I'm live today, Tim Dolly Infinity forty five, ninety four South State Street. Come on by and say what's up. Home of the Forever Warranty. Would love to meet you today. We've got a lot to do on this busy Friday. RSL will not play a match this weekend, but they will start their playoff hopefully journey coming up on Tuesday
of next week in America, first field against Minnesota. Our next guest joins us from time to time, one of the key decision makers over there, Kurt Schmidt on a Friday afternoon, Kurt, Happy Friday, Sir, how are you?
I'm good. I'm good. How are you?
I'm good. I have been training and I'm about six feet.
If you need a center back, I think I could probably give you about fifteen or twenty.
And then I might need a sub.
Okay, we can, Yeah, we can accommodate that.
All right, all right, So what are you gonna do? Man?
Let's start on the back line. My understanding is Philip Quinton it's a hamstring. We thought it might be a concussion, but thankfully it's not. Obviously, Brian Vera and we talked about it. Silliness. You can't do it. Cello hearing isn't fit, So I'm just gonna ask you. Obviously, Jay Glatd has one spot, what are some of the options Pablo has for that other center back slot.
Yeah, I mean you went through obviously Vera, you know, vera suspension, Philip picking up that injury late. You know, another one you missed was Body Hidalgo, who has also got an injury issue that he's dealing with right now. So you know, look, one of the reasons why we brought you know, Javane Brown in was that he could play that position, and he and he pinched in there pretty pretty well for us in the end of that game, and I think that's certainly a spot that he can play.
You know, you mentioned Marcelo. Marcello's healthy, you know, he hasn't played in a while, so certainly mass pickness is an issue there as well. And you know, you've got Eric Holt who's got a good number of minutes under his belt with Monachs at the end of the season there, so he's got some mass sharkness also. So there's still a good amount of guys that are competing for that spot.
Okay, all right, what did tell me from your vantage point, and I was at the vane.
Always great to see you.
After Philip went down, What do you make of the way Pablo handled You're gonna have to correct me or I think he moved to Meccha to right back, moved Brown over next to Jay Glad, and then put in Nelson maybe at central defensive n I think those were the switches, Kurt, I believe, So.
Tell me what you made of the way Pablo handled that.
Yeah, Nelson came in the middle, and Mecha went to right back, where he played a lot of minutes last year, and then Javane came over to the left, you know. And I think it was something that the staff had discussed even prior to the game, just to be prepared for these types of situations, and that was that was helpful in taking I think a lot of the emotion out of the decision that they needed.
To make in the moment.
You know, they had a plan, which was great, and I think it was just about getting who we felt were the best eleven or the most inform eleven guys on the field the same time. So you know, Mecca's obviously played right back in the past, not a lot this year, but the ceiling with Nelson played really well. So if we can get Nelson in the game and then you know, push a Mecca into another position he's comfortable with that, that would be a better group of players in the field.
Tell me from the vantage point of the front office and you know, the guy in your seed that makes a lot of these decisions, frame the context of what it means, if it means anything. I think it does of setting a single team, single season record for points with fifty nine this year.
Kurt, I think it's something that the whole group should be really proud of, you know. And it's it's a little bit typicalt right now to take.
That pause and you know and look back.
Because we still have the playoffs in front of us and we want to we want to put together a good run there and and try to win the trophy that we value the most. But you know, when you look back at the season, yeah, fifty nine points is is a big milestone for the club, and it's you know, it's a new it's a new target for us to try and surpass again in the future.
Okay.
Also, I'll be interested in your thoughts here because you know, we have Jason on the show and then trying to catch up with Jason a little bit off Mike two.
I'll let Jason speak for himself. I won't speak for him.
But it's a six game unbeaten run, okay, heading into the postseason, and there's certainly some things to look at as far as a few clean sheets here there after really giving away points. I mean, I know that is you know, it's a tough thing to swallow, but you guys let some points on the table with some silly mistakes, as we talked about. Feels like that's been cleaned up a little bit. So it's six games unbeaten heading into the playoffs, which is great, But how would you articulate the type of.
Form you believe you're in right now over the last six heading into the playoffs.
You know, I'd love to be undefeated and you know, win every game, but that's not going to happen. So I look at it and say, you know, like you said, six game unbeaten, playoffs, Soccer and playoffs and maybe a lot of sports isn't always sometimes the pinnacle of you know, the beat a full game, and you need to find a way to get results and be the last man standing. So I look at some of the games and the results that we've gotten, whether they're you know, the draws or.
The wins, and and even though.
They weren't maybe as planned or as we've got those results earlier in the season, our ability to kind of manufacture goals, to manufacture results and got some of those games out, I think is something that we need. That's the tool we need in our box for for the playoffs. And so I'm happy that we've got that or we've shown that ability, and we've honed a little bit of that as well as some of the other stuff that
we've done earlier in the season. So we've got a lot in our in our favor going forward.
Little soccer analysis coming at you. Chie Cho is a guy that you need to score goals.
There you go. You can take notes if you'd like it and share it with the group.
But ultimately, Kurt, I've heard more than a few people say they feel like he's playing well without finding the back of the net. Do you concur with that assessment, because obviously you're gonna need him to look like he did when you guys ripped off that fifteen game on Beaten Street. To make serious waves in the postseason. So where are you at right now with your number nine.
Yeah, goals are the hardest, most important thing to do.
In our game, right, They're very rare.
That's why, you know, that's why our game can be dramatic, and that's why sometimes you know, an upset can happen in those types of things, and they're also it's also why we invented things like expected goals and those types of things, because goals are sometimes too rare to really quantify everything that's going on. And you know, I think obviously Chico, you know, has shown up profens he scored a lot of goals, and that's why he's he's leaving the line for us in those big games.
But there's going to be.
Games for him or any striker or any player where yeah, you're playing well, but that that final thing, that final action, that goal is not quite falling yet. And so I think as long as he's creating chances, making himself think, and you're sitting around the box, then I mean we know it's going to come. He's too good of a player to go too long without scoring goals. He's doing everything else that we're asking of him. And that's what he's doing right now, and he is the last few performances have.
Been have been really good.
From him, and he's led the line, he's led the press, he's worked hard, he stretched the defense, and those are things we want from him apart from him scoring goals, and so we know that if he's doing everything else we're asking, those goals will come.
How much of the goal is, you know, streak now the current situation where it's just been dry for a bit was losing Ondris. I don't know how many of Chico's goals were assisted by Gomez. I'm sure Trey has it, but certainly those two formed a very dangerous partnership and Gomez was responsible for twenty two goals in twenty three games.
And we've already talked about the transaction. Totally get it, and it's a win for the club by every measurable metric, But it does seem like and look, maybe it just takes time to get used to go and maybe it just takes time to get used to Mark Zuo can.
The new players who are here.
But how much of Chicho suddenly just not scoring goals for a while do you think has to do with maybe Andres not being here or attend to that, just getting used to new teammates.
Yeah, I mean it could be a lot of things. I think that's like the most obvious thing to key in on. But you know, there's any any little detail I think can go into this in effect, you know, whether or not the ball goes in or doesn't, or
whether a shot gets off or doesn't. And I think Andreas was another weapon in his own right and certainly stuck in the field with you know, his own sort of I guess gravity you could call it, where defenders and teams had to pay attention to him, which maybe he gave teach.
You a little more freedom to move. And when we bring in new guys.
And they don't instantly have that because they haven't quite shown that yet, but as they settle in, as Diego continues to get minsuner belt and don you know, continues to get Minisunder's belt, Diego you know, rounding into form and obviously Kirk being dangerous as well like that, those guys will will create that as well in Andreas's absence, and I think they'll pick up the slack and you know, everyone the term gel always comes to mind, and teams need to gel and obviously when we add two new
players into the attack, it's not going to maybe be instantaneous. But I think it's coming along and we've seen some real promising signs the last handful of games.
Well, sorry for honing in on the most obvious portion of the situation.
Kurt, My bad. I'll be better and dig a little bit deeper. All right.
So your favorite day yesterday where the MLSPA releases salary figures. I know you love that, so you know, to put a little context around what you and you got, your group has done in the front office, and of course ownership always deserves their piece of the credit as well. Sixth overall in the shield race this year. I know at one point you're in the conversation b maybe atop the table. But things happen and suspensions, injuries, we know
the deal. But according to the figures I have in front of me, you were twentieth of twenty nine teams and overall spend yet six in the overall shield race and one of the top you know, six or seven favorites to win the whole thing?
Does that?
What is it?
What does that?
Do you know?
When I say that What does that indicate about the job you guys have done when you're not spending as much money as some of these other teams.
Yeah, I think, you know, that's that's obviously the salary list, and certainly there's another monetary spend that comes into it from ownership, and that's the acquisition fees. And you know, if you add those into to those figures, I think we move up maybe a few spots. I don't think we shoot up the entire list. If you look at what every team has spent on transfer fees or loan
fees for their current squad, how's constructed. But it's just been really it's been a real positive I think for to see the level of investment from ownership in salaries, you know, for guys like Chicho and Diogo and obviously you know Glad and Kruks who are up there as well, and then the transfer fees as well. So you know, Dominic Marzuk obviously cost us the money to bring in, so did the Ogo, you know, so de Andreas and we brought him in. Nelson O hate of these guys.
So the level of investment required to bring in those quality players is a huge, is a huge positive, and you know, as long as we can continue to make good decisions to find some young players that we can develop and hopefully produce those transfer fees on the back end, we want to keep that going obviously going forward.
So put it into context a little bit for those not familiar, and I certainly was not familiar with concor CALF until we qualified back in twenty ten, I think, and had a really entertaining home and home with I want to say it was Monterey.
I'm getting old. That was a long time ago. It could be wrong. Umberto Suazo scored.
The series clinching goal and then there was a great Conca CAF run and so I've become a little bit more familiar with it. It's a really exciting tournament as a result of locking in a top three seed.
I believe it will be in February, or maybe we.
Find out the schedule before where it's the CALF Champions Cup.
What does that mean for the club?
Unpack kind of the dynamics of that qualification and what it will do for you guys.
Yeah, it's a whole new competition obviously where we get to compete against the best teams in the region. Right, So obviously North America, US and Canada, obviously Mexico, and then the Central America countries Underaus, Costa Rica, places like that, where we can compete against some of the top clubs from those from those countries, and it's just a real good it's a real good way to obviously expand our horizons, but also to grow our club and our brand and
become a big club. And if you want to be a big club, you've got to got to win things, and you've got to be in competitions like this to show yourself and prove yourself against that type of competition.
So yeah, round one, it looks like eleven home and away series will be played in February. When when do you have any idea when you guys will find out the matchup and kind of where you're slotted the draws I.
Believe to tenth and then they that's when we'll know the opponent, and then obviously the schedule as well, the earliest games or the beginning of February, the later games in the first round or the end of February. So I think we'll at least have won probably one game under our belt before the actual MLF season gets underway, and it'll have some impact on like our preseason start date and stuff like that. If we start a couple of weeks earlier than the season, we might start preseason
a couple weeks earlier. But yeah, we hope to see some of that stuff coming out soon.
So the year end awards were announced.
I don't know how much this moves the needle for a guy like you, but I am curious to get your opinion on the award that is named after your father. The Ziggy Schmidt MLS Coach of the Year finalists Chris Armis. I guess this was decided a few weeks ago because they've been not great as of late. The Tatto Martino thing has given me some Phil Jackson vibes when you coached Michael Jordan, and then Shaq and Kobe, but hey.
It's inter Miami, so I get it.
And then the coach from the Columbus crew, Wilfred Nancy.
Those are your three. Am I being a homer.
When I say that maybe Pablo should be on the list to the award that I was named after your pops?
No, No, I don't think you're being a homer at all.
I think it's you know, it's one of these awards, like like the MVP Award, where you can have a pretty spirited debate about about the criteria and what it means to be the coach of the year, you know, and like you said, you know, Todd to Martinez come in and you know, it's not surprising that Miami's finished where they finished, given the quality of players they have, and and you say, well, you know, what what did he do and how much did he do and how
hard was that compared with you know, someone like Armis or Wilfred or Pablo like you mentioned, And often, you know, there's a lot of times where they look at a team that kind of did.
A you know, a worse worse the.
First or you know, a bottom two near near the top kind of performance and sort of defies expectations. So it really just depends on kind of how you first to find that award. And you know, it's I think it's someone that is a is a a top coach, someone that's proven it that they can do it in a couple of different situations and the job that they've done over this season is impressive, and so an impressive job could be taking a team that wasn't in the
playoffs last year and getting them in the playoffs. But equally impressive is keeping, you know, managing a talented group of players throughout the year and rotations and still achieving results at a high level like both Columbus and Miami. House.
Well, let's hone in on the award where we have a little bit of local representation, and I think and we had him on the show and he's a delightful kid to interview. Diego Luna right now might be in my opinion, Kurt, I know you don't want to sing anybody out, but he might be in the best form of anyone right now. And of course scoring goals always helps. The strike he had where he actually didn't score against Vancouver after like three stepovers was almost as impressive as
the goal, which was incredible. Well for the second straight week, but we have Diego up for the Young Player of the Year. It looks like Diego Gomez from Miami who's now on his way to Bourne Mouth for a fifteen I think it's fifteen mil if I'm reading that correctly.
So a nice little.
Chunk of change for an organization that doesn't need it. But okay, okay, thank you, Thank you. So give me your thoughts on where we are with Diego right now, his form and you think he's got a shot at winning this thing.
Yeah, I look, I thought Diego Luna should have should have won quote unquote or been ranked first in the twenty two hundred twenty two list which the league puts out as well.
And you know, the Young Player of the Year.
I think is slightly different criteria because I think I'm various Gomez had he still been here, would have been up for Young Player of the Year, but not not twenty two hundred and twenty two. But I think, you know, I think Diego should have should have been number one in that given the amount of minutes he's put in this year in his production. And I you know, I
feel the same way about this award. I think you're hard pressed to find a young player that contributed as much to his team's success and and you know, contribute as much to a successful team success as as Diego has.
This year they give away MLS Assistant Referee.
Of the Year awards. What what do we do? Okay, Who's gonna win that?
Is it?
Kyle Atkins, Logan Brown or Jeremy Hanson.
Oh man, I you know, I let the coaching staff, you know, vote on that one, right, they get to pick the guy they dislike the least.
I guess I don't know that's fair.
I couldn't pick them. I couldn't pick one of those guys out of a lineup.
So yeah, well that's that's a waste of time.
Stop stop making these people feel better about themselves when they do such a horrific job. Rant over all, Right, Kurt, I want to move over here because I think you're gonna be really this.
I'm really interested in.
Asking this because Pablo last week prior to the Vancouver game, hopped on the show and I basically said, look, as a result of the scheduling, uh, you know, chaos and some clusters here there three you know, three games in one week, over and over because of League's Cup and then players coming in going international duty, suspension, injuries, what have you.
He's had to get creative with his lineups. And so last.
Week, you know, assuming as close to full health as possible. You referenced body earlier, and obviously Vera not available. He'll be back for the second leg against Minnesota. I asked Pablo, we're going to see basically a first choice eleven, and he said, yes, that's.
What we're gonna see.
So as we walk through this, Zach appears to have you know, re emerged and won his job, so to the Vet going into the postseason, and then left to right Catronis, Quinton, Glad Brown, Quintin's hurt, central, mid Annellia, and of course so Haita, then Diego left, Crooks central and Diego right, which I found interesting. Diego actually said on the show, like, wherever I play, I'm going to essentially find myself centralized because those are my tendencies. Then
obviously Chicho as the nine, so it's different. Now I'm assuming we'll see a Mecca at right back and then Brown in the middle with Glad. I don't know, but do you feel like that's as close to a first choice eleven as you And I know this is Bablo's call, but I'm just interested in your opinion on what Pablo said was going to be as close to a first choice eleven as we were going to see.
Yeah, I mean, I'll give you the cliche, like, you know, the whatever whatever lineup we put out there is the first choice eleven on that day so from that standpoint, you are correct, you know, yeah, it's pretty early to see what we're gonna look, what we're going to have going into Tuesday. I know, you know, we've got some ideas and what I could look like and certainly how we we shaped up after the you know, so Quentin had to come out is you know, makes a lot
of sense. I think, you know, Diego is a player that, yeah, no matter what position he plays in in that attacking setup, you know, does a does an excellent job of getting on the ball, getting himself involved, finding his touches and creating problems. So you know, from that standpoint, whether he's on the right or the left or central, which we've seen at times this year, like he's going to impose
himself on the game. So that's great, And then you know it's it's competition, right, and that's what we want out of this out of these guys, because the guy you did mentioned is Dominant, who I think has put in some good performances lately as well, and and he came off the bench and contributed, and I think he's gonna have something to say about getting into that that team also, So I you know, I think the more.
Oftens Pablo has at his disposal.
You know, the better, the better team will be able to put on the field at the end of the day.
So if I ask you, if Dominic starts out right and Diego goes back left, you're just gonna tell me.
We'll see. It's up to Pablo, is it is?
Well, it is up the pump.
I know, I know, but you're a smart guy, Kurt. I'm trying to learn about this stuff.
No, you know, you got to you got to see. It depends on matchups, it depends on tactics. You know, Minnesota has been been one of the teams has come a US with, you know, defended a state essentially with like a mid or lower block kind of five man back line, which has been a little more I don't know that they go a little more man demand against us in terms of how we attack. So you know, for sure we have to find some different solutions and
in terms of how to break them down. And that could be obviously tactics in terms of how we attack, but that could also be personnel in terms of who we starting who and when we make those subs. So that's fatastically out in front of us.
Okay, you kind of just answer the question because you're good at this. But I'll follow up with just a little bit more of an expanded thought before and I'll set you loose after this. Uh, Minnesota two matches this year, both draws one to one in Minnesota nil.
Nil here in Utah.
It did look like that they were afraid of you, to be honest, they didn't not come out and engage in either match. I was listening to Donnie kind of break this down earlier on the pod. He thinks they're probably gonna park the bus and try to get a lucky counter goal no matter what.
I don't. I don't know much about him. I just know what I've seen.
So what are the dynamics that come into play for getting off to a good start Tuesday at home and hopefully finishing them in Minnesota.
Yeah, I mean, look there there, we can't underestimate them. They're a good team, They're in good form. They you know, they pushed themselves from from outside the playoffs with the late season serves to to you know, firmly and in then even skipping the playing games, so they're certainly in good form. They know how they want to play. But as you said, we drew both games with them. I thought on the road we were a bit unlucky to draw. To be honest with you, it was a it was a difficult.
Game, and they tied it up late ish.
So it's something that you know, I think we can we feel confident going into their place in game two and getting.
Result and then yeah, at home, I thought.
They frustrated us. And I think that was a game that the staff has been able to analyze and and you know, come up with a few different ideas about how to break them down and create some chances when they're if they're going to sit back and do something similar.
Kurt, thanks for the time, but have a good weekend and I'll be out there, so I'll come say on.
Tuesday, all right, awesome, see you soon, all right, Kurch Schmidt, technical director for RSL.
The lads are at action on Tuesday in a little playoff action against Minnesota seven o'clock Mountain Time on Apple TV.
You can go to RSL dot com for single game tickets.
All Right, We're out here at Infinity, tim Dally Infinity. It's forty five ninety four South State Street. And I was unaware I was gonna see an old friend today. My guy, who Kim, How are you man?
I'm good. It's like a mini reunion. It's been a long time.
I was telling Jackie, our salesman, I think I've known you like twenty five years.
We got way back.
Yeah, I remember the RSL days asking you guys for tickets.
Awesome. How's life man? You're good, it's good.
Yeah.
So you're you're the GM out here GM out here.
Yeah all right, and you know we're trying to get promote these new QX eighties. But our biggest mantra here, unlike any other dealership, we want to make sure we have a culture. When a customer comes in, we're just gonna rub their backs. Oh that's easy. We'll take care of that. That's easy. We'll take care of that. And that's our biggest goal here. If you come to Tim Dally Infinity, we're gonna make it feel like it's an
easy purchase, assle free and uh. With the mindset of rubbing their backs, making sure it's an easy process.
I like it.
And then that doesn't surprise me because you've always been that type of guy.
You know, how to take care of people.
I wish I knew you were running a show out you I just got a new car, man, I would have called you because these are great cars, man, they are.
Yeah, they're like the latest and greatest car there. See the people that are trading their cars in for these QX eighties, they're trading in a navigators, are trading in suburbans, or trading in Lexis, gxs, Lexus lx's, they're trading in BMW's like everything. Like all these Conquest cars we never thought we were going to get, but people are trading those in to get these cars. And little did I know that QX eighties are a really popular car here in the.
State of Utah.
But with these new models that came out, they're actually even putting us on a bigger map and bigger platform because of the new revamped style.
That's awesome.
Yeah, they're good looking cars. So tell me about the forever warranty. What does that mean?
KUD?
Basically, your power trains covered for life as long as you have its service and it's you buy it with under sixty five thousand miles, right, it's going to be covered for you. The power trains covered for life for life.
That's pretty rare, is it. I'm not in the business, but I don't hear that very often.
It's pretty rare.
And the truth is, it's one of those things where it's not a money maker. We actually lose money on it, but it's I'm sure we make money on the fact that we're bringing people in. It's not one of those things where it's like, oh, are they really giving us a fair warranty? It's a real deal.
Yeah, And then I don't know that I zero zero point nine APR. Yeah, are we really talking zero point nine APR? Yeah, I don't want to tell you what I got on my vehicle.
Okay, so that sounds pretty cool to me.
Well, the funny thing is, like people will other dealers will will promote zero point nine, but it'll go to like thirty six months, maybe forty two months or something like that. On some of our vehicles, it'll go all the way up to seventy two months.
Nice. So nice, a real deal.
Well, good to see you, man, we'll chat again, all right. Yeah, it's my guy who Kim Man. I didn't even know he's out here, and I've known him like twenty five years.