3rd Degree the Podcast #373

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Third degree the third degree. Ned podcast. Third degree the third degree N podcast. Third degree the third degree N podcast. Third degree the third degree. Well, hello there, DFW soccer. Curious. Welcome back to another episode. Third degree, the podcast. A triple victory pod. Triple Hip hip hoorays all the way around. I'm here. Dennis is here. Howdy, Dennis. [00:00:42] Speaker B: Hey, hey, hey. [00:00:44] Speaker A: And all the way from the Pacific Northwest where It's probably like 55 in FU weather. [00:00:49] Speaker B: I'm tired of hearing about that already. [00:00:50] Speaker A: It's Buzz Carrick. Howdy, Buzz. [00:00:53] Speaker C: Hey. It's actually 63, but I have on a sweater, you know, so I had to put on some warm socks. [00:00:58] Speaker A: You do have like a Henley on or something, which is off. I'm in my office sweating. [00:01:04] Speaker C: Look how old, how awesome this sweater is. I've had this since I was in college. So good. [00:01:10] Speaker A: The stories that sweater could tell. [00:01:11] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. [00:01:13] Speaker A: The hours of World of Warcraft at 3:00am Yeah, [00:01:18] Speaker C: 3:00am that's early night. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Fair enough. [00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah, he's on west coast. [00:01:23] Speaker A: All right. [00:01:23] Speaker C: Yeah, [00:01:26] Speaker A: well, like I said, three victories all the way across. And all of them, you know, I'm sure they all come with their own story and color and everything. We'll get in that here in a little bit. Let's start with the football club. Dallas. Let's get the big elephant out of the way. Elephant in the room out of the way first. Which is the status of one Petter Musa. Now, I didn't go to the game. I can't yet. The stairhold stair thing probably isn't good for my current status, but I watched the game and despite having seen people mention an injury to his shoulder at the end of the game, when I watched it, I turned the game off and had totally forgotten about it. I didn't even see anything happen. There was no indication on the broadcast when I clicked off that something was wrong. And so Buzz, Dennis, anybody got an update on the moose? [00:02:22] Speaker C: An update? No, because this is the most top secret club in the history of the world in terms of not letting injuries happen or get out. Not, sorry, not happen. Get out. You know, I imagine that there'll be some level of official status that'll be in the injury report that'll come out the day before the game where that's when they're required to put something out. It'll probably say upper body questionable is what I'm gonna guess. Maybe we'll get an official out for one game or two. Possibly. I mean, I. I'm not too worried about it. You know, know, not being a doctor, it have him on the PK when he landed on his shoulder, basically. And then, you know, when he's taking the pk, he's holding that ball with his left arm. It's his left shoulder holding the ball in his left arm. And he doesn't act like it really hurts very much. And then there's a picture I have of one of the trainers, like, shoving on his collar and his shoulder, and he's not even flinching, you know, after the game, he's walking off his grimace and they send him to get some scans. So, like, the fact that he kept playing says to me, like, it's not that bad. It's not broken or something. So that's our. My unofficial diagnosis. I'm gonna guess, you know, a week, something just to be careful, maybe, or maybe a little bit more than that. We'll. We'll see. The club probably will never put out a 100 official, like, timeline. We're probably just gonna be left guessing with some sort of upper body injury out for maybe a game or two, and then a questionable after that. I guess something like that. So that's all horrible reporting because we have no idea what really is going on. This is just pure guessing on our parts. Having seen a lot of soccer injur [00:03:49] Speaker A: speculation with Buzz Carrick. Dennis, you were there. Did you hear anything after the game? [00:03:54] Speaker B: Didn't hear anything, but I can tell you he was the first one off the field at the final whistle in the tunnel before anybody else, any of the trainers or any of the coaching staff or anybody hit the tunnel. He was right off. And the man of the match, big, big black cowboy hat was given to Kaik. It was one goal versus Moose's. Two goals and an assist [00:04:15] Speaker A: did not deserve the man of the match. [00:04:16] Speaker B: Well, he got it because Musa wasn't out there to get it, so. [00:04:19] Speaker C: To get the photos. Y. No, it was Musa. That's who it should have been. [00:04:23] Speaker A: Can't possibly be bad because the guy took a. A powerful penalty. And I'm thinking if you blew your shoulder out, you broke a collarbone, you sprained your. You did something serious to your shoulder joint, something like that. You're not taking a pk. I mean, well, it's. [00:04:39] Speaker B: It's football. We don't need a shoulder. Just tape it up. [00:04:42] Speaker C: You've seen guys break those or separate them, and they can barely move without, you know, screaming in agony. And he's up and playing the rest of the game. So, like, I'm not. I'm not super worried about it. But, you know, I. We had. He does have the Croatia thing coming up, the call of the Nations League, so he's maybe a little concerned about that possibly. Like, they'll. They'll. They won't be horrible about it now. Peter yelled at me. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Hold on, hold on, hold on. You. You kind of just like lightly dusted over that. But that was the news today, is that Croatia put out its roster for the September. October. Don't forget this FIFA window in September. October is essentially two international windows glued together. So it's a longer window than normal than you typically, and it will go over two weekends instead of two weeks instead of one week. And so they've got four games, I think, lined up in that window that he is on the initial roster for. So to buzz to your point, is he worried about that call up? Does he want to make sure he's healthy for it, et cetera, et cetera? [00:05:42] Speaker C: Well, somebody asked me if him just being on there, man, he was okay. And I was like, no, that would have been turned in, you know, ahead of time. And if they replace him, you know, then you'll be worried because that is a. Like, at the end of the month and into October, their group is Spain, Chechia and England. That's a tough crowd. That's a tough group. Luca Modder is still on the roster. That's amazing. But Musa will want to play in that, so they'll be a little bit cautious about that whole thing. And obviously that's the red flag. If, If Croatia drops him and brings somebody else in. You know, for games that are three or four weeks away, then you would. Might be maybe a little concerned as a fan that there might be something really wrong. But you know that for Dallas's sake, Musa would only miss the LAFC game. That's the only one in that window that Dallas has. So just a minor hit there. I mean, for the. Against a really, really good team. So. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Versus whatever he's. He's going to miss, naturally, over the course of the next week or two or three. [00:06:36] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I was speaking of just the call up. He would just miss the LAFC game. And they'll probably miss some guys, too, because they have people that will be playing in those same window. You know, MLS gives teams the chance to not play during windows, and mostly they don't if they can't, but they eventually have to play one or two. And this is obviously one of those cases. And. And Peter, you yelled at me after the game because the team said that Musa was Going to get a scan. And I said, that was good. And you were like, why is that good? Well, no, it's good that they're being proactive and being like, let's go get it checked out and make sure everything's okay. Okay, good. That's what you're supposed to do. That's what I would not want to hear was like, now we just waited till Monday to see what was going on. You know, that's what I don't want to hear. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Buzz, I just wanted to, you know, you also. I thought you had tweeted out after the game about how many goals they've got up in the last month or so. And I was like, dude, can I just snort a home win for once and not worry about the bad thing? Only to realize that you tweeted that out after they were down to nothing, which. Yes, here we are once again on the heels of a good Dallas FC Dallas result. [00:07:40] Speaker C: And. [00:07:40] Speaker A: And I feel very conflicted because against the worst team, almost the worst team in MLS history, is. [00:07:46] Speaker C: Is. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Is Kansas City still floating around in that ether? [00:07:49] Speaker B: They are headed that way. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Historically bad. Goodness gracious. You're home for the first time in. In, you know, in a school year, and I don't know, that first 20 minutes was about the worst thing I could possibly imagine. And you still had to kind of eke out and get a very, very dodgy, hairy see here call to give you the penalty kick to win the game. [00:08:13] Speaker C: Yeah. If you go back four games, Dallas has given up 14 goals over those four games. That's brutal. And if you go all the way back to the Toluca game, it's 18 goals in six games that they've given up. And. And just in leagues play, that's. It's something like a. Between a quarter or a third of all the goals they've given up on the year have come in the last four games, basically. So they're bleeding goals at a incredible rate, except that since the start of the league's cup, they're five, two and one. They got two losses. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:45] Speaker C: Square this with wins. That's the thing. Well, this is my current operating theory, and I have not spent, you know, 10 hours digging into stack. [00:08:53] Speaker A: I feel like we need, like, a sounder for this. [00:08:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:56] Speaker A: Buzz's operating theory. Yeah. [00:08:58] Speaker C: Well, my eye test tells me that starting in the Toluca game and since the Saluca game, they have attempted to play more soccer. The wing backs are getting a little higher. They're trying to build out more and pass out more. They're. They're not playing this back five solid tied across the back. They're playing more of a real three and it's exposing them and it's leaving gaps in the back and that's why they're giving up goals. But they're doing that in order to create more offense and that's working. And so right now, basically from the Toluca game till now, they're just attending to outscore everybody. And they are. [00:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah, but can I, can I rebut that observation? [00:09:37] Speaker C: Sure. [00:09:37] Speaker A: Because my observation is. I agree with you. They do appear to be trying to build out from the back. They're awful at it, making news. [00:09:44] Speaker C: It's a terrible idea. [00:09:46] Speaker A: And by the way, is it just me or did Nolan Norris start as the center, center back and Ira Gede was out on the left? Well, I switched about 10 minutes into the game or 15 minutes into the game. [00:09:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I wrote about that in my prediction because I think they expected as I did that the Sporting has the fastest player in the league, Capata, I think his name is he play. Usually he plays on the right and they're expecting him to be on the right. And so I suggested in my preview that Nolan will be in the middle and then you could put Oz over there and that gives you a fast guy on the outside to be able to handle. If he flip flop, you would have more on the other side. So like I thought that was a really great idea. And then of course they got smoked twice. He was on the other side, number one. And then they got beat twice really quickly through some gaps. And so they, they. I think it was after the first goal, in fact, they actually switched him back and put Norris back out left. So. [00:10:34] Speaker A: Yeah, but my rebuttal to your observation is I agree with you. While they're trying to build out, where they're getting the goals from is playing direct, they finally just give up on the whole build out from the back, bypass the midfield, which doesn't work by the way, and they just repeatedly do everything they can to get the ball to Peter Musa. [00:10:52] Speaker C: I think the joke, which is probably [00:10:54] Speaker B: a really smart idea, give the ball to the big guy. [00:10:58] Speaker C: Yeah. When he's not, they might not be on. I think the, I think the theory, and again I'm sort of guessing is that they're trying to start their play, even the rapid advanced play from a higher position up the field. They're trying to get more a little hold of. Get a hold of the midfield because we've been talking about this for weeks now, they're getting destroyed in the midfield. They have been all year. And this game was horrifically poor by Romero, which we can also talk about. So, like, you know, I, I, that's what I see happening now. Why they're doing that is. Well, certainly not because we said that they stunk at the soccer part and needed to try and be better at it. That's not why. So they must see something in what they're doing that it makes sense for them to try this. Like I, I, at the end of the day, the record reflects that. It's working. So like, even though they're giving up a lot more goals, they're also scoring a lot more goals. And so I, I think you are right that it's coming from wider play. It's coming from fast break play. But some of that wider play, like the Bernie cross, the Bernie cross, that goes to Musa, right? Isn't that how he scores? I think it's Moose that scores with his goal off of Bernie. So like that's a Bernie overload and overlap like he's way up the field. So, like it, it's doing things, you know, so it's hard to complain about it, except that it's horrific. [00:12:09] Speaker A: I call that the job effect, by the way. We got to get into that. [00:12:12] Speaker C: Yeah, it's horrific defense that they're playing because it's exposing their back three, which is a bit of an undermanned back three. So, you know, you see Norris occasionally making mistakes. That's okay because he's what, 20, 21? That's okay. You can allow those mistakes happen. When you see the mistakes by a guy who's 33, that's a problem. Mistakes by 20 year olds is fine. So, you know, Shaq Moore is doing a good job, but he's still a little light as a pure center back if you're going to not have help on the outside if you can expose him. So. And then you have holding mids, the pair of them, the two guys in the pivot, neither one of them are doing a very good defensive job in front of there. So like it just leaves them really, really exposed. At the end of the day though, the record's good. So they keep winning harder. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Yeah, the whole thing feels like really weird. It's very conflicting because you want to celebrate a win. The fact that they've really struggled to, to get points at home, something that they failed to do properly at the, the first half of the season. But it also feels like it's, I don't know it just feels very, very fragile. Right, Dennis? [00:13:17] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, something that came up this week, somebody I was talking to at the game pointed this out and I think I saw read this in Discord this week, too. This club seems to play down to the level, play up to and down to the level of their opponent. When they're playing a quality opponent, they, they are balls to the wall. They're all out and they play to their level. And when they play a poorer club, they play down to their level. I think that's what we saw a lot of this weekend. [00:13:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I, you know, the bottom line is that Quill is coaching around their deficiencies. They have a deficiency in midfield. They have deficiencies in their ability to build out of the back. And they're winning despite of those things. They're winning. You know, those things aren't hurting them so much that they can't win. And that, that can leave you to deceiving conclusions. Like you could say, wow, this team's great. Look at the record. You can also say, well, it's not great. Look at how bad the defense is. Look at how importantly look they play. So it's a thin margin. It's razor thin in the sense that like one or two players, man, without them, you're going to be in big trouble, you know, without Musa, without Oz, you're screwed, you know, oh, 100%. [00:14:19] Speaker A: And it is also a bit of a function of where you are in your fandom of the club. If you're, if you're relatively new to this whole thing. This probably feels like a really good time to be a fan because the team, despite all the other stuff that we drill on about roster construction and quality of player and a bunch of dudes or whatever, they are fourth in the west and feeling pretty good about a playoff spot, et cetera, et cetera. But for those of us that have been doing this for a really long time, Dennis, I don't know if you qualify for this. [00:14:46] Speaker B: Definitely not. [00:14:47] Speaker A: You've, I don't think you've gotten your, your, your AARP card yet. This all feels very, very familiar for what is an obvious. Which is what we probably assume is going to happen once they get past the Mendoza Line of the playoffs and get back in it, which will end in some sort of heartbreak. [00:15:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I think the reason we talk about the negatives and talk about what we want to be better is because even though they're as good as we expected them to be, I have, remember, I, I predicted them to finish between 4th and 6th this is right where I thought this team would be. But the thing is, is that at some point you're going to run into really, really good teams that have a complete game and they're going to be able to pick you apart where you're deficient. And I will point to the Vancouver game, despite being an outlier with heavy rotation up there on turf. I get all that. But they're a much more complete team and that shows you as a great example that, yes, you're, you can beat most people on any given day because you can outscore whoever you're playing against. But then you run into a really, really good team and they're going to expose your weaknesses and you're going to get stomped. And that's what's going to happen in the playoffs. Yeah. [00:15:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And that really is reflective of, of the league in general in terms of. While it is a league made up of parity, there is at the end of the day, season in and season out, a quality difference between the team end up making it in the final four or generally into the MLS Cup. It's into MLS cup itself that, that really separate that quality from the rest of the league, which can be competitive unto, you know, amongst the, the. The. The mass grouping of everybody which Dallas finds itself. It. It finds itself in. Right. [00:16:19] Speaker C: Yeah, right. I mean, right now Dallas is in the top, you know, three or four of their division. And if you come, if you look at both divisions, there are several teams that are in each conference that are in this sort of ballpark. There are some of them, like Houston and Dallas, that have very small goal differential margins, which shows you that they are, on balance, not particularly dominant teams. They are teams that are winning and getting results, but there are areas in which they are weak because you can see by comparison that they're. They score just barely more than they give up. Then you look at teams like Vancouver, which has got a plus 28, LAFC a plus 14, Nashville plus 30, you know, Miami plus 50. These are the teams you're going to run into eventually that are good in both things. Good at offense and defense. They're good in all phases. They can play possession, they cannot play possession, whatever they need to do. And Dallas isn't there yet. So that's why we talk about these things, is we like, here's how we want them to get better. Some of these things you can coach up. Some of these things you can replace people, you know, and at some point you have to start talking about, you know, what makes you okay now versus what Makes you better next year. You know, how do you progress? Like if you, if you look at your team and think there's no chance that we're going to be able to win MLS cup because we're going to run into some of these buzz saw teams are going to kill us. You know, as a coach, you say to yourself, what do I need to do now so that next year this isn't a problem? What do I, who, who do I have that I can start exposing with? What is it? 10 games left? I think, give or take. So, you know, like, who do I want to get some minutes to? Who do I want to try and develop? Like, you know, and I'll use the Romero example, like right. To me right now, Romero is killing this team. That is a horrible performance by him. He had 37 touches. He's the pivot and he only had 37 touches and gets yanked at 62 minutes. He only had two defensive contributions. Two. He's the holding mid. He was 2 for 8 on ground duels. He had three guys dribble past him. He committed three fouls. That is just a worthless performance. Now, he has occasionally had a decent game, but this one in particular is horrible. If this game doesn't get you benched, I don't understand. Now maybe you don't like Capis, man, at some point play Holstad or, or better yet, play Binyamin, who's 20 at least. Like if a guy puts up those numbers and he's 20, maybe he's learning something and getting better. Ramiro's doing that at 33. He can't. [00:18:33] Speaker A: You mean playing the middle? [00:18:34] Speaker C: Yeah, he's a six. That's his nature. That was really supposed to be. [00:18:37] Speaker A: I've only seen him play the wing, so I just assumed he was outside. Outside player, I think. [00:18:41] Speaker C: I think they stick him out there to sort of limit his exposure, you know, the sidelines, your friend and all that stuff. But you know, he really is a 6, 8 kind of guy and is supposed to be a 6. A deep playmaking kind of player. You know, he's got deficiencies, he turns the ball over, but man, Ramiro doesn't do so you might as well play somebody else and see, I mean, if we need to go back to Ramiro at the end of the season, that's fine, but like, why not run some games? You know, like you're. You're in a good spot. Like may. Maybe you are so desperate to have a home game that you're. Now you're in a grind mode. And Ramiro play every game, but I don't understand it, because he doesn't make you better. He makes you worse. You know, maybe everybody else also makes you worse, but at least maybe somebody else would learn something. [00:19:17] Speaker B: The decline of Ramiro since the injury has just been incredible. It's just gotten so bad. I mean, he. He was poor before the injury, and, you know, we were talking about it then, but now it's just like it's worse and worse every game almost. And, you know, he. He. There's a bad play out of the back that set it up. But, you know, he gave up that second goal incredibly easily. He just got beat on that. [00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's just. That's just really poor on his part. And you could tell he wanted the earth to swallow him whole in that. [00:19:49] Speaker B: So did everybody else in the stadium. [00:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, I feel bad for the guy, but he was just too slow on it. Here's my. Here's my weird observation about this. It used to be, like, a year ago we talked about how Kaik was so wildly not good because he was so young and new at this, that he actually made Romero worse because Romero was having to do all this extra work to cover up for Kaik. And now I feel like it's kind of the opposite. I feel like Kaiki's Kaik game is suffering because now he's having to do a lot of extra covering up for Ramiro. And I still think Kaik is still way too young and too green and learning on the job and needs a veteran player next to him. Just one that's a little bit more mobile. But the two of them together, in a very weird way, his transposed from one bad kind of version of it into a completely equally bad version of the exact same thing. Just kind of an opposite. [00:20:49] Speaker C: Yeah. For some reason, Kaika has decided that he wants to be the eight that crashes into the box and pulls the trigger from zone 14 or whatever. Okay, that's fine. And that means Ramiro can just stay at home. But then Romero does that too. Romero pops up in the box. You're like, what are you doing? It's like, who's getting back? And so we're then all of a sudden k having to chase back 40 yards to try and recover and get back into that space. You know, it's. It's just a shame. I mean, at this point, like, you know, everyone, by all reports of people I talk to, everyone in the club, in the locker room, loves that guy Ramiro. They think he's A wonderful guy. And that could be true, but players are really competitive and when they see a player who's not up for it and can't compete and that guy keeps playing, people start to wonder and question, you know, and that's not what you want. You don't want the locker room starting to question, like, why is that guy so playing? You know, at some point there has to be a repercussion for being playing really poorly. You can't just go forever playing guys that's sinking, especially when it's one guy that really is standing out as worse than all the rest. There are other guys that aren't doing a good enough job either. Like Johansson's not doing a good enough job. Bernie's only doing a good enough job in one dimension, you know, so they definitely still have other problems, you know, and everyone in the back is really Tigers. Not enough defenders, but I've already beat that horse to death. [00:22:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Obviously we will get to the transfer window developments here in a few minutes. The Bernie was interesting because it is slightly related to that whole deal is that, you know, I guess maybe Bernie now suddenly feels threatened in his role because they have signed a player who I guess in theory plays that position. Like, I'm assuming that's what they've brought him in to do. And Bernie had a pretty good game. Now obviously Bernie is playing against a very mid tier MLS player in Justin Reynolds who has, you know, comes out of the Chicago system and has been with Sporting Kansas City to a bit, et cetera, et cetera. He's no great shakes himself. But Bernie at least was two things. One, I thought he was much more effective at taking his mark on. He was more brave about doing it. And to his credit, he did beat him the one time and put in the good cross that Musa so nicely finished. [00:23:00] Speaker C: Yeah, actually this was a better game for Bernie. You know, the deficiencies are in the back, not the front. You know, maybe he's feeling like Job is going to be competition. I don't think so, because right now Quill is using a wingless formation, but he's sticking wings in. Like Sarver in Santa Marina, for example. He's kind of using them as tens underneath Musa from time to time. That's probably where Job's gonna have to finish the year kind of doing. I don't think you would bring that guy in for $5 million and then put him at wing back. Doesn't make any sense to me. I think the idea that Quill would like going forward and maybe even he'll do it by the end of the year is to change formations and not play this wingless shape. So we'll have to keep an eye on that because spending 5 million bucks on a player that doesn't fit your system is really weird. But you know what? I don't know that at this point you can coach Bernie to do anything other than what he's doing. You know, I think. I'm sure Quill hopes that he'll be able to put him back as a regular old winger if he can change formations, because, you know, he's not a very good wing back. Even though this is one of his better games. It was only offensively because he was terrible defensively. And that's what's hanging out the defense, is that Johansson is not doing a good job on defense either. You know what those guys is? Yeah. [00:24:07] Speaker A: Johansson is a guy, another one of those guys that I feel like in a much better team would really show his qualities. I just think he is not good enough to make a difference in a team like this. [00:24:21] Speaker C: I feel like if he was, when he steps forward, up near the midfield, if he had, instead of having Kaik running everywhere, if he had like two guys in the middle that were possession sort of guys and were wanting to play combination play, I think he would [00:24:33] Speaker B: look a lot better. [00:24:34] Speaker C: You know, Bernie wouldn't be able to do that. Bernie would not be able to elevate his game and play that kind of game. But I think Johansson probably could. [00:24:39] Speaker B: Johansson's also not a defender by trade either. He's just. [00:24:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:43] Speaker B: Opposite Bernie, the same thing. It's just he's not a guy that does this for a living. [00:24:47] Speaker C: No, that's true. But you know, in the end of the day, this formation is actually okay to do that if you don't need to have a. Be a five back. If you actually are going to play three and your center backs are a bit better and your two holding mids are a bit better. In this case, you're. They're not pure holding mids, but they're at least trying to play a double pivot. You know, if those guys are a little bit better, then the whole thing works a little bit better. And then you don't have to be so reliant on being a real back five, because they even talked about that this week, that Quill thinks if they work much better in that back five. But then when we watch them play, like they're kind of abandoning that idea. They don't play that tight back five anymore. And I don't know whether the guys are stopped listening or whether Quill's adjusting and just won't admit it. You know, I don't hard to know sometimes which one of those two things is true. [00:25:30] Speaker A: I wondered if anybody else noticed because I thought this was curious. I, you know, I asked you guys a question a week or so ago about Logan Farrington and whether or not something was going on with him, etc. Etc. And he scored a really nice goal, but did. And again, I had a limited view of this. Maybe, Dennis, you were in the stadium and you saw a little bit more completely, but when he scored that goal, it appeared on television that nobody celebrated it with him. Moussa didn't celebrate. Moussa was still pissed that he didn't pass him the ball because he was wide open and he took the shot by himself. And I didn't see anybody else go celebrate with him. Now they were down two goals. They had been down two, and now this made it two one. And he went and got the ball and started running back. But I just thought that was really weird how little the celebrating was on. I don't remember if you remember that being in the stadium or not, Dennis, if, if you noticed that or picked up on it. [00:26:21] Speaker B: I mean, I did notice the Musa thing. Clearly that was Moose's shot to be taking there, but I don't know, it just felt like the vibe was, go get the ball and let's get back to work. More than anything else, it didn't. It didn't seem like anybody was really interested in celebrating down 2:1 at that point, especially considering how quickly they had gone down. I don't think that was a Farrington specific thing. I think it was just a let's get back to work kind of deal. [00:26:43] Speaker C: This was the best game of the quote unquote. Parrington, they like to call it, of those two guys together they've had in a while of them interacting and working together, I thought, you know, yeah, it looked really well. [00:26:54] Speaker B: And that's. That's two games with a goal for. For Farrington now, too. Two in a row. So, you know, sometimes a guy just needs to see the back of the net sometimes too. [00:27:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that made me wonder if Musa's out for any extended period of time with a shoulder injury, you know, how does that bode for Logan's opportunity to. To play that role and how well will he fill it? [00:27:11] Speaker B: Well, considering there's nobody else. Yeah. [00:27:14] Speaker C: The only other person that would fit the profile would be Nick Simmons, but Nick Simmons isn't ready for that. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. He's not. [00:27:19] Speaker C: He's barely starter at North Texas. [00:27:22] Speaker B: He hasn't made. He's made what, one, two benches this year? [00:27:25] Speaker C: Yeah, if that. He's got a couple. He's got a couple minutes. I mean he's got like 100 minutes or something. He's got one start actually, which is weird. But he's not ready for playoff crunch rush end of the season build with, you know, three or four games for the Moose. You just play Farrington, they're fine. [00:27:41] Speaker A: How do you feel about how Quill handled his man management? Obviously they get the win, so Quill deserves a lot of credit in many ways for different elements of how they came back and won this game. But I am curious, Buzz and Dennis, how you felt about he handled that aspect, the formation, changing the formation, substitutions, etc. Etc. [00:28:03] Speaker C: Well, I, I actually really liked the game plan of Norris in the middle and then the. They Kansas City anticipated that and had their guy, the fast guy on the other side and then they real quickly adapted back to that. That's fine. You know that I think the sub patterns were okay. They're a little bit predictable sometimes in terms of when they're going to happen, but that's, you know, young coach, that's kind of how it works. My biggest worry about Quill is who I think actually is doing a fabulous job overall. My biggest worries. He's very much a cheerleader. He's very much a fire everybody up kind of guy. And I think with professionals sometimes that can wear out over time. If every game it's like, rah, rah, let's go. You know, that kind of at some point you need to be able to just be like, be about your business and just do what you do and let's get, you know, get at it because this is who we are. You can't always be 100% rah rah. But, you know, so far it's working. So it's hard to complain about it when it's working. You know, he's got them playing above their talent level and above themselves. And I think it's impressive job by him, actually, for the most part. [00:29:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I think given the roster he's got in front of him, given the pieces he has, I think he's done a good job at rotating in, you know, where he can, like we talked about, I think we'd like to see a little bit more capis. And you know, you went out and got a Quill guy in Hallstatt, maybe We'd like to see him a little bit more, especially with Romero falling backwards and just turning into what he's become. But I think given the pieces that he's got, given the rotations that they've got, given the schedule that they've got with this, you know, still, you know, another Wednesday game coming up this week, followed by a Saturday game. I think there's still a, you know, there's a lot to be desired here, but he's doing the best he can with the pieces that he's been given. [00:29:41] Speaker A: All right, well, let's talk about Daniel Jobe. So the transfer window has been closed and Andre Zenoda made two significant additions to the team. And I am using air quotes for significant. [00:29:59] Speaker C: I was about to say something. [00:30:02] Speaker A: Obviously, Job is one and we'll talk about that in a second. Holstead being the other from Rhode island in the uslc, USL Championship, he's played sparingly and I'm and often curious as to what he looks like because I barely know. And, and to your point, I like, why is he on the. Why is he on? Why did you bring him here? Is he just like an emergency player? [00:30:25] Speaker C: Yeah, he must be. That's what I don't understand is like, I, I assumed like because of the familiarity with Quill, because he was a really outstanding player in the championship, because of the deficiencies in their own midfield. I assume that you're signing him as a journeyman kind of guy, prime of his career kind of guy. He can come in. I, I wasn't expecting him to come in and be a starter, but I was expecting him to come in and contribute pretty quickly because he's in mid season form. Like, why did you get him if it's not to like take some of these minutes and play some of these games? [00:30:51] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:52] Speaker C: Maybe it's just insurance because, you know, at the time I think Ramiro was coming through his injury cavus had some mid season struggles with injury. You know, maybe they thought Kaik was going to get sold. I, I don't know. You know, it doesn't appear to be that it was to eat up minutes in midfield, which is what I thought it was for. So I'm kind of mystified by that move. You know, on paper I kind of thought it was an interesting idea. A guy that's playing some really good soccer in the USL Championship. Okay, maybe that can contribute a little bit. You know, they didn't. They didn't. I never thought that he was going to solve the problems, but I thought he could Give us. Give us. Give you something. Coming in and eating up some time, but apparently not. [00:31:26] Speaker B: I mean, he's contributed just about as much as Caleb Swan has this year. Right? [00:31:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Except Caleb Swan is 19. Right? [00:31:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. [00:31:35] Speaker C: That's, that's kind of the point. [00:31:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. Schrodinger's cat. [00:31:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:41] Speaker A: All right, well, so this week. We talked about it last week, because when we were doing the pod last week, word had started to leak out that this deal was happening. And since then it has happened. And I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one. I don't get it. And the club did some really weird promotion of this in their social media, really hyping up Zenoda in particular. And I can't tell if they're running like a social media bit joke by posting like glamour shots of Zenoda or whatever. Is there something to that? [00:32:16] Speaker B: There's a little bit of a bit there. Okay. There was a. There was a post that was going around. I think it started on Reddit or somewhere, but there was a post going around. It was a breakdown of TAM and GAM announcements and what image clubs use. And some of them use the club image. Some of them use the generic soccer ball image. FC Dallas was the only club that used an image of the technical director. They used Zenoda's picture there. And so that was the top of the chart. It was like a ABCD ranking chart and it was, you know, where all the clubs ranked there. So when they announced this deal and then I guess the, [00:32:50] Speaker A: the. [00:32:50] Speaker B: The contribution money that went to Red Bull for the discovery rights, they used the picture of Andre for that, as the. As the header for that. So that, that certainly is a bit. But there is more than that going on with the interviews and everything else that's happening where this club is really patting themselves on the back for this. For this pickup. [00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds like an incredibly niche joke to be telling on your social media account. Whatever. [00:33:15] Speaker B: 12 people in. In some discord channels got it. And I think that was the target audience. [00:33:19] Speaker C: There are dozens of us. [00:33:20] Speaker A: A weird application of social media, but again, I'm not a social media professional, so I will leave it to them. [00:33:27] Speaker C: Well, they definitely are telling people, and I don't mean this in a PR sense, like inside the club, the word was like Zenata had to go over there to close the deal to get it done. Like he. [00:33:36] Speaker A: It was part that makes such weird. Okay, so let's just lay the table out for people who don't understand or don't Know what's happened? Dallas has signed a 22. Is he 22 or 21? [00:33:49] Speaker C: 21. [00:33:50] Speaker A: 21 year old Nigerian left sided player named Daniel Job. It's spelled Job J O B but it's pronounced Job. And he has. He's coming over after playing 20 games for a team in the Norwegian second tier. I'm not going to try to pronounce the team name where he scored eight goals and had eight assists. That sounds really, really good. [00:34:16] Speaker C: Now what you're Peter Kongs Venger. [00:34:18] Speaker A: Kongs Venger, Yeah. I should ask Lars. Now here's the thing. Here's the thing. So what do I do when I see Dallas is about to go sign a guy from a Norwegian club? [00:34:29] Speaker B: You call your Norwegian. [00:34:30] Speaker A: What's that? I call. I sent a WhatsApp message to my Norwegian friend Lars Siversted and Lars's immediate reply was, Peter, I don't even think I know anybody that watches the second tier in Norway, much less could tell you anything about this player. Now here's what else you need to know about Mr. Job. So he was previously with a first division team where he did essentially nothing in the first tier, played, I think 14 games. He may have had one goal or one assist or something like that. And then he was, for lack of a better way of saying it, essentially given to the team he was playing with in the second tier as part of a trade. So he, he and I think it was 580,000 krona or 58,000 Norwegian dollars, whatever you wanted, whatever it is, were traded to this other team for a single player who then went to the first division team. Job went to the second division team. His $5 million sale in American dollars I originally thought was 5x the second division record. It turns out it is 5x the most that club has ever been paid for a player, not the division, but it is 2x the most anybody has been paid in a transfer fee from the Norwegian second division. It seems, Buzz, an incredible sum of money for a guy playing at a very low level. I mean, the Norwegian second tier I'm not even sure is USL championship level in comparison. It's probably not. And I know he's coming off one kind of really nice season in this division. But by the way, the guy playing on the other side of the field against him has similar numbers too, by the way. I don't know if you noticed that on that same team. So I don't know if they're just like mowing down the league or whatever and he just happens to be part of all of that going on. But man, 5 million bucks. And this is Dan and Clark's money. I guess it doesn't really make any difference for a guy coming from and a player we don't know anything about. But here's the weird part. He plays a position Eric Quill doesn't even currently use and it in no way, shape or form addresses the giant gaping holes in this team. Please make it make sense. [00:36:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I think the thing to remember to make it make sense is that FC Dallas organizationally and they've not. This is not something they say, this is something that we believe. Based on their behavior, they have decided that the U22 initiative can be another version of the Pepe $20 million sale or the Testman $3 million sale or the Bryan Reynolds $4 million sale. The obvious thing that they've done is at the expense of homegrown potential, they are signing these U22 initiatives based on upside. They're. They're trying to buy players that are hidden or sneaky or tricky using their, as they say about Job, that they're. They've used some metrics and some data analysis or whatever and they think he's got all this potential. So you have to think of him really in terms of your expectation of what he's going to do for the team right away is you have to think of him as an academy player, like a 21 year old guy that maybe they let go to college for a year or two. And now they've signed him. Basically now they're paying a bunch of money for him just like they paid for Kai. Because remember, Kaik had a European bidder at the last minute and apparently this guy Job had four or five European teams that were trying to get him. In order to get guys to come to Major League Soccer, you got to basically overpay to get them compared to European teams. So that's what's happening. So you can't think of this as your $10 million signing. You know, you're Al Velasco that you'd expect to walk in and start your patter. Melissa 10 million. You're going to walk in and start. You know, Velasco was young, but with that price point he had been starting for the first team he was with, right? He was starting for Independiente. Right. He wasn't a scrub out of nowhere. This is a scrub team. It's more like Kaik, who wasn't even playing for their U23s. He was playing for like their U20s or something. Down there at the club he was with and they paid $4 million. So this is like that. It's, it's more of an. You think more highly of him than you thought of Delgado perhaps in terms of like how much money you've paid. So like I don't think you should have expect expectation that this guy will walk in and start, you know. And that's how to think of it is like it's a, it's a, it's a play. It's a, it's a buy low, sell. [00:39:11] Speaker A: It's, it's a, it's a, it's this thing that drives us nuts. It's a player purchased as an investment, not as a tool to improve the on field product. [00:39:20] Speaker C: Yeah. FC Dallas is attempting to be a money making endeavor through the buying of players that the low and then selling them high. That there's been a lot of chatter and rumor for years ever since even going back before COVID when Quill won a title with North Texas SC in 2019 and then even in 2020 with this all stock the Hunts were trying to find. Everyone was telling me a team to buy in Europe, a lower division team to buy in Europe, to be a funnel. They could move players back and forth. They could use new North Texas, they can bring guys in, play them a little bit, move them over there, offer other vehicles for guys from their academy. Like you won't be good enough for MLS. We'll send you this just like a Portuguese Division 2 team we bought or something like that. This is the same kind of thing. This is like finding Alvaro at. In Portugal at a lower division. This is like finding that's not hopeful. [00:40:11] Speaker A: What happened to that guy? [00:40:12] Speaker C: Well, he stinks it turns out. But it's like that. It's these attempts like oh look I seen a big tall, strong guy who's relatively fast. Let's grab that dude. Maybe he could turn into something. [00:40:21] Speaker A: Man, you know what? I had put a list of these guys together that he's done this with and that guy completely fell off my radar. I forgot about him. [00:40:29] Speaker C: Yeah, basically there's the. At this point, as near as we can tell based on their behavior, Zenota is basically like a buying and selling kind of accountant, manager kind of guy trying to make money for the team. You know, in terms of actual scouting of like who's going to help us? Like I, I would point at Joaquin Valiente is more of an attempt to actually help the team. You know, that's probably like a Sandro kind of fine. Perhaps you know Oz, coming from the French second division is a substantially higher level of play. That's more of a. He's actually going to help our team. You know, he's much older. He's like 24 when you bought him. He's not 21. Not 20. Delgado was like, what, 18 when he came, you know, or Kai's 18 when he came. These are different kinds of buys. Very different. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And the amount of money they paid for him is more than they paid for Urigu. [00:41:13] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the thing. It's like you almost have to ignore the money. It's their money. Right. It's not like it's coming out of a pot. That's limited, I guess. It also is not limited in that way, you know, because it's a U22 initiative. That. That, that buy doesn't go into his cap number like Irigides did. Right. That's. The U24 initiative is literally for this idea. So, like, you almost can ignore how much money it was. Not my money. I don't. [00:41:36] Speaker B: But he is holding up a roster spot here. He's holding up a U22 spot. He's holding up an international spot. So it's not like it costs nothing in the real world. Right. Money is not our money. Sure decisions, but fair. [00:41:48] Speaker A: But I. But the thing, if anybody wants to be concerned about it, is. Is it. Does it. They have a bunch of money clearly to spend. They had 5 million bucks to go find a guy. Why don't you go find a guy that can actually help you in midfield and really kind of fills in. My theory that I have is that if you were to go get Andre Zenata in front of a microphone or on camera and ask him about this exact question, he would go, why would I do that? I already have all these pieces. I already went out and got you a holding that. I went out and spent $4 million and got you Kaik. I got Chris Capis to help fill in that spot, center back. What do you mean? I got your Uruguay. I got you. I got you Shaq Moore. We've brought up Nolan Norris from the. From the academy. We're. We're good there. What. What. What is it you guys want from me? I. I really honestly believe he thinks this roster is done. Is. Is right. [00:42:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, and in a way, this is a replacement for Deetson. It's a replacement for Anderson Julio, who probably, you know, I'm assuming at this point probably won't play again for Esther. [00:42:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it's another good. [00:42:47] Speaker C: I hear some really Bad things about his recovery, you know, like. So, like, if you're doing Zenoda and you're trying to fill all these flexible roles or whatever. There's also been some scuttlebutt that that is secondhand, that I almost feel bad about saying it, but Dan Hunt apparently was talking to fans in the club, many of whom are in our discord. And most people have said that, that Dan was telling them, because they're all quizzing him about the buys or whatever, that Dan Hunt told these fans that they were looking at a six, looking at center back, and that Quill told them he wanted a fast wing, so they pivoted to a fast swing, you know, so that. That's why, at the end of the day, I think this is some evidence here that the Quill does indeed want to go back to what we always say is like a 4, 3, 3 or as his favorite formation, what he almost always usually uses that look back to his North Texas days, 4231, you know, kind of thing where actually we'll have wings. He loves Bernie, you know what I mean? He likes this kind of player. [00:43:38] Speaker A: So, no, wings are really important for successful MLS teams. I mean, that's a, That's a critical component to all the good recent MLS teams is good wing attacking play. [00:43:48] Speaker B: I have a little bit of a theory that I just don't think that they expected to be sitting in fourth place this late in the season here. I think they might have expected that they were going to kind of the bed on this road trip and, you know, be somewhere around 8th or 9th where. Where they finished up last year and were looking to build towards the sprint season where they think they can kind of smash and grab and maybe grab a trophy and, and. And move on. And not really not thinking that they were going to need help to, to jump from fourth to third or second here and. And more just preparing for that late season for, for that. [00:44:21] Speaker C: I do think this player is about the next season more than it is this season. And you remember, Dennis, you're right, because Quill was talking about all the points they dropped at home before the road trip and how that bad they were gonna. That was hurting them because they were really gonna need them. And then they played great on the road trip and maybe. So maybe that wasn't as true. But, you know, I. I'm not going to go so far as to say that they didn't expect to be here because Quill has a lot of belief that they can compete for a championship, which I think Is of course crazy, but, you know, what is he going to say? So I think this player is more about the future and not about now. [00:44:51] Speaker B: It's a lot of money to spend for, for somebody that's not, that's not really going to fit the placement until next year. [00:44:57] Speaker C: But it's, it's the Hunt's money. You know, all it costs you is the, it costs you the third DP spot, which you weren't going to use this fall anyway. Right? We knew that. And they already have Santi Marino, who we're all pretty sure they're not going to buy as their second dp. So, like, you know, it's not really costing you anything. By the time you get to the point where you might want a third DP, you'll have moved on one or two of these U22s like Delgado. So in the doghouse, I can't believe they didn't sell him. You know, he's not even making game day rosters. That's how far in the doghouse that guy is. [00:45:25] Speaker A: So has anybody heard what exactly has gone down with him? [00:45:29] Speaker C: That's just it. Doghouse coaches, but for what? [00:45:31] Speaker A: Did he get in an argument? Did he pick a fight? Did he. [00:45:34] Speaker C: You know, not that specifically, but my, my read of the situation is that he's a not. You know how Quill is about mentality and warriorhood and endless work and drive and all that stuff. That ain't Delgado. Delgado's about Bojangles. So, you know, I think it's just that, like these games where you, you get 80% nothing from him and then 20 great. Well, how come I can't have 100% great out of you? I'm only getting 20% great out of you. I'm tired of that. Go sit down. Yeah, that's all it is. [00:46:02] Speaker B: I mean, he definitely feels like one of those last holdouts from that camp from last season that kind of mailed it in towards the end of the year too. [00:46:08] Speaker C: So I, I just feel like Delgado is a dude who's. It's never his fault. He never holds up his hand and says, my bad. It's always somebody else's fault. He's this, that kind of guy. Just my read of him from afar. So I think that's not a Quill kind of thing. Quill likes a guy where Quill says to, to you, dude, that sucked. And you go, yeah, it did suck. I'll fix it. That's what he likes. Guy that'll stand up for himself, but also take, take criticism and Adjust and fight back and not be like quit or roll over or be like whatever, roll eyes and walk away. You know, that. That feels like the Goddard to me. [00:46:41] Speaker A: Well, here they are sitting in fourth after getting three points in a first win, in a 43 win over Kansas City in their first game home in many, many, many weeks. And now they go back on the road for the next game coming up, which is Wednesday buzz against at Minnesota. And so with Musa hurt and the. The tight schedule, are you anticipating another Vancouver lineup? Will Mr. Simmons get his second start [00:47:14] Speaker C: or no, I don't think you do a Vancouver because you've had a little rest and you don't really have a heavy midweek load. I don't think you need to rotate. I think Musa will not play because of his shoulder thing. I think even if, even if he's fine, you just say, you know what, we'll go again without you. No big deal. Minnesota is not, strangely enough, not very good at home. They're only 2, 3 and 6 at home. Lots of ties at home. So you can go expect to. You will go in there with the mentality like we can actually do something here. So I think you just go with Farrington, probably bring back Santi Marino, you know, Sarver as a starter, not so great. I don't like that. It doesn't work very well. So you play Santa Marino, who can have a good game at maybe, maybe having a little bit of a game off, maybe he'll be fresher and give you one of those good ones. Remember, he has the whole core problem, whatever it is. So him with Valiente and then everything else. What are you going to change, Bernie? The only question is Iaga versus Norris. I thought Norris mostly played well, but wasn't great by any means. So, like you can definitely consider Iaga in the mix for sure. Johansson, Oz, Norris Moore, I mean it all is fine. The question is, do you have the guts to drop Romero? Romero, that was the worst game he's ever played for FC Dallas. In my opinion, if you don't get robbed now, he's never getting dropped. So it needs to be Capis. Needs to be Holstead. I'm, I'm even ready to start Benjamin over the guy. See what Benyamin's got as a six. You know, that's what I would, I would go with probably going to be Capiso. You know, you can use the excuse. If it's a midweek game, we'll restroom here a little bit, put Capis in there. Yeah, but otherwise, really, that's it is. I assume Moose is going to not play. You put a Moreno Brian capis for Romero, maybe try and get somebody else in later in the game to give him some time or whatever. And then just a question of whether you like Norris or Ibiaga in the back in terms of which one you want to play. Oh, and maybe Daniel. [00:49:09] Speaker B: That's what I was going to ask [00:49:11] Speaker C: because you know, Serio had seven saves, which is a pretty solid game, but he didn't make any like game breaking save. Like he didn't give you that super save that like won you the game, you know. Now granted there was like 30 shots or something with 10 on goal, so he had seven solid seven saves. Maybe you want like a guy that can give you that one more amazing save and his feet are not helping you. Like his limit limitations in terms of trying to be better out of the back are not helping you. So I think it's a legit shot that this, that maybe Daniel yet, you know, one game back. Cereal. You let him still stay on there. Okay, now it's time for Daniel be back in there. That might be the game for that. [00:49:49] Speaker A: And then before we talk again, they will play another home game against Portland, who are not good on the road by the way. [00:49:56] Speaker C: No, they're seven. Two. Sorry, two. Seven and two on the road. They're terrible on the road. So that's again, that's a winnable game. You know, at this point, like I said, I don't think there's high expectations of rotation anymore because after this you're just going to have another weekend, a couple two weekend games and then there's like the big gap for the international window. I think there's no problem needing any rotation at this point. You're going to go mostly first choice from here on. [00:50:17] Speaker A: Okay. [00:50:18] Speaker B: These two squads combined for nine goals this weekend as well. So Portland and Minnesota. [00:50:24] Speaker C: Minnesota. Oh, Portland. Yeah, yeah. High scoring games. [00:50:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So before we move on to other things, this was the first home game and the opening of the east side of the stadium. By all accounts, the reviews that I got from people and friends that were there at the game is largely very impressed with the build out, the quality finish, etc. Etc. I think if there was one overriding kind of like note of curiosity or criticism was the thing that we've talked about a lot which was the decision to not replace all of the seats. The mesh seats are only in the center sections. The original 20 plus year old plastic seats remain as is in various states of age and obvious you Know, I don't know. I'm not. I. You know, a lot of. I think there's two MLS stadiums that replaced all their seats with the mesh seats. I think. I think Houston did it, Houston didn't. Somebody else did. [00:51:23] Speaker B: Austin hasn't yet. They're built like. It was built like that, though. [00:51:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:26] Speaker A: And then, you know, you could have replaced the plastic seats with just new plastic seats if this is a premium up, upcharge kind of situation. But other than that, everybody seemed really, really pleased. Dennis, you were there. You saw what the whole. The whole setup looked like. [00:51:44] Speaker B: I mean, I was down in the south end where I normally am, so I didn't really get too much of a look at the east side. But, I mean, as far as the seats go, I know they took, like, broken and poor. Like, the seats that were in worse shape. They took them out and replaced them with, you know, working seats from other sections and things like that. I mean, I don't see. [00:52:01] Speaker A: That's nice. [00:52:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, whatever. It is what it is. But as far as, you know, the atmosphere, it's really interesting because, you know, you've got the supporter section now is kind of almost on its own island out there off to the side. So I'm sure it sounds. [00:52:16] Speaker A: They put them. [00:52:17] Speaker B: They're still in the same wedge, but the. There's only two half sections to the left of the wedge now, so there's not. There's nothing else on that side other than those. Those two sections that are only like halfway up and back. So there. There's the wedge, and then there's just kind of like this openness around them. And then. So, you know, the sound still isn't carrying because you've got this big open side on that side where the wedge is, and now you've got the canopy on the other side. And the humidity just sticks in the building now. It just doesn't go anywhere at all. So interesting to see what happens when they put the full canopy up and what that gets like. [00:52:54] Speaker A: Well, I probably won't be dissimilar to the Austin experience. I mean, Austin turns into a sweat box. It just does because of the. The roofing deal. But it will also keep the sound in, and I'm sure it'll be a much better overall kind of atmosphere other than the actual atmosphere. [00:53:11] Speaker B: The. The murals on the east side are. Are incredible. They. They worked with a local artist to get that done. That was really cool. They got Kenny Cooper up there, Bobby Ryan, you know, a few other famous faces, and I'd like to see some more additions to that as. As they go on. But that's kind of a really cool feature that, and especially the fact that they work with somebody local to get that done. [00:53:28] Speaker A: Did you. Did you go over and check out the clubs or anything? [00:53:31] Speaker B: I didn't go over and check out the clubs. I was on the outside. I just. Just too much going on this weekend to. To try and make that happen, to get in there. But what I have seen, I have seen some photos and pictures, and I know they've got a bunch of chants and nicknames like Los Toros up on the walls and the mirrors and stuff in the building. [00:53:49] Speaker A: Where's Huntsman? If you're gonna throw Los Torres up there, you gotta use Huntsman somewhere. You know, if you're gonna. If you're gonna throw back to nicknames. I got some pictures of the new concourse, which is behind the club. So if you enter from the south and your seats are kind of in the northeast section, you got to go behind the club. But. But what's cool about the concourse is that it's actually like a concourse with stuff on either side. It's not just a pathway. There's, you know, concessions and all of that. And it looks really good. And I. So far, I thought that was pretty impressive. [00:54:25] Speaker B: The stage looks extremely strange without the. The whole setup up there, the trusses and all the. [00:54:33] Speaker A: The. [00:54:33] Speaker B: Everything up there, just empty. [00:54:35] Speaker A: I got a. I got a message from a friend of mine who is a longtime season ticket holder who also is in the music industry. And his big observation was how. And this really bummed me out. He goes. He said something along the lines of. All I can think of as I sit in here is how awesome this place is going to be for concerts. And I thought, oh, wait, we're back to that again. Because he says the way that they have reconstructed the stage specifically with the ability to do load in and out with these new entry points, I guess they've rebuilt the. The. At the. The ingress and egress to the stage with a much better entry point for 18 wheelers or whatever they're going to use to move equipment on and off the stage than they had before. And he says it's going to be great for concerts. And I thought, well, based on everything else I've heard they're going to do with the north end in terms of, you know, the seating and the bleachers and all that stuff, are we going to go back to a day that we were with the. Originally with Pizza Hut park, where you know, at some point it's part time soccer stadium, part time concert venue. [00:55:48] Speaker B: I don't understand this at all. I don't understand and I would love for somebody to explain it to me. Maybe this, this isn't my lane, but when you look around town, there are so many great indoor and partially covered venues to do concerts and other kinds of events at. As an artist, as a musician, why would I want to go play outside in 110 degree heat in Frisco when I can go to McKinney down the road and go to the amphitheater that's opened up or I can go over to Irving and play a Toyota Music Factory. Or you've got got two new arenas coming in for the Stars and the Mavs. You've got AAC that's probably going to be looking to, to sell out a ton of dates now that they've got a ton of available dates open. You've got Dickies over in Fort Worth. I just don't understand where they come into this market. [00:56:35] Speaker A: I think it's an attendance thing, Dennis. I think if you think about the stadium holding 20,000 and now you can fill up the ground level, you start pushing 35, 40,000 people to watch a concert venue. And there are not a lot of options for that kind of attendance number across the city. All of the venues that you spoke about are 10, 12,000, 15,000 maybe max. This would be a sizable bigger option. You know when they used to do the Edge Fest and what's his faces traveling. No, not Willie Parrot Head, what's his name? Buffett. That always was a big staple. That was a huge driver of revenue. And that didn't even dawn on me. They were considering going back, especially once they took the scaffolding down. And when I asked, when I asked somebody about that, they said, yeah, those kind of shows, they travel with their own scaffolding. They'll, they'll show up with their own setup, especially for the large scale festival type shows. So maybe we're back in that day and age, guys. I don't, I, and I don't know how I feel about that. [00:57:44] Speaker B: I'm sure Nick Schaefer loves the idea of his field getting torn up for festivals again. [00:57:49] Speaker C: Yeah, that's my worries, the surface, you know. By the way, Peter, the Trinity game, the Dallas Cotton ball field look pretty good. [00:57:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I've heard they've made really big strides in restoring it back to its once. I don't think it's anywhere near as good as it was back in the. You know, late 90s, but way better [00:58:09] Speaker C: than it was a year ago, though. [00:58:11] Speaker A: Significantly better than it was this time a year ago. So overall, here we are. Stadium project one third of the way done. The north and west sides still to go, will be done hopefully by the time the 2728 season kicks off is. Or sometime in 28. No, by the time of the end. Oh, that's right. It's not till the end of 2728 season. [00:58:36] Speaker C: Well, it. It was originally scheduled for the end of the 27 season, which is now not a thing. So, like, that's December of next year. So it'll probably. And depending on overruns, of course, maybe it will be middle of 20, you know, 2028. The end of the 2028, 27 season. Stupid calendar. [00:58:53] Speaker A: But yeah, unbelievable. [00:58:54] Speaker C: It's at least December 27th on a [00:58:56] Speaker B: North Texas road construction project timeline. [00:58:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Yeah, unbelievable. All right, let's move on to Trinity, who were at the Cotton bowl and got a big win. Dennis, three nothing. First shut out of the year, right? [00:59:14] Speaker B: First shut out of the year. First win of the year for Lee win. First win of his career. They beat Brooklyn 3 nil in what was, you know, they beat up on the bottom team in the league. They got the job done, but they came out with a little bit of a different look than they have been. Still kind of the same wing back flexing up to the midfield or up top, Carissa Beckman flexing up. But they. They went. They changed up the front four a little bit. Jasmine Hamid played on the right as opposed to playing under or striker or in falls nine that she's played seven. Castane came inside to the middle and played a little bit more of a direct striker. And Cam Lancaster showed up there and she was kind of playing under striker in sort of a second striker, under striker, sort of number 10 role. Sort of like what we see with Logan Farrington and what he does with the. With the men up top. But it worked, right? They were able to cut down on possession a little bit. They weren't winning the. They didn't win the possession battle massively like they have for the past few weeks, but they did win the first half by, I think, 70, 30 or something along those lines. And then they finished with about 51 possession. They were able to control the ball. They were able to move the ball quickly, get the ball into the attacking third quickly, and really just looked a lot different and a lot faster. Now, granted, Brooklyn is the worst club in the league. They have zero points. They have won no games, they have drawn no games. They. They are really in poor form. But this is what you need to do, right? This is how you get right and. And just go beat up on the worst club in. In the league and make it happen. [01:00:44] Speaker C: Well game, right? [01:00:45] Speaker B: This is exactly a get well game. Yeah. [01:00:47] Speaker C: Dennis, I think what we talked about on the podcast was like, right. Was getting people into the box and getting touches in the box. That was the biggest difference for me. 7. Castane did a great job being that high player. Hamid in her natural right wing position. Fantastic Lancaster underneath causing lots of problems. I just thought Sedano, it's really watching them play a single pivot shape because Sedano is really more like. It wants to be a 10. Also the way Boekman flexes up and helps add structure there and defense there really is nice. It's actually a very advanced tactical system. Really kind of impressed with it on that end. It had not been producing goals. That's what we talked about was they soccer you all over the place, but they give up like three shots and give three goals on three shots and then they can't score well. They fix both those problems. So I thought it looked. [01:01:34] Speaker B: Really. [01:01:34] Speaker C: Looked really good and that. And I love the change in tactics of the shift that we even suggested that Lee obviously listens to the podcast, did exactly what should do. Yeah, big fan. Did the change that we suggested. And it worked. [01:01:48] Speaker B: A lot of firsts in this one too. Not just Lee wins first win. A lot of milestones across the board here. But Anya Gamero gets her first professional goal here. She got that one early on. Yeah. Stole it, but absolutely earned it there. I think she's. She's definitely earned her spot there and coming in from. You know, she joined the last week of preseason. She joined this club and as a trialist. So she wasn't even signed until just before the first week of the season. So for her to come up and, you know, be starting and scoring goals, I think that's a credit to her. [01:02:16] Speaker C: I. I was joking about stolen. I think the ball was going wide, but that's that kind of ball where it's like, it's. If it's going inside and you do that, like there'd be a punches thrown in the locker room over that, you know. Yeah, of course, on certain teams, but not in this particular case, because I do think it was going wide, but in the moment I was like, oh, she just stole that goal off my caster. But I think it would have been wide, so it's fine. [01:02:38] Speaker B: Jamie shepherd gets her first assist of the season on the run up the right side off the throw in from Beckman. She gets her first assist to a wide open 7. Castane running into the box and she finishes really well on that one. Sid Cheeseman gets her first assist of the season on a deep long ball in the 88th minute. If you haven't got a chance to watch that one, go back and watch that deep long ball to Jasmine Hamid who gets her 15th of her career, which is a milestone in this league as well because I think there's only one player that's hit 20 up at the. At the list point. [01:03:07] Speaker C: Dennis 1800 in attendance. I think that's a slight tick up from previous weeks. So that's a good sign like seeing the movement in the right direction. Doing some promotions which I think are helping a little bit. You know, got a supporters group, game watching experiences, have some parties before and after kind of stuff going on I think. Don't they know what they're doing? [01:03:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it seems like they're starting to get people out. It was a little bit of a tick up like you said from past couple of weeks. 1806 I think it was the report a number. They had an event earlier in the week over. They did their last watch party over at Sue Ellen's over in the Gabrielhood and they had Pride night this week. So you know, getting the people out that are interested in women's sports in Dallas makes sense. You can be a little bit of a counter programming to the men's game. You can be a little bit of a counter programming to some of the other sports that are going on around town. But they're. They're. They're working on it little by little. [01:03:53] Speaker C: Should we mention that Boatman won the assist of the month? Did we talk about this? [01:03:57] Speaker B: The non assist? [01:03:58] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, first of all they nominated Cameron Lanka Lancaster and then we pointed out that that wasn't Cameron Lancaster, it was Bogman. And then they get. She won it and it's a sis. It's a play that wasn't escorted as an assist because Castane lost the ball and then got it back herself and scored. So the great what's an assistant? What is a conversation continues. But they got it fixed in the and sort of in a sense and give the award to a non assist. [01:04:22] Speaker B: We will not argue what is an assist. Non assist on this show. Not do it. But this was not an assist. But it was the assist of the month month that was from the first game and then the the team of the month. Sophia Sedano also made the bench for team of the month as well. So they're showing up here, but I [01:04:41] Speaker C: thought that was, you know, she's been. She's been solid. [01:04:43] Speaker B: She's been solid through the midfield. Nothing spectacular. I think this game, she kind of came out of her shell a little bit, too. She had a couple of shots, a couple on goals. Yeah, they're. They are improving and they're. They're starting to gel and starting to come together a little bit. I had the opportunity to talk to captain Sophia Braun at practice last week, and we talked a little bit about that. And this club has really been spending a lot of time together, both in training and practice, weight room, film room, all that stuff. But they're. They're starting to hang out together off the field. I think the book club is getting going again. They're doing their Bible study classes again. Going. And Sophia mentioned that the road trip was really kind of bringing them together. You know, it wasn't great result on that road trip, but they were they traveling together, spending time on the road together. You know, there's a group of girls that have really been brought together pretty quickly over the last few months. They really haven't played much together. There are some that came in from different clubs together, a few that came in from Spokane together. But they've. They're. They're a relatively young group of girls, and they're really just starting to hit their stride. Gelling. And when I did speak to Braun, she mentioned that the goal was obviously a win, but her personal goal was a shutout, and they were able to pitch a shutout on defense this week. So kudos to her for that. [01:05:49] Speaker C: My only caveat to this whole thing, Dennis, is that Brooklyn is terrible. [01:05:52] Speaker B: Sure, sure. This is what you do to a bad team, right? [01:05:55] Speaker C: You go and you beat a bad [01:05:57] Speaker B: team at home, three nil. [01:05:58] Speaker C: And yeah, dominate him. It's not like, I mean, Dallas beat a bad team, but they didn't dominate him in this case. The Golden Girls Trinity dominated this game. That was really nice to see. Good stuff in the right direction. [01:06:08] Speaker B: Brooklyn's head coach, Alex Smith, by the way. [01:06:10] Speaker C: Yeah, if everyone doesn't remember, that's a great story. Alex Smith is the kid who played at smu and he went to England on a trial, and when he got back home to smu, it turned out the club he went on trial was he played it in a scrimmage, and it turned out that they charged fans five bucks to watch the scrimmage. And that was a paid gate and so he lost his college eligibility. This was Michelle's coach over there. Smith did and he ended up having to sit out a year and then he was able to sign with FC Dallas as was a reserve player. Played here for a couple years, didn't play a lot. But then he went to Australia and he cried. Carved out like a 14 year career in Australia playing there and maybe and ended in Malaysia of all places. And then started coaching women's soccer and he coached, had some really good runs as a women's coach down there in Australia. We did a podcast episode I did one time during the COVID stand. Just me and him talking about his crazy story he had going all the way back to when he was at SMU and now he's the coach for Brooklyn and he's just come in that started the season and he did a rebuild at a team in Australia and read them to like back to back titles I think it was. So he's a capable coach and it'll be one to sort of want to watch and follow as a, as a person who saw him come from SMU to FC Dallas right here in town. So Alex Smith is his name. Good kid, good guy. [01:07:20] Speaker B: Brooklyn definitely feels like they're in a rebuild and they've looked at this sprint season as a kind of toss away and saying we're just going to do what we can do to get players playing together. Yeah, you know it's unfortunate sign of a sprint season or bridge season as they call it in the Super League. But some bad news coming out of Trinity camp this week, unfortunately. Allie Cook who has. She was one of the players that came down from Spokane with that. That crew in that club folded. She has been on the injury report since I think right after game one. But she, she's been on the injury report ever since Friday. Her status was changed from out to out for the season and she posted on Instagram just today that she had ACL surgery and she is going to miss the season. So she won't be back till next year. That's pretty unfortunate, especially considering she is the only true striker on this club. She's the Only real number nine. [01:08:11] Speaker A: Now next up is D.C. on Sunday. Dennis got an 11 for us. [01:08:17] Speaker B: I have nothing to go on officially on this, but based on what I've seen posted on social media, based on what I've seen in practice over the past couple of weeks, I really think this might be the week Lauren Flynn comes back to the lineup. And if that's the Case, I think we see Lauren Flynn move in a center back. I think we see Sid, she's been flexed out to right back. And then I think we see Carissa Beckman move up into the midfield. So my, my change to this 11, I would pre. Shepherd maybe comes off and Flynn comes on. If it doesn't happen in. In the starting 11, we probably will see that somewhere during the game, depending upon what Flynn's full status is. But I would expect her back very soon. [01:08:53] Speaker A: And that game is here. [01:08:55] Speaker B: That is here at the Cotton bowl. [01:08:57] Speaker A: Okay. [01:08:57] Speaker C: All right. [01:08:57] Speaker B: 6:30. [01:08:58] Speaker C: Would you. Would. Would Flynn be on the left and Brown right, do you think? Or would it be the other way around? Cause Bond's been playing left. [01:09:04] Speaker B: I, I think yeah, Braun's been playing left. So I would flex Cheeseman out to the right back and move Beckman into the midfield. And then Flynn can Flynn. But Flynn can also play right back too. So there's, there's a potential. [01:09:16] Speaker C: I'm talking about center back. Like, does Flynn play less center black or right center back? [01:09:20] Speaker B: I think she plays right center back. She's played. She plays mostly on the right side. She played on the right side with Amber Wisner too. [01:09:26] Speaker C: So cool. [01:09:27] Speaker A: And completing the trifecta of Victoire is North Texas Soccer Club with a big win over Salt Lake. [01:09:36] Speaker B: But before you run into this buzz, I just. I did turn this on. I was futzing around Friday, Friday evening just watching this, and I turned this on and turned it off at halftime because I was heading out and when I. When I saw the. The chat, I was like, holy. They actually pulled that out. [01:09:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Huge win. 4:1, big second half comeback. First half, they were absolutely terrible. Alvaro was awful. I can't believe they still play. They didn't even play him. He's just terrible. [01:10:01] Speaker A: The aforementioned Portuguese. [01:10:04] Speaker C: Yeah, it's just the dude can't play soccer. I mean, he's tall, big, fast, powerful, and stinks at soccer, so. [01:10:11] Speaker A: So you mean they're not going to sell him for a profit? [01:10:13] Speaker C: No. [01:10:14] Speaker B: He would be a great defensive back if he played in like spring football. [01:10:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm not going to get ahead of it, but if he's on this team next year, it will boggle my mind. Anyway, they're down one nothing at halftime and Diego Garcia subs into the game and proceeds to dominate the game. Just absolute clinic by him. Paired with Caleb Swan in the middle of the field, like they just took over the whole thing. Garcia had a goal and assist. Swan gets his first ever goal. Nick Simmons got a Goal. Alvaro. I just said he sucked and then he scored on a corner with a header, so. But he was still awful the whole game anyway. [01:10:51] Speaker A: In your face, Buzz. [01:10:52] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Lucas Martins looks like he's the first decent foreign signing since Quill was. Coach actually has something interesting to offer. I really like what I'm seeing out of that kid, which is surprising because usually those foreign guys they bring in are just absolute spares that do nothing. Overall, this team is playing a little better right these days because of the guys they're bringing down from first team and playing Diego Garcia back healthy. Nick Simmons, Ricky Lewis. There's a lot of guys coming down and playing a lot of minutes. Slate, Starnes, Alvaro. Although it has to be better. They would just bench Alvaro and play Begar. He's better. But it is what it is and it's allowing them to win some couple of games here. They're gonna. They have a chance to sneak into the playoffs in like the last spot. There's an 8, 9 playing game all of a sudden. So maybe they're in that. It doesn't matter. They're going to go on the road and get trampled by whoever they play because they're not anywhere near good. As good as the top teams in this actual league. They have two games left at home against Houston, both this week. They go Wednesday, Saturday against Houston. Bizarrely, the Wednesday game is during the middle of the FC Dallas game. Again, even though the SEO is on the road still the same time. That's dumb. [01:12:01] Speaker B: Programs this. [01:12:03] Speaker C: I don't know. Sunday they're going in the middle of the Dallas Cowboys game. That'll be great. There'll be like two people there at the game, but that's fine. And then they finish on the road against the Rapids. Who are the worst team in the league. Houston's the third best team in the west. So they got a tough two games against Houston even though they're at home for. For North Texas. So they maybe will squeak into the playoffs. Maybe. Doesn't matter. That team's not a. Who cares. Even if they get in, they'll get squashed. So it's a quick and dirty even report. And then once those three games happen and maybe a playoff game or two, if you get the playoff game happen to win or whatever, you'll start to see some of those guys probably come back to north to have seen Dallas a little more. Maybe one or two of them will sneak onto the bench. Swan again, perhaps, you know, Simmons maybe at some point. So in the meantime, most of those guys I'm sure are going to be with them this week so that they can try and get into playoffs. [01:12:51] Speaker A: Is anybody tracking attendance at the new Mansfield Stadium by chance? [01:12:56] Speaker C: I have not. It's. It's low. It's just like it was in Arlington. You know, it's a couple hundred people. Maybe, maybe. Maybe it approaches a thousand when they get like everybody gets there by halftime, you know, because the parking lot's still a mess. It's not very good. [01:13:12] Speaker B: I don't know what's going on with. On the hard, you know, on the hard camp side, but the side facing that, the side they're shooting towards is empty. [01:13:22] Speaker C: Yeah, it's not very many. It's basically exactly like it was it in origin. [01:13:26] Speaker B: There's like 12 people in the. In the supporter section behind goal, which is a shame because it's a nice little section they built back back there. [01:13:33] Speaker C: Yeah, that facility will really shine when you play your Open cup game down there next year or whatever. You know, something like that. [01:13:39] Speaker B: So conquer W. Yeah, women's games are going to be down there as well. I think us is playing at least [01:13:48] Speaker C: Parking lot sorted out by then. Right now they don't have one. [01:13:51] Speaker B: I don't know why it's so hard to get Asphalt Crew in there. And I don't know, maybe it's a Southern thing. I don't know. [01:13:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:13:57] Speaker B: Where I'm from, they get that done in two days. [01:13:59] Speaker C: Yeah. With an extra fee. [01:14:02] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, very good. Anything else we need to get over and done today before we go? Going once. [01:14:13] Speaker B: Go subscribe to Buzz's Patreon, go pay money to the show, Go buy a T shirt. Go do something. [01:14:22] Speaker C: At some point, we need to assume we need to start talking about what we think the next road jersey should look like for FC Dallas because they get a new secondary, which funny enough, the commentator called the FC Dallas home whites at the game the other day. I shed a tear a little like they call them the home whites because they wear them so much at home. [01:14:41] Speaker A: Man, watching them wear those awful kits at home, I mean, they were. I mean, they wear their home kit 50% of the time in their own house. It's maddening to the highest order. And now that Dan Crook has passed away, who's going to do our kit mock ups? [01:14:59] Speaker C: Well, probably AI. [01:15:02] Speaker B: Listen, he's not dead. I saw him hobbling around somewhere. [01:15:04] Speaker A: Oh, did you? Okay. [01:15:05] Speaker B: He had his little stone cold Stevie Austin brace on his leg. [01:15:09] Speaker A: Dan Crook lives. [01:15:10] Speaker C: I got a teaser for you. We got a Musa tribute T shirt coming out this week for his excellent play and his hopefully fingers crossed new contract that he will hopefully fingers crossed. Signed with FCDL soon. [01:15:22] Speaker B: Is it going to come with one shoulder cut off? [01:15:24] Speaker C: He didn't lose his arm. [01:15:25] Speaker A: It's a T shirt, you know. Buzz, I want you, I want to, I want to play a game with you here real quick. [01:15:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:15:31] Speaker A: I want you to predict what Moose's annual new annual salary from Clark. What kind of check is Clark Hunt going to have to cut Petter Moussa every year? [01:15:46] Speaker C: Well, I think that the fact that it seems that Musa wants to be here is going to be a factor. [01:15:52] Speaker A: Sure. [01:15:53] Speaker C: His base salary right now is. Or sorry. Yeah, from May. The ones from May he was on 2.45 base million and a 2.8 million with comp. I'm gonna bet the base has to come up to more like a 3.5. They're to add a million dollars to it. You know, the, the real way to clinch the deal will be the longevity of it because remember he's. Was he 28 now? So he'll want something that's going to be like till he's for like four years at least. He's going until he's like 32. So you're gonna have to do like a four plus one at that. [01:16:28] Speaker A: You think he's gonna get away with paying Pet or Musa less than $5 million a year? [01:16:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I do. For the longevity score. Yeah. Because. Because of the longevity, because he's going to want the years. Because paying the guy, paying the guy that kind of money, like 4 million a year, it'll go up every year. Right. Two conducts go up. So like the first one will bump up like a million and then it'll bump every year after that. And by the time it's done it'll be closer to like four and a half, five as you say. But that's the thing is like with. That's the thing is like it'll have, it'll keep going up and he'll want the full 4. If you want the 5 million then you're gonna only get like a 2 plus 2 or something. Like. So if you want like a whole four or five year deal, which he probably will until he's in his like a 32. You know, I think that's what he's gonna get because you know part of what you get paid is part of what the offers that come in for you. So he didn't get the offers didn't come in that are gonna be like this huge number Right. [01:17:27] Speaker A: So, yeah, I just. Considering his performance and consistency, the amount of money like Surge is making six million bucks a year. [01:17:39] Speaker C: I know, but he did it before he got here. Right. So does mess this sort of messy, you know, that's a whole different world. Like Musa didn't do anything really before he came here. So it's not like. [01:17:48] Speaker A: Yeah, but, you know, but he may. He may end up winning the golden boot this year. [01:17:53] Speaker C: Yeah, that'll help a lot. Really help. [01:17:55] Speaker A: Okay. [01:17:56] Speaker C: I just don't see. I don't see doubling his salary. Not, not if he wants to be here. Like, if he, if he had. If you're trying to keep him here and you. There was 20 million on the table sale price, and like now we're trying to force it. No, we don't want to force him. We're trying to talk him into staying. Then you're doubling his salary. But if he wants to be here, which he says he does, and there's not these 20 million dollar offers on the table, and right now he's in the shop window for the national team. Happy about that. You know, three and a half, four. I think it's a done okay. You know, it'll climb. It'll have good years on it. I think that's. That's where I was. My expectation, you know, maybe I'll be way wrong. [01:18:33] Speaker A: I'll let Dennis make a prediction. I'll ask Dennis. Not let alone. [01:18:37] Speaker B: I'm. I, look, I'm not the salary guy, but I think you gotta figure out what he wants to be here. And, and I think that's where you got to figure it out from. Right. Like he wants. Clearly he wants to be here, but obviously there's a price point there. And I think, I think you got to keep the man happy and you've got to keep his family happy. He's got two young kids now. The game is. Has changed a little bit for him. He's getting national team appearances and so, you know, he definitely deserves a bit of an increase here. [01:19:02] Speaker C: Yeah, but who. Who else is offering him 5 million? [01:19:04] Speaker B: True. [01:19:04] Speaker C: Is the question. [01:19:05] Speaker B: I mean, is there somebody else in the league that's willing to pay that too? That, that, that's. That's. I think my biggest fear, right, is that he goes. [01:19:12] Speaker A: This is where I was going with this because the big $12 million deal for. What's his face. That happened between the two clubs. Wait, that was. Who was that that did that big deal was 12 million bucks for Colorado. Yeah, Colorado. [01:19:27] Speaker C: What I would say about that is the price Is the price inside the league, outside the league. If they've set the price at, let's say what I say, 20 million, that's the price. If, you know, Inter Miami calls and says, we got 20 million, you know, they also go, sweet, give us money. [01:19:42] Speaker B: That I think is like, I think that's every fan's biggest fear, right, Is like him going to Europe or even going to South America is, you know, it sucks, but you can, you can kind of tolerate that because this is what the type of business this club does. But you don't want to see him stay in the league. The last thing you want to see is stay in the league and end up in the Western Conference, right, end up at Galaxy or, or San Diego. [01:20:04] Speaker C: We're about to watch a league where everyone is trying to take the wheel, the, the constraints off, right, and basically double the salary cap, you know, and have like trade DPS being floated. Like, like have allow these other teams to spend money like the Hunts. At some point the Hunts are going to struggle to keep up with that. There's going to be a point where they're going to have a guy like Musa that somebody else is going to come in and go, we'll give you 20 million for Musa, and Musa, we're going to pay you 10 million a year. [01:20:32] Speaker B: Side note, you know, on that battle of the, on that ownership battle that's, that's been happening for control of the league. If you haven't read Paul to Norio's book that came out this year, that's really good insight into some of that behind, behind the scenes stuff between the, the ownership groups that are looking to, to move forward and those that aren't. [01:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's been a thing for a long time and unfortunately we just happen to all root for the team that has one of the ownership groups that are not the progressive ones. [01:20:59] Speaker C: Well, you know, I want to see what happens when they finish the stadium and they get the new revenue model. You know, we'll see if their behavior changes. I expect it to change. You know, can they keep up with some of these clubs that are going to be really higher? Probably not, no. [01:21:12] Speaker A: I mean, look, I think in all fairness to Dan and Clark, when they have had revenue come in the door, they have turned around and spent that revenue. And I, and I do think that will continue. And if they can, you know, get the building back into being a positive revenue generator, especially if that means they got to start bringing in concerts and stuff, maybe that will be reflected in how they treat building the roster for the team and how their level of ambition for being competitive. [01:21:40] Speaker C: But, you know, the Hunts are not the kind of people that are going to dip into their own pockets for salaries and for keeping these players. You know, they're going to have to have the revenue to. And that's the thing is like, remember, for your limited revenue time, can they afford to pay Moussa 5,6 million? I think they probably can't. [01:21:56] Speaker A: Well, if they're willing to go out and throw 5 million bucks down for a guy from the second division in Norway, I would like to think they could pay Pony up for whatever it takes to keep Peter Musa. [01:22:06] Speaker C: That's. That's 5 million they think they're going to get back when they sell the guy for 20 million. That's what I mean. Like, there's a difference between, like, what I'm going to pay Musa and what I'm willing to sell them for. Right? Because what I'm willing to pay for them is going to. Based on the revenue I have week in, week out, year after year in the season. And right now they're in a tough time because of the revenue droppage. You know, they don't have the revenue that these big west coast, east coast teams have. You know, I mean, some of that's their own making. This is a humongous market. You should be able to monetize it better than. But they don't. So I'm not sure that. [01:22:36] Speaker A: Well, when you shut down your stadium [01:22:38] Speaker C: for three seasons, I just don't know that the. The way the Hunts run the business, which is like the team has to make money for them to spend money, right? They don't just throw their own money at it. They throw their own money at the stadium. $180 million. [01:22:50] Speaker A: And they throw it at the, at the academy and the youth. [01:22:52] Speaker C: They don't throw it at the player contracts and the buys. That's. They didn't start buying big until they sold big. They sold peppy big. Then they started buying bits. They didn't buy Velasco for eight and Petter for 10 until after they sold Pepe for 20. So, you know, I, I don't expect them to throw down unlimited cash for Peter Musa to stay here in terms of his salary. I expect it to be relatively. [01:23:13] Speaker B: Price of parking going up 100%. [01:23:16] Speaker C: All right, very good. [01:23:18] Speaker A: Thanks, Dennis. Good to see you again, man. [01:23:20] Speaker B: Always very good. [01:23:22] Speaker A: And thank you, Buzzard. [01:23:24] Speaker C: Hey, man, thanks for being here here while wounded and everything. [01:23:27] Speaker A: And I hate your Henley. [01:23:28] Speaker C: Dude, this thing is awesome. How do you not love this thing [01:23:30] Speaker B: because I think he just hates the fact that you're able to wear it. Cuz it's 100 degrees here. [01:23:35] Speaker A: Nailed it. [01:23:36] Speaker C: It's actually dropped down to like 59 at this point. [01:23:38] Speaker B: All right, time to go. [01:23:42] Speaker A: Thanks. DFW soccer curious. We will speak to you next week on another episode of 3rd Degree the Podcast. [01:23:49] Speaker C: Dan, we need a mockup. [01:23:51] Speaker A: 3rd Degree the 3rd Degree Ned podcast 3rd Degree the 3rd Degree near podcast 3rd Degree the 3rd degree Nap podcast 3rd Degree the 3rd° Nap podcast. [01:24:16] Speaker C: Sam.