We discuss the last game of the season and Austin FC's new hire.
Suffering From Joy Podcast
New Coach, Nice? EP 069
[MUSIC] What an eye for Google! Devin Piahas, he wouldn't make the Cyclops jealous! >> Do I look nervous? >> No. >> Here's your answer. >> Here's back, I'll get the ball out, get his back up. >> Get his back up, get his back up, get his back up, get his back up. >> No! >> No! >> Yes, he missed it. >> Welcome to the suffering from Joy podcast, my name's Devin. A little bit of coaching news, a little bit of player news, a game to review. But I think we're going to spend most of the time on the coaching here. Joining me today is the rest of the esteemed panel in full. First up, Brad Tillery, Brad, how are you feeling? >> Feeling good, not like a lot of it's happened in the last week or so for Austin, I've seen you, so kind of cool. >> Just barely keep it up, a steady drip, I guess. Seth, who knows everything? Seth, how you doing? >> I guess I now re-calibrate my life to be like, it's a weekday at noon. What is Roto going to tell me today? >> Yeah, I mean, it's nice that they're consistent. >> Yeah. >> Just kind of set your watch, check your phone and then go, okay, that's nice. Or, you know, explode like everybody did on Friday. But those are, you know, one out of four, one out of five ain't bad. And also with us is Scott, Scott, how are you feeling? >> I'm feeling good, I appreciated Roto's just like drip drip of news this week. And then he just kind of like built to like a very large crescendo, which was nice. >> Yes, crescendo is a word, I'm not sure it's the one I would use. But like don't you normally do those news drops at like 5 PM on a Friday, not at 11. >> I mean, I think that says a lot about their views of the coaching hire, which we can get into, which obviously we'll get into. >> Yeah, I think we want to speed through the other stuff. First of all, we were very close to having a four-way like multi-layer tie on the predicted Tron and then Austin FC had to screw it up because they've screwed everything up. So in second place by the fourth tiebreaker was Brad, yay, Brad. >> Mm, I mean, I could have won. >> Yeah, we'll figure out a prize for you that you're probably not going to bother with anyways because that's half of what happened last year. And our winner was Anthony Romero. So congratulations, I've been in touch with him and I think we're going to, he's going to join No Way Day next year but we'll see what's going on. >> My demand to recount. >> Okay, I'll recount it. It's going to come up the same answer. But what are the benefits of there being like 30 entries that I'm pretty confident in the math? >> Yeah, we do have a game to talk about too. Kind of felt very wolfy for the first 90 minutes. I mean, there was some better play and some interesting guys started, or some interesting lineup moves, I think. You know, we had an early penalty and then went down two to one and then came back to score two goals. For a nice three to win, there was a lot of fun being there. Brad, did you watch any of the game? >> I saw the highlights on Twitter. >> Okay, how were they? >> Yeah, that seemed like it was a good time. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I got to be honest, there was a lot of really good college football on that night that took my attention, I believe that was also Texas, Georgia night, right? >> Yep. >> With other games on, so I made a business decision to stay home and watch college football with Austin FC gave me no reason to really beat it. No offense, but the game meant nothing and it's hard for me to really want to go to that when there's other stuff going on. >> Game meant nothing, there's whatever it is now, $19 jellyfish. >> Yeah, your couch is cheaper. >> Yeah, I heard the pre-game tailgate for supporters, it was great. And I'm glad that happened and everybody had a great time and I heard post-game traditional karaoke at the end of the season was fantastic. But I also just really needed a night home and I took advantage of it. >> Nice, Seth, did you watch any of the game and/or highlights? >> I watched the highlights. I had it up on one of five screen, my big board now can split the six screens very easily. So it was on one of those screens, but there was a bunch of really good college football on and also the decision day race in the West was actually way more exciting than that. And the Galaxy LASC going back and forth where it's happening at the same time as our stoppage time goals, I was like, oh, that actually matters, this doesn't matter. But this is nice. Okay, we'll take some field in Hopium. >> Yeah, well, I mean, it was our first ever home win over the PIDS as they call themselves, which is the worst self-enointed nickname in all of sports. >> Well, you know, they lost five nil last night. Drury Mahailovich did get injured in the match in Austin. And yeah, I don't think it's going to be too long of a playoff run for that. >> No, I think maybe we'll do some playoff stuff on the end here, but got to get the important stuff in. Scott, you did go to the game as did I. I was surprised it was like two thirds, the three quarters full, a little slow for people getting in there. I think some people are hanging out watching the Texas game as late as possible. But I'm a better and louder crowd than I expected. >> Yeah, same. It definitely filled up closer to kickoff. But it still was a much better crowd for considering all that was going on in Austin between the UT game and F1 and Spone Biles and the women's gymnastics team were performing. And that's just a lot of things for one city to have going on. So I was glad to see that it looked mostly full. I didn't think the supporters section was as full as normal. Like I had somebody like save me spots and I did not need to have anybody save me a spot even though I showed up well after when Gates opened, which is normally a problem. It was good to see Davey Arnow on the sidelines. I thought he did, I think they seemed a little bit better. I thought they played with a little more directness and kind of passed through the middle a little bit more than they've seen in a Josh. And then the other nice thing to see was that the end when they were chasing gold, they actually had a plan for how to score a goal, which kind of matters sometimes, which is that they played, they subbed on Coleman Edge as left back and just let him get as far forward as possible and kick in crosses. And they had Ethan from the back post and they let everybody else kind of run and attack it. And what a surprise it worked and got two goals. And like it goes to show how like you can make substitutions and actually like change how the game plays and can come back, which is a foreign concept for a lot of awesome FC fans who don't watch other soccer. Yeah, I mean, the whole team looked looser from the get-go and I mean, you're not playing for anything. So you could just say it's that, but a little smoother passing, there was less, you know, Guy puts his foot on the ball and you can see him trying to process what he's supposed to do and ends up passing it backwards. Not too bad. The one weird thing I noted, even before kickoff, they had Davy Arnow come out and basically the same like black quarter zip and pants that Wolf has been wearing the entire season. And like he has other clothes. This is like a weird return of the Jedi Han and Lando moment. So I don't know what you think about that. I was hoping for Verde, but so I have a theory. My theory is that much like how the players have a dressing room where like the kids all get laid out. There's also a coaches dressing room where like they're close for the match gets laid out and nobody like realized that it wasn't Wolf anymore and they just put his clothes there and Davy didn't want to question it because he is this first time being in charge only two years and he probably just thought that was like the rule and he just went with it. You don't know a lot of managers and coaches have like their initials on their shirt. They should have had him in a JW shirt. That would have been better. Well, the assistants normally wear those. So it's not like Davy doesn't already own those clothes. I would have I'm glad he didn't do that because I would have died of laughter. Like I would actually I would not be here. I like the even the the kit folks are on fuck it vacation mode. It was nice too. We got to see some players bring their families out both before and after the game. I mean, do we want to talk about the goals? They're kind of just scrummy, send them all in and actually score but put guys forward. Um, you know, I think the big thing for the game here for me at least is like, everybody feels good leaving the game. Scott, how did you feel leaving the game? Yeah, it's great. Like, you know, you come back in front of in front of the south end and with like two late goals and like everybody like ends the season on the high. Like there were a lot of comments and slack about or kind of maybe not angry but annoyed that like, oh, we had like a really positive outcome and it's like one of our few positive outcomes this year. And now the team's not going to play again in the five months. Yeah, it was a little weird setup too because it was like, well, we've got fired international breakweight two weeks play useless game. Like, I'm one of those people that like if somebody's like, well, we should, you know, tank for a better draft pick and a sport or whatever. I'm kind of like, well, that might be smart. But once you like actually get there, you're okay. Now we got a fucking win even if it's the worst thing that could happen to us. Yeah. And it's such a weird, like incentivized system and MLS, which is that like, if you don't make the playoffs, like, yeah, you got a higher pick. But like, are there more than like two or three, maybe difference makers in the draft in a year? And you don't even really know who those guys are, like, you can normally just look at like the generation of D disguise, but then it's like, you end up with kippy. Yeah, I mean, Pareto is pretty much your ceiling and he's great player, but it's not like everybody's hitting on one of those every year or anything. No, I mean, at a certain point, it almost be more valuable. If congrats, you have the third pick of the MLS draft, you'd get an extra 50,000 game this season. You're welcome. Yeah. I mean, that would be nicer. We love our game and Tam and that's probably for a draft pickle too. Anyways, do you have choice? Do you want the pick or do you want the game? Yeah, I think that'd be a better system. Yeah, I like that idea too. I mean, I mean, I'm almost instituting a lot of like, or a lot more like pick ideas in terms of like, oh, you're gonna pick your roster build, you're gonna build like, yeah, let us choose if we want to pick our game or international spot or something. One thing that's super interesting, I do want to bring up and discuss for a couple minutes, is that there's a report out that college, men's college shocker, which is not as much played as women's college shocker for title nine reasons in this country, is considering going to a fall and spring season and going to a program where enough donors would put in NIL funds that it would actually make it about pay level equivalent to U.S.L. And curious for your guys, the thoughts on that, if that changes anything for I'm honest. I think there's a whole lot of infrastructure there at the college level, but if you can get it built out already that doesn't have to be done. You have fan support there. There's money there already within the brands. So you're not having to build new brands. It's a really interesting, really interesting potential development path that could be exploited and that would be unique to the U.S. because the amount of players now that you can have in that pool, in that age group, is it's a lot. Yeah, I guess I kind of wonder, like, I mean, the biggest problem with the U.S. of like building out like the soccer pyramid, quote unquote, is that our population is so big and the country is so spread out that even having like every MLS team having a like robust academy is still only so many kids in a giant population. And there has to be some kind of system for either institute like 300 more clubs with robust academies or we use the existing structures of high school and colleges a way to get those kids who don't end up getting one of those spots. I mean, I like the idea of college software turning into a more developmental league and a developmental option because I feel as though right now it's kind of more just for late bloomers. And I don't like the idea of like U.S.L. not being able to to use that as a club strategy of trying to, you know, get younger players at MLS overlooks or where doesn't want and turn them into players to sell. Yeah, I think the college soccer model to me, I know they'd probably take potentially make some guys would make potentially as much money as some U.S.L players, but I think it's going to be more of a level of U.S.L. one if they do this, right? Oh, yeah, I can see that, which would be absolutely perfect because then you have guys that you're you're training up for both potentially MS MLS and U.S.L. levels that they would have access to to come in and either draft or pay or whatever the case may be. However, you'd like to build that structure. But there I just the money, the facilities, everything isn't there to go much bigger with college soccer than there is to try to build so much of MLS or U.S.L. one and even some U.S.L. from the ground up because you're not playing college soccer in minor league baseball parks. You're playing on actual soccer pitches. Yeah, I mean, the other big advantage of just making robust more robust soccer for colleges is that you already have a built-in fan base and you already have facilities and like if you just do a better job of marketing or like trying to make them like more fun to where like you get more students to go like you can get some great crowds there. Yeah, you can get three four thousand and you game easy. Yeah, a lot of in a lot of places that even aren't normal soccer hotbeds, but you know if you play a Sunday match, especially let's say south and up north where college football is huge. So you play you know college football on Saturday, but then you have a Sunday afternoon match when there's less going on or even a Friday night match when everybody's tailgating before, right? There's a ton of opportunity to build interest. Yeah, just like having stuff on campus that's like cheap or free for students will always get crowds out and like that's such a like you have such a like captive but like you have such a fan base to grow like being able to have those crowds and that infrastructure going in. And you know in college towns which are always like a little more left-leaning and a little more liberal where you probably have more soccer fans like that makes more sense too just in a sense of like you can get younger fans of the soccer. So I went to a decidedly non-liberal club, okay? It's super damn conservative area of the country, super damn conservative, public universal. But the culture on tailgating there isn't show up game day for college football, right? It's start Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Yeah. And still get all weekend. So the town is robust and full all weekend long. So if you do play a Friday night gamer you get the you get people marketed out to hey come out Friday night you're looking for something to do even in a conservative area of the country. They still want to root for the brand. They still want to do juicing. Well that also, yeah. No that also ties into like U.S.L. is very you know we start the year is like so and so we're gonna have a team this year there's much more of like a steady revenue stream on a college model. So you're keeping that there. I also do want to call out Brad you complaining about U.S.L. teams playing in minor league baseball stadiums. How dare you? The Portland Timbers play in a fucking minor league baseball stadium. So until we fix that why don't we leave U.S.L. the fuck alone Mr. Don Garber. I'm not mad about it. I mean I'm the person who really wants to go see a game at either Yankee or City whenever we eventually play up there in New York. It's just more of if you're talking about long-term development of players and you know building out the structure of this country more playing more on actual soccer. Having better facilities matters. Yeah it does. I just just had to call it out since there's a top level team with this problem. I don't know it's one of those things that like we'll see it's a fun idea. Let's see how it shakes it. Yeah. Okay I'm sorry Portland the team that lost the playing game 5.0 was top level. Yes okay. Plus the away home that Phil Neville decided God was on their side. Which by the way all time Heather is tweeted. Phil Neville said they got to host Stephen though. By the way Seth you would explain to us why Portland was hosting this game in the first place. So there's a couple things. First of all Portland should have hosted the game anyways because MLS has stupid rules. Because these teams tied on points in Portland are a better goal differential. So logic would say that Portland would be the better team but in MLS because Vancouver had more escape. However that on this yesterday's Saturday Saturday the world super cross championships took place at BC place. And as a result that these have to take a few days to set up the course for super cross that the Vancouver white caps were unable to host. And it's like oh is there another venue in Vancouver like where white caps to play or maybe we're a Pacific Sea place out in Victoria. Sure but neither of them 15,000 people which is a requirement for the league. Okay well so because they had more wins they got to host and this is also the same franchise that had to move a CCC game because of a home and garden show correct. All right I'm like 95% sure that's correct but like people wonder why MLS isn't taken seriously. Anyway yeah I mean you get major like champions league equivalents canceled for a home and garden show super cross. I like super cross but you know it's not even like the super cross event day. It's four days before and they're just setting up for it and like they want to be this top tier compares to you know the NFL or the NBA type league and I don't see how you can do that when shit like that's going on. Yeah I mean it's amateur hour shit right. Yeah there's only so much you can do and then so we get this great Phil Neville quote for those of you who don't know Phil Neville is the fucking spawn of Satan and one of the worst human beings on the planet. So he comes out and says well I guess we're hosting because God's on our side haha and they get smacked around by Vancouver 5-0 and the Vancouver coach comes out afterwards and says well that's great you know God can be on your side but for me God doesn't exist. Okay some people in the background we're going oh oh Vadysar Chidi is amazing on that front. Yeah he's not cutting it out but yeah that is yeah I mean there is there's something to be said to have a master of media. We'll see how he does tonight at LAFC but yeah no at least the white caps are still in this playoffs and they will get to host at home next weekend because there's no super cross there. Also just credit to the BC place people that had so much faith in the white caps would be hosted in the last cup. They booked the end of the Taylor Swift era's tour for the weekend of the last cup. I feel like between conca-capped champions league and playoffs and regular season and leagues cup that LAFC and Vancouver have played approximately 30 times in the last two years. It sure feels like that. I guess they're gonna do it one more time just for fun just for old times sake. Two or three more times for stupid format season. Yeah also like since we're doing this why did the game start on Friday and run to like Tuesday? So the reason they do that is so the reason that it's it's a combination of factors is that MLS does want some games on their deals with FS1 and F1 shows a lot of college football on Saturday so they didn't want to compete directly with most NFL games. So they decided hey okay we don't really care about competing with Sunday night or Monday night football I guess so that they're put six of the eight games on Sunday night Monday night and Tuesday night so they could all six of those are on FS1 then there is some more logic of we'll just try to figure out what makes this work for certain markets also see Ox are playing the bills at home right now so like they obviously can't host the game at the same time actually since that he did not want to host on the same day as a Bengals home game like there's just a number of things like that that makes some of these games easier on Monday or Tuesday for the home markets as well. Okay yeah I was just thinking since you got the the play in games you could basically just like line them all up in a row have the teams that aren't in play in games play like Thursday Friday I guess maybe Saturday Sunday or maybe into Monday where you don't have that gap day but I don't know I don't run you know MLS I don't make those sorts of lovely marketing decisions that we talk about so often. Well this is why they're talking about the whole different calendar though partially right is to get away from this headaches. All right we didn't have a nice little drip this week though of players coming in we got an obrionic extension then the next day we got an Owen extension and I'm I want to stop with Owen it seemed like a lot of people were surprised by that I wasn't at all because I think we've all kind of been on the same page that he is not here because he is Josh Wolf's kid he's here because he's a good player yeah yeah okay well so so I it's a little bit of both he's in Austin because he's Josh Wolf's kid but he's also with the player. Sure. Any surprises for either of those those were no brainers for me on the extension front? No no no I thought both made sense I my hope is that I saw someone on the Twitter spheres this week talking about how you know the value of Obrion and how good it was that he was our leading scorer this year I'm like okay guys it's good that he has value it's not good that he's a leading scorer yeah those are two very different things. So you know if you're going to get six seven goals out of him and hopefully next year he plays he's relegated more to have a super sub role if Picard he can come on we can also get a little more help on the wing then I think that's a really good value signing and as for Owen I mean he's still young he's still got a lot of learning we've all said that if he can get some coaching that isn't his father he might blossom and I still would love to experiment with Michael Hood's idea of moving Owen to the six and having him a Danny essentially swap swap positions yeah I mean I've always thought that was a good idea and you know if it doesn't work whatever they can both play different positions but at least try something new because what we were cooking wasn't working. Yeah I always thought that was kind of like the big question on Owen's like further development is that he's just trying to figure out like what is his best position because he's been played almost everywhere I mean he's played both full-back positions he's played on both wings he's played pretty much everywhere in the midfield and they kind of need to figure out where he kind of slots a little bit better in his development. I really go brand as a player I think he's the exact kind of like speedy winger who can score that every team means and you know to to spoil the the Estimaz talk a little bit later like I think his teams utilize their wingers a little bit more and try to play a little more direct and I think O'Brien despite how Estimaz's horse you rid him before like fits into that style well. Okay yeah I mean like let's go ahead and do you think O'Brien knew the coach when he signed this extension? Yes yes okay or at least had like a good inkling. So one of the things that Roto said was that he wanted to get a coach hired quickly so that they could have input on the roster. Yep. And I think he said that and I think one of the reasons why Nikhir was here with the US national team was he was doing interviews with Roto and it has probably been agreed upon well before the O'Brien reciting happened. So okay yeah I was going to say I assume like a lot of these contracts were signed during that international break too. Yeah that's my assumption but I'm going to go back to something Scott just said about Roto's comment about why we made this decision about Estimaz. So really because I think it was rushed. Yep. I think it's bad logic on Roto's part to say I want to have a coach in here for input on the team's instruction. Your job as the sporting record is team construction or roster construction. It's one of your main jobs. Coach puts our coach coaches who you put on the field for them. I understand you might want to get you know his input here and there fine but to rush your most important hire from a coaching standpoint just for a artificial timeline is a really I think potentially egregious mistake. Yeah and I think you know coaches should have some input but it should be something like hey you know I can't decide between these two players you know does one of them jump out at you or do you like know them or you know like is there a reason you would prefer one over the other or something where and Liverpool did this really really well in the early club days. Club would go out and say something like oh you know I need a speedy full back or I need a left back that can also double as a center back and then the GM goes out and finds them. Yeah or a sporting director. So there's some collaboration there but it's not you know like a crazy I went exactly this guy like it's pretty much the sporting director's job at that point to go back yeah okay I'll take a look at him but fuck you. Yeah I you're you're the man you all the sporting director it is your job to find players. It is the coaches do not to coach the players that you have and you just part of your job to hire a coach to best put those players that you are bringing in in the right positions. Yes. So I I don't particularly like the thought process that Roto has publicly stated I'm willing to hold out a little judgment until we press conference here in a couple of days. But there's nothing here that excites me with this hire and we talked about this in the last episode where Roto continuously loves to say names you would never believe and that he's setting expectations to a point where he can't meet them and here's exhibit A. Yeah and I mean we continued the direct right we got the Heinzec extension we got the Rubio extension everybody's still in kind of a good mood you know none of those are like holy shit why did you resign that guy players or anything and somebody's like feeling nice and then I think it was what about half an hour before the team announced it that Tom Bogart decided to to drop the bomb on all of us. Yes. Yes. And so we've already kind of mentioned it new hire is Nico Estebes Naishin former FC Frisco coach kind of cut his teeth at a couple different clubs around Valencia and Spain. Don't know how else to say it other than he's a USSR apparatic and a Greg Lackey. He just speaks Spanish though. But it's a little different yes he has been part of that system but like he is not just coaching once you know like he grew up in Spain like this is the one who did not grow up in a pay-to-play soccer program at North Carolina or Virginia or somewhere else like a lot of the US soccer guys who are of the similar age because I mean Nico is what is mid-40s as well. He's not that old of a coach for say I mean which called Frisco was his first head major head job there outside of like youth teams and things like that. So like he actually didn't get to see proper academies proper systems in a way that Josh Wolf outside of his I don't actually won't even call 1816 unit the proper system. I mean now the third division in jeopardy they're sort of famous for having collapsed on that point but like having that those that DNA and I also think that he'll work well with Roto I at first I was like what did we just do here but like the more I'm settling into it I'm giving it like a seagrain rather than the initial reaction of WTF this is a D-minus. All right so Cesset bargaining Scott where are you at? So I I want a logic brain this as much as I can and we've mentioned a lot of things that are good boxes to to take for for having an MLS coach. He has international coaching experience he has MLS experience and you know he speaks Spanish he obviously can work with Roto like all these things are important but ultimately you have to go back to the idea that we hired a coach who got fired mid-season from a team that finished below us and like once you just like look at that very basic logic statement it's kind of like why him of all the like you know names you won't believe and 25 coaches call me blah blah blah and it's like that dude coached four hour like a four hour drive from here or five hour drive from here or whatever like it doesn't seem like you did that grade of a search or that deep of a search to just come up with this name. My other question here um why wouldn't you just shit can wolf and put this guy in if that was your plan all along? Like mid-season. Yeah I feel like doing that mid-season would have gotten to a I don't know full on revolt but like you don't hire a coach like who's just fired mid-season. I mean it happens a little more in other leagues but like I feel like mid-season would have been too much to do that. There was always hope of us making the playoffs. I mean sure but you know the excuse I've seen trotted out is well he was available now and you know European coaches are only available in the summer which first of all is not at all fucking true but um if that's the whole excuse like do it in the summer. I mean Minnesota hired a coach from a European club in March like you can do this and even if you're gonna wait that long like just keep Davey as the interim then. Like there's something that says that like you can't have an interim for a certain amount of time like if you want to wait wait it just seemed like they it just again like what Brad said of like it just feels like he had an arbitrary timeline he's had of when he wanted this done by and so he did I I know Seth said he gives it a C right now I'm D minus for me and prove me wrong but until I see something that shows me that we didn't just hire we didn't rush this hire I'm not going to be happy about it. Scott hit the nail on the head for me. We just hired a coach who finished the season worst us yes I know Frisco has had injuries over the last couple of years but that team got progressively worse over the last two and a half seasons they did really well his first year and then go look at the decline it's a steady decline ever since the start of 2023. The other thing I forgot to mention I saw somewhere that of the coaches who got fired mid-season no replacement score did a better job compared to the fired coach than Nico Estebazza's replacement like that team was remarkably better after he was gone. Yeah if we want exciting soccer with the guys that we have that's not the guy by the way he's going to help us defensively I think quickly but yeah this his style is not one that it's it's going to play attractive exciting soccer no they were winning they were winning a lot of one nothing games yeah I guess let's jump to the style a little bit he's not like he is sort of that positional coach but he's less of the like full-backs to the end line than Wolf at least for me Scott I know you had some detailed stuff you wanted to jump on here so if you want a rock and roll go for it yeah like I think his teams play with more directness they use the winners better and more you know their their teams that try to utilize speed to press and especially you know I think in in 2022 and it felt like we played them over and over again like you could see their plant of like they were going to let us pass to the wing and they were going to press and then they were going to get chances off and it always worked and I think we're going to see more of that and I think we're going to see a team that actually tries to like impose pressure on the other team like I think we're going to see more of like trying to get wingers in behind and like try to press and try to like impose something on the game I don't think he's a wolf ball type I don't think we're going to see a lot of standing on the ball I don't think we're going to see our back line be as involved or keeper is involved in terms of being a passing and being like kind of like that build from the back team I don't think his teams really did that so I think we're going to see a stylistic change as much as this is still a like broader system higher so I saw a lot of being like oh we're going to get more wolf ball and it's like well probably not like I don't I don't really see that from the way that he's coaching forward look they listened to our complaints we said you could at least lose differently and now we're going to do that now you guys are complaining again I don't know what's right us supposed to do come on I mean I do think the team will probably be better defensively I think he organizes defenses better and he puts more of a priority on defense than wolf ever did whether or not that will bear out like in statistics well I don't know but I mean here's hoping that Brad Stuber doesn't have to leave the league and save so yeah so I'll ask you a quick question if you're ex horseshoe for wolf let's say is like a 0.9 and for your gun cloth is like a 0 where would you rate him unexpected horseshoe of sadness um I feel like he's probably more of like a 0.4 okay like he's like he's not quite to like that full clop scale of like the the gig impressing and and kind of doing that but have you not going to be yeah it's not going to be quite that but like I mean wolf is such an extreme when it comes to horseshoe of sadness that like it's still going to be remarkably different yeah um Brad or Seth either you went away on on your ex horseshoe I think Scott's hit it about I'd say about 0.5 I also think just as long as we have enough of these guys some of it is just going to be drilled into them that I would expect to see more horseshoe out of Austin than we ever did in the first go just because realistically unless something crazy changes the majority of this starting lineup is going to be the same starting lineup come February 22nd yeah um maybe a couple pieces added but uh Brad what do you think yeah I mean I think the idea that we're going to play a little more direct is nice and this is a team that I we saw glimpses of it in the Toronto game where the counter is there we can we can play a little bit on the counter now it's the finishing on the counter is a problem but creating chances is something they can do so the idea of being able to maybe sit back in our own half a little more press press in our own half and then challenge for the ball and go on a direct counter with the speed that we have is I like it I just don't know that I see a step as being the guy who's going to bring that to fruition for us fully yeah well and and going back to Brad's point of like pressing like you can be in your own half and still press and trap and do those things yeah you can still have those triggers like I think there's a misconception among a lot of fans of like oh were they pressing they do blow a blonde it means it like we play like Red Bull style and like that's a way to do it but like it makes a lot more sense and a lot of ways to have your press triggers be kind of like interior passes to the middle and then you grab the ball with three guys and if you watch how Dallas played against us the last few times he played them they would let us walk the ball to the half line and they should and then immediately collapsed on us and took exactly like you're saying took away the the interior passes and then ran out that's how they played us so if we want to play a style like that especially with you you got to have a true striker up there that we don't have right now Rubio can't make it through the whole season as our striker we got to go get somebody oh where is true where does true see fit in this becomes my biggest question so I think what I think the ideal for Drew you see would be he would be somebody who helps in the press and getting it turned over and trying to like either be involved in getting like that first transition pass out or or being part of that and then being able to fill in a run behind the striker into whatever open spaces left because that's really where he's he's best and we saw it a little bit during during the game in Colorado he didn't finish the chances but we saw him ghosting back into the box in a way that got him got him shots on goal and that really is like he is he is a 10 not an equally making sense of a 10 he has a 10 as in a support striker who makes runs under the box and finishes yeah his superpower is clearly that late run in the box or around the box or whatever you want to say it just so we can back up a second since we're getting a little technical here what do you mean when you say press triggers when I say press triggers I mean that what coaches will do is that they will essentially set up their set of their defense and then part of the game plan is okay if that's happens that's when we're gonna push up yeah you see it happen against Austin a lot of like when a or you see a lot of teams do this anyway which is that with a ball gets hit back to get back to a center back especially the center back is not facing forward that player knows like oh that's go we have to go now and on good teams on well organized teams as soon as that one person goes everybody else goes to because you have to move as a unit you have to keep your you know your lines tight and and that's really like everybody knows the of seeing like oh this happened that's when we push everybody else pushes and then you all have to like your individual assignments of like covering up zones or players to to limit the passing options yeah I think if you go back and watch film this year and especially earlier in the season really go back and pay attention to when Vicen and got the ball at his feet because he struggled with the ball at his feet a lot this season teams picked up on it and you'll get to what Scott saying and if he got the ball immediate pressing began to happen for most of the opponents we play yeah and I mean that's kind of a classic example in where this sort of I guess you'd call rotational pressing instead of like gung ho all the time things sort of came out of was you wait for the center back who's not quite as great on the ball maybe for him to have it on his weak foot or go into his weak side or something and then bang everybody goes everybody moves his one so you're getting you know you're locking off easy passes you're locking off the secondary passes and then ideally the guy like freezes and you get a turnover yeah and so the so the one that we see against Austin a lot is when we kind of set up like the triangles on the on either edge between like the full back and the wing and the can watch out for advanced midfielder there is almost every time the press triggers on if the ball goes to the advanced midfielder they press them to force the ball back and then recycle it or they press over onto the full back just to take that immediate pass away and then all that's left is a long pass down the line to somebody who for most of Austin's history had no pace to get behind and then we're just kind of dead yeah it's a little bit this is kind of a rough analogy but sort of like if you ever played like a defensive first kind of style of basketball if you you don't need to like swap the shot into the third row right nope like to do is have the guy alter his shot yeah and that's really what you're doing is don't let them do what they want to do and force them to do the hardest thing yeah and so so like i played basketball all through high school and one of the things that one of my coaches said because we ran a pressing system that did not suit a slow white kid like me was was that like was that like a press either makes you speed up or slow down and and that like it's going to force you to play at the pace that they want to play out of like the more frenetic pressing pace or it's going to force you to slow down in a way that gets you out of the pace you want to play at but either way like you're not playing the way you want to play and so that's what you kind of see with like those press triggers of like okay if we're recycling it back then we're going to have to keep playing slower and we're not going to be able to build up the way we want to yeah yeah and your basketball analogy fits here too right there's a half court and a full court right you don't have to do a full court press the entire game um you know what you would never want to do a full court press the entire well unless you're playing Nolan Richardson 40 minutes of health i was going to say visit that for a couple years network and then less great you have a very deep athletic team it makes a lot of sense but like for most basketball teams like they do do half court because every extra boundary is an extra defender but it's also what we're talking about a fundamentally different sport here basketball so guys off to be able to do this soccer adds a little harder yeah exactly yeah i mean it's the same idea though right like you know roughly if you know basketball defense you sort of get this concept yes and i mean it's true and true in other sports too but speaking of defenders uh with the ball at their feet we forgot one signing in our conversation we just skip right over it uh i was like yeah no i mentioned it i was just talking really quickly because i was trying to get to the uh the coach discussion um yeah but no we we re-signed him uh and review and you know both both good signings i think like review is going to be a little bit more of a what we used ethan finley for type of guy i would think but review is a good signing if we go get a number one striker yeah yes like if he's our midweek rotational striker come in for 20 minutes at a time fine you know and and the midweek starter or rotational starter totally fine um if we signed him to be our starter then there's a problem uh the bhi signing great i mean you can bump him up to a 50 pay raise and he's still only on three hundred thousand dollars next year yep for Brendan hindsight cool yeah and i guess the other thing here is do we need to go sign a striker or did we already sign one in the summer no buccari is not the teacher striker of this team we would have seen that unless Niko s s has some great plan for him and maybe he does but like no this team has zero u 22 players right now we're not going to sign we don't have space to sign for u 22 guys at this moment this team needs to have a dp number nine striker i agree um or like would you take a jeremy vovacy who at this point i think is just like wedged in all of austin fc's collective psyche is the striker we want type of journeyman guy i want jeremy vovacy as a geosse's artist replacement on 60 percent of the salary okay he's not the we want someone like like honestly the chicago fireside with higo kyper is this past season like we want a striker that we're gonna go shell out a bunch of buddy for that is boy that is a proven goal scorer and is ideally still in their 20s yes proven was super techy yeah i mean if you're christian bid tech h sure yes and i honestly like the name that we were tied to um i'm a dukeshit of an environment like yeah like yes he's 30 years old but like i would take him in a freaking heartbeat yeah if you're scoring 20 plus gold a year in in the boondess league i'm gonna listen i don't care how old you are at this point uh boondess legar or swag boondess league uh no no no boondess league uh like he got our call to demon shaft last year oh okay sorry i thought you guys were talking about somebody else who is uh you know i'm i'm just honestly if honestly if they're scoring 20 goals in the spice of boondess league uh yeah i probably want them to that's what i was gonna say i was like i'd probably take that or like you know there's the famously free scoring area to busy if you get somebody who's banging in 30 and go ahead eagles fucking sign me up as i was saying i mean there was a spice of british league match this weekend that ended in in eight three results like there's just some crazy stuff in that well i think germany is probably the closest analog you really have to mls too where it's a very counter attack you know heavy gold stored a little bit free flow and when you get on the break type of league so i mean people are already playing that style obviously we'd like somebody with a little bit of technical ability but um you know i do we have the like need the hold up striker as much with niko as we did with josh i don't know the answer to this question i'm just throwing it out there i'm always looking for this mythical guy who could score 30 goals and like pass like the wind i'm gonna say no because i feel like part of fc dials is downfall this year especially early on was not being able to integrate pure moose it and with hazy's furora like that just fundamentally didn't work for a while and moose ended up scoring a lot of goals goals but those are kind of like more like later on um i don't remember ever really playing with a like support structure like that like he would usually use like furora up top more to try to like get it behind and kind of use like more like advanced linking midfielders as opposed to like the way austin is just like oh no kick it to the striker and they have to hold it up and then lay it off and blah blah blah the none of that ever actually happens the last thing we went the striker to do is touch the ball in the box everybody go run a lap i'm sorry wait which which box though because i felt like there was something like defending like 25 yards from goal and like no i think that i think that was far i got to the point this year where if zardez was on the league of anyone he probably would have been one of my favorite players from the roster just because that's all he'd do is come in like 75th minute play like killer defense uh but alas we're fanging over a million bucks i mean this is a team that has a striker that plays better defense than one of its center backs he might be a better attacker than the striker we're just zany like you never know what to think of with us we're just who we are right yeah for the record i would have been down for that position position swap for both of them yes i would have too like i know we started the hoolio at striker as a joke but it got very serious very quickly and towards the end uh scott rating on the on the higher i guess bren set there to give theirs uh i'm also gonna go dating um i just i just fundamentally don't like it as a higher just it it also like and we haven't talked about this but it makes it seem like dallas is higher standards than we do or at least their front office does and so that just kind of like immediately just like irks me and this idea of like oh he wasn't gonna have for dallas but he's good enough for us and and we just kind of have to sit here and be like really yeah yeah now the funniest outcome though is also winning a trophy with their former coach yes i mean objectively funny i guess we can do the like he knows copate house so we're not gonna have any like josh wolf taking the b team up there moments but also like and the grand scheme of things that's like 714th on my list of shit i care about yeah i i do wonder i'm sure you can play up the mls experience and everything of that nature and yes dallas is beginning to get a better crowds and yes he has coached here which is so he knows kind of what he's walking into but i do wonder if he fully understands what he's walking into when it comes to not only fan support but also more fan pressure that he's probably used to yeah i think that was gonna be where he's gonna go next uh i mean he understands what actual fan pressure if you want to look up crazy fans i mean valencia fans have locked themselves out of matches they have put all sorts of pressure he knows what actual pressure is like and we don't apply pressure like that pressure well fair but he's also been in mls a while now and been in mls i mean on and off for the last like six seven years i mean he's still the guy stills from spain he still worked professionally in spain yeah i mean maybe we're all wrong here and there's like some secret gem you know that either or halter nor uh fc frisco could uncover he was in columbus for a little bit too right yeah he was an assistant school yeah okay or columbus or this long list of things that we didn't want to talk about um but i mean maybe there's something there right like roto has done pretty well with his signings but uh i'm with brad here there's a lot of put up or shut up but i mean they're doing like a hey meet the coach she wants to be your friend's event on tuesday so at least there's like they did the same thing with wolf oh they did yeah when he got hired all right we'll fuck at this point it's stupid then moving on yeah yeah it was it was uh valentino's RIP uh okay that might have been why i didn't go because it's clear across the city but uh do we this is a q2 right they're doing it the actual stadium yeah yeah i don't think i'm gonna go up and i'll be curious to know what i what comes out of it and what people say for that yeah and how much of it is like open press conference can we people actually ask questions is it like a you know political town hall thing where they have people planted in the audience asking what you know pre-scripted questions or have you ever been curious the media with access on the press conference day tuesday is what i'm really interested to hear i'd like to hear somebody ask the real question of listen directly answer what happened in dallas that says you immediately deserve another shot in this league just a few months later yeah um i don't know i'm having trouble wrapping my head around this so i guess what's the obvious question next that everybody's wondering about how much of this is rodo how much of this is to tony i got no idea i feel like blaming pre-court for this is giving rodo an out that he doesn't necessarily deserves with the names you wouldn't believe you know these are this is my team i'm taking care of the type of stuff but no i agree with you yeah so i i'm gonna i'm gonna generous read this i think my generous read is that because of nico's experience coaching uh in spain and internationally like he is more known to rodo to where i think rodo could have been the mastermind behind those the problem with that is that everything else that you hear about him probably like he coached for the u.s. man's national team he was in columbus role while like is kind of all things that prick our ears is red flags of making it seem like another wall higher and let's not and and from pre-court let's not act like the hunt family isn't also very much in on u.s. soccer yeah i didn't think about that that's true but at the same time this is a really nice consensus higher of hey pre-court this is from your family you've worked with this guy you know this guy well and rodo's like i know this guy well because we grew up in a similar environment we're able to speak the same language she can speak really well at both of us so i'm gonna say it's 50/50 but that's it it forms speculation yeah i didn't know if because i could think of a scenario where either rodo goes to pre-court or pre-court court goes to rodo and says you know pick one of these three um you know these are your options and they go well this is the one i like the most or something like that okay then i expect pre-court to pick the cheapest one yeah well or or we can imagine this guy's on a huge deal no i i guess this he's making four or five hundred thousand dollars a year we could get javi names you wouldn't believe for five million years actually i think that would have been the wrong decision by the way like i don't think i don't want to but i wouldn't much rather spend big money on a striker that's been big money on a coach because ultimately there are plenty of coaches out there available that this guy screws up okay let's figure out who the next one is and that's easier and there is no long-term salary budget implications on a coach that's just pre-court's money that was my ultimate or you sort of hit on it my ultimate uh let me talk myself into this being a good move thing is that rodo is going to have so much influence over the team and the way that they play and all that stuff that it's not going to matter who the coach is so why bother fire you know hiring somebody who like actually knows that the fuck they're doing um i don't believe that i just thought it was a nice way to trick myself into believing this is a good hire yeah i i'm not going to trick myself into thinking it's a good hire at all um i need to be proven it easily shown to me that it's going to be worthwhile like i said and i do believe players matter a whole lot more than coaches at the professional ranks of just about any dance sport you could name i think the only difference between a coach where coaches make differences on the margins yep at the professional ranks um are you putting them in the are you putting your players in the right spots to succeed it is really the coach's job and are you are you keeping the locker room together doing the right things to make sure every player is in their best possible space to perform at a high level consistently that's really your job you're not a motivational speaker necessarily like you are in college you're not always teaching brand new tricks and things like that because for the most part you know i don't know how much you're going to teach out a string at this point in his career you know on the fundamentals of playing soccer you can teach him how you want to play your style and that's a different conversation but you're not doing anything crazy different every day that's going to make players too much better unless they're the 19-20-21 year olds so for me you know how does he communicate with locker room how does players feel about him from what i understand the players in dallas never really quit off right um they all liked him to a man he just and injuries did play a part for why they fell off so much however there is a track record here just like we complained about josh wolf that is it and good like the numbers speak for themselves yeah what i mean a lot of people are going to listen this far in and like think we're you know like throw this guy to the wolves already we're all willing to give him a fair shot like just yeah if they're from yeah like there's a difference if they empire him now and man i'm cautious on this and you need to go prove it that's a huge difference yeah like there's you know there's some tongue in cheek like you know the wolf out people are already uh niko out and it's like well yeah like jokingly but no one's actually like fire this fucking guy right now as far as i know i haven't talked very easily though either so i gotta just i can see yeah no yeah that's the things like i'm definitely i'm really willing to be proved wrong it's just that when you look at when you look at the hiring and the timing and who it is like there are a lot of red flags that pop up you know i i think brad speaks to a really good point about you know we've heard rumors for years about they're being devised in the locker room especially among the english and spanish speaking players and you know wolf's inability to speak spanish has always been a top conversation and you know maybe niko comes in and just like completely changes the vibe and like everybody trusts each other and plays better and you can see it on the field um but again like that's writing fan fiction at this point yeah i mean you know we all want to see the team play better if he you know puts a good product we're all gonna be happy and be like yep good hire but you know at this point if the front office wanted to paint a target on a guy's back i don't know if you could have picked it worse candidate um we thought we were done with all these columbus people at this point i guess not hey i mean we will never ever be rid of columbus people you know what at least that fc2b columbus and an mlsx pro final because the uh club is crucial for the he's two years of the road mlsx pro pulled off another away win today i got chicago fire two which i did not attend that match but i was there last week the fire two next pro playoff game but we got the capis keep on waiting there because they have an academy that i don't actually produce as players give them credit Seth i will say you were surprisingly coherent for a man who attended a wisconsin football game last night that's true yeah um i will say especially now they still beer at wisconsin football games yeah we'll leave it at there was yeah at a certain point i was a non-invested fan at a wisconsin football game so maybe i i drank less because of that maybe i don't know you always got a route to get against pen state though yeah i mean there was i i said over we could add it in our mythical show notes but there were there was a huge banner hanging from one of the frat houses walking into caprad no yesterday that pen state is a school that majors and minors yes yeah yeah we do have show notes i just always try to get the episodes out faster so i don't actually fill them in they exist i put one or two things in there before but um yeah it's usually like a link to a some video or something but um yeah i don't know what do you guys want to talk about we want to keep talking about i don't have high hopes for nico but like we don't have the roster either so i can't really yeah talk about projections or anything i was gonna say i'm just i'm interested to see who uh the other one thing is it did come out this week by the way over salaries we got the updated salary list who carrie on a million dollars seems like a deal yeah it's a good thing um and we got spa talk i'm i think what four hundred half a million two hundred oh he's like two hundred isn't he he's like three hundred yeah four hundred oh gosh so oh no no it was was a desolate that was on four or five that i was thinking about yeah that might be a pretty low either way rotos negotiating some very good team friendly deals and finding quality so that part of what he's done so far since taking over i'm actually very happy yeah so the other thing we could talk about if we really really want to go sickos is um Austin has to protect players for an expansion draft this year we do i haven't looked at the list at all i was going to go a different nico sickos question for you guys if you want to do that first real quick yeah go ahead as we can do a live expansion draft on another episode of the podcast because at a certain point the roto drip drip is going to end and we will need things to talk about yeah that's true oh yeah no that's good idea yeah um so i'm gonna ask this and then we'll shift into a little mls playoff talk how short of a leash would you give slash do you think nico is getting uh sathy can go first i think nico gets at least a year and a half of the job unless something horrendous happens we also don't know the lengths of his contract i'll be curious because they were pretty public with most contract being a three-year contract i don't didn't see a years in this and i wonder if we'll get that on tuesday it'd be interesting i would imagine we have like maybe two plus a club option or something that's what i would hope for but i don't know i'd have to imagine unless he is truly atrocious that he gets at least until may of or i should say let me rephrase it we don't know what the 2026 season is going to look like yet so oh that's a whole other thing you know the 2025 season is pretty similar to this past season the few minor differences here and there but um fewer mid-week games because we'll have an even number of teams for example which will be nice but um other wise yeah i'm not sure what it looks like but i assume it's a two-year contract it's a two-year contract yeah okay if it's longer than a three-year contract wtf wait so it's we're gonna have an even number of teams but there's going to be 15 in each conference right correct i mean it'll be baseball runs the same way there's an early play every every week during baseball right but still on decision day yes we will have everyone will probably play at like seven eastern the sixth central like something like that and there'll be 15 games at once yeah it is going to be um let's hope we're on the road and let's hope uh we've already clumped up the clips to the playoffs so now you're rooting for a decision day that nothing matters on uh we never had one no well because like when you have 15 games at once not in the stadium like oh my god dreading it yeah i don't know i think that might be easier if i was in the stadium just sort of like veg out and look at the results afterwards or you know it could be like the lac fans that were like watching apple tv on their phones on their iPhones what what a great product placement there um looking to see that the die of the discord the 101st minute goal to give them the west nice yeah see i could just wait and like you know you get back to the bar or whatever and you're like oh i get a celebrate again awesome yay or like somebody sitting two seats over from you know yeah yeah uh scott how long is your leash for mr nico um i mean i agree i think it's at least the year and a half as long as there isn't some kind of like off-field scandal but i think that if if awesome doesn't make playoffs next year and in 20 26 which doesn't sound like a real weird real year when i say it out loud then i think you'd have to be gone yeah um Brad about you uh i i think the timeline's right what scott and satra said i thought the caveat is if you win a wooden spoon or you're something just got awful after a year you could be gone yeah that especially if like they're going to mess with the timeline of this schedule like you have a really really really just dreadful season maybe but like i think i don't the ross you mentioned the rosser hasn't isn't going to change that much i mean you're at so there's gonna be some change over but the core of the starting lineup is still there next year so for me nothing changes from the start of 2024 when roto says this our playoffs are immersed in 2025 because substantively i think parts of the rosser have gotten a lot better since the beginning of 2024 so i don't know why that standard would change so we can relitigate the eight nine eight nine game again it's not the playoffs it's not the playoffs you're correct but other people think it is and the only ones that matter are at the club so we need to get an answer from them oh actually you know it maybe we can find some news in the in the press pool and see if the last that no i did have to laugh at fop mobs games were the round of 32 games for a league that doesn't have 32 teams well done well done all right mls playoffs so should i root for why should i care i'm already kind of tired of it um take us away who wants to talk um i'll do think things that would be fun to root for in the west um i look at this okay i don't want to lay a c to win i don't want the galaxy to win i don't want Houston to win so i think that leaves you with three realistic options on fun teams to root for in this um minnesota is a fun team to root for i like their fans they're cool but like they have to go to seattle where they've never won of history it would have to win at least one of those games up there that's not gonna happen i don't know preserve rsl well minnesota's got rsl yeah i'm sorry sorry i got my seattle got his that switch there at the end um i would still say um whoever wins rsl i was gonna say rsl would be my team to root for at this point i think they play some of the most fun soccer in the west i have nothing really against them but if minnesota beats them whoever wins that series will be my pick my sentimental pick to win the west yeah i think rsl galaxy in a one gamer could get really interesting uh in that sec in the semi-finals um i'll be honest with you it's hard for me to pay attention until we either get to the third game of best of three or to the single game knockouts because this best of three is just absolute bullshit yeah it's whoever invented this format should be fired into the fucking sun yeah it's it's going back yeah there's no back to like oh sorry good oh i was gonna say like going back to the schedule changing like the the other thing i want mls to do is to go to a league of mckes please um home and away um tie goes to the team that had the better record in the regular season i think that's the best format i think it's the fairest format and it's the one that makes the regular season the most yep you've got the yeah you got to go win if you it's the to be the man you got to beat the man syndrome right so which i love you the four seat has to go and beat uh the one seat or the case may be in the bracket because if they end up tying it's not good enough so i i think that's take away i mean i will say the one thing that was the best probably the best ever series of that was the old mls format where you did have extra time in pks at the end of it some years they had extra time some years i did it was the portland kc shoot out where portlet where kc managed to hit a pk off of both posts that didn't go in uh brutal brutal so the bar behind the tibbers supporter section is called the double post as a result of that uh i love that so much well what i think too with the league of mckes but yeah i agree it should be decided on penalties like i do like the weak i veiki's model i was just pointing it out yeah and for those who don't know the league and meckes model it's not just the the home and away with the uh higher seat going through if it's tied there are no pks after those two legs it's 90 minutes so that's why that is so it's all the final there yes correct correct the final is all the finals will want off right no if i don't know the final if there's actually a two it's a two leg and then yeah you're right it's a two leg and this extra time and there's pks in the final which like it's a final like that's fairish yeah that's normal but i mean then you get weird stuff like somebody wins two nothing in the first game and then it's two nothing but they still have to chase a goal and you don't have people sitting back for penalties and like there will be a fucking winner no matter what it's a lot more entertaining yeah and i don't know it's also like it was sort of like i wish that aggregate still somewhat mattered in this like the color at like the fact that colorado can come back and win the next two games after lisa five oh and a playoffs doesn't feel right no they if they win the next two on pk shoot outs and nothing nothing that that's nothing about that feels right or fair hilarious because it's true over the galaxy but it's not right that funniest answer role funny it's it has to be the funniest response or the funniest outcome is that but it would also be like not it's also not what the league wants like no i don't think the league want the league wants every game to matter and it matters on aggregate if you do it that way as opposed to this like bullshit bust of three did you say the league wants every team to matter no i i'm sorry i i was trying to say that they wanted every game uh okay it's just like uh they they have favorites um they have i mean DFA absolutely has favorites oh yeah i mean pg i mean so does pgml i mean you saw the thing of yeah i i might have been debunked but there's a a picture going around with somebody had like primarily fantasy up in the bar booth i saw that and i wasn't sure if it was photoshop so i didn't want to like send it around that's but i wasn't sure either but at the same time like i kind of believe i wouldn't be like shocked oh yeah like you know uh you know when they were releasing the audio stuff a couple years ago it was just like oh you guys are so much dumber than i thought you were just in general um yes but anyways we're not going to talk about that because i'm still in a good mood yeah as far as the east goes by the way because we're only talking about the west just now uh it and fun playoffs anybody that can beat miami sounds great of course they're happening i actually think the the one i'm hoping happens we i what i don't want is a non-rivalry semi-final i either want Cincinnati and Columbus or the new york tea or the Hudson River Darby in the semi-final one of the two don't give me some combination of Cincinnati and Red Bull or NYC FC in Columbus yes agreed on that yeah we want what what a Darby there and we want as much as i would want to see FC Cincinnati with it because of my own hometown biases here that a crew miami match for an eastern conference final would actually be much watched tv do we have to root for the so first of all i don't really give a shit about the crew but do we have to root for the crew in that instance uh i think so no or or 7-0 to be like hey crew you guys still lost 7-0 to Miami like i don't want miami to win a squeaker i want to use that miami blow out our crew win yeah there there's a real possibility by the way in the east that we get semi-finals of nothing but Darby matches because the top half of that bracket miami orlando is a real thing yeah yeah yeah i think analyst would be quite happy with Darby matches although i don't know columbus miami might be big like they definitely won las in the uh in the west yeah well columbus miami would be in the fine in the conference final in the semi you could have in the two semi-finals you could easily have two semi-dobby matches in the east yeah okay in having a western conference oh traffic of uh they would be salivating yeah i know they would i know they'd play that obviously at bmo but my god you should move that to the either the rose bowl or the coliseum or something and play that game and sell some with salsa but salsa tickets yeah that would be the best outcome would be getting it at the coliseum because i don't even think usc's like selling that out right now oh they're definitely not no they're not right now maybe another game there were like 50 people what does usc at like eight o'clock kickoff of friday night well ucla is home that weekend um to fresno state so the rose bowl is not available and the what about so far you could turn you could turn so far around being artificial terms as i say so usc's home because they have no order dame and that actually probably will be yeah but so far it becomes available because that's an order you can turn that no no what i was saying is the coliseum that means if usc uh of no order dame usc because if you've been to uh bebo you know that the coliseum is right next door that means that they cannot that means that that conference final has to be on a friday or a sunday because they can't probably play both those venues they're on a saturday for a game that bit yeah no or they should or whether they shouldn't friday night it's so fun man i mean it gets 70 dollars give 70 dollars yeah let's see there's yeah because that weekend the um yeah chargers are out of town and i assume the right i'm trying to figure out the rams have like a thursday night game or something like funky with that um the rams do play the rams have sunday night uh no rams are both away maybe there's something else at sofite stadium that weekend if they're both away taylor swift that seems very similar taylor swift is it let's see let's pull this up here these so i don't think taylor goes back to no literally there's no event at sofite that weekend like they should just say it's so fun i'm trying to get money here guys we cracked it we did great yeah awesome job you're welcome don garber yeah uh we'll take a razor like a fucking press pass or something i'm not going to go brad will do it but i mean it would be fine i will say my favorite event of the calendar right now for at sofite stadium is do you know what the sponsor of the LA bowl is this year so there's now a bowl at sofite uh which is the LA bowl and do we know who the sponsor is this year of the LA bowl you guys rock around town is it gromc? yeah yeah it was gromc last year yeah yeah so yeah it is still it is still hosted by gromc which is just insane that is like gromc has his own bowl yeah i get like red stuff yeah you didn't know this man you know i know you know i don't follow college over all that closely but like so wait so like if you have enough money you can just sponsor bowl yourself like i get to say i have like the more simple all the rights of the state even fi you no no you don't even have to have the money a few years ago the albakerkey bowl sold their naming rights to a fake company i don't mean like they don't actually make anything real i mean they literally don't exist so i mean they eventually had to change that but i mean here here it's suffering from joy we could probably afford to sponsor a d3 bowl game but we could not afford to sponsor a d1 bowl game even if we set up a fake company i'm actually being more fun i am still very much bowl game at youtube team late december mid december you know group of five teams let's go have some luck yeah let's get bowling green against uh utsa sounds fantastic yeah it's good to be sure let's go put some auxiliary locker rooms out behind the stadium in the parking lot where the player's parking is and uh have a great time yeah what's the deal what's the problem yeah just trying to make people money over here that's all i'm trying to do is that a club thing or just a uh why don't we want to do that the team well there's already a still yet bowl game so you probably have to relocate an existing bowl game because there's like five and seven teams that make bowl games now but espn owns almost every bowl game yeah so i i know for a fact they own the one in Montgomery my hometown that 20 people show up for um so they want the inventory because the tv ready triple games every when it was like oh there's too many of it's still drawing million people yep to watch them like it's higher rated than anything else on cable television at the time i kind of saw me had two or three new ones last year yeah so you could easily move around one of those junky games that nobody's paying attention to um but i don't know the one that's in frisco because there's already a game in frisco game at the cotton bowl oh and the cotton bowl that's no longer playing at the cotton honest yeah yeah the uh the military's willing for worth yes yeah you can you could move any of those games around or you could move the game in mobile alabama whatever the case maybe like there's there's places that you can get out of that i think if you told players families and tv markets hey come to austin it's probably a lot more fun for them and they would be much more interested in that um and considering how many teams are in the state of texas that you could probably draw from and you can have like a texas state or utsa show up or last year a rice could have come over um you know there's there's fun for that there's another bowl at smu to the first responders bowl so they got that's where that's where texas state uh sold the stadium out of beer last year yeah yeah by the way putting them yeah sorry total side note but i do think youtube is being under you also well i i mean we do have a concert there at the end of april this year which we got all got pre-sale tickets too so that's something and i guess i guarantee the road game for us yeah um i didn't even look to see if that was i guess that's too late for an international break but yeah yeah it's the end of april yeah i mean that was all in chicago what's that yeah we'll see i i do not have any insider information aside from i know what's the ego fc's first two matches are because they publicly announce those uh do we have any insider information on when the schedule might drop um i'm gonna assume it's gonna drop yeah it's been around December 18th i booked on a flight to india that day so i guarantee you will drop it okay good it gives you something to look over for however long many hours i mean there is i was up to say well don't like it's i take off tuesday night and i get to like whatever we'll see whenever my bottle figure it out we'll see if that's our errands that's my fire or not we'll see i mean thank you for your sacrifice yes sorry about that rock i'm gonna i'm gonna be i'm gonna be in our first class seat on a really nice airline i really don't care yeah you'll be fine yeah all right anything else we need to hit on or is this good enough rambling and waffling on about nothing no i think we're good uh i'm looking for i think you know over the next few weeks we'll have probably a little more to talk about with playoffs for sure um hopefully some we got to make that wins the decision for that we have to make it for the roster is it a few weeks or no uh it's not for like November 27th first it's okay so we got a we got a month there we got a month there um and then later on in the year our towards the beginning of the year we'll uh we'll put some things in the hopper for uh bread and sess magical lumped-in adventure yeah we'll do that um maybe we'll get some extra team news this week if and we'll see if they did like a compliment sandwich thing for us like we get some signings then we'd sign this guys the coach and then we get some more signings or something like that we'll see yeah i mean the biggest thing is just finding out like it's just which options are being picked up and then i'm not and then you know expansion draft and then we're kind of into like the real off season yeah expansion draft i guess we have to do something since that's real sick oh shit but well i think there's some interesting off-nfc discussion centered around like who you protect especially when it comes to like the centerback depth chart um but i think it's kind of like the only position that really kind of requires a lot of decision-making now i think we'll do some like off-the-wall stuff like is it worth not protecting dreusi just in case they pick up this kind of type of questions yeah i'll find this any shit i can i mean this was a team that protected Rodney and not mckenzie gains or um gala her or gala her thank you also was i the only person that went to the women's match on first are the other night uh q2 has enough of my money so i set out okay yeah i was not there i watched it on tv yeah it was a lot of fun yeah yeah it looked like a decent crowd scored some goals yeah i think about i'd say about 16 or 17 000 were probably there they were decent like the whole the upper level on the west side that in the 300s was pretty empty um and there were patches in the upper deck that were empty but otherwise it was decently full um and you know crowd was always fun it's always a different vibe for the us matches um and especially for the us women's team matches because you do get a lot of uh younger girls out there watching the game that maybe wouldn't normally be at soccer matches here in town um which i think is really cool good and uh yeah it's a lot of fun man good we're traffic was terrible people showed up late because traffic was terrible i took the trains we're lucky there yeah all these 630 matches at home not a good idea on a weekday never would guess that yes especially in Austin right yeah i believe that was also the first goal either the men's or women's fault was he was given up correct that was all four goals in that match by the way were absolutely killer goals yeah i need to kick off round two here some very nice goals and a nice evening out yeah take the train home yes all right well i guess on behalf of uh seth and scott and brad here uh thanks for suffering with us bye bear seasons gone in on a double-dooring altinos present depths is mystic dolleven hazards from hope there is glory