I'm getting there. It is John, hear you there. It's a wall pass Wednesday, which means anything's on the table, were stacked, packed and racked. Quoting was it Fred Dalton Thompson and the die hard and die hard I stack them, pack them and rack them. It's a wall pass Wednesday, which means in about ten minutes, Tyler Pilgrim's gonna come by from Scarves n Spikes for the Atlanta United Informational Journalistic Exchange program that we always have here. Wednesday's about
nine fifteen. Dylan Butler's going to start off our number two talking about Major League Soccer. We'll get into Peter Urmes from his perspective, still chasing Daniels Berry from the
Kansas City Star for the local perspective. Hopefully we can have him on tomorrow to talk about it and what the future holds for carries of Wagnin the interim head coach, for the folks that are there that are playing every week, that are on the bench that might want to play every week, and what the future might be for the roster in general and the build out when it comes to Sporting Kansas City. Then we'll go through the rest
of the week. That was a couple of matchups. Last night in Conker caf hemisphic Extravaganza where there weren't a whole lot of goals scored, and that was the first legs of the quarterfinals. More of those tonight. We'll get into the juice boxes there as well. That include Messi and Friends traveling to Los Angeles to take on LAFC. So that's on the table. Ten thirty, we bring in Ryan Figured, one of the play by play voices for FC Dallas. He's going to discuss FC Dallas, maybe the sidekicks,
you know, maybe it may be the Tornado. We'll get him to talk about Kyle Roach Junior and the Dallas Tornado and the Superstars competition. But Ryan Figure it's going to join us at ten thirty and it will be a discussion in an education on Lucho Acosta, six million dollar Man, what he has brought to the table so far in the first month plus for FC Dallas, and what Ryan's anticipating the matchup for matchup number two and three match home stand for Atlanta and I had coming
up this weekend. So Tyler, Dylan Ryan, that's the show this morning. Whatever else is on your mind when it comes to wall Pass Wednesday, and you can throw that in as you always do, morning, Alex, And so we
will hang on to that. And just a reminder from what happened yesterday in our deep dive about USL, probably need to catch up with some folks behind the scenes and find out what the proral deal is and if they can get a waiver, because not every stadium was gonna match fifteen thousand, you know, So we'll see what
the waivers and the possibilities are. Except unless it's only large market teams are the only ones allowed to be relegated from the first division USL League One set uptown the USL Championship, So we'll keep an eye on that going forward, all right. Opening kickoff brought to us buy our friends at Kickoff Coffee and kickoff Coffeeco dot com. QR code is somewhere in the ether and I probably would destroy this computer if I tried to and the graphics package if I tried to install it. So start
your day, kickoff your day. See what I did there, kick Kickoff Coffee, Kickoff Coffeeco dot Com. And then what you can do is on your way out the door, use the code soccer down here fifteen. You get fifteen percent off your purchase. They in turn take ten percent reinvested into youth games, youth initiatives brought to his buyer
friends at Kickoff Coffee and Kickoff Coffeeco dot Com. Figured what I would do this morning is since we have like nine gazillion things going on, and at the end of the show, we'll talk about Barcelona and how much problem, how many, how much, how much, how much of a problem, how many problems Barca has, And apparently there's a new there's a new there's a new problem. I know that
shocks you all. So last night in the Open Cup, we did have the Magic of the Open Cup, by the way, and it came out in a couple of different forms. And we'll get into the the activity today six point thirty. It is a pea hoot Portland Hearts of Pine and Hartford Athletic Louden is taking on Who is that? Louden's got a home? Who is this? This is what happens when you don't have when you don't have the actual layout. It's Segrifield and Leesburg Louden United.
It's playing tonight and they've got oh, Virginia Dream that's who. They've got. Greenville and one Knox are playing tonight in at Furman it is Chattanooga f C and Chattanooga Red Wolves at seven o'clock. That should be mandatory viewing. Mandatory viewing for you coming up tonight seven o'clock chattanoogav CEA and Chattanooga f C and Chattanooga Red Wolves. I mean you've seen the that you have seen the layout and the desires of everyone ons. I mean on one side
of the equation. One side of the equation has just been completely and totally just been talking, talking, talking. The other side hasn't so.
Uh.
Ten matches today in a US Open Cup Round two. But last night crazy crazy, crazy, So Crew two, by the way, started off the evening at six o'clock at the death Star Lower dot Comfield. They shut out Lexington Sporting Club by the final of three nil. Did not necessarily have that cup set on the board. But Crew two knocks off lexs C three and il then probably one of the wackier matches of the night. Uh, you know,
not necessarily even for the first eighty minutes. It was South Georgia Tormenta knocking off four to OSC and four to OH. Had control of it pretty much in the first ten minutes, but then you end up with the chaos that would ensue. Tormento gets a two nil lead, you have a penalty call, and honestly, you know, if there had been any kind of review the penalty cake, the actual penalty kick probably would have been asked to
have been taken again. But anyway, you go from two nil for Tormenta to two to two and then you end up with Tormento scoring at ninety plus four I think, and there was ten added minutes of this one once again hashtag magic of the Open Cup. Tormenta ends up getting the duke three to two. It's like tat ato nail lead lost the two nail lead. It was two to two, and then it's three to two finals, so
Tormenta advances to the next round. The MIAMIFC knocked off Messi and Friends too, so it will be an interesting week for them because meeting Messi and Friends too, well and technically for the MIAMIFC because of USL Championship activity USL Championship activity. For the MIAMIFC. They beat Messi and Friends one Neil Messi and friends too come up to
Atlanta to take on Atlanta United two on Sunday. What will they look like, especially after having to play on Tuesday, so they go weekend Tuesday weekend with travel, what will they look like? That would be an interesting question there. Also on the board, Charlotte Independence knocked off Carolina Corps. Took a long time, AET took the extra thirty before the two to one win there with Charlotte and cor Then El fad Alito. What did we say about El Fadlito.
Don't sleep on the NPSL champions, do not? They beat Monterey Bay last night two to one. They had a one nil win, They had a one nil lead and then it ends up a two to one win, down one nill captain subbed off with injury. This is from Tim Thomas over at the Cup dot US. Second half, you get a Zuluwaga goal and then you're tied at one, and then Edgard Cray gets the game winner two to one.
El Fa Delito advances past Monterey Bay. Then Avy Alta advanced out of USL League one, beating LAFC two two to one, and that one went ae T as well. So late night in the Inland Empire. And so you have those matches from yesterday. Now the schedule for today, ten more today. What did we do to deserve all of this magic of the Open Cup? That's all I'm saying. So we have we mentioned those matchups with the Virginia
Dream and such. So starting off at six thirty tonight, Virginia Dream in Loud United at Segre Hertford Athletic one. Hearts of Pine so p Hop comes in plays Hartford Athletic in Lewiston, Maine at the Franklin Athletic Complex. That's also at six thirty. New York Pansiprian Freedoms who had a cup set last go round? Do they take on Westchester sc Out of League one. That's at seven o'clock.
It is we mentioned Red Wolves and chattanooguest S one NOx in Greenville Triumph, Little Rock Rangers in FC Naples. Friend of the Network Jonathan Wardlaw, his group gets to go to Naples, Florida to take on FC Naples. At seven thirty f C Tulsa Ford Madison Union, Omaha des Moines Menace. How many of you are now rooting against des moin Menes how many show a hand. Well, they've got Little Buhos tonight at Valley Stadium in West Desmondes
eight thirty. Then Spokane Velocity to coma defiance El Pasol Locomotive and Ventura County. And so that that gets you moving and getting ready for round three, which is scheduled for two weeks time fifteenth and the sixth. But a lot of matches tonight. Magic of the Open Cup yesterday Chattanooga Red Wolves Chattanooga FC tonight. Mm hmmm, but you had cup sets with Crew two last night. I don't know what a cup set close call is. Maybe it just gets put in the washer or the dishwasher for
a little. Then once again, Charlotte Independence needed a et to knockoff Corps El fad Alito. We had that one pegged for you our humble observations of the Open Cup. Don't sleep on the NPSL Champs. We did not. For those of you who did. You slept late, you lost.
El fad Alito gots the win last night. Okay, So now that we've gone through the magic of the Open Cup, and there was plenty of magic in the Open Cup, time to break down anything and everything going on in the mind of Tyler Pilgrim for the Atlantic Nighted plus more Informational Journalistic Exchange Program. Now that he has wiped the sleep from his eyes and he's got his coffee and he's ready to go. How you doing quite well?
How are you in coherent? Thank you for asking me too, But I mean last night it was there you go there it is he broke out the lasso this morning. So, uh, we're going over the Magic of the Open Cup in opening Kickoff brought to us by our friends at Kickoff Coffee and Kickoff Coffeeco dot Com. I guess it's Magic of the Open cupcom of Bitches maybe uh yes, and Tormenta had a close call last night tonight apparently from what I understand, and this was going into last week.
At least six thousand tickets have already been sold for Fort Finley, for CHATTANOOGUEFC and Red Wolves and CHATNUGUFC has gone on social media. They have continued to refer to Red Wolves as the team from East Ridge. Yep, and so depending on your perspective, uh, this is this has so many different drops of context and blood feud and geography and road construction and blue versus red. Chattanooga is insert color here. We will have an answer tonight. Nothing
like the magic of the Open Cup. Comma bitches, City Hall is blue.
That was that was a great post.
Yeah. Well, when you get the mayor, it's a part owner.
Yeah, that is true. Be a little biased, just a little bit.
I'm one. I'm wondering if the mayor or if anyone attached to the front the the the governmental uh, the governmental folks that are it's maybe maybe they're going to try and find ways to have rolling roadblocks on on twenty four, yeah.
Or right there before you get to the split.
Yeah, right at the split, or you know, try and find surface street to make sure no one comes through the blue the east Ridge Tunnel and just kind of slow things down before every everybody's trying to get to the match. Excuse me, where are you going? So I'm going to the match at Fort Finley And what team are you rooting for?
Sir?
Well, can't you tell? Yeah? Well, I license and registration please. I mean, look, there have been wives tales. There have
been wives tales about that. In high school football rivalries, yeah, literally, there was there's one rivalry in East Georgia where it was a wives tale that each counties, each county sheriff's department was perched at the county line waiting for fans to cross over on a on a game night, and then it's like, oh, you have to pull you over, you know, cars get pulled over and everything, just to kind of slow the fan down because you knew the building was going to be packed with the other guy.
I'm wondering, I'm wondering what it's going to look like tonight at Fort Fit.
I don't think that was a wives tale, honestly happening.
In East Georgia, without question, absolutely true. So is anybody traveling from a SNS to go north and do you have any intel or who's who's covering it?
Do you know as far as like covering it in person? No, I know we do have some folks like in our in our discord and stuff that are going to be there. So I would love to go like, this is a this is like a genuine must watch match. It really is. You have open cup, you have the Darby uh huh, which rarely never gets played right. You can bind those two things and that is like lightsaber meets Adamantium. Like
this is gonna be such a cross room. I am so excited, Like, forget the champions Cup, dude, screw that. This is the game you need to be watching today, period.
Yeah, I mean literally seven o'clock, I mean war just look, get your nap in and just get it going because it's seven o'clock. It might be a late night. And now this little find a device if you're not at home, find a a I cannot cut a better promo for
this one. I mean, this is this is a Rick Flair promo from Georgia Championship Wrestling, worthy of a microphone, stealing it away from David Crockett and Tony Shavanni and going for three minutes in a studio and everybody on tech Wood Drive going, yeah, that's what you get with this one tonight. I'm thoroughly excited about this one. And and what league play looks for the survivor on the flip side, Yeah.
You know our shows tonight around the same time.
Oh that's right.
Does throw a little bit of a wrench in exactly what I just said. Oh but you know, I think like it'll be one of those where a couple of weeks ago, like we had MICHAELA Ganona Ellen and I had the game pulled up because that was when De Moines was playing, and we were trying to give like slight updates about what was going on in the game because he's like, oh, right, okay, yeah you can.
You can't give I don't think, you know, I don't think if you're like part of the uh you know, part of part of the outside world, that you can do play by play. Yeah.
US Soccer might not be happy about that.
So but if you did, hey, look at this, yeah, look at this kind of analysis. So I just saw this. Yeah, So what was it like with mckaleay.
He was like, as I mentioned, I was like, yeah, you know, the game start now. He's like, yeah, as soon as I get done here, I'm gonna go turn it on. He was like, so, who's starting, what's going on in it? How's it going. I'm like, well, at this point, because it was like thirty minutes in, I was like, your boys haven't really progressed the ball to the other side of the pitch at this point. So no, but I think I think this Chattanooga Darby will be much much more entertaining.
For sure, tremendous I'm so looking forward to it. Uh, Like I said, don't sleep on it, becaus you know, Tormenta had a close one last night. Yeah, and literally it was like, okay, two nil, ten minutes to go, and then all of a sudden, all of a sudden, the hood comes up, the oil drops, and the engine died, and it was like, all right, let's try and just get this thing over the Let's get this thing over the over the finish line, and they did with a goal later than later north of ninety.
Jackson and are you know, like yeah, Jack Hopkins, yeah, Jpop, Yeah, yeah. He he was in our discord last night. And the range of emotions that this man went through in a few minutes because he is obviously a massive Tormenta fan.
He's covered some of the games for the for the site and everything, like the dude, besides Atlanta lives and breathes South Georgia, Tormento, and he was like, forget about what just happened down in Statesboro, and then like a couple of minutes later, twelve minutes later, he's like, never her mind.
Bazini my heart.
I was like, dude, you're going through it, man, Elizabeth.
It's a big one. I'm coming and Jackson would have to look that reference up on the wood. Uh. Now that you've had, you and the audience over at SNS and everybody over there have had a couple of days to kind of process what has gone on with it? Landy United, have you? First off, I guess, have you recovered from what happened with it? Landy, Knighted and NYC. That's the first question.
So first of all, neither one of us were there, which means one of us is not allowed back in the bins apparently.
Huh.
Yeah, the answer is no, I have not because so obviously I wasn't there at the stadium this time. This was like my one obligatory absence of the year. You had a lot of stuff going on this We have friends of family in town. But I was watching it sitting next to a fire pit and a lake, and I went, I really, I you know, I'm sitting here talking about Jackson. I probably was the same exact way on Saturday. I almost threw my phone in the lake. I almost threw it in the fire, I almost jumped
in the lake, almost jumped in the fire. I went through all of it. Oh man, I was like I'm going to turn this stupid game off. I should be enjoying myself right now. I'm not enjoying myself to oh this is getting a little bit better. Oh my god. It was all over the place. Oh man, full range of emotions. It goes up there with with you know, that famous twenty eighteen San Jose game is one of the wildest, for sure. But I think it, you know, it kind of reinforced a lot of the stuff that
we talked about. I mean, man, I don't even know where to start, because.
Like the beginning is usually a good the beginning.
Is usually a good chronological place to start. I mean, it wasn't great, right, Like the team this season so far, it's not always been a tale of two halves. It's just been a tale of one. The switch is flipped, it seems like. And it was just back and forth in the beginning, and then obviously New York gets their goal, you know, fairly early on. I loved the first goal with Moran Chuck. I love the you know, the kind
of build up. I love the fact that you got all four of your your you know, primetime attackers involved in it. Latte Lithe will tell you that was a pass, It was not who cares, It still counts as an assist. But then, like you know, the the beginning of the second half, the way things kind of fell apart, it was it was a little concerning. It still is a little concerning because you shouldn't have that happen, you know. Still now people have asked me multiple times, like what
about Dom shon Qui. I'm not worried about Dom schon Qui in the slightest it He is seventeen years old. He got told moments before opening whistle that he was going to get the start in front of forty five.
You're tacked on the shoulder, sir.
Guess what you're doing now? That is a That is a weird, weird place to be for a seventeen year old kid. Now, we've watched him all the way through preseason and beyond, but I mean, he made a mistake that any professional soccer player could make on any given day. The one thing that I take out of this match that I really want to see Dom improve on, and it kind of goes back to some stuff that Dyla talked about in the near the end of the preseason
was his positioning. I think if there's something like specific that he needs to maybe just fine tune. It's just where to be at any given time. On a team that uses their wingbacks as both attack and defense heavily, you have to know where you've got to be at any given time. And I think that's that's one of those things that comes with experience, it comes with coaching. He's on the right track. He made a mistake. New York City made mistakes. Everybody made mistakes. It is what
it is. You take away all the mistakes, and Atlanta still I think wins this game to one. So as far as he is concerned, man, I'm not worried about Dom at all. He's fine. He's good to go. Besides that, I mean, you know, there's been this back and forth about maryon Chuck and where he belongs, and I think there are a lot of factors that take into consideration here.
But I think when you have a team that wants to attack, that you're playing against that wants to attack a lot, you have to study the midfield somehow, and you saw that in the second half. But you also saw New York take their foot off the gas a little bit, so I think, you know, it's not that you have to move a Lexi to be a permanent number eight or a connector all the time. I think Miggy is a right winger or left winger wherever he
wants to play. Is smart enough to know, like if you tell him, hey, while Alexi's playing as a ten, I need you to be more of a whatever. Give him space. That'll give you space, It'll give everybody space. But then the moment that you might have to do that kind of experiment where you're moving Alexi back as more of a connector and a build up player from the back, then you move Mickey to that central location, let him do whatever he wants to do. So it's
just it's interesting. It's kind of an interesting conundrum that Daila has right now with you know, where am I going to get the most out of my players? Like Saba has looked infinitely better on the right, I don't think there's any like question about how much better he is over there. But to do all that, you do
have to tweak some things. So this is a this is a I think a period of maybe learning for the coaching staff, trying to figure out where they can get the absolute most out of out of the players at any given time, because it's not just where they start at the opening whistle games chain during the game. What I know, right, it's just weird, especially when it's
three to one. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I think I think there's there's just as part of the learning process of figuring out like who's who's going to fit the way that you want to play the best in what positions, that they could still be really good at.
To your point about Mirnchuk, here's it. Here are his numbers, courtesy of our friends at SOFA score Play. The full ninety got the goal, fifty eight touches, two incomplete passes or two inaccurate passes on forty five attempts, forty three of forty five passing on fifty eight touches ninety six percent. Three key passes, two crosses, three long balls, one big chance created, two shots on target, three of five on
ground duels, three tackles. That's hitting a boatload of different categories for somebody who I have always in vision as almost as the conductor of this orchestra because of the imagination that he has in the touch that he has. But knocking off all of those different categories in this match of chaos and going ninety six percent passing. And it wasn't just you know fourteen or fifteen or you know nineteen and twenty, this forty three or forty five.
I mean, that's not messing around. He had a day where he hit a bunch of different categories, did a bunch of different things for you as the as the maestro there with the baton, you know, making things happen.
Yeah, And it wasn't that it was like you know, backwards passes or lateral passes. I mean he was he was hitting some progressive passes, which is what you want to see out of your eight or ten. It doesn't matter what number you want to give him at the time. But I mean, I don't know. I guess he saw the rooted in the stripes videos like man excrety people.
I thought.
I think the way that he plays, everybody's been really hunging up on like is he a ten?
Is he not?
I think it's more about where can you give him a little bit more space to take that extra split second to make the proper pass that's going to benefit the team the most, and play and doing that as a quote unquote number ten, you're often more in very tight spaces where you have to maybe take on guys one v one, it's a little bit harder to play that through ball or that you know, very very precise
pass that you want. But if you if you drop back a little bit and you you kind of allow him to be that conductor or that connector that's kind of what I keep calling him. You look at when he has just a moment of space and he can pick out just about anybody on the field. And I think I could be completely wrong with this, but I just think it's that maybe that little bit of pressure being taken off of his back to say, like, man,
I've got space and time. He can control the ball pretty well, you know, as as like a as like a box to box guy. He is not the Almada or Moreno, who's gonna go and take on guys one v one and like you know, dribbling boy around them and all that kind of stuff. That's just not his game. Yeah, tribly boy, But he he does have that wherewithal I mean to almost see somebody behind him on the other side of the pitch and then make a pass with
his non dominant foot right to them. That's that's the strength of Alexi Mirn Chuck, and if you can unlock that and use it more often, then you, I think you're gonna get a lot more out of him. It's it's what we've been talking about. I guess kind of what Henry wrote about last week and then and then now now he's been insufferable since he wrote that article.
Not really, but it's you know, it's I think it's just it does kind of lend itself maybe to taking a little bit of the pressure off of him so that he can have just a tiny bit more space to operate and to think about what he wants everybody in front of him to do, and then what he can do to feed them.
So then are we going to be starting starting to call Aleximi don't chook the Downtown Connector? Is that? Uh?
Hey man, I like it.
I like it.
This fits.
I mean with the with the kit everything.
Yeah, this fit.
Just just call a M five nine to Downtown Connector and you got it all locked and loaded.
You know, we come up with a lot of things in this one once weekly segment that really need a lot more credit.
I'm just saying, well, I mean, hey, look, it's you know what is it that our boy arn't Anderson used to say, or still says, I'm not want toot my own hornbit to toot. Yeah, oh yeah. So look, anytime, anytime you get the chance to quote the four Horsemen, you know you're going to do it.
Right.
So you're about you're you're in the process of throwing your phone in the water, in the process of drying it out in the fire. Once you what you have dived into whatever body of water you were next to. Yep, and you're down three to one. Chaos continues to ensue. Midanchuk is there with you, and then you mentioned not you get the own goal from Keaton Parks and you're getting all of this momentum and all this stuff from
the casual perspective from which you were watching. Were folks starting to gravitate towards your mobile device as you were sitting there and trying to keep your wits about you? What was what was on from three two to three three, three, three to four three?
It was because I'm sitting there and I'm watching the game, and like everybody's asking me, like, because most of these folks are like casual, they landing on the fans like you know, they'll they'll watch the show, they'll watch the games occasionally, but they're not like hardcore, you know. So at the half, I'm like, all right, well, this is all right, it's okay, Like you got an equalizer back. Now you just got forty five to take the lead,
get out with three points. And then that second half started and I was well saying things that I can't say normally.
Well, you know, you just warn us and you sit there and we put the E rating up when we posted yeah, oh that's all we do.
I was so frustrated. I was like, man, it is this mentality thing, and like, so then we're all having these conversations and I'm like, dude, I am so close to just like turning this game off and I'm gonna watch it again later when I can i can focus on it more, and which I did also, but I kept watching and and then you know, you get the one back and it's like, all right, well that's cool. But in the history of Atlanta United and a lot of soccer teams like this doesn't have you don't come
back from this often. If you do, it is drunk. It is absolutely drunk. So when it was three to two, it was like, all right, well, I mean it was cool. Hey, you got it. You got one. Back has channeled the on goal gods again, he's done it. But I'm sitting there watching and then when it hits three three, I'm like, okay, hang on a minute now. And then that was when I kind of jumped up and I was like, let's go,
and everybody started coming over. And then from that point on all the way until the end of the match, everybody was glued around. And then the final fifteenth well ten minutes or whatever it was, everybody's watching the screen and the moment that the Latte Loth goal went in, people jumping around, people are screaming. The neighbors probably thought, I don't know what they thought. They were like these freaking insane.
You don't care what the neighbors thought.
I didn't know, like y'all, y'all saw the Atlanta United shirt. All right, something good just happened. So we did our celebrations and then set back down and then waited with baited breath for the last few minutes. And there was the goal that was it was clearly offside, but there was the goal. And before I had a moment to be like, oh, that, well, that was offside, Like that's got to be called back. Somebody that was watching was like, this is some bulley. I'm like, you have no idea
because normally that's how this goes down. Thankfully it was offside and we were all good to go. So we went through the full gamut of emotions. Man, it was insane.
So the and the four to three go, well, I guess first off, let's still you know, discuss the the set piece where you see both Latte Lot and Miggy jump out of the gym and Miggy and MIGGI gets there first. I'm like, okay, uh good, good to see that Miggy's got hops when requested. It's like, uh, like you're saying, I like an order of hops from mister elmern. Yeah, so I mean Migi got hops man.
Yeah, I'm almost a little disappointed. And that goal be only because I'm saying this for a reason. I don't think it did MIGGI justice. Now I wasn't there, so like, I do regret a little bit the fact that I didn't get to see his first goal back. However, however, however, perfect ref for that. By the way, however, I think there was so much confusion around who got to it initially that I think it maybe pulled a little bit
of the that extra oomph. And it's not taking anything away from Latte laugh, but everybody's been waiting on that one because he almost had that one shot that was kind of a weak shot, like a little bit earlier. Yeah, that would have been that the place would have blown up, because that's one of those where it's like, hey, all Miggie, he did his thing, he got on the ball, took
the shot. But because this header was just kind of like who got that, I think maybe it took a little bit of the air out of like what could have been that Meggie explosion. So in my head, I'm pretending that like this weekend, he'll get one that's like a full on open play, like he just ate somebody's soul and then scored and then the place is gonna blow up to make myself feel better about missing the first one. But it was either way, Matt Edwards unsung
hero of that sequence. For sure, I thought he he did really well and then playing it over to shanday, who you know, you might try that same little chip a million times and not get it right, but he did it, and thankfully he had two guys waiting there and one of them was able to get on the end of it.
I'll put a bookmark in Matt Edwards and we'll talk about Matt in a bit. But then, you know, to just have a night of chaos like we had with it Landy United, and to have it end on one of those moments where Matt Freeze is being summoned apparently, it's like, you know, bro, come on out. I'm shepherd, I'm shielding and shepherding for a reason. So I'm requesting your assistance sir, and grabbing and grabbing this, grabbing this
bouncing soccer ball away from the player. And I don't know what it is about strikers being inside the eighteen and moments are weird. But we've had We've had Grand theft, Jamal, We've had We've had Papa shot from Latte Lot and it's just sure, you just kind of throw up your hands after after all these years you said to go yes, sure, why not?
Yeah?
Why not go ahead?
Whatever?
You know.
We we kind of got into like a little bit of a debate on on him as Monday about this, like was it was it Matt Freeze, was it Martin's Who? Like what? Who was it? And I don't think you can put the blame on either one of them solely. I think like it's both, like they they've got to figure it out. Man, you can't make that mistake. And I saw, you know, the the Twitter thread Bill Hamid got involved. Bill's giving his opinions.
Oh boy, there's the comments. There are plenty of comments that I'm just gonna not come.
Yeah, but I'm like, you know, the easy thing to do there is just send send the ball out for a freaking corner or throw in. So I totally agree with that. You gotta do something. Yeah, also go keep However, it's your box, man, like you got to you gotta
make a decision. So whatever, it's both of them. But then on top of that, because that's been the argument, I feel like Latze a Loth has not gotten enough credit for this goal, like not not only did he run down this ball like a freaking gazelle, and which
I think was maybe part of the confusion. Honestly, I think Martin's thought he had maybe a little bit more time, Freeze thought maybe had a little bit more time, But Latte lath is sneaky fast, Like you don't realize until he turns on the eighteenth gear or whatever that he has that he's coming like he's coming in hot, and
I think he was there before they realized it. And for him to get in between them kind of win the ball and then chip the ball at that angle over the top of the goalkeeper with enough Ford momentum to not allow another defender to run in and kick it out. That is like Chef's kiss level striking. That was beautiful, So like he needs a lot of credit for that. It wasn't just the fact that the goalkeeper and the captain completely had a day. M lat deserves
a lot of credit also Martin's as a captain. And that was some crappy reaction. I don't care whose fault it was. Don't do that, Yeah you can't. I mean, I get be a pissed.
The gesticulations of Thiego Martinez.
He was. He was quite upset, Yes, he.
Was quite upset. Well, when you have this happened, I could understand why. Yeah, for sure, Atlanta was down three one at the hour mark and I've come back to equalize. Sand playing over the top for lante Van over his head for his and what te what steals it chucks it into the head.
Scores at Lanta United has come back from two balls down to take the lead.
Incredible layer play New York's not wrong.
No what a ball a boy?
Brad by the way, oh see, and this is this is a thing that I have and I'm not the only one here. Where's the assist I know that's that's horse crap? Where is the assist for for Brad Gazanne? Because I needed the points in Fantasy to at least close my margin a little bit going into Sunday.
I won Fantasy. I didn't change anything. I won by two points. This weekend. I got so lucky.
Anyway, my my, I went with Red Bulls defense, going up and thinking that you know, New England wasn't going to score. And so the two guys I had combined for a one point total. One of the guys I had actually punched a negative.
That's happened to me twice this season so far.
Yeah, so I had I had a negative punched in two and a minus one. I should have stuck with Vancouver on defense, where I hit oliochmed and he had a plus nine. Oh, by the way, here's the other version, courtesy of our buddy Tyler Terrence, who is well on his way to having his his ten vigit ten visit punch card.
Yeah.
I mean he's like, he's three visits already, three visits in a week for Tyler. So here's the other Tyler. So here here's his version once again for those of you who may have forgotten, courtesy of our friends at Apple TV and Major League Soccer. It is that center back roll partines Tannski Freeze to come get it, confuse you. It's another costly error for New York City, and the comeback is Chi just to not complete Friendsland. That's the
short version. But yes, that was That was Tyler's call, and I texted because I, like you, was not at the Bends, and so I'm gathering intail as we go. I was with the Boss on a date night and because we were close to an anniversary, which was Monday, by the way, Uh yes, first date anniversary sixteen years ago.
There you go.
And so yeah, we're we're that couple. We celebrate that in addition to anniversaries, and so do we I.
Mean to a degree, like it always gets recognized every year, but.
We have we have what we referred to as First Day Aniversary. And so that was Monday, and so Saturday we went to the Jasonisbel concert at the Fox, and so I was in a building where I could get no cell service whatsoever because of the brick and everything that is encased inside the Fox Theater. I guess that's their way of saying, focus on what you're watching, don't
focus on your you know. And there were about five or six people that were trying to record bits and pieces of the concert, and the folks at the Fox were none too pleased with that and telling folks to put their phones away, yep, because you're not supposed to do that, yep. But yeah, I was. I was going full disclosure. I was texting back and forth with Tyler and not you, the other Tyler, Tyler Tarrems. I was texting back and forth with him and I'm like, Tyler,
what happened? And so he broke it all down for me with four to three. But so, yeah, you had that kind of chaos. I wanted to put a bookmark in Matt Edwards so I could bring up the topic of Matt Edwards. Now third position he's played on the back line this year. Yeah, and it's just like, you know, okay, fine, tell me what I got to do, I'll go out and do it. And you're you're continuing to see that from Matt Edwards and how he's adjusting to life with that. Landy knighted in the first.
Team, Yeah, put me in, coach. I mean, I don't know.
I thought he looked confident, like really confident, and I don't know if maybe it was the moment they kind of spurred him on a little bit, but I just thought, like the confidence in which he played, especially, I mean, it's not just that goal that you know was the past that Silva Silva did some little things and then chipped it in, but like, I think it was just where he was talking about positioning, where he was positioned, taking guys on one v one, not being afraid to
do it, taking risks. I just thought, like, hey man, you you had one game in the beginning of the season, first game where it was it was it was a little bit of a struggle. Then you absolutely destroyed a Premier league striker winger for forty five minutes, and then you, among others, had a mistake right that that led to a goal. But you've kept at it and you haven't really. I mean he even told us at the trading ground, like,
you know, I just I put it behind me. My teammates they helped me through it, you know, as they should, and so I'm good. And he's just kept chugging along. And he got thrown in as a center back and
did his thing. And I mean, like, is he playing perfect? No, But like I think for what he's been through in such a short time this season, a lot of guys would have absolutely lost confidence by this point, and he's just doing his thing and this I think he looked really, really good in this one, and he helped Spur on a comeback.
And I think that speaks a lot to at least, you know, what we're seeing so far in the first two months of this group being together, where the players are trying to understand what Ronnie Dila wants and then you're adjusting to what's going on. And Ronnie has said, Okay, you know, after a loss, the first thing I got to do is look at myself. I got to figure out, okay, you know, was it this was it?
This? Was it?
This?
How do we address these issues and first time that you've gone you know that you've been down to in a long time. I think everybody goes back to the chaos in San Jose in MLS after dark when you when you have these kinds of matches, and you know, the these kinds of matches can go one of two ways for you emotionally. You can sit there and ride that wave and sit there and go, Okay, we're capable
of doing X, or you know, we escaped. And I think that it's okay to have both of those in concert when it comes to your your emotional wherewithal going forward. Just you know, let one be more positive than the other, but don't forget the second emotion that's attached to this whole thing.
Yeah, and I that's kind of been one of the one of the points that I was hitting on when we did our reaction show.
I think.
You have to celebrate this game because there's a lot today. And it's not just the fact that you won. It's not even just the fact that you came back. It's the fact that you you got all of your attackers that you've you know, admittedly paid so much money for involved in multiple ways, like Alexi getting his goal and being very involved in the game and affecting the game the way that he did, especially after you know the criticism that he's received. You know, Saba, who who should
have two goals at this point or at least to assist. Yeah, but he's he's making that happen right just and and don't take away any credit from him with like the first touch to get around the you know, defender, like everything that he did to build up that own goal, that's what you needed there for lat Lath with the assist, with the goal the game winner, like that's what you
paid paid the money for. And then of course Meigi doing doing what Niggi does, being involved everywhere Like this is I think the first game where you've gotten all of it kind of come together. Now, it would have been nice if it like came together and you just spanked New York City out of the bends, but whatever, it doesn't always go down that way. But you're seeing, you know, the chemistry that we're always talking about kind of maybe coming together a little bit at this point.
And you can see that Dayla is tweaking things and fine tuning things and moving guys around and making the chess moves and out of your coach. That's what you want to see as well. So like there's a lot just kind of behind the scenes that happened in this match that needs to be celebrated. But of course then you got to go back and you have to look at the silly mistakes, like again the dom chon Quei thing.
Give a seventeen year old if you put into the starting lineup at the last minute in front of forty five thousand people, I would be more shocked if he didn't make a mistake or two. I'm not worried about that at all. It is what it is. And and kudos to Derek and Brad for not chewing his rear end off. I think he doesn't need that. He knows what happened. He doesn't need Dad Tom's two screaming at
him for making a mistake. It is what it is, so you know, and then then the other mistakes, there's definitely some stuff to be had there, but like, celebrate what you what you've progressed in, and celebrate the win, go back and take a look at the film and say, all right, we've got to get these mistakes under control, like immediately, because we can do that and with the goals that we'll put in win, we're gonna be all right.
And now you get to uh face coming up this weekend.
If dude, if anybody loses an aerial duel against Luco Acosta, I might jump out of the press box.
So you have you, I just.
Don't please don't do it. It's like this past weekend Sydney was saying the same thing about maxim morales, like don't don't you dare. But Luco Acosta unfortunately has a knock on wood, has a thing with Atlanta United. Hopefully he's lost that now that he's joined another team, but that is that is a concern for sure.
Yeah, and you know, you you have someone like Luco who is a certifiable pain in the you know what, and he just finds ways to get open. I mean he you know, it's he's got dudes who are five six inches taller than he is setting picks. You know, you get lost in traffic, you find that extra space.
I mean, honestly, it's like it's like that point guard that we see in basketball where you're running, you're running the motion offense, and then he senses that opening and he just wants to kind of just kind of shave off of the outside shoulder off of one of the picks, and he gets himself some space and that's all he needs to launch a three. And that's what I've I've
you know, we have. I've always kind of noticed with Luco Luco, it's like he's in the he's in the motion, he's in the weave, and it's like, Okay, I'm gonna cut this pic. I'm gonna cut coming off of this pict short to give me some space. And yeah, Public Enemy number one Lucoco coming up this weekend with with Atlanta United. So uh, after you know, after this weekend, I know that you've got show tonight. Who's your guest tonight?
By the way, Uh, Max Bretos, we're actually doing like a pre pre recorded type. Yeah, this was it came about very late this week. Yeah. By the way, by the way, April Fools has it sucked?
I'm not gonna be but I you know, and I've kind of outlawed I don't it. Look, I'm too old to try to think of April Fools things to do. And I got too we got too much other stuff to talk about for me to sit there and go, hey, by the way, you know when when say this is closed, you know you know? Nah, So how did you get victimized by April fools?
You know what's so frustrating about it is it wasn't even that it was an April fool's joke. It was just life said, hey, even though you're trying to avoid April fools, I'm going to April fools you except it's not actually April. I'm really gonna do this to you in one day yesterday, Okay, I had a brand new lawnmower break and I spent four hours trying to figure out how to get it repaired, slash fixed, slash replaced because it is brand new. Okay, still haven't got an answer, answer.
See, I mean do well. First and foremost, my first question is do you know that this was, in fact a new lawn mower.
Oh yeah, yeah, I was the one that bought it.
Okay, Well, but I mean it's like it wasn't like you bought it off of the showroom floor or everything. It was like in the box.
It was in the box. I put it together. Okay, yeah, one hundred percent like came out the box. I put a couple of bolts in, put the oil in the whole nine yards Okay, so yeah, that happened. And when that happened, I was like, all right, well, I'm gonna at least go use the weed eater. I'm gonna go do my little you know stuff around the house. Went to go crank up the weed eater, and right when it was about to crank up, the string broke. And then.
Third piece of equipment.
And then that night last night, my wife was trying to do some work. We're getting our oldest kind of getting some college stuff prepared, and she goes to open up her laptop and the hinge on the laptop just breaks, like the screen just broke been there, which thankfully we have two very capable children who were able to get it back kind of together and put a screw in there and it's working. But I'm like, dude, what is going on today? This is absolute garbage. So I'm grateful
that April Fool's is over, And yes it is. It is, Max Bretos. You can get on later because I'm done. I'm done with April first.
Yes, one Florida state or two another. It will be good to have, good to have Max talking. Yes, good to have him on the show. Yeah. I mean literally everybody was trying to figure out all the April foolsy and stuff. You know, has had a thing with Formula one where they're they've got a new sponsor, and everybody's like, oh, are we sure about that? Yeah, that that wasn't no April Fools. But it takes entirely too much effort for me.
It's like cutting a promo. The best promos are the ones that have that are that are shrouded in truth, and it's like you sit there and you have a point of view, but there's still there's still some truth bombs in there. Those are the Those are the best
April Fools notifications that you get, you know. But for me to try and formulate something like that with everything that we have going on, it would take entirely too much time out of my day to sit there and go, well, hey, you know what, wink wink April fool No, it's just no, it's look, with all the news going on and all the stuff we got to talk about, No, I can't. I can't waste any time on that kind of a shenanigan. I really can.
Yeah, on the day before my wife was like, are you gonna do anything for scribes and spikes for April Fools? And I was like I kind of thought about it, like just what what could I do? But I couldn't put that much like mental energy into it, and I just ended up being like, you know what it is, what it is. I'm not like, I don't even like this holiday whatever. I don't like this day. It's so.
It is not a national holiday that people like it.
Like something came to me, I'll participate, right, So yeah, I was just like, dude, I can't. I can't do it. And then and then I got April fooled by life?
And then but is that an April fool though? If life does what life does, that's I mean.
I felt like a fool. I felt like a fool.
April first, you feel like a fool? Okay, I get it.
I do gotta say really quick because I don't know if that was an April Fools thing or not. Did you see the Hawks thing last night? What happened the dude?
The dude blew here He allegedly blew out his a c L. Yeah, I saw that piece of video and I had, you know it looked pretty bad. Yeah, I had the empathy pain. Yeah, because you know, there there are certain actions that we'll see in movies or athletics and as as a as a as a male, you'll sit there and you'll you'll get that sympathy pain, like, yeah,
I saw I saw that moment last night. Dude's going for a layup and he wiped out and he's grabbing his knee and everything, and I'm like, yeah, I had the sympathy pain for that one.
Yeah, that one was rough. And then we're right after that. I saw this is like the first time I meant on social media all day for multiple reasons being one of them. But I saw the Miggi and Hernandez with that, and I was like, oh my gosh, this man, the A C. L Demon was there to get somebody. Yeah, and this man took the sacrifice, so is okay. Yeah, but thankfully it didn't get Miggy.
Well, but you saw Miggy go backwards off of the plateau was on and I'm.
Like, ah, I know it was still trying to get him. It was still trying to get him.
Yeah, not happening, all right, my friend, seven o'clock tonight, you and Max Max on tape and everybody, uh, yep, yep cool. Then there you go. It'll be it now that you've survived April one, welcome to April two. Yeah, enjoy your coffee because there goes Tyler. And so that's it for hour number one. So we do the hot tag, we do the launch into the corner and dive and do the hot tag and we bring in Dylan and so this is where we bring in Dylan Butler. Yo,
what's up? You tell me? Is the parade for all of your Newcastle folks? You had what nine million people show up for your parade.
I'll tell you it's been they play today and I'm like, it feels like about a month and a half since they last played. It has just been party city. And as someone who's been in Newcastle on a Friday and Saturday night, I can attest to uh the wildness that it is. And that was not even with a trophy to celebrate.
It.
It has no doubt been madness up there.
And I mean that's uh, I'm waiting for you to get that scarf and add it to your background.
Yeah, I wonder. Well, the problem a little bit here is it's a pretty well established background, so I would need to like get rid of something.
Oh no, no, no, no, you just get another You end up getting another shower rod and you're string it across.
These are just all up on the on the wall. But see like I have some over there too. See like I got uh in that corner. That's the corner you don't usually see here.
We don't usually see that corner.
Yeah, so I have a little bit of room there.
There's your Campion's Cup one. Yeah, nicely done.
Little All Star Game two thousand and eight.
Oh see now that's strong though. That's good a right, Toronto, I think that was That's a good one. Yeah, yeah, but no, you just you just need to get a bigger You need bigger studio space. That's the that's the biggest thing there. So biggest news that came from the week was the dismissal of Peter Urmes, mutually agreeing to part ways after seventeen years as coach. One of the pieces of the fabric that is Sporting Kansas City. And that's where I wanted to start off with you this week.
I know that for the longest time it was like he's gone, He's staying he's going, he's staying, he's going, he's staying. Oh, they had a really bad start, but now they turn into zombie Sporting and they come out of lane eight, they make the playoffs, they make a run, do this, do that, mid season acquisitions and they get into the playoffs, all this kind of stuff, and I mean it finally just got to the point to where Dallas puts you in your seat and it was time
for Peter Vermes to go. I mean, Sporting is Sporting's hurting right now. And that's kind of where I wanted to start, was with Sporting and Peter Urmes and your thoughts about Vermes on the whole, what he's meant to Sporting Kansas City and now that he's gone, now.
What Yeah, So a lot to a lot to dig into there. But first for the legacy part, you know, I I I want MLS to get to the point where like there's more people, more fans who respect and understand the history.
Of the league.
Right Like I've been around for the beginning, but so many fans and look, you guys, you know you're you you you understand it. You know when your city enters into it. That's kind of where you start, a lot of people don't go backwards with that, you know. So for Atlanta, you know, you start with with Meggie and Joseph and and that whole crew, and like that's your beginning.
You're launching off point for for your MLS sort of understanding, if you will, right, And the same happened in Seattle, right,
the same happened in Portland. But I say this because I think you understand more about what Peter Remise has meant to Kansas City and that organization more when when you understand the past, right, Like, this is a guy like I don't know if there's a I mean I should I would, I should say I'd imagine at some point the stadium would be built, right, But like, I don't know if a stadium gets built without Peter Remise doing what he does there, right, Like, they don't become
a club that had how many straight shutouts? And I'm sorry sellouts? How many you know that that was?
Uh?
It became a venue for the US national team. The culture that was built there, so much of that is is on Peter Remise, right, Like for him to have his run as long as he did is remarkable. There's no doubt about it, right, So I think he deserves his plaudits. And uh yeah, you know, it's it's it. We We've said it a couple of years ago. I think I think sort of the beginning of the end is when he uh you know, doesn't refresh that roster
quick enough. You know, now now you're now it's becomes more difficult, right like and and you're kind of swimming upstream a little bit. And and that was the case I think with them, and they had to take a few swings at a few players, and some misses and injuries and all kinds of things that happened. But listen, he should go down as a legacy guy, no doubt, for sporting. Now to the second part of your question. Because of all of that I just said, because.
He was so.
Ingrained and he was so sporting Kansas City, right, he was mister sport in Kansas City, the what next becomes so much harder. Like if he was just the coach for a couple of years, all right, Well, you just find a new coach and you figure out a new way to do things. But when it's a guy who's been there for so long, who you know, look, you knew when you when Peter Remi stepped out that they were playing in a four to three three you know they were pressing, you know, you know, you know you
ran for a game. Also, he had, you know, those different roles, right, he wasn't just the head coach. And I think in today's MLS world, I think if you put I think that's why you don't see a lot of technical directors last head coaches around, right, there's only a handful or less than a handful, because you know, when you put all your eggs in that one basket and then you've got and they break, you know, that's a big mess.
Yes, that's a big mess.
I don't know where they go from here, to be.
Honest, like, yeah, because Carrie's a Wagne is going to take over as the innerm I imagine for the rest of this season unless there's that guy that is out there that they sit there and go ooh. And but do you as a manager who would be coming into this situation, as we always say, you don't want to be the guy that replaces the guy. Yeah, you want to be the guy that replaces the guy that replaces the guy. So then do all of the names that
we would have circling through our head. Wait until twenty six and see, you know the success rate of carries the Wagnin and or does someone sit there? I would I would think of it this way. If there is a young coach that wants to go ahead and get that gig, they think they're ready for that first major league soccer gig or that first Division one gig, that young coach is gonna want to jump the line with all the experience guys who are just going to kind
of wait and see what the offseason is with sporting. Hey, I can work with this group. Young coach who wants to jump the line would be there for whenever they feel that carries the Wagnin's run is okay, you're cool. But I would think a lot of the experience names would wait things out until after this season is over. And that's a long wait. That's November, man, and yeah, you're dealing with this this kind of dynamic here. The
experienced guys are gonna want to wait. Then they're gonna want to get conversations with the front office and promises and such. I think the young coach that wants to jump the line is gonna sit there and say I can work with this group. I think that's where you're looking here in the interim with Kansas City outside of Kerry's a Wagden taken over.
And of course too though you know, look this this has been thought. This wasn't a knee jerk reaction, right, this has no doubt been thought about for a while. You don't just think about like you think of it too. If you're someone in that position, you don't think about, all right, we have to get rid of him. It's we get rid of him, then what is next? So I don't know if they've already had these conversations, but certainly probably internally they have a board of potential people there.
And there's no shortage of MLS experienced people out there, right, I mean some of the bigger names too, Jim Curtin, Bob Bradley, Like, there's people there who have you know, as much experience in the league, you know, or almost as much. I think Vermeis goes back to today one, Yeah, in this league as as vermeistos, So.
Who and uh, I'm I'm gonna look at transferm marked here. So I guess we'll kind of workshop this as we go I mean you mentioned names that are out there. You've got it. You've got a Bob Bradley that's out there.
Geo Sevaes is out there, he's working. So I mean there there's there are plenty of folks that we know that would be the ones that are the common sense names of Okay, yeah, I could see that individual, but I would think that with this group, and I wanted to look at ages and things like that when it comes to who's available and contracts and things like that, So contracts at the end into this year that you have to think about Eric, Tommy Leamania, Rodoya, Libold Fernandez
who's currently injured, Rosero, Kyrie Shelton who's thirty one, Memo Rodriguez who's twenty nine, Andrew Brody who is injured, Voladaire and Dembay the Song, Mason, toy A Goatta, Pulls Camp Miller A Friifa, and Showy that's that's night, thank you. Five Wait hang on, all right, let me count the number of dudes here five nine, any that's like thirteen or fourteen dudes that you're staring at here, two four, six,
eight nine to get to Voladair twelve fifteen seventeen. Dudes, you've got to make contract decisions on whose contracts are out at the end of this season. So if you were a manager that looked at that group and was like, Okay, SHALLOWI has shallow He's there till the end of twenty six, same with Suleimanov. Manu Garcia is a twenty seven, Jovolich is a twenty seven, Jake Davis is a twenty seven.
Court Camp Bartletney and James are twenty seven. So there are and I'm gonna kind of say this, and there are pieces that are there past this season, Shallowy, Jovolich. There's some stuff there.
I think the ones you mentioned too are the more cordy core pieces as well. Yeah, like the ones that are that are go beyond twenty five.
I mean yeah, So the those core pieces, the Shallowy and Joviolch, you know, part of your your scoring output. That So there's some stuff that you can work with here. There's some clay that you can mold an art class. If you're that manager that wants to come in with this group after this season.
Yeah, for sure. And I don't think of all those that you mentioned that you've got to come to a contract decision on like there's a host you could just say, piece out two and there's probably a few that you can. Yeah, I don't think, you know, I don't think a lot of those are big money parts, right.
So no, I mean Yoviolich. So let's let's check market values here and I hit that button now everybody who is so, I'll just deal with those that are going to be contracts out at the end of this season. And this is value, this is not contract. So a God has got a value of two and a half million euro, Eric Tommy's at two million euro, Brody is at a million and a half, Fernandez is at a million twenty, Memo Rodrigue is a million twenty. A lot
of folks are in that million range. And then you know the ones that are valued at less than a million that are out this year Libel, Toy, b Song, Shelton, Poll's Camp and the God bless you, Keeper Shi Wei and Jansen mill So, and you got a couple of college you know, Court Camp Bartletney and James Bartlett and James thank you for your support.
Here you go.
Uh So, there's a lot of dudes that are you know, it's like the manageable with their values and probably even more manageable with their salary figures. So I mean, this is this is something where if they let you cook, I think you could be well if you were, if you were an experienced manager with all of the with all of the space that you would have with just roster space. Coming into the twenty sixth seeds.
I agree, and I think I would imagine management too would be would be uh, you know, willing to spend. You know, I think I think they they they proved that a little bit with with going out and splashing a cash on polito. Obviously that kind of experiment didn't go the way they hoped it would because of the injuries, but you know they before that they were very frugal.
So you know, I think I think, especially when you make a change like this, a cultural shift, if you will, because again of Vermes' tenure, I think you need to also back it up with you know, opening up the check book.
Now in the West, Lag, you know, Lag is getting paintsil back. He was on the bench last week and then you had Conker caf hemispheric extravaganza this week, and you know, you still don't have Ricky Pooge. I know the expectation is there for Marco Roys and Diego Fa Gundez at ali E at ali e to you pick up the slack in the interim, I you know, anybody that's calling for Greg Vanny is you know? No? Because look, dude, one MLS Cup and he's dealing with things right now,
and he's also in multiple competitions. The one that I would circle would be Houston because of expectations and such and lack of goal scoring.
But I don't know how much that's on Olsen, like and and we're you know, we're not part of these conversations obviously, right, but like you we talked about it before. You lose two hugely influential midfielders, you don't really replace those guys and you knew, so like, is that on Olson or is it on on Stad?
You know? Yeah, I mean you don't have a you don't have Kataskia. You didn't replace them, and the goals aren't there. I'm just I'm just wondering. And I posed this more as a question out of keeping up with the Joneses and hitting panic buttons more than anything else. I'm not trying to attach logic to it.
It is mos after all.
Yeah, so we've already had one firing that wasn't attached to logic in Montreal. Color me shocked. Then you have the one in Kansas City, which you know, you just I think you kind of you hit that point where it's just kind of like, yeah, after all of the you know, the ups and downs, it's probably just like, yeah, we probably should.
Yeah, that's slow burn the last couple of years.
And then you end up now with teams that you were right now, Like I said, Lag in Houston, they're the ones at the bottom of the table in the Western Conference, and you're sitting there going, okay, Lag. You know, look, if Lag wigs out, then something really ain't right because I would think that Vanny's got enough of an extension court after you know, winning MLS Cup that you shouldn't be concerned with what you're seeing with them right now.
And so by process of elimination, I know that we had Caleb Porter on the list, Robin Fraser, depending on your how you gauged your panic button in Toronto, I think Robin Fraser was just given a crappy car and he's trying to get to work to it every day. It's like I told you it was.
It was that house that was you know, like it was mark valued at nine hundred thousand and it was lower to five hundred thousand, and you're like, this is a great deal. Why is it so cheap?
Uh oh, I see yes. And then Tom Hanks and Shelley Long come into the house and they sit there and it's like and you know, things fall through upper floors and things like that. You're going, uh, yeah, I need to bring in Chip and Joanna on this one to renovate this house. Caleb Porter would be I think on the list for me, even still, even as they knocked off Red Bulls this past week. So I mean, right now, as you look at things Houston and this
is just slow starts. I mean you're looking at Houston, you're looking at Toronto, and you're looking at New England. But I think that Toronto is just kind of keep just putting up with Robin Fraser's like, Robin, do whatever you can with it, and you know, you're you're fine for the interim. But I'm still looking at New England and you know, I'm not looking logically, but I'm looking at Houston too.
And I think in New England, right, like I think I forgot who I want to give credit. I want to say maybe Donny. Donny might have had it. I was listening in on on on their show, he and he and Meola a couple of days ago, and I think he said Porter's record was identical to Vermeise's record, like over that course of games, like you know, until until until this winning as Red Bulls, so like over I think the thirteen games or whatever it was that you know, you go back into last year with Porters.
So yeah, I don't know it was that? Was that a was that a stay of execution?
You know?
How much more time does he have? My guess, yeah.
That it is. I mean if we if we go walking down this road with New England and you're one, three and one, you've only scored three goals by the.
Way, three well, you've only scored two, I think what the the opposition helps you out with one of them.
Yes, so your second leading scorer in New England is own goal. Who is hell of an MVP season, by the way, I mean og across the board in League soccer. Fantastic work in the Golden Boot race. Uh, so you've got if you're New England, you go to Cincinnati, you come here to Atlanta, then you get NYC at Gillette on the nineteenth, and then you go to Charlotte. So three of your next four on the road Cincinnati, Atlanta's Charlotte and you and you host NYC. That's the month
of April for you. If you're Caleb Porter.
And you only have Carlos Heel as your goal scorer.
Uh huh yeah, and uh I think Campana is still out for another solid couple of weeks. So I mean basically you pin. I mean, then what the Carlos Heel goal was off a set piece? Yeah, so it was a chance to leave Carlos Hill by himself, to have him you know, imagine what's going on? Ah, I mean I would, I would. I would put it in the stay of execution category where Caleb Porter is concerned.
I think his seed is the hottest right now.
Okay, so then if if he if he is the uh if he is the hotter than hot sauce, what's the show where they they have the celebrities asking questions, ask questions and they eat wings and.
I don't know, I've never seen this show.
No, that's it's it's it's like an online thing. It's uh, you're you're eating wings and asking and being asked questions.
Uh, celebrities who ride in cars and drink coffee and wings.
Yeah, it's something. It's something like that Hot oneans hot ones, hot ones, Okay, hot ones Uh. YouTube talk show with Shawn Evans and Chris Shawn Berger, and it is basic premise involves celebrities being interviewed over a platter of increasingly spicy chicken wings.
So it starts out like not so hot, and then like that it gets hotter again.
Yes, and so two streaming awards. Basically celebrity guests eat ten chicken wings or a vegetarian vegan alternative based on the guest's preference, each prepared to the progressively hotter hot sauce. Evans states the show's taglin at the beginning of each episode, the show with hot questions and even hotter wings. The first sauce presented it's like free Rocha, which has a rating of twenty two hundred Scoville units. Then there was one in season twenty two that had a Scovell rating
of more than two million Scoville. Guests are encouraged to put a minuscule extra amount of the last dab of the two million scobll on the final wing. It's not required, but most guests have to do so, even when already struggling with the heat of the previous wings. After each wing, Evans usually asked the guest an interview question. Starting with
softball questions, wings get hotter. The questions are more deeply resched and personal and so so that's so he starts off with with mild wings and mild questions, and then as he goes the wings get hotter, and the celebrities have issues and sweat, Yeah, trying to answer questions and they're dying, and they're trying to figure out if it needs to be milk or if it needs to be water.
What's your what's you are?
Mild?
Yeah?
I mean I can go a medium, but I don't think.
I don't.
I'm not going to higher than that.
No, I can't. I'm just I'm not wired that way. I'm not one to sit there. I want to enjoy the food, yeah, And I can't enjoy the food if I'm dealing with something that has a two million plus Scoville unit. You know, It's like you're sitting there and you're trying to figure out if your tongue is still attached to your person. You're you're trying to reach for liquid to try to sit there, and you're you're not
even drinking the liquid. You're just submerging your tongue in it so your tongue doesn't die and you don't die. I look, I am, I am, and you can ask Jason or Jarrett or Nick or Maddie or anybody here at the network. I am the least flavored individual when it comes to food. If the food can't do it on its own natural juices and cooking progression, then why do I feel like I should add stuff to it to make it better?
Okay?
Ok fair?
I'm I mean I'm also seven hundred and twelve years old, so that would make sense when it comes to my food choices. So what about you? Are you? Are you a spicy or you?
What?
Yeah?
No, I guess I would I would go. I think if I was out with my boys and we were a some wings, I would go a medium, like I would go just a step ahead of mild, but not beyond that.
Okay, it's just yeah, I can't. You know, I still want to function when I'm eating. I don't want to sit there and go. You know, this is so bad, the pain, the pain, the pain. I can't. I can't can't do that, Like.
I think usually what you do is like, uh, you know my group of friends like, well we'll do uh, we'll do whatever, like depending on how many of it, like we'll do half medium like and it would you like barbecue as the other craft you know.
Okay, Uh, this upcoming week, a couple of this seems like it's uh the top of the table and the bottom of the table. You've got uh RSL and L A G. You've got Crew in Montreal, Cincinnati and the Revs Red Bulls in Chicago. Fire. We haven't even talked about Burholter yet this year, Yeah, and what he's and what he's doing with Chicago and you know, hey, Hugo Kuipers has found apparently Hugo Kuiper's and so uh so
Chicago out of the blocks and Burrholter. Did you expect that it was going to be like this for for Chicago and Burholter so far?
Yeah, I mean, I I i'mmagine I wasn't sure, you know, like I I I thought he could potentially have success.
But if that's just.
It feels like one of those locations that you know, you're every year you're like, you know, what if Chicago was good?
You know, like what if Chicago was good?
You know, like and I feel like the league is better when it is like it's such a great market.
It's one of the the Raiders or the Yankees. Like when the when the Oakland is good, or when the Yankees are good, or when the when the Yankees and the Dodgers and the Cubs are good, then the league is a better place.
Yeah, I think so, you know, and and you know, I mean they it feels like every couple of years like they're like, well this is uh Chicago fire, like you know, we we they made the big announcement about moving to Soldier Field again like all right, great, you know it's a great move. Move downtown and now we have a new crust like okay, great, how about the saw Like we're gonna a little bit here and he's
kind of missing yeah uh. And they have dressed they have they have addressed that this year, you know, and the and the early the early uh, early preeople, here is a good one from from Baltar.
So the early precinct reporting right now, they're they're two points out of first and yeah, which is with a match in hand. So uh, you know, so we'll continue to see that. And they're one of the highest scoring teams in the Eastern Conference so far.
U huh, playing like their pants are on fire.
I love it.
Well, it is a contract year for around like they had a lot of hot wings. Yes, I mean it's another contract year for Luis Moozy and for Oscar Pereja, so you know that. I think that that's another question as we go into the off season with the Purple team. Do you feel like you've hit your ceiling with this front office coat and head coach combination. Do you think you can do better or do you think you need
to do different? That to me, what you and and you know you're gonna have some You're gonna have to have some turnover. I would think that you're gonna have to look at keeper because Gallesse is not getting any younger and you've given up. You know, we mentioned them having the best offense in the U in the Eastern Conference. They're tied for the worst defense in the Eastern Conference with Toronto. That's just.
Yes, but that means they're fun to watch, not denying that you're a neutral at least, right.
Yes, So I mean right now you're the worst in goal difference, you're you're seventh if you're the purple team. But still, I mean, that's uh stuff to keep an eye on as we go. What's going on with you, my friend? What are you? What are you describing? What are you doing? What do you are you observing? Are you riding? What? It's up?
Just finished a was it Monday? I think it was for lacrosse games in seventies this season, So a little bit of a break now until Tuesday is my next game.
Far City Media on the YouTube's by the way.
Yep, yep, by the way all time name. I didn't get the chance. I was trying to figure out, like you know, you and I we were similar, like you know, you want to have fun with the broadcast.
So like.
I had a call the other day like this, This kid's name was Alex Bauer and he scored a goal. So I said, Bauer brings the power. There's a there's a kid. Tommy Leader on Manhasset, so I said, follow the leader. So there's a kid on cold Spring Harbor whose name is Jeep Pace. I'm like, I gotta get something out of Jep Pace. I didn't in the first game, but I will, I will, I will endeavor to do.
So I got one, all right, I got one for you that that he is, that he is the wrangler for cold Spring Heart maybe yeah, Jeep Pace, he's a wrangler and he's.
A And it's like he's a he's not an attacking player, so he's not on the ball a lot, right, Okay, So like they have a they have a defender, Hunter Ulico. So I'm like, he's hunting right, like he's the hunter.
Uh huh.
But Jeep Pace, he's another guy, has that long.
Pole running around something, keeping the pace. Yeah, keeping the pace. He's a wrangler for him. I see, I see where you can go here. Yeah yeah see. Ryan figured the play by play guy for re FC Dallas. He's like, oh, okay, I'll might use that one later. So thank you, my friend. It's great to be with you and great to talk about Peter Burmes and everything going on in the Kansas City and the hot seats and the Hot Wings and all the TV series. We'll catch up with you soon,
my friend. Thanks for Oh Dad, he's the buddy, He's the dad this week and we mentioned the hot tag, so it's time to to bring in yet another premiere. I don't have trumpets and I don't have like gold horns attached from venues and things like that. Ryan might have to help us out here. First time visit for the hometown guy for FC Dallas. There's where we get our FCD intail. Ryan, Thanks for dropping by. How are you, my friend?
How's it going? Man? How's it going? We're gonna have to get who Let the Dogs Out ready for any future FC Dallas appearances, because that's our new goal song this year, as part of a whole new era and a new mentality that Eric Quill has been bringing to the squad. So who Let the Dogs Out is our new goal song in place of you know you guys got the horns and everything like that, which I love. But no, that's our new thing. So thanks for having me on the show.
Excited, No worries, Friend of the network Edwin Pintour in communications? Is he lurking off camera? Is he behind a door that you've gone to go high.
Yeah, I've locked myself in this closet like office just to keep any edwin comments from sneaking.
On the riff wrap out from e exactly. I see how this works. First and foremost, for those that may not know, you're a hometown guy, getting to call for your hometown team. What's that like for you to be a part of things now?
Yeah, it's literally a dream come true. I started broadcasting, you know, seven years ago now in college. I went down to college at Trendy University. But I'm originally from Dallas, grew up going to games, grew up listening to Mark Followill Steve Davis who's now my partner on the broadcast every week, so you know, when I started broadcasting, obviously, you know, calling MLS games is a huge goal, and to be able to accomplish that with my hometown team
has been has been a dream come true. And and to do shows like this and be part of, you know, the outreach for the club as well as the voice of the team is amazing. So just really enjoying it so far. It's been a lot of fun, kind of being a part of the new energy I was with the team before in a different capacity, and I still do some social media stuff as well, but you know, coming in and sort of being the voice of this new era with Eric quill Is is a lot of fun.
What's your first FC Dallas memory.
I would say opening Day against Philadelphia Union. It was somewhere in the Oscar Pere hot era, so twenty twelve to twenty sixteen, somewhere in there. Came to Opening Day
with my family. They the team scored, and they ran to the corner and celebrated in a row boat where they all sat one in front of each one in front of each other, rowing the boat, which I just that's always stuck with me growing up, going to games with friends, watching Kenny Cooper, who's now a good friend and a member of the front office, is one of our ambassadors score, you know, ripped the shirt off, swinging around, all those things. Those are some of the earliest memories
for sure. Come to Toyota Stadium back when it's Pizza Hull Park.
So are you rowing the boat in the booth when Lucho scores? Is that what you're doing? Now?
Yeah, I think we're gonna have to get coordinated goal celebrations in the booth. I know, you guys do a great job over at Atlanta United with the Booth camp, which I think is something we might implement down the road. And if we do, you know, we got we gotta go viral, we gotta we got to bring the attention. So, you know, goal celebrations, coordinated goal celebrations with our with our or Man booth. We'll get creative with it.
Looking forward to that, let me ask you what's it been like to see the first first couple of matches under the Eric Quill administration. What kind of energy has he brought in and how is it How is it different with Quill now?
Yeah, so I think I have a little bit of a unique perspective because I got to travel with the team to Portugal for preseason and that was the first you know, they had a week before that, and but that was the first real sort of getting into the meat and bones of it with Eric Quill. The tactical ideas, the amount of running and the amount of fitness that they were doing, which was more than I'd ever seen
previously with Niko Stevez, RPD Husain, so the intensity. But also you know, I think Eric does a really good job of focusing on what's important and not getting distracted by you know, small things. He knows how to bring the group together. He knows how to inspire the team. He really values hard work from the whole dogs thing that I mentioned when I first came on. He wants the team to be eleven dogs and fight for the
bad and fight for the fans. And bringing that mentality has sort of alongside bringing a whole host of new players, has definitely made for it completely changed FCY Dallas team this year and in the past when we went on the road, it was like, you know, if we could grab a draw, that'd be great. For the past couple of seasons. Last year we had one road win, and
this year it's already so different. We have seven points on the road from three games, and now we go into these road games with the real, you know mentality that we could go and get a win at any point at any venue. And that's what I think makes for an exciting matchup this weekend.
New faces coming in obviously we'll talk about Luco in a sec. But you've got the integration with folks like Leo Chu and Luco Acosta with Pedro Musa, where is that Where is that integration, Where where is that coming together and the melding of ideas with the new faces. Where do you think that is right now?
I still think it's early. First of all, we came into things with the idea of playing in a four to two three one, defending in a four to four two, and then we signed Luco Acosta, and you know, ideally you think he fits right into that number ten position, but I think we saw in the first couple of weeks that defensively it wasn't working and they weren't finding Lucco in the spots that we needed to find him, that he was having to pop out wide or drop
deep to receive the ball. So the last couple of weeks the team changed to having an extra midfielder in there, sort of a diamond. The team calls it a four to three to one two, but basically having at number six whose job is just to win the ball back, that's Ramiro, and then having two number eights there to support Luco has really allowed him to get into more
dangerous positions. And you know, he has been instrumental in the last in this little two game win streak here at RSL and then home against Kansas City, and he's popping up in areas where he can actually hurt the opposition, you know, combining with Musa really well. I think the Musa Luco combination has gone, you know, swimmingly. I think it's gone much quicker than I expected those two players
to tell. It's been who's going to be the number, the third guy, kind of the second forward in the formation. That's what we're trying to figure out. Anderson Julio has been amazing since he came over, but he's missed the last three weeks. He had to go get his green card, so we actually haven't seen him in this new formation. I expect that he's probably gonna be the starter, but we haven't seen that yet, and so that chemistry is
going to have to come as well. He'd been playing on the left wing for majority of preseason in the first couple of weeks as well, so I think that's the ideal front three. Leo Chio's got the last two starts, Logan Farrington's an option as well. Padrinho has a goal on the season, so there's options. But I think it's going to be Julio and that's going to be, you know, something they're gonna have to build as he's back this week.
He's back in full training and hopefully and involved against Atlanta.
For Lucho so far eight shots four on target and those four on target, three of them have gone to the back of the net. With the next g if you believe in those kinds of things, that just over two at two point oh six. So you mentioned that front all things being equal in a perfect world for eric Quill, how do you envision the starting eleven in this matchup coming up against Atlanta night.
Yeah, I think the front three. If Julio is fit and ready to go, I think he'll come into play alongside Usa in the two striker formation, and then Lucho behind them the midfield. I don't expect a ton of change. I think Patrickson leget As the two number eights will probably hold their position and Ramiro has been really solid coming over from Brazil in the offseason. Is one of eighteen new players I think in total. Back four, we've
had one change recently, Marco Farfan. We had to announce this week he's going to have surgery, so he's been the starting left back homegrow Nolan Norris is involved now he's played you know, left back for the youth national teams. He's the captain of the you twenties, so he this is his first real opportunity at the MLS level to play that position and sort of make it his own over the next month to six weeks. So that'll be
one to watch at left back. And obviously you guys have some pretty lethal options in the attack, so he's gonna get a tough matchup, whether it's you know, up against Almi Roan. I love Janite whoever it is on the right for Atlanta, but I think the one player that I want to you know, sort of spread the gospel about when I go on shows like this is Assasier Roghide, our new center back who came over from
the French Second. He's He's just phenomenal. This guy. He has all the tools to become a top level center back if he isn't already in Major League Soccer. He's got the physicality, the recovery speed, he's got line breaking passing, he's got the smarts to think through the game as well. He's been such a fantastic addition for us, and thinking back to when Dallas played Atlanta in preseason. He was
not there yet neither and Musa wasn't there. There's some other pieces that weren't there in that game, but particularly when Latte Lot came off the bench in that game and I was like, oh my god, this guy's pace is phenomenal. This is going to be a problem when we see him in just a couple of months. But
I think Osase has that speed as well. I think if we get a foot race between those two, it's going to be Olympic standard, Like we're gonna need to hand out a gold medal between the two of those after the game, because that's the level of athlete that he is. And I know you guys have taken to Latte a Lot very well, and he's taken to the team very well. So I think that's going to be
a matchup to watch. Besides that, I think not a ton of changes beside Tulio coming into the lineup in Norris continuing sort of deputizing a left back.
How do you think formationally or philosophically, Norris will get protected Considering that you're already anticipating and if he's at left back, you know that down the right hand side it's going to be Brooks, it's going to be Saba, it's going to be Switches. How do you anticipate he's going to be protected or is there a level of confidence there that he can be left on an island for a while and he can navigate things one B one Okay.
I think he's a very smart player. I think his biggest weakness and the reason that he hasn't got this opportunity yet in the past couple of years is his pace, and so that is a concern up against Atlanta, who is a running team. I think you guys are in the top three and pretty much every running metric and obviously have a ton of pace. So I think the cover is going to have to come from sort of the left number eighth, the left center mid, which is Patrickson.
He's a young Ecuadorian player who is really good box to box, gets involved defensively as well as going forward, So he's going to have to cover him from, whether
it's Lenen on the overlap, whoever it is. And then Ossase Arguide, who already mentioned was excellent and just helping Dolling through that first start against Kansas City and helping put out fires on that side, So I think he has a good support network around it, but he's there's going to be moments in the game where he's going to have to stand up one B one and be counted, and you know, we have a lot of faith in them, and it's on to him to repay that faith.
Right now, as things stand in the West, six matches in, three wins to the good goals and goals goals allowed dead even at nine and nine. So smack dab mid middle of activity right now, three points obviously out of first with early returns. How would you grade what you've seen so far from the booth six matches in which is what six over thirty four? It's maybe twenty percent or something like that. At the twenty percent mark, where
would you see? How would you grade FC Dallas so far with all of these new faces and a new head coach, How would you grade what you've seen?
Yeah, I think other teams around the league that have had this, you know, this amount of change are struggling, and I think it's understandable to struggle with that amount of change. But we brought in a ton of quality.
Liuto Costa obviously paramount in that discussion, So I think I would give it, you know, a high B because I think the results have been really solid, and particularly the road results those home The first two home games were disappointing, but I think the performances and the tactical ideas and the game model have a ton of room to grow. And that is what excites me because in the past, when Dallas wasn't up for a game, they
just weren't going to get a result. And this version of FC Dallas under Eric Quill, with almost an entirely new lineup, is going to fight for a result even when they're not at their best, and even when the tactical matchup feels like it's going against them, They've been able to claw back from behind. They've won the most points from losing positions of anyone in Major League Soccer in the opening six weeks, which I think is a
testament to the mentality. And now if we can see the growth on the tactical side, then that's just going to bring the quality to the forefront.
What was the level of xpect for the supporters coming into this year, knowing that there was a coaching change, knowing the frustrations from last year, what was the I guess the level of expectation and the level of patients from the fans coming into twenty twenty five.
It's such a hard one, right because of just the sheer amount of change, and you know, the stadium looks different this year. We're going through renovation, so there's a little bit of a weird cloud over things in that way. But I think to his credit, from day one, eric Quile came in and said, we want to be fighting at the top of the table, we want to be fighting for championships, and he wasn't afraid to put his
name alongside those statements. And that's for a club that's never won MLS Cup, and that's his paramount goal is to bring the first MLS Cup to Dallas. And not to say that the fan expectation immediately rose to that level, but I think they sort of stood up and said, okay, now let's see it. In the first couple of home games, it was disappointing. But now against Kansas City, you get the home form right, and you've shown that you can win on the road. So I think expectations are steadily climbing.
And obviously when you bring into Lucho Acosta, you're expected to fight in the playoff positions at the bare minimum, and he's going to help you get there, and he already has. I think he's won six seven points all on his own with his goals so far this season, so I think that'll continue over the course of the year.
How would you break down how Eric is stylistically and philosophically as a coach for someone who hasn't seen him on the touch line, for someone who hasn't seen him at practice, how would you break down the kind of coach that Eric is both emotionally and tactically when it comes to how he wants to have things out there on the pitch.
Well, first and foremost, you're going to notice the bright red hat that he rocks on the touch line. That's, you know, that's become his trademark. He tried the white hat against Vancouver and we lost, and I don't think we're going to see the white hat again. So the red hat has been a trademark of his reign so far. But no, I think on a more serious note, he's a player, he's a player's coach, but he's also a really strong motivator in that he knows how to get
the best out of guys. He really values work on the training ground. He's going to give opportunities to people who train well, and he's going to take opportunities away from people who you know don't put in one hundred percent on the training ground. So I think he really values hard work. And that's what we've seen, you know, so far through the opening six weeks. Is anytime that someone's done well in training, they're going to get that opportunity,
whether it's from the start or off the bench. And I think it's become even more of a meritocracy where players don't have they can't feel comfortable, you know, they they don't feel like their name is written in pen unless you're maybe Moussa Lucho Acosta. But those guys are Those guys are top professionals and they train well every day.
And that's you know.
Eric Quiles told us that he's fiery on the touch line. He's gonna let the other coach have it even more so than the referee, which I think you know is more common with last game, he's up against one of his good friends and Peter Vermiz, somebody who's played with in his playing career. Going back to the Kansas City Wizards and they're getting into it on the sideline. He got into it on the sideline with US Restaurants and for Vancouver as well. So An he's you know, he's
he's a fiery character. And I think that's what this team needed, was somebody who's going to lead the team emotionally, with energy and and sort of get them going from the sideline. And that's been fun to see.
So for someone who is going to be looking at FC Dallas for the first time this year, at Mercedes Benz, whether it's listening to you on the call, listening or watching on Apple or in person, Mercedes Benz, you're drawn to the big names. You're drawn to the Peter Mooses, You're drawn to the Lucco Acostas. For things to go well for FC Dallas, give me one of those second level guys. Give me a foot soldier instead of a star at the front. Who in the foot soldiers has
to do well? And it might even be somebody that you call in off the bench, you know, late, if you need that, you need to who would you gravitate toward. That would be those second level dudes. To see the successes for FCD.
Yeah, I think the midfield battle in this one is going to be really interesting because I know, you know, there's been some conversation with Atlanta about the best position from Miranchuk, the best combination in midfield. I think for Dallas, Ramiro, our new number six, Brazilian, very experienced in Brazil's top flight one Copa lebdadoris with Grimy in the past, he has come to the team and just given us that rock,
that anchor at the base of midfield. And when we were playing in sort of a double pivot before, it didn't suit his game as much, just because he's not a huge ground cover, he doesn't have a ton of mobility. But now that we've moved into that single number six, he's done a really good job of shielding the back
line over the last two games. And I think something that we're still yet to see from this midfield, this new midfield diamond shape for Dallas is just consistent ball progression up the field that they've been really good in the moments when they've been able to hit quickly on
the counter. They've been really good when they've been able to force turnovers, but when the other team is pressing them, they haven't found the answers so far to playing out, So I think that's going to come down to Ramiro finding the passes Sebastian Legett and there as well as
longside Patrickson Delgado in that midfield three. Can they progress the ball up the field when Atlanta is putting them under pressure and as opposed to just hitting on the counter, because ultimately that's not going to be sustainable over the course of ninety minutes or over the course of the season to just be up and down the field and then back defending, you know, for for a large majority
of the game. So can they find some sustained possession, particularly if they get a lead at the Bens this weekend?
All right, what's study hall like for you for the rest of the week getting ready for this one?
Well, I'll be I'll be tuned into your show, So I'd like to listen to some of the Atlanta podcasts as well. Always do some opposition scouting that way, just to just to get a vibe how this goes exactly exactly. Definitely do some opposition scouting and just make sure you know, familiar with the team, be out at training and catch any sort of any developments, any tactical ideas that they're going to try and implement. Talk to Eric Quill on Friday, and then we'll be in the booth at Toyota Stadium
calling it. I wish I was there at Mercedes ben Stadium. That's a bucket listen one to to catch for sure at some point. But we'll be in the booth at Toyota Stadium calling it for for our fans on the Fcadouts radio network.
Satan. Now, you hit the promo for me on the way out the door, so I didn't have to ask that question. You were looking at my notes, Ryan as always. You know you can crash. Yeah, you have the keys to the kingdom now. So if there's anything that you ever want to talk about on a Friday when we're in the hour of chaos at ten eastern and it's like I got two minutes, I want to come in, I want to say my piece, I want to jet you can. So, like I said, it's great to see it.
Great to have you added to the stacks here. Say hi to everybody there in the office and we'll catch up with you soon. My friend, don't be a stranger. Great to have you in the morning show.
Awesome, John, thank you so much, have a good one. We'll see this weekend.
There you go, it's Ryan Ryan Figured. The play by play voice FC Dallas app by the way, is where you can catch up with Ryan and great to have him added to the stacks with us, and it was really cool to get the education when it comes to everything going on with FC Dallas. That's what we're going to try and do this season is when the opposition, you know, when obviously the opposition's there, we know who we can grab on to and we'll see if we
can get them on to discuss what's going on. And if it's in the middle of the week or early in the week and they want to come back later in the week with updates, more power to him. Like I said, when I send the invite out, it is a studio link and its keys to the kingdom and everybody can drop in and sit there and let me shoot Tyler Terrence. Like I said, Tyler dropped in three times in a week, so he's got the keys of the kingdom. He's a dangerous man, so I Bryan Figured.
Good to catch up with Ryan the hometown guy in his first season calling games for FC Dallas on the FC Dallas app and for FC Dallas. So that's the rundown there. All right, let me say hid everybody and we'll get through what's on your mind on a wall pass. Wednesday morning, Alex Morning, Pars Morning, keVs, KEVSI already has the layout for Open Cup, Pome Panciprian Tonight morning, David Morning four card Uh yeah, and Ronnie is not worried
about DCQ either, and Shreif. I hope that the code that I gave helps because Finates they got a boatload of stuff that you can watch. Roberta d'oris sud Americana. Let's see all the b ns, and I mean all the b ins, newestern Tella CDEO for the fans, Tay say Lega one Max Lega one Max Pro. It's all there. You can watch on Finates, FNTZ, dot Co, slash Soccer
down here. It helped step the network, it helps out us, and hopefully it helps that you continue to be a true degenerate when it comes to watching leagues around the world. All right, Yeah, Derek Brad did get robbed on the assist I don't know how he hasn't gotten one yet. And I could have still used the fantasy points morning. Jordan Apparently, Yes, someone in Twitch pitches to participating in the FIFA Club World tryouts this weekend. Apparently they're trying
out volunteer. So Jordan's going to be part of the tryouts this weekend. Yes, and Jordan is gassed up ready to go for this weekend as well. And apparently in a similar situation with the lawnmower, Jordan's dad's lawnmower's blade. Lawnmower's blade broke. Man it must have hit a rock or something. And so yeah, Eric got a yellow last
yellow card last match against Sporting Kansas City. So the Eric Quill fourth official Ronnie Dila back and forth, that one's going to be intriguing, as the kid say, it'd be very embeti intadeste to see Eric Quill can't miss him on the touch line apparently because of the lid. And so the back and forth with Quill the fourth and Ronnie Dila looking forward to that. All right, So Open Cup tonight sounds like a show. Open Cup tonight. We mentioned all the matchups. Let's see if the juice
boxes are out in this one. I think they are. They are okay, so juice boxes tonight for the matchups loud in the A minus twelve to fifty hosting Virginia Dream. Hartford Athletic is favored on the road at Pea Hop and Lewiston, Maine at a plus one forty three. Portland Heart's a Pine a plus one seventy three. CHATTANOOGAFC favored at a plus one twelve at Fort Finley. Like I said, it looks like there's gonna be six thousand folks there
for Red Wolves tonight. That is your viewing. That is your must watch on the US Soccer YouTube channel tonight. Greenville favored at home at Furman against one Knox at a plus one forty eight. West Chester's a minus three twelve against New York pansipri and who got the cup set lane time out of a plus six fifty six. FC Naples favorite at a minus one ten, hosting Little Rock Rangers ninety minute draws the same at a plus
two forty seven. Ford Madison at Breeze Stevens a plus one forty hosting FC Tulsa a plus one five six. Des moin Menace a big underdog hosting Los Bus The murder owls from Union Omaha at a minus one thirty three menace or a plus two seventy two to come at Defiant to minus one oh nine at Starfire hosting Spokane Velocity to plus two sixteen ninety minute draws a plus two eighty five. Ventura County is a dog hosting
El Paso Tonight Locomotive a plus one twelve. Ventura County is a plus one ninety and the ninety minute draw is a plus two five two. Nottingham Forest won yesterday in the Premier League and they're winning their third right now in the Premier League. All the home teams won yesterday. Wolve's got a big win against west Ham, Arsenal beat
Fulham by the score of two to one. So today handful of man starting all except for one of them at two forty five Born with big favorite at the Vitality at a minus two sixty three hosting Ipswich Bright and a plus one seventeen hosting Villa at a plus two twenty two. Manchester City big favorite at home at of minus five twenty six against Leicester to plus eleven fifty eight Newcastle and minus one thirty seven hosting Brentford
of the plus three eighteen Southampton. If they get a certain point combination this weekend, they could be relegated this soon. Southampton a plus four ninety two hosting Crystal Palace at a minus one seventy five. Liverpool and Everton. Liverpool in the Merseyside Derby minus two o four Everton a plus five seventy nine if you're near a if you're near a monitor or a broadcasting type device, three o'clock Liverpool
and Everton at a minus two o four. So uh, gossip, Brumer and Uendo, What to watch, where to watch it, how to watch it? And uh? Is Conker Calff available on finaates? I don't. I think Conky caf is available on finats, so it would have to be on Uh, it would have to be on like f S two. Let me check and see where it is tonight, or the Spanish speaking channels if you have that. I have the Super Hypermega Cable Sports package plus the the Spanish
speaking package, and so that's where I watch. I'll either watch on TWUDA NA or on UniMas or wherever it's available. B In has Copa, Lberta d'oris Tonight, Vella Sarsfield pay you roll at six Universe Atario River played at eight thirty. I thought to go Naci and Ala Nacional at ten o'clock. LAFC and and Messi and Friends eleven thirty on FS one. So if you've got Basic cable or Foxsports, Fox sports dot Com, I think you can register for an account
there and then you might be able to. I think you can watch either through your provider or if you have a Fox dot com Fox sports dot com log in. If you don't have, but LAFC and Messian Friends eleven thirty tonight, that's on FS one. FS two has the King Cup and that is at two o'clock. They also have the Conca CAF Hemispheric Extravaganz at nine to thirty. Vancouver and Pumas on FS two, So the layout Vancouver and Pumas on FS two at nine to thirty, Messian
Friends going to LAFC at eleven thirty. That's on FS one. Premier League Manchester and Leicester say that ten times fast. Manchester City Leicester City at two forty five's on USA being an Espanol simul casting their three Labertadoris matches ESPN deport This the COPA del Rey, Atletico Madrid and Barsa that's at three thirty. Fox deport this the French Cup conen Raem at three Gold TV, Benfica Fenz at three point fifteen. I think our buddy Neo Torres is on
that one that's on Gold TV. In the Portuguese Premira two to NA simul casting the two matches in Conca calf Tonight, Universo simul casting the prem The Plus has Airdavizi at two o'clock. German Cup had a big upset yesterday with Armenia BILAFELD Stuttgart. Leipzig's at two thirty, and they also have the Copa del Ray at three thirty. Fox Soccer Plus has connin Riem at three o'clock. Nbcsports dot Com has Manchester and Leicester, Paramount Plus has Copa Italia,
the Milan, Darby ac and Enter at three. Peacock has all of your Premier League matches born with Ipswich, Brighton Villa, Newcastle, Brentford, Southampton, Crystal Palace, Liverpool and Everton. Vikes also has Champions Cup tonight as well. YouTube US Soccer channel on YouTube has all the matchups tonight, all ten of them starting at six thirty. Once again, cannot impress it upon you enough. Must watch Chattanooge FC Chattanooga Red Wolf six thousand at
least in the door at Fort Finley. If you're going, get there early. If you're going get there early. Women Conkakafu seventeen qualifier, Honduras and USA's at four o'clock from Couva at FS two. Fox Soccer Plus has Costa Rica and Mexico at five o'clock. USL Super League Dallas in DC at eight o'clock tonight. That is what to watch,
where to watch it, and how to watch it now. Gossip, rumor and innuendo, and to let you know what else is going on in and around the planet, to keep an eye on confidence in Saudi Arabia that most slaws open to joining the league, that we neither can, don't endorse nor promote once his deal expires. This summer, United stepped up their interest in Liam d Lapp, who's rated at forty million pounds four letter paper. Take the information at your own peril. Newcastle remain interested in a summer
deal for Burnley's keeper James Trafford. Brighton to put one hundred million pound price tags on Joel Pedro and Carlos Balleba to fend off interest from Liverpool, Newcastle and Chelsea. Bernardo Silva wants to leave Manchester City this summer in search of a challenge away from the Premier League. Arsenal, Newcastle, Chelsea and United keen on Dusan Vlahovich, who is set
to leave Youve this summer. Newcastle plotting a move for Liverpool's Harvey Elliott, Chelsea considering a move worth forty million euro for Via Ral strike, Tiero Barrett Tierra No Berry that's from Fieshahes. Arsenal, Newcastle and Forrest morning Abbey are among the clubs interested in Roma defender Evan Inditchka, who is rated at forty million euro. Crystal Palace as Oliver Glasser remains a candidate to take charge of Arbie Leipzig
after the German side held talks with his reps. Palace could also make a move for Hugo at Katke if Jean Felipe Matete leaves the club this summer. So that's your gossip rumor innu window. Now the activity and the stories and everything else that's come across the desk before we get out of here once again, thanks to Thanks
to everybody who'd dropped in this morning. Ryan Figured from FC Dallas, Dylan Butler from MLS Soccer dot Com and Tyler Tyler the other Tyler Tyler Pilgrim from Scarves and Spikes from ember Tonight seven o'clock they have their show plus Max Bretos on tape, so we'll be able to listen to that. Let's see the scores that happen yes yesterday. I'm trying to see if there's any news that has come across the desk, and I'm trying to see it does not look like there's been a whole lot of
news yet this morning. So oh, we got to get into Barcelona before we go. We definitely have to get into Barcelona before we know. Manchester United Women's said coach Mark Skinner, signed a new deal to June twenty seven, with the option of an extra year. Carlo Ancelotti is in his tax fraud trial, quoted in Cortus saying I never realized something wasn't right. Keep an eye on that now.
We probably should catch up with Jessica Charman on a bunch of different things, but specifically reading and things are looking pretty Dicey and Dodgy. Right now, the club has a deadline of Saturday from the EFL to agree to a sale. Rob Kuhig has rejected an off from current owner Die Young. Kuig says he wants to see a legally binding document. This is inexclusive by Matt Hughes. Now Rob Koig once again rejecting a proposal to lift his
security over the stadium and the training ground. Redding have sent a legal letter to Kuig offering to play some of the proceeds from the proposed sale to Robert Platek in a frozen Escro account, pending the result of his High Court claim for twelve million pounds scheduled for July. Kuig is suing Reading for loss of opportunity after Die Young withdrew from a sale agreement last summer, with a hearing at London's Commercial Court last month confirming his mortgages
against the club's property assets remain in place. Redding's offer is an attempt to resolve the impasse before a deadline of Saturday for the club to be sold, which is the result of the decision to disqualify Die Young as a director back in February. The EFL board will meet on Thursday to discuss the next steps if the sale is not imminent. Options include suspending Redga, preventing them from playing, which would have implications in the League One promotion race.
Rob Kogg's lawyers are understood to have applied to Redding with a rejection, which increases fears the club could be suspended in inter administration. Kuwig said, I told my lawyers to respond with comeback when it's real. I have very little faith in them. Frankly. I had twenty five documents signed, I spent over a million on legal and transaction fees, came to England for a week. Money was my account ready to go. Nothing to talk about until they come
to me with a binding agreement. I want to see a legally binding document signed by both seller and buyer. That's when we'll have an agreement. Kuig still has aspirations to buy Redding despite taking this approach to negotiations, reluctant to hand the club to plot Tech, the co head of global credit at private equity firm BDT and MSD Partners. We all know about MSD and Michael Dill. Kuwig formally owned Wickham, claims that Redding violated the terms of his
purchase agreement by entering exclusive talks with plot Tech. Is extremely reluctant to suspend retting one point outside the playoff spots, but need evidence that the standoff can be resolved if it's going to extend this week's deadline. Club said in a statement back on the twenty first of March, mister Dye remains committed to working with the EFL to sell
the club and secure it's long term future. I know that Jess is not enjoying life right now, but we do need to catch up with Jess and find out what the latest is and find out what's going on there with that now to get into Barcelona before we get out of here this morning. You remember, and it's you know, it's almost like a bit of a running gag. You know, hansi Flick has them right now in the
hunt for three trophies. But the financial situation, like I said, the financial situation, we sit there and we go, you know, we'd really like for something to happen here to where they, oh, I don't know, can pay bills and bring in players who knows. Marc Andre Trustegan resumed training, defying the fear that the knee injury suffered in September would end his season. But it came out this morning and I want to go back to what went down when it came to and no, that was not what I hit. So here's
here's the rundown from this morning. The story from Paul Balous, the FC Barcelona correspondent for the Athletic. It is right now pretty bad. La Leguas say Barcelona are not meeting financial fair play rules and have reported to the authorities an auditor of the club employed for four days. It's like you want to gig for four days. Here, you want to gig for four days. We need you as
an auditor to do this. So Paul Bolous and more, when you have multiple dudes who are writing a story, is what is it we always say about the deadlines blouse at all at the Athletic. LaLiga says Barsla not meeting FFP rules and have reported to the authorities and auditor to the club employed for four days, which played a vital role in them being allowed to use Dannielmo and Poe Victor in the second half of the season.
According to LaLiga, the unnamed auditor was appointed by Barcelona on the last day of the calendar year last year, December thirty first, and provided a certificate to the league which confirmed the sale of vip seating to Middle Eastern investors worth one hundred million euro to the club was properly accounted for as income in the club's p and
L statements for twenty four to twenty five. It was this sale that allowed Barsa to meet financial regulations granted permission from the Spanish government in January to play Danny
Omo and Po Victor for at least three months. This is while according to Balus, the Conseiljo Superior did deport this the Superior Sports Council, the government's high sports council that reviews LaLiga and national team decisions, to de register the two players, which was due to Barcelona's late filing of financial documents regarding the sale of the vip seating. The ruling is expected to be delivered honor before Monday.
The latest issue, according to the Oliga, is that Barsa have reported three auditors to LaLiga in the space of three months, and the other two have not included the sale of the vip seating and their statements to the league three auditors. One said yet these seats were sold,
the other two that were employed did not. Grant Thornton, was acting for Barcelona up until the end of the calendar year, filed an interim financial statement with no mention of the VIP seating and crow has been in place since the unnamed auditor and filed a limited review report
to La Liga. LaLiga argues that the according to the IFS filed by the statement filed by Grant Thornton, that Barcelona did not nor does it currently have any positive balance or registration capacity publicly known as fair play to register Danny Omo and Poe Victor. The league has informed of Barcelona that their squad cost limit has been reduced by the amount of the sale of the VIP seating
based on the submitted statement that was the ifs. LaLiga has also shared with the High Sports Council and intends to file a formal complaint with Spain's Institute of Accounting and Auditing against the unnamed auditor employed by Barcelona for four days, literally between December thirty first and January third, four days. This auditor comes in says, yeah, you're cool. They sold these suites to Middle Eastern investors and everything's
on the up and up. The other two auditors were like, well, no, it's not. Quote from Joan Laporta. Barcelona currently on a nineteen game unbeaten an unbeaten rung run rung a nineteen match unbeaten run, top of Litiga Champions League quarters, second leg Copa deel Ray semi tonight against Athletico Madrid. Donny almost played twelve times, Victor has played three. Barcia has not commented. Grant, Thornton and Crow have been approached for comment by The Athletic. So remember the running gag that
we have here on the show. Literally, it's like, well, every single time that so and so is interested, Barcelona is interested in so and so, and we always sit there and say, well, you know, I don't think right now, we're back to the how's Barcelona going to pay for these bills? We should know more by Monday, but this looks like a mess and a half. One auditor says, yeah, they're good. The other two are like, well, no, so it got reported. We'll know more on Barcelona on Monday.
Coming up at noon, it's going to be Soccer's in session. We're going to run through all of the scores from last night, get you ready for the matchups today, and go through the rankings according to our friends at Scoreboard, and then maybe we'll see you down in Fayette County for a really cool presentation involving US soccer this afternoon. A lot of us from You're going to be down there for that reporting on that, and we'll have stuff on all of our socials and all of our platforms
coming up later today and tomorrow as we go. And we've got a really cool one v one coming up, and it's about challenging yourself as a young person and going over to Saudi Arabia to do it. There's a young Georgian who is doing exactly that. We're going to catch up with that individual at one o'clock on tape and we'll have that one released to the network coming up in a little bit. So once again, noon soccer's in session and we will break everything down there. But yeah,
so Open Cup tonight, Premier League this afternoon. Action going on, and it is also going to be really fun to see how things continue to go on the high school game. We've got a doubleheader on Thursday. Still waiting to see what the latest is on our matchup on Friday and Thursday. We will be in two locations Toombs County at Hebron Christian Dutchtown at Trinity Christian. So that'll be the matchups on SDH one and two. On Thursday. Soccer's in session
coming up at noon. Soccer down here one v one. We're taping this afternoon and we'll be down in Fayette County this afternoon as well. So thanks as always to Ryan Figgered, thanks to Dylan Butler, thanks to Tyler Pilgrim, and thanks to all of y'all for dropping by as you always do. Back at it again a little less than twenty two moucha ploty all played safe see at the top of the hour since it is the end of the show that means I get to do this see you in forty eight minutes.
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