All right, so full disclosure. Uh, Nino's looking at looking at what I'm up to on the two hundred and eighty character app on Fridays, I do high school football and so on social media. What we do as a part of our on airteam, we shoot, we shoot the photos of everything, and hey, we're calling a game airtime here and uh, Nicki was hanging out. And Nicki is happily married to a former tight end of the Pittsburgh Steelers,
so uh yeah, she she is. She is a mother, and she is one of the best in the business. She can handle pretty much anything. But I will definitely tell I will definitely tell them married Nicki Notto Palmer that Nino Torres has an absolute crush uh on the next time I see her. All Right, wow, uh okay, didn't know we were going in that direction. Okay. Uh Burrhalter, let me let me ask you this, would it not
mean that? And I had this discussion with Dylan Butler yesterday with when Dylan came on, and I would think that the assistance that you hire, if you are Burr Halter, are going to be just as important, if not more important,
than your own hire. Knowing that you're going to be in charge of both, because if you're going to be in charge of the first team, if you're going to be in charge of the second team, if you're going to be in charge of the academy and the philosophy and all of these different things, that unless you figured out how to clone yourself at Sloan Kettering, that there's no way that you can be in four places at once, and that these assistants that you bring in are going
to have to know what you want and be in charge more than they might have been otherwise because of you having all of these different responsibilities.
Otherwise is not going to work. It looks I'm not discrediting Greg by any means, but being a national team head coach is very different to being a club head coach. Was his last gig for a long time, so it's going to take some adjusting. And like you said, it's key, it's it's crucial. It's fundamental for him to have a good supporting cast in that staff that he's gonna have
to delegate to. Otherwise he's just you know, biting more than he can chew, and he could end up coming back to you know, making him choke if you will, so, honestly, if he doesn't set himself up to succeed with a very good staff, someone that he can rely on for all the things that you just mentioned, and again it could be for various situations. Maybe he has someone that
is better at developing players. Maybe he has somebody that's gonna do things that will give him space to do the scouting and the searching and the coaching and the soccer module, which we know is so important for greg style of play. Everything is gonna come up through the academy and all the way to the first team. So there's a lot of opponents that, yes, Gret cannot do it alone. And I'm sure that he has not just the networking but a lot of pool to bring in
some quality staff members. But yes, I think you're absolutely right. Who he surrounds himself with would essentially dictate how good he does and how well and how quick he does it In Chicago.
Who should he surround himself with? Any ideas I do not you know what would somebody like Lucci be? Uh? Would Glucci be a.
Yeah? You know, that's what I was thinking. I was seeing guys like Lucci. I was seeing guys like the Santos. But do those guys want to go not backwards because the Sonos is right now an assistant, But do you want to do that?
Oh, check your microphone, you mute it. It's like the audio died. I don't know what happened. You were in the middle of a sentence in the audio died.
Is it still? Is it still out there?
It is there, it is, So don't move from that spot. Whatever you did that fixed that weird? Okay, So that was all right? So you're talking about Lucci.
Yeah, I was saying that I don't know if Lucci specifically wants to go backwards, because he's coming from an awful situation being exposed and you know he has Egonis face after what happened is and will say. I could see him wanting a job where he's going to be able to redeem himself in some way. So, yes, there are guys that we could mention, But do they want to go backwards to be part of a staff. I
don't know. I'm pretty sure he has his own guys already ready to go, guys that have helped them at the US level, guys that he's worked with in the past. I'm sure, that's not going to be a problem guy
like I don't know, Asra Henderson or something. I mean, he's going to have a lot of options there, but he's definitely going to need a big team to again try to fix a club that has been problematic, not because of the coaching, but because of the structure and the organization problems that I mean, we can go back ten years of issues with Chicago, So it's not as simple as just a head coach who is gonna come and fix it, all.
Right, Austin. They finally Rudolfo Bodel finally pulled the trigger on Josh Wolf. But he did it with a match to go in the season, when you know you're not going into the playoffs anyway. And this has been a point that I've been asking all of our experts this week. Look, if you're and it might just be because I'm being a turning into a nicer old man as I you know, turn into when I'm one hundred and seventy years old, as I am now, I just must be nicer than
I was in the past. If you're not making the playoffs and nothing's gonna change, and your last matches at home, why are you sending Josh Wolf away with one match left in the season. Just say that you're not gonna renew his contract, Thank Josh for his time, Let him have the home match on Saturday, let him get his lap with his you know family. Why not do that unless you think that you've really got to jump on
somebody as the new head coach. I mean, why why let somebody go knowing you're not going to renew him with a match to go and that last matches at home. It just it struck me as odd.
I call it smoke, smoke and mirrors. You're trying to send a message, You're trying to seem like you were not happy with the situation, and now you are pulling the trigger. But I agree with you. I think it's the wrong decision. I think that, uh, there is no reason why you would do this right now, because you're not going to hire a guy tomorrow. You're not going
to hire a guy next week. You're probably not going to hire a guy next month because you're going to need to follow a protocol if you want to get the right guy to interview X amount of candidates, see what you want to get out of him. But I think this all goes back to similar to Chicago, the
problems in Austin have been up top as well. Uh that there's not a ton of issues with with the recruiting and the scouting and the sporting director and all kinds of things that you know, I'm not I wouldn't put it past Rodolpho to want to coach this team, you know, himself moving forward. I mean it's it's that sort of situation, uh, that that that that Austin is in and and that's why I think that the issues
with Austin are specifically beyond the coaching staff. So to your question, the only logical explanation is that you want to make a statement and send a message that you want to happy you wanted to get him off. But it makes no difference, It makes no changes. And I don't think they're going to hire anybody within the next month.
Well unless it's somebody that you really want to jump on that might be a part of the old City Football group. Group. Where is it domint On? Is it Patrick Vieira? Is it somebody with ties to cfg that you might have known in the past that wants to
come back and be a part of everything. That's The only thing I can figure is that you're trying to to jump the line and hire somebody that you think would want to jump and be a part of things that you can announce literally like either the last day of the regular season as a part of the process, Hey, it's our last home match and here's our new head coach, or do it like the day after the regular season when you know you're not making it something like something
in there. It's like there's a there's a there's a wire. I think that that isn't quite connecting here. And I don't know if you're trying to jump the que on somebody or if you're going to make an announcement or you just wanted to be you know, you wanted to just kick the guy out. I don't know which one of those options is the option here.
Now you just wanted to get him out. And again, it's all smoking mirror. It's you portraying that you were doing your job and that you had a expectation and a level. If you wanted to fire him and you were thinking about moving on, you should have done it halfway through this season. You should have done it when there were issues with Fagun dish and there were issues with the Ruzie and all these things that came up.
You had a way out, you had a way to get and look me and you have talked about it as much as we appreciate and can give all the credit to a guy like Wolf because of his IQ and how prepared he is and the soccer he provided. Within the first few seasons, you could see that it was time to go and are trying to fall apart. So if you're going to pull the plug, you should have done it a lot sooner. And look, media members right now, we're taking so much heat when he comes
to this sort of thing. Because I don't know if you've heard about in South America, Rigardoca basically told the media that we cannot talk to him about soccer because we are not coaches and we don't deserve to be in his presence and don't ask me, don't talk. They try to debate with you because I'm a coach and
you're not, and I just think that's ridiculous. But regardless of we do gotta give them the respect and that where I'm not gonna say they say that I know more than any coaching MLS, including a guy like wolf, but you saw things coming from the outside in. It seemed like there was a time for a change, and he should have happened a lot sooner than one game before the season ended.
There's one match in the Western Conference this weekend to get everybody to thirty three before Decision Day happens next weekend where we get to watch what's gonna happen involving LA and Vancouver. LAFC gets to play match thirty three.
They need it to separate themselves from Seattle and from Salt Lake and the three and the four, so they can at least have a puncher's chance on Decision Day going up against LAG with this one match to go, or too if you're talking about LA and Vancouver, we knew it was going to be a street fight trying to figure out positioning, and it hasn't disappointed even with this match in hand that's going to be played this weekend.
Seattle's a part of that top four. You just don't know where you're going to be.
Yeah, it was interesting the way things played out. Seattle surprised me. Timbers disappointed me things played out the way they did. Vancouver's had issues of their own LAFC picked it up there at the end, So you know, there was a lot of fluctuation when it came to the inertia the teams had at some point of the season.
And yet this is a big one, I mean, And the funny part about this one is that both Vancouver and LAFC have a ton of guys missing because of the FIFA window, right, And I would say that LAFC still has the upper hand because they do have the likes of Bo Goods, and they do guys of Jeru, and they have a Twist and they have Tilman, and they have all of these guys that are still pretty good if you ask me. In the other hand, Vancouver is missing six guys that are not just key, but
the next guy up as a big drop off. So no no Rob Gold, no Dta, no Ali. I mean, there's a lot of players here that are not gonna be part of that team. Uh, you know Kubas, who's so so important for that midfield. So I think that Vancouver is in a bad position and I think they're gonna end up losing this game regardless of who LAC puts on the field. They're gonna play with a three
man back line. They're gonna be very meticulous about how they're gonna approach this game because they're also not going to open up against Vancouver and allow a goal to go in and then allow Vancouver to just kind of sit back and hold. So las is gonna work their magic. They're gonna get this game. And unfortunately, when he comes to the roster depth and roster talent, la If he just has more of it. So are they going to
miss Buanga? Sure, Olivera, absolutely, Lajoja Martinez. That's coming from a couple of great games one, but the players that elifc has are just gonna be able to come through. And I think Charunduo did a good job at rotating his squats a couple of times. I think he's doing a good job at closing the season the right way. So Eli if he's gonna be able to take down one.
And I don't know if you want to talk about the Columbus and and and in New England, but that's another game that it's going to be interesting because Coch is gonna be with Columbia. UH. There's a lot of other guys that are part of that uh international call ups, including a guy like SHOLTI we know what happened last time against the Sounders when he wasn't there, So how does that play out? That's going to be an interesting one.
But I do think Columbus and stuff holding onto that game with a draw and and just at least at some points to their going back to the standings. In general, I think that Vancouver is gonna have to play themselves into this thing. I think that that Sounders Timbers game. We'll talk about that probably next week, but that's gonna that's gonna be a fun decision day for the Western Conference. But credit credit to a team like the Sounders that was able to put it together and grind out some points,
some performances. That win in Colorado was very good. Paul Rockcroft has become a rock star. I mean he's been on real unbelievable. That Colorado game was fantastic. He was persistent, he was defiant, he couldn't be held. He puts and creates at least four or five opportunities that Seattle can put away. So that's gonna be Seattle's Achilles heel. Can
they kill games? Can they finish them off? Can they really get the goals that they're creating because Jordan Morris is in a little bit of a funk you side in this one where he has a it was a difficult one. It was a difficult one. He gets a pass a little bit later than I think he expected it, a little bit quicker than I think he expected it, and he puts a shot in front of goal that doesn't go his way. He's banging the ground. He's frustrated
because he wanted that goal. So we'll see how Seattle can manage that when he comes to the first round of the playoffs.
Okay, two more questions, and one of them has to do with Tacoma defiance because we now know the playoff matchups and next pro obed Vargas named for the twenty two under twenty two. What's it been like to see obed Vargas continue to grow and evolve to where he is, even if we take him out of this list that was put forth by Major League Soccer. What's it been like for you to see obed Vargas grow to where he is as a part of the impact there in Seattle.
He's been a privilege and it's been a learning experience for me just watching a player come up through the system and provide and grow in a way that he's not just a starter. He is a high contributor. I think that he's way too low on that list. I cannot believe, and I don't have the list in front of me, but I can't believe that a guy like McGlenn is on top of him a guy like Redondo looking I understand. I understand that the talents and the
potential is the reason probably why they're above him. And again McGlenn is not a guy that I will put above Ovid Vargas. But but when it comes to contributions and what you actually did throughout the season, other than Diego Luna, there isn't many guys that at his age and in that list have done what Ovid has done. And nobody has done it at center midfield. He's done it out wide on the way and he defends, he pushes,
he processes, he creates opportunities. I was talking to another player who's and I'm not gonna say his name, but he says he reminds him a lot of Nicolesto Darro and it's kind of funny that that that you that that comparison was made because he does have a lot of that. I'm going to tear the field. I'm going to get everywhere, I'm going to get forward, I'm going to defend. I'm going to do everything possible. He has the creativity, uh he he has the vision and the
technical ability to put both through. So it's been a surreal experience because from his family circle, his dad who's very involved with his career, with his development, who coached them at a young age, and watching how excited he's been. Not only that he's as high as he is in that list and the fact that he's an undeniable starter for Seattle, but the Color to Mexico Senior team was big, right. I mean that's the thing that he's been searching for.
He made the switch of federations from the US to Mexico. That has played dividends. And now he gets a call up and he's going to be working under a guire in another Mexican legend in the defender from Barcelona, Marquess Jesus.
So it's definitely an experience that he is going to help him even more so the two conclusions, I think he in my opinion, he should be at least third in that twenty two Under twenty two list in my opinion, and like I said, the only other player that I would vote for new for young player is Diego Luna.
But if Obett gets this team going against Portland, is a contributor, is someone that is influential, and then in the first round of the playoffs he does it, I'm definitely voting for oh But regardless of whether anybody else.
Does or not, He's Kromowsky is six, Rodondo is five, Brian Gudieris is four, McGlenn is three, Luna is to Diego Gomez from Messi and Friends is number one.
Absolutely give me looking down just standing Goms because he also has like fourteen hundred minutes played to be quite honest. But the talent, what he's done, the impact, I'll I'll let you slide, Diego Goldman, I'll let you slide, and then Diego Luna, and then you have to put over. In my opinion, so I know that there isn't a clear definition of what we're looking for when it comes to the U twenty two list, But I'm gonna look for impactful players. I'm gonna look for, uh, the youngest
player in the list. If I'm not mistaken. That's doing more than half of these players in this list. So I am just very high on Ovid bargains. I think that he's gonna be gone within the next year. Uh after plub broke Cup. I think he's gonna have a huge expose, a huge you know. Uh yep, that he could just show his talent and from there on, I think the team is going to move on and allow him to go to Europe and probably have a very good career.
Yeah, Kevin Sullivan is eighteen on the list for three matches and ten minutes for Philadelphia Union at the age of fifteen. So that's all right. So last question is about Tacoma Defiance. Defiants are in the playoffs in MLS next Pro. The matchups are next weekend, ten days from now, and it's ten o'clock where at Starfire, Ventura County goes to take on Tacoma Defiance and they had to wait to figure out who their opponent was because they're the
four seed. It was I thought it was going to be crazier in the East than it was in the West, but North Texas picked up the white Caps, so it's one versus seven. Saint Louis City SC two picked the five in LAFC two. Then it was the town which used to be lowst dose and they get Dynamo does and then it's four and six. So one v seven, two v five, three v eight and four v six.
When it comes to Tacoma, specifically, for someone who has not seen Tacoma this year, who is who is someone in the the Nico spots shadow, It's like, oh, here's who I should watch when it comes to Tacoma Defiance that should be making an impact in the next year or so. At the parent club.
That is a tough one because there are a lot of good players. I like Kris Kris Akino is a guy that has come up and has done some wonderful things throughout the season. I think he's, uh the next player that's gonna get a chance up when he comes to the first team. Uh. He's a creative midfielder that has a lot of range, that can do a lot
of things. Uh. So he's an interesting one. I think gold Miz is a guy that's been very productive for this team as well, but I think the defensive components back there, that's what really gives this Tacoma Defiance a lot of leverage to do what they do, and I think that we should focus a little bit on that.
I mean, they're coming in uh from you know, some positive results throughout the season, and one of the things that they've been able to do is that just that that that ability to just kind of hold teams back and be able to be very disciplined in the backside. Uh So, you know, Stewart Hockey is the guy that's been working with this team. He's a guy that signed to the first team. He's very young right now, he's
the U twenties for the US best national team. So when you have those sort of components there, I think those are some of the guys that I think are gonna end up being important. They were. Sario's a guy with a lot of experience that can definitely provide some offensive not just goals, but holding the ball, his hold up play, his link up play. So I think that there's some of the guys that have been more visually interesting.
To me, and that's why we bring you in to talk about these kinds of things. Ten o'clock. Next Sunday, it is to come a Defiance hosting Ventura County as MLS next Pros opening round starts. Hit the promo because I know you've got to go. You're about a half hour out from your next thing.
Yes I am. We are getting ready to embark on the U twenty two list as well at Soccerbar obviously all in Spanish. We're going to be providing our candidates for end of the year awards in MLS. We're all going to give two candidates each for each one of those awards. We're going to really get into some outside component things because we only have two games to talk about in MLS, so we're going to talk a little
bit about that. We're going to get into some US men's national team talk and the two friendlies against Panama and Mexico. Who are the players that we're kind of looking for. What are the players that my shine might be interesting now in the Pochettino era, So go ahead and check that out. In pools of sports we do
have right now. Bryan Smetser talking about the winning Colorado the end of the season, the difficulties that maybe having a team that's on a row and with some really good inertia to be stopped for a long time, and you know how to keep them going. He said that there's gonna be a scrimmage that's going to be prepared and try to get the team going. But he said it's not the same. It's it's not the same to just being competitive play. So go ahead and check that
out Apples and Sports. That's a funny one too, because it ended abruptly because a fire alarm went off at the building and we had to kind of go away on that end, But definitely interesting. Go ahead and check that out of Apples and sports.
All right, get out of here, go get your coffee, go cool off, and we will see you next week, my friend. As always, I love when we can catch up on our Thursdays where Thursdays with Nico at l Rollo and w oh.
Yeah, man, I appreciate it. That's the one spot that I feel like I need to be always. Oh and by the way, man, I got too greedy in Vegas. Man and I did try to do too many parlays. I did good in a couple of games, the Orlando game and the Columbus game, both the scores and the goals, but then I got to greety with some parlays. Man and Atlanta ended up messing me up. I said they were gonna draw, and it was this close to a draw. I couldn't believe it, man, But it's all right. We
still came up. We came up in the positive. So it was a good time in Vegas.
Yes, positives are always good. We'll see you next week, my friend.
All right, buddy, take it.