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This show is sponsored by Liquid IV. Liquid IV would like to know about the ways that you show yourself some love. Maybe it's with an extra strong cup of coffee to start your day. Maybe it's taking a few extra seconds to stare into the void after you've buckled both your kids into their car seats. Maybe it's eating a whole sleeve of marshmallow peeps that you were saving for Easter.
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Treat yourself to extraordinary hydration from Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to liquidiv.com and use code TSS at checkout. That's 20% off your first order. code TSS at liquidiv.com And welcome to the Total Soccer Show. My name is Taylor Rockwell. I'm breaking up the introduction and doing it differently because we've got some MLS to discuss and we're doing it on a Monday, which is a different...
Sort of vibe for us here at the Total Soccer Show. We had wins without shots over the weekend. Vancouver never being defeated ever again. Aggressal debut. And of course, just so we have some consistency. the galaxy still being bad. Joe Lowry, which of those moments I alluded to in the intro was your favorite of the week? Oh, the Galaxy game is the peak of maybe this whole season. The fact that the LA Galaxy lost a game without conceding a single shot is...
is the most LA Galaxy thing that could have happened to them. Truly. Like, I thought this team was already at their low. We talked about that game against SKC. basically being a must-win game or no team that's played 11 games in the new playoff format has made the playoffs with fewer than six points. The Galaxy needed a win to get to six points after 11 games.
And not only did they not get the win, but they lost in quite possibly the funniest way possible. This also made me remember, I know you'll remember this, Jeff, you will too. The David Ochoa heroic performance for RSL against the Seattle Sounders back in the playoffs in 2021.
That game, RSL did not take a single shot in 120 minutes of action, but I do believe there's a technicality here in which they did not actually win that game in regulation. They won an advanced off of a penalty shootout. The Galaxy have blazed their own trail yet again.
For folks who haven't seen that game, Joe, how bad was the own goal? How unnecessary was it on a scale of one to two? Like a four. It was more unfortunate than funny in the moment, right? It cascades off of Maya Yoshida and just ends up in the back of the net. It wasn't a full-on, I'm gonna boot the ball out, intending to clear it out for a corner, and then it ends up in the side netting sort of an own goal.
But still, I mean, I'm at the point where I kind of feel for Maya Yoshida, like this guy took less money to come back and play for the Galaxy this season. and it's all been just a total train wreck. And the moment you think the Galaxy are starting to get healthy, they played their lineup with Royce, Peck, and Payneville for the first time all season long because those guys were healthy together for the first time all season.
And then Peck and Payne still go off injured in this game. So, I mean, this season has gone from bad to really bad to worse to I cannot imagine it being worse for the Galaxy. And I think that's probably where it's going to stay. I look forward to them finding a way. Jeff Ruder, thank you for being here. Are we ready to announce DC United as Supporter Shield winner, playoff contender? What do you want to do with it?
I think we're going to say that they're the front runner to win MLS Cup at this point. Cool. That one win doing a lot of heavy lifting. But they did get a win, Jeff. And we saw some semblance of possession and patterns of play. It's a very exciting time. Yeah, and a comeback win. So you can build a narrative and say against adversity, against a U.S. men's national team goalkeeper, they were still able to get it done at home.
I don't know. I mean, it sounded like there was actually, like, enthusiasm at Audi, which is great. Especially, like, during first half stoppage time, as you would watch after that first goal. Like, wait, whoa, we can actually, like, party a little? And then another one in. So, hope.
That's not at all a low bar. Not at all a low bar that there was some level of enthusiasm at halftime when they were up 3-1, but it does feel like there is a bit more positivity around DC United from DC United supporters, so congrats to them. Congrats to Inter-Miami for getting the win this weekend, a resounding win at that over the Red Bulls. But Joe, it's been a strange passage of time, I will say. Not even weekend, but just...
A couple of games for Inter Miami, given that they've gotten some big wins already this season, but then they've had some sizable losses, and now they are out of the CONCACAF Champions Cup as well. We've not yet talked about that, so let's talk about it.
Yeah, that's the big story for Miami. Right now, this competition, the CONCACAF Champions Cup, was one that they pushed all the chips into the middle of the table and very much wanted to win. They wanted to win it last year. They bowed out earlier than they hoped against Monterey.
And they wanted to win it this year, and they were closer than they were last year. They were in the semifinal stage up against the Vancouver Whitecaps and lost across both legs. They lost 5-1 on aggregate, 2-0 on the road at BC Place. This would have been two weeks ago now. and they lost 3-1 at home in Fort Lauderdale this past Wednesday. Yeah, it's no good, very bad season right now for Inter Miami. On the field in the regular season,
They're doing fine. They still look like a very capable team. They're a dangerous team. I don't have any real worries about Miami going out there and ending up in a top three seed in the Eastern Conference. But when it's come to knockout tournaments, ever since the very first League's Cup triumph, French Miami.
It has been failure after failure after failure. And again, the reason why I led with InterMiami pushing all the chips into the middle of the table... is they wanted this like this this was a competition that they truly truly valued and you could see it with the lineups where they would rotate
against FC Dallas, granted they were already in a two-goal hole, but they would rotate in the regular season to go and play their guys in CONCACAF. And Vancouver had sort of done a little bit of the opposite, where Daniel Rios was the number nine for Jesper Sorensen at times and Brian White got to ride the pine a little bit. And Miami did not do that at all. It's failure for Miami. There's no way around it. We can talk about why that is.
but for an into miami team that wants to establish itself as a brand and wants to establish itself as the dominant club in the americas and even beyond that You don't do that by not going out there and winning your continental competition in Miami yet again. I have not done. Do you really feel like that's the objective? Not that I disagree with you, but that ultimately they want to be the dominant club in this hemisphere?
I think so. I mean, you look at Javier Mascherano's comments after the game, and I wrote off of these in kind of a bit of a column at like 1 a.m. over on The Athletic last week, so check that out if you haven't seen it. Love me a 1 a.m. column. Don't ya. Don't ya. Especially right after watching the match story and then you go right back to the well. It was actually kind of fun. I don't know because it's like
It's a sort of big game feel around the CONCACAF Champions Cup that I would say doesn't always seem to resonate every single year. And part of it, frankly, is because a lot of MLS teams don't make it this far when we talk about the semifinal stage alone, right? So I think it's worth saying that there is.
some success here getting past lafc in the previous round in particular was reason for hope for this miami team right but i think that you look and Yeah, they do talk about, you know, Mascherano says after the game, yes, we've won the League's Cup, but we are aware that the preeminent competition in this region is the Champions Cup, and that was our ambition and our aim, and that we want to compete among the very best of not just...
North America, or not just MLS, but all of North America, and therefore then getting into the world. in his words we wanted to establish ourselves among the best but sometimes you have to admit when the opponent played the better hand and Vancouver absolutely did right I mean that they
did well to withstand an early scare with that Jordi Alba goal coming down the left. And, you know, I think even by halftime, you know, and the game is still very much in the balance, right? Because at halftime, it's still 1-0 Miami, but. Vancouver had the better chances, I would say, through the rest of the half. And I think it goes back to some of my concerns when we were talking a few weeks ago about if they had signed Kevin DePriada, right?
They need runners. They need players who can keep up in transition. They need players who can do the Rodrigo DePaul stuff around Messi like Joe was alluding to at the 2022 World Cup. a few weeks back as well right like you need some of those guys who are doing more selfless stuff it's a similar issue with atlanta to a very different scale right now right and i think that you would look at
Anytime the ball changed hands, yes, they have a good field tilt because they keep the ball in the attacking third. They play a high defensive line, but then that defensive line can't backtrack athletically, and they can't keep up with Sabi, Ali Ahmed, Brian White.
sebastian berhalter pulling the strings and it was just over and over and over again and frankly with how every mls team is calibrated these days where it's more attack and it's more youthful than it used to be that's that's a game that any team that they're going to come up against major league soccer can play to some level of effectiveness right so
I am worried about the big game potential right now as constructed because I think that they've made a lot of trade-offs from last year's roster to get older and to get less athletic and more technical, which only works to such an extent in a league like Major League Soccer. Yeah, I think, Jeff, those are really astute points, especially the athleticism point.
For Miami, the thing that stood after me from that second leg was how slow their right side was against Vancouver, where it was Ali Ahmed. who is sort of a center mid-turned left winger, or really a left wing back under Vanny Sartini, turned center mid, turned left. I mean, he's a versatile guy, but I think he's at his best as like a free number eight. But he's been playing on the left wing a lot for Jesper Sorensen this year.
And Ali Ahmed and Seb Berhalter, who was playing us at left-sided number eight for Vancouver on Wednesday. Those two guys just had their way with Marcelo Wegant, the right back for Into Miami, with Max Falcon, the right-sided center back, with Fede Redondo, who was their right-sided center mid in a 4-2-3-1, and Busquets, who would occasionally kind of saunter over to that right side. Those guys for Vancouver? took Inter Miami to task. In both legs, really. You think about the first leg.
And in that game, the first goal that Inter-Miami concede is off of a throw-in for Vancouver. Vancouver throw the ball in, and Allende is kind of just hanging out watching the play. Suarez has pulled out a lawn chair. But it's those guys, it's Redondo who is like, feet planted in ground, not defending in that moment. You expect it from Suarez and from Messi and Busquets and from Alba. You cannot afford to have so little defensive coverage.
from redondo and iende and the other younger players in this team because that's what those guys are here to do they're here to defend and even you know max falcon's a little bit of an older older player saying what do we got those guys have to be workers like they can't be marcel way out can't be a piano carrier like a piano player excuse me nailed it yeah he can't he can't be he can't be that he has to help carry the piano
And in the second leg, to go back to that game, it is the right side for Miami that is getting dusted over and over and over again. It's Falcon, who was very clearly second best in his battle with Brian White.
it is it's way gone who's offering basically nothing on the defensive end redondo i was really high on him when they brought him in from south america he is not he's not at least not right now and that's not even touching the attacking dynamism where miami were trailing in this series basically the entire almost the entire 180 minutes and when your only semi-dynamic attacker is Taddeo Allende,
You're running Messi, Suarez, Allende, Segovia as your kind of four primary attackers. And you're running Jordi Alba and Wagon as your fullback. bombing quote-unquote forward like crawling forward that's still again this is still a good team i want to be clear like this miami team can beat anybody at any time at least in north america
When they don't maximize their on-field potential, though, they leave themselves vulnerable. And between the roster build, where they've had four windows, Four transfer windows to find the right defensive pieces and the right midfield pieces. to help really work off of the Miami guys, the Barca guys. They had the summer where those guys come in in 2023. They had the winter into 24. They had the summer of 24 and the winter into 25. That's four windows.
and they have swung on so many players, so many center backs. It's hard to identify center backs, but they have clearly not hit on that guy. They've not hit on the pieces that they needed to to become
Truly dominant and borderline unbeatable in moments like this. And maybe that was never possible because the Miami guys give you that little defensively. That you needed something more from Messi and friends and you're never going to get that. So maybe I'm thinking Miami should go out there and look for the center back that is mythical and doesn't truly exist.
But, man, it is frustrating to see this team defend, and it is frustrating to see them have just no juice going forward. And that quote from Archerano, Jeff, that you read, I think said it well. Like, Vancouver played the better hands, or they played the better game in this series. They were the better team straight up. It seems to me like...
Many MLS teams have a lot of kind of top-end talent, have the more expensive pieces in the roster. Then they also have the players that are maybe not quite at the level, but it's what you have to do to balance things out. And then it ends up being those role players, those squad players that can be the difference makers. Inter-Miami, at points last year, have had Leo Campagna, Robert Taylor, Euland Gressel, DeAndre Yedlin, all of them now gone.
Is this a stronger team with the roster build they have than at this point last season? Do you all feel like they have improved, or do you feel like they have gotten worse just in terms of squad quality? I think they've gotten worse, Taylor, because I think we're also talking about Diego Gomez in this, right? And so I think that you look at that.
a lot of players who are doing off-ball running. That's a lot of players who are doing defensive work. I completely agree with Joe. They've never really had the back line, especially the center backs, to be able to make the system sing. I think that when you looked at the squad construction, there was more...
balance, we'll say, right? Just in that sort of wants when they're on the field. Again, we talked about with Atlanta a couple weeks ago, the Lorenowitzes, the Parkers, those players who are going to be doing the thankless work to free other players up to do more of their thing, right?
like you just don't really see that and i'm still vividly i i can't remember now if it's the first leg against vancouver it was the second leg against lafc but there was one point where miami was defending like a 10-man corner kick where like the end so it's got to be lafc giving game state right and lafc had pushed everyone forward to try to score
And then suddenly they were able to clear it and they had to run a two-man break with two of their designated players. And you see Suarez and Messi, bless their heart. trying to do a two-man counterattack into open space and it was just like the most humanizing thing to watch where all of a sudden it's like And yes, of course, LAFC just poked the ball off their foot, but really they could have all ran past and set up their entire defensive structure in the time it took.
It's just that the reality is The team is stronger because the players were also younger. The players were slightly more athletic. You look at Suarez, right, coming into this weekend. And again, look like this roster isn't constructed to win MLS games 4-1 in early May, right? So like good result for them to break the snide right away, but they've still got a ton of work to do before the playoffs.
Suarez hadn't scored in his previous nine games, and all of them were starts where he played at least one hour. That is so much time for one of your most important players to not be doing his job, and it's a lot more... difficult to work out from that when you don't have a Leo Campania type who can come in and say like even if he's going to be doing more of the pressing stuff to force mistakes and then
get poachers goals and stuff like that, they're still goals. That's what you need to win a game like this. So the fact that they don't really have that alternative and they actually got weaker at a time when Suarez looks physically weak.
I think that alone is pretty catastrophic. It puts different pressure on Lionel Messi to be able to do the shooting instead of the chance creation. So then chance creation falls to someone else who is doing that right now. I mean, you got rid of Julian Gressel, who was your joint leading chance creator last year. So I just, I...
I don't really see how this could be an improvement as constructed. I don't really understand the vision unless there are some trade-offs like the Galaxy had to make this offseason as well, and I'm sure that there were, obviously, based on some of the players that they jettisoned.
It doesn't look like they were replaced with cheaper alternatives who were willing to do similar jobs. And it seems, you know, not like the whole Moneyball construction of the aggregate, right? Like, it seems like a deconstruction of the aggregate in a way. I've been team Miami did get better. And the argument, Jeff, that I've made for that is they got better defensively. or last year.
The fact that Toto Aviles had to play real minutes for your soccer team was a bad sign. And the fact that Miami went out there and added Lujan and added Max Falcon and added pieces in that part of the field.
That was the need, right? They didn't have a huge glaring attacking need. They had a defensive need and they went out there and they addressed that need. And I do think they are better off at center back this year than they were last year. When you think about David Martinez coming into this team last season as well. I think they're better off in that area. And I'm still not convinced that this team isn't.
kind of where they were in the attack last year. The aggressive point is an interesting one. And maybe that is sort of the deciding factor here. But Fafa Pico comes in. Robert Taylor goes out. I think there's some parallels there between how those guys interpret their roles.
fafa pico notably wasn't in the starting lineup for either one of these ccc games and i don't know that that's an improvement ayende comes in as well into the attack i think you maintain bodies there until asco segovia coming in for gomez obando coming in for campana i think you get worse with segovia and obando than than you do really were with with gomez or campana but i think you do strengthen this team in the areas where they really needed strengthening the thing is you can't afford
to not play the dynamic attackers that you brought in, right? And maybe you can't afford to not play Yonic Bright in more of these kinds of games, and Yonic Bright maybe hasn't been quite at 100% across these two legs, wasn't quite at 100% across these two legs. Miami need more energy on the field I think that is that is something that it seems very very clear to me and they didn't have enough of it in these two legs and they ran up against a Vancouver team that is
Incredible. The Vancouver Whitecaps are playing at an 80-point pace right now in the regular season. 80-point pace. They're not going to get 80 points. Well, every time I see Vancouver won't do something, they do it. They're not going to get 80 points. They're going to get 90 points. There you go. It seems unlikely that Vancouver will hit that tally.
But man, Vancouver are an amazing team. And we've talked about them a lot this year. And so I don't think folks will mistake us for not wanting to give credit to Vancouver. But Miami, they've got to take a look in the mirror because they've got other games coming up in a continental and cross-continental competition that they're going to care about a whole lot, which is the Club World Cup. And if they play like they did across these two lives against Vancouver...
they're going to embarrass themselves. I think it's that simple. Let's do this. I have a couple more questions about Inter-Miami. I have a few more questions about Vancouver and several other teams. So let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll talk about all of them.
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Welcome back to the Total Soccer Show. We continue to talk about Inter-Miami, as is tradition and the rule when it comes to talking Major League Soccer. You have to talk about Inter-Miami at least once every other week. Otherwise, you are in violation of Don Garber's executive order. I think that's how it works. Joe, talking about the strength of the team...
We haven't spent a ton of time talking about the strength of their manager. Last year, Tata Martino. This year, Javier Mascherano. A lot of the fan reaction, supporter reaction, fan podcast reaction has... pointed squarely at Javier Mascherano as not getting this team right, not getting his tactics right, not kind of putting them in a position to win. How are you feeling about their manager at practice?
I don't think he got the team right. Really? In a two-legged loss, you don't think that he figured things out? Controversial. You can get things right and still lose games, no doubt. But I don't think that Marshall Rano... got things right for a lot of the reasons we already talked about in the first segment, right? Like, I'm not going to cover a ton of new ground here.
the dynamism was lacking from this team and there are players that can bring that right fafa pico gets to start against the red bulls over the weekend and does some good things for them over on the left side i think there are there are pieces in this team that needed to get more run across these two games and they did there's also the very real sense in which mascherano is
kind of not doing much in this job where you watch this team play tactically yeah at times this year they've kept uh lujan as a right back and they've had him stay deeper and they've they've built with a three instead of a four He's not doing anything that is particularly...
reinventing any any any tactical stuff over here like it is it's standard stuff from our Toronto they're defending in a 4-4-2 Messi has a semi free roll on that right side and they're trying to work around Leona Messi the reality is the manager of into Miami doesn't do a whole lot of
of coaching like they do they do do some managing and some ego massaging but there's not a whole lot on javier marcherano's to-do list other than rotate the squad as appropriate and figure out how to get the right pieces around the bar And I don't think he'd nailed that last task. Yeah, and I think it just looks, at the end of the day, it ends up looking as though he...
doesn't want to, right? Because I think that you look at ex-teammate of four the four most important players on this squad right and he's gonna want to keep them happy right there were there were reports coming out in preseason that like some players were like that he was noticed like kind of cracking jokes and staying after training talking with his old friends rather than like doing extra drills with the young guys or whatever and
Like, that's maybe okay, but then you need an assistant who's going to be doing the make-weight side of that job, right? And someone who is going to be leading the tactical direction, who's going to be coaching the rest of the squad on the hard yards that need to be executed well.
I do also want to give a little bit of grace because I think that maybe it's less to do with how he's doing the job and the fact that he was appointed right ultimately at the end of the day these always come back on supporting directors and club owners and whatever who decide to make these coaches, right? It's never just a coach who interviewed really well and then suddenly bait and switch and they decided to be bad at their job. I don't think that's ever really happened.
And so like in that sense, then they wanted to make sure that they had someone who would be, um, ready to keep the peace and keep Messi interested, maybe want to stay a little bit longer into 2026 to open the new stadium, someone who could get more out of Suarez and keep Busquets. I think we don't even talk about Busquets, but that's a glaring issue of one of your central midfielders. defensive midfielders. you can't defend anymore physically.
And so they get overrun in that area. But anyway, I don't think that he seems terribly interested in doing some of the other, like, let's bring out the best in it sort of stuff. And so in a way, he was set up with a very difficult job where it's pretty much every single game is pass-fail metric and anything but a win is a failure.
and this is a big one and i would hope that he'll learn from it and approach the playoffs differently we'll say but this is maybe where it would help to have someone with more experience in coaching first division men's clubs which he's never done before and just actually know okay when we get into big games these are the trade-offs we have to make it doesn't always have to be pretty to win we don't always have to
You know, whatever, because I think at the end of the day right now, if they're not converting every direct free kick that they have, if they're not converting a lot, like having a good rate of return on their corner kicks and their indirect free kicks and all these sorts of things. They're really struggling to find goals in games against good opponents like Vancouver, and that doesn't set them up well to navigate the MLS Cup playoff bracket sponsored by whoever it is this year.
While we try to figure out who is the whoever sponsor for that one, my question for you both and my final question about Miami for now. It's still, though, with all of the topics we've covered, with all of the issues that we've discussed, it feels like both of you still think there's a chance, though, that this could be the team that wins MLS Cup that could make a deep run, that has the talent, obviously has Lionel Messi.
Is that accurate, though? Like, it just feels like there are so many deficiencies in this team if they were... I mean, I guess it's either Miami with Lionel Messi. You're always going to have them in there. But at the same time, it just feels like there are some glaring deficiencies in there that they aren't fixed if they don't find better role players or better defensive players. We're looking at another potential first round.
I mean, sure, it's possible, but I think you kind of answered your own question there as you asked it, Taylor. This team has the greatest attacking player, the greatest player that this game has ever seen who is still playing at an incredibly high level on the ball. Miami can do things in the attack that no team can do in this league or on this continent. And so they absolutely have the resume.
to be in the conversations that Jeff and I are talking about them being in. Already this year, they've beaten the Columbus crew. They've beaten Charlotte FC. They've beaten the Philadelphia Union. They've beaten really good teams, and they beat really good teams last year. They set a points record last year and kept all of their key pieces, even if we want to elevate some of the guys. into being sort of near that conversation
Miami are a really good team. They're fourth in the East right now with a game in hand. They're three points back of first place. They are going to win a bunch of games. They're going to be in contention for everything outside the Club World Cup that they're in between now and the end of the season. That includes the Shield. That includes...
MLS Cup. They are that team. That is not to say they don't have flaws. And good teams, very, very good teams, can exploit those flaws, as Vancouver did expertly across two legs. There's not a team in MLS right now that's better than Vancouver. In a weird way, you can't really blame Miami so much for losing this series. You can, and I think we all have a right to do that.
But there's a sense that Vancouver are the team to lose to if they're going to lose any of these games. So Miami, with their ceiling, with the pieces they have in the attack, and with the resume that they've already built this season, yeah, they do absolutely belong.
They're in the conversation for sure, but I think it feels very much like two different eras of the galaxy on either side of their dynasty in the 2010s where beforehand Beckham had still was still in his first few years Donovan was there the last rest of the league couldn't compete in terms of like that draw Tyrion V isn't there right so it's a different era of the designated player for like
three four years right And if you look at every season preview, that was written for like 2008, 2009, 2009. 10. It was like the galaxy of the favorites. Everything goes for the galaxy. No one can match the talent that they have. David Beckham's the best player in the league. Landon Donovan's the best domestic player in the league. You put one and one together, you get two. Done. And they didn't win. Right? Like, ultimately...
They lost in the final on penalties in 2009 against RSL. They didn't make the final in 2010. They ultimately broke through in 2011. But that was when the squad construction was a lot more balanced. And there were other players like Robbie Keane who had come in and really kind of given a jolt to the group. And I think similarly right now, you look and you say you have to consider them a favorite because they do have a talent advantage over at least 20 something rosters.
conservatively at 25 i would say in this league right now the difference is they don't play as a collective as well as vancouver who i think kind of takes over this year as like the Columbus Crews mantle the last two years of a really balanced, well-constructed squad that plays really fun stuff and plays without fear and against a team that is playing so... constipated like inter-miami in big games these days like you're gonna just have a better time if you're not playing with fear
uh like it looks much more like the rest of the league now is better equipped and less intimidated by the threat of playing into miami in a big game now and a lot of that sort of cache of expectation has worn off and now it's more just like yeah we're playing the old team that has a very easy to exploit right defensive half let's just go bomb up the left bring our best midfielder from the right to the left which is what
Jesper Sorensen did with Berhalter. And let's see how it goes. And it usually goes pretty well if you play without fear and you play with decisive attacking movement. Question for you both, but Jeff, I'm coming to you first. If Inter Miami could just... steal one Vancouver player, who are they stealing to make themselves better?
who i mean it's really tempting to say burr halter after the showing that he had against them um but i i think i'd also be very tempted to say tristan blackman because then you would actually have a very mobile very good responsible uh, set piece winning center back. And I think that that would be an upgrade of mega. over what they've enjoyed in the defensive half. So I'm going to say Tristan Blackman.
Yeah, those two names came to mind for me real quick as well, Jeff. I mean, Renko Veselinovich, I would toss into that as well. And I'll just do one more and we can make a nice little quartet out of it. Andres Kubats feels like another one where you pair Kubats next to Busquets.
and you're not getting a lot of incredible, you know, sprayed passes from Kubats, but you don't need to, and you're getting Kubats to do the defensive dirty work that Busquets won't do. Yeah, any one of those guys would help this Miami team. Good answers. Takaoka was the actual correct answer. So then he can get benched for Messi's friend as well. Gotcha. Yeah. You get it. Same thing. Drink calendar syndrome. We've all been.
Let's spend some more time talking about Vancouver, not just for their win over Miami, but for their fairly emphatic win this weekend as well. It was a win over RSL that had Graham on the main show. Like being very emphatic in his feeling that this team is legit, this team is real. I feel like both of you have been on that train for a little bit of time. I'm guessing this result did not dissuade either of you from being on that train at this point.
No, I don't think a home win over RSL this year is going to be the, like, I've seen it. I've seen enough, right? I'm calling it election night sort of stuff. They got RSL at home. Wow. A new junior senator. Exactly. I mean, look, the encouraging part of it here is that they were able to play this game with squad rotation and still win, right? So this is the reason that...
I will give some grace for that response to this performance because there's no Brian White in the lineup. There's no Sebastian Berhalter until he comes off the bench and gets an assist. You just can't stop making goal contributions these days. I love this season so much. Is it great? It's awesome. It is so cool. And that was a fun interview, by the way. Why does this Vancouver team make you all love this season?
All I was interjecting is just the Burr-Alther storyline is so out of left field. Vancouver is so out of left field. The galaxy are just a complete disaster to the point of hilarity. The Revs have won four games in a row after Caleb Porter was very close to getting fired. Atlanta United follows up scooching into the playoffs by the thinnest of margins by setting a transfer record and get worse. It's just stuff like this. It's just like, sure.
Why not? I'm having a great time, guys. I gotta be honest. I'm having a really great time. Sorry, Jeff. It's a blast. No, it's great. But like, yeah, you look and there's just so much rotation in this lineup for midweek and it works out. perfectly fine like they can get away with it they have players who can step up step in and still the job against look again a weakened relatively rsl side compared to last year which finished third in the conference but
I still think that you look and you say, yeah, this is Vancouver's conference to win. This is Vancouver's league to win. I think right now I'm feeling very good about them as an MLS cup front runner. And they've earned it. And they continue to show it. And I think it's a huge testament to a lot of players who are playing some of the best ball of their careers. And, you know, a coach who has that sort of pattern.
One thing that Sebastian Berhalter told me last week when I interviewed him for a different piece was that Jesper Sorensen had made it very clear what expectations are from each player. Kind of reading between the lines, that wasn't always clear under Vanny Sartini. It seemed like there was a little bit of murkiness about specific roles outside of the most important ones.
I don't know what Ryan Gold's reintroduction to this group is going to do. I suppose that is one thing they'll have to figure out, but they have built quite a cushion in the standings where they can drop a couple of results while they recalibrate the midfield and the attack. around their most important midfielder, and it will probably work out. So just a tremendous job right now up there in Vancouver.
It's ridiculous that the Whitecaps are on this 80-point pace without a single attacking DP playing. I thought it was 96-point pace. Yeah, sorry, 105. 105-point pace. Yeah, that is mind-boggling to me. I don't have anything to add in Vancouver in this game. For RSL, real quick, not a lot of positives for them. Willie Agata comes off and plays the second half. I would imagine he's a week away from starting for the first time for them.
They've also signed Johnny Russell, which is fun. He's been doing road trips even though he's not quite ready to play. The real fun thing for RSL in this game, though, was the play of Xavier Gozo on the right wing. 18-year-old U.S. Youth International right winger. he's a player to watch this was the second ever start for rsl and ever since andres gomez andres gomez moved from uh from rsl to liga last summer for eight figures
RSL's form has been down the drain, and they've really, really struggled. He, I think, has proven to be their most important player, although Arango's form hitting the toilet as well didn't help that at all, but I think that's tied to Gomez. Ever since Gomez moved, RSL have needed some sort of dynamism, especially on that right side. Don Marchuk has been injured and hasn't been great, but is also a young player.
gozo did some andres gomez light sort of stuff in this game where he's getting to the end line putting well-weighted crosses in again 18 us youth international just just a name for us fans in particular One more hypothetical for you both. Let's say Don Garber calls you and says, we have to guarantee that an MLS team gets at least one point.
in the Club World Cup this summer. We just need one point. Are you sticking with the two teams that are there, or would you replace one of them? And if so, would it be with Vancouver? And which team would you replace? Wow. That's fair. I love this. I do think the Seattle Sounders have a decent chance of getting a result against Botafogo.
um who have undergone their own sort of like turnover and they're playing at home uh it's the first group game so they won't have gotten like it's good that they drew them before at laco madrid and psg for their first game you can build a little momentum but If you could replace...
Well, let's just make it easy. Skip the play-in game. Skip the LAFC versus Club America game. Just send the Vancouver Whitecaps into the arena. I think that you can do it very cleanly. I don't think so. I'll toss Vancouver in over my... I'll do it I think Miami have the best chance to get a win like to get a full-on win right in one of these games because they ride the highs and ride the lows and there's not a whole lot in between oftentimes
If we want a team that's going to get a draw, Orlando City might have a shot here because I think they've got like four scoreless draws in their last five games or something absurd like that. Yeah, I went there. I'll toss Vancouver in over Miami. It feels only right. I love the idea of finding the most negative, like who is going to park the bus most efficiently and most coherently. And I think that's really smart. Might be New England though.
There we go. Caleb Porter, Club World Cup champion. Let's make it happen. Let's talk Seattle then, who have not had the strongest of starts, but now a 4-1 win over St. Louis. Jeff, are we feeling better about Seattle? Are we feeling good about what they're doing? I think we know who on the score sheet would be. Right. I think that's the surprise, frankly.
Um, but yeah, you know, I think generally knew who is one of those irrational conference or confidence guys where if he gets a goal and assist as he does in this game, maybe he'll defend a lot better in the next five. Right. So like, you'll take it. No, I think with Seattle, it was still figuring out how do we get the best out of Jesus Ferreira, how do we overcome the mental hurdle of falling out of the CCC earlier than anyone had expected?
working some of the other new players into the mix. But I think they've kind of got the calibration down. And I think that, again, the West is so... wide open that i think that there was a lot of ground for them to sort of figure it out and so now they've they've won three of their last four drew the other one away at colorado that's a really good return
following their 3-0 against San Diego. And I think that that game just sort of forced them to do a little bit of like soul searching in terms of how do we get more out of this team? So, you know, I think that I feel good about their... They're starting to come online at the right time. This isn't one of those sort of vintage late 2010s, early 2020s.
uh sounders teams that starts the season kind of like we'll figure it out in june and then we'll flip the switch and then we'll be okay by the playoffs and we'll make a run to the conference final at minimum i think that they look a little further along than that which also bodes well um just for Ultimately, the test is going to be, can they overcome the Vancouver Whitecaps? Again, what is this season? Can the Seattle Sounders overcome the Vancouver Whitecaps? I love this. It's rare.
But, yeah, I think really good overall showing. You've got to win at home against St. Louis, and they won big. So that's better than squeaking through it. Yeah, totally agree. And on Seattle and even zooming out on the West, I think one of the big stories, maybe the biggest story from this weekend of action was the West. Stepping up right when we've talked we've talked a ton about Vancouver throughout this entire season because they've earned it
Vancouver have been so good where I've been starting to wonder, are they going to run away with the Western Conference? And come playoff time, you don't really run away with anything in Major League Soccer because that's not how playoffs work. But really, is there going to be any intrigue in the West at all, or is this going to be Vancouver and France? And I think this weekend sort of told us, hey, Vancouver really are very good, and we've known that.
But some of the other teams in the West have real juice too. And Seattle getting the result that they did. against st louis minnesota united debuting julian gressel some of the things you talked about in the intro taylor san diego dropping a five spot on sc dallas lafc looking really good not just against houston but now over the last three games for them I think there are probably four other teams
outside of vancouver who not just stepped up this weekend but have done enough so far in the early stages and are rounding into form right now that makes me think that there is going to be some real intrigue in the western conference and seattle were a huge part of that they put in maybe the most dominant Seattle Sounders performance, certainly that I can recall, and maybe there's some that I'm swimming through the gaps here, but they put up 29 shots in this game.
They put up more expected goals in this match against St. Louis than in any other game featured in American Soccer Analysis's data set that goes all the way back to 2013. They were all over St. Louis to almost a comical degree that makes me think that St. Louis might end up with the spoon. I don't think that's going to happen because they've already banked enough points and the Galaxy of Montreal exists.
But man, the Sounders were so good. And this is without Jordan Morris. This is without Jackson Reagan. This is without four key starters for this team, if you count Paul Riola and that group. Jordan Morris is out for another five weeks or so with a hamstring injury. Danny Musavsky scored four goals in the last four games. He's got a goal in every single game over the last stretch.
He has been so good for this Seattle Sounders team. And it's not just Mussovsky who's scoring goals and helping them miss Jordan Morris far less than they have a right to. It is that the double pivot of Christian Roldan and Obed Vargas is unbelievably good. Obed Vargas is not a guy that I hopped on the hype train especially early on.
uh he's a guy that would be getting usmnt looks right now that's for sure if he hadn't opted to go play for mexico his distribution has gotten so much better his ability to impact games in the final third is so real and he's playing next to a guy that is
Every year when The Athletic does their excellent anonymous GM survey and it's like who is the most underrated player in Major League Soccer is Christian Roldan. And that begs the question, how many times can you be underrated before you're properly rated? I don't know because Christian Roland is still underrated. He is hitting Absurd passage.
out of the base of midfield, like, line-splitting through balls on a dime on the ground. Some of the sauciest stuff you can imagine. And yes, Taylor, I know you're wondering if I'm still talking about Christian Roldan. I am. He's also making absurd runs out of midfield, like these really nice third-man runs to get into the box.
He can contribute in every phase for Seattle. That double pivot is making this team. Right now, as far as I'm concerned, they get Albert Rusnak back in this game. Seattle were... so good over the weekend. They were every bit as good as I thought they could be at some point this season with every piece available, and they did it in May without several key pieces available. Yeah, they're scary.
Joe, the face I was making, the note I was writing down, there's another player who I think you mentioned briefly, but I'm going to say on the Joe Lowry skepticism index, he is near the top for players that you're like, I don't know. It's Pedro de la Vega, and I'm wondering how you're feeling about him at press. The dude loves a long shot. I'm still super skeptical on Pedro de la Vega. I thought he was like okay in this game.
I don't think he's really improved all that much. I think Brian Schmetzer has found some ways to use him better, which is to push Alex Roldan up into that left, excuse me, the right half space and leave the wing. to de la vega and kind of give up on playing de la vega through the center at least for 90 minutes at a time He still lacks an incredible amount of discipline in the final third.
and is just chaos incarnate. So yeah, I've not really moved on the De La Vega thing, but the other pieces in Seattle are so good. that they don't necessarily need De La Vega to be an all-star level player. They would be where Vancouver are right now if De La Vega and Jesus Ferreira were performing at that level. The hope is that they get one or both of those guys online before.
Yeah, and I think right now, the issue with Taylor Vega is he likes to get on the ball, but last year he was getting on the ball in the midfield third too often, and so therefore he wasn't really making much of an impact. He turned it over, then is he backtracking to make that? And so this year, his utilization's been a little different. He's playing less on the wing, especially the left wing, and they're getting more touches in the central channel as well.
and he's getting, I think, 5% more of his touches in the attacking third compared to last year. So you're getting him in better spots. No, he's not creating those Gilded's chances. Yes, he's shooting from... ill-advised places but at least you've got him in like you said joe like an area of the field right now where when he is doing some of the things that are maybe more instinctive to him to just like try stuff right even if it's not coming off right now and there's more Behind him.
who can help bail out them. and so I think it's still a work in progress overall. I think that he does still have some really interesting... uh an interesting skill set that if he can just stay healthy for like three months in a row maybe we can start to see more of it but um yeah he isn't costing them results like occasionally it looked like he might last year and and ultimately i think that there's a clear pecking order established that albert roos knocks their most important
facilitator, which also just kind of helps with making the whole thing flow because he is one of the better defensive playmakers over the last half decade of Major League Soccer. Well, congratulations to Pedro de la Vega for winning the Joe Lowry Most Skepticism Award, I think. That's what I'm going to assign it for now, and I'm going to come up with a better name while we go to break. When we come back, we'll continue to talk about some Western teams that are impressing. Back soon.
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Welcome back to the Total Soccer Show. Joe Lowry, I'm coming to you for this one. It's a bit of a hot take, but I'm going to say losing 5-0 is not a great look for FC Dallas. Would you like to agree or disagree with that? You know, I'll get out on the limb with you, Taylor. Hopefully the limb doesn't snap on both of us. Yeah, not a great opportunity, not a great look for FC Dallas. They lost 5-0 to San Diego over the weekend.
i i'm choosing to view this more as san diego are awesome when they want to be Then Dallas are dire. Dallas were dire in this game. But they also got a little bit unfortunate in how this game got away from them. It's a really soft penalty call that goes against them early on in this match.
chico lazano puts it away and at that point san diego never really looked back notably for dallas they stuck in their back three setup in this game and they finished the miami win that 4-3 miami win that we didn't get much of a chance to talk about last week That was an impressive one for Miami, albeit against a- for Dallas, excuse me, albeit against a very rotated.
Miami squad. Oh, man. I forgot that somebody complained that we didn't talk about that Dallas win, and now I am talking about Dallas in the context of getting obliterated by San Diego. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, Dallas fans. You got cool hats and good concessions.
and Logan Farrington. So, you know, there's pluses there. But in this game against San Diego, they stuck with their back three. It was like a 3-4-3 that at times would morph into more of a 3-4-1-2 setup with Lucho Acosta playing underneath Pedrinho and Logan Farrington.
And they just got outplayed. San Diego's ability to break presses is... so good like is maybe best in mls good not that they've been perfect this season they struggled they'd have a three-game losing streak come in into this game But when they have the right off-ball positioning and when they're not turning the ball over needlessly, they can break you in half.
Like that. It happened so quickly. And that's what happened to Dallas in this game. They just couldn't hang with San Diego's off-ball movement. Andres Dreyer and Chico Lozano. look like maybe the best wide attacking pairing in all of Major League Soccer, and that's maybe doing Dreyer a disservice because he played centrally for a big chunk of this game. He started out top as the nine, and then Mighton had to come off, and they made changes. Mikey Varas to then put...
Valakari on the field and Dreyer shifts wider to the right. They're so fluid. They're so effective. San Diego, I never, I think I even said on this show, I never really sold my stock on them, even with that three-game losing streak. You watch this team play. And they do stuff that no team in MLS outside of Columbus does, and that's a pretty good recipe for success. All right, so San Diego, have the recipe for success. We're feeling good about them. How are we feeling about LAFC, Jeff?
I think that we're feeling... similar right like i i think that even when you've had uh steve shirundalo announced that he would leave at season's end i don't think there was really much of a feeling that like the whole project had stagnated and so a good stretch of results here
You know, just kind of on the back of that announcement to keep some momentum. You're still seeing goals coming from not Olivier Giroud, unless it's a direct free kick. So, you know, his role looks different. His role he didn't play, obviously, in this game against Houston. They're still finding ways to win, to get points. Frankie Amaya, they signed very late in the window, brought him in.
He came off the bench in this game. Just very interesting to see how they're going to utilize him in midfield. You know, I think that what we often saw with Cincinnati and especially New York was maybe like. The line-breaking stuff wasn't his forte, so then you're going to still need someone who can do some of that work. So just, again, interesting to see how he'll fit in along with Delgado and Tillman.
Yeah. Good win against, you know, still kind of figuring out their new identity. Houston Dynamo side, you know, got... Franco Escobar sent off towards the end of the game as well. Shout out Franco Escobar. Living up to his brand. Just in time. Gotta make that quota.
It's interesting on LAFC. I think I agree with you, Jeff. I don't think anything has really changed for them since we talked about them. I don't know if we mentioned them briefly last week, I suppose. But really, since Steve Gerondolo has announced that plan to depart at the end of the season, the attack has been... good like like way way better than than it had been previously they've got seven goals in their last three games they put up the three best expected goal showings of the season
And they're actually moving the ball into the box in a way that they weren't before. So over the first eight games of the season, LAFC were averaging 6.4 passes into the box per 90 minutes. In the last three games they're averaging 12.7, almost exactly double the number of passes into the box.
It is a small sample size, and it is a small sample size over these last three games against bad teams. At least bad defensive teams. St. Louis, I think, are just a bad team regardless. They're also super injured right now. I don't know exactly what to do with that. Portland are a bad defensive team. And Houston are not a good team at much at the moment, I suppose. so it is a lot of lafc juicing some other numbers against those bad teams but man against houston
They looked a bit more fluid on the ball than I think they have at times. They weren't up against a super low block for a ton of this game because Houston tried to press them high. And that's where LAFC really struggle is against deeper blocks and they can't seem to break them down. They did some of that against St. Louis, so really, nothing has changed for me on LAFC from last week, but I think something has changed for me on them from like a month ago, or from six weeks ago.
They seem to be hitting their stride in a way that I guess shouldn't be totally surprising for a team that chopped and changed as much as they did. right i mean so many minutes especially midfield minutes went out the door for them over the winter and i don't think that was helpful for them necessarily but i do think that they have a lot of talent in this team and that talent is starting to figure some things out ahead of
a summer window where taylor twillman's on apple broadcast talking about how griezmann has not agreed to a deal with atletico madrid and is still in play for lafc they could be adding another dp because they got that that chengu zender in the third db spot and that doesn't seem like a smash hit for them There's a lot at play for LAFC right now, and they've got Vancouver on Sunday, which I am juiced about. That game is circled in bright red on my digital.
Joe, I am confused about Portland. I was going to ask you a question. You have preemptively answered it, so I will allow you to change your answer or you can stick with it. It was going to be fill in the blank. The Portland Timbers are blank, and I believe your answer was a bad defensive team. Yeah, I'm cool with that. They broke their streak of three goals or more in this game. They lost 4-1 to San Jose over the weekend.
And they just got run over by the earthquakes in this game. Another game, maybe I'm just here to look at the positives. Another game in which I thought San Jose were the story more than Portland, but to stick with Portland for just a second, defensively, they are still a work in progress. I like Finn Sermon. I like some of what he brings.
I don't know that you're at your best. I don't know that any team can be at their best with a back line of Kamal Miller, Finn Sermon, Juan Mascaro, and Claudia Bravo. There's some issues there, and when they're missing... Jeff emphatically shaking his head for the listeners out there. Yeah, bringing the names as, like, this is choice option 1A. It's not great. It's not great. And they're missing Diego Chara in this game, and Jal Ortiz gets the start ahead of them.
i think xiao rt is a bad mls player unfortunately so i i don't think this game was ever going to stack up all that well for the timbers but their hope is still that they can outscore you right that that is the big goal they limit obvious defensive errors and they go up at the other end and outscore you as it turns out the quakes are a really hard team to outscore
San Jose's attack has been unbelievably good so far this season. I've devoted like the top 600 words of my backheel column to San Jose and their changes because I've been so interested. in what bruce arena is doing right now no team in mls guys is generating more xg per game than san jose 2.39 expected goals not vancouver not columbus not miami the quakes are the kings of the chance creation castle
They have been so aggressive in how Bruce Arena has set them up. I know I'm just abducting this whole Portland Timbers thing and making it about San Jose. I'm not going to apologize for that. It had been Christian Espinosa playing as a right wingback for 10 games in a row for San Jose. Christian Espinosa is a winger. He's not really a wingback. And you can see that in the types of goals that San Jose were giving up. Toss in Rodriguez playing as a right-sided center back and you have pure chaos.
defensively on that side. Well, Bruce Arena has shifted Christian Espinosa up a line, and now he's playing in the front line. DeJuan Jones got his first start since he's reunited with Bruce Arena. Over the weekend, he started at right wing back. They've also started Max Floriani for the last two games as a right-sided center back, benching Rodriguez.
which is a good idea for any team that wants to be capable defensively. So now you've upgraded your defensive solidity in the center back line. You upgraded your defensive solidity in the wing back line with DeJuan Jones over Espinosa. And somehow, it didn't seem like, at least against Portland, you lost much of anything in the attack, where Chicho Arango and Christian Espinosa let attack Joseph Martinez that was out injured for this game. Those two guys in the attack...
did a lot in this game and you still get high flying wing backs to Juan Jones and Vitor Costa can get forward and do some damage. I thought San Jose found a much better balance against Portland. They were not perfect defensively but they were better and the attack was just as good as it's been. Yeah, San Jose might be slowly finding some answers in a way that we talked about Bruce Arena at the end of last week's show. Maybe looking for some other...
Forgive me if the answer is obvious. Why is Nolbok still not playing very much or at all for San Jose thus far? uh he just got there i suppose it is is like the first bit of it also noel buck really wasn't playing a lot of soccer so he got minutes for their next pro team over the weekend i imagine it's a fitness thing and also
I don't think no buck is a shoe-in for minutes at this point for basically any MLS team, maybe outside of Montreal. His development has stalled in a super major way. Unless, Jeff, I'm missing something obvious here. I don't think it's a shoe-in whatsoever that he starts in the San Jose. I completely agree, and I think it's for the same reasons you outlined. He just hasn't played a lot of soccer over the last year and a half, and right now he needs to find
not just the confidence from getting a sustained run of minutes and the trust of a coach, but also just the technical and tactical awareness. So I think... This is one of those cases where NextPro actually does MLS teams a lot of favors that were achieved, granted by the USL Affiliate Partnership.
But now you can sort of guarantee that Noel Buck can get 75 minutes every weekend when you need him to outside of the first team. And then you can figure out, does it make sense to play him alongside Ian Harkes or whatever the case, replace him. You know, you can make your decisions from there. Um, just to go back to Portland real quick, because I know that last week there was a question of like second best team in the West discuss. Right. And, and like, this was why I said, we'll see.
they're still conceding a ton of big chances. They're very susceptible against good teams, right? So, like, big chance, again, Opta defines as just like you would expect a shot to have.
from this chance that was created so it's a one-on-one with a keeper that's created stuff like that uh towering header unmarked in the box Their big chance rate, they're allowing over 30% big chances in three of their last four games, which means that of the chances they're allowing over 30% of them in the case in that win that they had against Kansas City, half of them were big.
chances. So they're just A team that is proving pretty easy to exploit defensively, and I think that that's more of a concern, I would say, than a team that kind of struggles to get goals in a league as weird as Major League Soccer.
So, yeah, concerns about that, but a good sign for San Jose. They're still building towards something. I think that they're still right in that mix for somewhere between 6 and 10 in the Western Conference. There's, I think, a running theme that we've had so far, and I'm realizing this, not these two teams, neither of these.
There seems to be more like... quote-unquote bad teams in MLS this year like teams that you look at the matchup and you say like okay well you have to like hold on they beat like I'm just looking at this rundown we've talked about Montreal and Toronto in the east right we've talked about DC is above Atlanta United in the table right now right Um, but you also have like Houston, Kansas city, the galaxy, uh,
There's just more teams that maybe you don't look at saying they're in the mix than we've had in the past few years, which is just kind of interesting. I don't know how that'll play out across the full season. Maybe half of those teams will flip it into gear. I'll hear this on their social media or something, but like, I just, I don't, I don't know. It seems like there's a little less parody on the bottom half of the table maybe than there has been in recent.
Speaking of bad teams, teams that don't deserve discussion, teams that no one likes, Jeff, do you want to talk about Minnesota for a while? Yeah, I mean, look, it's Minnesota doing it with Jeff. Minnesota are quite good. Oh, you're fine. You can't hurt me. I have no rooting allegiance in this team. They did really well to do their thing, to win 3-0 away from home. to force Brad Stuber into Rob Green goalkeeping behavior.
And they debuted Julian Gressel, whose first major action, as all of us would have expected, was a goal line clearance, right? um which that's not why he's there but a perk certainly and it shows just how much he missed playing to just involve himself however he can to make a first impression after not playing since the end of the regular season last year because remember he didn't play
in Miami's first round against Atlanta. I think that that's a big addition for them because they have been so reliant on long balls over the top that their strikers and winger rep backs can run on to. And I think that with Gressel, you have... viable second option where you do have that player who can break lines on the ground, that player who can do it from wide with early crosses and stuff like that.
but it also does allow them to move their two top scorers of the MLS era out of more defensive positions, because right now Robin Lood has been playing as a withdrawn midfielder, not getting near the box often enough. Bonky Longwane has been playing as a right wingback, finding it very difficult to get his shots.
and that's a man who loves to shoot at volume when he can. So if both of them can get involved more in the final third as a result of Julian Gressel being able to play in those previous roles that they'd had, that's only a good thing for Minnesota moving forward.
Joe, any thoughts on our friends in Minnesota? I think Jeff summed it up well, to be honest. I don't have a ton more to add. Fun to see Russell debut. And I think this team is... than any other teams you do want to mention before we say we have done our MLS update. Yeah, I mean, one team that I think does deserve some love is the New England Revolution, who have won four games in a row, I referenced it earlier, and that, wow, this season is kind of off the rails.
Carlesio bagged a delightful goal to open the scoring for New England, and then Leo Campana gets on the score sheet on a lovely transition attack for the Rebs against Toronto. It isn't... super sexy for the revs right now but it doesn't need to be right what they've done with this back three shift that i think has really propelled a lot of the run for them is they've gotten their wingers off the field they've allowed their wingbacks to step forward and put in dangerous balls into the box
And they've given Leo Campana another body to play off of, and Campana being fit also helps as well. But getting Ganago on the field and having those two guys as runners to stretch the back line ahead of Carlos Hill... works out really really well so i have a ton of respect for this tactical switch from kiloporter it is worth acknowledging They haven't had the hardest run over the last four games. They beat Atlanta United in Atlanta.
to sort of kickstart the oh crap are atlanta in trouble era and we've since learned that yes they are in some trouble they beat nmi cfc at home Okay, they beat Charlotte on the road, which is a great result. It was not a very good performance from the Rebs They were a little fortunate in that game And then they beat Toronto on the road, and that's pretty much three points no matter when and where you play Toronto. So I'm not trying to hoover up Revolution stock over here.
But for a while, it seemed like they were going to be in spoon contention. And now it seems like they're going to be in wildcard contention. So it's a credit to what Kayla Porter and what the Revs players, most importantly, have accomplished. But I'm just trying to give us the range of where we feel like this team can be. I think eighth is probably still about their ceiling, and their floor is probably like 12th or 13th. But still, progress for them in a real way.
Progress to the revs. Progress for us because we have done our MLS updating yet again. I enjoyed this one very much, my friends. I'm very fascinated by InterMiami. I know that is not. breaking new ground to say that, but... it's it's just a weird one man i feel like they i feel like they might have some problems and i feel like that defense isn't gonna get any better anytime soon and javier mascherano is like hanging out having a good time but i'm not sure that's what's gonna make them better
But I think there are plenty of other teams that will be very good and are very fun to discuss for very different reasons. And I appreciate you all doing a lot of the heavy lifting along the way. So Jeff Reuter, thank you, my friend, for all that you bring to the table, for all your thoughts, opinions, analysis, and more.
Anytime. And Joe Lowry, the same to you. I wanted to be catty, but I won't. I'll just say nice things and say, Joe, always lovely to get to speak to you. Aw, it's Taylor, same to you. Listeners, hopefully you all enjoyed this one as much as I did, and we'll talk to you again.