3rd Degree the Podcast #368

[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, we're recording. [00:00:01] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. I guess I'm taking the lead. [00:00:04] Speaker A: Yeah, well, she want me to do it, I guess. [00:00:07] Speaker B: No, I'll do it. [00:00:07] Speaker A: That's all right. [00:00:08] Speaker B: All right, here we go. Three, two, one. Yeah. Third Degree, the Third Degree Ned podcast. Third Degree, the Third Degree Ned podcast. Third degree the Third degree. Never get Third degree. The Third degree Never, Cat. Well, hello there and welcome back once again. Yes, I'm here to Third Degree the podcast, My Brief Return. Here's one episode and it's just me. It's old school. It's an old school third degree podcast because it's just myself and Buzz Carrick, editor and founder of thirddegree.net. hello again, my old friend. I've missed you. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks. I'm glad you're back, man. Good to see you. I. I have to say that the work you were doing on the kick around with that show seemed like it was probably an actual job. [00:01:12] Speaker B: It was. It was crazy fun. Lars and Andy were great. We had a blast. It was, you know, and Andy and I had been talking about. I mean, Andy and I have always preferred the radio show to be the World cup stuff than the weekly thing because that's really the thing that started the show. And we always, especially when they announced that it was coming here, the idea that we would be able to do the kick around during the World cup while it was here was always a dream. And then to be able to bring Lars over and have Lars part of it was just the best. And I think everybody enjoyed it. And we got a ton of compliments and gratitude and nice words from all kinds of people from all over the globe. Like, I'm still getting messages from people, people from other countries that have discovered the show, which blew me away. And we got some really interesting and good news when it relates to ratings the other day and all of it. So I feel like it was a success and it was kind of a job between that and doing the TV stuff I was doing here, and I was writing pretty regularly, so I was weirdly productive for. For two months, and now I'm back to not being productive anymore. So normal programming resumed. [00:02:26] Speaker A: Sir, what'd you do on TV? I didn't know you were doing TV. [00:02:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I did Fox 4 with Sam and Ducey and then they have a. It turns out, I didn't even know this, but they've got like a fully linear streaming version of Fox 4 on their website and on YouTube and et cetera, and they do completely separate shoulder podcasts episodes all day. And one of them was with the woman that does the morning shows. So they had me come in with her once a week and try to teach her about soccer. And that was fun. She was great. That whole crew was amazing fun. And then the craziest story was one day they said, hey, you know, it's, I think it was the first Messi game. They're like, hey, we're gonna do like an hour pre game of Messi on the broadcast channel. Would you mind coming in? And I thought, oh, they'll just have me sit at a side desk or something with Doocy or somebody and just ask me a question here or there. And I got there and they're like, here's your ifb. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:27] Speaker B: Now, for those who don't know what that is, it's the little earpiece that you wear when you're on television so you can hear all the directions and everything. And I normally when I go on Fox 4, they don't give me one of those because I don't need it because I'm on for five minutes. They're like, no, you're going to be here for two hours. I was like, wow, two hours. You guys are doing two hours of pre game. That's a different kind of paycheck. And I said, okay. And so I expected to go sit at the little side desk like by the weather map or whatever. And they're like, no, sit here. And they stuck me behind the main desk, Buzz. I sat next to the main host. Having to do behind the desk local television with the whole. I mean, I've never done that before. It was wild. And they didn't tell me I was doing it. They didn't tell me how to do it, where to look or nothing. It was very, very wheels off. But I had a lot of fun. Everybody at Fox 4 couldn't have been nicer. And I, I, I, I, I. It was a, a fun new professional experience. And my big old giant head was on people's televisions way too much. [00:04:36] Speaker A: Was it swelling even as they were talking? And that was pretty cool. [00:04:38] Speaker B: It's too big as it is already. [00:04:40] Speaker A: I bet your apartment smells of rich mahogany now. As many leather line books. [00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah. [00:04:47] Speaker A: May not be aware. [00:04:48] Speaker B: So, yeah, it was a, it was a big time, man. The World cup was a huge success and I'm got to go to some games and got to do a lot of stuff, so it was a good time. Thanks for asking. [00:04:59] Speaker A: Yeah, man, you guys killed it. [00:05:01] Speaker B: All right, so we have Lots to get to, obviously. And I think what I think. I guess we'll start with the Atletico Dallas stuff, because I do feel like that's the most interestingly important at this point. [00:05:16] Speaker A: Newsy new stuff, for sure. [00:05:17] Speaker B: I mean, it is the newsy news stuff. And then I will also include. Much to everybody's surprise, myself included. I was included in the presentation event that took place at Gillies in Southside on Friday evening. [00:05:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:34] Speaker B: They asked me to come be part of the panel discussion, which ended up being me. I can't remember the gentleman's name from one of the radio stations, Hispanic radio stations. El Chickaleen or something like that. He was great. And then Brian Corcoran and Peter Luxe and Edwardo Nara were on stage along with Chicharito. And it was crazy. And the crowd was very impressive. There were thousand. There was like 3,000 people there, I think. And I was. It was an interesting event. And there was a very weird moment about two minutes into it when I looked up and realized Chicharito was sitting next to me about two feet away. And I thought, well, this is just the weirdest thing. So there you go. Chicharito plays for Dallas, as they say. Buzz. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. I mean, that whole tagline, the athletic plays for Dallas, Chichirito plays. That's all fantastic. Maybe. Maybe not Raw. Wasn't he famously, like, have some ownership in, like, the Mavericks or something? Maybe they're looking at him to be. Or he did in the Cuban era. Maybe they're looking. Maybe looking at him to be a celebrity owner. That'd be a great guy to bring in. He was. [00:06:46] Speaker B: He's incredibly tall and incredibly handsome. [00:06:49] Speaker A: He is very tall. Yeah, I've met him before. He's. He's not short, but then, you know, NBA. So. Six, eight. I mean, that's. That's up there. Six, eight. [00:06:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Good dude. I understand, too. I don't know him personally, but I. Everyone that meets him tells me how great he is. [00:07:02] Speaker B: He seemed very nice and was super excited to be there and was representing the Mavs and brought Chicharito a Mavs jersey. And. Yeah, it was a. It was a cool scene. I mean, look, you and I have talked about this a lot. [00:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:14] Speaker B: This whole thing with Atletico Dallas is just very weirdly conflicting because it's not the club I traditionally support in Dallas. And yet this new thing is doing so many things that is admirable and good and correct and checks all the boxes of stuff that we wish the Hunts were doing and have been doing all along. And yet here they are doing it. And you know, I wish all of them the best of luck. Obviously I'll go to games and things like that. But signing Chicharito is the most no brainer thing you could possibly imagine. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:52] Speaker B: And watching him yesterday or Friday in front of all those people was really a sight to behold. [00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one of the things I wanted to ask you about because you're right, we've talked about this a couple of times. It is very reminiscent of 96 Dallas Burn with their, with Hugo Sanchez. It's such a repeat. And for years you and I talked about like what, what Mexican star DP would be worth it for FC Dallas to pay the extra money that it costs. And the only name we ever came up with was Chicharito. No, they never did a course, you know, and over time up in Frisco, which is a bit of a different demographic, they've let slide their Hispanic covers used to have Hispanic articles. They've let slide Hispanic radio show. They really have neglected that half of the market, you know, let alone like the downtown urban part of the market, you know. So they're definitely targeting sections that FC Dallas has immediately let slide a bit on. And we've talked about that quite a bit. But what I wanted to ask you about was, you know, we, everyone talks about his charisma and how likable he is and how personal he is and how people react to him. I'd never seen it in person, so I was just curious. So like how do people react in person to him? Is it like everybody says it is? [00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah, he's incredibly down to earth now. I literally buzz, I mean while I sat next to him on a stage for 15, 20 minutes, I probably said 10 words to him. I literally shook his hand once when we were standing backstage when they introduced him to me. And, and but watching him interact because after the event was over he, by the way, he had an army of people, not like Atletico Dallas people, they were Chicharito people back there. And they had told the Atletico Dallas people he wanted to go out and sign autographs. And so he came off the stage and walked over towards the front of the crowd and I left long before he stopped. But he was out there just signing autographs with people and he, all of his answers were really good. He, you know, he says all the right things and he seems completely genuine when he says them. And he was super sweet to everybody. I never got a, an app I never got even the slightest whiff of. I'm too good for this or what am I, you know, none of that, that sometimes you get with you meet your heroes kind of thing. Oh yeah, he's not like, he was not like that at all. And again, you know, on the day that it was announced, I put out on social media, I said, look, if FC Dallas announced today that they were signing Chicharito, they would get just crucified for doing it. But Atletico Dallas signing Chicharito is the most no brainer, slam dunk thing they could possibly do for all of the goals and strategies at which they are pursuing at this particular moment. And everything I saw on Friday indicates that that thing that they're trying to pull off is gonna, you know, has already started to work. I mean, I can't even totally tell you how many new Chicharito jerseys they sold Friday maybe. Yeah, probably right off the bat. [00:11:03] Speaker A: Oh, I bet it's. And those aren't even the real ones yet. I mean that's not even the jersey he'll play in. Like in their press release they put out, they had a line about how, how a later point there would be an announcement about like what jersey he was going to wear. And then they, the pictures, of course he was wearing 14. So like on first read I thought they meant that what his number was going to be. No, no, no, that means the jersey that he's going to wear, like he'll be part of the unveiling of here's the real actual jersey and that's going to again resell another several thousand of those things. It won't surprise me like if his impact is that, that they might sell more kits than SC Dallas. [00:11:36] Speaker B: Oh, that would shock me at all. No, not at all. And, and you know, they ended up having to come up with a bespoked bespoke back, you know, name plate and number font for this shirt because this is essentially the same shirt they've been selling for, I don't know how long now, a year, the blue and black. But yeah, so whatever that was, then they came up with the, the bespoke part with chicharito and 14 on the back. And you know, they got those printed and everything and you can buy them on their website and stuff. I didn't see how much they cost though. [00:12:08] Speaker A: I have no idea. [00:12:09] Speaker B: And I, yeah, I, somebody said you an hour or so before the start of the event, there was like 500 people in line waiting to go to the merch table. And that doesn't surprise me at all. [00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:12:22] Speaker B: I mean look, this is the thing that is very Clear to me is Atletico. Dallas has clearly made the decision to pursue the most underserved soccer market in Dallas Fort Worth, and that is the Hispanic market. And there's a risk that runs with that because, you know, at the event Friday night, I would say Buzz, while it was 90% Hispanic in the audience, maybe a little less than that, you know, because I said some really funny things on stage that got no reaction. And I chalked that up to the fact there were a lot of people that don't speak English out in the audience. Or alternatively, what I thought was funny wasn't all that funny. [00:13:03] Speaker A: Yeah, zero chance. You're just not funny. [00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the other guy, at some point I said something, he made a choice to translate it, which tells me there's a significant number of people in the audience that don't speak. And they were also having, you know, he was saying things in Spanish. Like when we were doing all the introductions at the beginning, I was having to do introductions in English and he was doing them in Spanish. So there was a lot of bil, you know, translating going on. And so, you know, I think they have clearly targeted that for their success story and their path. And, you know, I was thinking about this. Sorry, I'm dominating Buzz. I, I, I'm sorry. [00:13:42] Speaker A: It's all good content. [00:13:44] Speaker B: I was thinking about this, about, you know, the, the future of USL and Atletico's path into all of this. Because, you know, when they announced Chicharito, you and I had this laugh about how much this feels like 1996 all over again. You know, new team, new club, Mexican Hero, Cotton bowl, etc. Etc. It is all the same thing with this one exception. In 1994, all of us that were soccer fans and that were getting ready to get into the Dallas Burn were coming into it with nothing. We had no local team, we had no television access to soccer on any kind of regular basis. We had nothing. And so our level of patience and understanding and willingness to just watch something start very small and probably not very good and grow it from there and be a part of that experience was something that I think as a core group of people, especially in the Inferno back in the days, we're all very much had our expectations set correctly. And I do Wonder if in 2026, that same kind of group of people exist because of the fact that everybody carries around the world of football in their pocket. They can turn on and watch the biggest leagues, watch the best players in the whole world, and will these people have the same level of patience and will they have their expectations set correctly when they go to the Cotton bowl to watch this new team in a new league. And that's not a criticism in any way, because actually, what I think is if you're looking for that kind of audience, it's this market that has been so underserved that I think if there's anybody in Dallas that's up for this, it's this one. And that's why I think what they're doing so far seems to be tracking very, very well for them. [00:15:29] Speaker A: Yeah, the other, the other group they're going to get right away is people that are disenfranchised by Elsie Dallas. You know, whether it's your urbanites or your people that are like it's too far or, or that they felt like the prices were getting, you know, out of control or something like that. Like, you know, I. I've talked openly about how they went into a price category that I wasn't comfortable with anymore, you know, for how far it is. So there's, There's a segment out there. I think one thing that will work in their behavior, excuse me, in their favor, Peter, is that they are going for USL Premier. So they'll have to overshoot the mark of the USL Championship when they start adding players. Because if you go for just building a USL Championship team and then you try and take it up a level with 30 players that are already under contract to USL Premiere, it's going to suffer by comparison to what the new premier should be. Right. It should be a Division 1 sort of level. So like, I think they're going to have to overshoot the mark a little bit rather than have those slow build that expansions he might have coming into the bottom of a new league and you championship, they're going to have to come in heavy gig. Reed is a perfect example of that. I think they'll have to do it across the board. So that actually might help them, in a sense, fare really well right out of the gate. Now, it's not going to look like the Premier League. It may not look like Liam Exe, but, you know, it's going to be better than, probably better than some of the championship teams they're going to be looking at by comparison because they're going to have, I assume, a more expensive roster than a regular USL Championship team might have. [00:16:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And because we have literally no real idea what this USL Premier thing is going to look like, I'm working under the assumption, Buzz. I mean, unless they absolutely Crush it with 11 at a minimum, 11 other ownership groups that are as ambitious as Sam and Matt appear to be. You know, my guess is in 2028, when that thing starts, it will be 12 USL Premier League. Premier League teams whose quality level will be far closer to the division below it in the championship than it is Major League Soccer. I think the gap between MLS and USL Premier in 2028 is not going to be a small gap. I think it's going to be pretty noticeable and giant for a period of time, and that's okay. That's how these things go. [00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:53] Speaker B: But I think that get back. That gets back to what I'm talking about, which is expectation setting and getting people to understand what this is going to be about and making everybody comfortable with that. And so, you know, Chicharito. I mean, this is part of the Chicharito thing, which is the guy hasn't played significant minutes on a regular basis in four years, 2022 for the Galaxy, and it's still going to be an entire other year before he plays at all. And that's just in the championship. So, you know, uslc. So, you know, these are all things that we just kind of have to wait and time is just going to have to pass for us to find out how good this thing is. But if you're Sam and Matt, who are trying to make money and sell tickets, I think what they've done so far has all really been super smart. And I think that's probably their greatest path to success at this point. [00:18:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't disagree. Well, I wanted to give you a chance to talk about all that because you were not around for when this was the breaking news and when we did a whole bunch of when it actually officially happened and all that stuff. So. And I really wanted to hear about the presentation. So I was glad we you got back in time to be able to do some of this stuff. Well, you know, I think it's a massively important issue. [00:19:06] Speaker B: It is. It is. And I was thinking about this the other day. In the aftermath of some of the videos they've put out with Chicharito. Did Sam and Matt spend more money on Chicharito or the video person they've hired to do all their social media stuff? Because whoever that is is really, really, really good. [00:19:24] Speaker A: I was talking to somebody over there and. And they were like, yeah, they hired this guy like a week before Chicharito signed. And they're like, the first thing he did was the campfire vignette thing. And they were like, holy crap, this kid is amazing. It's like He's. [00:19:38] Speaker B: I don't know who he is. I don't know what his background is. Have you seen the one of him running over the, the, the bridge, the bridge down by wfaa? [00:19:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Everything they've put out in the last two weeks that this kid shot has been fantastic. I don't know. I say he's a kid. I assume he's a kid because they told me he was a young guy, so I assume he's young, you know. [00:19:57] Speaker B: Well, the quality, the quality is so good. I assume they're, they have to. I thought they hired some sort of industry vet that came at a, at a no cost. [00:20:05] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:20:06] Speaker B: But this stuff is so ubiquitous these days with Gen Z and Gen Alpha. They may have just found some teenage teenager who's just really good at it and they're, you know, getting away on the. [00:20:16] Speaker A: See how long they can hold on to them. Yeah, yeah. [00:20:18] Speaker B: I mean, look, it's really, really good content and I'm super impressed and everything like the event, you know, I, and I don't want to make this about FC Dallas, but you and I have talked about this and I've talked about this with other people. I mean, there is a part of me that gets really frustrated with the fact that in the 20 plus years that the Hunts have owned this club, have they ever once done a pleasure, a player presentation to the fan base anywhere close to what they did with Chicharito? [00:20:50] Speaker A: I couldn't think of a player presentation, the fan base at all. It's like I, I don't remember one ever. [00:20:56] Speaker B: I remember many years ago, back in the, after probably before 10, I was having a conversation with somebody in the front office that no longer works there. And it was when they had, they had just signed a player and I can't remember who it was. And I was like, why aren't you doing a player presentation? And they were like, well, because if we do it up here in Frisco, none of the local media will come to it. We'll put a lot of time and effort into it and nobody will bother to come up. And I said, then why don't you go downtown to do it? Like, want it? And they were like. And they just kind of, you could tell they were frustrated and didn't want to talk about it. But it was, it's always been maddening to me that Dallas doesn't go out of its way. Dallas, I can't use that anymore. The Burn can't go out of their way to do these types of things. Any at all. And Atletico walks in and just hits one right out of the park on the first try. And I, that's frustrating. [00:21:49] Speaker A: I definitely don't remember any like in the FC Dallas Hunt era. You might have to go back to the burn here like in 96. Did. Did Ugo Sanchez and Leon Alvarez do meet and greets around town? Maybe Andy might know the answer to that question. [00:22:02] Speaker B: I don't remember, but I can't remember. I mean I, there was something about Hugo Sanchez's signing, if I recall correctly. I don't think Lionel Alvarez was his. You know, Ugo Sanchez is the greatest Mexican national team player of all time and the CONCACAF player of the century. I mean everybody who likes soccer knew who Ugo was at the time. Lionel was more scary. [00:22:26] Speaker A: Well, you remember they had, they had that fakely and now that they would send to like little events and stuff, but I don't know about a player presentation. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I, I, you know, and I, and not that I, not that Dallas, not that FC Dallas should start doing these now. I just, it, it was frustrating along with all the other little things that they've been doing in terms of their social media marketing and, and, and X, Y and Z. All of it has been really, really good. Now will it translate into ticket sales in the Cotton bowl in a year's time? To be determined. [00:22:55] Speaker A: The only player I can think of was maybe Danielson. I remember the Danielson press conference being like maybe they had some public openness to that. [00:23:03] Speaker B: Maybe something in the stadium where he dribbled and juggled for a bit. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that was, that was media stuff though. That was for media to shoot tape and pictures, if I remember correctly. I just remember the, the preference comments for him having a lot more people there than. And some of them. And if I feel like in the back of my brain saying like in a fan sort of capacity, but maybe it was just a whole lot more media than I'm used to there being as, as bad as he was, it turned out to be. [00:23:26] Speaker B: What do you think about the idea of Chichirito as a signing? Obviously Chicharito is a no brainer from a marketing standpoint. [00:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:35] Speaker B: I'm curious as to your opinion as to whether or not you think he actually plays a lot and for how long. [00:23:42] Speaker A: Well, I think certainly, I think in the beginning I think he'll probably play quite a bit. You know, I know that he didn't play a lot in 2026, but he was with Chivas in 24 and 25 and according to the Internet he played 35 games for them over those. Over that one season or a season and a half, perhaps, because he left the galaxy, you know, at the end of 2023. So it's not, you know, he has been playing some. Now you look at him, you can tell he's been out of the game for basically a year, it looks like, to me. So I think if he gets fit enough, you know, he's a player who has been successful because of his brain. Like, he's not faster than everybody else. He just reads the game really, really well, gets himself in a really, really good position. He's a bit like the German guy in Vancouver who's got my dumb brain. Was not pulling mule around. Yeah. In the sense that, like, they can look deceptive. So I think Chicharito probably still has a lot of that innate ability. And I think in the championship, if you get a team that can get him service, he's gonna have to get service in the box. He's not going to be able to pick the ball up in midfield and carry it all the way in by himself. But if you can get the ball into him, I think he can probably actually score some goals at the USL Championship level, because I think there'll be a lot of center backs that. Not all, but there'll be a fair number of center backs that he'll be able to just finagle and bamboozle and get himself free with that innate instinct that he has. So I don't think it's a terrible signing if you get a year out of him in the championship and then, you know, he's come out. [00:25:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:16] Speaker A: And then I'm sure the idea is that he plays a couple of seasons and if he still feels great, you know, he can. He can come off the bench here or there. I think the greater idea is that, you know, to be sort of the face and an ambassador in the franchise. I would assume. No one's told me this. I assume there's going to be some sort of percentage of the team ownership once he's done playing. [00:25:36] Speaker B: Has to be. [00:25:36] Speaker A: And he's going to be around to be like, in the market, talking to the fans, talking about the team, like doing all the stuff, facing the franchise, you know, as a minority owner, but as a guy you put out there in front. And I imagine that's the plan. So, you know, if. If he kicks around for, I imagine, the championship, he'll. He'll be relatively successful. And then as you go into Premier League, it'll depend again on how big the Gap is how good's he feeling? You know, I think you can get three seasons out of him on the field before you be like, you know, we really. Okay, it's, it's done. You know, I, I know he's 38, but we always talk about this like players that play a long time until they're 40, they do that not because they're faster than everybody else. They do that because they have some sort of next level mind ability to still be productive without having to outrun people. Like Carlos Val is a great example for me, A guy that played well into his 30s, mid-30s, because anyway, he never left the center circle. We used to joke, right. So it's the same sort of thing that where I think he's a player that will get be successful still, you know, particularly against the. Well, it's probably the, an unsophisticated relative defensive level of the championship. [00:26:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I find all of that fascinating and ultimately what we're, I'm now really fascinated by is what does Cochran do to bring in player number two and signing number three and you know, all the way through 11 and 15 because, you know, what does this team look like? Where is he sourcing players from? Are they local kids a lot? You know, how that part of the rest of their next part of their story, I think is going to be really interesting for all of us here. [00:27:15] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the FC Dallas came, you know, we saw, I should say this correctly, we saw when Lucine started running some training sessions which they've done with. They have a reserve team. He had some guys out there. We saw some faces in the pictures that we know from the FC Dallas Academy days. You know, Luxon came out of that program. There's going to be guys that he's going to have seen with North Texas SC or guys that he's going to see in the academy. They're going to, that he's going to tap to be fringe players or reserves, you know, or maybe a young guy he thinks has a little potential in terms of USL championship. Those are some vile options for the bottom of the roster. His kid, for example, Marlon plays for North Texas SC and his contract's up at the end of the season, just to name one name for, you know, for possibilities. His younger son just left the FC Dallas Academy to go to the San Diego FC Academy. So, you know, that makes it a little easier for him as a coach to start tab and guys that are in the FC Dallas program potentially now, I don't think you build your whole team with that But I think you have to, I think that's how you fill in the bottom half of it. But like the middle part of it, maybe a player or two, but mostly you're gonna have to go out and get guys. And I would imagine that from the minute they hired him, that he's been out scouting, you know, and that they, they're going to have a list of guys ready to go when the, when all those contracts run out at the end of this, you know, upcoming USL season, you know, which will be in the summer. Yeah, it'll, it'll coincide really well for them. And I would also imagine that I, I would bet you with the, with the current incoming transfer window running till September 12, it is something like that, right. That gives them actually an option where I think you might see an announcement or two where they'll go sign a guy and say, you know, we're just gonna be training for six months to start the season in January, but we're gonna sign you now. Because as you know, this is the window when more players are available around the world. There'll be guys that teams will have let go and so like they should there in the market saying like, hey, I know that you're, you're Club Bruges or your Iax or your, you're not going to get a dude from Byron this way because they're good from Byron will have multiple tiers that he can step into between there and even mls. But you're going to look at guys that are going to be on sort of fringe, MLS levels that are going to be out of contract right now that you could say, hey, we'll start paying you now, come in, sign six months to get ready, fit, work together. You know, I bet you we'll see some signings in the next. Between now and. Because that's a month and a half away, right? You have a month and a half still to do some stuff. Because they have to buy by the transfer window, I'm pretty sure. Unless a player gets through the window and they're a complete free agent, then they could sign whoever they wanted to outside the window. Because those windows only matter if you're under contract, I believe, because you could sign them and it's not officially put them on the roster until the next window in January or whatever it is. Yeah, right. So if they're free, if they're available, you know, and you can even sign pre contracts for a January transfer within. If you're, if a contract's running out in the six months before that you can sign a guy who's going to be available. So like they could sign a guy who's playing right now if that guy knows he's gonna be out of contract at the end of the year. So all those are possibilities. So I think they will not be waiting until January. I think you'll see stuff happen. [00:30:20] Speaker B: Okay. So I didn't even think about them signing other people this quickly. I just assumed they would wait till, you know, the window and the windows before this. [00:30:29] Speaker A: I mean, you won't complete your team, but why wouldn't you put together half of a roster and get out and start training? Yeah. Whether it's kids. I mean Chichi Rito needs somebody to ball with between now and then. You know, looks on's got. They got a reserve team. You're gonna go sign some guys that are maybe floating around the middle tiers. You know, you can use your local kids that looks on is going to know, you know, call up four zero, get a couple of those guys out. You know, you put together some teams to start training, I think. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Big fun. Yeah. Tremendous stuff. And thanks to the Athletico Dallas people for inviting me. It was a huge honor to be a part of that. It was a lot of fun. It was eye opening to see the reaction. And here we go. [00:31:08] Speaker A: They know you're kind of a big deal. [00:31:12] Speaker B: Not even a little bit. [00:31:14] Speaker A: No, they were like. It was like. It was like Chicharito with the tickets. Peter Welton. [00:31:19] Speaker B: No. In fact, if you go back and watch the. Well, I'm assuming there's a video, I don't know of the event somewhere, but when he introduced me up on stage, it was like crickets. Like who? What. What wrong is this weird giant headed gray old man standing up on stage? Why? Where's Chicharito? [00:31:38] Speaker A: Well, Eddie was there. That's. You knew that was the hellcase. Yeah. [00:31:42] Speaker B: So yeah, it all worked out great. It was a lot of fun, that. That's for sure. All right, well, let's. You want to move on to the other Dallas? [00:31:51] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about. We've. We've talked about this. The unbelievable irony that the day that Athletico side Chicharito FC Dallas signed a guy from the usl, you know, and I'm totally going to tell you that the governor UCL more benefits FC Dallas in terms of what their needs are right this minute than obviously teacherito does. Right. A little bit else. But like it's just ironically funny that that's. That might even go on the list. [00:32:14] Speaker B: That actually is probably a legitimate list applicant consideration. But I also feel bad for the, the burn front office for giving them any guff for that because that's a, I mean, would you have rather they got out and signed a, a guy that, you know, more than 1% of your fan base actually had heard of before for that same position? Sure. [00:32:39] Speaker A: I'd like them to go out and get a dp. Absolutely. But you know, they're not going to get, they never were going to get a chichirito level of a buy. We've talked about that for 30 years. That that's not happening with the Hunts. [00:32:48] Speaker B: But here's the thing, and I hate to come back after and, and, and jump in with two feet like this, but based on the results since the World cup has finished and some of the other stuff that's going on, you, and I don't think I'm solo on this, Buzz, but where this team is at at this point, which is essentially the midpoint of the, of not the team rebuild, but the stadium rebuild project, I feel like is the most no brainer or no duh, I we told you so kind of result to come out of this. You know, am I, is that unfair? [00:33:29] Speaker A: No. And even Quilt, even Quill talks about the beginning of the year that they weren't doing good enough at home. Right. They were dropping points and that was a problem because he knew as well as everybody that they had this 10 game run, this nine games on the road out of 10 and the one home game is the game of Mansfield. So really it's 10 straight when you include leagues cup and they've now got seven of those left and they've got two ties. And also this game, this last weekend started a stretch of seven games in 24 days, which is literally Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday, Wednesday for a whole month. [00:33:59] Speaker B: Oh, but I'm talking even bigger picture, Buzz, which is roster construction. Like what is this team supposed to be at a time where revenue is at all time lows because you've cut your stadium in half and you don't have parking revenue and concession revenue and all of these things. [00:34:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:34:20] Speaker B: You know, we, you and Dan and I caught a lot of guff for suggesting that maybe, you know, whatever we're going to get in terms of a team is gonna, is going to reflect this. And, and I think a lot of people thought no, no, you know, oh, now to be fair, they went out and got Peter Musa, which was a big deal. But that also seemed like a really smart piece of business in terms of, you know, potential to, to make money I got a whole question I want to ask you about that a little bit. [00:34:44] Speaker A: Well then that was certainly far before we knew about the renovations. [00:34:47] Speaker B: Sure. But you see, going with this, which is, you know, here we are and on the day that one thing is doing Chicharito, another one is signing a guy from a USL team I didn't even know existed, which is my bad, not anybody else's, but you get my point. And, and, and so that seems to me to be a reflection of where this team is budget wise and ambition wise. And the reality of our situation, guys, is that we are spending a lot of money to rebuild our radio, our radio station, our soccer stadium. And that's really our focus at this point. And check back with us in 2029. [00:35:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you can even look at like the second dp they signed Santi Marino. Like they did it via loan. Right. Rather than just buying them, they. They did a loan. So like it's cheaper right now and then you can pay the money later if you decide that you actually really like it. The buy actually would happen like this winter. Now, the way he's going, I'm not sure that that's going to be happening. But there's no third DP. There's continually using use. They have five U22s, but two of them are in a non usable state. So they actually are on 3. So they could add another DB or another U22 if they were so inclined. [00:35:55] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it's not like they're in terrible shape and they've played above, they've punched a bunch above their weight. And obviously the situation with the second half of the season was always going to be an obstacle in terms of having to travel and do all that stuff. But they also, I mean, there's a potential that we're going to finish off this season without Uruguay Day. We haven't even talked about that yet. [00:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:21] Speaker B: So I'm sure we'll talk about that here in a little bit. But neither one of the performances are terrible. But they're also frustrating in that kind of way that this team has been frustrating this year. [00:36:32] Speaker A: Yeah, they're still just running with a lot of dudes, you know, and, and if you don't believe me on that, like, we do this feature called roster ranking where we rank like a power ranking for all the players on the team, for the organization, for empty Dallas orno, North Texas sc. And it's sort of a telling thing. It's not intended to be too serious or anything, but if you, if you Go look at it. You start reading off the top and like the first couple players, you're like, yeah, those are great players. You real quickly get to like a boy. Really? That's what this team is. And it's like, man, it is. It's just like the pro. The problem with having a team that is so firmly entrenched in the. The parody. Sorry, not parody. Parity. Part of the Major League Soccer, where everyone's basically the same. The problem with that is that you're winning because if you have this warrior mentality, this outwork everybody mentality, when you go on the road, you suffer with that. You don't have that anymore. And now all of a sudden, those. That margin of small margin you had that was getting you the wins is not working. So, like now it's everything that was turning into a win at home is now turning into a tie on the road. And it becomes really difficult to hold on to games and it becomes really difficult to get those points. And with this being such a long stretch of games, it'll be real easy to burn everybody out and get everybody to stop listening. Stop. Karen gonna get tired of hearing, like, you're not working hard enough, man. It's like, man, coach, we're working our butts off. It's just not there because it's on the road. It's hard, you know, so it's going to be difficult. They got a really, really tough road here in this next stretch. I don't know how they're going to find results. I don't know how seriously you take league's cup if it's going to burn you out. Granted, those three games come right away so, like, you can almost sort of play a bunch of kids if you wanted, you know, and see what you have on the back end of that. [00:38:09] Speaker B: I was trying to figure out which, if there's a player on this team that most encapsulates the team overall. And it might be Delgado. [00:38:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Potentially. [00:38:20] Speaker B: You know what I mean by that? [00:38:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, the thing about him is that is something we've talked about all the time. Like, there are moments where you're like, this looks glorious when he's on. But then there are big chunks where it's like, this just looks sort of average. And so he is a good encapsulation of that because his team is that way. There are moments, the team looks phenomenal, and there are moments like this LA Galaxy game where even though they had 55 of the possession, it just didn't really do Much with it. Nothing really came off. It almost was like Luchi ball esque in a sense of like they passed the ball around a bunch but didn't really create any real good opportunities. They had a nice XG, but when you only have four shots out of 16 on net, that's not really very good talker. [00:39:01] Speaker B: No. And there's a couple of those opportunities that Musa probably converts normally, you know, the. The one on ones. But anyway, it was. The team is just kind of in a state of. That is frustrating and it will probably continue just based on the fact that they are in this situation that the stadium project has put them in of just having to constantly be on the road and travel. Now, of course, MLS has done this cool thing where they come out of the World cup, play a few league games and then move into the tournament that I, I'm still not sure how many people care about, but we'll see how that goes. But going back to the San Jose and the LA game. Sorry, I don't. I don't want to. I don't want to gloss over them too lightly. I. I'm curious if, you know, Farrington didn't play. Am I saying this correct? Farrington didn't start in the San Jose, excuse me, the San Diego game, but did the LA game. Am I correct about that? [00:40:00] Speaker A: Yeah, the la. LA Galaxy game was when they put Moose and Farrington back out there together for the first time in a while. [00:40:05] Speaker B: So tactically, let's talk about the differences in. In the burn between those two games. [00:40:10] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the, the San Diego game, which was an abysmal performance, was the. The version of the 4, 4, 2 that we've seen, which usually has a little bit of flex in it, but the last couple of games didn't really have that flex so much. But in this game, they brought back Bernie Camungo and they put him at left wing back and they brought back the. To back three or. Or back five, depending on whose opinion you want to take about what it is. Which made five. Yeah, it's a five. It puts Logan Farrington at right wing back and he actually. I'm sorry, not Logan for I misspoke there. Herman Johansson at right wing back where he belongs and he actually had a better game than he's had on quite a bit. Looked not great, but better than he had been doing. Still a little final product. Not quite there with him, but it did left them kind of on an island. Like they used Delgado as the 10 and Delgado wasn't really on, you know, I Why I was a bit surprised they didn't go with Joaquin valiente as the 10, who at least is a, you know, we got a 10 at home kind of 10. Maybe he's not a big star 10, but he's got at least got some line breaking ability and I really would have liked to have sent him in that shape and see what it would look like. But man, but Quill really likes Shaq Pechen Delgado for some reason I don't, I don't get it. For me he takes way too much of the game off. Again, this was that case. Even if you want a high press, which he can be somewhat good at at times, he wasn't in this game. So it really was just, you know, they didn't have. LA wasn't in holding possession. So like the high press game wasn't really there to work against anything. So they ended up with Dallas, you know, passing the ball around and they just didn't have enough creative ability. And they brought in Anderson, Julio and, and Santiago Moreno and it got worse. Nothing happened like those two guys didn't do anything. They were playing, those two guys were playing more of a double 10 underneath, but it was just flat. There was no creativity, there was no. Despite the fact that they had the good xg, they didn't, they didn't create in my opinion like actual real quality goal chances, you know. And on the defensive end it seemed like it worked pretty good in terms of stopping Pencil, which was the key thing, right, that formation by putting Nolan in the middle, which I thought was a really, really good idea. So by putting Nolan in the middle they put more and Yurigide sort of as the wide center back and that allowed them to help deal with Pencil who's the. One of the fastest players in the league. And LA is only really dangerous force at this point. That really helped shut that down. The five backs tightened that up. It meant that LA was shooting more from outside. Well, that's what leads you to nine saves by Johnson Seroir who's seeing all these long range shots and is doing a good job stifling all those to keep them all out because they weren't like in the box tap ins, they were all from outside and you could get them, see them coming and get them all lined up. So it worked in that sense. It made, it made all the shots from LA come from way out most for the most part. So that was fairly effective. Now do you go forward with that? I don't know. That's entirely different question. [00:42:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the, you Know, the goalkeeper situation has gotten really goofy. They go out and trade for a guy who ends up getting hurt in the last game and now he's out for two months. The Colloidis, you know, is very much. Yeah, in limbo. Saw played very well this game, but I seem to remember the last time he started a game he wasn't as great. Hence why they brought in Daniel. And now it's this weird kind of standoff between three guys. But here's the thing, you know, they've collected some points, I guess. You know, they've only lost once on the road and that was the one, oh, loss to San Diego. [00:43:30] Speaker A: They're doing it without Ramiro because when you don't have Ramiro, then Kaik's a mess. So like central midfield is just a disaster right now. I think Capis is trying to do a pretty good job filling in. Yeah, you know, he's not, he's not playing bad, but the rest of it is not good because they don't have the connection with Kaik right now. There's like this gap, this missing flow, you know. Yeah. [00:43:50] Speaker B: Kaik is his own thing. [00:43:52] Speaker A: And [00:43:55] Speaker B: Kaik is going to be end up being one of those guys buzz that they sell for a small profit and then goes on and plays really, really well for whatever his next team is for somebody. Yeah, because the team is just collectively better and can over. You know, right now they're counting on and trying to. They're depending too much on a guy who is still trying to learn on the fly, but has a lot of potential, but also continues to make a lot of mistakes. But I could totally see him going somewhere else and flourishing because he's got a lot more talent around. [00:44:26] Speaker A: Well, we remind ourselves that he's only 20 years old. [00:44:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:44:28] Speaker A: So, you know, if someone ends up buying him and then four years from now he'll be killing it in some Champions League and everyone go, why they let that guy go? Well, because when he was 20, he wasn't that good. [00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:37] Speaker A: And they got a bunch of money for him. That's what Dallas does is buy players and sell them. So like, you know. Yeah, he and Delgado both, I think probably in the next year, probably will be, I would imagine, will be sold. [00:44:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a frustrating run. And before we move on to the. The leagues cup stuff, I just. Something dawned on me today in thinking about the transfer window and all of the rumors because obviously this has all started since you did an episode last, which is there are clubs over in England reportedly giving looks at Ur, and you know, I'm, I'm 99 sure. There was an episode sometime before the World cup where the three of us were like, I know everybody's worried about Peter Musa, but also realize there's a version of this story that ends with them selling Peter Musa and, or maybe Uruguay instead of moose or something like that. And here we find ourselves. [00:45:29] Speaker A: Yeah, Dan Crook said that the guy that reported the initial two teams that were after him is really, really good. So you could believe it when he said it. And then since then Burnley come out with J.J. watt being their owner has come out as being a third team. It's after him. My read on that would be like if, if they sell Ericide, this defense would go from pretty decent. So like not very good at all. Really quickly they, I think the organization would know what a big wrench that would throw into like any plans. So I would imagine the price is pretty high. Like they, they think. I believe they spot him for like 3 1/2 million or something. But I would bet you that it would take over 10 to get him out of here. You know, it's going to be a pretty steep price, so. And the same is true with what [00:46:10] Speaker B: for how much Colorado got for the 18 year old Australian kid. [00:46:13] Speaker A: Yeah, well that's the difference is that kid's 18, right. You know, irrigate is not 18. [00:46:18] Speaker B: Yeah, but you don't need 23 million to sell Ira Gide. [00:46:21] Speaker A: No, but do you remember that's the thing is that your gay is actually only 25, right? So like he's just at the prime of his career, which is why he's worth like 10 to 12 or something and not 28, not double that. Because he's not 18, he's 25, you know, so. But still worth something. And if you're a team trying to get from the championship into the Premier League, like 10 million is not a big deal. 10 million is not. When you go to the Premier League you're gonna have to spend 120 million or something, right? 10 million is nothing. So like when you're talking about those teams that might be interested. So. But I still think it'll be, it'll take a big swing because I think everybody knows how much it would wreck everything you're doing. You know, they're. We like Nolan, you know, Ibiaka is a good backup, Shaq Moore's done decently. But like if that all of a sudden that's your whole defense, you got a problem, especially without a six in [00:47:07] Speaker B: front of you and Then alternative. And then alternatively, where we're at is, you know, Petter Moose's World cup was great. The prophecy came true, but then the coach decided we've seen enough of that and didn't play him anymore. And now it's kind of gone quiet in terms of, you know, his. Anybody interested? I'm not saying it's done for, but we may end up in a situation where PETA Musa isn't. His value on the market because of his age changes dramatically and what Dallas would like to sell him for changes. So Dallas is going to end up in one of two places, which is either A, you sell him for way less than you ever would have liked to like. He's a 10, $11 million sale, which you're not going to want to do, or B, Clark's going to have to write him a check, commiserate with his performance in MLS, which is what, 2, 3x what they're paying him now? [00:48:03] Speaker A: Probably. Yeah. Wow. Well, good luck. It's complicated. And the problem is, is like, that all that is just to stay even and to hold. Like. Like that doesn't factor in getting any better. Like actually trying to compete at the top of the table. [00:48:21] Speaker B: There's a third. There's a third outcome. They could sell them for a lot of money in the league. [00:48:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, they could. They could. Well, there's been some other teams, I think, that have called about both those guys. Rumors you hear. But, you know, just like Dallas called about Bear Halter, which I was glad to hear because it meant that they understood what they were missing in their team, you know? So I think. I think. I think that the kid, the whole stat kid. I think that kid is mostly going to be like a backup kind of level player or a dude, one of Quill's dudes. I think it. But I think it does show you where they know the hole is, where they know the problem is. So I think. I think that they'll try and do something, at least one more player, if not two, in this window. Although they had to get rid of people to do it. So, yeah, if I expect. Expect them to be active, we probably [00:49:06] Speaker B: should talk a little bit more about Holstead, who is the young man, the six, that or eight or whatever. You can explain a little bit more that they got from Rhode island out of the usl. You know, look, if that guy shows up and ends up being a starter, MLS starter, starter, quality player, then the entire league has done a really shitty job of scouting the usl. If Dallas ends up with him, he [00:49:27] Speaker A: Has a good knack for popping up and scoring a goal from outside the box. He's a pretty deep player, you know, plays in that deep six, eight position, you know, whether you think he's a pure six or like a, or like out of more linking probably depends a lot on like how many, how important you think like the line breaks and the passes are. He does get a high number of tackles which is not the same as his life tackle. A high number of tackle and recoveries. So he definitely plays in a sixish sort of way. But you know, he was one of the better midfielders in the USL championship really. Looking at his numbers, I'm actually surprised that nobody else has snapped him up now that once I went and looked at him looks like a solid piece. I'm, I'm, I'm. I think it's a really good move in and of itself. It only suffers by comparison of. That's not the DP we were talking about. You know, like you can look at the way Dallas plays and look at the massive gap in midfield. It's just the midfield isn't good enough. There's lots of pieces that you kind of like and don't mind having on the roster in there, but there's no dominance in there like the. They go spend dps on the front line with Musa and theoretically Santiago Moreno. They have big huge TAM players in the back with Iraq, what Iaga and Shaq Moore make like look across the midfield, man. There's no big time salaries in there. There's no big time players in there. There's a couple U22 initiatives. There's some guys that are budget versions of things. Valiente has got some nice things, but not a TAM player, just a, a regular roster player. Some U22 guys are all 21, 22, 20 years old that haven't really been impactful yet. Cap is just a dude. Like he's quills dude but he's a dude. He's not a million dollar player. I like him. Not the same thing. Right. There's just a gap in the midfield like of the difference making kind of players. That's why Doyle always riles about a 10. I don't know that it's a 10. You know that Musa's got scoring plenty of goals without one. You know, you just need a player, some transitional players, some link play, some holding play somebody that's an upgrade on Ramiro as a six. You know, that's for me that's what they need to do. [00:51:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean this is what we we were talking about at the beginning of the episode. This is. Hey, we're rebuilding our house team. [00:51:27] Speaker A: Yeah. It'll be telling the scene. [00:51:31] Speaker B: Pardon our mess. [00:51:32] Speaker A: Yeah. As the thing falls over. And then let's just say it's bad publicity. Yeah. Well, it's, It'll be interesting. Like, I think they're, I think because they went for the keeper, right. The Daniel that paid the million bucks. I think that shows that they felt like they were close to being able to make some ground in the conference. That was kind of an ambitious move because if you're just cruising and holding Pat, you could have just cruised and held Pat. [00:51:57] Speaker B: All right, but see, I want to ask you about that. How much of that is take, you know, riding an opportunity to get a known MLS starter on the cheap. Relative cheap. And how much of that is, ah, our collode idea kind of bonked. [00:52:13] Speaker A: I think it's that one. Because I think if you were, if you weren't. If you didn't have any ambition in, in the context of this season, you would have done something else with that million dollars in game. A million dollars in GAM is not zero. And it's, it's over three seasons. [00:52:25] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:52:25] Speaker A: So it's, it's. I'm just saying that that's not nothing, Right. I mean, Paul Areola cost 2 million, right. So it's, it's half of Areola. It's a, it's a substantial player. Right. Like, if you're going to spend that kind of money on a position you were okay at, it's not like you had big dud zeros at that position. You just had. You just wanted to upgrade that position. And a million bucks to upgrade that position tells me that you have a level of ambition. Well, then he proceeded to get hurt. Okay. Do you still have that level of ambition? Are you going to go do something else and try and take this team up a notch? Because just improving the keeper doesn't take it up a notch. That just helps you sort of hold in the second half of the season. Right. So I don't, I don't. I will. Their behavior over the. As always, the behavior over the next month and a half. [00:53:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So the whole stead is the, the Holstead signing, to me feels more like Romero is out for an extended period of time. Yeah, that's a band aid replacement. I mean, he may turn out to be a really nice bench player. He, you know, the odds are against him becoming an MLS level starter at this point. Point of his career, but he could. I don't know. But it's obviously not a signing where everybody freaks out and goes, all right, this is going to do it for us. This is. Oh, we just needed somebody to fill the Romero sized hole in our roster. [00:53:37] Speaker A: Yeah. We're watching the broadcast against the Galaxy this weekend. They were talking about, oh, they're getting this guy back. They're getting that by. [00:53:44] Speaker B: By. [00:53:44] Speaker A: They got two open dps, we got one that we know of. It's coming in. We got another. Another one's coming out here. And like, they were rattling off the five or six things like this team's just trying to watch. They get all this stuff done. I was like, well, look, there's your ambition team. I said, what's Dallas added whole set out of the championship. You know, it's fine. It's a. It's a. I actually really like it as, like a solid middle of roster piece. I think it's fine. But that's not what gets you. [00:54:09] Speaker B: No. Yes. And the whole other part of this conversation that nobody's really having, that you have to give everybody a little a level of understanding, understanding and grace for, is the fractured nature of the fact that essentially MLS is playing three mini seasons. You know, the first half of this season, the second half of this season, the little mini season next year, and then the start of this new calendar thing a year from now. All of which just makes it. I mean, it's got to be ridiculously difficult to build a roster in this situation, in all of these situations going on. And when you throw the stadium project on top of that, part of me just can't blame the front office for going, dude, we're just going to tread water until we get this thing finished and we get into this new calendar. Everybody just please be patient with us. [00:54:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And I was buying into that theory until they went for Daniel. And that kind of made me think, oh, maybe they think they can actually get. If you can, in the back end of this season, you can get into the top four or five of the West. Can you then make a run at the mini season title? You know what I mean? Like, that maybe. Maybe I'll go, oh, maybe we'll see. So that's what I mean. Like, I'm kind of at a point of like, okay, are you gonna do a little something or not? Like, I'm sort of waiting for the other half of the thing. Well, until by himself wasn't enough, until [00:55:25] Speaker B: we get through the transfer window, we don't really know what their level of ambition is. [00:55:29] Speaker A: What I'm saying, that's why I'm kind of. I don't want to totally rail on them yet because they got a month and a half still. They could do something. [00:55:35] Speaker B: They could, but it, you know, if. If. Well, I, you know, I think Daniel getting hurt is what throws him even more Giant. Random. I'm using proper English giant terms into it because it obviously. [00:55:50] Speaker A: Well, I think anything else you do now would have to be about 2027. Like, you would add a player now and it would help you sort of solidify yourself in the top half of the league, top half of the table for the rest of this season. But you want to do it with an eye on the next one. Like, is this move going to set us up to be fourth in the west going into 2027? Like, can we arguably say it's after LAFC and Vancouver then? We're right there. You know, that's where you want to get to. Right? Because right now you're not quite there. You maybe were looking like you could have been until you got all these road games, until Daniel got hurt or whatever. It's like, okay, are you going to make that next step or not? You got a coach who can coach you up. Clearly, Quill can coach guys up to win more than maybe the roster says you should. Right. So maybe some of those guys will mature a little bit. Maybe we add another piece or two. You know, it's kind of what we would like to see. [00:56:37] Speaker B: All right, so the burn move on now to the much beloved Major League Soccer league. I'm actually leagues cup and they've got a whole slate of games and they're gonna shuffle all the way down to Mansfield on the fifth against Qataro, who I don't think is as bad as many people thought they were going to be when the. When the Roth. When the schedule was put out. [00:57:04] Speaker A: No, Karataro is definitely better. [00:57:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Is going to be a good opponent for them. That game on the 5th, which is on Wednesday at 7:30 down at Mansfield. So what do you. How do you. How would you even begin to line this team up for that? [00:57:25] Speaker A: Well, the first thing to understand is that seeking sibling was finally sold to Sun Sundowns. So he's out of the mix. Not an option. [00:57:32] Speaker B: He was never part of the mix, Buzz. He's been out of the mix for a long time. [00:57:36] Speaker A: Yep. Well, that's the thing is like, I think that I. I would have said that like you probably about the same as they always treat the Open cup, actually, because. And this was confirmed by the fact that they opened the, the game's Wednesday. They have one training session basically before then they've opened it to media. So for them to open up the training session before a game to media is unheard of. And that tells me that like they're not taking it all out seriously. Interesting, because if they were going full boat and they would have said, hey Quill, we want to open up training immediately. Go screw you. No, but they are interesting. Some people would say that like you're going crazy. But man, that stuff matters to coaches when they're in it to win it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. [00:58:21] Speaker B: Oh 100. Yeah. [00:58:23] Speaker A: So I think there's a good chance that this is going to be rotational because really you have this load coming up. This and this is part of it, this game every three or four days basically from. For a month, every Saturday, every Wednesday for a month. So you have three straight leagues cup games. Well, what a great chance to rotate in sort of like in a cup way. 3 or 4 guys per each game. Yes. You keep some of your main guys in there, but you rotate in some guys because you don't want to play a full reserve team. But you want to bring in a Caleb Swan. You want to bring in, bring off the bench of Slade Starnes. You want to start maybe a Lawless Abubakar for the first game all year. He hasn't played more than like four minutes all year. Maybe get him a few minutes because you might need him coming up in this load, right? Some rotation like that. Maybe. Maybe don't start both Musa and Farrington again. Like one play half of a game, the other play the other half of a game. You know, try, try some Sam Sarver, you know, get some Ren Binyamin in there from various guys. Let Nolan play a bunch because Nolan is now suspended for the next league game which is against Austin on the 16th because of a yellow card. So let Nolan play all three games. He's young, he's fine. He'll get a break after that, you know. So I think that's how you go about it. Little rotation, a little light rotation. Play some of the young kids, you know, try to win of course, but don't, don't go like first 11 hard every game. [00:59:45] Speaker B: Chase bonus payments by giving Benji Flowers some minutes in a senior team. [00:59:50] Speaker A: Benji Flowers is not on the 30 man roster for this. There are some kids, there are, there are a couple kids that are on the 30 man roster, but it's not him, it's Slade who's Their homegrown out of college draft pick. It's. It's Caleb Swan. It's Josh Torcato who's at the U20 World Cup. Right. Not World Cup. You sworn to concaf Championship. [01:00:13] Speaker B: Was the roster, was the roster turned in before the Flowers deal got announced? [01:00:17] Speaker A: I have no idea when they turned it in. All I know is they announced it today and Daniel is on there. So it may be that it was either turned in early. [01:00:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:25] Speaker A: Or you have to have three keepers or maybe you're just being really optimistic. But Daniel's on there, but Holstead's on there. So they got him in. You know, I think you start him in there, see how that works. Enzo Newman will play probably because he's a, he has a weird roster status where he can't play for FC Dallas in league games. This year he can only play in cup games. So you bring him up from North Texas, let him play, you know, that kind of stuff. [01:00:46] Speaker B: So is this is where I wonder and this is where I'm going to show my ass in terms of just understanding the reality of the situation. So this is a ridiculous comparison. But sit with me for a second. Just stick with me. Manchester United of all teams has a young 15 year old player. His name is JJ Gabriel. Kid is an absolute baller. He's been banging in goals for the their younger teams for a while now, but they've added him to the senior roster this year and he's traveling with them in these preseason games and he actually played for a little bit in the Atletico Madrid friendly the other day. And a lot of it is just hype machine growth stuff because everybody is really, really excited about this 15 year old kid. He's like the youngest kid ever to play or in the last however many years for a team known for its academy and always having an academy player in their 18 every game for running for like 1000 plus games or whatever. And so I just wonder if the Burn or being short sighted and not capitalizing on all the hype and promotion and coverage that they garnered now what feels like a month ago, three weeks ago, when the Chelsea Benji Flowers homegrown signing took place, like why wouldn't you put him in the 18 just to kind of grow the hype around the kid and, and get some payoff on that. Especially if you're not taking the tournament all that seriously. I don't know, it just seems to me like it feels like there's an opportunity to maximize the value out of something that just kind of, you know, You've either, you know, however it turned out, but. You see what I'm saying. [01:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, the only thing I can think of is logistical reasons. And it's like, you know, it just may be a question of when he signed versus when the roster was due. Yeah. But it could be one of those cases where there are rules around some. Sometimes when they announce a contract, it's not when it's actually triggered. I know, I know it sounds weird, but like if you remember when Chris Richards signed his contract with SC Dallas for six months, he's just sat around, they couldn't activate him on the roster. [01:03:07] Speaker B: Okay. [01:03:09] Speaker A: So like, maybe it's something like that. But although I'm a letter a lot less likely to think of that because of the way that they now have these flexible home runs where you, you can carry four or five, six homegrowns that aren't on your first team roster, which is the case. They have like five guys that aren't on this roster on the MLS roster that are homegrowns with SC Dallas. Not hybrid deals. [01:03:30] Speaker B: Right. [01:03:30] Speaker A: This is a bit in the weeds. So I, I think it just comes down to the idea that like he would play a lot more in North Texas. Just leave him here and let him play. Play 6 North Texas games is all I can think of because I know what you mean about the splash or whatever, but probably just that. Probably just like he'll play more here. [01:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And. And it's also possible he's just clearly not even close to ready for an MLS level or leagues cup level kind of appearance. You know, I have no idea how well he's playing for North Texas. He may be their best player. He may stink, I have no idea. But there's just so much, there was so much interesting. I mean the day that that deal got announced, I was shocked how many people contacted me and asked me about it because they had seen it in the news. Yeah, who's this kid? Why isn't he playing for the senior team? And I'm like, well, because he just turned 15. He doesn't even have a driver's license for goodness. [01:04:25] Speaker A: I think if you put him in an MLS game, it would be clearly obvious that he was 15. I'm sure he would. Yeah, he's, he's. Well, he's one of the best prospects FC Dallas has had in a long time. This isn't Pele in the World cup at 16. [01:04:37] Speaker B: Right. [01:04:37] Speaker A: You know what I mean? This is not, this is not a once in a hundred years player. This is a once in 10 years player. You know this is best since Pepe, best since Wesson McKen. You know he's got that level of potential. Weston McKinney wasn't in the first team when he was 15. Pepe wasn't in the first team when he was 15. Pepe was in the North Texas first team 15. Not. Well no he wasn't. He was in the U17 team at 15. He didn't make his debut with the North Texas I think until he was 17. So like you can be a really, really talented player and and be a guy to be super excited about and still not say put him out there at 15 with the first team. Now that being said, I bet you by the end of the year that he comes off the bench for FC Dallas almost just for that reason, that publicity reason that like let's just throw him in there just for 10 seconds and see what happens or 10 minutes or whatever is. But when you have a limited 30 man roster and like you have other prospects you're still trying to develop like imagine what happens with Sam Sarver if you go. If he shows up at a game and Flowers is in ahead of him. [01:05:36] Speaker B: I'm so glad you brought up Sam Server that at least me to a question I wanted to ask you earlier and forgot but let's finish this first. Sorry. [01:05:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I just think you got other guys that are ahead of Flowers in terms of like that could use this league's cup. Your, your two first round draft picks, Ricky Lewis and Nick Simmons are much more ready to play at this level and can use some of this game time. Sam Sarver could use some of this game time. Josh Torcato could use some of this game time. I mean they got lots of guys [01:05:59] Speaker B: to develop and this is where I get frustrated with the fact that I really want the Burn to do things to help grow interest and get people excited while at the same time appreciating the fact that they understand their roster and situation way better than I do and and are just doing quote unquote the right thing. But I also want people to be excited about the team and the fact that they do grow talent good enough that Chelsea wants to give them a bunch of money for them. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And to the best of their ability they're hyping Flowers. But the, the Hunts and the organization don't really do like uber hype. They don't do like, they don't do like we're starting a 15 year old just cuz kind of thing. I mean remember how excited and Hyped they were at Pepe who was like 17, 18, scoring all those goals. I mean, they'll be that way when Flowers gets there year. [01:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:43] Speaker A: You know, once he's ready, I mean at 18, he's going to get. Get him 10 million bucks and go to Chelsea. Unless Chelsea backs out, of course. You know, So I think there's gonna be plenty of hype around this kid. I think he will play this year. I just think it's not a big deal. They left him out of leagues cup. There's no reason to drag him down to Felucca. You know, it's like I don't and the game out of Mansfield, like the other games on the road, who cares? No one's going to see him. So that would be the one game at home. No one in Mansfield knows who that guy is. It's fine. Yeah, save them for your first home game back in September. We're back here. We're back home. It's Flowers. We got flowers for everybody. [01:07:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, 100%. And again, I'm not. You know, it was just, it was. I. It only came up in my head because I saw the, the JJ situation with Manchester United and the fact that it's. I mean, they're similar, but different situations. I mean, JJ United is a farther ahead than Benji is, but hype wise, it's similar, similar concepts. [01:07:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I think between the young guys that you have already have enough of the need playing time and guys like Anderson, Julio or Santiago Moreno, who you need to prove something here as the season's running out. Maybe some of those guys need to play. You know, I mean, there's some other things that need to be happening here because like you have a month and a half to do something in the window. And some of those guys are maybe just hypothetically you can end alone. You got a guy who's about to be out of contract. You could just eat whatever's left of him, you know, like those are some spots. [01:08:14] Speaker B: Right. [01:08:15] Speaker A: I mean. [01:08:15] Speaker B: So you've now said the two pieces to the question I wanted to ask earlier, which is what the F is going on with Sam Sarver and Anderson. Like, why is one playing and one not? Because one is going out on the field and absolutely essing the bad and the other one is the one that you feel like could really help this team in those specific scenarios. [01:08:38] Speaker A: Well, that's a case of Anderson. Julio is a proven commodity. He is making $800,000. It's like he hasn't played but like 20 minutes all year. If you can get him healthy, can he actually contribute to you making a deep run? Because like, you don't look at Sam Sarver and go, that dude can help us make a deep run. Sam Saver is still a player that's sort of developing and coming into his own at the MLS level. Whereas Anderson Julio contract running out. You know, let's see what you got, dude, or else where you're going to be sitting on the bench, the same cyber's playing. [01:09:08] Speaker B: I'm just saying, Buzz grade, the Anderson Julio signing. [01:09:14] Speaker A: It is not worked out. [01:09:16] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:09:16] Speaker A: He's been heard a lot. Yeah, it's been terrible. But that's the thing too. Like your owner or your TD might be down there going, like, we've been paying this guy a million six over two seasons. He's back healthy. Put him out there. Let's see if he actually has anything, you know, I mean, like, we paid a lot of money for him. Let's go. [01:09:30] Speaker B: How many times do that before you finally give up the fact that he just doesn't have it anymore? [01:09:35] Speaker A: A couple. You give him a couple of league [01:09:36] Speaker B: games, whatever it is. [01:09:37] Speaker A: So the league's cup is for, man, Throw them out there, see what happens. [01:09:40] Speaker B: Well, could we have saved it for the leagues cup and let somebody else try to actually gather points in games that matter to us in San Diego and la? [01:09:48] Speaker A: Well, I don't know the same server is necessarily going to, you know, break those for you, but you know, there is a school thought that maybe it would have been a better choice. [01:09:55] Speaker B: I will also point out Sam Sarver has done more in goal scoring, scoring for this team than Anderson Julio has of late. [01:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. That's for sure too. That's a good question. You know, at the end of the day, sometimes like a veteran that get. Gets paid a lot of money, gets opportunities because of your locker room. [01:10:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:11] Speaker A: Like, you can't have Anderson Julio tearing apart your locker room because he's mad that you didn't even give him a shot at all. He's like, dude, I'm. I deserve a shot. You know, I mean, I'm a proven guy. I'm not some chump, you know, that's it matters. It does matter. You know, look how long they. Even when they were ready to get little Lucho Costa, they still remember they subbed him back into that next game and they ended up losing. You remember that? And they're like, they were like, okay, that was it. That was the last try. It's, you know, this is sort of it, like you look at these guys coming in that are getting these chances, why are they playing that guy? Well, they see what you see, right? I would love to find out, I [01:10:45] Speaker B: would love to find out that Anderson Julio is that competitive. [01:10:50] Speaker A: Well, at the end of the game he was yelling at people, his teammates. At the end of the last game, the gossip game, I saw it in the post game show they were showing him and he was doing some pointing yell at him and Uruguay were having a very intense conversation. So you know, I walked all the way over there. [01:11:05] Speaker B: You should have passed it to me where I walked to. [01:11:07] Speaker A: I'm not, I'm not privy to those locker rooms. I'm gonna say I never have, man. Nobody but the team is privy to that level of locker room. Yeah, but like, like, you know, it's not surprising when a higher paid veteran player comes back that they give him an opportunity. You know, that's how it works. [01:11:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I, you know we, we knew this second half of the season for the Burn was always going to be a beating just because of the schedule, the self inflicted schedule. I just want to remind everybody that and I do look forward to the middle of September when they're playing games in the completely wheels off Toyota stadium which looks like a bald person without his hairpiece on. It's like without the, the west. I mean I, I, I haven't seen it in person yet but I can't wait to experience that wheels offness of that scene in the stadium. [01:11:59] Speaker A: And the whole stage is gone. The whole upper Toyota thing is gone. Yeah, that thing is gone. [01:12:05] Speaker B: Well, the, the fact that the sun's going down and everybody's going to be sitting on the east side looking west and how that's all going to work and I, you know, I, man that's going to be so crazy. And so the rest of the season I think is going to be a lot of this, man. I don't, I, you know, we'll see. [01:12:23] Speaker A: I mean that's why I think that the least cup for them is going to be basically a testing ground. [01:12:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. [01:12:29] Speaker A: And then like because it's more important to say like okay, who can actually help him us out of the back of leagues cup? Who can I actually count on? You know and he used a couple of games and he's going to have a couple more here and I think then that'll be like, then you'll see the roster shortened I think coming out of leagues cup. [01:12:44] Speaker B: Well, I hope everybody gets to rush down to Mansfield for the game. I think it kicks off at 6:30. It's a what time? No, 7:30. It is at 7:30. 7:30, yeah. So everybody who lives down in that neck of the woods, head on out, lovely new stadium and enjoy yourself some leagues cup action. All right, before we go, we do need to talk about Pegasus. [01:13:10] Speaker A: Yep. [01:13:11] Speaker B: Dallas, Trinity, Athletical. [01:13:13] Speaker A: Pegasus. Yeah. So since. Since we last did a podcast, they've announced three new players. One of them we knew about, and that's Nico Purcell, who's from a saddle range. Goalkeeper. U23 goalkeeper. First time ever. They actually have two legit first team goalkeepers. [01:13:32] Speaker B: She alone or she's straight out purchase? [01:13:34] Speaker A: She's alone. [01:13:34] Speaker B: Alone. [01:13:35] Speaker A: Alone. She was in the most recent U23 national team camp. She's that level of talent, solid up and coming young keeper. So they now have two legit number one keepers. A real keeper competition. That's good. The other player they added from Seattle and again, that's where Lee Nguyen was coaching. So these are guy ladies that he knows. And that's Sophia Sedeno. Now, Sophia played for Solar. She's a technical midfielder. Yeah, yeah, I think Irving is correct. Technical midfielder, links play, makes line splitting passes. I think she's more of a playmaker than an eight. She always wears number 10 for clubs like Solar and for some of her other pro teams she's played for, which is usually fairly indicative. The ladies aren't as ingrained with that kind of stuff, but the 10 is still the 10. You don't usually go for that number unless you think you're the baller. So that'll be interesting to see how she fits in the midfield. And they've also added another Princeton player on loan from Utah Royals. That's Ari. Aria Nagai. I may be getting that wrong. Apologize, young lady, if I mispronounce her name. Another midfielder. So for Princeton. So they're adding pieces. They have two scrimmages this week. Dennis will have more on those as the scrimmages go forward. And we're also efforting a special little something for the podcast with them. And if it comes off, you guys will all see that happening and it's a little something extra for everybody. But that's it. They haven't played since we last did a podcast. They just got added a couple players and they have two more scrunches this week. And then their home opener is on the 12th. No, 15th. Excuse me, not this weekend, but the weekend after. [01:15:04] Speaker B: And aren't they doing new, new kits this year? [01:15:09] Speaker A: That's what the word is. We have not seen anything yet. But that's the rumor that they're doing new kits. So I've asked around a little bit and that's what we hear. But we'll see what happens. They're still with Nike, so, you know, anything they would have lined up would have been lined up pre Athletico in terms of that, you know, so I don't know where that is. [01:15:25] Speaker B: A whole bunch of them were at the Chicharito event on Friday. I mean, like the whole. Practically the whole team was there for the Chicharito event. So that was kind of. That was kind of cool. [01:15:36] Speaker A: My favorite thing about the first scrimmage was that they wore their all black training kits and still kept mismatched white socks with it. So fired up for that. That's my favorite thing. Mismatch songs. So we, We'll. We'll see. And the, the elephant in the room, of course, is Lexi Mimo. You know, again, highest paid player in the league. You know, let's see how that. Whether Lean Wing can salvage that relationship having her gotten benched at the end of the last run by the last coach. [01:16:00] Speaker B: So I met a for Trinity at the event and I said, how's Lexi? She goes, oh, she's great. She's doing good. She's 100%. [01:16:08] Speaker A: So, okay, let's go. That sounds good. I think. I don't know that it's physicality that was holding her, physicalness that was holding her back. I think it's something else. But it could be the team. [01:16:18] Speaker B: Somebody to pass through the ball. [01:16:19] Speaker A: Could be somebody to pass through the ball, could be the coach, could be the system, whatever it was. We'll see if they can fix it because that's a really, really good player if they can get it fixed. [01:16:28] Speaker B: So, yeah, that would be a. That would be a big boost. [01:16:31] Speaker A: It's very possible that she's just better than this level of play and just can't do anything without any help. That could be it too. You stick her in WSL team, she might look great and hard to say sometimes. [01:16:41] Speaker B: We were talking about the new Mansfield Stadium. That's where North Texas plays its soccer. But they did not play there this weekend. Right. They were in California for. [01:16:52] Speaker A: That is a good question. Where they were. [01:16:54] Speaker B: That game wasn't here in California. Yeah, I don't think it was here. [01:16:58] Speaker A: They got trashed, so let's hope it wasn't here. Six one was the. Was the beating they took of the. Who. Aventure County. Yep. Which is Galaxy 2's team. Listen, the thing is, is their midfield is Destroyed. It's gutted. I mean, they still have a D N, but he plays more as a forward right now. But they don't have Swan anymore. Garcia's hurt. They. Kakush is just coming back from injury. They're using a center back as a six. Marlon Lena starting. You know, they got three or four other midfielders that are good workman, like guys that are hurt. I was like, they just got nobody left in the middle and they're getting run over in midfield. So. So they're in bad shape. They're way down in the bottom of the standings. It might be a really tough bag end of the year. You know, their best player, Swan is with FCD all the time now. Tado might be with FCD a fair amount more. Quill the other day was talking about how Dado's moved into the rotation with them. So that's telling. Alvaro Agusto goes down there and plays like ass. Slade Stars is trying to hold it all together, but is not doing. Can't do it by himself. You know, Enzo Newman some days looks good, sometimes doesn't. So it's. It's not a good situation down there right now with the performances and certainly in the midfield, it's a mess. [01:18:08] Speaker B: Will Collode get asked to go play games down there just to give him time. So he's. [01:18:14] Speaker A: He's already proven himself way past the level of that team. You know, I. There was a little bit of chatter and rumor that they might. That FC Dallas might. Was potentially exploring loaning him out to let him play like the back end of this season with somebody else. Like get him a little fresh air, you know, let him clean it on his head a little bit. But then Daniel got hurt, so now he's basically stuck here on the bench behind Sara. So. But you know, Quill is a uber training competitive kind of guy. So if Sara doesn't cut it, they'll go back to code. You know, they have enough faith in him. Like they tried to upgrade that spot. That doesn't mean they hate Collodi. I still think the guy's a good keeper. They're trying to record, do a reclamation project on him. [01:18:52] Speaker B: Okay. [01:18:53] Speaker A: Get his mind right, get him back going because he played some ball last year for sure. [01:18:57] Speaker B: One hundo. Okay. Well, Buzz, I. I'm going to ask you a question that I suspect many of the curious are interested to understand because people know you live up in the Pacific Northwest. Now you live in Spokane. Are you safe? Are you well, Are you in danger of burning your house? [01:19:15] Speaker A: Burning I'm not in danger of my house burning down because I live on the south side of town and the fires are on the north side of town and the wind is coming from the south to the north. [01:19:23] Speaker B: Okay. [01:19:23] Speaker A: So like I'm, I'm well in the clear, but Spokane is under a giant smoke filled haze of gloom. It looks like post apocalypse la. Like the Blade Runners. Looks like Blade Runner with that orange scene. Yeah. So. And you can you probably. You'll tell. I will edit this out of the show, but you will tell by how much I'm hacking and coughing that like everyone's. The air quality here right now is absolutely abysmal. It's like the, the on Tuesday it's going to be at like 300%, which is the maroon like don't go outside or you'll die level of bad. So it's not good here right now in terms of breathability, which is not good for my hacking and wheezing. [01:19:58] Speaker B: But is there a big, is there a big weather front blowing in with a bunch of rain that's supposed to [01:20:03] Speaker A: help out here soon, I think, but that's probably not till sort of midweek, I think. Hopefully. Yes, hopefully it comes. We could use the wind. The wind would get going, which is not good for the spread of the fire. But hopefully they've got it put out enough because they need to blow off all this. We were already getting all the Canadian smoke and now we're just have fires right on top of us. So it's, it's pretty nasty out there. [01:20:21] Speaker B: Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Please stay safe. [01:20:24] Speaker A: I feel like I'm the guy in the, in the meme who's sitting in his kitchen goes this is fine. And the whole thing's on fire. That's what it's like. It's fine. I'm fine. [01:20:32] Speaker B: You can always come back here. [01:20:34] Speaker A: You know, I went to the lake. That was why I could just jump in the water if I needed to. [01:20:37] Speaker B: Is the lake. How far away is the lake? [01:20:40] Speaker A: 45 minutes. [01:20:40] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [01:20:41] Speaker A: So. All right. There was still smoky there, but at least it wasn't in danger of fire. [01:20:44] Speaker B: Yeah, at least you got watered or [01:20:46] Speaker A: jumped out water to jump. Yeah, no pool. Got a pond out back. [01:20:51] Speaker B: Very good. Well, thanks for letting me come back for one week. I'll be back in a few weeks. [01:20:55] Speaker A: I got some other let you come back. I was begging you to come back. [01:20:59] Speaker B: No, I was begging you. [01:21:01] Speaker A: Yeah, you dipped your toe in for a week and then you'll be out a couple more and then you'll be back. [01:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll. I'll reappear eventually. Very good. All right, well, got anything else you want to discuss before we we've butchered an hour and a half of soccer talking? [01:21:16] Speaker A: Well, just apparently Larry Berg, the LAFC co owner, has been tapped to be the new commissioner of the league. [01:21:21] Speaker B: The white smoke came out of the chimney. [01:21:23] Speaker A: I know nothing about the dude, except that as the leader or one of the owners of lafc, he obviously is among the take the reins off crowd. [01:21:31] Speaker B: Yes, he is. [01:21:32] Speaker A: That. That means two things. One, the league could actually vault up in terms of talent and money span. It also may mean that FC Dallas falls further and further behind. [01:21:40] Speaker B: Yeah, so here I think that's an interesting question because, you know, I read today somebody's talking about signing Romelu Lukaku. [01:21:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And who is that? Atlanta. [01:21:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And then we've obviously had the Levandowski signing and the Casamiro sign. Did you see Casamiro's own goal this week, Weekend? [01:21:58] Speaker A: I did not, no. [01:22:00] Speaker B: He turned the ball over at midfield and then tracked back to try to recover and slid to knock the shot out and knocked it into his own goal. And I love Case Amaro, but that's awesome. Yeah, but you know, we've just. And I'm trying to think of all the other guys that have been signed in the league of late, you know, now Kevin De Bruyne is on a list. I've seen a couple of places and just. Yeah, and I. And I feel like we're getting back into the retirement league thing again. And it does beg the question if they take the reins off, is that at a, at a point where it's more of those types of players than the Petter Musa type of player. And I think we all know what it needs to be to really make the league better. Not in terms of ticket sales, but in quality of play on the field. [01:22:51] Speaker A: I think it'll be both. I think you'll get more of those retiring guys because it'll become a little more viable in terms of particularly guys that still have something. You'll be able to go up and get a guy who's leaving Manchester United, Bayern Munich, rather than having to wait for a guy to leave Club Bruce. Right. So you can get a little bit of a higher grade of retirement guy. You'll also get a little bit more prime career guy. It'll be a step in the right direction in that sense, you know, and for me, like a lot of it depends on who it is. Like if you were to say to me, like, if you want to open the reigns up and now the Hunts are going to go get Rodri. Oh, yeah, man, I'm in. Let's go. You know, so it's always going to depend on the player and the club and who, who it is and how much you're getting paid and all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, it'll still be. As long as Messi's still playing. [01:23:33] Speaker B: Rodri's the most ridiculous example you could have possibly used, Buzz. [01:23:36] Speaker A: I know, but that's the player I would most ridiculously want the Hunts to sign. That's the player that, like, is the complete. Like, there's no way in hell it would ever happen. And that's why I wanted to happen so much, because that's the, that's the player they're missing is not, I mean, not him, but you know him. So, yeah, that's the guy. [01:23:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I, I, you know, everybody's harping on MLS making these moves and changing their rules and all that stuff, and I'm excited for it. I just, I'm, I'm curious if it's going to end up being the be careful what you wish for situation. [01:24:09] Speaker A: Yep. This is exactly what the Hunts have been tapping the brakes on the whole. [01:24:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:14] Speaker A: So it'll be from an outsider. Like, I have no investment in MLS, Major League Soccer, other than my personal entertainment. And 30 years of watching it, you know, what is going to happen? Like, does it become the North American Soccer League where one or two teams become insanely good and just smash everybody else? That everybody else sucks. Is that what happens? Or is there enough balance? Is there enough innate fandom available that everyone else can make enough money to keep this thing viable with there being teams that are not going to be in that into the pool? I mean, you're going to end up with teams with like Inter Miami, who's going to go out and get multiple guys that cost 20, 30, $40 million. You know, they're gonna. Because the DP rule still will exist. [01:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially if they. Did you see the. Was it somebody. Did somebody suggest. Was it Doyle that suggested dps in this new structure should be sellable? So Dallas. So the Dallas. So, yeah, I think it was. Doyle suggested this. So the idea is if Miami wants to go get 11 DPS, they could buy, you know, however many DPS they wanted to from other clubs. [01:25:25] Speaker A: Oh, transfer inside the league. [01:25:27] Speaker B: Yes. Wow. Like the slot, not the player, the DP designation. So if you're, if every team trade internationals. [01:25:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:25:35] Speaker B: So if you get four DPS or two or whatever the number is, you could sell one or two or whatever to other teams in the league. And that way ambitious, quote unquote, the ambitious teams can load up on all these players and do within the rules and then you've got all your chum at the bottom. And I, my initial reaction is, oh yeah, that's a kick ass idea. And then I thought, oh no, good lord, no. That's the thing that would end up suffocating this. [01:26:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Because LAFC and Miami would have six DPs each and Colorado would have zero. And like, because you know that they would do that, they would sell their DPs. [01:26:09] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's, it's one of those things that I get very frustrated by. You know, we're about, you know, the government's trying to relive 1973 all over again and enact the full time daylight savings time rule. And, and nobody seems to remember we actually did that once before and it was so hated they killed it in nine months because it was such a terrible idea. And I also feel like there's enough people who are now fans of the league that weren't alive back in the 70s and 80s and don't remember the disaster of the NASL. [01:26:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And every, every time somebody tries, comes at me with like, they should open up and spend whatever they want. They should have pro l. I go, oh, you weren't alive in the 70s. Like I know right away that that's what that means. Like, you don't remember the North American Cycles League or the lack of any league at all. You know, I'm not saying that I'm not quite on the hunt level, but I'm definitely one that's like, man, I don't know, like, you better have really good idea about what the revenue is going to look like if you're going to do this. Like, you know, like the slow growth of this league is what made it happen. It's, you know, the, the single entity is what made it happen. If you let people go bonkers, you could kill the thing. Still, it's not, I mean, I don't even know if everybody in the league makes money yet. I can't tell you that they do. [01:27:22] Speaker B: Oh, I, yeah, I, until they get the new TV deal, all bets are off at this point and I, and I will be shocked that they make any significant changes in spending in this league until they have an idea of what the grab what they have a really solid grasp on their next TV deal. [01:27:38] Speaker A: Did you see the bonker numbers that the. On espn. The MLS on ESPN versus even Liga, not La Liga on espn. Like, MLS was doing, like, three or four times his numbers. It's crazy. And, yeah, they don't get any money. It's like. It's nuts. [01:27:52] Speaker B: Well, that's why they're waiting for the next deal. We'll see how it all plays out. Okay. Well, thanks again, Buzz, for letting me do this. That's nice. [01:27:59] Speaker A: Hey, man, I'm super excited you're back. It's awesome. [01:28:01] Speaker B: Well, just this one week. I'll be back a little while later on after that. [01:28:05] Speaker A: Just a taste. Yeah. First one's free, then you got to pay. [01:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I'm going to drug deal you to death. [01:28:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:12] Speaker B: All right, Very good. Well, thank you again. As I said, and since there's nobody else to thank, I will thank the curious for listening. And Buzz and somebody will be back next week on the following episode of Third Degree, the podcast. [01:28:27] Speaker A: Welcome back, Peter. [01:28:28] Speaker B: Get well, Dan. The Third Degree podcast. Third Degree. The Third Degree Podcast. Third Degree. The Third degree Never. Get Third Degree. [01:28:43] Speaker A: The Third Degree Never. [01:29:06] Speaker B: Sam.