last time winning in New York was in April 2007.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Ah, okay.
[00:15:10] Speaker D: So you know, even worse on the road, as is often the case, but in particular a long run against FC Dallas in general, including the game, if you remember Peter, where New York Red Bull rotated their whole team and even brought up like five or six guys from Red Bull 2.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:26] Speaker D: And everyone, Dallas is like ah, this will be a walkover. And they end up New York end up beat him 3 to 1. I think it was or something like that. It was like in Dallas it was like one of the greatest collapses games of FC Dallas history. It wasn't all that long ago but it was within the last seven years or so somewhere. I don't remember exactly when but you
[00:15:42] Speaker A: know was that, that was under Lucci, wasn't it?
[00:15:44] Speaker D: I think it was 100 Lucy, but I'm not 100. Positive it was definitely after Oscar. So it could have been Nico, but I think it was Lucci.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: I think, yeah, I think we were very frustrated with Luchi Ball at that point. I think we were all very much over Luchin. I apologize to Lucci if we're misremembering that, but that's how I seem to remember it.
[00:16:04] Speaker D: Yeah, he's in Dallas. If he gets a knock at your door, you'll know why he's. Yeah, come on over.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll make you an espresso.
[00:16:13] Speaker D: So anyway, like, you know, New York is a bit of a bogey team for Dallas. So that's a huge win on the road. Really good performance, especially because Dallas has been great at home and we were, you know, Quill was probably hoping that they would find their good road for him again. They did. You know, he, he said some quotes about how he really, you know, challenged them to be tight defensively and not let New York score. New York's not a high scoring team, so that's a probably pretty good idea. If you can lock them down, it's. And they give up a fair amount of goals.
So like you have, you're gonna have plenty of chance to score going the other way. And that proved to be true. However, I think that late in that game you saw something we've talked about a lot about this particular side is when Moose is by himself, which is not. This is not a criticism of Musa, but if he's by himself up top, he, the both center backs can sort of focus on him and it's not a lot harder for him. You need to have, when you have Farrington up there, that means, that means they're more distracted, they're not focusing on Musa. So Musa is some more freedom. Well, if you're not going to play Fairington, you need to have people get in there. And Ben Yamin got in there and Valiante got in there in the last 20, 30 minutes of the game, it really started to open up and, and go better for them. And, and that's what when Musa came alive and got the first goal. So that tactic remains really important. And, and to emphasize that, here's a couple of stats for you. I'll keep it short, but Dallas only had 42% possession, but they got 12 shots on it. And again, like we talked about, six on target, 50% on target.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:32] Speaker D: That's the number we always say. So 6 to 12 on target 12 is a little low, but it's a road game with 40% possession, so that's fine. And they had eight shots in the box. Remember last week in Seattle, we talked about that all the shots were outside. They weren't good chances. These are good chance shots coming inside the box. So really quality play by OC Dallas on the road in New York. Some things that are really important to take away from that, keep it tight defensively, low possession, get good quality shots, get them on target. That's it for this team.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: How much of the uniqueness of the starting 11 with Benjamin out left and not. And sitting Capis and sitting Farrington again, this is what, the second straight game in a row he has not started.
[00:18:11] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: And then even when they sub Moose out, they didn't put Farrington on for Musa.
Is there something going on there? And a larger part of the question is, is there. Is there stuff to be learned from this starting 11 moving forward, or is this a function of. Quill is still just trying to fit pieces together.
[00:18:34] Speaker D: Well, part of what he's trying to fit together is that he has a new dp, you know, and while he talks about all he's looking for is good players. Well, Santa Margot Marino is a good player. So he's trying to get that guy integrated into what's going on. And I think you can watch him play. You can still see that Moreno is trying to figure out how everybody plays at this level. You don't just walk in and click it right. I mean, it takes some time. You got to work it out. Some guys take six months to get acclimated. I mean, hopefully that's not what it's going to be.
2. I. I did notice that the commentator mentioned that Farrington only trained one day last week. So that means that whatever knock kept him out of Seattle, remember, he didn't even travel. Whatever it was, his was worse than Musa. So May, that's definitely a thing. In terms of impacting why he didn't start, obviously, was if he only trained one game, you're not going to start for Quill.
Sorry. One day you're not going to start for Quill. So in the grand scheme of things, when your team is floating like seventh, eighth in the standings and you're trying to make a step and you're adding a new dp.
Yes. He's still trying to figure out the proper rotations, the way to make things work. And we've talked a lot about how he felt. It seemed like he felt like he was locked into a back five because of the defensive frailties. Well, if he can figure out a way to play a back four, which he just did and use it in a flex, sort of modern tactic way to give him those flying wing backs, which he basically did using that double pivot in front of him, which you can do with Capas just as well as you can with Ramiro and Kaik. You know, you can then start to flex some things and try some different things. And we talked about, for example, that if you include Farrington and Musa and Valiente and Romero, he's got four good players for those front three spots. And so you got to figure out what the best things are and who, how you can use different people in different situations. And maybe there's something about New York that, like we mentioned, maybe trying to put a box around hall, maybe that's part of the tactic too.
So I don't know for sure whether he'll take this formation and go, oh, this is going to be the new way forward. We'll see how that goes. Because they, maybe this is an adaptation they felt only worked on the road with New York, perhaps.
So it's hard, it's going to be hard to tell for sure which direction they'll go from here with it, because you're right. At the end of the day, Farrington is a very good player and he and Moose is a very good combination. So it's going to be interesting to see how Quill works his way through all that.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Dan, you know, a lot of what we do here is regulate temperature. You know, team lose, loses or doesn't win games for a while. We try to make sure everybody understands and. But when you win a game, maybe against a team that you probably should beat, that's also part of what we try to do here.
Is going to New York and getting a 20 win, something that you should, everybody should be super enthusiastic and feeling like things are back on track. Or is that just a middle of the table team beating a team that's probably just not as good as they are.
[00:21:23] Speaker C: I would say don't take a history, history lap, don't take a victory lap. But you know, FC Dallas beat a team by two goals that in doing that had lost three games each by two goals in a single week.
But as we mentioned with the 3:1 home game when new York flipped, the entire lineup, played the, I guess it was USL team at the time and absolutely battered FC Dallas at home.
FC Dallas doesn't typically win in those situations when they really should. So doing the right things, you know, restricting New York's striker to 15 touches, where the majority of those were inside the center circle, only two touches in the box, no shots on target for the entire team.
You know, celebrate that by all means. But yeah, it's, it's like you say, it's trying to regulate the temperature. And after a little bit of a disappointing home run, you know, I'd ask Will about it. What's the mentality going away? Is it a reset? Is it anything like that? And you know, he said, hey, we're, you know, we can win anywhere. And yeah, I guess technically they, they just did.
[00:22:34] Speaker D: We've talked a lot about how we've always felt Quill wanted to play in a back four and if he's finally figured out a way to plan about with this group, that's going to be pretty big deal, you know, because he's going to want to. He's got some ideas about how he wants to play with the front, the front group wing. Now he's not stuck in the back five as he always called it.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: You know, I thought it was interesting. I was a bit surprised, Buzz, when I watched your instant reaction, your three Things video after that you had anointed Benjamin as man of the match. I thought it was Uragide. I thought little Pogbo was unbelievable in that game. He was all over the place. I love it when he carries the ball forward. What was it about Benjamin's performance that gave him the nod? Was it the fact that it was such a redemption game from the week before?
[00:23:20] Speaker D: Well, in part because it was so bad.
Also he was playing a different sort of position, you know, that he had been used before. We've always seen him be like in the middle as a six and they put him outside and they gave him, you know, he had some responsibility to come back and defend. He did get back into a wide sort of wing backish spot occasionally, but not the bulk of the time. But mostly it was. They gave him some freedom to go forward. He was relatively impactful for it. You know, for example, just to throw some stats at it. He was, he was won seven of his 11 duels, which for a little guy is pretty good, you know, 50, 57 touches. That's pretty high that it showed the volume, that amount that played through, through him. If, if you like to measure games with the xg had. He had a 44xg, you know, and he, he had some nice, let's see, where was, what was the other stat I wanted to throw out there?
It was just in general touches in the box four. He got in the box more late in the game than he did early in the game. Two for Three on Dribbles. So, like, it's just that that was an overall really solid performance. And I thought, like, of the front, he was the guy that, like, when they finally broke it open, he was the guy that was sort of the catalyst. Like Valiante was doing the flex thing, but I didn't feel like that was causing much difficulty. It wasn't until Ben Yamin started making those runs late where he was coming in the box on that left side that I think it really opened them up and made them susceptible. It's sort of. So for me, it was mostly that he was kind of the.
The catalyst that made it all work in the front third and the final third, as he. As he finally was like, you know what? I can't get forward. I can.
No, no. Norris started pushing higher and higher behind him, probably making him feel comfortable, like the. Norris had him covered. So then he started releasing. Norris also had a great game, by the way. The whole defense really did. But you were right about your. He was fantastic. But mainly it was, I think, the. The contradiction with, I mean, from how bad he had been the week before to how good he was in this game, how comfortable, how. How he kind of woke up and then got the game to come alive. And the. Early in the second half, really.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Okay, so I guess my next question is kind of going through the other players on the team. Where are you at, Buzz on Valiente, Hit or miss?
[00:25:26] Speaker D: You know, I think that he can be influential.
This job he did in this game, this flex job where he was the right mid defensively and then jump forward to become sort of like a playmakers thing, I don't think he's electric. I don't think he's like, going to be a game changer, but, you know, he's. When you're talking about a guy that played most of the game as like a. A wide mid or Flexing into a 10 position, you know, 83 passing is pretty good. That's higher than most everybody else on the team.
You know, he. What we'd like to see from him. What I'd like to see from him is more creation, more of these key passes, more of this stuff that shows up as an XA, you know, you only had 47 touch, excuse me, 45 touches, which is 22 touches less than Binyamin. But to show you, like the volume of the team going heavily without the other side than rather his side. So, you know, I think of those front four, he's probably the least important right now that we talked about. But if you're going to go with this particular tactic. He's gonna be really important to be able to play that right side flexing into the 10 sort of position if that's going to be the way they go forward.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Dan, you got any Valiente opinions?
[00:26:40] Speaker C: I think you naturally go for the Valiente vs. Moreno comparison, and if I'm doing that, it's Moreno.
There is almost a Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard for England. Hey, can they actually play well together?
[00:26:59] Speaker D: Together?
[00:27:00] Speaker C: Are we sacrificing one strength for the other?
[00:27:03] Speaker A: That's a stretchy, stretchy, stretch comparison, but I get where you're going.
[00:27:07] Speaker C: Oh, not in terms of quality. I just mean can they actually, you know, can they coexist? Can, you know, do they both benefit the team or is something missing out and is someone potentially missing out to kind of. To facilitate them both being on the field?
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, I'm gonna stick with you, Dan. Do you think the Ramiro Kaik pairing in the middle of the park is the right one?
[00:27:30] Speaker C: Until Capis is healthy.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Who does Capus replace?
[00:27:37] Speaker C: Right now? It would be. Ramiro Kaik is doing some good stuff.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to ask you. Well, Buzz, let me. I'll shoot that question to you. Is this the best pairing, Romero and Kaik at this point, or is it something else?
[00:27:51] Speaker D: I think based on current form, it is. Caps is obviously really struggling with something. We don't know what it is. We do know that it's real.
Even though they don't put him on the injured list, we know he's struggling with something. I think if he's 100% healthy and you can look at his form at the beginning of the season, maybe through the first eight to 10 games or so, and then the way Kai's playing now, I think it would be. Captain Kaik would be the way to go.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Hmm.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Interesting. All right, let's talk about Kaik. Do you want to talk about the MLS announcer mispronouncing his name again?
Yeah, in the most inappropriate of ways.
[00:28:22] Speaker D: Yeah. This is the second time this has happened and I tweeted.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Is it the same guy?
[00:28:26] Speaker D: I don't think it's the same guy, actually.
You know, it's. I can. I can forgive it if you're going to go with the Kaik, which is what the. The team put in their notes for the first season. Kayak was here, and then they fix it this year because they have his. Him saying it. You know, Kaik is not wrong. It's just like it's called Caleb Swan Swanee, you know, it's the same sort of slangish Kai K kind of thing, but quite clearly the pronunciation guide and the guy recording his own voice, he says kaik. He doesn't say it in the offensive way. And you would think even if you're not natively American, that that slang racial version of that name is. Is a more broadly known bad thing to say. So it's like, I don't, I don't know why you would think, say that and go, ah, that's got to be what it is. Let's throw that out there.
[00:29:11] Speaker C: Here's the thing that gets me is there are legitimately three different ways you, somebody from a Brazilian Portuguese background could say his name the same way there was with Felipe Melioro, right where it was flippy. Felipe, Felipe. You can call him Caique, you can call him Caiki, you can call him Caike. You cannot call him a certain anti Semitic phrase. You cannot call him Cake.
But there are three ways you can say it right and be just fine. And there are a lot of resources out there that can help you find that.
[00:29:45] Speaker D: Just use common sense like we did the minute we saw the guy signed. We go, K A, I C, K. That could be a really bad name. And so we, immediately before we started saying it, we started looking. So, like, I don't know how you look at it.
[00:29:58] Speaker C: And even when FC Dallas puts the little pronunciation on the sign in thing, first thing I do is, is there an interview or a reference From Brazil on YouTube that says his name?
And then you find, okay, there are a couple of different ways to say it, but now I know one that's not offensive.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
I'm not as bothered by the fact that it's offensive to some people. I've just. I'm more shocked by the fact that it continues to happen.
And to your point, Dan, that it's a pronunciation that just doesn't make any sense. And to your point, Buzz, if you do say it out loud, you're like, wait, that can't be right.
If a guy came in from Germany and his name looked like was pronounced shit, would you just keep repeatingly saying shit on the air?
[00:30:44] Speaker D: No. You would?
[00:30:44] Speaker A: No.
[00:30:45] Speaker C: Just for fun, maybe you would. Yeah, yeah. I think, to your point, right, Manchester United midfielder Bruno. What's his surname?
[00:30:54] Speaker A: Fernandez.
[00:30:55] Speaker C: Finance.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Right. Yes. There's a whole bunch of different ways
[00:30:58] Speaker C: you pronounce spelled Fernandez. So saying Fernandez makes total sense.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:31:04] Speaker C: Saying Kaik's name that way doesn't.
If you read it in an English phonetic way, it would Be cake. Yeah, it wouldn't be what he said.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: Well, the other problem, I don't know if everybody's aware of this, and I made the mistake of Buzz posted something on Twitter, and I replied to Buzz and said, you know what's really weird about this is that because being accurate with his pronunciations is his pride and joy. And the thing that he really waves his flag about, it's insane to me that it's Derek Ray, of all people, who is mispronouncing it, especially like this. That just makes no sense.
And it took about five minutes for the act. And I also was either dumb or brave enough to tag Derek Ray in that response.
Or both, maybe. I don't care. It took about Derek five minutes to go. I'm sorry. I don't call MLS games anymore. Could you please stop resaying this?
Only to find out I wasn't even the only person who thought this. Warren Barton, of all people, who is an active MLS commentator, also thought it was Derek Ray.
[00:32:09] Speaker D: Oh, did he?
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Yes. He tweeted it too. Yes.
[00:32:14] Speaker D: Oh, Warren Barton.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Yes.
He made a joke about it, too, on Twitter. And I had to apologize to Derek Ray. I don't know if Warren did. I don't know if Warren didn't tag Derek in it. I may be the only idiot that was.
Yes.
But then, bud, you point out that you knew it wasn't Derek Ray because you had already made this mistake a year ago.
[00:32:35] Speaker D: Oh, a year or two ago. Yeah.
He's. Listen, I'll give you. He is a dead ringer for Derek Ray. I would have bet my house it was Derek Ray.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:44] Speaker D: And I was like, man, I can't believe Derek Ray did that about something else a couple years ago. Somebody's like, that's not Derek Ray. Derek Ray doesn't do MLS anymore. I was like, what the. You know, it's. It even sounds just like the. Derek would try to do certain words a certain way. You can hear this guy trying to do. It's. It's like, if it's not a Derek Ray AI clone. I was like. I also knew it wasn't because I'd done my game preview that had the announcers in it. So I knew, what's this?
[00:33:05] Speaker A: What is this dude's name?
[00:33:08] Speaker D: I'll go crack open my.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: What is it?
[00:33:10] Speaker C: Crack open a cold on. That's Callum something.
[00:33:13] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: It's insane how much he sounds like Derek Ray, and I have to assume that he's.
What'd you say?
[00:33:20] Speaker D: Callum Williams.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: Okay, well, I would have to Assume that Derek Ray.
This is driving him nuts because for
[00:33:28] Speaker C: those who don't know, especially pronounced we ums.
[00:33:34] Speaker A: For those who don't know, Derek Ray. Derek Ray used to started was calling games back in the original version of MLS back in 96. I think he was originally the Revolutions play by play guy. But back then Derek Ray, very Scottish, used to put on this ridiculous American accent and it was terrible. It was so bad.
I used to make fun of it all the time because it was so obviously a Scott trying to sound like an American and he ended up sounding like Chuck Woolery all the time. Like a Scottish Chuck Woolery. It was ridiculous.
And he is so particular and so proud of his pronunciations of names. I, it has to be driving him nuts. There's a guy that sounds just like him.
[00:34:17] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: On ML doing MLS games that is mispronouncing names. Like I'm sure a, a lawsuit must be coming soon. I'm joking, but you know what I mean. Yeah.
[00:34:27] Speaker D: I was gonna say you can't do that, but it's just what he sounds like.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: You're our in house super expert, professional TV game production director, producer guy. Why isn't somebody in the truck getting in that dude's ear and going, would you please stop saying it that way?
[00:34:43] Speaker D: Well, the short answer is that people don't are no good at what they do.
But I don't, I don't know if they're using the kit. I, I, it's just, it's the same as the commentator. Like how do you not know as the producer that that's a problem? Like the minute he says the name, how do you not go, that can't be right and look it up like, you know what I mean? How do you have the production meeting and have your coach talk about the player? I guarantee you Quill's not saying it that way.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: It's like Fuchs. It's Fuchs. Not right.
[00:35:11] Speaker D: So, you know, it's actually pretty difficult to get through enough stuff that you can get to a game and call a guy and listen. We get names wrong. It's not the fact that he's getting it wrong, it's the how he's getting it wrong is so clearly.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: A problem.
[00:35:25] Speaker D: You know, because for me, like when you're watching the game and Kai kits a banger from like 40 yards and the commentator just screams a racial epitaph really loud. It's like, it's like getting slapped in the face. It's like nobody wants that, you know?
[00:35:37] Speaker A: So I will say the Problem is, is that all of the cuts that Apple and MLS have undergone with this production this season are really on display. Like, the video quality is still really good, but the direction and production and a lot of this stuff is just. Is really taking a major beat beating this year.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Even.
[00:36:03] Speaker D: Even stuff like promo drops when they're happening is coming at weird times and they're getting caught, you know, having to try and really fast finish a promo as the guys are charging into the box about the score. You know, it's just. It can just be bad, like running those. That one, that's the shot from in the game, the goal box in that one game, Peter, where it was like a lobbin in the box. You just caught it. It's like, yes.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: AT&T gold Cam is officially the worst sponsored replay moment in sport history. It is awful.
[00:36:32] Speaker D: The one in pure production might be the maddest was the game where Musa got. Was getting a rest and wasn't the starter. And they had decided in their meeting that Musa was going to be the. The player to watch for the game. And then he wasn't in the starting 11 and they stuck with him as a player to the watch for the game. Over on the bench, it's like, dude, you guys get the lineup 45 minutes out. You had plenty of time to change it up, you know, and just shoot a picture of the guy who is warming up instead and go, okay, that's the guy because he's filling in for. It's like, it's such the laziest.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: There's like five high school AV class kids in the. In the building down in Florida somewhere.
[00:37:08] Speaker D: So better than that Trinity game in Brooklyn though.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: Yeah, fair shot there.
[00:37:12] Speaker D: That's a different.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll take an MLS Apple TV game over that.
[00:37:16] Speaker D: Yeah, over that. Usl.
[00:37:18] Speaker C: Even those MLS Next Pro AI Camera games seem better than USL Super League right now.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: All right, well, I got us off course. My apologies about that. Let's talk about Kai for a few minutes. The actual player. First off, the man has attempted many, many hairdos in his brief time here in Dallas. I'm here to say this new one is my favorite. I kind of dig it. I like the exploding fro. I dig it.
[00:37:47] Speaker D: Yeah, I made the joke that he was six, seven with the afro. And of course half the population got that joke right away.
[00:37:52] Speaker C: And I like that him or Moreno did like, you know, ditched the braids and then the other one did the next week.
Just like they had to be twins.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay, so, man, we've thrown A lot of shade this kid's way.
And I've started to notice in your discord that the attitude and kind of vibe around him is shifting amongst your discord members. Buzz, is it shifted with you? Are you starting to come around on this was a good $4 million spending.
[00:38:27] Speaker D: Oh, the. My problem with that phrasing is because we've. We learned after later on because we were shocked by that number. We learned later on that that was a panic number after they heard after like a European club came in. And that's been mentioned by other people, by the way. So it wasn't just us saying that, you know, and so they redoubled their price or whatever. So I still feel like that's a little high. But I will say that like, as him terms of a general buy. No, I. I like what's happening here. I like the direction he's trending.
You can really see it in things like his slow progression. In terms of his pure passing numbers, he's not making as poor decisions as he was. He used to like when the ball turn around and try and make a really quick pass and it would turn it over half the time. Right away after he got it, he slowed that down. So, like he's clicking along around 80%. He had 82% in this game.
His long balls are coming up. He was at 67% of his long balls in this game. Granted, not very many, but it's still valuing the ball more once he got it. And yet his defensive contributions are still high.
Couple of intersects, couple recoveries, you know, work rate is good. He's covering lots of ground. This particular shape, this 442, allows both him and Romero to stay more compact and stay more at home. They don't have to chase out to the wide zones anymore, right. Because they have guys out there covering that space. So it eases the pressure on those two guys to be going 100 miles an hour the whole game, you know. So I like the direction Kaik is trending. And because of that, that's why, like, when campus is healthy, I'm ready to go Kappas Kaik, because, you know, I think really quickly both those guys are going to see what Ramiro can offer. Despite Ramiro's organizational ability and leadership, you know, there's a point at which Kaik is and Krabis were both generally much more mobile and fluid and can link play much better and can react defensively much better. So, you know, I like the direction Cake's going. I think he's looking pretty good for 20. I mean, I thought it would take a couple more years than this for him to get it moving where I feel like he was going in a good direction. He's already making good progress.
[00:40:24] Speaker C: I think you kind of said, is that him slowing things down? You know, early on he wasn't looking after the ball. Romiro is. Ramiro and Nolan are probably the two best passes on the entire roster.
You know, so having, having him be able to slow things down, kind of use his head a little bit. You mentioned the 82, 84% passing success in the last game, no bookings in the last six games when, you know, before he was a walking red card waiting to happen.
It's just he doesn't need that calming influence that he did last year in, in her mirror.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: Has anybody. I think we've talked about this before because one of the new things that Kaika, or, yeah, Kaik, has picked up this year is his willingness to tell everybody else what to do and where to go.
And there was a moment in the first half where Johansson heads a ball back and it's not a very clean header and it goes out, it almost turns over and goes out for a throw in.
And you can, if you're watching closely, you can see Kaik giving him hell about it. Johanson, like, I can't believe this guy's telling me how to play soccer. And then Kaik immediately turns around and plays a ball to Romero, who is surrounded by three guys and almost gets him killed.
[00:41:46] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: So I can't figure out if I like this new kind of mentality in him or if he needs to dial that back a little bit. Buzz.
[00:41:55] Speaker D: Well, I like what it says about the kid's self belief, you know, and we were just talking about how we want us, we want them to take these younger, 18, 20 y old kids and let them play in and they're doing that with him. But you're 100% right that he needs to stop acting like he's, you know, Socrates in the middle of the Brazilian 11, you know, telling everybody where to go. You know, it's like, you're not that guy. Yeah. So, you know, probably because, because of Ramiro and the way Ramiro does do that, you know, But Ramiro's got 15 years as a professional top flight player under his belt, you know, so it's okay for Ramiro to do that, your fellow Brazilian. So, yeah, I'd like him to stop doing that quite a bit. I think there's a time or two where he's tried to do that to somebody and the person's like, shut up, kid. You don't know what you're talking about, you know, but the underlying self belief, I'm okay with. I love self belief in a player. I'm okay with that.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: All right, very good.
Little Sam Sarver got his first MLS goal.
That was nice to see.
[00:42:53] Speaker D: Yeah. My favorite part about that is that he's, Adam talks about how Rley R. Phillips is like his hero sl partial mentor. Because when, when R. Phillips, I guess was in Columbus, he noticed Sarver or talked to him or helped him or whatever. So this was a night when the New York was honoring Bradley R. Phillips. So Bradley R. Phillips was there on the sideline.
So that's just a really fun, awesome story for Sam that, that paid off that way. And you know, we know the kid's got some ability he'll be able to contribute to the Major League Soccer level. You know, it's, he's not going to get a lot of playing time right now, but it's, he's, it's great to see him have this late game punch and come in and help change the game and keep the team playing in a positive way. And that was really cool for him to have that moment, I think, with Brotherhood Phillips.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: And speaking of playing the kids in the academy, Caleb Swan got his debut of a couple of minutes.
[00:43:40] Speaker D: Yeah, that's exciting.
You know, it may have been less than a minute, was not very long at all that he was there.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: He was used as a time killing bait is really what he was used for.
[00:43:50] Speaker D: I know, but the fact that he was there on the bench and was available says something. You know, I, I, my to tell my quick Caleb Swan story. Like people from time to time will send me YouTube videos or clips or whatever of kids playing, you know, and sometimes they're from other teams even. And, and somebody sent me a clip of Swan when he was like, I don't know, 14, 15 years old. And usually I'm taking these things with a grain of salt where I'll try and watch them.
And you're like, yeah, okay, but that one, I watched it and about 10 seconds into the clip, all of a sudden I went, oh. And I watched the whole thing and he kept making these plays and I was like, okay, that dude, he was a Solar at the time. And I was like, okay, that dude needs to be with FC Dallas. And like the minute I met his dad at an FCD Solar game, I, I hunted him down because I wanted to say, hey, your kid looked great. And so it's fun to have seen him, a couple years later, finally accept that opportunity and come to SC Dallas and now work his way up through the system. Because I've been excited about that kid and said that kid was the best in this class in Dallas for about six or seven years now. And it's nice to see that proving to be true. And so that's fun.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: Who's the better soccer player, Caleb or his sister?
[00:44:58] Speaker D: You asked me this before. I'll tell you what, I'll say the same thing I said last time, in pure context. Caleb, obviously.
His sister, however, has had a. In the context of the game that she's plays, she's like captain of the U17 team. So, like in a. In the broader context, in that terms, she is. She's achieved more in that sense. But obviously we're putting them on the field. Caleb's better. That's just the nature of the game,
[00:45:23] Speaker C: you know, okay, you can.
[00:45:26] Speaker D: Caroline played with boys and until she hit the U15 team, and then it was like, you've been a starter in a boys team, ECNL team up until now, but now it's not going to work anymore. You need to be women's only. And that's no offense to her. She's a spectacular player. She's 16 years old and she starts for Trinity. Amazing player. But in pure terms, Caleb's better. But in terms of professional achievement, Caroline's better. Does that make sense?
[00:45:53] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:45:54] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: I love giving that family credit for cranking out footballers. Dan, thought you were going to say
[00:46:00] Speaker C: you love putting Buzz on the spot.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: Well, that too. Yeah, I love doing that, too. Dan, any other players of note you'd like to mention from Dallas, too?
Energy drink?
[00:46:12] Speaker C: No. No.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Okay. Now, the reason why this is important, kids, if you're paying attention, Dallas says. I think if I'm saying this correctly, four games left before the World cup break and it's a bit of a murderer's row of games. They have Salt Lake coming to town next, then Vancouver, then they have to go to Bruce Arena's absolute machine of San Jose.
And I think the last game, yes, the Colorado game in Colorado, and they aren't too shabby right now either. So the cry for collecting points. I think we're going to learn a lot about where this team is headed in the next four games. Buzzard.
[00:46:53] Speaker D: Yeah, this is a tough slog, but, you know, these are these. All these home games before the World Cup. We talked about it all season. Man, these are going to be huge. They're really going to set the table for where Dallas can be coming out of the back end of the World Cup.
These all really matter. The RSL one coming up next. You know, Diego Luna's on a hot streak. He's got three goals in his last five. He just played his 100th and 101st game for RSL, a player that I absolutely just adore. I think he's an amazing player. So that's going to be a problematic, obviously. You know, it'll be interesting to see with these few games left that Quill has these four games before the break.
Is he mixing things up now? Like, is, does he like this new formation? Does he like where that's going, where that's heading the back four for, or does he immediately revert back? Is it something about tactics, you know, who's going to be his key players going into this break? Because then they get, you know, two month vacation, if you will. So they have two months basically to like really work on whatever. And who knows what it will look like coming out of the back of that. Will they play a different formation coming out of the back? Will there be different players that'll be moved into the rotation? I mean, two months is a long time to not play play.
[00:48:04] Speaker C: Will the team's top scorer still be here?
[00:48:07] Speaker D: Yeah. Will they have sold people?
I have written down here what the window is. Just for argument's sake.
The incoming window for MLS opens the second one. Excuse me, the second one opens July 13th.
So that gives them, you know, 10, 9ish days before they first game post World Cup. So will Dallas be adding players? You know, maybe one or two. Will they be selling a player? Maybe one or two. So like we're almost be looking like a new season in a way. This is why again, it was so dumb that they didn't get the calendar flip for this. They didn't have the mini season right here, right now and then switch the calendar because the perfect summer off to reload post World cup to start your winter schedule is right now. Now you're going to have to artificially manufacture it next year.
So, you know, we're looking at a transformation potentially of this team. And so you have four games to. To go. Like, do you. Are we seeing the early stages of a transformation now with a new tactic or not is the really intense question. And, and I don't know if I think there's a good chance that based on how good that went, that you might try it again against Salt Lake. You know, if you've been looking for a way to not give up goals. When you got a back four, it looks like you found it. Right? So, like, okay, let's try that again. I don't know why you wouldn't try that, that again. So I would imagine, especially with Farington coming back from some real injury that limited his play in minutes this week, I don't know why he wouldn't just go with the exact same team. Cus is fighting something, you know, are you desperate to get I back in the field? No. You know, there's nobody on the bench that's screaming, play me, play me, play me with their. With their actions.
So I don't know why you wouldn't just roll with the exact same thing. Especially because when you win, you're saying you need to win, you need to score, you need to hold the scoreless. We did all that. Okay, you guys get to go again.
[00:49:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I would be shocked if it was something. If it was a different lineup because Quill's absolutely a guy rewarding success kind of coach.
[00:50:02] Speaker D: Yeah. And if you think about rsl, like you can make an analogy kind of, I think tactically, Forsberg and Luna, right. Same sort of quality. They're not a nine. You know, they're coming from underneath somewhere, giving lots of freedom. They're moving around, they're going wide, they're coming central, probably. I think those are pretty good analogies. It just worked against New York, so why wouldn't you think, let's do the same thing against Salt Lake? You know, they have a good nine also, so you. Other than Luna. So I think it's a great idea to like, sort of carry forward and Peter, potentially amazing kit matchup. Potentially.
Because RSL's roads is the checker, the blue and white checker, which is.
[00:50:41] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[00:50:42] Speaker D: So good. And if Dallas wears their DNA kit.
[00:50:47] Speaker A: Yeah, if they do, that would be a good matchup.
[00:50:50] Speaker D: It'd be a good one one hundo. Yeah.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: One of the things that we do have to kind of get into is the reason why this is important is Dallas has played seven home games. And I don't know if you're paying attention, guys, but they've lost. They've drawn the majority of those. They are 21 and 4, which means they have dropped eight points at home when they don't need to be dropping points.
And I don't know if everybody realizes this, but if Dallas had those eight points, they'd be third in the west right now on 24 points.
And even if you want to be generous and say they could lose another game, or two, they would probably be somewhere near the top five in terms of if they lost one more game. If they were like, you know, if they had lost one instead of tied all those. As you commonly say, Buzz, you can draw yourself to death.
[00:51:45] Speaker D: Yeah. You can get. You're so fired. You can draw yourself right out of playoffs. It's a. If people that don't believe us, just do some simple math, man. A win and a loss is three points and two ties is two points. And you just extrapolate that over the course of the season, it adds up fast. Really fast. Nico ball. Yeah. You can tie yourself right out of the game. As a coach, you know, it's like there's a reason why the. Everybody in the world made wins worth three points instead of two. Peter. When we were young, wins were two points and everybody played to tie all the time. It was awful. You remember.
[00:52:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:21] Speaker D: How bad the EPL was in that era? It was. I guess it probably wasn't even the epl. It was probably league one still at that point.
Yeah. When they had. When they added that three points, man, everyone went, oh, we can do that math. Makes a humongous difference because winning is then everything, you know? Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:39] Speaker A: Yes, very much so. Okay, so that game against Real Salt Lake comes up this weekend.
Other things about the club. This was the week they released a video promoting the three clubs that are going to exist in the finished final product of the station. Have you not seen that video that they released this week?
Well, there's the existing club in the south end called the Gallagher Club. There's the new club.
Yeah, yeah. Like party clubs in the building.
Oh, no, no, no. Sorry.
[00:53:12] Speaker D: I did not watch that video you both saw.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: So confused that I am realizing I wasn't setting this up or explaining Dallas,
[00:53:19] Speaker D: the Fort Worth, three clubs. That's very cool to promote those other teams.
[00:53:24] Speaker A: Right. I got a life size photo of that one.
[00:53:26] Speaker D: That's why I was so confused.
[00:53:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so they promoted that and the. And somebody said to me said, wait, is this the. Is. Are they actually going to end up using the space that we were talking about last? No, no. This is the club that's on the ground level floor. The. The empty, unused, unfinished space is the second floor of the east side construction. So the, the two clubs look very nice and one's a pub on the east side and the other one's kind of a larger scale hottie, Texas themed hangout joint on the west side. And what
[00:54:01] Speaker D: pub? Sounds fun.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure it'll be Great.
I'm sure it'll be a lot.
[00:54:06] Speaker D: I will go watch that video.
[00:54:08] Speaker A: Yeah, they put it out this week, so. There you go. Oh, hey, Dan, before we go, since we were talking about kits.
Good Lord, Even horrible Evan Horvath's goalkeeper kit. That has to be a bet payoff. That is the most donkey ass ridiculous thing I have ever seen somebody in MLS wear dating back to the Jorge Campos days.
[00:54:31] Speaker C: You don't like the pink version of the goalkeeper kit?
[00:54:34] Speaker A: Well, I think it's purple, isn't it?
[00:54:36] Speaker C: Technically, yeah.
[00:54:38] Speaker A: Yeah. The issue with it is the pattern running down into the shorts. That's what makes it. And maybe I never noticed that the pattern is in all of the shorts, but in the purple one, it stands out and it looks like a clown's uniform.
[00:54:53] Speaker C: Interesting. Yeah.
[00:54:55] Speaker A: Have you never noticed this before?
[00:54:57] Speaker C: No, not the pattern. Not the clown thing.
I think.
[00:55:03] Speaker A: Well, maybe I may remember what it called.
[00:55:04] Speaker D: That does look bad.
[00:55:07] Speaker A: Yeah, man.
[00:55:07] Speaker D: It.
[00:55:08] Speaker A: It's that kind of geometric weirdo Maisie design that's on the sides and back of the. Of the shape shirt, which is weird enough unto itself because it's not over the entire shirt. It's just in parts of it. But they've done the. All of the shorts in it.
And as you know my rule, you don't do. You don't put patterns on your shorts because that's what makes them look like pajamas.
And in that color in particular, it stood out and it looked really weird. Silly, really.
[00:55:37] Speaker C: I'm actually trying to find a picture of, like, all of them side by side.
[00:55:40] Speaker D: But yeah, hot pink leopard pants.
[00:55:43] Speaker C: I think when you look at, like, the green or the.
The orange, it's a much more subtle change between the light kind of grayish shade and that purple is.
That is harsh.
[00:55:58] Speaker A: It is, yeah.
[00:55:59] Speaker C: You know, he's kind of lucky. It doesn't. The dark parts don't just look like he's pissed himself.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: Well, just that. And I just think that if you're the one of the goalkeepers that get assigned that kit, you're like, could I please maybe wear the gray one or the gray something else? Because this is awful.
This looks like a party outfit.
[00:56:19] Speaker D: Well, Dan, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't each team pick three colors at the beginning of the season that they can have for their keeper kits? Isn't it. That works.
[00:56:26] Speaker C: I don't know how much they're restricted, though.
[00:56:30] Speaker A: God, that thing was ridiculous looking.
[00:56:32] Speaker C: Anyway, the yellow one works because the white just looks like a lighter shade. The green one fairly similar Blue as well. I haven't. Orange one looks fine. Yeah, I think that purple one's just the really bad one. The national team versions where they've got like bespoke patterns actually look great. The, The Germany one's like, nice and subtle. Spain too. Japan has this really funky.
I can't remember the, you know, the kind of devil horn sort of mask. It almost looks like that, but it's like a sun pattern.
The Mexico one looks kind of crazy, but yeah, the. The teamwear version, like MLS gets just. It looks.
It's just a subpar.
[00:57:15] Speaker A: I didn't know that the MLS goalkeeper kits even had a pattern in the pants until I saw Horvath's purple number on Saturday. That was ridiculous.
All right, let's move on.
We could talk about Burn Jr. If you'd like to buzz.
[00:57:34] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. They lost O2 to Austin FC2 here in Arlington at home.
You know, there's not, there's not a lot going on down there right now that like is short term interest. You know, like swans come up and these days we've seen Lewis up a bunch and we've seen Simmons up a bunch. You know, there's a couple of small takeaways that are good. Nico Montoya got his first start of the year, who's an academy keeper who we think's got some. Some possibility. He had like six saves in his first start. He was getting peppered. It wasn't his fault.
But Dallas got overrun in the midfield down there. They're not, you know, Garcia's not doing so well. Espina's a little in over his head right now.
Niece is a nice looking player, but he's a pure 10. He doesn't do a lot of, you know, workman like effort in the midfield. The most interesting, I think, thing I think really is a takeaway is that they rolled out of back four.
So for them to roll out of back four the exact same day that FC Dallas rolled out of back four.
Slightly noteworthy. They. They usually try and replicate FC Dallas in terms of like the kind of defense that the team is playing, but it also sometimes could take them a game or two before they'll commit. You know that once they realize Dallas is committed, then they'll be like, switch. So for them to switch the same day is interesting.
Alvaro Augusto played again for them and did not look very good. He never looks very good in North Texas. Is always mindboggling. When he does play for FC Dallas, that he looks pretty good. I don't understand why that is the case. But Enzo Newman got to play right back finally instead of right center back. So, you know, a couple of little things of interest. Nothing that's like gonna melt our brains. Benji Flowers is on the bench again. That's always really nice to see that happening. The 14 year old who's going to be, you know, the potential to be the next sort of peppy, ish level talent. So that's about it. Nothing really groundbreaking down there other than the noteworthy I thought back for.
[00:59:38] Speaker A: Okay, all right, let's move on. Pegasus dropping points. Talk about drawing yourself to death and dropping points.
Trinity. Yeah, another bad one.
[00:59:52] Speaker D: They've been struggling the last little bit.
Fascinating on this one. However, they went up to D.C. and they dropped Misimo, put her on the bench and did not sub her in.
So is she resting? Is she drop dropped?
Stay tuned. We will find out.
[01:00:12] Speaker A: Oh, she did not come in because I thought I saw a tweet that said they had subbed her into the game late.
[01:00:17] Speaker D: I don't think so.
I'm looking because when I saw it, I thought, oh, she did?
[01:00:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
[01:00:24] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. When did she come in?
[01:00:26] Speaker A: You want to do that over?
[01:00:28] Speaker D: She came in in the 91st minute. No, it's fine.
[01:00:31] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:00:32] Speaker D: Still though, for a player like of that caliber to be dropped to the bench and come in and in the, in the, in the rain delay, you know, delay of game sort of phase and trying to kill the clock is not necessarily something.
[01:00:46] Speaker A: Is that a turf shield?
[01:00:48] Speaker D: I have no idea where DC Power plays, to be honest. All right, I watched the game, but I didn't register whether it was turf or not.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: I'd be curious how much Lexi's been playing on turf surfaces.
[01:00:58] Speaker D: I mean, she plays every game.
Oh, wow. Apparently they played Audi field. I did not know.
[01:01:03] Speaker C: Oh, okay.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: Interesting.
[01:01:04] Speaker D: I just, you know, I look at the field, not the stance. So it's. They also rested Abubago, so, you know, a couple veterans rested. So maybe that's more about just like, do you have two more games to go? And you're just. You want to like, give those young people a little bit of a recharge. They're sort of young to me, a bit of a recharge. But Misimo is really young and Boobigo's in our 30s, so that's that one. You know, we. We'll. We'll see what happens in the next game. Whether that was a benching or resting. It means, interestingly, that they had Cely strawn at the 9, who's 18 years old. This is a trend of the topic tonight, Peter and Caroline Swan, 16 years old, is in the double pivot next to amber Wisner who's 35. And in between those players was at the 10 was Denielson who hasn't played in a while and she's 31. So they had a really fascinating sort of central spine of the group with two teenagers, 16 and 18 and two 30 year olds. So that was a thing. But it's fun to see again a couple of young players that are teenagers being a big part of what's going on with this team right now.
[01:02:11] Speaker C: I thought you said Danielson. I was like, wait, what?
[01:02:13] Speaker D: The Brazilian, Danielson. I didn't say Danielson. Danielson.
I don't know. Yeah, so interesting. The difference is of course is that Trinity has no rights to beyond their current agreements of play. They're on amateur deals and they're not homegrowns by any way, shape or form. So strong and Swan can basically just walk anytime. There's not like a we're going to build around these players for years to come. Straw, I believe is going to Carolina this fall, so you won't see her again past the next two games, depending on whatever playoff you're happening. Swan at 16 eventually is committed to UT, but I think she probably has, I assume one more year before she'll go to UT.
But still it's fun to see a couple teenagers being invested in and playing through and being a key part of what they're doing and, and see them, a couple players that maybe have been a key part up until now being set, sat down. So that, that's a different.
[01:03:10] Speaker A: So with two games left in the season, where are they going to make this four team playoff?
[01:03:16] Speaker D: Well, right now they're one point ahead and they, their last two games are against the eighth place team and the ninth place team who are both eliminated and the worst two teams in the league. So one of them's at, at Tampa, one of them's at home. The last game for Amber Wisner, which will fun Enough be her 300th game and USL Super League. By the way, this is an amazing stat. She's the only player in league history that's played every single minute, every single minute of every single game. She's the only one left.
[01:03:43] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:03:44] Speaker D: Shout out to her at 34, 35, phenomenal player. So you got two more chances to see her play. You should go to the last home game if you want to see a good player wave as she heads out minus a playoff game brass which will be on the Road. Because they won't be the one. See, they'll be the four seeds.
[01:03:58] Speaker A: Interesting. Florida has the two worst teams and the league's best team team.
[01:04:02] Speaker D: Yep.
[01:04:03] Speaker C: They were the league finalists last season.
[01:04:06] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:04:08] Speaker A: All right, very good. And then we don't have any clown news. We don't have any Fort Worth news or anything else, but we, I guess Atletico Dallas had an anniversary party and to use the term of its owner, they've spent a year being a merch company. So they're celebrating one year of being a very successful merchandise company and they had a party. So congratulations to them. They are inching ever closer to actually turning themselves into a soccer club.
[01:04:39] Speaker D: Yeah, they. They posted a bunch of pictures like it was really fun time. I was wishing I was there.
You know, they. They do a good job with community interaction and it looked like a ball and. And we had to be getting close. I think. I would think to. When you'll start to see, I think some signing or two because, you know, this summer is when foreign clubs, many of them will go out of season and contracts will end. And I'm not saying that Athletico Dallas is going to corner the market in some crazy way, but, you know, there might be some players that they're going to want to go after that may or may not be domestic in this country that are going to. One or two maybe. You know, I think it's likely, you know, Peter Lasson's got some connections. Right. So, man know a dude or two that might want to come over here, 30 or something, you know, 33 or whatever. So I think it's not unlikely we might see that happen in the next. This summer.
Seems like to me.
[01:05:33] Speaker A: Yep. Very good. All right. And I'm sure they probably turned out some new merch, too.
[01:05:39] Speaker D: Probably so. They do all the time. Their stuff is amazing.
[01:05:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's right. They had the. The hall of Fame. The. The hall of State shirt that I love so much.
[01:05:46] Speaker D: They have that 80s retro stuff. They just put out this really cool looking.
[01:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:05:49] Speaker D: You know, if you're into that jam. No. 90s. It was 90s because it was. It was. Had to do with your thing. You did the 90s.
[01:05:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:05:56] Speaker D: Football thing. Right.
[01:05:57] Speaker A: All right, very good.
All right then, boys. Anything else we haven't discussed that you guys would like to get into before we go?
Star Wars Day. May the fourth be with you, Buzz.
[01:06:08] Speaker D: Yeah, it's always a great day.
[01:06:11] Speaker A: You know, I. I was looking at the Disney plus app last night and they have the May 4th section now. This May have always been in the app, and I've never noticed, but I've never noticed it before. They have in that section the entire catalog of Star wars stuff in chronological order, which I have never seen done officially by Disney before. And that was kind of cool to see. Yeah.
[01:06:36] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, the. The new Darth Maul animated series is amazing.
[01:06:39] Speaker A: Fantastic. 9 and 10 are out and I'm dying to watch them.
[01:06:43] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm gonna watch. When done editing this, the.
The. The most. The most important thing or fascinating thing, I think about it, for non Cyrus fans is the animation is particularly fascinating because it's almost like the backgrounds are almost like a watercolor.
All right. The city, as the city did go, recedes in the distance. It becomes like a watercolor. It's just so fascinatingly good, the animation. So if you're into animation at all, give it a look.
[01:07:07] Speaker A: They've added a level of color to that style of animation I have not seen before. And so a lot of it looks like almost. Almost like watercolor. Blade Runner cityscapes.
[01:07:18] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:07:19] Speaker A: Which is pretty crazy.
Really lovely stuff.
[01:07:22] Speaker D: It even has super modern lighting effects, as you mentioned, from, like, modern Star wars, where, like, you'll get a lightsaber smash and the frame will just go pop. It'll pop like a frame of white as the things explode. It's just really weird.
[01:07:35] Speaker A: Well done. Yeah, the story's good too. I mean, it's. It's actually one of the better series they've put out in a bit, so I dig it. I think Dan's falling asleep. Everybody bored him to death with Star wars talkies.
[01:07:47] Speaker C: It could do it to be suffocating.
[01:07:50] Speaker A: Yes.
All right, Dan, you got anything fun you'd like to bring up or talk about?
[01:07:55] Speaker D: Nope.
[01:07:56] Speaker A: Okay, well, then we're done with you, sir. Thank you very much.
[01:07:59] Speaker C: I'll say myself out, Buzz.
[01:08:01] Speaker A: Thank you, sir.
[01:08:02] Speaker D: Yeah, man. Thanks for being here to host us.
[01:08:04] Speaker A: I hope you get better weather up there in the Pacific Northwest.
[01:08:07] Speaker D: Tired of this 80 degrees garbage?
[01:08:11] Speaker A: Don't let moss grow on you.
And thank you, DFW soccer. Curious. We'll be back again next week with another episode of third degree, the podcast Kai third degree.
[01:08:23] Speaker B: The third degree. Ned podcast.
Third degree. The third degree.
Third degree. The third degree dot third degree. The third degree. Never.
Sam.
