The Undeserved Loss Pod

Hello and welcome to Raising Anchor, your podcast and source for all things Rhode Island FC. I'm your host Matt Entrykin coming to you on this Thursday, May 8th. RIFC exits from the Open Cup, falling 2 -1 to the New England Revolution. What went wrong? What went well? And well, we're going to talk about that and kind of find the storylines in between where we can discuss. Then we're going to talk a little bit later with Chris Moulton from the Union Report as he'll give us a preview

of Monterey Bay FC. traveling here to central bank stadium this saturday joining me as always looking so fly in the defiant 1636 kit is the one and only jason carey jason how is it going my friend i'm doing pretty great you know got to see a open cup for the first time in what 111 years or something because you were there for the last because i was there before you know because i'm that old i could feel it my knee you know whatever the secret is to your fountain

of youth yeah Speaking of being old, you know, this is a busy period for the players. And, you know, they get some rotations here. Like, coach, sub me out. Like, where's, you know, it's a long week for us. I just off the cuff. Do you happen to know who the oldest player on this team is? No. It is one Maxi Rodriguez who has been putting in a lot of distance, a lot of distance on his legs right now. He's, you know, he's no Koke Vegas where he can, you know, last an extra decade

if he takes care of his body. Definitely be some mileage and some probably much needed rotation. Hard to find it with all of the injuries that

we've had. across this team over the last few weeks but this road stretch or excuse me this home stretch still not over we may be into three games here in seven days but we have two more so basically five games in 14 days that's a long stretch and then when you include the open cup that's a total of six games so it is going to be a wild time ahead you're already getting points for wearing the defiance kit i so it's funny is i got home from work and i was basically wearing

to work like the same shirt you were just a blue polo with some random design so we would have been twinsies so good thing i i saw my jersey here put it on and just like whatever i'm just gonna keep this on for the pod so that's okay that's okay uh so hey let's get ready let's just get right into this and let's talk about this open cup game first and foremost let's do the vibe check you know it's the second game in front of 9 500 almost close to a sellout i i haven't

been able to confirm it yet but i think it may have been one of the highest recorded attendance games on the night on that wednesday performance as all of the usl championship teams kind of got rattled against their mls opponents What was the overall experience for you in your second game at Centerville Bank Stadium? Yeah, second match there, and it was fantastic to see 9 ,500 people on a Wednesday night when I think we were talking about one of the finals not too long

ago only had 8 ,000 people at it. In the finals, that's where your team could actually win a legitimate trophy, not just earning the right to continue on in the competition here like we were playing for last night. The fact that so many people are showing up, you know, and really having a good time and really enjoying the vibes of the stadium. I mean, like I saw a post on RFC's subreddit earlier about people like this stadium is amazing.

Like this is so much fun there. You know, like there's a few pain points, but overall, everyone is really excited. And I think surprised, especially depending on the circles that you fall into. There was a lot of naysayers back in the day. I think a lot of them have kind of quieted down, but that probably spread to some people and they're like, I don't know about this, especially if

they're not soccer sickos. We ran into Governor McKee and asked him what were his overall thoughts and beyond just being able to enjoy the game and the experience, he's very much enjoying the position he's in of being able to kind of shut down and shut up those naysayers themselves,

those detractors. Thinking into the game itself, fireworks again during the singing of the national anthem i did confirm with general manager paul burn i was like hey you're setting a dangerous precedent here and he said that is not going to be something that we you should expect to see game after game he didn't say when it would stop He did mention that it would, of course, be there for the big fireworks show displays.

But we were talking like, hey, we're getting addicted to that, especially when the first goal gets scored. That was a phenomenal experience. I saw Defiance having to have a conversation with the fire marshals over the deployment of the smoke inside the stadium. They had never seen that at a soccer event or a sporting event in general. So there was a lot of concerns about that was going off and they were trying to. coordinate.

I guess they maybe didn't understand what that expectation looked like and that had already been cleared at the stadium. So that was an interesting thing to see. But overall, I mean, like you said, soccer in the Open Cup returns to Pawtucket. Tim McDuff from Defiance has been doing a lot of research lately. And there's been a couple of good articles that have come out lately about the Open Cup and kind of, you know, paying its homage to the fact that it started here at Coates

Field back in 1914. And I went back to say like, okay, well, when's the last time it was in Rhode Island? We did have Open Cup action with the Stingrays back in 1997, but the last time it was actually played in Pawtucket was over 100 years ago. So the fact that it gets to kind of come back to its birthplace would have been really exciting to get the win. We'll talk about that

in a second. But the last thing I want to ask you before we move on, because I don't know where else to put this, is now that the Revolution do advance, they are going to be playing a game at Providence College in front of less than 2 ,000 people. Is that not just the weirdest thing that you go from the, you know, the quote unquote Division One team who doesn't have the logistics in place? They can't even find a stadium to continue to grow the competition and see a 10 ,000 plus,

you know, fan experience. Is this just the biggest insult? Is this is this the legacy of Don Garber

manifested? yeah i was also gonna ask i'm like i'm not familiar with pc's field is that a soccer specific field it's just an athletic field okay i was gonna say maybe we got them addicted to soccer specific fields and they're like i'm curious why they're choosing rhode island of all places i didn't know if there was some tactical like tomfoolery and saying like hey like we just played in rhode island once look how lucky we are so we're gonna do it i mean the announcement came

so quickly after the victory that they must have planned that field and that logistic but you know again you're the new england revolution there's got to be a field somewhere that can accommodate at least 5 ,000 fans. I don't know. It feels like a slap in the face of the Open Cup. It feels like a slap in the face of the Revs fans saying like, well, we can't trust you to even, you know, get this many people to show up to a midweek game in a matter of a couple

of weeks. So we're going to do the best we can. Which is interesting. I didn't count the number of Revs fans, but there was quite a bit of them there, right? And they weren't all just in the supporter section. You know, we talked about

that in this community. There are a lot of people who have... maybe grown up watching that team for 30 years hashtag non -lmless podcast so maybe they had a little bit of uh you know kind of identity crisis there you we ran into a fan you were trying to convince him to convert he was already convinced but then when the revs scored he did like the excited clap and like he looked at me and said hey i'm sorry like if what you said is true and he said it in front of chip

on chip's honor i i'm fine with you again and i've said this multiple times we i went on the revolution recap earlier today we talked about it and spoiler alert uh seth said hashtag not on this podcast like four times just to really rub it in but um i said it a million times and i will continue to reinforce that i mean they do cover an mls team oh that but it's completely acceptable to be a fan of both these organizations I don't have to love the new England revolution.

I don't have to be involved in them. And if fans are, that's fine. There's plenty of soccer space here in new England to be a fan of both. Just in these particular matches, you got to celebrate. You got to root for the home team. You got to root for the underdog every single time. Yeah. And the draw worked out like in our quote unquote favor to allow us to have this match, but it could be a long time before we actually play

them again. Right next year. Who knows what MLS, how they will continue to enter this tournament.

who knows who will like maybe will run into someone and not like advance and vice versa with them you could end up in division one one day and have to wait to enter the tournament at the same round as them so we wouldn't see them unless we both advance like yeah no this is this is a limited fabled experience it's you know people are saying this is a rivalry like okay sure for the 90 minutes yes you're battling for New England like you're battling for that reason but After

this, like fans are going to spend a lot more time outside of those 90 minutes that have already passed talking about their individual soccer fandoms, their soccer culture. And there's just plenty of spaces where you can be both. So anyone that's been force fed the narrative, like you have to love one or the other. You can't be a fan of both. Like, don't pay it. The loudest voices online are often the most wrong ones.

So don't pay attention to that. I do want to ask you, though, before we move on to the game

itself. only one usl team now still in the hunt for the open cup does that make all of us pittsburgh riverhounds on on elimination days oh i'm definitely rooting for for them as the underdog to go through i mean i i would love for bob lilly to bob lilly his way through that tournament and imagine him making it to the final and just making it the most abysmal defensive match ever like even if they don't win just take it to the gritty end um You know, it's unfortunate that more of the

teams didn't make it through, but sometimes that's just going to happen. And the reality is with the resources they have kind of expected, you know, it doesn't happen like this though every year. When we went back in the lead up to this, look through the history, the Rovers have actually lost two championship team, I think four or five times in the last 10 years. So it's not uncommon for it to happen. It's just the way the cookie

crumbled this year. A lot of these championship teams actually took them like to the final minute. I mean, on the first day, it took extra time for two MLS sides to beat championship sides. And then, you know, Phil Bocchi's El Paso. They were in reach. I don't know what happened the second half there. I mean, El Paso is flying too high to the sun right now and their wings

are getting burned. They got, they got Icarus and we don't need to talk about Tampa Bay getting swept off the floor by Orlando, but, but listen, like these are the narratives. So if you're going to continue with the open cup and I hope people do just remember that you're now have, you now have to be a Bob Lilly fan for. the remainder of the Open Cup run. And hey, that's great for us because we face them in a couple of weeks. And the more mileage they have to put, it gives

us an advantage. So I'm completely on board with it. I did see in the news, the Pope was announced today. And when it first came out that he would be an American Pope, and I promise this is hashtag not a Pope podcast, but someone, I think John Morrissey put a picture of Bob Lilly's face over the Pope. And like right now, I believe. I believe in Pope Lily. So we'll see what happens on that

front. But let's get into this game and let's kind of unpack where things went really well and where things kind of fell off the rails here, so to speak. And let's get into the formations first and foremost so that way we can really start to unpack exactly what happened here in Coach Kano's selection. For starters, Jason, you were absolutely right. He's picked his cup keeper. He even went on to reinforce that in

the post -press interview where... Jackson Lee, for all intent and purpose, will continue to be the keeper for now the Jagermeister Cup. He is the man between the sticks. So you had Jackson Lee and Nett. And then more of that 4 -2 -3 -1 that can shift and metamorphosize into the 3 -5 -2. But in that back line, you had Adair Sanchez out on the left. Frank Nodarce returns to the squad in that left center back role, paired with Grant Stoneman. Rio Hope Gunn gets his third

start. Unfortunately, now the streak is over as they did not get the result. But Rio Hope Gunn on that right back side. And then in that middle double pivot, Amos Shapiro Thompson continuing to demonstrate a new level of gamesmanship. something that it's just been really exciting to see him just kind of transform into partnered alongside the ever vigilant Clay Holstead. And then that midfield three of Noah Fuson out on the left side. So he finally gets to drop back and be

a through and true winger. paired up with Maxi Rodriguez once again in the center of that midfield and Jojea Quisera out on the right. Chico gets the starting nod, returning again to this game. He played a long time. We asked Coach after the game about his minutes. He calls him Deeks, by the way. So that's his next evolution. It's Albert Dequa into Chico, back to Deeks now. So Deeks

getting the start. He was only supposed to go 45 minutes to manage his fitness and make sure that he's getting the minutes to get to full speed again. And Coach had a conversation and said, hey, we want to run you to 60 -65. Are you comfortable with that? And Chico said, absolutely. Not sure he had a tremendous impact on the game overall, but it was at least good to see a through and true striker back up at the front. Jason, overall thoughts on this roster and the way it

was built? Are you surprised by anything? No, I mean, it was close to an unchanged lineup here from the last match. You just kind of swapped Brito and Chico in and out there. The four -back line, to a certain extent, is continuing here. I know that in possession, we kind of still shift and kind of change into a three -back line. There's a lot of movement throughout the game, but it seems like defending with four seems to be the new kind of thing for this team. It's the new

meta. It's the new meta. I mean, at least until player health continues, maybe, or improves at that point. maybe we'll see some change but we're still shifting into a three and attack so i'm curious to see if that is like you say the new meta or is this just temporary because everyone's injured Well, I mean, I feel like we're starting

to grow an abundance of defenders. I mean, in this game, we saw Frank Nodarce finally get the unlock and go into that right wing back spot that we have been waiting for all season when Aimé Mbika got his first minutes with the team here in the Open Cup. I mean... No, Darcy has to be the tallest right wing back in the history of the USL, I feel like. But, you know, it was good to see him get out there. I'm not sure that our defensive shape was suffering from that because

we were chasing the game at that point. But it was exciting to see kind of what the future of our back line can be when it's transformed. And keep in mind, that's also without Karifa Yao in that mix up. So lots of opportunities, lots of possibilities to kind of go through that. So that's exciting to see. And then, you know, of course, the question that I had on my mind really was, you know, does Amos Shapiro Thompson

get the nod to get the second start? He was so impactful in that first game, getting man of the match from defiance. And, you know, he showed it. I think he repeated, I think he was one of the brightest spots on the field in this game. I mean, he really helped lock down the middle third of the pitch and he was like a dog chasing a car. Like anywhere the ball was, he was going anywhere where one of our players, you know,

made a mistake. Maxie even said every time he cost the team a turnover or an interception of some sort, like. Amos Shapiro Thompson was right there to clean up his own mistakes. Think about that. One of the most decorated midfielders in the game today in the USL championship, talking about how Amos is making him a better player. I thought he was phenomenal. And again, we asked this question of ourselves for an entire year last season. What is Amos Shapiro Thompson's

role on this team? When we finally saw it, he was thrust forward in that 10, like. False nine, kind of like what we thought maybe Kevin Vang would be with the minutes he got. We weren't really quite sure what he would do. And then Amos, Shapiro, Thompson, now more in the six and eight. Kano said after the game, he sees AST as a six or an eight primarily, just dogging everyone. He had Jackson Ewell in his pocket for a majority of the game. And Amos, Shapiro,

Thompson, I think is like 5 '3". I think the atomic ant from Toronto, see, I said this on the recap, I think he's taller than Amos, Shapiro, Thompson. You would have never... looked at saying body size or height was getting in the way of Amos, Shapiro Thompson, putting on a defensive masterclass. He was phenomenal on the pitch. Yeah. This maybe gives a coach some kind of interesting thoughts here because Harvo got left out, right? Because AST was having such a great match before

and another great match again tonight. So at this point, maybe this form is going to continue for him. at least in the near future. And as, you know, our midfield is kind of where we actually, you know, don't have as many health issues, right? It's up front and in the back. So in the middle, we have plenty of people. And so to a certain extent, maybe we're playing some of these people out of position. But once everyone gets healthy, I don't know how coach is going to manage all

these people here. So question for you, do you think though that... I mean, it felt like Zach Harbaugh getting the, you know, riding the pine at the beginning of this match felt more like managing the minutes across the need to preserve players for these, this three game series. Do

you see that that's the case? Because one, it's still the open cup and you want to let the players, you know, I, it's almost an insult to say he's a more junior player at this point, but let those players shine in these cup rounds and save a player like Zach Harbaugh for the performance against Monterey Bay this weekend. Zach Haribo, to say he's not on the starting 11 feels pretty insane, just given some of his early performances in terms of his offense and defense. I don't

know that I would swap that. It didn't work out because obviously we didn't advance into the Open Cup, but if we had, we wouldn't be talking about this. Do we think that there's going to be a real challenge for that secondary sixth spot between Haribo and AST? Possibly. But then also, don't we have another midweek game next week? Sure. It's a great problem to have this depth. For right now, with so many games, but maybe as that starts to go out later into the

season, maybe some of that spreads out. Everyone's healthy. How do you find that balance? Yeah. And remember, too, by the August window, we pretty much solidified our starting 11, with the exception

of having to rotate for change. We really started to see kind of... you know coach went from that chop and change where i think what was it the first 17 games he didn't have the same roster from game to game and then we really start to see that kind of get solidified in that backward um that back -end performance so let's talk about the goals themselves you know actually just to talk about the overall performance this the title of this episode is the the undeserved loss pod

you could call it the undeserved win pod as well overall we saw a very tough, well -fought battle against a Caleb Porter side where he intended to rotate. He was very proud in the post game about talking about how none of his starting 11 from the Toronto game in terms of first team players, even dressed for this match, that he had all this confidence and all this trust in the depth of his first off his second team, as well as the Academy players getting the call

up. And then just kind of those rotational players want to ask you, did this, game feel like an undeserved loss? It definitely feels like it from our side in the sense that watching the match, it felt like our AFC were fighting tooth and nail. They had lots of good opportunities. I think if you look at it from a purely statistical point, though, you wouldn't get that. You wouldn't see that because the revs were equal, if not better, on most of the stats. But they didn't

feel as cohesive. They didn't feel like a team that had played together a lot. The reality is that there are only two players out of that starting 11 who are actually MLS next pro team. And although those weren't starters, you go through all those players. These are all MLS like quality players who just aren't finding minutes in the team that Caleb Porter has selected because we know last

year. He had come in, he didn't have the opportunity to set up the team the way he wanted to, and so now that he's had the time to change things and they're finding success, all of these other players that they have accumulated over the past few years are kind of riding pie now. So these are players who could actually probably go play on some other MLS team somewhere, but Caleb Porter just doesn't have a use for them. There's a lot of experience out there. We weren't actually

playing a bunch of kids. You know, you look at like Max or Rudy, he's been around forever. Sands has some experience. Did you see the video from the journalist in the press? Yeah, that someone was trying to kind of spin the narrative that we are playing against a bunch of boys out there. But the reality is, it's. Is Andrew Farrell a boy? Yeah, I don't I don't want to harp on a fellow colleague who's in there. I know we all have said things that, you know, maybe we don't

want to ask out loud. I have a notorious story of something I asked Kano at the end of the, the, in the, the Lou, excuse me, the Lou city match in the playoffs that we'll take to the grave. But like that, that was true. You know, it was not, people are trying to set this narrative of, you know, Oh, it was a cup set because it was all MLS next pro players that cup set a USL championship team. And that just wasn't the case. Brandon by Will Sands, Andrew Farrell. Those

are not, those are not. Bono is an experienced keeper in the MLS as well. I mean, it's. They were playing an MLS team. It was just a secondary MLS team. And listen, we knew that, right? We knew that this was the possible result. If they had fielded more MLS next pro players, there was a potential that this would be a very scrappy and hard fought match. But we knew that if senior players were coming on, that this could be a

problem for Rhode Island FC. I was actually impressed with Caleb Porter not bringing any of his quote -unquote first team into the game. They were all in attendance up in the skybox next to the press room watching the game and cheering on their Revolution teammates. But when you look, you were talking about how a lot of the MLS teams this week in the Open Cup, they started dismantling their USL opponents, but that required them bringing on the first team players in the 60th, the 70th,

the 80th minute. you know B squads couldn't get it done against the championship and I think that's a that's a that's a quality check it's a quality showcase of the pedigree that the USL championship is starting to become but let's also not pretend that we are a division one product yet you know coach Kano afterwards I asked him because Porter had said we are supposed to beat the USL I don't want to lose to a team 30 minutes down the road. So we're not going to. And I asked

Kano, like, what's his thoughts on it? He goes, yeah, we're not supposed to beat an MLS team when our combined total salary roster is the same price as one of their, you know, young designated U22 initiative players. Like it's just, it's not, you're comparing apples to peanuts at that point. And it just, it doesn't fit the right narrative. So overall, I think it was a good game. I do want to ask you though, you didn't touch on it. So I'm going to, I'm going to. Dig

in a little deeper. Is this result a direct inflection of Jackson Lee and some poor decision -making? I'm not going to put it all on Jackson Lee, but it's always hard when a mistake is driven from a keeper's decision versus something further up the pitch that then ends up costing them after the run of play. What were your overall thoughts on Lee's performance? I think that he's probably being really tough on himself, and I don't think

you can blame it on him. I mean, you look at it and say maybe he did misjudge that there to a certain extent. But that was one of those weird cross shots. You know, I don't remember what the wind speed was like or something. Maybe it just kind of like gave it that extra little flight that spin. It just went over him. I don't know if you remember. I think it was like 10 years ago. There was this game City Man City versus Tottenham where Jesus Nava sent in this weird

cross that did the same thing where just. kind of sailed over the keeper and just went into the back post and i think i think chicago fire had that just like two years ago kicked it from like the 80 yard line and it just kept going and the keeper was like there's no way this is going to get to it it floated right over tim howard has scored a goal for everton like that he just took a long goal kick and the wind kind of just took it past the keeper and keepers have

the toughest job right if they make even the slightest of mistakes it's it's a goal whereas a striker if he gives the ball away and the opposition third well it's fine all my all my friends are here to kind of like stop the play at that point someone else really missed their kind of man marking or tackle or yeah but i mean so like and here's to be really clear right ace the kangaroo writes and i don't even think jackson could have claimed that ball lots of defenders turned off

too so if i assume we're talking about the second one my issue is not his response to it hitting the post and trying to i mean he went as fast as he could he didn't freeze he he saw it reacted and just tried to make the dive i thought that was a really good natural like kind of showing a keeper the speed that he can have The problem is with, what, four minutes left to go in regular time, a ball floating in and sailing that close, that's not a time to drop your arms and let it

clear for the goal kick. That's a time where you punch it out. Like playing to the whistle type of thing where you don't stop until you know for 100 % fact that it's out. I mean, when it comes to the first goal, I don't know. I don't blame him for that. I mean, that was a poor giveaway

in the midfield. The Meg, the Meg is unfortunate whenever a ball goes through a keeper's legs, but that is 100 % Grant Stoneman stepping out, trying to catch in the low block, trying to catch disrupt and create the counter misses the timing completely. Maxie Rudy has all the time in the world to get the shot prepped, fires it off. It still doesn't make it. And then when Rio hope gun. you know, can't slide in and, you know, cover enough space, the ball falls right at the

feet of Thomas Chonkale. Thomas Chonkale, I don't know if you know who that is, but he's kind of a good player for the MLS and for the New England Revolution. So, you know, the first goal is, I don't blame it on Lee, it's just the optics of it, seeing it go through his legs, that's

never good. And then, you know... full credit to this team you know they come out in the second half and i don't coach said that he just said be free when i asked him how he talked to the players in the locker room and he said you know i play without fear because what do you have to lose now at this point you either don't win or you show this team you show this club you show these fans what can happen maxi rodriguez who promised last week in the interview after

the game against san antonio promised that he loves the score against MLS opponents and absolutely comes through on that promise it was his fourth goal in his career scoring against MLS sides in the Open Cup and then he goes on to score the first ever goal for Rhode Island FC at Central Bank Stadium and the first goal ever against an MLS opponent unfortunately it's not the first goal ever in the history of the stadium and it's not the first victory for the stadium it's not

going to have consequences down like long stream i know again i know the yappers online they're gonna they're gonna say things for the next 20 years but does that really matter at the end of the day no i don't think it matters would it matter if a usl cup or a usl championship team gets to claim that like monterey bay on the weekend i think it actually would it would be much worse if like louisville came here and and got the the first win and scored the first

goal something like that like A team who, like I mentioned earlier, we don't know how many times we'll ever play this team again. So I'm not too concerned about it. The trolls, the little offshoot in the community, that'll be their bread and butter for the rest of their life and good for them. But it's not a big deal. I don't care. So one of the interesting stats we've been waiting to use are quant the hillside for some data when it comes to predictive modeling, you know, projections

and whatnot. But one of the interesting things is we've started to try to unpack kind of where this team is going, because ironically, and I know it doesn't feel like it coming off of this loss, but this is one of the better defenses in the USL championship right now, at least when

it comes to goals conceded. and i'm sure a lot of people listening right now we probably just caused a car crash tomorrow morning when someone goes there's no way this team is that good defensively but on average per 90 they've been doing a better job than the majority of the league but where rhode island has been struggling and this should be a no surprise either is the goal contribution and the offensive uh output right now we are struggling mightily so there's a graph up on

the screen now um and The reality is this, is that we have some players that are massively under indexing compared to their 2024 stats in a lot of big ways. So, you know, there are a couple of outliers I want to be careful about. You know, you look at players like Zach Harbaugh, who only played half the season and is historically not known for score. I mean, he scored four goals last season. So I want to be really clear about before that. I think he scored four goals in

his entire professional career. Yeah. You know, you also have to look at players like Joe Brito,

who. made the most of the minutes that they had um but the you know started the season and then kind of fell into a supporting cast role where i'm really looking in terms of the production numbers right now you gotta look at noah fusan noah fusan right now way off on his index he's at a negative 0 .67 in comparison to his 2024 stats and remember that's the golden playmaker right there So far this season, he doesn't have a single assist or goal in the regular season

play. Been doing great in being a supporting cast member with the cup runs in the Jägermeister Cup and in the Open Cup, but so far hasn't seen any term of success. And you see him all over the pitch. You see him running around, making the necessary dribbles, taking on defenders, getting the crosses in, shooting. He's got a

lot of shots, but nothing from it. do we need to start focusing on the clinicalness of this because right now per 90 the only player that's above their mark is clay holstead from last year and then you know chico really close he's knocking on the door but that's also because chico had such a long like he was hot for a while he's very streaky are there problems with this rhode island team right now or is this more give it time that we need to kind of wait and see i think

it's definitely a concern And I imagine coach is looking at it, but I don't know if it's like panic button yet. Right. Maxie is a new part to this team. So that's still kind of figuring out. We've gone through a lot of injuries. And while a lot of the team did stay the same, there's some tweaking going on here right now. You know, we thought is clay the answer to a right wing

back. And now maybe it's. rio hope gunned and you know is we weren't sure if quiz air was going to go on to the right you know wasn't sure if that was a thing and now that kind of seems to be the spot where he's been playing and so there's there is within our own system a lot of kind of flux that's been going on so i think come in a month or two if some of these numbers haven't improved and results aren't there then you start to think okay well what really is going on I

think we're still early days to a certain extent here that I'm, it's definitely something to, to kind of keep in mind. You know, Noah, for instance, the, all the work that he's putting in off the ball, are we not getting the best out of them because we're making them work so hard? I mean, like a good example was Liverpool this year. Muhammad Salah was unbeatable this year. And, you know, there wasn't a lot of change

between Jurgen Klopp and Arne Slott. But one of the main things that he did change that really helped the team out a lot was he kind of stopped making Mohamed Salah work so much off the ball and let him do what he does best. So I don't know if that's a small tactical role that maybe he would look at. I don't know if that, I mean, we're talking about Noah Fisan and Mohamed Salah. They're the same player. Yeah, basically the

same guy. But, you know, maybe he's not getting into the positions he needs to be in because we're moving him around. We haven't find his actual spot. And even for last year, I mean, the team kind of started slow. Even he did as

well, too. So I'm not concerned just yet. but when do you get concerned because you know we're going we can go through that denial period where okay we get to 10 games and then we take the hard look in the mirror we get to 15 games 20 games where do you start asking yourself what needs to change for this player for this tactic style and you know if we say well we need the best 11 possible that coach has envisioned for this team that could be into the end of july

so That would put us at about game 15 to game 17 in the season. Is that really the amount of patience that fans need to build in to be prepared to see this team really start to unlock its players and start seeing the kind of same performances that we saw last season? I think if like, let's just say arbitrarily a month from now, if we don't see improvements, I'm not saying every single player needs to improve their goal scoring

numbers. But as a whole, if we don't see some sort of sign of improvement, then we start to think, okay, something's wrong here. And maybe this isn't going to turn out to be a great season, you know? I mean, time will tell. Time will tell. Getting back into the storyline here, you know, back to that Jackson Lee piece, just kind of running down through the rest of this rundown.

I know we talked about Jackson Lee. There was, you know, there's those people online that say Jackson Lee would have saved that whenever Koke makes the mistake. Would we have benefited from having the, the leadership and the presence of, of our Capitan? Yeah, I don't, I think that's, you know, like I said, the, the, the goalkeeper position is such a tough job. One small mistake kind of costs your team. I don't, I don't think that would have changed a thing necessarily to

have Vegas in there instead of Lee. maybe slightly that like would have changed the way we play, right? We know Koke is super comfortable with the ball at his feet, loves himself a good pass. But also that's nothing to take away from Lee. We know he is a great shot stopper. And whenever Kano has called upon him, he's always put out like big performances for us. So sometimes it's just the, it's just the way it happens. And then

final kind of piece to the game itself. Want to talk about the tactics at some, it seemed like there was a little bit of a change in the halftime, you know, I'll die your Sanchez and full credit to producer torn for catching up on this. He inverts Sanchez for the two wingers. And, you know, we, we, I also full credit to the revolution. They did have a solid back line when we switched to the wingers and continuously tried to play out wide. It felt like. it was

always a double marker situation. We really, we could fire in a cross, but it felt like we couldn't get far enough up to be comfortable and let our midfield players, our second runners get into the box before the balls sailed through. Sometimes the crosses were a little sloppy, but you know, outside of that, it was the speed that they were trying because they needed the speed to get past the back line of the revolution.

Are the tactics working for this team right now, or is this just a we're missing JJ, we're missing that big player? Because I don't think Chico had as effective as a game as he probably would have liked. He only got one shot in the game, wasn't on target. It felt very similar to the header that he missed last week, just out wide.

I guess I'm curious. is it the lack of a player in the midfield, whether they can win the headers when they were at speed at pace, throwing balls into the middle, or is it a player that can really hold the ball, you know, power through a back line with force and then, and turn and shoot. It feels like a lot of our attacks coming from out wide recently. And I don't know that that's connecting. We got the one goal is beautiful with Maxie, you know, picking up and shooting,

but. If that's the version of Maxie we get, that's akin to the Maxie that was successful in Detroit. We were told, we were led to believe that that's not the type of player Maxie was going to be this season. Are we defaulting back to the lessons that Detroit City taught us? Maybe, but some of that seems to be some necessity. From the short amount of time this season, the evolution we've seen, we're having troubles at the back. We've got injury concerns. We changed to a four

back line. And then all of a sudden that kind of starts the solidity of our back line. Then we're kind of swapping around some of the midfield there a bit. We're, you know, Joe Jay was there. I think at this point really isn't going to be a left wing back for us much anymore. Unless I don't know. Frank did our say on that right wing back. There's a party that wants to say, Hey, Let's see what we go back to what we saw last season. And that you would put him in the

right back position. And then the thing is, when you attack, then Joe Jay would tuck in and then Frank would push up. So you're saying we wouldn't go back to the 3 -5 -2? We would continue to adopt this 4 -2 -3 -1? I don't know. I think that we've... Because the 4 -2 -3 -1 is just the starting position, right? I think we'll still always continue to attack in some version of a 3 -5 -2. If you see the heat map and the average positioning... It's very much a 3 -5 -2. Aldair

is advancing so much further up the pitch. It is still a three -back system. And it just works so well, too, with Koke being such a great passer that he is. He kind of joins the back line, becomes an auxiliary. Right, but you're not answering the question. With Frank Dardasse back... We played an MLS squad. I think reading too much into this game is actually a fallacy. So there's no lessons to be learned from this match? I don't think there's no lessons to be learned, but...

Maybe some of it is just unlucky. If we look back to the San Antonio match, if one of those shots went in, we won that game, and then we come here midweek and we lost to an MLS side, I don't think there'd be any issues. We'd just say, fair enough, right? We played an MLS squad. We went out there. We went toe -to -toe with them. We made them really work for that victory. We can be proud of ourselves and hang our heads high. I think that the goals will come to a certain

extent. We saw this last year, too, with this team. It's like the frost is still kind of thawing off the team. It takes a while for them to kind of get going. In the same way that when teams really stifle us, it's because they don't allow us to build up any momentum. Once we get that momentum build up, I think it's going to be very much similar to what we saw last year, where we'll start to really... get into our stride.

Will we see who this team is? Just at that point, it'll be like, will it be too late or will the other teams be too good? Evan reminds us, Hey Jason, our IFC did score against an MLS squad that hasn't conceded in a month. Remember that Seth went on great. Seth went to great lengths to explain to us how this may be. the best defensive performance in the history of the New England Revolution, and it's one of the best defense performances in MLS currently. The Open Cup match?

No, well, we scored against a Revolution side. The argument to Evan's point would be, well, we didn't score against their first team. We scored against other players there. But nevertheless, final question before we move on to our preview. Overall, I want to ask, how big of a deal... Is it to see Defiance being able to finally light the smokes, getting to hear Psycho Killer? Did that bring it all home for you? Is that what the fans needed? And should they be expecting

to see more of that this Saturday? Oh, absolutely. And like I mentioned kind of at the top of the hour, people are still really excited. No one's like, oh, it's cool, but it would be nice if

they won. like we're not there yet we're still in the we've got that grace period where it's the new shiny thing it's the vibes are there it's fun it's a beautiful stadium especially at night this time we got to see the first match was kind of in the afternoon so the lights going lights on really exciting they they should do some some sort of thing with the bridge because then yeah 95 that bridge needs to be able to work in tandem they've got all the ld it's blue

but like what if it also flashed No, it's just LED. You can make it any color you want. That just needs to be a cross collab with the city of Pawtucket in the near future. But we are going to talk at great lengths on if goals are going to come this weekend against the Monterey Bay team heading in to Centerville Bank Stadium. And I can't think of a better person to talk all things Monterey Bay than the one and only Chris Moulton. Chris, how are you doing, sir?

What's going on, guys? I'm doing great. How are you? Living the dream right now, my friend. Living the dream. Hey, listen, Chris, you're all the way over on the West Coast, probably having the time of your life weather -wise. We're getting some good weather here nowadays, out here watching some soccer in action right now. Want to thank you for jumping on first and foremost, and also get people tuned in on who you are, how did you start the Union Report, and what's been your

overall connection to Monterey Bay? Yeah, so I don't know. I have a buddy that I do it with, Andrew Martin. He's not here right now. But me

and him actually. met each other because of where our season tickets were um we just happened to be like on opposite sides of the aisle of one another and he has a background in reporting on minor league baseball and i was just a huge sports junkie and we kind of said hey you know what like we should totally do something for the union and so that's kind of how it started um from there You have to make some inroads. We didn't know anyone at the club at the time.

More or less, we asked some questions. We talked with President Mike DiGiulio. Weaved our way in there, I guess you could say. Now we're doing club interviews every Tuesday. We're putting those up on our YouTube. We're writing articles on our blog. pretty much all the socials. And I think us and a couple of the, we're not like a supporter group necessarily, but we do have like Rising Tide and some of those guys that

we collaborate with from time to time. And so at this point, we're just, I don't know, MBFC junkies that love to spend our time promoting the club in a positive light. It sounds very similar to our own journey. We've actually held you to a very high standard in terms of your access that you've gotten in partnership with the club. That's something that we continue to try to grow. We've done it as organic as we can. And sometimes it's like we got to ask the tougher

questions. what's preventing you from letting us have Maxi Rodriguez next week? So they've worked really well with us, but it's exciting to see you guys kind of lead the charge on that. I don't know if there's a lot of independent coverage within the championship that has that kind of profile access and link directly to the team and players themselves. So it's been really exciting to see you guys operate. And so how many years has the union report been in existence?

We started, it was kind of formally, I don't know, talked about toward the end of season one. And so this is like our third year and we didn't really get that level of access actually until this past offseason. You know, it was just one of those things. The team was doing a huge rebranding. They tried to move away from the Frank Yollop

years and move into the Jordan Stewart era. And I felt like we had a really productive conversation with Ray Beshoff, the club owner, and Mike DiGiulio, the president, and just said, hey, look, you know. We just want to portray the team in a positive light. Our goal, our stated goal for the union report is longevity for the club. You know, we're in a very, I mean, I don't know how much cost of living is out there and in Rhode Island, but it's insane over here. And, you know, just trying

to have this thing. So when I'm a grandparent. my grandkids can go and watch mbfc games and so um i think that they like that and decided hey you know what let's get these guys in there so i think i saw uh mbfc was selling tickets at costco like like other major sporting events and stuff now so you guys are becoming very very worldwide in the sense of what monterey bay has to offer there so get yourself a dollar 50 hot dog and a monterey bay fc ticket There you go.

Perfect. Perfect. So before we jump into this preview, we have some unresolved beef that we need to settle for the week here. And that is, of course, the USL championship save of the week. I've watched the video on these players from last week. And, you know, Camposano, who's going to be a large talking point, I have a feeling tonight, has already won this. I just read an article earlier today. He's already being forecasted

as the keeper of the year. I watched these saves, and I'm blown away at the bias here going on right now that your keeper is leading the results poll right now because, one, he's already gotten it, but, two, I watched that save, and you can't even tell if that goal didn't go in or not. So the idea that that's the clear and cut favorite or obvious choice, whereas you see our Koke Vegas flying through the air, I don't know if I agree with this. What are your thoughts overall, Chris?

You know, I mean, it's tough to be hard on Nico. He does his best. He has won it before. We have a very strong, strong contingent of voters out here. And, you know, it was something that. Has kind of come up just in this year, actually, because for the longest time we weren't getting any player of the week, save of the week, player of the month, anything. And I think that we've

seen a uniting of several supporter groups. And I think that has really been the thing that's pushed our guys, especially Nico, over the line as far as getting the popular vote. So what I'm hearing is this is a popularity contest and the real deserved keeper on this isn't getting the day. So what Chris is saying is the Rhode Island fans are letting us down here. You guys got to get out there and vote. We invited you to our show and this is how you disrespect our fans?

No, I think... You know, cause you guys have like one big supporter group, right? Is my Intel correct? You guys have like the defiant 1636 are completely on the South end and they have three full sections. One of them dedicated to standing only the other two are unlocked where they can stand or sit down, but yeah, it's an exciting experience. Okay. So, and that's kind of my soccer experience, football. experience is about five years in total. I wasn't even a

fan before the union came to town. So bear with me, but everything I've seen, it's like, okay, you have one big group. Well, for some reason we have like four or five small groups and they were always in fighting, not in fighting, but they just weren't working together for a common goal. And so now I think that they've kind of come together. We're seeing the fruit of that

in, in. you know voting and things like that so i california struggles with its supporter culture identity every single soccer team has numerous elements or versions within the the larger supporter group ecosystem of like this is our small little tribe this is our small little tribe and on game day We'll try to all get along, but there will be conflict internally that the

larger crowds will never know about. But I will tell you, having been in this business now for just a few years ourselves, there's a lot of politics. I mean, you probably know this from your side of it, too. A lot of politics that go on in the day to day. I mean, like the 3252 pretend to be one giant group, but it's just a bunch of little groups. And then as soon as there's something that goes wrong, they're outside just punching each other. Yeah, it's a thing.

But let's hashtag not an MLS podcast. Not here to talk about LAFC for sure. Let's get into this game itself. Let's talk about the head to head record here. First and foremost, the last time these two teams faced each other, we saw it in a very interesting way where, you know, it was the. First road game for the history of Rhode Island FC away as they headed to a very windy Cardinale Stadium to draw 2 -2 against the Monterey

Bay FC. The game had several notable firsts, first including the actual first Rhode Island FC goal in club history because Mark Doyle's own goal does not go down in the records books. with Albert Dequa not only getting the first goal, but getting the first brace in club history. It was the first time we would lead a game. It was only a total of 12 minutes across both goals

scored. But then it also saw the first injury to an RIFC player in Coque, Vegas, coming off in just the second game of his career with Rhode Island FC that gave Jackson Lee that stint all the way through the win in Las Vegas. In that first matchup, MBFC was technically the better team. I won't deny it. They created more chances, created more shots and shots on target. And they also showed a defensive fortitude when it came to winning the lion's share of aerial and ground

duels. We didn't realize at the time because we were just so in love with what had happened in the game. We were excited to be there. I don't think we really truly reflected back on what Monterey showed early on in that. But by contrast, and this is the RFC part, RFC very much like this Revs game that we just saw this last Wednesday.

dominated the middle of the the mid third excuse me doubling the accurate passes and total passes against that monterey side uh showing that the high press was going to be something really incredible allowing us to get multiple turnovers and we led in total domination of touches in the opposition's box but it still ended up even -steven after 90. So we couldn't figure it out yet. Monterey

Bay at that early time was flying high. I think you guys were in second place in the Western Conference, a role you're similarly in right now. And it's just exciting that these two teams are now coming back together. However, this time you'll be dealing with us and maybe a windy game here at Centerville Bank Stadium. We don't have the weather yet for that, so we'll talk about that a little later. Chris, going back to that

match, Jason, chime in too if you want. Just curious, you were our first, and you never forget your first. What was it like having Rhode Island FC for that first away game for us? What was it like playing them? What was your overall vibe on that team as they entered into the league in 2024? Yeah, so I was super excited having just, you know, been an expansion team a couple of years prior. You know, I understood the experience. I thought you guys were just going to, you know,

you know, 11th, maybe 12th in the East. And no, that was totally different. But going into that game, actually, the first thing that struck me was there was Rhode Island fans in attendance actually took a picture and posted it because

number one. back then we've rebranded like i said but you guys jerseys are just awesome and i was like kind of jealous and so i was like hey can i take a picture with you guys and so um that something like that where where you're you're seeing supporters travel like literally from coast to coast really spoke to the level of devotion that Rhode Island fans were going

to have. I mean, obviously it was really early on when you guys came to play us, but I thought, you know what, we're going to run right over them. And I was, I was not familiar with your style of football back then, obviously like more so now. But. I knew you had Dequa and he was, you know, you had some big name guys that were in USL previous. And so I thought, you know, hey, we're flying high. Like you said, we're going to take care of business. We had a healthy

roster at the time. That didn't last very long. But yeah, I honestly thought it was just going to be a. you know, steamrolling. And I was wrong. It was such a competitive and physical game. So that was my thoughts on when you guys first came out here to Seaside to play at Cardinale Stadium. Jason, do you remember that game at this point? Or is it just too many minutes too

long ago? It is a long time ago. But now that we're talking about it, I'm like, I'm kind of like playing through some of the scenes in my head. I think didn't they Monterey Bay score off a free kick or something or at least a set piece something? There was I just remember one where the corner flag was blowing. It was literally horizontal to the pitch because the wind was like 21 miles an hour. And I do remember Tristan

Traeger had a like phenomenal run. And basically he created his own chance and then scored a goal. So I remember the Traeger goal more than anything. And then that flag. all in all still good times it was so exciting and uh it led you know some success for us maybe maybe not so much for you and so that's why we want you on here chris we want you to set the record straight First and foremost, can you get our listeners up to speed on what's been going in this new Jordan Stewart

era? This team feels like it's completely transformed from where you were, even though the table results were about the same from this point in the league standings last year. This is a completely different team, if I understand correctly. Yeah, thank you. It is absolutely, completely, I mean, not 100 % as far as personnel, but everything else from, you know, our crest, our crest is different now. There is a new attitude. Like I told you guys, we interview players every week. We've

interviewed Jordan Stewart six times. We're going to interview him next week. And there is just a different vibe in the dressing room as far as players and the synergy. From a tactical standpoint, it's a new look as well. I think Jordan Stewart

did a wonderful job. like scouting the globe to find guys that were going to fit his system um we filled every international slot and it wasn't just like oh this guy's an international player it was like hey we're on the the plane we're headed over to you know sweden to pick this guy up um and so It's such an attractive

brand of football. I have notes, and I don't want to keep looking down, but bringing on Jeremy Clark, who was his first assistant when he was at the Town FC, which is the San Jose Earthquakes MLS Next Pro team. You know, using those connections, bringing some of those guys in and just bolstering the roster for his style. Because if you recall, I mean, maybe you do, you don't, I don't know. But Frank Yollop was relieved, you know, midway through last season. And Jordan came on and played

what did his best with the guys that. frank had brought in but after the season was over uh he got to work we promoted simon dawkins um so he's the guy that's i mean literally cell phone glued to his ear at all times during the off season um and he's this new sporting director more or less and so um it's amazing to see you know this Going from what we knew Frank's system was to seeing Jordan's system and just how it works

and the intricacies of it and everything. I think we have three or four returning players and that's it. It was almost a full wipe of everyone that we had. Definitely new look and a really, really new feel. The energy in the stadium is incredible. We're excited. If we could get Kano at that level of access, I think he would kill at least me. He loves you a lot, Jason. I think Kano Smith would put his hands on my neck. Do you remember what game was it that Frank Yallop was at? Was

it right before? It was the game right after he got sacked. So a lot of people don't know this. Again, we've got stories for years when we write our memoirs, Jason. But Frank Yallop, for some reason, was at the game immediately

following his release from Monterey Bay. at burn stadium and i did the double take and i i leaned into someone and said i that could be la galaxy legend frank yallop i i didn't give monterey bay the credit it deserved at the time i apologize and i said yeah that's frank and then and then the wheels start turning like why in the world is frank yallop at a game at a college town at a college stadium in smithfield what's going on and Don't know what happened from it. I don't

know why his curiosity was piqued. But he came out, watched the game, talked with the front office, talked with the technical team. And I don't know what Frank Gallup has done since then. But yeah, Frank Gallup, just for some reason, the first thing he wanted to do was come back to Rhode Island FC after you guys let him go. So thanks for that. Maybe we made a big impression on him. So, Chris, it sounds like there's been this transformation. And I do want to tie that

into the brand reset in a bit. But tactically, if you can just kind of get us level set, we'll talk about the lineups here in just a minute. But overall, what's been the big adjustment in comparison to what we saw from this team last year in compared to now what Stewart's created? Is it the same style? Formationally, not so much worried, but is this going to be the same type of play style that we saw? Or are we in for something completely new on Saturday? I'd say completely

new. Obviously, you know, 4 -4 -2 is not something that's you know, out of the realm of what Frank was running. But Frank was very expansive. He would, I mean, side to side all the way up until we get in and he'd send service into the box. Whereas with Jordan, guys, you're going to see a lot of overlapping runs on the outsides. But then... A lot of direct balls through the middle as well, and I know that in the last couple of games we've kind of gotten away from that, but

we have such firepower up front now. I was listening to your guys' show earlier talking about how, you know, there's a problem with you have so much talent and you have to sit some of it, and that's kind of where we're at as well. So overlapping runs, you're going to see definitely building up out of the back, heavy, heavy possession -based football. We've struggled against a high press, and so that's one of the things that Jordan needs

to address. I mean, I'm sure he knows it. I'm not saying anything he doesn't already know. It is exciting football, and I'm excited for you guys to see it on Saturday. That makes none

of us on this side. I think back when we first saw the lineups of these two teams in December when the schedule was released, and I shouldn't have disrespected you, Chris, but I was like, okay, I'll take a team that hasn't... made the playoffs uh i'll take that as our second ever home game san antonio they were on the outside looking like completely disheveled and uh nobody knew what they would do and lo and behold we end up having to play against the first and second

I know you guys are tied on points and in third technically, but it goes to figure that we finally get our home games and we're stacked up against the best talent in the Western Conference right now. So there's an irony that is not lost on us about how well you guys have been doing. And I apologize for not believing in you back in December. That's on me. Hey, you're not the only one. Obviously, some of our friends at USL Tactics were... We couldn't get... We couldn't get any

love. Say the names, Chris. Say the names. They're here listening, probably. Say the names. It's okay. We don't shy away from calling people out. You can say John or Kaler. It's okay. John, we couldn't get any love until the OC game. And we came out and, I mean, put on a clinic against... At the time, we were like, hey, it's OC. They're consistent year after year. And we absolutely dominated that game. And it was from there that I think him and others started looking at the

pieces that we had and saw the potential. And I think that we're kind of getting to that point. John takes bribes. You just have to give him Jaeger. Yeah, don't tell about the Jaeger shot secrets. All right, so let's get into these current standings. I had them up for a while and realized I put them up too early. Classic editor folly here. But RIFC remains in 10th place in the Eastern Conference. We love this position. I feel like

this is just like our home. base for extended periods of time we like to be on the outside looking in yeah we just want to see how the party's going and then make our late arrival into a playoff run uh right now they're now sitting on a one two and three record even after last week's draw with just five points across their first six regular season matches they now only have 0 .83 points per game the lowest that we've ever had Again, it's an index where just one game can

adjust it to the 2024 numbers. But right now, not looking as well as we'd like, despite some of the tremendous performances we've seen on the pitch. I said this earlier and some people, someone just said in the chat, we need to work on our defense. But technically, we have the third best defense in the Eastern Conference when you look at goals allowed so far this season. I know it doesn't feel like it because combined with that, we also have a negative three goal

differential. So when we've only scored five goals, we also have the second worst offense in the league. Jason, by talking strictly on goals, not on all the other metrics that can lead up to it. The only team we're better than in the entire league right now is Hartford Athletics. So, I mean, we got that going for us. Meanwhile, Monterey Bay currently sitting at the top of the West. They've slid, like I said, into third

place because of goal differential. But tied with New Mexico United at 15 points, they've been flying high. Chris, you must be having so much pride in this team now as they sit on a 4 -2 -2 record, led by the masterclass in defense of not just the back four, but Nico Campuzano, who's just... I guess we have to talk at length about him tonight. They've limited the scoring against Monterey. Monterey right now only allowing

0 .8 goals conceded per 90. that is like technically louisville has the better stat on it but when you look at the total number of shots faced by monterey bay because i would say i would argue monterey is not as strong as louisville i mean louisville is the the penultimate in this standard yeah and if we and also too if we if we opened the books financially we know the money between these two organizations monterey bay absolutely just playing with an intensity and a fire that

It's really exciting to see. So really excited to unpack that. Before we get into the injury and availability report, Jason, what did we learn about the pro ref situation for this week's match? Yeah, so the ref assignment for this game, the head ref here is JC Griggs. Assistant ref one is Sun Yinka Kenhide. Assistant ref two is Justin Lopez. And the fourth official will be Andrew

Parada. Head ref John Griggs is only, oversaw two championship games this season um but he kind of like so far has been allowing the game to flow allowing it to play kind of under indexing on fouls issued uh in the fourth highest tolerance of going into the pocket averaging eight fouls per card it'll be interesting to see with rhode island's physicality i'm not quite sure chris how physical Monterey has been this season we've always been an aggressive team and we've seen

now that hurt us just most recently this past week with with Alyssa Nichols on her second game of watching over Rhode Island FC this year really seemed to stop the flow to you know pause and reset for foul calling it wasn't a high card game we haven't seen a lot of cards in terms of yellow accumulation this season we've had a nasty bout with some keeping our heads out of trouble with the red card situation that we have going on but uh this ref for all intent

seems to be john griggs seems to be someone who's going to let this game open up and play as long as you know they're not doing stupid things how has monterey's physicality been so far this season um You know, I would say that a referee that's going to allow a game to play is going to favor Rhode Island. You guys, I mean, clearly a physical team. Our back line is pretty stout, and our

wing play can be pretty physical. all in all i would have to say it definitely favors you we're we're not arsenal where it's like a bag of marshmallows that you can just kick around but um you know we'll hold our own on the back line um our size is is something that i think is going to play into this game in a major way so um that's all i got there no that's that's perfect and and We've got a very big player who's going to dominate in Amos Shapiro Thompson, so

watch out for him a little later in this game. But let's get to the availability report. Isaac Anking still out with that injury that he's been treating since last year against Detroit. Talked to him at the game. He said it in front of fans, so I can now say it because I don't like sharing. When players talk to me and it's not in front of the communications director or it's not in front of Coach Kano, I don't say it. Believe

it or not. We heard again from Kevin Callahan about Hugo Baturak's injury from a bathroom. We've known the exact date for a while, but it's just not our place if they don't share it to us in an official capacity. And we don't want

to burn those bridges. So Isaac Anking has been on the record now saying to fans that he's looking for an end of May return, at least to be cleared by the medicos and be able to start actually being available for full contact and starting to really get the minutes in the... fitness and so technically after may 31st any opportunity he could be cleared he could be available I still don't think we see him any earlier than maybe

end of June. But there seems to be a desire to at least maybe be able to make a dressing for his Puerto Rican national team when they come to Centerville Bank Stadium. So that's exciting. We've already talked at length about Hugo Baturak. He's still going to be out for about another five weeks at a minimum. Danny Revere getting closer should be around that three -week window before we'll see him take the pitch possibly for the first time. No update on J .J. Williams.

Again, I'm saying end of July until I hear a... a more favorable number that brings him back into the action closer. Mark still a little bit limping, no boot on him when I saw him last night. And that was three days removed from the home game. So he could be closer. I would say anywhere from two to three weeks, maybe as well. It could be sooner though. Just, just judging by his mobility and then Kree for, yeah, we don't have the update because we saw he wasn't available for the open

cup game because of red card discipline. And we haven't yet heard about it. And I haven't seen him. I saw him after the game. just walking around and based upon absolutely no medical training at all i say he's fine You played a TV doctor once, but that's perfectly fine. So that's where we're at on those. Coach Conner, as of the end of the game, he hadn't heard about any injuries

or things like that. He did mention that these players need to be very mindful of their recoveries, what they're eating, what they're drinking, and be ready for this long stint of minutes that are going to be put on these legs and on these bodies over the next week. But nothing else at

this point that we're aware of. And unfortunately, we won't know until... potentially like a media day tomorrow so that news might have to come a little later chris on the monterey bay side what is the availability are there any players that we would likely not see that should be traveling i know you had reported earlier today that they were already on their way to the lovely state of rhode island what do you know about uh the situation there um i believe diego gutierrez

still um rehabbing i know he has been spotted in training i don't know if he's like 100 right now he hasn't played yet um alex dixon same thing the the grizzled vet uh went down a couple weeks ago and he wasn't listed on the injury report last week um neither was um or no anton soyberg half of the viking twins he was out last week but According to our sources, he should be available for selection this week. So you should see a pretty healthy squad showing up on Saturday.

Excellent. All right, well, then let's get into our predictions. Guaranteed to be wrong. Jason, walk us through what we think the starting 11 is going to look like for the Rhode Island side. Yeah, so as we head back into a league match now, we will see Koke Vegas in net. The back four, in terms of defense, seems to be what we're going to continue there with Rio Hope Gunn there in that kind of right -back position, Grant Stoneman and Frank Nodarce there, and then with Aldair

Sanchez finishing out that back line. With how good of a performance he's put in, we think that Amos Shapiro -Thompson is going to play in that holding midfielder there right next to Clay Holstad. Three wingers slash cams, however you want to call that there, with Noah Fuson, Maxi Rodriguez, and then Jojaya Quisera with the one and only Chico up top. On the bench here, we'll probably have Haribo, Aimé Mavica, Taimou Okiyoshi, Kevin Vang, Cole Dewhurst, and Jackson Lee. Looks like

we can kind of field a full bench there. Something we couldn't do for all of our coaches. It's good to see it. I think, you know, maybe the big interchange just for the minutes managed so far is we could see Zach, who definitely came on a little later. I could see him substitute in for Amos Shapiro Thompson or even Maxi Rodriguez. if there's a need to reduce the wear and tear. Do you think Mbika is close enough to start getting a start?

Grant Stoneman, I watched him spraying cold water on his knees as he was walking off in the halftime of the Open Cup match. I know that that man is putting... It feels like he's been a broken man for a long time. He's been held together by KT Tape, and he really needs some healthy... Center backs to give him a rest. I mean, and we could see Kriva, yeah, because like you said, you just reported that he's completely fit and ready to

go. I mean, based upon nothing, but yeah. Mbika looked good in the short amount of time that we saw him out there. I don't think they would completely throw him into the fire like that. Maybe we'll, what did he play? Maybe 10 -ish, 15 minutes? 10, 15 minutes, yeah. Maybe we'll see 30 or maybe even a full half of him if we, you know, like. Start off with Stoneman or something

and throw Mbika on the second half. Yeah, and then I'm not convinced Chico plays more than the first 45 unless we really feel like we need to. We need to keep him on. Maybe he goes 60, but again, there's plenty of other games. He's coming back from injury. We've got another midweek game next week. And we have super sub Joe Brito, which we're going to talk about here in just a second when we profile these players. But I think this is as close to as wrong as we can

possibly be. Chris, let's walk through the Monterey Bay side here now. I have them set in the 4 -1 -3 -2 that they play when they have their possession. But like you had said, they kind of go into the gentleman's game at that 4 -4 -2. But walk us through what you believe will be the starting 11 for Monterey Bay here. Yeah, so the back line, obviously you're going to have Nico Gordon and Carlos Guzman kind of anchoring in the center.

And then on the outside, Gadiri and Lyons. And, you know, they're going to rotate depending on the side of the field the ball is on. you know, effectively they'll run three across the back, but, um, Wesley Fonguck in the middle, and he is going to be the linchpin, um, for that entire

offense. And then, uh, midfield, um, male Malongo, Adrian Rebelar, Shavi Nalati, and then up front, Elijah Paul and, um, Luther Archimed, who is just back from, uh, knee surgery that man took, almost a whole year for him to get back, but we're excited. And, you know, our thought, I discussed this with Andrew before coming on, and our thought is we're opting for size here. We're trying to get our biggest bodies out there to kind of hang with the big boys, I guess, over

in Rhode Island. So Archimede and Paul are... big dudes that should match up well against your center backs who are like former NFL tight ends, it looks like. But yeah, you should have available off the bench. You should have Ivanovich, who possibly could be starting in the same spot that Archimed is. He's a bigger guy, just doesn't have quite the mass. You'll have Adam Larson. Soyberg is another option that's going to be available. Grant Robinson possibly a bit available

as a wingback. And then, of course, your favorite, Nico Camposano between the sticks back there. uh not my favorite whatsoever chris so let's let's get into it we had these player profiles all written out because we didn't know at first if we were going to be able to get you for the show so we start doing these things where we start breaking down the key players i feel really bad for producer torn because he started working on some really good um on pieces and like when

i look at nico's track record It's insane. He's the busiest goalkeeper of the league this year, 34 saves. He's indexing over 50 % more than his closest counterpart in Jake McGuire of NCFC or Van Ockel at Birmingham Legion, which if you go back to Birmingham Legion last year, Kaler Hodges almost had to be the keeper for Birmingham Legion. So that's just to me an insane stat. But in addition to that, The fact of the matter is that when you look at his save percentage,

he's at 82 .9%. And that's over like 22 % higher than the rest of the keepers in the league combined on averages. I want to jump right into this with this kid. And of course, by the way, he's a New England Revolution product. And say what you want about the Revs. but they know how to produce good keepers. They have created a very good system of identifying talent and then selling it on.

So the fact that Nico is doing this well and that they didn't hold on to him, I wonder if someone's like, maybe we finally got one wrong here. Chris, talk us through this. There's no way this kid is this good. There's just no way. There's got to be a correction to the average. Regression to the mean. Yeah, it's a pendulum. He's got to be swinging back at any point. There's no way this kid's standing on his head. every single game for 90 minutes? Or are we completely

wrong and he's the real deal? So I'll tell you guys, if you look at the history of our club, you have more or less you had Carlos Herrera, literally like an unknown, and you had Anthony Ciaha. Again, they found him in a park in San Diego just hanging around, and they signed him. I don't know what it is, but they have a knack. Because if you look at Camposano prior to coming to us, it was like, I don't know, he had like three minutes over the last season or something.

He's a great guy. He takes really good care of his body, yoga every day. Our entire goalkeeper core, I don't know if that's what you want to

call it, but those guys, you know. the competition high tide raises all boats and those guys are constantly battling um during practice they're always the ones that are late when we get there for interviews we're like hey guys can you hold it down um but man they're fierce competitors and i mean if the pendulum does swing it's going to be after the game against you guys so i don't know he's uh he he really is a legitimate talent and i think that's um you know, a nod to our

scouting that we did on him. And the fact that, you know, he's a guy we like to build out of the back. He's good on the ball. From time to time, he'll make me a little uncomfortable as far as challenging and oncoming, you know, center forward or whatnot. But he, his, I guess the thing that sets him apart is it's like a hair trigger. Like, we joke, like, if a fly buzzes past his head, he's going to dive. And it's just so quick. And I don't know. I guess that's the

secret sauce or something. But he's a legitimate talent. And I feel like the numbers support incredible play. Not including this week's save of the week. I want to be clear. Take that out of anything I'm saying. That was a goal. That was the goal. Nico didn't stop that. But to your point, when you talk about the numbers, right now, just to compare it so people really understand, when you look at these two teams, not to dismay Coque Vegas here, but Monterey Bay is in first in their

facing of total shots from the opposition. 3 .8 average shots that... that Nico is now up against versus just 1 .7 for Rhode Island FC. I said that we are one of the best defenses in the league, but that's a total defensive performance with the back line trying to help keep Koke and Jackson Lee from having a relatively busy game. That's not quite the case, though, with Monterey

Bay. There are ways around that back four, and it's just Nico's... again, just standing on his head and keeping Monterey Bay very much in the game. Is there a concern then, Chris, that the back line is eventually, like, Nico shouldn't be keeping up at this rate and this back line needs to improve to kind of make it a little bit easier for their guy in the back? Obviously,

we could do better. I think when you have such aggressive wing play and rotation from your outside backs, you open the door for teams to come down the sides to send service into the box, and I feel like that's kind of where we're a little leaky in that regard. Most teams aren't coming straight down the pipe at us. I mean, Guzman and Gordon are incredible, aggressive, physical, and highly technical. And so, you know, I think you got to kind of take the full style into consideration.

But, yeah, you know. it's gonna wear on him i think after a while and you know um that's why i think he's so focused on mental and physical preparation fueling his body that he's a he's a great guy but um i think we do need to consider the back line like you said jason did you notice that he's also a spaniard that this is going to be a spaniard versus spaniard yeah when chris was talking about him uh going out and challenging keepers i'm like oh we know Koke loves himself

to be a sweeper keeper. We know all about that. You know, I, I wonder with, with talking about here, Nico is, is being fantastic facing a lot of shots. We saw Monterey Bay last year start pretty well. And then kind of as, as they tapered off, do you think that there, is there any concern here that this is a hot start and that they might fizzle out like they did last year? Or do you think this is a real deal? Are you going to make

the playoffs? not not so much just playoffs but like is it sustainable to be where they are right now tied for second place okay well i'm gonna i'm gonna take that and run with it so if you look at monterey bay like their entirety we're always right here at this time that's just our mo and our mo has been Yep, second, first, third, somewhere in the top three or four in the West. And then we hit the dog days of summer and we

just can't keep pace. But this team is different in that they are all united around one goal. I don't know if it's common knowledge. It is here, so I don't have a problem saying it, but the team made a bold, bold move. And they said, hey, season ticket holders, if we don't make the playoffs, we're going to refund you 20 % of your tickets. And so every time you talk to these guys, there's one goal in mind, and that's

the playoffs. And I said earlier, there's just a different vibe in the dressing room with these guys. I don't know if we stay in third or even in the top four, but I'm fairly certain that this season we're going to be right there, top six probably. Did you make a – was there an asterisk to that promise where if you guys won through the Western Conference Championship that the season ticket members had to pay you 20 % more? It should go both ways. It should go both ways.

But I do want to ask, you know, you mentioned this earlier just to tie it into a fun kind of anecdote. I also can't help but think, you know, when you talk about the transformation of this front office, this team, this technical staff, you've also transformed the branding, you know, moving into your new logo, your new crest, and you have a new mascot in Kelpie. You can't help me tell, like, are these the things breaking the curse finally for this Monterey Bayside?

okay kelpy's the goat let's just be honest see you go and say things and now no one can take you seriously no we have we already have the goat here and chip the seal no i i think um you know they wanted to engage the fans I'm going to be 100 % with you guys. I told you we have lots of options. We're an hour and a half from the 49ers here. We're two hours from the San Francisco Giants. We used to be two hours from the Oakland A's. We're an hour and 20 minutes

from the San Jose Sharks. We're two hours from the Golden State Warriors. I feel like part of that was capturing those fans that hey, you don't have to drive two hours to go see a quality professional sporting event. And Kelpie, I love Kelpie. We're going to get him interviewed. I promise you guys that. I've already talked to the team about it. Let me know how you do that. Because Chip is an avid listener of our podcast, and we've talked about trying to get him on, but we don't know.

Because we can't even, like we said, oh, we'll have him just like. mime it out. Absolutely not. No one is ever allowed to know Chip's thoughts except for Chip himself. It'll just be a short bit where it's just all he's speaking to us. We were going to do the witness protection where we blurred him out and then the deep voice, but we haven't landed on one yet. I'm really glad that that's happening for you guys and for the fans. It's fun to see a club not rest on mediocrity

and say, hey, things will improve. Just trust us. It's been really appreciative to watch you guys, I mean, literally put your money where your mouth is as an organization. I know you're also a fan, so it's like you're in a duality here, but it's been really exciting to see those commitments. I don't think I've ever heard of a team selling you, hey, we'll refund you if we suck. That's exciting. That's exciting to know. Moving back to the Rhode Island side of

things, Jason, five games, 14 days. How does RIFC weather this storm? Or is it that's the neat part? I mean, you're not wrong there. I think we are going to really have to trust some of our bench here. We're going to have to dig deep. You know, like we talked about the new signing here. I'm a Mavica. I think we're going to see some more minutes from him. And I think from there at that point, maybe by the time we get to like our Wednesday game next week is at

Birmingham, I think. Yes. Like at that point, maybe he's a starter. Right. And we also just talked about how the Mad Dog AST has been kind of going through, you know, this kind of renaissance and how he's playing for us. But we also know that Haribo is an incredibly talented midfielder who can, you know, work defensively on top of assists like we saw in Westchester. So we we are beaten and battered and kind of light. But the guys on the bench there. we've all seen performanceism

from them. So I know that we're going to just going to kind of have to rotate. Yeah. I mean, I feel that there may be some conserved energy, some conserved legs trying to go. for a second, you know, half performance, which is unlike what we've seen from Rhode Island FC. I guess, you know, Chris, asking if, and to put yourself in the mind of Jordan Stewart here for a second, when you're coming fresh off of, you know, you've had the full week rest since you guys weren't

still in the Open Cup. What are you thinking of differently if you're a head coach? How do you capitalize on the fatigue? for this Rhode Island FC team that is very desperate to get a home win in front of their fans. They now have one draw and a loss. They're really eager to deliver that first win in front of 10 ,500 faithful. Well, I think we don't fall into the trap of trying to play your game. I think that you guys play a very physical brand of football, and I've

alluded to it multiple times. It matters in this game. And we're going to put our guys out there that he feels is the best matchup. But I think that as long as we stick to our game plan and adapt where we need to, but not just try to go blow for blow with you guys is going to be, you know, play rope -a -dope. Let you guys, you know, you're coming off a short break and, you know. We just continue to do what we do, and that is press the attack, tire you guys out. We're on

fresh legs. You're not. Jordan knows that. And I'm sure that he's got something up his sleeve for that very thing. I mean, the answer, the obvious answer for Rhode Island FC is to rely on the incredible abilities of one super sub, Joe Brito, which, by the way, Jason, he now leads

the team. in shots on the largest number of shots per 90 on average at 1 .7 so he is besting even the likes of Chico JJ Williams and Maxi Rodriguez what does that say to this team right now where Chico needs some time we haven't seen him really get to where we want him to be with JJ Williams out and maybe not even seeing Joe Brito until the 65th minute and beyond what does that say for the offensive quality we're going to see on this game this weekend against a very tough

defensive opponent Yeah, I think that kind of reinforces how much our offense kind of needs to get in gear. We've seen that there be chances created, but maybe they need to be some quote -unquote better chances. And then also, sometimes it doesn't have to be a perfect chance. Maybe some of them just need to have a little more confidence and just give it a go. Test the keeper, see if he's really worth his salt, as they say.

And then, Chris, kind of back to you as well, Monterey Bay now has only scored three goals in their last five matches. It seems as if the offense hasn't been clicking as of late. What's the story there, and what do they need to do to overcome that deficit? I think in the last couple of games, you've seen teams kind of adapting a little bit to the style. I think our cup set against El Farolito in the Open Cup kind of...

exposed us a little bit. And I do feel like the team is, is pivoting as far as sticking to the same old thing. You know, they know what teams are going to be looking to do. If you guys, you're going to come out, you're going to press high, you know, that's going to work well at the same time. If, Oh, or, you know, I want you guys to sit back. I want you to park the bus and just hang out. We're going to. absolutely dominate.

And so I think that as far as Jordan's game plan, I can't speak for him, obviously, but to me, it seems like, you know, adaptability of his

offensive scheme is going to. payoff in spades this week specifically um we've had a couple of uh frontline guys injured and they're all healthy now so i think we're gonna see a good you know rekindled attack must be nice that that's all coming together for you against us that's fantastic jason what does what infc need to do to get all three points and deliver that first home victory in front of their fans I think RFC really needs to kind of lean on their physicality

here. You know, if it's true that this ref is going to let us kind of let it be an open game, kind of use that to their advantage. I think the real main thing, though, we've seen as we've seen this team kind of grow throughout the short span of what we've seen in the season, they really need to convert some more of their chances, right? That they are not being lethal in front of goal. And I don't think if this team doesn't score at least two goals, I don't think we even think

about winning this game. Okay. Chris, how about you? What say you on what Monterey Bay needs to do with all of this health, all this talent coming together here at Centerville Bank Stadium? Well, I would say that we need to play our game. Your guys' physicality, don't try and go blow for blow. We're not going to win that match. But use the speed that we have to negate the physicality. I think that if... We can break

through early, which is our MO. We're going to try and throw everything plus the kitchen sink at you right from the get -go. But what we need to do most of all is keep possession. Jordan's offense is very, very heavily predicated on having

the ball. And if we can do that, if we can maintain possession and build out of the back and move slowly as far as developing the play but quickly when it's time to strike i feel like the result is going to definitely be favorable for us i have noticed in looking over the stats for monterey bay that there's definitely this disconcerted effort where they they implement a higher press similar to rhode island where they want to intercept the ball in the opponent's final third or at

the highest in the middle third, but they want to quickly catch in that interception and move through a counter themselves, but they don't commit the entire team forward. I think it's

Wes Fonguk. He seems to be that, like what I saw Connor McGlynn being last year for us, he's that true number six, which in this league... an individual number six isn't something we see very often we usually see the double pivot or the cm pairings but fongook is very much like the tip of the spear and if If the back line does extend forward, he doesn't range very far. So on the counter or on the break, if we are able to move the ball back forward from Monterey

Bay, it doesn't really go centrally. There's no verticality in towards the middle of the field. So a lot of this game is going to be decided, I think, out on the wings for Rhode Island FC, if they can take advantage of it. And if that means we're at the wings, we just don't have

as big of a body. with chico he's not jj williams like chico's tough chico's strong but i'm a little bit more concerned on how we're going to win those aerial duels even with the advantages we have frank up top i mean may i mean not up top but as a right wing back i mean we may see some of that but then also to full credit to monterey like like chris was just saying when they catch When they catch Rhode Island FC in transition,

they love to build up the play. They are leading the league in touches in the opposition's box. They take their time with it. They don't rush the attack. They're quick to get the ball back, but they like to break down a back line. They also, I think, lead in corners. So I think Rhode Island FC defensively is going to have to put on just as much of a performance as whatever we can scrap together on the front. I don't see this game being much of a... high scoring affair.

I actually have this as a 1 -1 draw right now myself, because I just don't believe that there's enough in the tank for Rhode Island. But I think we can hold Monterey, who hasn't shown necessarily that they have the ability to score over their most recent performances. I could see this being a very, unfortunately, a very, you know, lackluster 1 -1. Lots of opportunities, lots of risk, but I don't think this will be a high, thrilling goal scoring affair. What do you think the scoreline

might be, Jason? I think we're going to run it back for nostalgia purposes. 2 -2. You're not convinced that we get a win until we get the win, I assume, at this point? I'm maybe not convinced with the health of the squad right now. Obviously, I want my team to win, but I think it'll be an exciting game. I think it'll be a little sloppy, though. 2 -2 for the Vibes. 69 % of the fans on Fat Mob and SofaScore combined believe that Rhode Island FC will get the win. I don't know

what Kool -Aid they've been drinking. They must not be listening to our podcast. I just don't see us getting the win. Or maybe all the Monterey Bay fans are out there voting on goalkeeper saves, not voting on their teams to win. That makes a lot of sense. Chris, what do you got for the scoreline on this one? We're in one accord. I see this going down as a 2 -2 draw. Same as Jason. I think that, you know, for you guys, your shooting boots are going to come back. But the same for

us. We're going to find those finishes that we've lacked the last couple of weeks. And all in all, we're going to walk away as friends. I was watching that Miami game last week. I don't know how they weren't up like 4 -0 in the first half. Yeah, really. Trust me. We're all fam in der club, as they say, or in the clurb. Producer Torin has a 1 -0 for Rhode Island FC, and our quant,

the Hillside, has a 2 -0 victory. We're going to have to have a conference, an inter -podcast conference, and reset some expectations here. But getting into the weather report, kind of getting fans ready for this game. Currently, it's projected to be around 61 or the low 60s, getting into Centerville Bank Stadium with a nice... you know, light breeze of 12 miles per hour, you know, it's going to be a 4 PM kickoff

this Saturday, May 10th. So, you know, with that sun, it feels like every time we've seen the weather, it opens up perfectly for a period of time. I haven't, we haven't had a bad weather. I mean, you can count the five minutes of rain, but like. Weather -wise, it's been good. Bring your sunscreen. I can't stress that enough. Even if it's light and rainy and there's some moisture earlier in the day, don't get burned. Those clouds get you. Yeah, every time. And it should be a

relatively dry affair. It'll be raining earlier in the morning, so a little bit of moisture there, but that's exciting to see. And don't forget, guys, this is going to be the first one of our dollar hot dog, $2 kids drink, and $4 beer promotions. Make sure you guys get there. There's also that free Centauri beanie or something like that. I forget. Centauri? Centauri? I don't know. Centauri oil company, whatever. It's what I think of when

you think about Rhode Island FC. And then if you're not attending the game in person for any odd reason, you will be able to catch all the action on Nessun and ESPN+. And I think... I think Tom and Nick are on the call. I've heard that there's conversations about getting all the home games. I haven't seen it. They've been at every single one now. I don't know if we did. We missed that news and we just didn't talk about

it. I don't know. It could be a case by case right now, but you may have 790 on the radio for it as well. Before we let Chris give us the final word, Jason, any final thoughts from your side? I mean, yeah, before we I mean, shout out to Chris and Andrew. And I think to all of us. soccer sickos out there. I wanted to make a specific mention here to Tom Franklin, the soccer zombie who did a fantastic video on the opening match

at Centerville bank stadium. And then the very next day went to Portland, Maine or their opening match. Fantastic content. We all put our hearts and soul into this. Like Chris was saying earlier, the cost of living, this does not pay the bills. We do this for the love of the game. So I think when you see something out there, someone really putting their heart and soul into something, you should really kind of give it its kudos.

And to those who have not seen that Centerville Bank Stadium from Tom Franklin, it is a fantastic watch. We don't get paid. We pay to do this job. But I agree. Go watch that. The Copa90 video was also really fun to watch as well. Lots of good content coming out there. But speaking of content, Chris. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been such a pleasure to have you here

on the podcast for the first time. I hate that when we have such a great guest like yourself, that when we're in that Western Eastern, we only get to do this one time a year. But as far as I don't look to this game, I'm not looking forward to it. I am looking forward to having you back on in the time to come. Please let all of the listeners, all of the fans know, where can they connect with your guys' work, yours and Andrew's, and how can they stay plugged into all things

Monterey Bay? yeah well first off thank you guys so much for uh having me um hopefully andrew can make it next time i know i see i've seen him in the comments a couple times defending kelpy's honor but um um yeah we're we're on instagram we're on uh I don't know. Andrew does it's blue sky or something. I don't know. Some alternative to Twitter. We're on Twitter. Everything is the union report. We're on YouTube, especially you can find all the long form interviews that we've

done with the team. You can find us there. We have a blog that's linked in all of our social media that Andrew heads up and he does fantastic writing there. We just want to see the USL grow. We want to see footy in the United States be where it should be. And so, hey, you know what, if we both win our conferences, we could do this again in like a few months. So go Union. We'd love to invite you back to Centerville Bank Stadium for a home playoff game for us. We'd love to

do that. That'd be great. That'd be great. All right, Jason, let's get out of here. All right, let's wrap it up then. Make sure everyone to go check out our friends over at the Musket for all of your New England soccer coverage, including RFC. And that's at theblazingmusket .com. You can follow us on Twitter, Threads, TikTok, and Blue Sky at RAFC Podcast. We have an Instagram at Raising Anchor. And then you can look at that

website, raisinganchorpodcast .com. anchors up buddy anchors up let's go uh i don't know eat some sea kelp i don't know i got nothing we'll see you guys on saturday