3rd Degree the Podcast #366

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Third Degree, the Third Degree Ned Podcast. Third Degree, the Third Degree Nap Podcast. Third Degree, the Third Degree Nap Podcast. Third Degree, the Third Degree Nap Podcast. Well, hello DFW curious fans. Welcome back to Third Degree, the podcast Post World Cup. You will recognize right away that I am not Peter Welton. This is Buzz Carrick. Peter Welton will be out another week or two as he's coming off of the Kick around every single night. In fact, they're recording the final episode or airing the final episode of Kick around for the World cup right now as we speak, as we record this podcast. And I say we. And we'll get to that in a second. No Dan Crook here tonight either. Dan has torn his acl and so he's having surgery this week. I think it's this week, maybe it's next week. But between that and some other things, he needs to step away for a bit. So joining me today is none other than our intrepid in Dallas Trinity reporter Dennis McGown. Dennis, how have you enjoyed the World cup, my man? [00:01:14] Speaker B: Oh, man, it has been incredible. It's been a lot of fun. So many events all around town. I've. I've got to go out to a couple of games. You know, I got. Got out to Fair park for one of the events. I was up at Frisco Square for one. It's just so much fun going around watching local stuff and, and seeing all these local events happening around town. [00:01:33] Speaker A: I watched the US play and I pretty much thought, well, yeah, that's exactly what I expected. Anything surprising at the end of the day? I mean, watching out on the round of 16 against a team like Belgium is pretty much what we all would have thought. Coming in. Any surprises for you for the US Setting the World Cup? [00:01:46] Speaker B: Disappointed, not shocked. When it came to the U.S. you know, they, they did what we expected them to do. I think they could have beat Belgium had they played a different way, had they played a little bit more energetic. Like they started out the tournament, but they lost to a good team. Right? What more can you expect right now? Hopefully we come back a little bit stronger. [00:02:07] Speaker A: Well, this is not a U.S. soccer podcast. This is a Dallas Fort Worth soccer podcast. So as always, when the World cup ends, we turn our attention back to local soccer. And the biggest local soccer game of the last couple weeks actually is a game Dennis attended between Texoma and McKinney Chupacabras, which decided the Ranger Division title of the USL2. So you were at that game, Dennis, and they reported about 4,000 people in the Stands. Maybe it wasn't quite that, but obviously a phenomenal atmosphere with a massive game, local implications on the line. [00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. The crowd was great. Four thousand, maybe a little overestimated. There was a ton of kids there, young families, Families with young kids running around. Texoma came down in numbers. That supporter group came down with flags and banners and stuff, and they were all a bunch of little kids. At one point, the kids had taken the Texoma flags and they started running across the front of the stadium and they got chased back by a bunch of kids wearing the Chupacabra's claws. Just a really cool, fun atmosphere out there. They had some food trucks out there and you know where they're playing. It's Ron Post. Not a gigantic stadium. It's bleachers, it's out in the sun, it's football lines, end zones that are permanently painted. So, you know, it is what it is as far as a field and stadium go. But the vibe is incredible. And, well, you got all these families coming in and all these young people in McKinney. [00:03:27] Speaker A: It's. [00:03:27] Speaker B: It's a. It's. It's a great vibe. [00:03:29] Speaker A: Well, Texoma won that game, and they took on. Took the Ranger Conference title, which they got to go into the playoffs. Unfortunately, they drew the perennial powerhouse Laredo Heat, which is always an amazing side, and Takama lost to that team. So none of the local DFW USL 2 teams are still alive in the playoffs, but still another quality season of USL2 play. And if you got a chance of supporting those teams, good job by you, whoever you are, out there in the market, because that's where real soccer happens. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Yeah, this was my first McKinney game, too, so it was just. It was cool to see people out there and just get back to watching live football. [00:04:07] Speaker A: All right, well, the team that is about to kick things off and we will get to FC Dallas in a minute, but we're actually going to talk first about Dallas Trinity, because right now the bigger news is happening around Dallas Trinity in two senses. One is that they have had an ownership change, and the other is that they're just a few weeks out from the start of their season. So they're in the middle of announcing all the players that they've signed. But let's talk first about the ownership transition. Now. Dan Crook and I did an emergency podcast when this went down with all our initial thoughts and ideas, and since then, we've had a little bit of a clarification, some of which is that what Dan And I talked about in that particular podcast was that the Neil family has left control of Dallas Trinity to the league and the league was prepared to run that team as a league run team. And Athletico Dallas either went to them or they asked Athletico Dallas, whichever one it was. And Athletico Dallas has agreed to step in and take over running Dallas Trinity. Now, Dennis, this is not like buying a car where you give somebody a check and they hand you the keys and you drive away and that's it. This is a organization with employees and departments and it's not an instantaneous transition and we know that they're in the middle of the process of Athletico Dallas taking over, but this is an unusual situation that we're not used to seeing here in dfw and one that will take a lot of watching and fascination from my part at least to see how it all goes forward. What kind of changes happen at Trinity? [00:05:43] Speaker B: According to Sam Morton and Matt Valentine, the league actually came to them and asked them to take over the club. That's the way they clarified that to me when I spoke to them a few weeks ago. But it definitely seems like there is some new vision here as far as how they're going to be running club. Although they Trinity squad was, was all put together by the previous administration and they all had a large hand in building this roster. So you know, they're inheriting this roster as is, although we don't fully know what that looks like because they've been doing these Instagram dribs and drabs here and haven't actually put out a press release or made any announcements on their website or anything else. [00:06:20] Speaker A: Yeah, from talking to the various powers that be over there, it sounds like that the, the bulk of the roster is done. They're lean Win and Brian Corcoran have taken over the perhaps touches, if you will, maybe filling out a couple bottom of the roster pieces here, which we're going to get to in a second. But let's start off with the moves. I think if, I think if we sat back and watched and analyzed these moves. Of the six that they've announced that are not returning, there was an initial group of nine, one of which they have only recently mentioned, which we'll get to in a second, but we all knew that was there. There have been six new ones since then. I would qualify three of those players as starters and three of them as sort of depth or challenge pieces. And let's go through who those are. The first starter is Ali Cook, who is a high nine A slightly taller, slightly quicker striker than they've had before, but basically a very similar profile to Thornton but maybe just a little bit better across the board. What do you think of the Ali Cook edition? [00:07:25] Speaker B: I think it's a decent move. I don't know if she's a game changer based on what we've seen last year. She only put six goals up for Spokane last year. I don't know how much of a game changer she's going to be when you add in that Jasmine had. Mead added zero goals when she came over. Lancaster had three or four. That's 10 goals between your front three right now based on who's starting. That's not enough to even get them back to where they were. [00:07:52] Speaker A: Spokane being a team I've seen a few times, I can tell you that Ali Cook was hurt for about half of this last season. I agree. I don't think this is a massive upgrade. I think this could be a tiny bit of an upgrade over Thornton, but not significant. But it's a position that you had nobody. Since they let everybody go with a nine, they did get younger. Yeah. Spokane is a very defensive team. So it's not, you know, I think you had a little bit of a grain of salt that they didn't. That she didn't score a lot because she probably didn't get a lot of playmaking behind her there. They were a defensive first core. Which brings me to the second Spokane Zephyr player added. And that's Sophie Braun, who is a six holding, mid type stalwart starter for the Argentine national team. This is effectively your Amber Wisner replacement. She is not as good as Amber Wisner nor is she the leader that Amber Wisner is, but is in that vein, that type of player. That type of leader. And it probably is actually a pretty positive addition, all things considered. [00:08:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is the best move that we've seen so far out of what's been announced up to this point. I think she really is the best player coming in and she might have been the best player on that Spokane squad for a little while.55 caps with the national team. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah. The Spokane player I wanted was Reese Tappan, who's one of their starting center backs. And that in my opinion was their best player. A phenomenal center back who is gone with [00:09:16] Speaker B: Carolina. [00:09:18] Speaker A: I want to say Charlotte. Carolina. Yeah, Carolina. Yeah. Who. Who also added their best keeper in the league. Hope Heisel was also spoken. They both went to that same club, so that's team. [00:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah, they got a Lot better defensively. [00:09:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Speaking of keepers, the third player we think is obviously supposed to be a starter is Maddie Anderson. This is a player I don't know very much at all, but to credit to you, Dennis, that you spotted her in some social media posts, but by Trinity like a week before they announced her. So I think you probably know more about this player than I do. [00:09:45] Speaker B: Well, she was the 2024 SEC Goalkeeper of the year. She had a great season in 24. She had a brief stint over at Racing Louisville, but she only made four rosters and did not make any appearances. She played in France for a little while. She is a spiritual replacement for McKamey in the way that she is a young, successful college goalkeeper that has graduated in the past few years. But she doesn't really have a proven track record. So it'll be interesting to see where goes. [00:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah, Dallas Trinity, particularly under Petrocellia, seems to have gone for keepers that have been young coming out of college, ish kind of thing with something to prove, either on loan or straight sort of signing. So this seems to fit the MO of the previous group. So I'm not surprised by the nature of this player, but hopefully she'll be as good as a couple of the ones they've had that have been pretty solid. [00:10:37] Speaker B: And if this roster was, you know, actually built by Thackeray and. And Petrocelli. Thackeray seemed to be a pretty knowledgeable around goalkeeping. He was a goalkeeper coach at Carolina. He was a goalkeeper coach at unc. I think he was a keeper coach in Houston too. Not sure about that. [00:10:53] Speaker A: I believe so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This excellent point. [00:10:57] Speaker B: So he knows his keepers. [00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So three players that they've announced that I'm going to qualify as depth or challenge pieces. The first of these is Carissa Boakman. And I'm hopefully I'm saying that correctly. This is a player that has not played very much. She's only played five games since she left college because she was. She was signed in the NWSL by Portland, I believe it was. And then her team in. What's her team was she with. [00:11:25] Speaker B: She was at Benfica. [00:11:26] Speaker A: Benfica, that's right. Thank you. Benfica paid a transfer fee to get her. So while she has not played very much, obviously someone thought enough of her to buy her to get her to come over there. And when I looked at they won the league with the season, she was there. And I looked at her social media posts trying to determine like what had happened. And there was a lot of comments on her posts from Other players that said things like, you know, good luck, go be happy. Sorry the coaches didn't see your talent. So it seems pretty clear that like they were on a good championship run and she just didn't get much playing time and perhaps is looking for a new opportunity coming back and potentially a player with some upside if someone thought enough of her to buy her at some point. [00:12:13] Speaker B: I know Benfica made the Women's Champions League last year, so if there weren't enough minutes to go around, I can't see that being the shape. So yeah, maybe they just didn't get along. [00:12:25] Speaker A: All right. The second player that is we consider a challenger or a backup kind of player is Juliet Moore, who's a player out of college. She played at the University of Houston most recently. Now everything I can find on this player, profile wise, other than the fact she was the number 10, which is, you know, tells us something, is that she's an attacking midfielder as I make air quotes. So you know, there's lots of varieties, attacking midfielders that could be a pure 10 that just sits up there and like Zalorama, that could be a winger that slashes. Depending on who's writing the profile or article, it could be a player that's more of a two way sort of player. So my sort of baseline expectation is perhaps this is a player that'll play more forward in the midfield. Maybe it's a backup for Lexi Misimo, maybe it's more like a Cameron Lancaster, a player that can fall swing. We're not 100% sure because it's not like there's college tape floating around these kids, but a player with some potential perhaps on the attacking end of the game. [00:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah, this reads to me as a Leximo hedge. I think with everything we've seen with Misimo over the past year, year and a half, she hasn't returned to her pre injury form yet and I think is a solid hedge for, you know, realistically very low price. If she's just coming in out of college and she had five goals in her senior year, she had a game and a hat trick against Texas State. She had five assists as a junior. So she, she plays up top and she can get the ball in and she can make some moves here and maybe that's how they open up some of this attack because that attack is, was really lackluster at the end of the, towards the end of the season. [00:13:55] Speaker A: Yeah, Lexi Missima, of course the elephant in the room, lost her job to an 18 year old kid, can lean sort of salvage that a Relationship B her as a player. How do you do that? Those are some big questions we're going to have going into the season. You know, and with about five weeks now until they begin play, we'll probably be digging into that a little more. Particularly if we see a scrimmage and see what Lee's doing in terms of tactics and how Misimo fits in and how Juliet Moore fits in for that matter. Behind that, the last player that's the new announcement that we consider a depth player is Drew Kumins. I'm going to guess how you say that. Now this is a player that's interesting because this is a left back. She's the 2025 Ivy League defensive player of the year out of Princeton. Had NWSL combines got invited to play by Bay FC in a scrimmage, but it ended up not being signed. But you would have thought with Henson at left back, they were kind of pretty good in that spot. Granted you doing some depth, but a player that's a career college starter at left back that has some pretty nice goals and assist numbers going forward, that's a pretty aggressive signing. When you're looking at a player that was maybe right on the cusp of being an NWSL player, this is an interesting one to me. [00:15:06] Speaker B: This one is really interesting and I'll tell you why this is also interesting because she played at Princeton with Tyler McKamey. So the two of them together had one of the best defensive runs in the Ivy League. They set all sorts of records. They won, I think the one of the only ever Ivy doubles together. So this is some really defensive prowess. And when we look at what Tyler McKamey was able to do here, come in for half a season and work away to Barcelona of all places, with just a half a scene of a half a season of performance in the Super League. So another player coming out of that defense to me is really exciting. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah, this is a player out of left back with six goals and 13 assists in 53 starts. So this is not a defensive left back. This is an attacking left back. Now we watched the way Trinity has played prior to this. Henson always was a flexing left back. She was always the one going and then the back three swinging into a back very modern sort of style that a lot of people play. But Henson is actually a real winger that's been converted to left back. So this is a player that could potentially if. If she could be as good as I'm hoping she could be, maybe Henson's free to play a different position on the field. Maybe return to wing, maybe play a switch foot kind of play being a lefty. So a good, a good squad piece that maybe actually will give you some potential to change your thing up a little bit if you need to. [00:16:24] Speaker B: And from what we saw at the end of last season, I know prior administration with Thackeray and Petrocelli, they were not afraid to play a player out of their traditional position in college. [00:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it'll be fascinating to watch with a roster constructed by somebody else. What Lee Nguyen tries to do, does he try and maintain that basic 4, 2, 3, 1 we saw under Thackeray or does he go with sort of something different and use people in different situations? I hopefully we get to see a scrimmage or two because I would love to see what they're trying to do as they head into the season. Speaking of which, speaking of trying to figure out what they're trying to do, we do know that one of the most recent players that the Trinity made an initial, initial list of eight players that they were quote unquote welcoming back from the previous season. We knew Chioma Abubago was should have been in that list and was not mentioned. They have since quote unquote welcomed her back. We also know that she's hurt with an ACL and at the earliest I think we could expect her would be, this is unofficial, would expect her to be would be February, which will be after this split fall season, this mini season because remember USL Super League is flipping their schedule also. And then on top of her, Heather Stainbrook, who was injured at the end of last year, appears to have had some sort of postseason surgery of some kind because she posted a picture of herself in the hospital. So obviously her injury was perhaps worse than we thought. So we have an unknown TBD on her. Stainbrook is a pure sort of 8 box to box kind of player. So that opens up the midfield a little bit depending on how long she's out, maybe turning his best player last year when she was healthy. Abubago has been tremendous for years on the left wing. Of course they had Hamid who can play over there, but so you know that you can't count on Abibago until at least the next season. You're not, you're not going to have her for this little fall many seasons. So by my reckoning they don't have any right backs at all. So you probably need two of those, a starter and a backup. You need a second nine to push Ali Cook. You have two starting capable center backs and that's it. You have no backup center back. So you probably need two backup center backs. You need a backup goalkeeper because right now you only have one goalkeeper. And maybe you need another winger because you know you don't have a boobigo. So you just have Hamid and you just have Cameron Lancaster. With the possible caveat that Juliet Moore can maybe be a wing as possibly as well. But we, we both kind of think she's more of a Central player. We're not 100 sure. So that's still about five or six players. Dennis, that they, they still. We still need to either see announced or see them go get with the understanding that in this league you can also have academy players. So maybe there's another Sealy Staron out there, a Carolina Swan out there that can come in as a teenager and play. That would be nice too. That could also be a player that could be announced soon. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So from what I was told regarding Stainbrook, I was told at one point that she should be back for the start of this season. [00:19:14] Speaker A: Wonderful. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Obviously that hasn't come through any sort of official public announcement or anything like that. I was just told by a friend in the club that they are expecting her back. Things could change. Medical things happen all the time. But following her and I follow a lot of the club on social media, she and many others that are currently signed to this club were not around town for this past week. So I know practice started a week ago, but maybe they let them off for the weekend and sent them back home. But Stainbrook was at a Utah Royals game back in her hometown of Orem, Utah this weekend. So interesting to see what comes of that and whether we get any information. Looking at the Chioma situation, she's been around. She's been around and involved with the club. It's strange to me that they're just welcoming her back now. I'm not really sure what that's about, but she's been around doing press events for the club. They've been. They had the. The. She had event up at a restaurant that she does. She had another speaking engagement that she was involved with. So she's been around for a little while and involved with the club. And to your point about a backup keeper, I don't know if we need a backup keeper. We might need a keeper to challenge Matty Anderson because we don't know much about Matty Anderson. So maybe we need a second keeper so that there is at least some. Some keeper competition here, which is something we really, really haven't seen from this club yet. [00:20:32] Speaker A: Yeah. If Nothing else. You need a body. I mean you can't go on a season with one keeper. Even if one of your. [00:20:37] Speaker B: You shouldn't go into a game with one season. [00:20:39] Speaker A: Even if you wanted to have an academy keeper involved like oh, Steel, when they had Evan o' Steel they had a couple of years years ago. Still 16, 17 year old keeper is not really what you're maybe a third keeper, that's fine. You know, Trinity doesn't usually carry three keepers unless one of them is the academy keeper. Usually they have two. But Estrada is not coming back. So, you know, there needs to be at least a body, if not someone to actually challenge Matty Anderson. We think Maddie's probably the starter on paper, but that would depend entirely on what other keeper they come up with. But bottom line is Dennis, we're looking at like at least eight, I'm gonna say maybe 10 holes that still need to be announced or filled. I, I think because right now they're sitting on 12 usable players. Because if we include Stainbrook, that's 12 usable players. Because a bubble go. That's. No, that's not. [00:21:31] Speaker B: Yeah, she's off the books. [00:21:33] Speaker A: That's off the books for any foreseeable time. So you know when you're sitting on 12 players, you really need a roster. Like a roster of 20 is not going to cut it. And that would be eight more announcements. You really need 24, 26. If you don't want to go to MLS 30, I get that. But the league requires 22. I think it is 20 or 22, one or the other. So that like that would be 10 to get to 22. So there's definitely some things that need to happen on the roster front with camp already open. [00:22:02] Speaker B: I, I wouldn't be surprised if, especially with new ownership coming in and everything else going on around the league and you know, we didn't really get too much in depth into league ownership conversation there. But I mean, effectively you can say that these guys might have saved the league depending upon how the league was looking at this club. Some have said. I'm not saying some have said, but when you, when you look at this and when you look at these numbers here, I think it's possible they look at that league minimum in 22 and just go, okay, let's just get through 16 games. Let's do what we need to do to get through this season with Lee win taking over with somebody else's roster. They're not going to fire him at the end of a season. Even if he loses. That's pretty clear. [00:22:45] Speaker A: So yeah, they've said that flat out. [00:22:47] Speaker B: So let's, let's get through this 16 game season with the minimum roster and the minimum spend and start looking and spend the next six months building a roster and working on, on, on deals so that yeah, come January, February, they can bring in some, maybe bigger names when they do the schedule flip. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And as you more align with what is happening in the, in the NWSL calendar too, that's what, that's what this is all about. And the minimum size is 20 players and if you include Abibago, that's 13 so you would need seven, but I don't think you can count her. So really it's eight to get to the minimum. So you know, if you're going to play at the minimum, plus maybe you could be as many as a couple more to like three or four more if you're including academy players as they usually do. So we expect a lot more movement in terms of Trinity in the roster with five weeks until play. Anything else we need to talk about in terms of Athletico taking over this team? Like they've been quite clear with me that they don't have an intention to wipe the slate clean in terms of the way the employees at the club, the branding of the club. They have some thoughts and ideas, totally understandably about marketing, about trying to get more people into the stands, about how you go about reaching the community. That's always going to be the case. I think the brand will mostly stay sort of the same. I can't imagine there being much difference. I don't think it makes any sense at all to turn this team into Athletico Dallas feminale. That doesn't do anybody any good at all. It has its own established brand. It has a good clean identity. I think that works. So. And the vibes I've gotten from ownership and I'm sure you've gotten the same is that kind of. There'll be a steady hand for the most part. The things that are going to change are going to be like a little bit of under the hood where their approach to certain things will change. The roster now is going to be in the hands of Lee and, and Corcoran, you know, like so things are going to look different as they go forward. It's not going to be radical, I don't think. [00:24:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think even, even the stadium deal has changed and shifted the landscape a little bit from what they told me. The city was is paying them to play at the Cotton bowl when Trinity was paying the City to play at the Cotton Bowl. So things like that are going to change and kind of shift the financial dynamic of this club a little bit. And again, ideally through, if they get through this half season unscathed, really be able to allow them to reinvest when they are launching Atletico. At the same time they're building that supporter section that's now going to be dual use behind the goal and between these two clubs, they are now the primary tenant of the Cotton ball. Something like 50 appearances on the season. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Yeah. The economy of the scales of having these two teams together under one negotiating umbrella when it comes with any kind of sponsorship or vendor or in the city for sure changes the dynamic. It's a different landscape now than it was a month and a half ago in terms of Dallas centric of football and soccer and even the academy level kind of stuff. It'll be interesting to see how quickly we begin to see changes. I'm with you. They've said flat out that this fall season is not going to be a judge on the coaches and the staff because they're inheriting a landscape and a roster already. So no one's going to hold their feet to the fire in terms of that. [00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And they're. They're bringing back the exec Executive of the year. [00:26:01] Speaker A: Was it Team Administrator of the Year? [00:26:03] Speaker B: Yep, Administrator of the Year. [00:26:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:04] Speaker B: Bringing back Administrator of the Year. So it largely things are remaining unchanged from what I hear behind the scenes. I'm sure underperforming people will be let go. I'm sure people will be replaced in certain capacities. Like at any kind of business takeover. Right. Any sort of merger and acquisition. These are the types of deals that happen. But realistically it's a. Atletico has very minimal employees going into this, so they are inheriting a full football staff that was largely hasn't existed for the men's side yet because they haven't actually kicked off yet. [00:26:34] Speaker A: Yeah, most of that coaching staff is gone. The. The administrative side of the operations is retained. There was not a lot of crossover and coverage areas between the people that Trinity had hired and people Athletico had hired. In my, in my remembrance of people I've met and groups I've worked with and I know that the process of taking on what I would call business units is still happening. It's. That's what I meant about. It's not like it's a car where you get in, you drive away like the pieces of the club are being handed over to Athletic Dallas ownership. The Dallas USL is the official brand of the group piece by piece. So it's not a completed process. It's still in works. And. And it'll be interesting to see how quickly all these things go or how much changes they do. Because as you mentioned, Athletico Dallas is coming onto the field for USFL championship in January as they go into some kind of training camp, probably beginning play in March. USL just put out some numbers about how they expect to launch the USL premiere. How many teams. How many teams are going to be promoted and relegated each year as they fill up those leagues. We fully expect Athletico Dallas to be one of those Premier League teams at launch. I don't know how that process works though. What we expect and what actually happens could be wildly different. That'll be a fun landscape to watch as they go into this first season with Peter Luxon as their coach. On the Athletico Dallas side, it's been 30 years since we've seen a men's team launched, the one that wants to be operate on the Division 1 level. So that'll be a fascinating year or two ahead. [00:28:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's going to be really interesting to. To watch because I mean, look, these guys are. Are doing it for the first time, right? They've never run a sports franchise before. And. And it's not just Trinity that's changing administrations here and changing ownership. The league has had some internal changes as well. There have been some outgoing folks there and some. Some new regime incoming there as well at the league. So hopefully they are ready to grow up. I. I want this league to succeed, but there are still a lot of question marks about the USL as a whole. [00:28:50] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a. Something that has happened with USL that a lot of fans on the ground may not be very aware of and that's the. A equity firm called Bell Tower Partners has invested in usl. I think this flew under the radar a bit. I hear lots of discussion from people around USL that this is a much bigger deal. Excuse me. There's actually two Bell Tower partners and something called Weatherford Capital, I think. Partners Bell Tower, I believe is the group that's functioning everything and Cat Weather for Capital is like some of the money, but they bought into USL and you know, to get seats on the board and such like that. Theoretically on paper as it was announced this was to fund and put together the USL Premier, which is going to be the Division 1 team on the men's side. I understand that this has caused ripples however in USL beyond just that premiere that things have changed in the front office with this group coming in and buying into the league, into the company, the greater USL umbrella, because it's going to be related to the promotional relegation, that it is indeed going to be involved with the Super League. Now I can't quote anybody on this, but I've had multiple people mention it to me. So I think we should probably keep our eyes peeled for like a slight change in behavior by the usl beyond just the fact they're bringing in Premier. Like, what else is going to change? How are they going to behave differently with this large investment from this group? Similar to the way an investment group has come in to be involved with MLS Next Pro? That's going to change the MLS Next Pro landscape with that investment group coming in and perhaps more independent teams. So fascinating times to be a fan watching these leagues happen. And it's important to acknowledge because these people are all betting on the World cup bounce. Right? That's what this is about. These guys are all getting into soccer because the World cup just happened here, thinking that things are going to be changing, being different. So we'll see what happens. These are some big bets being played. [00:31:03] Speaker B: Some folks might be having a World cup hangover. [00:31:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I know, right? [00:31:06] Speaker B: I don't know how much of a bounce that this is. Look, it's, it's, you know, it's great for everybody, it's great for the game. But I, I think people need to temper their expectations on how much of a bounce we're actually going to get here and how much of this is actually going to be lasting at the local level across the country. But some of the things that were, were discussed with me as well. Again, same sort of conversation about this. Being a grown up in the room now behind USL is that they're, they're doing a better job of vetting owners financially to ensure that they understand the financial commitment so we don't run into another Spokane or some of these other smaller clubs that are either folded up around USL or have failed or have failed to launch. [00:31:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that the, that's a vibe I had heard too, this idea that like there was perhaps a different level of vetting of ownership coming in. And I think that, you know, we know that no one in the Super League has made money yet. And, and the Neil's were like, okay, two years. When we're done, Spokane folded. Like, it'll be interesting to see on paper. They're talking about like four to six USL super leagues coming, teams coming in over the next couple years. How has that changed with this new vetting of like we're not just going to let anybody in anymore perhaps kind of vibes that we're hearing. So we don't have any definitive information on that. But I think it's, I think the landscape is altered in USL and people maybe don't even recognize it. Like the, the landscape has changed, the power players have changed a little bit, you know, so we'll see how this all is affected with what, what happens over the next two years with super league trying to become more robust place and also the launch of the premiere. It's gonna be great. [00:32:44] Speaker B: Does the, maybe you know the answer to this, maybe you don't, but does the two year requirement that the super league has to get to X number of teams and get to the third, the back to the west coast time zone, does that include, is it, is it two seasons or is it two full calendar years so this, this sprint season doesn't count? [00:33:02] Speaker A: I don't know the official answer to that. What I would say is that, you know, money talks and some of these things are decided in smoke filled back rooms and I wouldn't be too worried about getting into things like the specific time zones. You know, you have teams on the west coast that are talking about coming into super league, you know, whether it be the Oakland team or Boise, like so I think you could go, the league would be able to go on paper to U.S. soccer and say the team's going to be here in six months. Here's the check they wrote. You know, that, that kind of owner liquidity and being able to prove you have what it takes. I think that'll be more important than the literal like signing on the line. Like US Soccer is not the robust machine that will have like these, you know, litigated cases in courts over sanctioning or not. It's like close enough, you're good, go, you know, so that's the way I feel about it. I, I, maybe I'll be wrong about that in the long run, but I think being able to show that that's happening is enough because U S Soccer I think wants a successful second league to, to not just nwsl, you know, [00:34:14] Speaker B: so, and it doesn't feel like on the women's side, and I could be wrong about this, but it doesn't feel like on the women's side the NWSL has the same sort of bully power that MLS does. [00:34:24] Speaker A: Yeah, particularly with, you've seen U S soccer approve a Division 1 league, not MLS. [00:34:31] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:32] Speaker A: So the MLS bully system, a lot of it is money. Like they can Money whip people, those owners can. So like the NWSL owners probably have the same juice in that level. So like if they want to money whip the Super League, they probably can. But I think the super league switching the calendar to be to line up with them shows that they know that they're kind of tied to the NWSL right now, that they can. They can't like bully their own way and forge their own way and have it work. They kind of need to be in line with nwsl because we know that some of the best players come from the NWSL. So on paper it's Division 1, but in reality we know that it's kind of not, or maybe it's 1.5 or something like that. [00:35:12] Speaker B: So I mean, even if you, even if it is, even if you had the exact same level of play on the field, which we know it isn't yet, this is still. It's a league that's two years old, right? They just have. They're just not established. Right. There's as businesses, they are just not financially sound. [00:35:30] Speaker A: And the ownership groups as we know of them in the USL are not the same as the ownership groups in MLS and nwsl. Those are different power players. Everyone has talked about the amount of money the power players in the bigger leagues have, the amount of money the clubs have. USL is growing and it may take a long time, if ever, before they. They equal them in the money power sort of arena. So it'll be a fascinating 2 years, 10 years, 20 years to come. As for as. As the last 30 years have been for me trying to figure out this landscape that we're in. Right. Speaking of 30 years, let's move on to FC Dallas. This is obviously the big league coming back with a game on Wednesday or FC Dallas heads to Portland and then this weekend they also play San Diego. These teams are, these games are close enough together. And with just having had a big break, I don't think rotations in the cards. After the San Diego game, you're going to have a week off before they play again. Plenty of time to recover. You know, nobody on their roster is really going to be burnt out from the World cup beyond the travel part, you know, like enough rest will come for Johansson or Moussa. You know, I think if you, if you want to sub those guys a little bit, you know, at the 60 mark or something, maybe you can do that. But let's talk about the moves the club has made to get ready for this game before we get into this game. The move. [00:36:54] Speaker B: Move single. [00:36:55] Speaker A: Well, there's. There are some moves that don't really count that have to do with like in a Soli or other things like that that are like they're not really impacting the roster. They are still moves though. Like Anasali's loan ended. Brooks Thompson's loan ended. That was an outbound one versus an inbound. So. But the bottom line is they've added a keeper named Daniel from. From San Jose, Brazilian keeper but he does have a green card. So it's domestic. This is a player that has a. A contract and there has been some discussion, some rumor in the wind that maybe he's done a new deal. We won't hear. We didn't hear that in any of the announcements but we'll see if that turns out to be true. I think they've overpaid just a Skos but that's okay. The most important part here, scam. [00:37:37] Speaker B: It's not. [00:37:38] Speaker A: That's not real money scam. Ye though we already redid that bit. I don't need to do it again. Yeah, the, the important part here for me, Dennis is that to me going after a starting keeper of a higher pay, a higher gap at this point in the season, particularly one whose deal runs out at the end of the season. He has options but his main deal runs out. This feels more like a go for it kind of move. More like a getting a closer the deadline in baseball. Right. Like we're going to go get a big time where we're a little bit dissatisfied with the keeper. Let's go get a big starter. This is different for FC Dallas to me. [00:38:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I mostly agree with you on that. I think this is a big move to start to get ahead and everything we've seen about this club this year is that they are really trying to. They think they have a quality squad. Right. So adding a goalkeeper where goalkeeper has really I think been the biggest hole so far this season and not not the knock on collode because I think he's had a good second year. It's a little bit of a regression from his first year but it's to be expected I think from a second year keeper. And sir, why I think is just, you know we've seen a little bit of him. I don't think we've seen enough of him but when there's an opportunity to go get a big timekeeper in this sort of sense of a big time MLS keeper that can make a difference, I think you go out and do it and I think they absolutely made the right move here. I think this makes sense and I agree with you. I think this is a play to. Let's. Let's really make a run at this thing. Let's see if we can hold on to this fourth or fifth place that we're in right now and, and maybe actually have a. A home playoff series. [00:39:17] Speaker A: Yeah. One of the things I found interesting about this situation is that none of the keepers have been given those. The one jersey. All three of them. [00:39:24] Speaker B: Collodi chose not to wear the one. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Yeah. There's all, there's reasons for all of them. Daniel always has worn a higher number two, but nobody has that typically coveted number one jersey. All three of these keepers are on the main guarantee part of the contract ending. All three are going into options. So SC Dallas has a clean slate potentially if they wanted at keeper that pending a possible Daniel new contract that we may. That may have happened that we don't know about officially. We just know. We just kind of hear a vibe about it. So. But we'll see. That could have been. That could have been someone's guess that has translated into like just chatter, you know what I mean? That happens sometimes. But it means that there's sort of a clean slate that they're not really happy with across the board sort of keeper and that that means the whole room, the keeper room is all in a challenge. It's all in a competition state. And that's kind of interesting. [00:40:16] Speaker B: And so there. And sir was domestic too because he was a academy Canadian homegrown, so he [00:40:21] Speaker A: counts as a domestic. [00:40:22] Speaker B: So yeah. None of these guys are taking up an international spot, which is. Was a big deal with Martin PA here for a while. Right. We're holding that international spot hostage a little bit. So yeah, it's very possible that this is a sort of competition and. And whoever comes out of this is either the guy that goes into the sprint season at the very least or maybe the guy that gets the long term deal. [00:40:41] Speaker A: Yeah. One thing I would say about goalkeepers in general as I in terms of roster building, I don't like that you have three senior roster keepers. I want one of your three keepers to be a supplemental roster player. I don't want to eat 3 of my 20 spots on my senior roster with keepers. [00:40:59] Speaker B: Is there anybody in the system you think that would that could compete with these? Any of these three. [00:41:04] Speaker A: You know, Daimura's look pretty good, but I think that like right now the other keeper that's signed is Montoya out of the academy. You'd have to go all the way down to like U16 to find another keeper. That's, I think where there are two that are potentially good enough, those are a long way off. So, like, I don't. I don't think there's anything in the pipe that could compete, but none of these guys. Well, Clodia came out of the pipe, but two, the other two didn't. So, like, it's easy enough. It's a big keeper market. Say. It's like if you decided that these guys aren't it like, you could look at college. You could look at Salinas at Furman, you could look at Seth Wilson at UNC Greensboro. There's. There's former pipeline keepers that are in college that are pretty solid. So the next Clodi, if you will. I just think that the keeper situation right now at this club is not locked in by any means. I think it's pretty wide open. And I think the fact that all three guys are currently on the senior roster bothers me and how you do roster building to have three of your 20 spots used on keepers. Is one too aggressive? I think you would want somebody like, it could be another college guy. Like they drafted a college keeper this last year. He went back to school, you know, could they draft another keeper? You know, that kind of thing. Could that guy come out now? Maybe that's how you go about it. So just put. Put keeper in pencil for the rest of this year and watch the field and watch the competition and see who's in the mix and who isn't. If one of those guys is falling out and not getting any pizza at all, that might be sort of telling for where they might go in the future. [00:42:38] Speaker B: If you're wearing the big red hat tomorrow night. [00:42:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:42] Speaker B: Who are you starting a keeper, Daniel? [00:42:45] Speaker A: I mean, you don't. You don't pay for him to go get him. It's not. Start him. Yeah, there's not a question. So before we get into the game itself, Dennis, anything else in terms of the roster that you think they should do? It looks like Peter Moose is staying. We're not hearing any smoke at all about him. How you feeling about the roster? [00:43:04] Speaker B: I. I think there is some holes that I think we still need to fill. I think there's. We could always use an upgrade at center back and Biaga's had a decent season. Norris is good. Not great so far from what we've seen. Maybe he's been through training and can hopefully come out the other side of this a little bit better and a little bit of better. Shape, but I think we've got one. And this is the conversation that everybody has all the time. This is not a new subject on this show. Right. Center back depth has been an issue for a long time. [00:43:35] Speaker A: Yep. [00:43:35] Speaker B: I, I, I don't know who else is out there at this level at, at the price point that they would like to shop for. [00:43:42] Speaker A: It's a big world. It's really hard to say oh, who should they go get? I mean there's a, there's thousands of players out there and the price point they are at, it's going to be, I mean look at Osaze Irigide. Like who of us had heard of that guy? He's playing in the French second division. [00:43:56] Speaker B: Sure. [00:43:57] Speaker A: Right. So like for, for us to try and predict the dude. I mean ridiculously we were playing the, you know, who's the has been World cup player that you go get. Somebody joked about Dan Byrne and I was like, oh Lord. At 34, Dan Byrne is an upgrade over every center back FC Dallas has. Even though he's 34, it's like, yeah, if you want to get Dan Burn, that'd be great. They're not getting damper. I'm not, don't, don't say that. I said they should go get Dan Burn because they can't. [00:44:19] Speaker B: You heard it here first. [00:44:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I would take Dan Burn, that would be awesome. But that's not, that's not how you build teams. 34 year old center back this year. Yes, but like then what do you do? So, but the point is, is that there's, it's a big world. And one of the more interesting things about SC Dallas is the way Quill has spent the first half of the season trying all these different formations and money until he finds a piece that works and he finds a way that moves and gets things done. And then he loses a player from an injury or whatever, he has to start piddling again. So like we went a big chunk of the season with a back three, you know, really a back five in a lot of ways. Well, right before the end they played this flex four and then we saw from a scrimmage or two that they had saw the names on paper. Well that, that obviously is continued. So it's hard to really play fake GM and go here's how they should play and here's the body I want to add because the roster is piled up with all these flexible players that they go out and sign. They really mean like you have to constantly be manipulating and flipping and trying things to see what's clicking and what's working. And so I don't think you could take this weird Flex 4 and say, oh, what is that formation missing to make it work. That's why it's. I think we have to think about it. Like you were just saying, like the back line could use a center back or the midfield could use, in my opinion, a real six. They've been using Ramiro as a six. He's not really a six, he's really an eight. But he's the most experienced and he's the most static because he's 3,000 years old. So they've been using him as the stay at home player even though he's not really that player. So it's hard to really get into. That's the player for me. Like, particularly because Ramirez hurt like a real stud. I mean, right. Like watch Spain with Rodriguez and just be like, what a masterpiece at the sixth that was. And like that, like you can't get him. But that kind of player in relative MLS terms to me would go, so [00:46:30] Speaker B: I'm penciling Dan Byrne and Rodrigo. Window closes. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Got it for the window closes. You've got three weeks now. You have till September, actually to get those deals done. No, but often when we speak of players around the world, we speak of the profile and the style of player relative to Major League Soccer to be the. And the price points of Major League Soccer. The kind of player you want rather than the specific example. Because the specific examples are stupid or you're just picking a name out of the air. So those give us the ideas for the kinds of things I think, Dennis, that you or I might want if we were going to manipulate this roster any. [00:47:04] Speaker B: I, I do think that there is a big gaping question mark around what we're doing at left wing back. If we are returning back to that five. Bernie Camongo is coming back. He is healthy or healthy as she played in the. The scrimmage against or. But we don't know what that looks like. We don't even really know what the injury was or, or what his actual downtime was. So do you. Do you just hope that you go forward with this and he's the guy back in that left wing back spot. He had, he had some positive moments. He also had some really, really bad giveaways. I think he got better before he got hurt. But again, it's a big question mark. [00:47:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Quill loves him as a Bernie. What I would say about that change and the idea of going back to the back to the back three. Is that the. The scrimmage that we saw? No one really saw it in terms of media other than if you could get into the building and some season ticket holders saw it. But what we saw was a. Was the Hybrid 4 continuing, right? So no wing back. Bernie played in the single. The clips that we've seen. Bernie played the left mid spot, which has been occupied by Santi Moreno against Colorado in the last game before the break. Santi Moreno played that spot, that left wing. That left wing back. Excuse me, left midfield spot. It's a flexing position. It flexes up to left wing. Or if Delgado is the off striker, it flexes central and Delgado flexes wing. Delgado, don't get me started. So I think that you're looking at. And let's get into this for Portland. I think you're looking at the return of this Flex 4 because we saw it in the scrimmages. We talked about, I think Daniel walking right in and starting. I don't know why you would pay a bunch of money to get him and then not start him. He did start in the scrimmage, the last one. Johannes has been back I think long enough to play. In particular, the way this formation flexes. It's Johansson's spot that flexes up into the midfield. That's an important position. That position needs to be able to flex. Unless you rotate the flex, which we'll talk about in a second. And then across the middle. You obviously would want Shaqmore and Azazir Gide if they're both healthy and everybody else is healthy, which they should be. Ibia Aga shouldn't be that starter in there unless you need Shaq Moore somewhere else. Right. So it should be Shaq and Oz. Left back should be Nolan Norris because that position is not flexing. Right. It's Johansson that flexes and the back four. The other guys slide. Nolan becomes a left center back, Oz is in the middle and Shaq Moore becomes a right center back in the sense as they progress. Right? That's the flex. You could put Ran Binyamin Mean over there, but he's out of place as a in that Nolan Norris turning into a center back. If your right back needed to be stay at home, if you didn't have Johansson, then you could put Binyamin at the left back and then he can flex and then whoever the right back is can drop into the three right. That's a typical outside back flex. So I'm going to say Nolan Norris, as we saw in the last scrimmage will be your left back. Still sort of a stay at home. And so in the midfield you have Kaik and it would be Ramiro, but Ramiro has a boot on his leg. I'm under. I understand it's not serious, but again, this team loves to keep secrets on injuries and don't tell us jack squat. I'm amazed it even says lower body and they didn't make him take the people off and pretend he wasn't hurt. So let's say Romero's out for these two games. We're gonna guess. Well, in the scrimmage we saw Christian Capis, and I think Christian Capis is the obvious choice there. The problem is Dennis, that Christian and you know this Christian and Kate both like to be the guy that releases, right? So you kind of need one of those guys to sort of stay home more because you can't have them both release. One of them needs to be the pivot. That'll be interesting to see. How that works between those two guys is like, can you convince Kaik to go against his nature and to stay home, or can you get Chris to stay home and be more of a passing deep sitting. That's not his real game either. So, like, for a couple of games here, we might be kind of trying to figure things out a little bit with those two guys in there. Do you even need to have outside mids that stay home? Because remember, the other key part of this thing is Valiente is the right mid. He flexes forward as Johansson behind him flexes forwards, right? So Valley intake comes up and becomes a 10. That's how this thing has been executing, right? And so on the left mid, we've seen now, we've seen Santi Marino over there, we've seen Bernie over there. That left mid becomes the sort of wing and you still have, of course, Peter Musa should be your starting nine. And then a player plays with him. Usually it's kind of an off strikery guy. It's been Patrick and Delgado who can sometimes play good high defense, but then he takes 80 minutes off. You know, Valiante is of course popping up there. It's becoming like a double ten kind of thing or become or, you know, so like there's some flexibility there. Could it be Logan Farrington, could it be Sam Sarver who's had a great little stretch right for the break? So I think those are where your question marks come in, is like, who's going to fill in for Romero? Who's going to get that left mid position? I'm going to Assume it's Santi Moreno, even though he didn't get the start in the last scrimmage. I don't think. And then who's going to be the second striker off of Peter Musa? And those are the big three question marks. How, how do you buy my whole thing and how do you see those three spots working? [00:52:42] Speaker B: I, I, I agree with you that the, that that open second striker under striker role is going to be played with. And I think we might see some differences with Quill trying some things out over the next couple of games. I think you'll see, you'll see Farrington in there, you might even see Anderson, Julio in there when he gets back. I don't, we don't know what his. Do we have an update on his status yet or, I mean, he got [00:53:02] Speaker A: into the game the other day. Yeah, he's, he was like at the end, it wasn't with like, it's not like he was in the starting rotation or compete. He seemed to be still a little bit in a rehab mode, to be honest, watching him run around for the game, you know. So I think we're kind of tenuous on whether how big of a contributor he'll be right away. [00:53:19] Speaker B: Do you let Moreno maybe play in there a couple spots too? Because he was really creative towards the end of the season. We haven't seen a ton out of him yet, but his creativity that in the box got really interesting. He had some really good passes towards the end of the season that, that I think might want, you, might be a guy you want in and around the box. [00:53:37] Speaker A: You know, it's, it's a weird idea to think that like without Ramiro and it's such a crazy thing that he's such an important player and you have Christian Capitz in there, it might behoove you to almost have a third eight in there. Like instead of a second striker, you make, you take Ben, Ben, Ron, Benyamin and put him in there. And so you have this old triple pivot idea floating around and your Moreno or your right mid, you know, your left mid, right mid become really more of a vertical wing and those three guys in the middle take turns releasing forward. Perhaps I'm just spitballing because when you don't have Ramiro to play that single pivot and to sit in and just lock in in front of the two center backs and allowing the freedom to Kaik or allowing the freedom to the other to the 10 reliability, the freedom to Valiante as he flexes forward. Like not having that locked in Pillar sort of changes things and they don't have another player that plays like that. So like, could you alter that midfield triangle a bit? You know, could. Could. Instead of Valiente out, why could you have more of a real winger out? Why? Like some possibilities emerge into how you execute it. And this comes back to this idea we've been talking about of Quill loses a single player and all of a sudden he has to rework all his ideas and figure out what pieces can go in and what places and he sort of drops back the drawing board a lot. Lot. Because of the fact that so many of these guys have different sort of profiles and they don't all fit the same sort of gaps. [00:55:00] Speaker B: Well, sticking with that flex you talk about, can we get a real winger up there? What if you move Johansson up and move Shaq outside, you put one of these either IB or Boobacar center back and then you have. What if you have Nolan flex into. Into the six spot? Because Nolan has played some six at North Texas, right? [00:55:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:19] Speaker B: So instead of flexing up as an attacker like Johansson would on the right side, Nolan flexes up into more of a defensive midfield shoulder. [00:55:26] Speaker A: That's definitely an option, you know, like, I don't have any evidence to say like which one of these things is most likely to happen other than what did we see in the last sort of scrimmage, you know, and like, because that would have been, you would think. [00:55:40] Speaker B: But we also know Quill's a psycho enough to not go ahead and show what he wants to do in a scrimmage too. Right? Like he might come back to the back five just because he did it. He. He did the Flex 4 in that, [00:55:51] Speaker A: that it's, it's a closed door scrimmage. But then people that saw it had tickets for it, you know, fans or whatever talked about it, media talked about it. So like the, the lineup is out there, you know, so like would. Was it a giant misdirect? I mean, the Quill's crazy that way. We are talking about modern tactics and their flexible nature that, that back flex four really quickly becomes a back three with two wing backs. If Johansson is all of a sudden a wing back and Bernie instead of being the left mid is all of a sudden a left wing back. And all of a sudden Nolan really is a left center back. And really. And we're back to the three or the five, three one or whatever it's going to be. So like, you know, the nature of Quill and the nature of this roster means that like I don't think you can lock in anything. All you can do is sort of decide like, what did we last see? How did it look? How might the coach change it based on the player he lost or gained? You know, it's. It can be a nebulous thing as we watch this FC Dallas team and [00:56:48] Speaker B: when, when you look back towards the top too, obviously you mentioned, you know, Musa has. Isn't going anywhere. It seems we haven't heard any rumblings or anything else. [00:56:56] Speaker A: Yeah, there's no smoke. Yeah, yeah. [00:56:58] Speaker B: None whatsoever. He did not get the post World cup bounce that I think everybody expected. Even after having a great performance in that first game. Scoring a goal in England is not easy to do and he did it, so kudos to him but that there is nobody really playing behind him either. So do you really want to throw Farrington up there and sort of burn these guys out through the back half of the season? You don't want both of these guys out there. One of them goes down, you've got nobody else behind. There is no third striker. [00:57:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Given that Musa played the most and had a fair bit of travel, if you're willing to start him, I think you hold Farrington and put Musa with somebody as an off. That way you can bring in Farrington at 60, perhaps knowing that you also have San Diego on Saturday and maybe one starts one game and the other starts the other. [00:57:46] Speaker B: Nothing gets me more excited for the return of MLS than 2, 9, 30 kickoffs. [00:57:53] Speaker A: Perfect for me. Yeah, I, you know, west coast bias. Yeah. You know, Johansson with. Not tired from playing but from the travel, probably fine. Musa played a little bit more still probably fine because he didn't play a lot since, you know, it's been three weeks probably since he played. Right. Didn't have a. He needed like a five or six goal World cup to really get like the crazy offer he didn't get. It wasn't bad. World cup, but not the crazy offer World Cup. So it feels like he's staying. Yeah, we're gonna. It'll be interesting to see and for me, the San Diego game will be a reaction to the Portland game. Whatever happens in Portland. How healthy is everybody? How tired does everybody look? Then we react as a club against San Diego. Do I need to rest somebody? Can I bring somebody in? Did the formation get wrecked? You know, that kind of. It'll be a process probably for as you say, three or four weeks and probably leagues cup. I mean, I think you look at league's cup as a chance to figure out like how's this thing all working and are we getting Ramiro back? Are we going to make any more additions? Transfer window is open till like September, so almost two months still in the transfer window. If you want to go get something or do something. Right. Maybe see how it's going. Now remember, everybody, the senior roster is full. Daniel filled the keeper filled the senior roster. The 20 players, they get paid a lot of money that have high impact. There is a, there is an open spot on the supplemental roster. A homegrown could fill that really easily. That's not where you add players that have impact. If you want, if you want to add someone to make an impact, somebody has to go from the senior roster. And no, it cannot be Giovanni or Inasali. Those guys are already off the senior roster. So somebody that is actually in the 20 man used Eric Quill grouping would need to go to add. Somebody can be done, have the capability to do it. For example, they have. Because Solly and Giovani are off the roster. They're sitting on two DPS and three U22s. So they could add a third DP or they could add, go back to a fourth U22. But again, you'd have to vacate a spot, get rid of somebody to make that happen. So do they have any buyouts remaining? They should have both. I don't think they bought anybody out this year. They should have both of them available so they, they, they have the ability to do stuff. Do they have the ruthlessness? Do they have the determination? And again, like I point in, Daniel, the keeper is like, they think they're in it and they think they're going to challenge. So how ruthless will Quill and Zeno to be? Will they, will they say, here's a player that's not playing any minutes, you know, that's in the senior roster. That's a spot that I could buy out. Abubakar is not playing a minute all year is an example. Right. Anderson, Julio has not played since like what Game 2 has a relatively high number contract ending. You know, there, there are bodies that could be moved, but you can't just. You don't have any openness, whatever. You got to do something to add something. And is the potential there is the, is the, the, the drive, the ambition. That's the word I was looking for. To compete and challenge from fourth and go up rather than sit holding path [01:01:15] Speaker B: that and going backwards, I think technically fifth with some of the games that happen. [01:01:19] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. There was a game that happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:01:25] Speaker B: It Makes a difference right now. [01:01:27] Speaker A: I think you're right. I think it's actually technically fifth. Yeah. So you know, but that's, you're within shooting distance of. I don't think you can get to like the one or two. Those are still out of reach. But you can make a move or two and try and go up or you can hold Pat and you'll probably slide back a little bit. [01:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I, I think, you know, looking at Portland, Portland's gonna be a tough test right out of the gate. Right. [01:01:47] Speaker A: So they obliterated Seattle 51. [01:01:50] Speaker B: And that last one came in like the 87th. Right. So yeah. [01:01:53] Speaker A: 98. Yeah. 90 plus 8. Yeah. Portland's got a new coach. [01:02:01] Speaker B: You know, the bounce the new coach [01:02:03] Speaker A: bounce the new coach bounce, the post break bounce. Don't think you're going to go to Portland. Portland's a place. It's not as bad as Seattle where they have one win ever, but it's pretty close. Extraordinary difficult place to play, especially with a team that it clearly is really, really hot. I mean they, they smashed Seattle, which is a good team, you know, and then San Diego, also a good team. So these are not easy games. I would actually be surprised if they get a point out of either one of these games. Not to be a pessimist. [01:02:30] Speaker B: Well, to your point, if you don't want to slide back, you've got to come away with at least two points on this trip. And, and this is. These are the first two of. Well, or first two coming back out of nine on the road. Right. We're not home for another hundred days. [01:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Including all of leagues cup where technically they have a home yet, but it's in Mansfield. Yeah. This is the start of the colossally hard road stretch is I think it's, is it nine if you include leagues Cup, I think it's nine games on the road from here. Road games are very, very, very difficult. And obviously the west coast has been a struggle. San Diego is worse than I thought. However, they're much better at home than they are on the road. It will be very difficult, particularly they also have had a break and you're going to play them three days after you play Portland. Who Portland has not been good either, but we just talked about they smoked Seattle 51 coming out of the break. So like these are very, very difficult games. Again, I'll stand on. I don't. This will be tough to get a point on either one of these games because these are two difficult places to [01:03:31] Speaker B: play and historically have been. But this club has also broken some of those streaks this year. They've broken some historically bad places that they played at so far. And once again, as they were last year, they've done better on the road than they have at home. So not to be the bright shining optimist here because I don't want to sound like that, but I do think that if Quill gets right with his choices, this could be a successful road trip. But there are a lot of open questions and there are a lot of holes to fill and there are a lot of opportunities to make some really big mistakes. [01:04:06] Speaker A: Granted, Dallas is 420 on the road this year. I will give them credit. They have not lost. No. They've lost two games on the road. But they have four wins on the road. They don't have the ties. It's either been hit or miss. But it's been two months since they've played. It's almost like it's a new season. [01:04:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I think you can throw out everything that happened at the start of the season. [01:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:26] Speaker B: You know, maybe other than Sam Sovereign chugging beers at the end of the. At the end of that last one. [01:04:31] Speaker A: Yeah. We have to look at this in my opinion as in terms of play as a new season. It's a. The standings carry over. Unfortunately the points carry over. But that gives you kind of a leg up on all the other teams. But with. With that much time off and the window being open and teams making moves and guys getting healthy, you really have to look at this as a start of a new season. And Dallas starts with. What did we say it was? It was nine on the road. If you include leagues Cup. Now to be fair, one of the leagues cooks is a home game again, it's in Mansfield. So that's kind of on the road. But. [01:05:03] Speaker B: But there's another west coast game in there against probably the toughest opponent in leagues. Cup. [01:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah. You got to play Chivas in at Paypal Park. Right. Which that's going to be awful. You got the Galaxy before that. The Kerataro game is in Mansfield. Then you got Toluca down in Mexico. Good luck on that. Going out of Mexico and playing and then you have you come back for more home road games. Austin, there's maybe a chance Salt Lake they fumbled a little bit. [01:05:33] Speaker B: Austin might be on a new manager bounce too at that point. [01:05:36] Speaker A: Yeah. If Diego and is pissed off for Salt Lake. Vancouver always going to be tough. They're really, really good. St. Louis, okay, maybe that one but then by then you're on game nine of on the road, you know, like, how's it going? Finally you get back to where you have some home games and you have a good chunk of home games left at the end of the season. A good ratio. But let's, let's be honest right this stretch, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 games, only one of which is technically a home game. Three of them are leagues cup maybe people don't care. Those seven league games of that 10 is the make or break of your season. If you can get through that. Around 500 for that stretch. Extraordinary. You've set yourself up, I think, with that many road games in a row. If you can come through seven league games on the road with a relatively close to.500 record for those seven games, I think you really have set yourself up. Up to try and do some damage. You won't be one of the top seeds, but you'll be maybe get a home game, maybe get a chance to do some damage in the playoffs. This is it right here. This is the season. These seven league games out of 10 here. [01:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah, this is what it's, this is what it's always been about. [01:06:47] Speaker A: Right. [01:06:48] Speaker B: When we looked at this season from the start, it's always been about this stretch coming through here and how they, they handle this. And you know, I do think over the past couple of years they have shown that they can perform on the road, but this is a massive, massive challenge to be away from home for that long. They're essentially a homeless club for the next month and a half. [01:07:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Once you get to September, there's only four road games left. You have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8 home games and four road games. So 50% more at home than the road. So like you, if you can come through this thing, that's what I mean. Like, if you can get through this next stretch with a pretty positive round. 500, you could really do some haymaking in the back end of it. Feeling good about yourself, you know, and, and be high in the standings. Not probably one or two, but pretty high in the standings and make people not want to play you in the playoffs. Because that, that kind of road grittiness, the grittiness it will take to get through this will say a lot about your team and a lot about your potential to wreck some havoc because no one want you to come to their park, you know, in the playoffs, even if you're not, if you get one home game and then you got to go on the road, everyone's going to fear you. You know, and fears a lot in mls. [01:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, this is like, you know, the early days of baseball, the, the, the barnstorming tours. [01:07:59] Speaker A: It'd be good for my sofa, sit there and watch the football. All right, I think we've got. We've about beats FC Dallas to death, by the way. Shout out to Jaden Contreras and Josh Torcato, both of whom will be out of the mix for a little bit here because they're, they've both been selected the USU20 team for CONCACAF Championship. Kind of a big deal because this CONCACAF tournament is the qualifying for the 2027 U20 World cup, the 2027 Pan American Games and seeding in terms of the Summer Olympics in 2028. The U.S. is a host country, so they're in that tournament. But this game, this tournament has something to do with that because those players will be progressing to the U23s in two years and it'll affect the seating, I believe, if I understand it correctly, for the Olympics. But they are in it as the host. So shout out to those two dudes. Good luck to them. Hopefully they have a good U20 championship. [01:08:50] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, Dallas system. Hopefully getting back to feeding the U. S system again sometime over the next few years. [01:08:57] Speaker A: And a little known factoid, Julian Eyestone X FC Dallas Academy goalkeeper, who everybody knows he's at Brentford. He was called into the US World cup team as a training keeper. They carried two extra keepers in training. Beyond the three on the roster. They had five of them to be able to do drills. So, Julian, I spent the last two months with the U.S. national team, running around the United States training with the national team, which shows you where he is in the pool in terms of his potential future going forward. So nice job, Julian. Shout out. What a gig that must have be to pal around with the U.S. national [01:09:31] Speaker B: team for a month with zero pressure whatsoever. Just going to hang out with the boys, yeah. [01:09:36] Speaker A: What? Doing the walkouts onto the field with your gear, you know, waving to your parents and stands, you know. So good on Julian. Maybe the next guy you'll see in the. Actually cracking some heads in the Nash team pool. Beyond of course, our guy Tanner Testman, who was maybe the last cut, possibly even missed. We talked about going into the World Cup. [01:09:54] Speaker B: If you haven't heard Peter's interview on the kick around with Eyestone from this weekend, it was excellent. Go check that out. [01:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah, good call. Shout out to him. That was a really particularly good interview and what an amazing run the kick around had, as we said, earlier. The last episode is being recorded or aired tonight. While we're recording this, Peter will be back in a couple of weeks, so you don't have to listen to me blather on in a poor hosting sort of manner. And we get a little more professional with Peter back. Dennis, we intentionally will be back. Dan's gonna be out for quite a while and Dennis has done an amazing job filling in. We might bring in another guest or two over the next couple weeks before Peter gets more back just to sort of fill it up a little bit, see how it goes. But I'm sure Dennis will be around a bit here too as we go forward. So welcome back to local Dallas DFW Professional Soccer. Hopefully you guys enjoy the back end of the season as we get Trinity back underway and look forward to athletico Dallas getting going as they may be sign up start to sign players. Dennis, thank you for being here. Appreciate you coming in and talking Dallas Trinity that see the house with me. [01:10:55] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's a lot of fun. Looking forward to being back and go fc [01:11:03] Speaker A: and thanks to you DFW curious soccer fan for being here. We'll talk to you guys again on another episode of third Degree the Podcast Third Degree the Third Degree N Podcast Third Degree the Third Degree N Podcast Third Degree the Third Degree Nap I guess Third Degree the Third Degree Never. Sam.