Welcome in for another edition of the Morning Espresso here on the SDAG Network, brought to you by Oglethorpe University, Atlanta's premier undergraduate learning experience and soccer powerhouse. I'm Jason Longshore. All the soccer news you need to know for Monday, February twenty fourth. I guess it's a construction or lawn work Monday. As right as I'm getting ready to start talking to you guys on the Espresso, it starts outside, so bear with me. I will try not to get
too distracted by all the noise out the window. Let's talk about the weekend in Major League Soccer, and we'll start here in Atlanta. A wild night for Atlanta United on Saturday Night three, two win, two goals from Latte Lot in his debut, a banger from Edwin Mosquerra that ends up being the game winner. Montreal it proved to be a very difficult opponent, especially in the second half when they made a couple of changes at halftime. I thought they looked so much better in the second forty five.
Tom Pierce down the left, Bryce Duke coming in made them a lot more difficult for Atlanta to deal with. Atlanta had a good start, needed more out of it to really take control of the game. By not doing that, they left the door open for Montreal to grow into it, and they did. One goal from a set piece. Another goal from Montreal is a good one, and Atlanta gets the win, but they also get I think, some important
lessons in things that they need to do better. And I think if you listen to the full time report on ninety two nine in the game, you heard a lot of the audio from Ronnie Diila, you heard the conversations from other players as well. Mattais click, this was good.
This needs to be better, and that's the next step for this team is to not just get wins, but to control games a little bit better, to dominate games, to be able to breathe a little more comfortably at times the sixty five thousand plus at Mercedes Benz Stadium or not breathing comfortably, and they were very loud, especially
in the big moments of the game. Really happy to see all of this for game one, and look, it's a good foundation to build for future matches, which the next one is on the road Saturday afternoon in Charlotte. A very interesting game after Charlotte was able to get a point in Seattle late on Saturday night own goal helping Charlotte again. But Charlotte WI feel pretty good about
that result. They did not play Wilfred Zaha, he was left back and Charlotte, his wife is expecting Atlanta will feel pretty good about their result and it sets up for a really interesting game Saturday afternoon at Bank of America Stadium. Other news from around MLS San Diego, they became the story of the weekend their win over the LA Galaxy and it was a dominant win. Danish designated player Under Dryer with two goals in this one could have had a hat trick. Chucky Lozano could have had
a goal. It's pretty dominant over the LA Galaxy. Tyler Heaps, who is the general manager slash Sporting director, thirty three years old, the youngest one in Major League Soccer. He talked to Scott French of Soccer America in their essay Confidential series and he said that the five year plan for San Diego years one to three is establishing themselves. They want to make sure the business model is working.
Four to five is the transition phase where the first wave of players from the right to Dream Academy will be integrated into the first team, and then after that, Heaps said, it probably flips completely on its head, where ideally we become the youngest team in the league. We'll watch the evolution of San Diego over time. There were a lot of questions I had them as well about
how good they could be in year one. Mikey Veris and his crew really really good in Game one in Los Angeles over the Galaxy with a two zero win, one of the most impressive performances of the weekend. San Jose had one of the most impressive performances of the weekend, four nil over RSL. Bruce Arena pointed out after the win that RSL rotated RSL heavy legs after playing in concer CAF in the midweek. Bruce Arena took advantage of that.
Though they set up in a three four to two one the wing backs one of those Christian Espinoza, the other Jamar Ricketts. They were able to pin RSL's fullbacks back and just dominate that space with fresh legs. Espinoza was brilliant. Three assists on the day, five chances created really good performance for the Quakes over RSL. Can they continue it. We'll be watching Philadelphia. Can they continue a very good performance on the road over Orlando, who was
not all that great. Orlando got caught in possession a couple of times, gave up some bad goals. Philly with four didn't see that coming. Good win for the Union. Columbus Chicago is one of the more interesting games and one that I'm gonna sit down with and study little bit more. Atlanta, We'll see both of these teams twice. Chicago started out really well, Brian Gutiedez with two goals, really nice connections on the left side with Jonathan Bamba
and Andrew Gutman. Columbus made adjustments and that's what you would expect from Wilfred Nanci, and you started to see the game turn their way. Steven Morera, a player that I've talked about a lot over the past few years with NANSI started as a right back. Now he's a right sided center back. He can play a lot of different positions for Columbus depending on what they need him. Getting forward and we've seen this before, really tilted the
game towards Columbus. His forays into the attacking third really started to make Chicago not be able to get forward down their left, but also then started to create opportunities. Diego Rossi, he got a header. He's the player who's really going to have to carry the offensive side of this for Columbus right now. They come back a couple of times. They get the win over Chicago. Five goals in the first half of that one, a very entertaining opening forty five. Let's move over to the She Believes
Cup the US women's national team. They won again. Japan won again, which sets up a really good game on Wednesday. US has to win to win the She Believes Cup. Japan have the better gold differential. They beat Australia for one in Game one, and yesterday they beat Colombia for nil with a couple of goals very very early in that one. The US won yesterday two to one over Australia. Ema Hayes fifteen to oh and two. Since taking over the US women's national team, eleven changes from the group
that beat Australia and the group that beat Colombia. In Game one. Lynn Biandolo, who previously will know es Lynn Williams. She scored the opening goal in the first minute yesterday. Michelle Cooper scored the second Australia scored in the eightieth minute, made it a very interesting finish. Youngest US women's national team starting eleven since March of two thousand and one. That's what you're seeing with the She Believes Cup with
m Hayes, and now they've got a game. It's going to mean a little something, which is what they need on Wednesday. If they want to win She Believes Cup, they have to beat Japan on Wednesday in San Diego at snap Dragon Stadium. Sportico had a report over the weekend about college soccer, not something Sporticode is normally going to dig too deep into, but this was about something that had been murmured around soccer in the United States
here for a little bit. The US Soccer Federation has talked with the Big Ten, has talked with the ACC about launching a pilot program to establish a year round college soccer Division program league. I don't really know. There was a group of thirty two schools that we're going to do a trial run that would have been a
year round model. It would have included the Big Ten, it would have included the ACC, it would have included West Virginia, Oregon State, San Diego State, South Carolina, Kentucky UCF for those schools currently playing in the Sun Belt, along with Georgia State and Georgia Southern. That was supposed to take place this upcoming school year. It's not so now there's a lot of conversations about what could happen in the long run. J. T. Batson US Soccer CEO,
Secretary of General. He's in his third year with the Federation. Batson has been really ambitious in trying to create this type of situation for college soccer. It's going to be fascinating to see what happens here. I think what the US Soccer Federation is doing. And Rusty Oglesby in the article, he's the women's head coach at Harden Simmons University, previous past president of the United Soccer Coaches previously the NSCAA,
which you might know. Oglesby said that Batson and Cindy Parlow Cone quote, working hand in hand has been the greatest change in the landscape and Bret the fresh air in United States soccer in the last thirty years. Absolutely agree. Oglesby said, the Federation is finely doing what the Federation should be doing. Which is worrying about the landscape of soccer in the United States, not just the national team, so college soccer is part of it. We'll see what
this looks like. I think the conversation now not rushing into something good. The conversation is good. I would like to see the women's game join along with this, but right now, the two semester model hasn't really gained a whole lot of traction on the women's side. It's all been on the men's side. The women's side has on the NCAA element. They have extended the season by two weeks, so instead of twelve weeks, it's fourteen weeks. The men's
season will stay at twelve weeks. This will take effect for the twenty twenty sixth season. Two hundred and twelve D one men's programs, three hundred and fifty women's D one programs, A lot of opportunity, a lot of players come from these programs. US Soccer getting involved and potentially overseeing a transformation in college soccer, at least at the D one level in the United States. Really fascinating story that I think we're going to be talking a lot
more about. Oh and I'm really curious as we talk about Oglethorpe University here on the Morning Espresso, what that looks like at the D three level, what that looks like at the D two level, what that looks like in the naia level. Where the trickle downs fall, and how all of this is going to go. So many people play soccer in college and those people go on and become administrators in the game, become fans, become professional players more and more at the various levels here in
this country and abroad. Ton of opportunity. I'm happy to see some big picture conversation about making it even better. Don't rush into anything, and let's see where it goes. Some international updates on the Morning Espresso. As we wrap up here on a Monday, Liverpool there went over Manchester City pretty much gives them the Premier League title eleven point gap over Arsenal, but the Champions League qualification gets interesting across the board. The Premier League might get five
slots depending on country coefficients. Right now, the gap from City and fourth to Aston Villa in eight is two points. The gap from fourth place City to eleventh place Brentford is only seven points. So a lot of teams in this race, especially if that fifth spot comes into play. Manchester United they are not in that race right now and they are trying to stem losses off the field.
There's some reports that are unconfirmed suggesting that you could have announcements today of two hundred redundancies, releases letting people go layoffs in a planned meeting with staff. The scouting network could face considerable cuts. Manchester United not in good shape on the field or off the field at the moment. Rangers not in a good position on the field. Clement, their manager has been sacked. They lost over the weekend and this comes on the heels of news we talked
about last week. The San Francisco forty nine ers, who already control Leeds United. They're bidding for a majority stake in Rangers and this might open the door for or a fresh vision at the club desperately needs at the moment. Let's go over to Spain. Barcelona on top of La Liga on gold difference over at Real Madrid. Barsov won five in a row, but La MiG Yamal is now an injury concern ahead of the Copa Dela or a
semi final match against Atleti on Tuesday. He showed pictures of a bloody foot after taking a lot of fouls against Los Palmas on the weekend. See if he plays on Tuesday. Speaking of Atletti, they're only one point back, one point separating the top three. Let's go to Turkey. Slovenian referee Slavko Vincic. He has been appointed for the Istanbul darby between Galatasarai and Fenerbaceik. Forty five years old. He's been drafted in by the Turkish Federation for the
game today after a request from both clubs. According to ESPN, they did not want a referee from the domestic group to referee this game. There's been a lot of talk about the state of refereeing in Turkey. Now you have someone coming in from another country. I'm sure there will still be talk about the refereeing when the game is done. Jose Imerinho is involved. Let's go to Brazil. Neymar fans were taunting him in the corner. They were playing in
the Polystout State League against Inter de ly Mara. The fans for Inter de la Mara were taunting him. They're yelling at him. He's kind of drawing back and forth with him. He goes to take a corner, scores an Olympico like it's nothing, then shushes him right back. Neymar is having some fun and Brazil he's playing very well as well. Santos are in very good position in the polystou They have qualified for the knockout rounds. This is
the state league. The national league will start in April. Oh, it's time for our weekly sometimes daily Foster Gillette update. Do you do? Uh? Foster not paying the money Valentine Gomez who was transferring to Udines from Velez that has finally fallen through, reached its India yesterday deadline for the Businessman's group Foster Gillette's group to make the deposit of eight point five million dollars for Gomez to end up going to Udinese. Didn't hit the deadline, so he's going
back to Vellas. He's been training in a park in Italy. Not kidding, no, really, that's been happening also, And that's another element of this business group that is strange and weird and trying to broker deals in different places. Well, the biggest one he was trying to broke a deal in was becoming an investor at a studiantes working with
one Sebastian Verown the deal to make this happen. It's crumbling because he's not paying anything that he said he would go he was going to and now it's reportedly on the verge of collapsing entirely. Verro Own. If this does, he might leave Argentina for the United States and get more involved with the MIAMIFC in the USL Championship. According to reports, his son has gone there to play total mess for a Studiantes total mess across the board. If Foster Gillette shows up to do a deal with you,
you need to run the other direction. It looks like Veron is running the other direction. If that deal doesn't get done with Studiantes and there's a deadline, but it hasn't been said what the deadline is, they're probably past it. One more on the boards. Keep this in mind when we're talking about a club from London in the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur, they have email broadcasters to say they don't want to be called Tottenham anymore, so no more just Tottenham.
It's Tottenham hot Spur or Spurs. That's it. We'll see how long that takes to really stick. But no more just Tottenham. It's Tottenham Hotspur or Spurs. With that being said, that'll do it for the morning espresso here on the SDH network. I'll be back tomorrow. More soccer news that you need to know to get your day started, presented by Oglethorpe University