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What I love about Shopify is how no matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the US, and Shopify's the global force behind all birds, Rothy's, and Brooklynan, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify, sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/Westwood1. All lowercase, go to Shopify.com/Westwood1 now to grow your business. No matter what stage you're in, Shopify.com/Westwood1. Welcome, everyone, to Fly Over Footy on the Big 550 KTRS. We are presented by Nobleice Vineyards. We got a good crew tonight. Santiago's missing, but it is the triumphant return of Matt Baker. Stu Holkrin is here to join us as well. I'm Phil Groomes. Matt, let's throw to you first, man. Where have you been, and why were you gone so long, and why are my feelings hurt? Putting me on the spot and all of that. Nothing has to do with soccer, except for some of it has to do with soccer. Work has been a bear. Yes, I have a day job, and it has been an absolute bear in a good way, but in a very time filling way. I had to step away for a little bit from some things to pull some 12-hour shifts and those kinds of things. That's not exciting. What is exciting is I'm head coaching my eight-year-old second-grade soccer team on her CYC League, and we are 1-1-0 so far, which has been great. First year head coaching, last year I was the assistant, and so now I get to be the one to come up with independently all of the tactics, the strategies, the lineups, the practice agendas. This past week, we spent almost the entire time on corners and throw-ins back to the basics as much as possible, so if anybody needs some advice on all of that stuff, I have the most rudimentary possible advice, but I am so excited to be back with you guys. I think the obvious joke here is that Matt is going to start talking about PPDA in the next practice with these kids. These girls can press, man. These girls can press. They're on it. Stuart, what's up, man? How are you doing? I'm doing good. Also, noteworthy that Matt's mustache started when he started coaching soccer, so I think that's a 1-1 correlation. I am doing well. I am back in the basement, as always, and you know what? I was very tempted to put on my Minneapolis City kit tonight, but I am not wearing it, so that's my hometown. I was born in Minneapolis, so St. Louis is my team, but I always have a soft spot for Minneapolis teams. The Raven, we're going to show for those teams, I should say, because you know, lunes play in St. Paul. Oh, okay. That's a distinction I did not actually know. You heard it here, folks. We're going to start off with a touching story here. We need to give a massive, massive shout out to Bryce and his dad, Ryan, Matt. I know you got the DM this week, and it's my goodness, tiered me up, just reading it. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you to Ryan, one of our listeners, who reached out to me, and it was just an innocent reach out saying they loved the show, and it was one of those, my son and I listen to your show all the time together, and that's one of those things that really gets you and understands that what this means to people and how much passion we have for doing it is felt by everybody. So we want to give a big shout out to Bryce and his dad, Ryan, especially because Bryce, unfortunately, is going through some cancer treatment at Children's Hospital. And so that's some extremely scary stuff. We know that Bryce has got this. He's a fighter, and his dad and the entire family are pulling for him, support system, and we are pulling for you as well, Bryce, and we want you to know that, that you're in our thoughts, you're in our prayers, you're in all of our minds going forward. We're thankful for you listening, obviously, that goes without saying, but we just appreciate you, your dad, and we're cheering hard for you, buddy. Yeah, Bryce, we know you got this, and I just meant that it was touching because you're going through all this, and you're still listening to us and cheering for City and choosing our show to listen to. That's awesome, dude. It feels so good, and thank you so much for listening. Let's move on to talking about City, and we have a really crazy time in our season here that Matt, I think we want to take some time to focus and sit back and think about where we are in the season, how likely or unlikely it is to make the playoffs, how we feel about it. Maybe a bit of a gut check on where we are as fans for City. Yeah, my return after a couple of weeks off also brings the return of my notes, so we'll see how this show goes. What I wanted to do right now is kind of, this to me feels like a gut check moment. Past couple of weeks have been trending positively, right? You've had some good results, the attack has been better, the defense has still shown some holes, and we've had some struggles in finding rhythm and formational rhythm in that, but I just think that right now is just such a gut check moment for City, in that this upcoming match could very well make or break playoff hopes in a win or otherwise. It's not just we can't lose, but I feel if we don't get three points from this, things start to get dire. And so for me, I look back at this entire season and well, this isn't meant to be a full season breakdown. It's just how encouraged I am over the past few weeks, over the past month or two, I think, going back to when Cedric Toy shirt joined us, and I think that presents such an exciting opportunity to pull off this kind of run. And it could happen, it couldn't happen, but the most exciting runs come from when you don't expect them to happen. When you're in the gutters, we've got a myriad of examples that litter St. Louis sports history of that kind of thing from every single type of sport. And I'm not saying this is going to be ours already in the young history of St. Louis city, but it just feels like there's this, I don't even know how to describe the feeling in the fan base. It's almost like a fervor, but it's toned down because people don't want to get too excited about what they're seeing on the field lately with Hartle and Toy shirt and betcher, the return of Klaus and all and Louvans continued form. What all that means for the excitement on the field, there, a lot of concern is it's coming too late. And so that's muted, I think, a little bit of the excitement of this group going forward. And there's been talk of 2025 is going to be great. There's already eyes looking forward from the fan base that I've seen, but it all leads back to just how much pent up excitement is going to happen this weekend at city park because of all those emotions in the park. All new fuse Plaza, all of the fans watching at the bars and restaurants throughout the area at home in other cities. This is to me beyond a must win. This is a season saving type of a weekend. I can't build this weekend up enough in how much I feel it matters to not just the 2024 St. Louis city side, but to John Hackworth to the organization itself in how they go forward. You win this match, then you're setting yourself up to be just a five point shy of the ninth place team. That's within reach. John Hackworth makes a run. Suddenly he's potentially in contention even more for the head coaching job. But if we lose, now we're suddenly more than 10 points off of pace from number nine. Now John Hackworth has, and if not almost entirely insurmountable and an insurmountable mountain to climb up, we start talking about mathematical eliminations, complete opposite story. So to me, this is the inflection point of the entire season right now. Stu, I know you've got the typically your finger on the pulse of the supporters. I'm curious how you feel about all of that and maybe you can share what you're hearing around the supporter section over there. Yeah, I mean, well, I think Matt nailed it. I think there's, well, I would say we're recklessly optimistic at this point for Blues fans that dates back a few years, reckless optimism. I mean, why not? There's nothing loose. Go for broke. It definitely feels like it's not likely to make the playoffs, if we're honest. But I mean, why the heck not? We can get win out. Why not? I mean, this team has that ability now and the difference between late June and now is just entirely different. Our back line is finally starting to seem settled and our attacking prowess is just worlds different than it was before. So I do feel like there's this feeling that if, you know, this season, if we had an extra month in the season right now that we would certainly make the playoffs and I'll say that, which would be another like five games, but, you know, I mean, until it's over, might as well go, go outside, but Minnesota is a good team away from home. So that's something to watch. And I think we're getting into that later in the notes. Yeah. I'll just say that I think that the more unlikely it is or it feels or looks or becomes, you know, the more I start thinking about last season, which was the most unlikely of unlikely things to happen completely. So, you know, it's in us. It's a possibility. You know, the parody in this league makes it extremely difficult. But again, something happened last year and we can, you know, bring that back. We can harken back to that feeling, that environment. I think Klaus brought that kind of energy in the LA Galaxy match. And I think if we can kind of make that catch on and really, you know, sure things up, I think it is possible. I'm not going to give up. That's for sure. So we'll go ahead. One thing I'll add to is as far as this match, I think really will make or break our playoff hopes, but mathematically, the only team this weekend that can be eliminated from the playoffs is San Jose and they're below us by a few points. We're currently tied with sporting Casey. And so San Jose is the only team this weekend that can be mathematically eliminated if San Jose straight up loses to Vancouver or Minnesota beat St. Louis or a couple other things that have to happen together. But they're the ones on the cusp right now. We will survive no matter what, not being mathematically eliminated after this weekend, but you can read between the lines on the stats. Appreciate you wrapping that up with an actual fact. That was a good way to end it. Let's move on to health and player availability. It's looking much better. I think we're feeling pretty good. You know, it gives us maybe a little bit more hope about that run to the playoffs. What do we got, Matt? It gives a lot of hope along with the fact that I haven't been on the show since we loaned out Jabulah Blohm, but missing him isn't really that big of a loss considering who we have in his stead and with the depth. Yokeem Nilsen was the only player not on season ending injury who was out last week. And he returned to training, I believe I wasn't able to attend, but reports from Justin Hortikar, our friend, are that everyone was there and accounted for. Klaus, Almond Horn are, as far as John Hackworth says, better be 90 minutes fit after playing last week. And Janice Horn has consistently shown that he can bounce back quickly. John Hackworth credited the guys in their work effort in being able to do that. So we believe we have essentially a full clean bill of health outside of those two players, Tomasos Strack and Celia Pompeo, who are on season ending injury. What do you think, Stu? And is that a little bit of a hint that Klaus and Almond Horn might play full 90 or they might start, I guess, would be a first in its own for Klaus and Almond? Yeah, I mean, I'm not entirely sure that Horn is going to start or go 90. I think Reid is very much a possibility on that left-back spot. I think he should be. Do I trust Almond to go 90 at this point? No. No, I don't either. I don't want it. I don't think we need it. No. He did great. We're going to, this is a bit of a tease for what we're going to talk about at the end of this episode here on the big 550 KTRS. Matt, let us know where everybody stands in their standings and form for city and for Minnesota, please. It feels like I've been, I haven't done this in so long, but I've been missed it. Let's preview Minnesota United. St. Louis city comes into this 13th in the West five, 10 and 13 record with 28 points and 28 games minus 13 gold differential, which is really unchanged in a bit recent form. We've played three matches since leagues cup. We drew Portland for four. We defeated the galaxy to one at home and we had a two, two draw on the road in Foxborough against the Rebs last weekend for a team that's been shut out seven times and had a nine game winless streak. The last seven games have honestly been remarkable as far as the turnaround for St. Louis city. We've had no shutouts since Cedric Toy shirt began playing at sporting Casey on July 21st. The draws continue to be a bit of an issue as we've had four draws in our last eight, including that Juarez game where it went to PKs and leagues cup, but only one loss in our last eight games in all competitions. So not only are we undefeated since leagues cup, but we have only lost one in our last eight that being club America, obviously in the last three, like I mentioned against MLS competition since leagues cup, they've scored eight goals, St. Louis city. In their last 10 games before that, they had only scored nine. So last three MLS games, eight goals previous 10 before that nine goals, if that doesn't tell you how big this turnaround has been in our attack, I don't know what will. It's been a remarkable turnaround. But the defense is what I think Stu mentioned earlier, and you did too, Phil, starting to I guess kind of come into form a little bit with the stability since the Tim Parker trade. That's to me, what later on, we're going to be focusing on a little bit. On the other hand, Minnesota coming into this, they've had a really topsy turvy season two. They're currently sitting ninth in the West right on that playoff bubble where the ninth place team makes it against the eighth in this play in wild card type match. So they're ninth in the West with a 10, 11 and six record, 36 points. So that's eight points ahead of us in 27 games, one less game than us. So they have a game in hand. That's a problem and a minus one goal differential. They are five, six and two on the road, which is almost as good as their five, five and four record at home. You guys talked about it. They're a good road team, good, if not one of the best in the league. Their recent form, they've only played two matches since leagues cup last week because of the international break. There was a shortened schedule. And so their two games were a three, two loss against Seattle at home and a two one win on the road. Good road team. Like I said, this road win was against San Jose. So, you know, take it with a grain of salt, but they still pulled out the win. They have not played since August 31st due to this international window, that abbreviated week last week. And they also in the middle of this season, just like St. Louis had a nine game, winless streak. There's was between June 9th and July 18th. So almost all the way to leagues cup. They won their last game before leagues cup and they've only been shut out four times in 27 games with three of those coming on the road. So you could look at that saying of the times they've gotten shut out, they get shut out out of the road, but only four times in 27 games mean they have a propensity to score goals. I think that's one thing. If you watch the preview on Apple TV, they were positing it might be a five to four game. And if you remember the game last year, that sixth game of the season against Minnesota, an Adrian Heath led Minnesota, I don't think you could ever believe that we could go five four against Minnesota because that was such a bunker down game. But I think what we're going to talk about here in a little bit is just how different this Minnesota United team is Phil, do you think St. Louis has the momentum over their past couple of games with the goal scoring prowess that we've showed these past three with the attack showing in form to at least if we stay within ourselves for a second and think about St. Louis, do what it do what we need to do to put goals on the board? Well, I think we're moving towards something. I do think there's, you know, there's a lack of fear of scoring to some degree. So I think that's really nice, but, you know, working toward being, you know, putting in a full 90 minute shift, I've heard that from a few players in the last couple of weeks. And, you know, just in my opinion, you know, we've talked about the goal, the second goal that was given up in New England and, you know, the same exact play that happened two times before that two plays before that and how, you know, we should have seen just rabid pressing in that moment of losing the ball, as you said, Matt online. And it just didn't happen. It was like weird for me when we think about what would have happened last year, right? And is that a carnal thing? Is that a hack or thing? Who knows? Who cares? That's the sort of thing that needs to be fixed immediately because we're out of time. So that's what I think. I'm kind of curious to it. It seems like you would have an opinion on whether it's better to play consistently or having a lot of rest, you know, is Minnesota going to be rusty here, Stu? What do you think? I don't think they're going to be rusty, to be honest, but Minnesota is a very interesting team just from, you know, they didn't hire their current head coach Eric Ramsey until after the season started. I think they had match week one, so they put their first match before he got hired in February, late February, and then they had their crazy issues with, oh man, I'm blanking on there. Manual Reynoso. Reynoso, who is currently, I believe, with Tijuana, and he's had issues down there as well. Had another picture taken of him with, shall we say, characters of ill-repute. But, yeah, Minnesota is the chaos one. And Eric Ramsey is a very interesting coach. He's from England, but I believe he has Welsh heritage. He is a very young coach. He's early 30s, I think he's 32, 33 years old, 32 years old, youngest coach ever in MLS. Yeah, very, very young. And he, actually his profile reminds me a lot of a former St. Louis FC Welsh coach, Anthony Poulis, just the kind of overall profile, but I think he does a great job kind of organizing this Minnesota team, playing away from home is not very easy. And I think it doesn't say a lot for Minnesota, the fact that they haven't been world beaters at home in Ollion's arena in Twin Cities, but to go 554 away from home is a sign that you can organize well and keep your guys on task and ready to go. Yeah, absolutely. You're listening to fly over footy on the big 550 KTRS, Matt. This is something I didn't even think about. It kind of flew under the radar a little bit. Maybe it's just me. Same. No, no, you're right. Revenge game for Anthony Marcanic wild. I don't know why I didn't think about that, but it could be play maybe they'll come in on purpose. That's the thing is, will he play or will he make the game day roster? Because yes, Anthony Marcanic, who if you forgot was traded from St. Louis, to Minnesota, like a month ago, for $50,000 in game up to $100,000 extra with incentives, he has appeared in two games so far from Minnesota United to playing every minute in each of those and scoring a goal apparently. He's only appeared on one of two match day rosters of these last two Minnesota games and has not appeared on the field for them at all. So this could be an interesting opportunity to get him in the in the game, but there's no doubt to me that this this is less so Anthony Marcanic revenge game with him on the field as much as it is, Eric Ramsey and the staff of Minnesota have an inside track a little bit into what Marcanic knows of St. Louis players. But I think one of the big stories to me that this plays into Phil is the turnaround of both the turnover of both teams. Phil, Stu mentioned the the Emmanuel Reynoso thing and how Reynoso is a DP. Now he's gone well, Minnesota has struggled with having depth in their attack and with their roster just like we have. So both of these teams coming in are vastly different teams than they were at the beginning of the season. And this is also the first time that both of these teams have played each other. So Marcanic's knowledge is going to be, I think, a little bit mitigated with the fact that he hasn't played and hasn't had a lot of time spent with a lot of these new guys who have started yelling together recently tactically. He's a little bit familiar with what Hackworth will employ, but even Hackworth style has differed pretty markedly, I would argue, compared to what Bradley Carnell was employing. So I think the impact of Marcanic is going to have is vastly lower than a typical, like what Tim Parker was probably able to offer the Rebs maybe with his knowledge and with their knowledge of Kessler and all of that. So less so to me. But I mean, you're looking at continuing to see Horn, Kessler, Hardell, Toy shirt, betcher and some of JGR a little bit, Minnesota United in and of themselves. This isn't the same Minnesota United where it was Reynoso, it was Robin Lode and it was that group of players. They have a couple designated players who have come in in this transfer window who may be difference makers. One of them is attacker Kelvin Yaboa, their number nine who has played in the last two games and scored two goals. He had two goals in their first game against Seattle. He's a difference maker who has started both games and so I watch for him to be very dangerous in their attack. And they also have another DP midfielder, Yokoin Pereira, who has yet to even debut. So when we're talking about trying to predict what Minnesota might look like and how their shape, what you can kind of figure what their shape is going to be. They're probably going to employ wing backs because that's what Eric Ramsey's been doing. But you're talking about Robin Lode, who's been one of their key playmakers and has been a little more into the attack because of, I would argue, necessity. Well they might be debuting a brand new DP midfielder, Yokoin Pereira in this game, which could push Robin Lode deeper. There's a lot of new things that could be happening with this Minnesota team that will I think keep a lot of their underlying tactics the same, but St. Louis doesn't have any films. This is one of those examples of you're going to have to dig deep and try to figure out if they're going to play this guy, what kind of tactics are you going to be within yourself employing just because you don't really know what he offers. It kind of harkens back to the beginning of 2023 for St. Louis City in general where nobody has really seen this team. They haven't seen a Bradley Carnell style, so they don't know. And in retrospect, a lot of people think that we took people by surprise because they didn't have tape on us. Well, same thing could be happening if you see a guy by the name of Yokoin Pereira step on to the field for Minnesota on Saturday. That's really interesting. And again, maybe that time away, that time off has helped them gain some cohesion. Something to worry about for me, Matt, I want to jump right into, we heard Stu talk about the head coach, but I want to hear a little bit more, Adrian Heath was such a legend over there in Minnesota United and the way they played. And we're going to see something different. As you said, Matt, we may not know what it looks like, but give us some more on Eric Ramsey, former assistant from Manu. Yeah. Eric Ramsey, former Manchester United assistant. Ollie Gunnar Scholzauer is one of like, he basically a disciple of him, came in recommended to him when Eric Ramsey joined Manu, been looking up a little bit of Eric Ramsey. And if you look on a website called coach's voice, there's an interesting, not just article on Ramsey, but he has his own like academy training video training plan going on. And you can see it in full, but he employs a combination of possession transfer games that he plays with his groups, small sided to help them, not unlike what city does in their training, but a lot of his basic concepts involved build up play while under pressure, the aim of teaching his players how to find a spare player in possession with an overload. Something that's very similar to what St. Louis typically tries to do when they build through their wings is employ that overload, bringing the ball out with control, playing the ball out of the back, moving the ball through the thirds very crisply and quickly. And so a lot of that has been present in what Minnesota has been doing this entire season, where they do play a style that has either a 352 or a 343. They like to absorb pressure and play the counter attack. They don't like to possess the ball. They have possession metrics, very similar to St. Louis, but they build the ball through their wings. They like to, they like to take these creating chances through in the middle where St. Louis leverages the wings. They will use long balls a lot and they don't like to keep possession. So they'll send the ball long, but at the same time, they're very intentional with how they build through the middle through Robin load as their typical number 10 so far this season. We'll see if that changes with his presence, but long balls, switches, crosses, they love to attack through the middle. Like I said, they take a lot of shots. They play the offside trap very, very well. So they will try to pull our back line up, absorb that pressure and then play the offside trap and try to get somebody in behind our lines. That doesn't sound a little bit worrisome because it's burned us plenty of time so far this year. I'm with you on that one, but I think this is a, this is a, I wouldn't say a scary match up for St. Louis, but it's just very, you could argue that it doesn't favor St. Louis. The favor for St. Louis is going to be home field obviously tactically. I think I'm looking for St. Louis to be potentially a little more passive maybe. I still think they're going to be their typical aggressive self, but it's, it's this offside trap. It's playing the ball through the mids and the weaknesses that we sometimes have in our center backs having either holes between the two or between one of our center backs and our full backs and how typically teams can create chances five before, for instance, like they did against New England when they scored that goal. So St. Louis has to be mindful. They have to be decisive with Minnesota is doing this kind of thing and Eric Ramsey can employ these absorbing the pressure and allowing you to come in and try to feed off of the press against them, which they've been pretty successful in. It's going to force St. Louis, I think to be more mindful that play that we talked about online this week, Phil, of the second New England goal, I think it was where we turned the ball over and we were timid in whether we were going to do an all-out press to recover the ball or fall back and defend against that transition. Minnesota, if they're, they are pretty adept at doing that exact same thing where if they lose the ball, they're going to try to get it back really quickly and they'll immediately move the ball up very direct that they've shown that they can play both ways. This isn't a Minnesota United team like Adrian Heath had against us last year where they drop into a low block forever and they just wait for you to make a mistake and then they pounce on it. This Minnesota team fights back under Eric Ramsey and I think it presents a really dangerous matchup for St. Louis. I know everyone was extremely happy at what they saw from Eric Ramsey as soon as he took over. It was prettier. It was more fun to watch. I think it was more typical in a lot of the ways of modern football that Matt just listed. Stuart, anything Matt has said here that is speaking to you a little bit, anything you'd like to see from St. Louis in this game this weekend? Well, I think it'll be really interesting to see if we can take advantage of some of our set pieces. I think that's something I would like to see Kesseler get more involved in, uh, aerially. Uh, overall, it was actually just looking up. I thought one of the guys on Minnesota's roster that always stands out to me is he's a lifetime MLS players, uh, Zarek Malantin, um, he represents Puerto Rico. He's from, uh, not from St. Louis, from the USA, um, Puerto Rico obviously is part of the USA, uh, but he was born in Pennsylvania, but I, I thought he, uh, scored against this last year, but he did not, but he's going to be an interesting one to watch at a right back from Minnesota, and he is, I think, out of contract at the end of the season. And I don't know if, uh, later on we'll get into, um, the MLS release, the free agent for 2025 off season. Spoiler for our wind down. Uh, yeah, I'm always jumping out of myself and ahead of everyone here. Uh, but to get back to things, uh, no, I think Matt, Matt nailed it pretty well, um, but I am excited to see specifically how Minnesota does on set pieces. And if we can take advantage of their weaknesses there, Minnesota is also very strong on set pieces just like us. So I think that could be the foul game and where they fall. I think seeing who wins that that's going to be kind of one of those key battles you watch for. You may or may not have heard, uh, fall out this week because I'm an absolute idiot and hitting the wrong buttons and posting, but, you know, we were, we, one thing to Stu's point is that we were very good at set pieces against New England. There were multiple chances. Only one of them went in, um, but, you know, that set, that set piece design has continued to be good. It just hasn't really gone in quite as much as last year. It felt like it was going in quite a bit. The only thing I wanted to say is that, you know, thinking about Adrian Heath versus what we're going to see versus Ramsey is Minnesota always just used to scare me to death because St. Louis would have trouble with, you know, teams like Minnesota, Portland, teams who were just really well organized in the midfield, really good positioning. They were just, they would just be good at outdoing us, blocking stuff, getting on, on the ball and turning it over and, and countering us. And so that's always something that's scary to me. Minnesota isn't quite like that anymore as far as like, yeah, they may sit back, but it's, they're not trying to have a perfect block. As Matt said, they are going to look for turnovers. They are going to look to counter press that kind of stuff. So it's not going to be quite as perfectly organized, I don't think, but what they are good at is it seems like sitting back in the right moments and they have a ton of blocks. It's just weird that they have a ton of blocks, not a lot of interceptions and tackles. So I just think that that shows that, you know, they're going to be compact. I think we're going to see a lot of St. Louis passing it around the box, especially since St. Louis is at home. And so just, you know, look for Hardell and Louvin and all those guys that are better in small spaces. That's what I'm, I'm looking for in this one. You're listening to fly over footy on the big 550 KTRS Matt, give us a couple more things before we jump into the lineups. Yeah, I think with Minnesota, one thing to know is just how similar they are on some of these metrics to St. Louis, like we talk about sequence time. We talk about direct speed passes per sequence and how St. Louis is kind of the quickest team, the most direct, the fewest passes per sequence. Minnesota is right there with us third quickest in sequence time, third fewest passes per sequence, seventh fastest direct speed, but it's just a very small window between that first and seventh. So they're right up there with us in how little they like to take the ball at 45.3% possession for Minnesota versus 46.1 average for St. Louis. St. Louis is averaging two and a half more shots per 90, the Minnesota, but the shots on target per 90, basically the same. So St. Louis has more shots. Minnesota and St. Louis have about the same number of shots on target per 90. And that's different because I think this is also trended better for St. Louis because St. Louis has had more quality shots since hard old toy shirt and veteran have come on board. But there's still that same St. Louis team that likes to get 20 plus shots on 20 plus shots in general off and they might only have like seven or eight shots on goal. And that's the St. Louis team that needs to continue getting better, but Minnesota won't have as many volume shots, but they will have the quality shots that they build off of. I think one thing I look at is where the lines of engagement are between St. Louis and Minnesota. And St. Louis has honestly been kind of all over the place lately in their average lines of engagement against New England last week. They were pretty close to midfield as far as where their engagement was. They were kind of higher up, but against the galaxy and against Portland. They fell back and there's about a 15 meter difference between their average line of engagement against from Portland versus New England. So this is showing I think to me a little bit of how John Hackworth is just tinkering with things. He's trying out different things against New England. He tried out a back three for a period of time. You could argue it was pretty successful and he went away from it because of a substitution. But I think I'm looking for this St. Louis team to be a little more versatile in how they handle Minnesota. I don't think they're going to go straight to the well of we have to press high. We have to continue to press, press, press hard as hard as we can as high as we can and stretch ourselves pretty thin in that regard. I think he's more prone, John Hackworth has been more prone to a mid block. They're not dropping back necessarily, but they are more mindful of stretching their lines. And when they press higher, it's often with multiple people will end up with six people in the attacking third or so if they have the ball and they've been a little better in keeping possession when they do so. So that's been a positive for St. Louis. I do think that set pieces that's like when I think of my keys to the game set pieces are are so it Minnesota is tied third in the league for set piece goals. St. Louis is honestly tied 14th. You mentioned it, Phil. They haven't been as effective. We've had the moments, right? We've had the Alex Langer specials come up recently. They seem like they're more consistent, but honestly when if there's one or two things that I've learned in this past week, having, you know, stepped away from the analytics for a week or so and then coming back to it, the eye test can fool the heck out of you. I threw this stat out there this week about key passes per 90. As far as which St. Louis city players are the highest for the whole season. The answers are Marcel Hartle, Edu Luvin and Seleopompayu. Hartle averages 3.3 key passes and a key passes a pass that leads directly to a shot. So it's creating that chance. Hartle leads the team with 3.3 per 90. Luvin has 2.54 and Seleo had 2.9, Seleo had 2.54 before he was injured. Nobody else on the team is above two key passes per 90. Jay Reid was a popular choice because of how the highlights have been when he sends the ball in, not even averaging one key pass per 90. And this takes out the fact that he hasn't been starting because the stat is per 90. That's specifically why I love that stat. It tries to take out whether you come in for the last 20, 30, 40 or if you start and play 60. Obviously you have a different tone if you're entering the game late versus starting. But I think that illustrates just how important Hartle and Luvin have been to this team here recently, especially, but also you kind of have to understand why Jay Reid might not be starting compared to Giannis Horne holistically. I would argue that Giannis Horne has had himself a fantastic past few games. And that's that's that might be where one of these big battles comes is Giannis Horne defending somebody like a Yaboa or bakwale Hongwane promised myself at the beginning. I was going to try to write. He's one of their. Well done. They're just calm. Bongy. Bongy. They're leading score. And he plays on that right side. He's he's a guy who could battle against Giannis Horne or against Kyle Hebert. But those are some of the battles you defend those offside traps. You make sure that these guys can't get their runs in and you're clinical on your defensive line and your structure has to be smart. Yeah. And you know what I'm looking at these was I don't usually look at these that much, but Matt gave me a couple secrets to looking into stats and I love this passes into the final third by Minnesota United. We're seeing a lot of half space play, right? And it looks like, you know, they're enjoying the ball between the top three attackers, right? So the the wingers are going to fold in pretty far, uh, strikers going to be in the middle and then you got the wingbacks just like sending balls into the half spaces. So there's not like they're crossing it in necessarily, but they're looking for runs into that half space. So, um, it is, it does look like there's going to be a lot of movement between the center backs and the full backs. And so looking for, I agree with you, Matt, I think Horn has been a lockdown defender in the last couple of games. And so I think he and he would are going to have their hands full and I think we're going to have to see Kessler and whoever the right back is that it's a conversation we're about to have, uh, communicating a lot well and watching those spaces. Um, um, and I did want to say I've been wanting to shout out. I guess one of those correctly, Matt on, on the, uh, per 90 stats, um, and Celio, like we've been wondering who's going to play that right wing role. And I think if Celio was healthy, my goodness, having him added into those other players in the attack, like drawing defenders, opening up space, um, even getting some of those key passes in there. That's pretty amazing. I would love to see Celio with this lineup and something to look forward to next year. And people think of Celio, they think of Celio as a left winger because that's where he really broke through this year, but don't forget he can't play both sides. He plays wing back. He can play a left wing left, mid right, mid right wing dudes versatile. And that's why I was so just so devastated when he was injured, not just because of how he was coming on, but what he can offer. And I think he can compliment and change the, in addition to compliment the, the foreman backline, if we changed to a three center back, he could be a difference maker at the wing. I mean, that's a, that's a speedy guy who can defend just as well as he can attack. And I think his contribution to the per 90, key passes per 90 is a evidence of his, his efficiency on the offense. Um, the, the last key, key thing I have for this game really guys is Marcel Hartle, like pure and simple. The ball has to be played through Marcel Hartle. He has to continue to be the one who, who draws in defenders. He, that flick that he had on that pass for Simon Betcher was just so, just chef's kiss on that. And he can do so many different, different types of passes, so many different creative actions in addition to just scoring goals. There's a reason that he's made team in the match day and all three of his MLS games. And I look for him to continue that massive, especially if we start passing the ball around the box in their final third. That is where I have been really enjoying his movement and passing from Louven to him. Uh, Stu, I wanted to give you the last quick thought before we do our lineups. If we've been talking, everyone's ears off here. Uh, well, yeah, no, I'm, I am likewise interested in where Celia is going to fit in next year. Um, but for a little etymology lesson here, one of the guys with, uh, Minnesota, I've always been interested in his name is, uh, Franco Fragapani, which I believe means if you break it out, Franco would be French. Um, I think Fragapani means, uh, bread stealer, bread baker. So he's French bread baker, uh, or something like that, but, uh, just, uh, I'm a little bit of a nerd when it comes to surname so that his name always, uh, caught my eye, uh, similar to Majapani in, uh, hockey, um, but no, uh, last, last word, uh, since St. King loose connections. You were, we already talked about, uh, Anthony, uh, Anthony Marcanic, um, but also Patrick Wayas still at Minnesota United and Patrick Way have played for slew two years ago as a 17 year old freshman and then he signed a homegrown contract with, um, Minnesota United. He is from, uh, Minnesota originally, he spent a little bit of time in their academy, but he hasn't really played much, um, with them this year. I think he's only played one or two games with United. Um, but yeah, no, there's, there's your seamless connections outside of, um, Marcanic, Patrick Wayas still there and, uh, would have been really interesting for the slew team if he had stuck around a couple more years. Yeah, a lot of athletic, uh, skills on that kid. Uh, Frank Apane, I think I'm going to dub him the baguette burglar going forward. I remember him getting some booze last year at City Park for some of his actions. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He, uh, I think him and Stroud got into it if I recall correctly. Yes, he did. Yeah. I remember now. Yeah. He was the first loon to get a yellow card at City Park if I recall. Yeah, he was not a popular player and he, he's a chippy guy. I think he's Argentinian, um, with a French Sicilian name. So, um, you know, footballs, a cosmopolitan sport, um, yeah, but he is a guy who I kind of like the way he plays. He kind of reminds me a little bit of Celio. Okay. Well, we do need to get these lineups in and we got to be pretty quick about it, um, here because I haven't done a good job managing our time. I apologize. Um, Matt, why don't you get us started and then Stu can go. Are we wasted away our time in the last two minutes Roman Burkey and net? I've got Thomas Tollins starting it right back, Henry Kessler, Kyle Heber, centerbacks, Giannis Horn, left back, uh, Chris Durkin and Edou Louven in the midfield, Indiana Vasilev, Cedric Toy shirt, Marcel Hartle, our attacking mids, and I've got Klaus making his return to the starting 11 as my striker. What do you think Stu? Uh, I have a very similar lineup. Um, but for the sake of disagreement, I am going to start, uh, signing better up pot. Um, everything else is same. Yep. Um, I just changed mine to be different as well. Mine was exactly Matt's after I typed it out. I was like, I don't have to, I need to erase that and redo it. Uh, Burkey, I'm going to do a back three, back five. So I'll do back five. Uh, I'm going to say tautland since it's a back five. For Winsky, Kessler and Hebert, the centerbacks Horn, uh, left wing back, Durkin and Louven in the double pivot and then Hartle and Toykert underneath Klaus up top. And you know, that's a pretty defensive start. I could easily see, um, instead of Horn, throw and read in there. So it's more attacking honestly, we've seen Thor and Indy play, um, and Hartle play as lean backs and be fine, um, defensively, Hartle tracks back a lot. I don't know if you guys have been noticing that. So anyway, those guys, very quickly, five, two, three for you. It would more be like a three, four, three, four, three, one. Yeah. Three, four, two, one. Okay. You got Hartle and Toykert underneath Klaus. Got it. Okay. Sorry. I kept talking about it. So that's just a fun one. Um, I thought the three in the back looked really good. Um, if we needed a goal, uh, it may come back again. I could really truly see it coming. That's a tradition. Do you think we need a goal? What do you think you need to fill two, two to one? Let's say. All right. I got, I've got two to one as well. Let's do. Okay. Four to one. Reckless optimism. Love it. Let's keep it going. Let's get that. Let's get that Klaus brace going on here. Good stuff. Well, good to have you back Matt, good to have you back Matt, um, is, uh, so much fun to kind of talk about things and have it just be so in depth and organized compared to what it's been the last couple of weeks under my management. So good to have you, man. We are fly over footy on the big 550 KTRS. We are presented by noble ice vineyards. Enjoy the game. We will talk to you in a couple of days. Bye. Welcome everybody to the wind up, um, it's unfortunate. Is that a schlaffler? No, it is. It is a schlaffler schlaffler october fest. If there was one thing you need to know about me other than soccer, it is not only do I like beer, but I love october fest and maritzons like that is my jam. So this time of year as the seasons are changing of right now, I don't mind getting darker earlier. I'm all going to love it this weekend, but october fests are my bread and butter. I love them too. I need I usually start with the schlaffler one and then branch out because it's one of my favorite go to so yeah, good choice there. Um, I didn't even look. Yeah, the first thing on the docket, um, and I'm looking at it right now, the free agent list was released by it's released by them players. Yeah, three agency has been I did briefly, but you're okay, free agency has been announced by MLS and the free agent list has been revealed of this is the list of players who are either out of contract or pending options and qualify for free agency. So those who qualify for free agency and MLS are at least 24 years old in the year in which they immediately, uh, the immediate preceding league season concluded. So this year they have to be at least 24 years old this year and have at least five years of MLS service. This allows players to negotiate new contracts with any club. Once they're out of contract, they don't have their options picked up or anything like that. So this list is misleading though. We were talking about this before the year that you can't get too excited for this list and I know that we did about, uh, two years ago at this time when the free agent list came out right before we were starting play, right? The 2022 into 2023 list and we were all, oh, look at all these players we might have available and then nearly all of them resigned with their club. If you're looking at this thing on the MLS players dot org website, the PA website, anything that says pending option, that's almost cross it off because a lot of those players, at least the quality players of them are going to have their option picked up. Brad Guzon from goal keeper at Atlanta United, probably going to have his option picked up. St. Louis city. We have a handful of players on that list. Chris Durkin, Ben Lunt, Jake Newinsky, and Josh Yarrow, Newinsky is pending an option. Ben Lunt is pending an option. Chris Durkin is pending an option and Josh are always out of contract. He does not have an option. I believe his, um, option was this year that we picked up. So when he signed his initial deal, it was a one and one 2022 played for city two, and then city last year, and this was, I believe his option year, but he's out of contract. And so Josh Yarrow has been rumored to be linked to San Diego FC, what, yeah, the, the thing that they have built their structure on is, and I'm blanking on it right now, I'm going to feel so bad about this tomorrow, right to dream. What is it? Right to dream. I should have just kept with it. Right to dream. That's how they built their facility, their structure in their academy on up Yarrow. Very familiar with that. He's an, he's a graduate of that program. And so there's a lot of interest for Josh Yarrow to go back to San Diego and help them start their MLS club. Ben Lunt, Jake Newinsky, you can make arguments both ways. I don't know if Lunt's had a good shake, but he's been a part of this organization. He's learned under Roman Burkey, whether St. Louis wants to give him a big opportunity. We'll see Jake Newinsky. If you're talking from a week ago, I think we'd all be like, yeah, Mike might as well give him another shot. He's played really well, but New England, I think was a little hit or miss, maybe back to the old Jake. So it's going to be tough to know what really happens with that. Now Jake, like I said, Jake and Ben pending options. So we could pick up their option and keep them at about the same salary they're making now, as opposed to them negotiating new salaries, things like that. Chris Durkin is the one player that I would say, write him down in pen, we'll pick up his option. Chris Durkin would remain a U22 if we picked up his option. And so his, because players can be a U22 until their age 25 season, and that's important for Chris Durkin, obviously, because I believe he's entering his age 25 season. And Durkin is on his U22 contract still, it's, you sign a U22 contract before you turn 22 and then you can be on that contract until you're 25. So that works out well, Durkin, I think has proved himself obviously, that's the list for city. Everybody else is either under contract or we've, well, I mean, they're under contract. Yeah. I think the one I think about the most is Lunt. I think the rest is going to fall into place pretty well, like Durkin is a must keep in my opinion. But Lunt is like, he's been such a good soldier and you listen to his city voice and he's good with his role, not everyone would be, you know. And I think you just ask him, you know, like, do you want to stay or do you want to try yourself out somewhere else, either way, you know, understand best of luck. But we love, I think you would love to keep him. But, you know, do you, let's say he goes, what would you do, Matt? Would you try to give your two city two player the spot or do you think you'd sign someone? Right now. I mean, Roman Berkey's still under contract for next year. So that's one thing. Oh, I mean, as a backup as a backup. Oh, yeah. So I, I don't know, I have not seen enough from Ben Lunt in his limited times, both with city two and with cameo appearances for city to say that I'd feel comfortable with him taking over for Roman Berkey. And I feel next year is that year that you need to have your succession plan in place. You could sign a player, a keeper after Berkey leaves to take over if you need to. But I think the biggest opportunity for a succession plan is going to come next year. And I would love to see whether it's Oliveris or Nick Bishop or somebody from the Academy city to get that opportunity to be elevated and say, we're going to give you a shot. We're going to give you every opportunity to learn behind Roman Berkey to pick up minutes in the US Open Cup in leagues cup and whatever other tournaments we might find ourselves in. And in your spot starts from a less because the fixtures obviously get congested. We know Berkey needs some, some rest and downtime as we've seen this season at from time to time periodically, he'll need a rest. So he doesn't wear down that opportunity. But I think I would rather see it go to somebody a little more on the rise as opposed to somebody who's been here for a couple of years and I haven't been overly impressed to the point where I would say I am excited for Ben Lute to take over for Berkey when he leaves. And that's ultimately what I want from our backup keeper given who our starting keeper is right now. You know what just occurred to me is there is value to be had here and a lot of people hate on it. I have in the past and I've totally changed my tune. I could see picking up one of the best goalkeepers in the super draft and putting them in as the backup keeper because what even the best goalkeeper that college has to offer in the United States would be so happy to be able to learn under Berkey for a couple of years. And someone who's like the best keeper in NCAA, you know, maybe there's no Patrick Schulte. So maybe that doesn't work out, but you know, like you could really, if Berkey were to get her, like you could rely on someone of that talent level I think to take over. I mean, Lute would I think be a higher level than that. He's got the experience. He's a veteran. But I don't know. What do you think about that? Well, one question I think that plays into that is in the chat. Duck asks, do you think 2025 will be Berkey's last year with St. Louis? If I had gone to my head where you have to tell you an answer right now, I'd say probably yeah, he doesn't have an option after 2025. And so the conversation is going to be, what does he really want to do with his career? What does he see another opportunity in MLS? He would not qualify for free agency because he wouldn't have the years of service. So it sounds kind of silly when you say Roman Berkey after playing for three years in St. Louis would not qualify for free agency, but you have to have five years of MLS service to be a free agent. So we would have like, what would he do? Would he go somewhere else? Has he proven himself that he can still play? Would he go to Europe back to your brother? I'm not sure. But I think that's that would be up to Roman Berkey entirely because he would need to resign a new contract probably at the same obviously amounts. I don't think St. Louis has any palette to pay Roman Berkey more than Max Tam that restricted the DP salary. So that that's an interesting positive that plays directly into this. And I do think that because of that, you plan for the succession, you can you can scout the super draft. You can say who we project would be available, but scouting the super draft for your succession plan to Roman Berkey, given the importance of that goalkeeping position with our offense, with our entire system is dangerous to me. I think you have to be a little more sure-footed in what your plan of action is with that. Now, if you're looking ahead and you're loots, obviously this is a loots thing to do, you're looking ahead and saying transfer window in 2025 comes up. What goalkeepers are available on a free? Who can I target to bring in in summer of 2025 that would be that succession plan for Roman Berkey? He comes in, he gets acclimated to the system, yada yada, all that good stuff. I think that's a potential option that we do if nobody from the academy or city two or Ben Luntivi sticks around shows that they're at that level to be able to take over for Roman Berkey of all the positions on the field for St. Louis. This year has shown us that if you don't have that quality of Roman Berkey in net based on how we've been playing, you're going to have a bad time last year this year. That's been pretty consistent. And so you need to shore up that position, unless you're going to really invest in talent on the back line in making sure that you're not putting your keeper under pressure, then you need to invest in the keeper. There's no two ways about it. You can't have it both ways and just say we're going to ride the guys we have on our back line and find a keeper 75% the quality of Berkey and have success. It's a. Jerry Hayes too. Jerry Hayes too does point out that Berkey's girlfriend is in Chicago. So that's, that's the thing in the fan base that people are noticing and kind of commenting on that, you know, I even had somebody ask me, well, I could go for us or against us. Yeah. Sorry. No, I, I think that, uh, I think that's an intangible. And so a lot of people are seeing that and seeing social media and they're thinking, you know, does, how, how will that play into it is we're even going to be with St. Louis in 2025, et cetera, et cetera. I think that's taken it too far. I think Berkey's going to be here in 2025. He's first of all, he's under contract, um, you know, that that's a little reading too much into the tea leaves, but yeah, long term, I don't know, uh, I can't find the names. I'm going to mess it up, but there are three St. Louisans in the U S L. Thomas Gomez is one of them. And there's two more, um, that are St. Louisans that might like to retire. Uh, Joe Willis is, is getting old, um, and, um, I can't think of the other anyway, it's a possibility bringing in a St. Louis and a St. Louis in that might have a home hometown discount. That would be pretty cool. Timelia is out of contract with sporty, sorry, uh, I couldn't even get through that with this space. As an American, I, I love him got to respect him, um, any, so there's another aspect to the free agent list. Right. Like who looks good? Who would you want? Have you kind of perused this list here? Well, one name that sticks out, uh, that we talked about a couple, a few years ago, I feel, um, well, a few names, you know, the defensive midfield position, I think is, I don't know. I don't know why I know we have Durkin. I know we have JGR, but for some reason I just keep in my mind, I have this PTSD about our defensive midfield position and needing to find a continuing to improve because that's ultimately where we are right now with St. Louis, so this transfer window showed it to us. We don't need to find people to fill holes. We need to improve at every position. We need to find a, we, right now I think we have our improvement at left back on loan with Giannis Horn. That's, that's our go forward plan. Uh, I think we have that in Thomas, Tautland, um, out of right back, a little shaky as the season has progressed. Uh, I think the wear and tear has really gotten to him, uh, center back is an opportunity. I think we could very much find an improvement at center back because I'm with a lot of people and thinking, I don't know how much we can rely on Joachim Nilsen long term. The past is the past. You can't necessarily say, we'll, we'll, we have to ride the past is an indication of what we're going to get in the future for Joachim Nilsen. I think that's unfair to him. We don't know how his health is going to hold up. We know the quality can be there, but if the health doesn't hold up and yet some point you, maybe it, maybe something happens this season. I think center back is something I'm keeping an eye on, uh, but defensive midfielder, like I said, Iliye Sanchez is out of option or out of contract with LFC. Iliye Sanchez is an, as he got him circled, I don't know how well, or if, uh, we could afford him or anything like that, but that is a talent that is a consistent high level pivot. I would love to see wearing a city Jersey, um, you know, Tyler Miller is at a contract or he has a pending option with DC United goalkeeper. That's an interesting one, uh, there was, where's Montreal on this list? I think there was Victor one Yama is another interesting one. I think he's a little too expensive for us at a contract, defensive midfielder for CF Montreal, uh, Joseph Martinez is pending an option. So he's another, he's kind of fallen off the radar for CF Montreal, talent is still there, I think, but you know, there's a few names here and there, but what, what's really going to happen is the timeline for this is important to know. The first thing that's going to happen in the off season for this list is those options are going to be exercised before the expansion draft, before the super draft, anything like that options are exercised and these will find out which of these pending options are actually picked up. So that'll provide a more clear list of who we actually have available in free agency to even potentially target. And then after that, this, uh, this off season, we'll have the expansion draft where we have to protect 10 or 11 players and then we could lose one to San Diego who comes in just because we were the last expansion team doesn't mean we're exempt. Technically, the only teams that are exempt are who had a player picked in the last expansion draft. And so that would have been, uh, offhand into Miami, um, not Houston, oh man, in Miami, Orlando city, um, Cincinnati and where did John Bell come from? New England. I think that would be, that would be the list because indie and Jake LaCava both came from Miami. So yeah, those are the four teams that are going to be exempt, not us, and then, and then we'll be able to sign free agents, uh, after the expansion draft and super draft and free agency will open. So timeline for the off season, some look forward to, uh, we'll post all those dates on social media. So you can have those for reference. Uh, there's a couple of questions that I want to get to as we pivot to other conversations though from oboe in the chat, uh, first one that he mentioned, I think I got to it a little earlier about Chris Durkin, the U-22, um, U-22 contracts are good until the age 25 season. Uh, I would love to see us fill other U-22 spots. So, uh, what position? I don't really care. I just want more U-22s on our team because those are effective use of roster mechanisms. U-22s hit our salary budget charge at $150 or $200,000. We can pay them, uh, JGR is a perfect example, U-22 player that we paid a $800,000 transfer fee for. We'll find out his salary when the next PA report comes out this month and he only hits the budget at a 150,000. That's the kind of massive deal. I mean, we're talking about a cost savings to what we have to report to the salary cap of almost a million dollars. That's a huge, potentially a million dollars, depending on what a salary is. Durkin will be that spot for another season, I believe. And I just want us to fill that third slot because with the designated player, uh, roster construction that we've chosen because we have three, we have hardle, we have Klaus and we have Berkey, we have three U-22s available. And so I want to see, I want to see us pick up another one. I would love it. I don't, like I said, I don't care what position. I just want somebody of talent that we take a flyer on like that, because it's so worth it for roster construction. And then I was the other question, why haven't we bought out Pedro? Are we saving it for Nielsen? So there's one, one, a contract buyout that MLS teams get per season. They tried to negotiate two with the PA this year, but that did not work. Everybody gets one per season. The key to this isn't short term for this season. It's long term about what kind of a contract is this player on and how much it's going to cost them to buy out the entire contract. And so Selmer Pedro in particular, um, is on a contract until 2025, making $374,000 a year. So you're talking about, if we had bought him out this year, that would be probably by the time mid season rolled around five, $600,000 that we would have had to pay to buy him out. Um, instead they're looking at ending his loan, his loans over, they're looking at playing him at city two, like we found out a few weeks ago and looking for some kind of move abroad. Maybe they look for salary relief as well, but I do think there is probably keeping that flexibility and not necessarily wanting to just cut ties with Pedro. Um, I'm not saying that the other half of Abbo's question, are we saving it for Nielsen is even in the realm of possibility because no, I don't think we're saving it for Nielsen. I think there's too much hope and promise that he'll recover and actually show the long term prospects that we hoped he would. I know he's on a $1.2 million salary. It goes until 2026. So if you're thinking contract buyout on Nielsen this year, you're talking about paying him $2.4 plus million dollars. That's, that's outside the realm of possibility in my eyes. So a lot of, a lot of intricate decisions that are occurring as Lutz plans for what he's going to be doing this offseason. Cordesage or court of sigh says they love what better is provided starting for a short time. Talk about that, but I'm also thinking better and horn are on loans. So you might have to fill their spots if they're recalled and we don't get to keep them for some reason. The loans are interesting, aren't they? Because Janis Horn's loan from FC Nurnberg goes until the middle of next year with options for the back half of 2025 and all of 2026. So there's a loan to purchase there and then Simon Betcher's loan also goes to the middle of 2025 with options for 26, 27 and 28. I definitely don't see Betcher relegated to any kind of a non role or city to type role, but I do wonder if we, I've seen, I've seen this team want to go to Klaus nonstop. What I have not seen is this team say Klaus is healthy, ready to go for 90 minutes and he comes in as a sub. I can't point, I can't recall a single game. There might have been one or two, but that's just not been an emo with how this club treats Klaus. His abilities are relished off the ball and on the ball. Like when he's asked to do the things that Klaus is good at and not do too much, like he was asked to do earlier this season, he is a force. And we've seen multiple glimpses of it, but for one reason or another, whether it's injury or injury to others, he hasn't had that consistent opportunity to be a double-digit goal score, pushing 20 goals, those kinds of things. I think with this group around him, Marcel Hartl, Cedric Toy shirt, you put Betcher up there with him maybe even all Indy or Thor on the wing and he's got a lot of opportunity. And so I think one of two things are going to happen either you're going to see Klaus get a run with Betcher coming in every single game at the 60-minute mark, potentially 70-minute mark. You might see Klaus and Betcher play together like you did against New England, but I haven't seen it yet to where it makes me believe we're going to see Betcher start and a fully healthy Klaus come off the bench. Not to say that Betcher hasn't earned it because I think in the past few games, you can't say that Betcher hasn't earned continuing to start. So that's why I think that of all the likely possibilities, the sneaky one that you might look to is Klaus and Betcher starting and getting back to somewhat of if not a 4-4-2, then maybe like Phil, you were saying like a, what a 3-4-2-1 or 3-4-1-2 or something like a 3-center back that kind of supercharges everything ahead of that because you do have options to have Janus Horn and Thomas Todlan on those wingback rolls while you have somebody like Hebert, Yarrow or Nurwinski, and Henry Kessler as your centerbacks, your attack has so much opportunity. The only reason that I'm a little gun shy on that approach is because of the depth of our attack. When you do the wingbacks and you have 3 centerbacks, you're basically taking away some kind of an attacker, right, and so you're limiting your width in the attack, purely in the attack. You do have wingbacks who can go up and down, but I'm saying those wingers, the wide mids, you're limiting who can be there. When you have Klaus and Betcher fighting for your striker roll, you have Marcel Hartle, Cedric Toy shirt, Indiana Vasilev, Nufy Thorsen fighting for your attacking mids, like there's mouths to feed there and so you have to choose what formation makes sense with the personnel that you have available and is it worth sacrificing this extra attacker. So you said earlier, Phil, that you liked what you saw from Klaus and Betcher together in the limited action they had against New England. I thought that they had a lot of good runs and it was interesting to me to see Betcher playing more at times, more at a higher position and Klaus was more alongside Cedric Toy shirt or Marcel Hartle bringing the ball up, waiting for that line-breaking run. I would like to see them play more together off of each other and just see what happens because I think the skill is there. It's funny you say that because I would say Taylor 12-man and almost annoyingly kept teasing the three center back thing happening in this game and it's like clearly, dude, you were tipped off that that's what's going to happen, at least stop talking about it, but you know, the other thing, sorry, the other thing that was teased was that Betcher is more of a ten or a second striker, he said that millions of times and he was saying that's what he played in college and to some degree that's kind of true, but I watched a lot of slew in their final year and it was mostly Betcher up top or Betcher with Klein playing striker roles or Klein playing as a ten. So like in my opinion, that's not true historically, but it probably is true for how based on how we know Taylor gets his information, he gets to talk to coaches. So that's probably how Hackworth views him and maybe Hackworth has experienced past mine and maybe Taylor does too, I'm not saying I'm right, but all that to say, Betcher is going to be playing underneath when Klaus is in, in my opinion, every single time and I think Betcher likes it, I think Hackworth likes it by the sound of it, but the weird thing is, and I've been thinking about this ever since we said Klaus might start this game, let's say Klaus and Betcher start this game together, who goes 90 because it's one of those two has to play the nine if one gets tired, you know what I mean? So one of the two has to go 90 and I don't know how I feel about that. So I think that's something that needs to be hashed out because we saw Klaus stay up high the entire time he was in, Betcher was high before that, and then we subbed in the ten roles, the underneath roles after that and like four different guys played that role throughout the game to some success. I liked it, I loved it, I enjoyed it, but you know, I'm just thinking practically this is interesting. I mean, that's a good point that if you start them both, then you're either going to have one of them play all 90, rely on that, or you're going to have somebody play out of position like Niffy Thorsen had been doing and I don't think they want to do that. So that's the argument against the two strikers because you only have two strikers, truly two strikers on your team and you're not treating Cedric Twistred as an out and out striker. We haven't seen it yet, not to say we couldn't. I think that's a possibility as you could move them up. But if that happens, you're subbing Betcher and Klaus both off who you bring it on. You bring it on Rasmus Alm, you bring it on Niffy Thorsen. And so in that case, I think you could look at a situation where you move to a 4-2-3-1 and you have Nookv on the left, Marcel Hardel moves to the center, Rasmus Alm's on the right and you have Cedric Twistred up top. I haven't really seen Twistred last the full 90 yet because he's the one who's been recovering from his injury. So there's that question too of would they feel comfortable with him? I think that's probably less comfortability, Twistred going the full 90 than Klaus or Betcher. Hackworth was very pointed in the press conference that I saw regarding the ability for Klaus Alm and Janus Horn going 90. So that's something for me to watch out for is does this mean that all of them are in contention now to start? Because if Rasmus Alm is in contention to start, that's a look that I think I've been waiting for, chomping at the bit, dare I say, to see. An attacking group of Marcel Hardel, Cedric Twistred, Rasmus Alm and Klaus. When all is said and done, you look at this roster and you have the mindset from two months ago and you say, "What is your ideal 11?" For me, that's the ideal attacking group of the 11. You put Louvin and Durkin underneath of them. You put Janus Horn, Henry Kessler, Joachim Nilsen and Thomas Tullen on the back line. Sign sealed and delivered. Like, that's mine. I want to see that group get a good run out. I don't think I don't think this would happen in real life, but I feel like against Minnesota, like Alm isn't like the guy I want to push in. Now he is by far the best right winger. But unless we start in a three-centerback system and Alm starts over totland on the right wingback role, which I think he's done an extremely good job at every time he's done it, both coaches over the last two seasons, it's happened multiple times, he does a good job at right wingback. And so if we start in a three-centerback role and Alm starts at the right wingback role, I'm in love. Let's do it. People sub in totland later for him, if it doesn't go well, or indie can play there, Thor can play there. So just a lot of different things can happen, a lot of options, and I love thinking about those sort of things. But I don't know, you made a face though, so what didn't you like about that? I'm curious. I mean, we just haven't seen it yet about like Rasmus Om. indie's played a wingback role here recently. We've all played it multiple times over the years, usually in a substitute situation. Yeah, that's what I was going to say is I haven't seen Alm lately do that, but indie definitely in a substitute role has moved to the wingback. But what I'll say is that he doesn't disappoint me to- Yeah, I don't know. I feel that's more of like a response type thing. And so there's a difference between how I think Hack is going to come out and attack or defend or what the look wants to be to handle the Minnesota three-man back line with their wingbacks and their wide attack and the way they worked the ball through the center. Like, how is he going to manipulate his best players to best handle that, but also to take advantage of their weaknesses. So there's- when we have these conversations, right, they're two-sided. There's how do you defend or how do you roll a lineup out that can take on what they're going to throw you, but also how can you craft a lineup that will best take advantage of what you think they're going to show? That's how you dictate pace to me and dictate the entire flow of the game. It's not thinking about how you can handle the pressure they're going to give from having a three-center back and having wide players move forward but move the ball through the middle. It's how can your attackers best exploit those three-center backs. And you know that they're going to drop back into a five-man back line often. So what's the best approach? Is it to have a more vertical attack in your two strikers or is it to have kind of a wider attack in leveraging your wide attack emids and pushing one side, Janis Horn or Thomas Tallin higher? I personally like that approach where you have kind of a wider and you can stretch them out because I think the thing we've seen with five-center backs is oftentimes the box gets clogged. You're just having so many bodies in the box that you don't have room to work and you're not able to draw them away from gold to play off of each other. You're not having those instances where Edu Louvin can hold the ball, draw a couple of attackers and then play it up to Marcel Hartle in the channel and then he can kind of slip the ball over to the middle to have a shot like he did against New England. That's the kind of thing that I think HAC is trying to determine is how can they manipulate the opposition given whatever formation they use. That's going to be fun. That's what I look for when I see the starting 11 is like, that's where my mind goes. What's the starting 11 going to, we see is it a 4-4-2, is it a 4-2-3-1, three-center backs, okay, given that, what does that mean for how we're going to progress the ball and where are points of attack are going to be? Yeah, and I think that's what I like is that they were so fluid in their three-center back roll, whether it was on purpose or not, but like, I hear your point about maybe they are too clogged up top, but it was interesting to see on playing wing back and he would push so freaking high and then all of a sudden, Nerwinski would look like a full back, you know what I mean? Yeah. And so we were able to push a ton of guys forward and have Nerwinski, even though he's playing a center back roll, when we're attacking, he could just look like a full back, even sometimes an attacking full back, somewhat inverted even, so, you know, like, I think you're right, like, I think they're going to start in a four-man back line because it just makes sense. I don't think they're going to force Alm over there, but I do think it would be one of my first moves if things go awry. If you're watching in our live stream or if you listen to our podcast, I had to show the comment in our chat from Jerry Hayes that says, "Fill over 12 men." No. And then my reply is, "12 improves me wrong every time I argue with him, basically." Well, I think, I don't know, I think the fun part of me for this conversation, honestly, Phil, is how much more exciting it is than what we were arguing about in June and July about is it Johnny Klein or is it Jose Kojima starting? Like, that's as much fun as those guys are, and I would never despair, and that's not what I intend to be doing here, but it's the level, elevation, and talent that this provides us. And so this is the exciting thing that I think gives me hope and optimism to borrow Stu's relentless optimism from earlier going into this game, because, like, I don't think we, I tried to mention it in our first part, but this game truly is make or break for the season. I can't emphasize that enough. Like Santi loves to talk about six-point games. We've played Minnesota twice in the back half of the season. They're the only opponent that we haven't played yet so far this season. So all those changes that we had gone through, both teams are brand new to each other this year in general, much less the changes we've seen. And so you have two teams with, what is it, five, six games left, six games left, and both of them fighting for a playoff spot, both of them fighting for their playoff lives in this eight, nine spot. And if St. Louis can pull out both wins against Minnesota, we're currently eight points behind them. If we can just pull out both wins against this one team, that's six points right there. Suddenly we're neck and neck with them, given just these two games we have in this head-to-head battle. And then you have games against like San Jose, a few others. We already beat the galaxy, which was one of the two supposed toughest teams in the back half of the schedule. Like there is a path forward that puts us, you know, in rarefied error, be able to come back from where we were. It's not easy. Like I don't want to make this seem like, oh, this is a surefire thing if we just do X, Y and Z. A lot of things have to go right, but that's why I'm so overly excited about this one game. I agree, it's well said. We probably don't have time to get to like half the other things that we have in this wind down. Like, I was thinking the same. I think I want to, I want to talk really quickly about the EFC 25 thing, just because that's a fun topic to talk about. The EFC ratings have come out for this upcoming EFC game. And the ratings for the St. Louis players best 11 essentially were released. We have three gold-carded players, Roman Berkey, Edou Louven and Marcel Hartle, rated 78, 75 and 75 respectively, and then a bunch of silvers. So if you're familiar with playing EFC, Klaus is a 74, Indiana Vassalves a 67, Giannis Horns a 68, Henry Kessler 69, Alms a 69, Cedric Toy shirt's a 71 and Yokeem Nilsen a 72. I honestly, like I saw hate for it online, just because people are like, yeah, this, what was the respect? MLS teams in general don't get very much respect when it comes to the quality here. This isn't, this is a bad, if I, if anything, I think it's respectful to Roman Berkey to get a 78 playing in MLS. That's a pretty good card to start out with. And I do, I do think that they put a decent amount of effort to at least aligning groupings of players. Like one or two points, you can argue, but you know, I'm excited to play this game personally with the new guys we have on board. And I think it gives an adequate credit like with three gold players. I think that's new this year. I think our only gold player last year was Roman Berkey. So Louven and Hartle adding in some DP firepower and recently bought down DP and Louven. So that's fun. My wife is, I haven't seen many comments on this. And I just love my wife was like, what the heck is to, totlin? She's like, how is he not in this top list? I was like, well, is that a top list? Does that mean he's lower than 67? She's like, yeah, she's like mad about it. And I'm, I mean, I hope he's 66. But last I saw last time I looked him up on FIFA. He was very lowly. He doesn't get, he, he's a player that doesn't get the credit he deserves. I will say that. Like to borrow an Alexander Hamilton phrase, he doesn't get all the credit that he deserves. I think we were talking about that a little bit recently, he's figured it, but still like totlin at the beginning of the season is very, very, very good. Yes. And we at multiple points, I even asked him at one point about national team aspirations. And he still has national team aspirations for both the US and Norway, which he's a dual citizen. He's qualification for both. He has so much potential and he's one of those players too, who double checking my notes. Thomas totlin is under contract until 2026 with an option for 27. So he's going to be a long term city guy as well. I think, I think, yeah, I'm just excited for that. Yeah, I'm very happy about that. Bronze boot. You want to mention the bronze boot? I think we can't get out of here with mentioning the bronze boot, right? Like we're a St. Louis, we tout ourselves as St. Louis podcast, St. Louis, all things soccer in St. Louis. So slew SIUE bronze boots, Stu had to jump. So he couldn't be with us on this, but it was an exciting game that he was, he was there on site, exciting game between the Billikens and the Cougars. But SIUE pulled it out. They ended up winning one nothing. So City Park was the host of this. It was an awesome crowd from what I saw. And the bronze boot once again goes back to Edwardsville. And one of, so not to get into the nitty-gritty of the game, but just the excitement that I have about this being a yearly thing, the bronze boot being held at City Park and the fanfare that this year, the fanfare was better because I think last year, if I recall, it was on the same weekend that City was playing in Kansas City because I remember I couldn't go because I was in Kansas City for it. This year it was at least unopposed as far as that goes, but you know, I don't know if SLU is going to fall out of the top 25, but it was, it was a fun atmosphere, fun, exciting thing to see that this is now going to be a yearly thing to have the bronze boot, one of, if not the most storied trophy in college soccer, played the competition played at City Park. Yeah. And I think SIUE is only one it like not very many times, especially in the last several years. So this is a big deal that they won this and it was a scrappy game, you know, one zero defensive mostly or maybe a lack of offense. I don't know. I think maybe SIU won it their way and SLU has had a rough beginning of the season. So it just feels like that's kind of what's going on without knowing everything about SLU. Yeah, 13 to four shots, St. Louis outscored out shot SIUE, Jackson Delcas shout out to Jackson Delcas. I'm glad we can actually mention this on this. He had a pair of shots on goal for SLU. We had a, we, we retweeted an article from the flavor account on Jackson Delcas being named the number one prep soccer athlete in the nation. And that's just a tremendous honor. He's a new kid at SLU obviously grown up through the St. Louis City Academy in the last few years at least. And one of those OG City Academy guys, you know, he's, he's got the now infamous long hair with the sweatband on his forehead type of look. And he's easily recognizable, easy to root for quality player, can't wait to see him grow through SLU and just one of those exciting kids that you want to root for, getting an opportunity to play in this game was pretty special. If you haven't heard in past shows, we've said, you know, number one NCAA ranked player. I mean, that's massive and it's, it's well deserved. He's, he's a big guy for that to be an NCAA with all of his experience, what he did with the U-23s in that final. I mean, he's a good player. Yeah. I also looked it up. SLU won, SIUE won last year and this year and they hadn't won before that since 1982. So shout out to Ryan Fraley in the chat who mentions people forget SIUE was D1 national champs in the late 70s in men's soccer before the NCAA made them go down to D2. I'm sure there's a story behind that. I don't personally know it, but that's a heck of a story. It sounds like. Yeah. Good shout that SIUE has a pretty good history. Doesn't quite match SLU's national championships, but the fact that we have a battle of former national champions, that's a pretty special story adds on to the mystique of the bronze boot. And shots fired. I mean, SLU supposed to be in the top 25, SIUE took, SIUE took him out and SLU needs to step it up if they really want to do something this season with the players, the quality of players they have. So we'll see. True story. True story. All right, Matt, I think we should call it. Let's let's get out of here, man. This has been a fun chat. I just feel like I've missed a couple of weeks. And so I just feel like going on and on and on because to me, it feels like recapping everything I missed. Truly, I was truly, I was out of the loop for a period of time, but I'm so happy to be back into it, talking this being this in depth and everything else. It's not like it was a vacation. Trust me, it was not a vacation. It was just had to focus on some other things. Every time I checked in with you, you were freaking miserable. So yeah, it's been a long few weeks. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. It was a fun one. Good to have you back, Matt. We'll check it out. Log in for the fallout. Yes. Fallout this Sunday. I think I'm going to have Santi back with me. I'm excited to be back. You and Justin killed it this week. If you didn't. Don't forget Lily. Yes. And Lily. Yeah, Justin's just a baby. That was awesome. Listen to the fallout because of technical difficulties, to no fault of anybody. Go back and give it at least a little bit of a listen to hear that fun show. It's not often we get Phil on Fallout. I feel I've gotten you twice that you've covered for me this year. The Miami when I was at the wedding in California in this one. So you do a great job, man. I will be back this Sunday, I think, with Santi and look forward to recapping a win if everything goes well. We hope to have a good Sunday in Saint Louis. Absolutely. Again, one more massive. Thank you to Justin Hornaker for helping us out last week. Bye, everybody. Have a good one. See ya. Bye. Bye. Bye. All right, Phil, we're recording now. So it's live. Go ahead. Pick on me the way that you want to. Did I say that? I would say that to my son and I mean, come on, man. Just go. This is CBS. Be quiet for a few seconds. Why would people want to listen to the Sims complete podcast? Well, a couple of things. One, if you'd like to see sons pick on their father, this might be the place. If you want to see a place where the father just kicks the **** out of his son, this would be the place. What do you like about it, Matt? Ditto. Father, son, dynamic duo talking about the game of football that we love and share and appreciate together. And, you know, hey, it's an extension of what we did, right? Growing up. Like, was able to watch my father play football, then obviously watch him as a broadcaster. And then he taught me the game of football and share the wisdom that he learned throughout his playing career. And, you know, hey, sometimes we're full of it and sometimes we actually know a thing or two. Well, we do do a lot of research. At least I do. I'm you, you're a little spotty, but you know, you're, you hang in there. It's fun. I love doing this and it's been awesome. Sims complete. Check us out wherever your podcasts are available on the Believe network. Appreciate it. See you. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening. Bye. (crowd cheering) [BLANK_AUDIO]
