¶ Intro / Opening
We are here for D-Day. David Goss and Tommy Scoops with you here on SoccerWise bright and early on St. Scadaboo Day. But we take the time to honor the soccer gods. Tom, we had every team in two time windows at the same time, shoved down our faces last night, and we are ready to react to all of it. Do you feel alive? I feel alive. It felt like a normal Saturday night with all the games at once. Just no random Central Town games.
Yeah, no 830 game to like come on for the East Coasters. And it was a little bit earlier, actually, right? Six o'clock and nine o'clock on the East Coast start times for all the Eastern and Western Conference games. And then NYCFC played Seattle, which is like classic. You're just like, oh, this is.
game that's happening and kind of both teams had nothing to play for Seattle legitimately although terrible news for Seattle with Pedro de la Vega going off the field with an injury and now I'm inside of that all of a sudden which I did not expect to be starting on But we have a lot to talk about. It was a huge night in Major League Soccer. Teams that didn't make the playoffs, there's going to be some reckoning for them, including a team that almost...
One, the wooden spoon in Atlanta United who have just let Ronnie Dyla go like five minutes ago before we start recording this show. And we've got a lot else to talk about. We've got hell is real as a playoff series. We've got two decision day rematches, which I think is bizarre. Brutal. Just so unfortunate. So if you extend those series to the full three games, Dallas.
and Vancouver and what what am I oh Nashville Miami will play each other four times in a row so unfortunate man through all of this so at least their games were competitive or Competitive is not the right word for Nashville, Miami. At least they were meaningful. It wasn't like, oh, we have nothing to play for on D-Day and then we both play each other.
But we've got that coming up. We've got wild card games on Wednesday night. So we'll be back on Thursday with reaction to that. Then we will have every single playoff series set the wild cards. I'm not going to lie. I don't think I did a very good job setting this up last week.
I didn't realize that Portland could fall into a wildcard game even this weekend. Like it wasn't even on my radar in talking about the Western Conference standings. And I don't really think I considered that Orlando was going to fall into an away wildcard game. The Orlando one more so than anything. And I guess maybe this would be a good time to say I was...
extremely dismissive of the wild card chase in the Western Conference because I was like, I think maybe one of these teams will pick up a result. Well, to be fair, Salt Lake and Colorado got draws. Dallas won. despite not having Petar Moussa or Logan Farrington. And San Jose won. And San Jose won. So...
They all got results. My whole preview was my whole like view is like if any one of those 14 wins, you can just book them in the playoffs because I doubt the others will. Right. And none of them lost. Yeah. Once again, like revisiting or overrunner spot. We are. Idiots.
Is what we learned once again yesterday. But it's going to be a lot of fun. So we'll have those two games Wednesday night. We'll have your reaction Thursday. And we'll have more preview stuff going into the rest of the playoffs, of course. And we'll be talking about it the entire time. as we go through all of this. Reminder, our 50 states of soccer this week is Pennsylvania. Loaded talent state spread across everything. We'll have Megan Klingenberg on.
who is a Pittsburgh native to talk things. And we're, we're talking to some Philly people to see if we get both sides of the state, or maybe we just go straight down the middle and we grab Bobby Washa center of the state energy. And we see what happens there, but you know, birds were a Steelers.
that type of stuff I mentioned it off the top Tom I want us to go through D-Day I want us to relive some of the big moments and then talk about the playoffs in each conference but Ronnie Dyla let go by Atlanta like a few moments ago so we're still
¶ Ronny Deila Fired By ATL
ingesting it we're not shocked we're not surprised ingesting taking it in digesting digesting yeah well we took it in first then we let it some indigestion yeah that for me that is top of the top of the list right now for sure I guess my first thought is why it took so long. Like, why wait until the end of the season? But this clearly felt like it was coming. Some of the quick numbers I threw down here.
They won one of their last 18 matches in all major league soccer games. They had the third worst, um, goal difference in major league soccer and their last win was on august 30th so almost two months ago before they finished the year one win since may 31st um It's not an exaggeration to say this might be the most disastrous season in MLS history, given spend and expectation. Atlanta spent more money than any team has in league history over two windows to bring in Alexey Maranchuk.
Miguel Maron and Emmanuel Latte a lot. Maranchu did not look great last year, but we were thinking Goss theorem. It was pretty quickly evident at the beginning of the season. Oh, like, I don't think that that one worked. Miguel Maron.
I was high on it, and I held out hope that maybe it was going to turn the corner. It's just the fit hasn't looked right. I don't know if that's just because everything's a little awkward with Maranchuk and the structure around the team, but early returns on investment are not good. He is...
I believe the third or fourth highest paid player in the league in terms of salary. So that's tough. Manuel Latelat, who was the league record signing around 22 million or so by the end of the season was benched by Jamal Tiare. That's a disaster.
You look at the back line, so many signings in and out that didn't work. Brad Guzan, he was statistically one of the worst keepers in the league this season. And I say that with respect to a legend, but he ended up getting benched by the end of the year. None of the center backs are reliable. They have not signed a D mid. I don't think since Jeff Loretta was retired, that's actually decent. And.
I'm just at a loss for words for this team, how we got here and moving forward. At least ownership didn't hide behind like, well, we... We signed Ronnie Dollar to, I believe, a three-year contract. One of the most expensive coaches in the league. We don't want to have to pay his buyout and then also try to hire a new coach. So good on them for doing this. And while that ambition is nice...
It's been what, six years since they've been good? Yeah, yeah. It's been a really long time. One of the things that's a little interesting to parse is what you just laid out there. We don't, some of it. we don't know if it's style is fault. Like they haven't signed a good center back defensive midfielder. I think we can, I think we can say that. I think we can, I think, I think there's enough blame by to go around that, that it's not only his fault, but right.
So then that's the question I think for Atlanta fans is how much better does it get and how quickly? Because not all of this is Dyla and... There are clear flaws in the roster and clear flaws in the talent on the team, and some of them are under contract. Many of them are under contract. Some of them are going to be impossible to get off of unless you eat it, and if you do, you can only eat so much.
Technically, unless you keep finding creative ways to like give people free money, which might be an option for this team. In saying all of that, clearly none of it was maximized. None of it was at its best. And inside the building, I think. From everything we've heard, there was feelings that Dyla was not the right guy once they got there. From the outside, at the beginning, I thought it was the right hire. He'd won MLS Cup.
He built a team that was cohesive, that played together, but had star players. They had a tough MLS Cup run that they were able to go on, right? They won in Portland on the road, gave up the late goal, like all this type of stuff. Had the European experience. had a little connection to some of the big...
biggest clubs in Europe at times. I don't know. All of it made sense from the outside when they made the hire. So I don't blame them for it. And as you said, it's good to see them be quick about it. We can talk about it more at the end of the show. One other name to note. Sorry. I was going to say, I don't know if this is where you're about to go. I thought you're transitioning away. But keep an eye on Tata Martino. There is legitimate interest there from what I'm understanding.
process is just starting there's nothing kind of decided to determine but there's there's the smoke is real yeah no the next name i was gonna mention is uh chris armis is one of the names we are hearing might
¶ Chris Armas Combative Press Conference
be under a little bit of pressure. Colorado failing to make the playoffs. And Chris, I think, showing that pressure in his post-game press conference coming after a reporter with the Burgundy Wave, which is one of the few people who covers this team. And I thought it was a low blow the way he came after them. I thought it was immature the way he came after them. I think it shows the pressure that he's under. Chris has done...
I don't want to say this before, but Chris fixates on media coverage of him and negative media coverage of him. I mean, just pure standings. They were the 21st team in Major League Soccer, right? So you have a league in which 18 teams make the playoffs. and you were the 21st of them, the coverage will be bad because the team's bad. Like, that's straight up. So if they cover the team down the middle...
which is exactly what they see is what they put out there. The coverage will be bad because the team is bad. And I think the least of the Colorado Rapids problems this year was negative coverage from. uh, from press. So I, I, yeah, I would throw that out there. I think that's another name to watch. Uh, I thought it wasn't just an annoying thing to see. And this comes in a week in which Laurel failure wrote an open letter talking about how hard it is to cover MLS. And she is completely right.
It is so unnecessary how difficult it is to cover Major League Soccer. This is a league that is fighting for interest. Everyone should be pushed out there. Players, coaches, executives, owners, if they care about their product being better, should be out there talking about this stuff all the time. And it is unnecessarily covered. Now, I don't. I think we get.
Probably more access than a lot of people because we've been around for a while. We know people. And I'm saying this not as a personal attack on a lot of PR teams that have worked well with us. But that doesn't change the fact that you need to be helping all coverage to help.
cover your team. So all of that, a little bit frustrating as we go into decision day, but let's talk about the soccer. Let's get on the field. I'm sorry. I want to add to the armor. You get to yell at people too. Come on. Sunday morning, baby. Dude, like. After the game in which they lost to confirm that they missed the playoffs, he was asked a question about something around this. It was a completely fair question.
It was not leaning in a crazy negative way. It was not in bad tone. It was not in bad faith. Armas cut off the reporter as he goes, so you guys have missed the playoffs. He goes, oh, did we miss the playoffs? Did we? Did we miss? Like, thanks. Thank you for reminding me of that. Like, what are you doing, dude? If that's enough to get you upset, that's not a high enough threshold. That's not a high enough bar. Saying that the coverage has been negative, they finished, what, seventh last year?
Raise the banner, right? What did they lose? 9-1 in the first round to LA Galaxy? 9-1. And then this season they finish 11th? And what do you want? What do you want? You want a parade for that? Like, do you want the media to be... like kissing the ring for what like again i i like i think the criticism and stuff has been fair and i just think that was just such a small and and weird thing to do and yeah feeling pressure or whatever but like dude
If he doesn't get renewed, it's not the Burgundy Wave's fault. It's because of poor results, poor style, and poor decisions. Also, if you're upset, I would look upward, too. Like your club sold your best player in the middle of the season to a team in your league who is worse. And then, but then they signed Pax and Anderson. Like they, I don't know. There's, I don't know, man. I just, I just thought that was so weak. Yeah.
Let's move into the soccer. Let's stay in the Western Conference though. Let's talk about the experience as we went through it.
¶ Reliving Western Conference D-Day Race
on saturday night um from top to bottom the wild card race was the big thing we were focused on seattle was locked in at fifth um austin was locked in at six so not a lot of movement possible for them there was the movement kit possible at the top of the western conference which came into play. And the wildcard race was the big thing that we were looking at with Dallas coming in at eighth, RSL at ninth, Colorado in 10th, and San Jose in 11th, all capable of getting into the wildcard.
And as I said, I forgot to note that Portland in seventh was capable of dropping into the wild game, wild card game as well. The night started in the Western Conference quickly. Out the gate, we've got an RSL goal fast in St. Louis, crazy rain in St. Louis. Jill Sakovic, hilarious coverage, great coverage of it in the rain jacket on the field, breaking it down for all of us. I love a weather report. I've done some in my... pass and it is one of my favorite parts of covering games on the road.
RSL gets the early goal. So they're sitting pretty. And I think coming into it, that was the big expectation, right? RSL playing St. Louis, even though St. Louis was at home, they were the team that it felt like coming into this weekend could control their own destiny, probably get a result. Then the big moment, which is Sammy Sarver starting up top in place of Logan Farrington and Petar Musa because of their suspensions draws a dog. So red card.
against Laborda in Vancouver in like the 12th minute. And now it's, you felt it. Like I was on blue sky and the trickle effect of Colorado and San Jose coverage being like, oh, there's a red card. In in Dallas or for against Vancouver for Dallas, like this is what's about to affect the entire rest of the night. It was, I think, a debatable red card.
I think the dog so is debatable and the actual goal scoring chance, whether he's actually the last man, all of that. It's not an impossible call to make. And I do think Thomas Mueller's complaints later on. that Lalas Abubakar probably should have been in the locker room alongside Laborda watching this game, and it should have been 10 v. 10 is fair. But that happens. Urugide scores off a corner kick right after to go up 1-0.
And I think the most surprising result coming into the weekend, which was that Dallas wins in Vancouver while Vancouver is going for first place in the West, all of a sudden is on the tabletop. It's like Vancouver finishing second in the West on the tiebreaker with San Diego because of the other end of that Portland result with San Diego thrashing them and taking care of business, which left...
Vancouver vulnerable if they didn't pick up a point, and they didn't. The red card, like you said, it was like, oh, we're going to be focused on this now. It went from in unlikelihood because at Vancouver is a really, really difficult draw at this stage of the season with how good this team is.
and then they had a chance and then like you could feel that kind of momentum coming it wasn't without difficulties and and going back forth again like i think it's it's fair to be asking about abu bakar as well but like Just kind of how that one played out. Go, go. So the PK on Lalas Abu Bakr, then that's the next play.
and Vancouver gets the PK, they score. I don't think that's a red card. He had other yellow card offenses after that. He went into like a studs-up tackle on Thomas Mueller. That should have been a second yellow. I'm fine with the PK call. I think it was the right call, and I'm fine with that not. being a red card and not being dog. So in that moment, but then he should have been sent off later on in the game. But the PK comes.
Because Vancouver are so fucking good. They are down a man at home. And I texted you. I texted you when they were down 1-0, down a man. And I was like, Vancouver's going to win this game on a 92nd minute corner kick. Because.
They played Dallas off the field for the rest of that first half. And Eric Quill said it at halftime. Like, they are playing harder than us. They are covering more ground than us. And they have one less player. It is all into my sweater, guy. I got the sweater right here, actually, still. Vote for Jesper. And I'm watching this game and the red card happens and you're like, oh, is this where it happens? Like, does it finally dry up here?
There's not much to play for for them in that moment. Do guys finally drop their head? All of that. It's like Sebastian Berhalter's pulling strings. Sabi's attacking people. Ali Ahmed, 37 stepovers trying to beat guys 1v1. Shaq Moore on a string. him just trying to make things happen and like it's not perfect they were not uber dangerous they had to take daniel rios off they don't have brian white right now
But they're in the game the whole time. And it's not just game states that they're chasing. Like this team knows who they are. And it's why with Matias Laborder now being suspended for the playoffs or for the first playoff game, at least. I still have confidence in this group, but for Eric Quill's credit, Kaike comes out of the half. They score a gorgeous goal to go up to one and they're able to hang on and everyone is scoreboard watching on them because RSL goes to zero up.
pretty quickly on a bizarre pass that is a 65-yard ball on the ground on the middle of the field that no one from St. Louis is within 15 yards of to make it 2-0. So they go up. And Colorado and San Jose are forced to scoreboard watch as they go through their games. And it is Goss changing his coach of the year vote to Varys on the chat right now.
We can talk about that and we will talk about that coming up. But the way the night started to progress was, okay, everything hinges on Dallas because it was Vancouver most likely probably to get the goals and get the results to jump them where RSL felt even as they can. seeded late, that they were in an okay spot. And San Jose goes down 1-0 to an Owen Wolf deflected goal quickly. And you're thinking, oh.
Why did we all say San Jose would win when they've never won? That's not what this team does. Colorado goes down 1-0 early to a sunny goal, which was an epic goal. And he's like freaking out in the corner. Like this guy fucking loves what's going on right now. He's so happy. And I have no idea why it matters that much to him. But then, to Colorado and San Jose's credit, they fought back in their games.
They put at least their destiny back into the pressure on Dallas. And then it all came down to, can Dallas hang on in Vancouver to secure a playoff spot? And they were able to get over the line. just barely again like all these teams at least that they all again the four of them played well or at least fought hard like you said better than what they've showed down the stretch um and again rsl doing just enough but again it was a good microcosm of
this whole race of they go up 2-0 and then to a team that has nothing to play for and then they almost bottle it they almost throw it away and and as you said with the scoreboard watch i thought i thought for sure st louis was gonna get a third goal like it just would have Like to knock out Salt Lake after being up to. After being like the surest thing. Like Olatunji.
Scoring twice when the questions of DP forwards and anybody can kind of step up around Luna and then Gozo in the attack all season. And you're sitting pretty. And then the PK from Leuven. after a retake and my god lovin was like all right i'm not gonna do this little stutter step i'm not gonna try to roll i'm not gonna try to i'm gonna put it right there save it i dare you and that pk was like okay this game's a little weird um
Matthew Skornheiser in the chat says, which I should have mentioned, is that second RSL goal comes on an advantage played for St. Louis, which everyone thought would kill the play. Then St. Louis turned the ball over. But the advantage had already moved on, and then RSL went and counted the other way. And yet still, that ball came through, and both center backs ran away from the ball. And Roman Berkey, who we'll talk about in a moment.
dropped on his line as well at the same time. So, yes, it was probably bizarre refereeing, but the opportunity for St. Louis to be relevant in the play was still there the whole time. Then they get the PK, so that makes it 2-1. going into the half. But in the end, you have Colorado able to come from behind. Darren Yappy scores in the 88th minute to push Colorado into finally a spot where, okay, if...
These two teams make a mistake. We can make it. And then Niko Tsikiris coming off of U-20 World Cup where he was one of the best players. is allowed to take the free kick, and then bangs the free kick. The broadcast was so good. It was just like, no, Nico, he scored a really good goal from a free kick at the U20 World Cup, but you're back with the senior team here. It's going to be Joseph, right? It's just like, and then...
I was watching multiple screens, and I looked away, and then I was like, oh, Niko Zakiris! So good. Yeah, it was an epic moment. He's celebrating in the corner. Everyone's screaming. The crowd's going wild. San Jose. at PayPal park has never hosted a playoff game. The entire time that building has been open, which is absurd. And I think it's approaching 10 years now. Yeah. 2015 and open. Yeah. So 10 seasons. So zero home playoff games in that time. And this.
Probably wouldn't have been a home playoff game because they probably would have been a nine seed, although they got through whatever. But still, that just sort of shows where San Jose has been. And I think it shows the energy around the secure school. Then that ends. So the San Jose game ends. Then the Colorado game ends, and they are in the stadium, and the San Jose Stadium puts on the Vancouver-Dallas game.
On the big screen. And they're all standing around watching it and just waiting and hoping. And Vancouver's like throwing everything at the wall. They're taking risks. They're taking chances. There's a crazy bike kick moment. There's a few half chances. But. It's just wild to watch the pro team sit there and like us, just be watching on TV, just like fingers crossed, hoping for the moment. Yeah, they're really relatable. I appreciate that.
Those are some of my favorite decision day moments over the years where it's at least like the big screen there. But usually it seems like crowding around like a laptop on the bench. Which I think Columbus was watching a phone in their game. So that ends up being that Dallas hangs on and RSL hangs on. But in all of this, Portland gets... throttled by san diego and dallas ends up winning jumping out of the wild card spot so they go from a situation where we're wondering
Are they going to be in a tiebreaker loss to San Jose and fall out without Farrington and Musa on the road against this team to now San Diego has jumped Vancouver. Dallas has jumped Portland. And we've got Dallas against Vancouver in a three game playoff series. And this time we're going to have some of the horses, not all of them with the border on the suspension. So that was a really wild turn that occurred in the middle of the night that as I see.
I was unprepared for, didn't exactly expect. And then RSL, of course, moving up themselves or locking themselves into their playoff spot. So they will go on the road to Portland and Colorado and San Jose. are eliminated it was a long shot for san jose to make it tom but we hadn't really done post-mortem stuff on them because of it it's a huge points jump we talked about this a little in the over under conversation someone asked me like oh
¶ San Jose 2025 Review
Would Bruce Arena stay if there's a new owner? Blah, blah, blah. I think the feeling for San Jose is it was an improvement. Let's see if this is a road forward. And can we keep improving going into next year?
Yeah, I think it was a positive season. Again, they did come just short of the playoffs, but there was enough positives moving forward and they have the DP spot open. And I just... blindly or blanket trust bruce arena to make things happen and improve things there are questions of course is there enough
in the kind of defensive unit in terms of the individuals rather than, say, the structure. And that's something that should be addressed this offseason, kind of part of the top of the priority list. And then, like, it's a fair question. Like, can you play Joseph and Chicho? What does the defense need to look like to make that make sense? Because they scored goals. They conceded a lot. 60 goals scored, 63 conceded. And that's not sustainable to the playoffs. For...
All that we've been critical or questioning of the other teams kind of in the mix for the playoffs, even Real Salt Lake, Portland, they conceded less than 50. Austin, 45. Dallas at 55. That's still like... 18 17 goals less than san jose yeah so that needs to be the absolute focus and it needs to be decided hey can we play these two forwards together is this the roster building idea that we want or what's it going to be like if we tell
One of them, like, hey, you might not be a full-time starter. How's that going to go down? And what does it look like? There's some good pieces there. Again, like, man, it sucks to me that Christian Espinosa, again, is not going to be in the playoffs. Yeah. He's such a good player, man. So very consistent.
And we don't get to watch him or talk about him too much because they haven't played a ton of games of consequence since he's gotten here, which is not his fault. Yeah. Yeah. I think midfield's a question mark as well. If we think back to a lot of the issues for the Rebs, Bruce sort of had like a midfield setup in New England that very much was one of those where like the underlying numbers were that it wasn't covering enough.
but the results were there for the most part and basically since bruce left it all fell apart right it was way too much pressure on one guy there was not enough ground coverage that feels the same with san jose And so that's something they need to tweak. And then we have a comment here in the chat. Nika 4 says.
Arena needs to play the young guys. Nico deserves more minutes. Medina can't spend another year in MLS Next Pro. There's obviously a team that also loaned out Oscar Verhoeven because they didn't see minutes for him. And then San Diego was able to use him to be the best team in the Western Conference and the greatest expansion team of all time.
time. But what's tough for me about that is Bruce is the one who started playing young guys in New England. And he went out and got Noel Buck for this team who ended up not being healthy, not being available and not being a part of the group.
So I don't know that I look at it and say like arena is not going to play these guys because he has the track record of doing it in this era of major league soccer. And I wonder if it was just him trying to find the pulse of the team and wasn't ready to go there. So I give him one more year of leniency on that to be like, all right, next year.
If these guys are not playing, then it's a problem because San Jose should be an elite academy because the Bay Area is an elite soccer region. And that should be one of their advantages, especially if they're not going to be a team that spends. $25 million on center forwards and whatnot and all of that. On Colorado's side, I think we talked about it a bit with Chris Armas. I think it should be frustrating for fans that they sold Georgi Mihailovic inside the league.
¶ COL Rapids Offseason Preview
Like, I think it should be a reality, which is this guy wanted to play in MLS because he still plays in MLS. And you were not able to be able to create the deal. And your owner is a billionaire. who owns like 17 pro sports teams and some of the biggest in the world. That should be a frustration. That is a wall this team is going to continue to bump up against. And yes, you can put the pieces together better and you can put it together more efficiently.
and you could have it all working better, and you could get a better performance. Philadelphia just won the Shield. San Diego, although they spent big on Chucky, they're top of the West. Vancouver, all the examples are there that they can be competitive. But that still, to me, is the big story of this season. And it's one of the big stories about Colorado. Yeah, I would still push back on the Georgia. I just think that their hands are kind of tied. And the overall point of...
the ownership and putting in more money. Like, I agree, but I will say I would have been coming down. Their hands were tied on what? He wanted a bigger contract. He went to a different team and got the contract. You give him the contract. He plays for you. Sure. Again, what I was told is there wasn't a lot of room in negotiations in terms of when his mind was made up that he wanted to go to Toronto and then he didn't play.
And that was before that deal was done. And that was related to the deal. And I just think that that would have been a big issue. And again, it's unimportant. Maybe I'm just being too easy to let them off the hook on that. But I still think... Pax and Aronson deal getting done. I think that that makes it a lot easier to swallow than if it was like, you know, signing two players from within MLS on like TAM level or like U22 guys. Like they went out and spent $7 million on Pax and Aronson.
Or whatever it was. But then the time it takes to bring him in and the time it takes for him to get up to speed. It's a decent reason why they didn't make the playoffs this year. Because they had to spend all those games where they could have been picking up points. They're out by one point.
Right. So everything is like, where could you have gotten those points? And one of them would have been just having the best player on your team who, as someone put in the chat, had a brace yesterday against Orlando to put a little bit of insult injury there on your team and available for it.
There are huge question marks around this group. It'll be interesting to see. You talked a little bit last week, Hoffa Navajo, what his future looks like. Darren Yappy gets the big goal. He looks ready for a role. If that's what happens, where would they then reinvest those funds? Maybe different spot on the field. All of that. So a lot to talk about with Colorado. But let's dig into the teams that we know are going to be into the playoffs. San Diego, as I said.
Blitzing Portland. Dreyer pummels this team. He scored two goals in three minutes in the second half to stretch the lead. The first one, a little bit of a mistake on a back pass from DaCosta.
¶ San Diego Win The West In Greatest Expansion Season Ever
um, well worked by San Diego and dryer puts it away. The second one, this is a dude who's feeling himself. It like slightly bounces up. And it's one of those where it's like, I could hit this perfectly and it's in a corner and he hits it. perfectly into a corner and i'm laughing watching this like this guy is on a heater this is why i said he's an mvp finalist because he should be
San Diego finishes greatest expansion season of all time. Most wins, most points, all of that. They then finished with the most away wins in MLS history, not for an expansion team, for any team. And this wasn't even a team where it was like, oh, they don't have a building, so they started nine games in a row, so they had to play a lot. You know what I mean? Like, this is just, they are so locked into their identity and so good at it that they're able to go anywhere and play the same game.
Andres Dreyer, 19 goals, 19 assists, 38 goal contributions, starting all 34 matches. He's absolutely the obvious number two on my MVP ballot. He absolutely needs to be a finalist, and I'm confident that he will be. He has been the tone setter and a perfect designated player. He's carried the team, but he's done it in different ways all season, whenever they needed him and whatever they needed him to do.
Do you need to be an inside forward and score more goals? Yeah. Do you need to be a creative wide playmaker to kind of create more chances rather than focus on finishing? Yeah, I can do that. Do you need a false nine? Yeah, I'll do that. It doesn't matter who's kind of coming in. He's got good chemistry with Amal Pellarino pretty quickly, just because Anders Ryder seems to have good chemistry with everybody on this team. This signing, again, is insane.
how much they've gotten from him and how quickly they've gotten it. Again, not just the big pyrotechnic games like this, where it's like, oh yeah, he's just going to go ahead and dominate, but how consistent he's been all season. And it's him rather than Chucky that we're looking at.
when we talk about this team, if they're going to be a serious threat for MLS Cup. And of course, they're a serious threat for MLS Cup because of this talent. And the defense has been good enough, which was the big question mark coming into the season. And yesterday was a good microcosm of that, even though Portland now are slipping into the wildcard game.
That's not the same as playing Vancouver or LAFC, but San Diego are in that inner tier of contenders in the West. Yeah, they absolutely are. And that is also because there's a lot of question marks about every team at the top of the West. The big one for Vancouver.
coming out of a day in which they, with a tie, they would have secured top spot in the Western Conference for the first time in the club's history. It would have been a nice feather in the cap. It would have been a big moment for them. Obviously, they would have had control of... hosting all the way through to mls cup and then whatever happens after that um but the big question mark for vancouver is ralph preso is going to start at center back
for their opening playoff game like that is a question mark for this team for all that they've endured for all that they've been able to go through as i said how good they are how fun they are to watch blah blah blah that's going to be the big question mark about them and so that opens the door
For San Diego to be the clear favorites in this moment, man, Snapdragon Stadium is going to be a mess by the end of this year. That was one of my first thoughts about them playing well on the road. Probably better surfaces. Yeah.
It is. They're going to have two more home games. It's a stadium they share with a college football team and an NWSL team who look like they're on the verge of making the playoffs. Probably won't have a home game, but still a lot to go in there. Chucky Lozano, not a part of the group.
for this game. So something to monitor going into the playoffs for them for sure. But Amal Pellegrino, two goals in this game. He's been the one who stepped up the most in the Oloski opening, looking for another goal scorer outside of Andres Dreyer. So a big moment for him and could be a nice hot streak that they could ride into the postseason. On the Portland side of things, Finn Sermon unavailable for this game, I think because he slid into the post on his.
pubic bone. Is that the phrase I'm going to use right now? So he was out with a bruised lower body injury. If you watched it when he was away with New Zealand, he went sliding in to score a goal. Legs wide open into the far post. Not a great moment for anyone watching that one, experiencing it or anything else. So that's a big one to monitor for Portland.
This is now the second straight year where it's just a nosedive into the postseason. Defensively, they've gotten much better this year. Offensively, they've gotten much worse. And last year, they got embarrassed on their home field in an away game against Vancouver.
gifted an extra home game in the playoffs. They got embarrassed, and then they got embarrassed in this game, and they're going to have one more shot to try and turn this story around in the wild card. Two more regular season games to note here. Minnesota keep losing. They lose at the LA Galaxy, so a terrible way to finish the season. And then Seattle, as I said, playing that game.
The playoffs. We've got San Diego against the wild card winner. That will be Portland RSL. Vancouver versus Dallas, as we said. The rematch. LAFC against Austin. Austin won both the games this year between these two teams, but... The last game was last week during the international break. It was a late 1-0 win against the run of play for Austin, but they have those wins under their belt. Then Minnesota versus Seattle, which is an interesting game about.
Two teams that it feels like are both tournament-ready teams, but both of them fell apart down the stretch in the regular season. Tom, I think for me, the Vancouver FC Dallas series is the most exciting one because I liked what I saw with Laborda out and Moose and Farrington. coming back like I think Dallas should have real hopes but hands down in
¶ Western Conf Playoff Preview
I think Vancouver, the most fun team to watch. I enjoy the atmosphere. I enjoy it. Like I put their game on early to be like, all right, this is the one I'll start with. I'll have 360 on my computer. I'll turn that game off when the other ones become more relevant. And I just couldn't turn it off because they're too fun to watch.
Yeah, and again, the best thing you can say about Jesper Swanson, who is my coach of the year, is that it doesn't matter who's on the field or what they're doing. They're always going to try to maximize. They're always going to be brave. They're always going to...
play out of the back and tweak things based on who's on the field. But it's always going to be front footed. It's always going to be fun. And again, courageous, which I love to see. Like it's getting, you look at this 11, you look at like their injury list, like obviously no Blackman, no White, no Veselinovich last night. And they're still doing everything that they can to be the protagonist when they're down a man for the majority of the game. So...
I agree in that you could look at it with no Laborda in the first game with a red card suspension and all the other injuries. Who knows what's going to happen, say, with Blackman and White in terms of their availability. I can't bet against them. I just trust that they're going to...
not just advanced, but like have strong performances along the way too, rather than just scraping by. Yeah. The reason Vancouver wins this series, no matter who's at center back is the quote from Eric Quill at halftime, which is they at worked us. They covered more ground than us. Like if that's the case.
Even with Moussa back in there, Vancouver wins, I think, across three games. If not, who knows? We don't know the San Diego matchup yet. Portland versus RSL. Wild card game. Portland to host it on Wednesday night. Tom, any big thoughts on which way that goes? No, things are not good for Portland. You laying it out, too, with going back to last year, how they finished the season poorly and then got smoked in the wildcard game. And then this year, they...
Their last win was on September 13th. Oh, my God. It's been that long. They made a lot of investment in the summer. to try to avoid this and to get stronger because of where they felt the team was and how open the West was. Well, the West feels less open now and obviously Portland have backslid, so it wouldn't matter. So it's a very, very disappointing end to the season. And again, it can get a little worse.
Yeah, that stretch is a loss at Houston and Vancouver, a tie to Dallas, a loss at Seattle, and then that loss to San Diego. So all playoff teams for the most part outside of Houston. And they have not been able to get the results for RSL felt like a positive way to close out the season there. RSL has been in a little bit of better form. It's why we felt some confidence in them. They.
had two wins and a tie in their last four and a 1-0 loss at Seattle to close things out after that weird stretch in the back-to-back games against LAFC where Buanga and Son were like, we're putting up numbers in this one. So that's our big wild card game to come up. this week. Let's go to the Eastern Conference.
¶ Reliving Eastern Conference D-Day Race
All three teams around the wild card spot in the Eastern Conference came out the gates and just spit all over themselves. It was newborn baby. I'm throwing up everywhere energy from Columbus, Orlando, and Chicago. Columbus woke up at... some point and we're like oh we're playing a non-playoff team we should probably get our wits about us orlando did not and chicago sort of did let's start with orlando orlando came in seventh in the east
Maybe they can jump up. Maybe they could outside chance of sneaking into a home playoff game or a home field seed. Probably not, but how high could they get? away from having to play some of the big dogs in the first round on the road against the TFC team that was eliminated.
Opening goal from Jonathan Osorio that Osorio like apologized for going in because there's like no power on the shot. And Gaese just lays down and lets it go into the corner. And then it was off and running for Toronto FC. And Orlando gets stomped in this game. It's a tough performance from Gaese. Obviously, the defense is a huge question mark for Orlando because they don't have their best defender in Jansen available. They end up losing 4-2 because they get two late goals, a 92nd minute goal.
goal from duncan mcguire and you know mckelly did like a full appeal to poppy pareja last week and was like it should be better like this team has more capable of them And that was not on display in this game. Chicago go down early. They come out with a weird formation change. Then they are able to tie it. Then they go down again late. Then they tie it somehow once again and are able to lock themselves into the home side of the wild card and Columbus in Nagamy's final game.
are able to come from behind against Red Bulls. They jump them and are able to get through. So now we've got Columbus in a hell is real derby. outside of the wild card spot after coming in at night and Orlando dropping from seventh to ninth on the final game on the road against TFC, which I think was the most shocking result in my mind from the night.
Yeah, Toronto had scored multiple goals one time since July 3rd, and that was a 2-2 draw against Chicago. So to put up four, Galese looked really, really bad. No Robin Jansen, which we knew was going to be a big, big miss, but I don't think that. The fears were going to be like this. So that's a huge concern. The other side of that is Orlando finished on 53 points. That's 12 more than ninth place in the West. That's actually more than they had last season when they finished fourth.
Yeah. The East is a buzzsaw. Every point matters. And for them to backslide to ninth with a plus 12 goal difference on the season, now they go on the road to Chicago. Man, I really didn't see that coming. That was definitely the most surprising result of the night for me.
Yeah, the big one that stands out is three games ago, the 1-1 draw at home against Columbus. And, I mean, you could throw the Vancouver one in there, right? They had the lead at home against Vancouver last week, but the Whitecaps are a good team. It's just one of those where, again...
You look at Orlando. They haven't won since September. They haven't won in their last five. Like these are just bad forms to go into a playoff series with. And it feels like for Orlando, they're running out of steam at the worst part of the season where.
I think the hope was that Preah, with his experience, is like, how can I have us peak at the right time of the season? And now they will go on the road against Chicago. I love that the Cincinnati fans were streaming the fire game at TQL Stadium, hoping that they got a result so that...
Columbus would fall back into a playoff game because these two fan bases do not like each other, which is why it's going to be so fun that we're going to have this playoff series coming up over the next two weeks. And it might be the final one for Darlington Nagby, which adds a little bit of juice to all of.
this i want to get into the playoff previews two of the other games that we have to mention though in this charlotte blitzed philly out the gate philly had nothing to play for i'd say it was a 80 starting lineup from them
¶ Zaha Red Card Suspension
A lot of the major pieces in there and a really poor performance defensively from Kai Wagner, which opened things up for Charlotte. And so Charlotte's cruising. They're going to get the four seed. It's simple. Tom, nothing to talk about. Let's move on to the next game, except Wilfred Zaha. Loving the drama a little bit. Swing off the ball at Jesus Bueno. He gets sent off. I believe it's a second yellow card. So it'll be a one-game suspension for the opening game against NYCFC in the next round.
unless it's elevated by a disciplinary committee because of violence or whatever, which I don't know that it's necessary, but I do think the door is open that it's a possibility. I agree. Extremely disappointed. and Wilfred Zaha in that moment to now be suspended for round one. Like imagine if this was a knockout, like a single elimination game, like if this was ahead of the next round, like if he picked up, it's just inexplicable and really, really disappointing from a guy who.
has been talking all season that he's a leader of this team and he's direct and he doesn't mind having a go at his teammates and stuff like this. Well, I hope all of his teammates were having a go at him in the locker room after the game because that's unacceptable, man. And again, there's room because there are a few games.
no pep bl it's even more important and again that doesn't matter in terms of zaha should always be feeling the most important like if pep bl was available this wouldn't make this any you know better but particularly with that given context it's just
Can't happen. And again, from a leader of this team, from the star player of this team, it's extremely disappointing. If they wanted to have a go at him, they'd be on a long list because I don't know if you've heard. He's the most fouled player in Major League Soccer. I don't know if anyone has mentioned this to you.
And it was only said about 37 times after this happened yesterday. Dean Dino said it on the postgame press conference. Yeah. Okay. It sucks. I understand the concept there is like, is he being protected enough?
I mean, he was not injured in this play. I understand the concept there, but, like, that's not really defending yourself. And if that's the case, then Dean Smith needs to be getting thrown out of games, yelling at referees, saying it in post-game press conferences. Like, that's how you... try and push that to try and affect that rather than requiring the like the moment that happens is not okay this was zaha he had to do this
It was, okay, we didn't figure out the right way to handle this and push this even earlier. And then it boiled over in this moment. And now that's going to be a huge reality in their playoff series. The other game, Miami-Nashville.
¶ Messi Dominates Finally In Nashville To Clinch Golden Boot
I think Doyle said it last week that this was the game he was most excited for for the weekend, and I think for fair reason, and it came out hot. Nashville pressing high, trying to create chances. I think they had like 3XG through the opening like 60 minutes of this game.
And then Messi was like, oh, there's openings and gaps. You guys are going to open up and try and come after us. Messi decides to score a bazillion goals to close out the golden boot race. He also closes out the MVP race because he has now one goal. or one gold contribution behind Vela for most all time combined in an MLS season. And this team finishes top three. They're one of the top three scoring teams of all time in MLS history.
And now they have to play each other. So the question is, okay, mentally, can Nashville bounce back against the exact same opponent in a week is like a bizarre psychological experiment that we're about to do. I agree. And let me just run through a couple numbers with Messi because you saying that he was one goal off the league record should do enough, but it's just so silly. So first of all, leads the league in goals 29.
tied for the lead and assist 19. With the second most goal contributions, he gets with 48, just one behind that special Carlos Vela season. He has 10 more goal contributions than who was second this season, which is Anders Schreier. His 48 goal contributions outperformed the goal tally of 13 teams in MLS and tied another. Him alone. You were hyped about this yesterday. This is what you were watching for. And let me say this too.
So we're talking about the MVP race. Anders Dreyer, he ends up finishing his last seven games, six goals, two assists. That's a really strong finish to the season in an MVP race. Six goals, two assists in seven games. Messi's final seven games, 10 goals, eight assists.
18 goal contributions in his final seven games. What do you do? You can do nothing but laugh. I mean, there's moments in this game where he's laying it off for Segovia. He's setting up Allende where it's like he could probably score himself. Yeah. And... Messi did this. He played a ton of minutes this year. He is deserving of all of this. It's not insane. But he finishes, just I want to check this, 300 minutes less than Vela in that season.
So he's one goal contribution behind 300 minutes. It's not an insane gap, but it just shows less than I thought. Yeah, I agree. But it also shows that like if he had played those extra minutes, right, if he wasn't at Argentina, if he wasn't.
playing for both teams in the same week, all that type of stuff. There could have been an opening for a little bit more. So now we've got Orlando at Chicago on Wednesday night in a wild card play-in game. And then we have our playoff matchups. I would like to propose that Orlando plays Portland in the wild card.
And the loser just gets relegated based off what happened last night. But that's not my decision to make. So Philadelphia will play the winner of whoever wins in this wild card game. I think there are real warning signs for Philly.
¶ Philly Warning Signs Heading To Playoffs
I think the Quinn Sullivan injury is massive in terms of creativity, in terms of depth, in terms of game, game breaking play. And I think that's something to watch out for. And as Doyle has. written and talked about and come on the show and talked about. They have done incredibly well to win the Shields because they've put the sword to every team they've played, but they've been better against bad teams.
And there are less bad teams in the playoffs, except for Chicago and Orlando, who they might be playing in the first round. Would you stop? I am so upset with Orlando. I cannot even get over it. I'm pretty upset with Chicago as well, even though they were able to get to the 2-2. It was a lazy performance. It was a disconnected performance. And like, yeah, you're not playing for the playoffs, but you were playing for a bye.
You were playing to get into the next round. You were playing to guarantee a home game. All these things that it felt like they were not locked into. And clearly Brian Gutierrez is not locked into. And that's a problem internally for the team. He doesn't get the start. So this is really frustrating. My guess is I will pick Chicago home and all of the issues Orlando is having that they win this wild card game. But still, Philly are heavy favorites against both of them. For sure. And that doesn't.
say that everything is fine in Philadelphia. No, I agree. Yeah, the Quinn Sullivan one hurts. As we've said, kind of since the injury that like obviously wasn't going to impact their shield race because they had a hand on the shield by the time that happened and then they did close up the job.
I don't want to make it sound like this is just a bonus if they make a playoff run, which is weird because the Shield winner should have expectation. But I don't know if I remember a season where the Shield winner... If you had to top your head power rank... at both conferences, like, your MLS Cup favorites. Yeah. Would they be top three? Like, I don't know. I don't know that I have a top three. Like, literally. Those spots were all just open.
We'll literally go down the... If Vancouver had any center backs, they'd be in there. If San Diego had any experience here, they'd be in there. And then you go to the east and... We have a Cincinnati fan who messaged us and was like, everyone gives everyone else leniency, but for some reason we just, quote unquote, can't click. And it's like, I'm looking at Atlanta numbers today, right, with Ronnie Dyla, and Cincinnati is right in line with Atlanta.
Like underlying numbers. That's how bad a large stretch of this season has been for them. They're number two in the Eastern Conference. I'm not going to believe in Columbus to make a playoff run just because of the depth that they don't have and that star talent that they don't have. And now we're going through the list and it's like. Yeah, you could convince me any of these teams win because you could convince me the holes on a lot of these teams are gaping and scary, which...
Leads to a fascinating playoff setup. And yeah, if you ask me who my top three favorites are, I would tell you, I have no idea. It's just all flat. So then I think that's a fair way to answer it. But like kind of my larger point is that it's like a team that I wouldn't be surprised. If like, and again, partly because of how good the East is. And I think that is like, I'm trying to challenge myself and like, that's the wrong way to think about it and look at it because like,
celebrate the Shield winner, but also there should be pressure and expectations on their playoff front, even without Quinn Sullivan. Like, again, that defensive... I was going back and forth on McConaughey or Glessonis for Defender of the Year. And Andre Blake is going to be on ballots today. Like... Kai Wagner is probably going to be in the best 11. If not, he'll be getting a lot of votes for it.
both and yoke yovich are going to be in conversations across how many best 11s do you do how deep do you go three yeah across all three teams um so yeah like You're going down the list. They got like top five players. What's that? Six, seven positions on the field. So there should be a lot of expectations. So I don't know if that's just a bad perception by me or if it's like...
We're going to look back in three weeks or nine months whenever this round ends and be like, oh yeah, there was question marks. Yeah, and there are about every single team, but it's going to be fun to watch these series. Miami, Nashville.
¶ Eastern Conference Playoff Preview
You get the rematch from D-Day. And then I just went through it. It's like they came in expansion at the same time. Their first ever playoff game was against each other. In 2023, they played in Open Cup. And then they play in the League's Cup final. Then in 24, they played in CCC round of 16.
So they have been connected very often, even though they have nothing to do with each other. And they're connected once again in this one. And Doyle put out his tears. He had Nashville in the top tier of teams that could win. And understandably, they've won a cup already. They've had a huge improvement in style. They know who they are. They can adapt to other teams. And we've got two of the biggest game breakers in the league.
But to get annihilated at home by the team you're about to play in the playoffs is fairly unprecedented, and I don't really know how to handle it. Yeah, it's not ideal. I still think that they're... alive in this series like it's not a foregone conclusion i would probably have to say i think pretty easily particularly after that result that miami would be the favorite to get through but i don't know it depends on if they can limit the gaps
for Messi to take advantage of. And again, even if there are no gaps, he'll find them. So there's only so much you can do. And then you have to punish Miami the other way and take advantage of their weaknesses. It sounds silly to say after they just conceded five, but again, I think this team can do it. Again, they have the two game breakers themselves so that you're not going to match Miami for firepower, but...
If it starts to get high scoring, they're not dead. It is an unfortunate draw. I forgot about the CONCAP Champions Cup. Tied between these two teams. Coming to the league at the same time. And then have found each other in these competitions so often. Nashville losing in that league's cup final. For Miami's first trophy. The messy summer. It's unfortunate. And let's see if Nashville can get over.
the bogeyman to your point about firepower Nashville had 2.98 expected XG in the game against Miami last night but Miami had 3.75 so we're in for goals which is great for us as neutrals but Nashville are capable of putting up a decent number against this Miami team. And the big question will be, can they steal one on the road in all of this? Because reminder,
These are three-game series. If you win two, you go through. Ties go straight to penalty kicks. So that's how you get the results in those games as well. The big one, Cincinnati versus Columbus. Hell is real. Since Nance took over. Columbus three, two, and two. So it's been fairly even, but the big one was 2023.
Conference finals, single game elimination. Columbus came from behind, down 2-1, late on to win 3-2 to go to MLS Cup where they went and won it. And these are two teams where this season's been underwhelming. And I think for... some reasons on results for Columbus and for Cincinnati underlying, you win a hell is real Darby in a playoffs. That's like the season for you. Like this is a godsend to me for Columbus.
Because you can't win a more meaningful playoff series. And I don't think Columbus has the depth without Wessam Abu Ali to go to an MLS Cup this year. But if you can rescue the fact that you're not a wildcard team, you've moved up in the standings on the last day.
and knock off Cincy, that's like the ball game for you to feel good going into the year. And I think for Cincy, it clearly is not matching what they want it to be this year. I think the building blocks are there to feel good about Evander and Denke going forward. But like... If you slap down your rival, that's a really good way to start a playoff. Yeah, I...
for them to be playing in round one. And again, like I've been very critical of the best of three scenario. I don't mind the best of three here for these two teams. I think that's going to be, I think all three of these games, if it gets to a third, it's going to be a lot of fun. And to your point, like Columbus, aren't going to go into the series.
against Cincy and being like afraid right like yeah they're like I think they know that they can beat them and for all the points that you said the underlines for Cincy and the rivalry side of this and the history of it in 23 on the road to Columbus winning MS Cup. I don't know, man. I think this is going to be fun. I really don't have a lean on this one. Probably Cincy. But...
Like, I'm just really looking forward to watch. I think this is the one I'm looking most forward to across both conferences. One fascinating thing to note, Abino Nobuoto made his return in the final game of the regular season, which... He's a game changer for them. How much you can expect from him right now? I don't know. So that is something to monitor and something to watch out for in all of this. In one side of things.
you could tell me okay this is a cincy team that's a little gappy in their back line there's space for columbus to create chances and score goals on the other side columbus is an atrocious box defending team and evander and denke and brenner are
Killers. And so I don't think Cincinnati needs a lot, which is why I think this one is perfectly split down the middle. And you could call it either way. I will take right now Cincinnati because they're the home team. And I think Evander's quality overall in a... against a team like Columbus that leaves openings will come out on top, but I could see it go both ways. I thought it was really cool that Columbus fans had the goat.
signs in the sixth minute for Naby, gave him the applause, subbed him off, which they were able to celebrate, which was also really cool because they were able to get the win and be in a safe spot. I think we're all very happy to watch Darlington Nagby play as many more soccer games as possible going forward. And then the last playoff series in the East that's set is Charlotte against NYCFC. They each won 2-0.
in the second half of the season against each other. So split this season series. Zaha, of course, is suspended for the one game. So that's a huge factor to note in all of this. NYCFC, not a ton to play for, losing 2-1 at home against Seattle in Citi Field. where they're going to play these games. I don't know. We don't have the playoff schedule yet. We won't learn that, I guess, until the wild card round is done. That part I'm unaware of as well.
Actual playoffs start on Friday. So the games will start on Friday. But because they're all three games, I think everyone plays between Friday and Sunday. And then it starts to space out going forward. And you get like at least two games a night, depending on how long some of the series go. For this Charlotte NYCFC one, they're both teams that have had crazy hot streaks this season and crazy cold streaks. How do you feel about them and how big is the Zaha's suspension?
It's massive. It's really massive. And particularly if NYCFC jump out and get that first game, it's going to be a lot of what ifs. And without him, I'm worried about chance creation. I'm worried about attacking prowess. any semblance of consistently being dangerous. So it's massive to be without Zaha in this. I trust NYCFC at the moment over, over Charlotte, particularly without Zaha and Pepe out, right? Like, so I,
They need to come back to like, it's not over, obviously, but my mind is already going to like game two. Yeah. Which is just a bad spot to be in. Yeah, I will say I think one of the things I learned from the Atlanta upset last year against Miami is like riding a hot goalkeeper is big and Kalina is good enough to be that guy. And so if it's the right game at the right time, a.k.a. game one, can you make it? Less opportunities, less chances. Can you close it down?
Can you get Vargas and Toklamati in transition moments? It will be less threatening without Zaha. But can you make it a game state that you want in all of this? A slower, stodgier game with some gaps for you to counter into. Then you have a chance.
And then on the top side for NYCFC, there's not a lot of proven pieces in this in a playoff series or a knockout series. They haven't made Open Cup runs. They haven't been in CCC. They haven't made Leagues Cup runs. So it's just a huge learning curve for a coach and a team in this one. And I think we're going to learn a lot about this NYCFC group and where they stand. All right. That's our quick rundown.
Going into the postseason, I'm ecstatic about this. We'll be back on Thursday. We will hit every single series, every single game. We will know the final stuff coming out of the wild card. We'll be talking wild card as well. We've got best 11s to talk through. We've got some postseason awards for us to put our official names next to and all of that. And we already have news coming around. We've got Roman Berkey, who has re-signed as a designated player. Is that correct?
I still am not 100% clear on if he can or can't be brought down, but DP is what I was told. Okay, which is pretty big coming out of a game where he conceded two goals. Also, not a lot of goalkeeping DPs, and there's not a full-time head coach for that team. Interesting to see what they think that means. We will be following the coach openings in Atlanta, a couple other ones, plus.
LAFC, which I keep forgetting, and I decided to start the Ang Pasta Gogglew rumors to LAFC the moment he got fired, which is 19 minutes after the game ended for Nottingham Forest, which is... Shorter than Ronnie Dyla lasted after his final game. So he's got that going for him or not in either direction. And of course, we'll just continue to talk about all the soccer as it's going on. A lot of great series, a lot of fun stuff.
to be excited for, and we are excited to be here for all of it. So thank you to all of you who were here in the chat with us live on a Sunday morning. Thank you to all of you for listening. It's the playoffs coming up. If you know people who care about these games, send them our way. Send them our show. Rate, review us, comment so that people see us.
And we'd love to talk about MLS and playoffs and soccer and everything else with as many people as humanly possible. So thank you once again. We'll talk to you all again very, very soon.