4/12 Houston Dash Preview

It doesn't mute. And I'm like, what is that? Oh wait, nevermind. I found the mute button. Hold on. Okay, thanks.

mute.

Yay. I love that for me.

Welcome to Casual FC, an Angel City match Preview Pod and Footy Therapy Pod, featuring two podcast certified footy therapists. I'm your host, Mario Salazar. And why did I put my initials as ma whatever

You were channeling M.A. (Vignola).

with my troubleshooting co-host, Angela Morales. tonight has been a night. It has,

It has been a night.

it has been a night.

Technology is not working in our favor. We are doing the best we can. Like my day started. With me closing my front door on two of my fingers, so yep. And that's after yesterday. Going to put something in like the outside trash can and the lid smashing my hand. this hand hurts.

Yeah, and we've had so many difficult technical difficulties just trying to get on and record this thing. Not even on. It's,

It is for show.

It's for show. Yeah. I'm just gonna keep it in for show.

It's plus. Hmm.

on Paramount Plus, apparently everything streaming is Plus. okay.

Plus.

Plus it's also gonna be on iHeartRadio. So listening to Isaac and Tracy, they are two favorite people that if you can't watch the game, you can't be at the game. Just gotta listen to them and it's gonna feel like you're there. There is an official watch party and it's going to be at Common Space Brewery, which is in Hawthorne at 3 4 1 1 El Sconda Boulevard. And, the start time is going to be at 1:00 PM This is the official one hosted by Angel City, and it is family and dog friendly.

Yeah, I will say common space is an amazing space, but if you wanna park, you gotta get your there early. Like the parking is a rough sitch.

Okay.

fine if you're just going to chill, but every time I've tried to go to a watch party there, it's bonkers.

All right. So there you

Absolutely bonkers.

Get there early.

Dude, they're so early.

we had. we have, we've had an international break,

Hmm.

so our last episode was kind of a half episode. 'cause we did, our recap had no, preview to talk of. Now we've got the preview to talk of, but we have no recap, although we do have some exciting stuff that happened over this international break.

Yeah, so one, we dropped our hundredth episode. I cried for an hour. Mario cried for 20 minutes, like we were unwell. I. I screenshot a, a, a picture of me like, you know, my sleeves are pulled up. I'm like covering my face, just like big weepy, weepy mess. But thank you so much. Just in general, thank you.

It was a

single person who's listened to five minutes of an episode. Mario, thank you so much. Like we're not gonna cry tonight. I just wanna say thank you.

It was, it was very special. It was nice to hear from so many people. It was, it was just good times all around and it, it just kind of makes us want to keep going, keep doing

Yeah,

figuring out these stupid technical difficulties and signing up for a free trial somewhere else to record our

just to.

It, yeah, it's a

Tonight's a mess. but yeah, so during this international break we've had a a, a wild ride. I also really quick, I've been meaning to talk about launch break on the podcast for Six months, and I keep forgetting. So this watcher Launch Break is a new network that started last year that I'm an ambassador for, like board of directors, ambassador for, for female athletes, whether it's college pro, semi-pro, whatever. ask me about it. I'll get you a link to get signed up.

Oh

Yeah, she was

Oh,

scouted for Yukon. She was going, yeah, it's a whole thing. And Paige's mom, Paige, Becker's mom. Her hotel room number was 8 24. So you know

the vibes were there.

the vibes were there. The curse is broken. Gino's curse is broken. It's, it's okay. So

Yeah,

yeah, I guess I have to be a normal person again. Women's college basketball season is over, but. In a month,

did you,

professional basketball starts.

Yeah. did you see that, post, I think it was from CBS where they showed that there was near perfect bracket that there was. Someone who, someone who

Wow.

wrong and it was like,

No,

and it was like one of the, the first round matches. Like they just had

like the playing games. Whoa.

else was right.

Wow.

So just

That's insane. I hope they, I hope they put money on it. I hope it wasn't one of the free ones. I hope somebody won a lot of money for that. but yeah, so now it's solely soccer for a month for me, and then it's back to basketball and soccer for the rest of summer. But I'm super excited.

yeah,

where you, they have that thing over and you have to like, yeah, you have to fix or try and score in the little like circles they have that Craig's is there, she's putting on a good time. And like the Centrum, like the poor employees, like that, that team was so stressed because they're like, why is everybody freaking out? And everybody's we're here to see Krieger. I don't give a shit about your vitamins. It was one of those where they were not prepared and Eva looks at one of the women there.

When

so that's.

technical difficulties.

exactly. But she came over, took pictures with us, gave us, she's honestly exactly who you want her to be, who you think she is. She's so sweet, so kind. So giving with her time, like full on, spent like five minutes teaching Eva how to kick a soccer ball in like chunky rubber shoes. Like not tennis shoes of any kind, and doing a fricking great job.

Oh, you didn't give it to her there?

No, we gave it to her at the kit Reveal. Like she, she had this guy and was like, yo, and what the hell? So then people started DMing us. How gonna get stickers? They're gonna get sent out hopefully this week, if not early next week. or find us at somewhere I don't know. This weekend was insane.

I totally thought you, you like that was someone you, you saw and gave stickers to that day, like you saw Allie Riley.

No, I gave those to her in January

Thank you, Allie.

or February, whenever that event was. That's when we gave it to her. Yeah, so thanks Kap for keeping those stickers. That's cool. So yeah, that, that's how Saturday went and then the team won and we hung out with, we got to see Ethan. His wife, Doug, Alyssa, Josie, and Alyssa's brother, who we were good friends with.

Josie

rent.

to this one, right?

Yeah, doing trivia at the game. So that was super cool. I mean, we were planning to meet up with the four of them anyway, but like still, it's still fun to just be like, oh, hey, there's my friends. Alex, like I said, like we met up with so many people that we knew,

that,

new friends. Like it was just it. I just love this community around soccer. It's so fun. We had a great time. and. Did I mention, I don't think I mentioned this. I, if you've been watching my Instagram stories, you saw some intel and not intel, but like behind the scenes pictures, because I got a, through one of the groups I'm a part of, I went on a tour hosted by US Soccer of SoFi. So like we were on the pitch, we got to go in like the press box and like all different kinds of stuff.

you had a fun week. Yeah.

I did. It was a very good time. yeah. that's, that's it. I'm tired. We just finished. It's Tuesday night. We just finished watching the national team lose at the last minute, whatever. they, they made a good point in the post game of Emma's just I have to play these players sometimes. Like they, people gotta get reps, people gotta get caps, It's fine.

Yeah.

No one's concerned. I mean, Brazil played a hell of a game. They scouted us really well between Saturday and today, which is, fun but not great when it comes to how we also scout a team. Yeah,

Well, Angela had an epic international break. We had some of our angel city players out on

yeah.

Alyssa had some amazing,

god. She's a grownup.

Giselle got in today,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

the full game she, oh no, she didn't play on, Saturday.

she didn't, she didn't play on Saturday. No. But and then we have, Kennedy, and Fair out. and they played each other. and then we also have, a bunch of people that were on training camps. So Fuller, was in the training camp, so was and, Angelina, there's

Savvy

savvy was on. so

and someone else. Yeah.

even though we didn't have NWL matches this week, we still had some, chaos award. And the Chaos Award goes to Alana Kennedy coming back to us with a black eye.

Yep. Why not?

Why

Might as well bring back a souvenir.

she, if you guys didn't see it, there was this, kind of comparison post, but I think by attacking third,

Mm-hmm.

where it was like, in classic Alana fashion, she's like checking out her injury on the big screen

Yeah.

you see her like, she, she got hit. I didn't, I, I didn't watch the med, so I didn't see how she got hit or whatever. But her whole like cheek is there's a shiner, like it's

Mm-hmm.

gonna bruise up. and she's just kind of looking up at the screen. Like you see her, the camera's trained on her and she's just like using

Yeah. She's like looking at it

Like just trying to

and that's not the first time that's happened. It's like the second time she, this exact scenario,

There was another one where she's in the, more, the, the yellow kit for

the Australia.

and then she's doing the same thing with a big old gash in her nose and she's just let me, let me, where, where's the camera? Let me turn

Like, how bad is it?

Yeah. And then both times you see her go oh, oh, okay. So chaos ensues. No matter what

Mm-hmm.

to, long as these players are on the page, there's gonna be something that happens.

Yep.

yeah, we had that, quick roundabout of the scores from the last week in the NWSL. Before we get into our match preview is as I scroll down, all right, so over that last week we had a two to nothing win from Washington over bay. We had a no nail tie with Houston and Gotham, which we're going to play Houston Next had a two one win from Orlando to San Diego. one over Utah. Three to nothing. and North Carolina tied nil nil. Chicago again, lost. They are not having a good season.

It is really sad, like genuinely, and I don't know if it's because of whatever's going on with Mel Swanson, but I hope whatever it is, she's okay. She commented on Alex Morgan's post and it's the first sign of life that we've seen. So yeah. Good vibes over to the the Swanson household.

Yeah. so they, they lost, to racing and then we had our win over Seattle. Now if you want to hear the excitement and everything that went on, we have our last episode. We have a little kid screaming out. Refuse suck. It was all good. It was all good times, good vibes in the stadium.

Yeah.

li, go listen to that real quick if you want the recap. But the fun, great thing about all of this is that we are one of three teams that are undefeated.

Woo.

I think it's Orlando and Casey and

You know what the, yes, please.

I will take it.

Ba. Last year, BFC did not have a draw. Let's not have a loss. Like I'm fine being undefeated. Even if we just tied the rest of the season,

You know? You know what? Orlando and

be okay.

have a very different undefeated than we do, but you know what, technically we're still undefeated and

Yeah.

is still correct.

Yep. Exactly, exactly. And I don't hate it. And I, you know, we were also, guests on the noodle time,

the dash dispatch.

dash Dish Dispatch. That's hard to say, just before this with watching the game, and I'm just really excited for this match.

Yeah,

I'm very excited for this match with the dash at Shell Energy Stadium. On Saturday, because this is gonna be a very interesting matchup. It's basically like Angel City 2.0. It's I feel like we're in this 2.0 era now. Finally, like we're figuring some shit out

yeah.

versus. A CFC light is what I was calling it with them, because there's a lot of Angel City players, front office staff, there's a lot of folks from Angel City like it, and it, it's not a slight to either team, it's just whoa. It's one of those where you're like, oh, that's where all our players went. Got it. Or that's where this happened.

Yeah, it is

it,

It

yeah.

so territory.

But they're, they're in this era of we look great on paper. Can we finally make that happen on the pitch consistently? Again, their their big key things. We were talking to, like the guys from, from the dispatch, like both of our teams need consistency.

yeah,

They need lineup, consistency, coaching, consistency, front office consistency, just a, any level of consistency. We all need it collectively as two different groups. So I'm very curious because like we have to come out very aggressive on the ball, retaining possession. Like we have to be very offensively minded because.

Yeah,

After that. 'cause it's, it's different. It's two games in a short period of time.

And it's a, it's a Tuesday match right now, and then we

Yeah.

match, so it's there, it, it's short rest.

Mm-hmm.

You. I'd be, I, I would actually be surprised if she starts and plays the full 90. Yeah.

Yeah. Same.

I would be middle of the road surprise if she starts, but then gets, you know,

Mm-hmm.

and,

probably get. second half minutes. 'cause we've got,

More,

we got folks we could play

Yeah.

folks named Kristen Press. but Houston is hungry, like Houston is. They're, they have a chip on their shoulder, rightfully Like they, they're, right now they're in a fifth five way tie for fifth place, which puts them in like ninth place, which is what? but I mean, granted it's worth three weeks into the season. It's not that serious. There. I mean, when you've been bottom of the table and you've had this weird, rocky coaching history, you know like is, who am I talking about?

Yes. It's definitely going to be time for young guns to step up. It's definitely gonna be time for our. I know we already talked about this, not liking the second string, moniker, but the, the, our, our backups, our

Yeah.

our depth pieces. There we go. Our depth pieces are gonna get some more playing time, right? And so we're going to maybe rely on them a little bit

Mm-hmm.

So I, I think it's gonna be a really good matchup. 'cause I, after talking to the guys, from Dash dispatch, you know, getting that insight of look, they don't necessarily, they had a couple of players on international duty, but they don't really have. A lot of their starters

Yep.

on international duty. We have a few of our starters and a few of our depth pieces that were out for international duty. So where are we gonna start filling these things in?

Right. And we even had coaches called up like,

yeah, we got the call up, which is great. And it it like, you know, yes. But. It'll be interesting to see. And I, I think it's gonna be a fun matchup.

yeah,

it's gonna be a fun matchup because I think we're

I.

in the same place. We're both in the same, like you were saying, the same mentality, the same rebuilding, the

Mm-hmm.

drive for hunger. This, this, we, we want to prove what we can actually do and

Right.

You know, we talked about the, Angela Leys, like power moves that happened like as soon as she left and we're like, what the hell we needed those. so like all those power moves that happened over there and how they were rebuilding it, and I think, I think it's just gonna be a fun matchup. I, I, I'm, I'm excited for it. I really hope that my schedule. It does not deter me from actually watching this a two, 2:00 PM game with some kids and we've got like other kid activities that,

Mm-hmm.

it, it's, that's hard. Yeah.

Yeah, I think like I, I'm, I'm curious to see who is in our lineup. But I have theories. I'm excited to talk about them. for Houston though, their whole team is good. Like we talked about this in the season preview. You got Messiah Bright, you have Paige Nielsen, you have Yasmine Ryan, who she might be on limited minutes because she was playing tonight. You have, Deanna Ez who's coming back off, an injury, but she didn't, you know, she didn't travel with the Mexico team.

Yeah, our.

Yeah.

Yeah, the, the momentum, it's a momentum breaker.

Mm-hmm.

good. It's it's like when you, when you have, like, when you fall asleep like really deeply and then you end up sleeping for 10 hours and then when you wake up you're like extra tired because you slept too long or like you have a headache because you slept too

Yes.

It's that type of thing. It's yes, the sleep was good, but

But where am I?

yes. So I, yeah, the, the question will be one, who's gonna be starting, and two, the momentum. Has this affected our momentum? 'cause like we said, once again, undefeated,

Yep. Yeah, so it'll be very interesting. Like I just,

I'm,

I'm, I'm pulling up our notes from the preseason. Recap or pre recap, whatever we were calling it. Preview. There's a word. Thank you. Future cast. I don't know, like I'm looking at like you have Kristen Westfall, who's insanely good. You have Danielle Cola Preco, who I will talk about forever 'cause she's gonna be on my fantasy team every season.

We

I love it so much. Yes. Like I just love defense. I love it. It's such a game changer. It's such like a powerhouse, and I love it. But I mean, Ali Krieger's, one of my favorite soccer players of all time. Duh. I love defense. I have a Becky Sour Bru Kit. Yes, I love defense. is it, is it flashy? No. But when a centerback saves a goal, guess what you remember? You freaking remember you have, like I said, Messiah, bright Ian who played, I don't know if she played tonight. I didn't even see.

two

She got one, she almost got two. It was, they got chippy on Saturday Like I was ready for like hair pulling to start. It was that kind of chippy, oh my gosh, chill out guys. This are friendly. But you could definitely tell there was some leftover, Olympic

tell

frustration from, from both teams.

yeah. Yeah,

so I'm excited.

yeah, the

different rumors. Yeah, like different everything about how and why and when and who. But like regardless, it was apparent she was not mentally prepared to be traded and whatever that is, whatever those reasons were. I still don't like 'em because we're still short center backs. but it is what it is. I'm always happy to see her play. She's a wonderful human.

Yeah.

yeah.

I, I think this kind of goes back to like my whole not buying, like refusing to buy, player kits. I love Paige. Paige was amazing. She was a rock. She was,

Mm-hmm.

I, I, I love following her on social media. Her, her sister is great. And, the family is, is amazing. please don't please take it easy on us. you know, we, we love you. It was just some weird shit with the, with the front office, but, but. You ain't, you don't go here anymore. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but you don't go here anymore. like it was a shitty way for you not to be here

Yeah,

but

like I do not condone what happened, but now that we're here and that you scored on us and we lost that game, I don't know. You like that?

Yeah. Yeah. like I always say, it's really fun to be at a match, to have the banter, to have the, fun. like let's have, let's have a beer before the game. Let's have a beer reminisce after the game win, lost draw. Doesn't matter on whose side it is, but whistle to whistle.

I don't know you.

the wrong kit,

Yep.

you know,

Yeah. And granted, I will say I feel exactly the same way. I don't know her,

Yeah,

but like I respect the shit out of her.

yeah, yeah. Whistle to whistle. I'm like, I'm like, exploitive, expletive, expletive. You know, and then I turn around and I see that there's little kids around me and I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, but

My bad.

my bad.

Teach your kids how language works. Like

if you keep them away from the bad words, they just want to use them more.

Yes, exactly. But no, I, I think this magic is gonna be very interesting because. Houston for me is a big unknown right now. I've seen clips, I've seen little things, but I haven't seen enough to be like, yeah, we're gonna win. Or yeah, they're gonna, whatever. I hope we win. I would like us to stay undefeated. If we have to draw to do that, that's fine, but I would prefer three points and maybe like win by a couple goals so we bring back like a more positive goal differential.

yeah, at least we're not like hemorrhaging. In like gold

Yes.

this year so far. So

Yeah. We're not, God bless the stars, like they, that poor team right now.

we're trending in a, in a good, positive way.

Yeah. We're plus one.

that's all we can actually ask for is just keep the trend going.

Mm-hmm.

We'll write it out, we'll write it, you know, we just gotta get to the playoffs.

Exactly right now. And just as a reminder, yeah, just as a reminder, we are in sole ownership of fourth Place. That's the last team that has sole ownership of anything.

of these matches,

She is different this year. Eva and I were talking about it the other night. She's back home with her family in New Jersey, so I'm not sure if she's gonna be able to watch the game, but like at is different. We've watched this girl grow up. You watched a high school senior become, I. a World Cup caliber player in five seconds. I'm also, I'm getting teary eyed, but it's because my allergy meds are wearing off.

Yeah. No, but, but you're right. We've seen, Alyssa go from super hyped prospect, super hyped, just family. 'cause I mean, we signed her sister too, like before she got

And there are other little sisters in, like the youth, she's in the youth soccer programs for the country. So

a third one.

yes, there's more. Be afraid y'all. I just, I just cracked open. I just cracked open my Capri sun. I hadn't done it yet.

but yeah, we, so we saw her from this like amazing prospect. Granted, the last couple years haven't necessarily been the best winning environment

Yeah,

kind of keep

they have not allowed her to really flourish, but she,

you

ugh.

there. Then we got, last year was the year of the yips. But as we said to counterbalance the, whether it was the yips or whether it was the, just kind of like refinement and, and trying to fine tune what she was seemingly lacking, you know, from her game. She more than made up by becoming an amazing assist.

she, she took a season that wasn't necessarily going her way when it came to scoring and finding those opportunities, which we now know, the whole team felt like everything was forced, which makes complete sense. It looking back. Yeah. Everything felt forced.

yeah.

We even said it a few times, but she took a season that wasn't necessarily going her way and said, okay, what else can I, what can I do to help? And leaned into that and said, okay, I'm not scoring. Can I help other people score?

Yeah.

I get myself in the right position? Can I draw the defense to open somebody up and find a little slot to get them the ball? That kind of thing. So like that alone is resilience and I, she is the face of resilience this season. It's being talked about all over the place after Saturday because it was like, oh shit, that is an adult. Like it's the kind of thing where you saw this, this player, you know, she's coming outta the gates this season.

and

this is my spot, essentially. And took it and watching her. Sofa was insane because I was like, our little girl has grown up. One of my, one of my good friends from college up in the Bay Area, she's a Bay FC season ticket holder, but like Angel City was her first team. You know, like the way we talk about folks where it's like Portland was my first team, but now Angel City is my team. I.

Yeah.

you know, we were her first team. She's I'll always have, and she's a huge Sid fan, so it's like very, very poignant. But she texted me at when the game first started, 'cause we scored in the first 30 seconds to tonight. But she's like, why am I screaming? Let's go baby girl. Come she's my child. And I was like, because she is we just watched this girl grow up in a matter of hours it felt like. But she is a completely different player. The poise on the pitch is different. She's just.

all right, well

Yeah.

list, you had Savvy.

Yeah, I did have Savvy because she's just great and she had time. Like I'm, I'm so curious to see how she and Sarah worked in this week off.

well, she was with the national team

dang. She was, I forgot about that. And we talked about it five minutes ago, but even still,

so

I don't know how, like where was that camp also, do we know?

It was at the, it was, it was with the, with, it was with the national team. Like it was with the senior team. I think they were all training in the same place.

Really? Because she was with U 23, wasn't she?

Yeah.

wasn't.

I, but that was, I think that was at, well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know honestly, but I think that was Emma's, strategy and goal was. That's why they were all the call ups for the U nineteens. The U 20, U 20

Oh, interesting.

were because to have all of them together to get all of the coaching staffs looking at them all at once, being able to kind of really assess who's ready to make the move up and

I mean, that would be very smart. But regardless, I'm curious to see how the week off conversations, because still the team's talking to each other, they're not just oh, I don't know her for a week. I'm curious how that

Yeah.

partnership.

we've mentioned the fact that savvy and, Gordon are up to be our solid centers there, in the back line, but they didn't, haven't necessarily had a ton of Right. They, They, they said in like you were there, they said

Mm-hmm.

after the first game, hey, we've only had half a scrimmage to

Yeah.

with each other and get to know each other and get to know, and get to know each other in like play style 'cause and everything like that. Right. So having that. Still being like, look, you, these are the, the, the minutes on the pitch are the minutes that you've had really, be beyond like training. But we've talked about training and

Yeah.

completely different. and then now she went onto, national team training, during this international break. So there's another gap of

Yeah.

Sarah not being able to, to

But I'm also curious because they might not have been working together, but I wonder what that conversation was with Savvy working with other people. oh, what if we do this? You know, there's always that collaboration of okay, I just learned something new. How can we make this cool?

Yeah.

that's the best part. So I'm hoping, fingers crossed that we have a very cool week of training and we come out in Houston and we just have this stupid defense. Granted, I, I always want stupid defense, but. Stupid positive, not stupid derogatory defense. but no, I, I'm just, I love watching her play, and this is kind of like a loosey goosey episode. I didn't pull up all the stats and everything, but we'll get into that a little bit later on. But this is just I'm just excited for soccer.

her focus is on soccer right now. March is There's no more basketball at the moment.

I know I have a month off. You get me for, but I need this like, recovery week.

Oh yeah, that's true.

A and or Hannah Johnson,

which

I'm okay either way. That's, that's dope. Alana Kennedy probably won't start, which will be interesting 'cause I don't know who would fill that spot either. Ma Macy Hodge would be my first guess. You know, Katie Ellum, Macy Hodge. And then, I mean, I don't see a reason not to start Chris and press. Everyone's foaming at the mouth. I think this is the best option. Get us hot. Get us started. You know, like start, start hot. Just crank the heat up and.

had that wonderful goal. but it was the glimpse of like, when you put her in,

remember?

so hopefully,

when, when Kristen Press eats, we all eat that kind of thing. let her fly, let her have this goal, let her dance on the pitch. Like it's just, there's certain players that win, they score. It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. A Kristen Preco. Both makes you feel like you're on top of the world and slightly hurts your feelings because it's so good. I don't honestly, like we, we talked about it, I think season one where she taught, she learned how to

learned how to

adjust her stride so that when she's going to kick the ball, it's in stride. It's in her running stride. So you don't know when she's actually gonna shoot. She just does. And not all players do that. Some people have to make a very specific movement or, you know,

like the stutter step to

yeah, get in the mode.

Yeah.

No, she's just in running stride. Like one, two, like 1, 2, 3, triple D. that's what it feels like. I do love the Mighty Ducks, but yeah, I, I really,

puck whenever she needs to

yes. Yeah, it's one of those, she has a bag of tricks that. Nobody like ever doesn't like nobody is upset when they get pulled out. Nobody's upset

There's one more trick shot that they had in that, in the Mighty Ducks. What

as a Triple D, the knuckle puck. And then,

I just get the

I dunno.

No.

Well, oh yeah, flying v.

yeah, yeah.

Yeah, flying bes a big time. Now I wanna watch Mighty Ducks, but I'm gonna go to bed after we finish recording. but then, yeah, I, I'm just curious how, what our lineup is gonna be. It's not, we're not gonna have the same lineup as the first three games just going, knowing that, because like I said, yes, we need consistency, but you don't run your players into the ground.

Yeah.

Especially now that we have the full text of the new CBA, you are not doing that.

Yeah.

It's illegal.

it'll be interesting also because we've talked about this idea of you change more than

Mm-hmm.

your core players, then the system starts to fall apart.

Yeah.

ha, will the system start to fall apart or have they been able to, adjust and plan and. Plan for this ahead of time to say Hey look, we

Yeah.

start working on these, formations and lineups in anticipation of not having certain players.

which would be the smart thing, genuinely, and like this week who like, I mean, they already are gonna know their starting lineup, so like they're gonna be practicing in that formation to prepare for this. I am just curious. I'm very excited because I like it. Everybody knows, I like it when teams get weird. I like it when they have to pull stuff outta their back pocket, you know, ace up their sleeve, that kind of thing of what's gonna be the thing?

All right. Our

oh. But

the team

yes, our history with the team is also very equally matched, which is frustrating. I like our, our record against Seattle is very skewed and hey, we evened it out a little bit. We had had a lot of losses. Because of the challenge cup stuff, whatever, against Houston, we have one win, one loss, and four draws. So okay, we essentially are even across the board with them.

Yeah. goes to show how

one of those was heartbreaking, but.

even though we've, At times probably had a better team. They had, you know, they were struggling. Uh uh, they've been struggling a lot longer than we have, but they've also, we've, we've also not been immune to things. Right. So with all that being said, I mean, look at the, the overall record and it's we've been pretty evenly mashed over the

Mm-hmm.

it's like not, yeah, it'll, I think, I hope this is a fun. up. And like even if it's a draw, it ends up being like a fun draw,

Yeah.

like

Not a slog.

slog type thing, although it's gonna be freaking humid

Mm-hmm.

that good stuff though.

It's gonna be like 85, 90 degrees at kickoff, like at 4:00 PM Ew. That's why I don't go to Texas. Like it, it was funny in one of the Discord, the women's sports Discords I'm in, somebody was like, yeah, that's why I don't go to Texas. just like kind of being like, Ugh, Texas, because TCU Women's basketball and Texas, the University of Texas, we're playing each other. And everybody's can both teams lose? 'cause I hate Texas. And so one person's Hey, sorry our government sucks.

Yeah. Yeah. It muggy, muggy is the word. It's

Yeah.

muggy no

like soup.

It's one of those things, like when I've traveled to, like, when I've flown down to like Central America, you know, you go, you go to the, to the tropics where our people are from, and then you step out of that plane. It's just a wall of

Yeah. You are like.

You're swimming through the air and

My heritage is from here, but my body is not. Yeah. Yep.

well, this has been a recap for our matchup. Again, it's going to be on Saturday the 12th versus the Houston Dash down in Houston, shell Energy Stadium. It's gonna be a 2:00 PM kickoff for us. 4:00 PM in Houston. It's gonna be on Paramount Plus and the N WSL Plus app. and if you can't. Here. If now if you can't watch them and you can't be there, to them. on iHeartRadio. Listen to Isaac and Tracy. It's gonna be great. They make you feel like you're there.

They usually have food vendors too, just regularly at common space, but they may have more. and then we will, we'll post any others that we find out about.

Yeah. it is, family and dog friendly. you know, the, so it'll be a really nice, time there. I have seen a couple of, other watch parties by sgs and we'll be sharing those out, in, due time with, for going up to the match. So keep, keep an eye on our socials and, you'll, you'll find out other places to watch and, yeah.

I saw the thought fly outta your head. Gone forever.

gone forever. I what it was, I have no clue right now what.

Alright everybody, if you like what you hear and you want more of this shenanigans, usually we're a little bit more organized, but hey, whatever. It's weird. hit the subscribe button wherever you're listening. We always appreciate. Listeners and engagement and all the good stuff. You can check out casual fc.com for all of the podcast links, all of the million places that we're streaming. 'cause Mario checks all the boxes when he uploads this.

a, if there, if there happens to be time and there happens to be a super cut of. Angela crying. That may be something down the road.

Oh God,

any promises

just, just sobs for an hour. Oh geez. And that's not even from the hundredth episode. Anyway, casual fc.com has all the things you need. If you don't catch any other link that I'm about to talk about, all the things are there. we're also on YouTube, which is super cool. I actually, I was like a super YouTube watcher when YouTube like barely started and then like I've stopped using YouTube for 15 years and now I'm just like, oh, right, YouTube. And I forgot.

Yeah.

and if you order it soon, it should get here before the next home game. 'cause there it's really, it's really quick.

It's

So

Yeah.

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