Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #200: Buzz Carrick on all things FC Dallas

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

The founder of 3rddegree.net, Buzz Carrick, who knows more about FC Dallas than anyone, joins to talk about Pepi, Pomykal, Ferreira, Che, the academy pipeline, the connection with Bayern Munich and the top young players coming up through the ranks. Lots of worthwhile insight.0:30 Pepi13:25 Pomykal19:40 Ferreira23:35 Che29:20 the FC Dallas academy in general49:25 academy up-and-comers1:04:35 3rddegree.net back storyYou can find the 3rd Degree website, podcast and Patreon, here: https://3rddegree.net/Support Scuffed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedJoin the Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XUBuy our merch: https://my-store-11446477.creator-spring.com/ Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Georgia. With me is Greg Velasquez in Iowa. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Our guest today is Buzz Carrick, the founder of third degree.net, a long running news outfit that is the source on FC Dallas and has a great podcast that I highly recommend. Buzz, how are you? Terrific. How are you guys today? Very good. Very well, I guess, to be grammatically correct. I'm very well. I heard you speak in, of course, celebratory tones about Pepe's game winner versus Honduras on your podcast. But I'd love to sort of keep that celebration going. What was your, what was your physical reaction to that goal when you were watching? Oh, well, you know, I'm a USA fan. I mean, obviously like all of us that were, not all of us, but most of us that were born and raised here, I'm a huge supporter of the national team. And when you

combine that from, from my perspective of a young man, and specifically Ricardo Pepe in this case, but any young man that comes to the FC Dowell system that I've watched play since he was, in Pepe's case, since he was 15, I think as when I first saw him, you know, when those guys come through the system and get to the national team, then I even have a stronger personal affinity, of course. So when some young man I've seen, you know, make through his career trajectory to this point, rise to the occasion, just as like I expected him to do, in fact, rise to the occasion and score a goal like that, It's just, it just makes the joy even more profound for me. You know, I love soccer.

I get a joy from watching it. I get a joy from the teams that I like succeeding. So when a kid that I actually know a little bit, I mean, I don't know him intimately or anything, but I know him a little bit. When he, when he's on that stage and performs and rises the occasion, it's just, it's a moment. It's one of the great moments, you know, it's one of the reasons I do what I do is for moments like that. Yeah. Did you jump out of your check out of the couch? Jumped on the couch. No, no. Not off the couch, but I definitely, there was definitely a fist pump involved and some hands raised, you know, in exclamation. You know, it's a, yeah, that's a great moment. Yeah, really, really was. Hard to overstate how great of a moment that was. What's, so what, I also heard you say, you know, Pepe's built different. And yeah, I want to hear you talk about that a little bit. How is he built different from compared to other 18 year olds? He, most of it,

Most of what makes him different. Now, there are a lot of talented 18-year-olds. And Pepe certainly has plenty of soccer talent. But what I have found over the years that makes him different is something on the inside. You know, Colin Clark, who's the ex-FC Dallas coach once told me a story when he came through the academy, that there were like 40 kids his age. And he was one of two kids that made it out of his academy, which I believe was Portsmouth, to the first team.

And he couldn't even tell you why it was him, because there were kids that were more talented in him and he believed it was something different that when you get to the pro level everybody has skill it's something different that has to succeed and in peppy's case it's the mentality on the inside i've joked that in a way he's like nukeloosh from bull durham and i don't mean that he's not intelligent what i mean is that he does not he's not cursed with self-doubt he is he's not an arrogant young man he's a very family oriented very focused very driven but has no self-doubt at all, no lack of belief in himself. And every single time they've put a challenge in front of him. And listen, you know, as well as I do, that that's how you make great

players is you challenge them continuously. And they rise to the occasion and they overcome the challenge, then you give them a new challenge. And every single time a challenge has come up before Pepe, he's smashed through it without any hesitation and total belief in himself. And the story that I will tell you that's the most obvious and clear example of this is that Coming into this season, Peppy was not the starter. Pepe was behind Frank O'Hara, the owner's personal purchase player, $3 million a year player, Frank O'Hara, a guy with vast experience. And Pepe's at that time is 17 going on 18.

He's not the starter. He's played a little bit over the back end of last year, and he's feeling good about himself. So on a couple places on social media, he does hashtag 25 in 2021. And we joked like, oh, is he wants to add 25 pounds? you know, what is it? He wants to meet 25 different people. I mean, who knows, right? Well, it turns out he meant he set a goal for himself to score 25 goals in MLS in 2020.

Holy See. And he wasn't even the starter. And he's 18 years old. The audacity of that when this club's never had a 20 goal score at all, he's not at the starter. The dude in front of him is a 15-year vet player getting paid $3 million a year that the owner bought. And he's like, I'm scoring 25 this year.

That's the kind of internal. drive and belief that he has it himself. And that's why I say he's built different than other people. Awesome. He's he's he backs that up with really hard work too, doesn't he? He does. Absolutely. Yeah. Lots of things can call a can cause a kid that we think is as talented as possible to fall apart. And one of those things is, uh, family. One of those things is the body. You can lose the body and lose the, the shape and you can lose the power. And you can lose the power. and you can lose the speed as you mature through puberty. And the other thing is just the internal drive of the kid.

Pepe is super focused. He's all about the family life. He's all about school. He's all about soccer and soccer only. He's not distracted by things off the field. He has a single-mindedness to himself that he demonstrates through his work ethic and training. This is a guy that comes back from a national team camp and it immediately is ready to go. and there's no game off for him

there's no like I'm just going to I'll be fine no no he comes in hard scores a goal every time you see this kid in training he's working his tail off and every single component of him whether it's his work rate or his mentality or his family setup

or his innate ability it's all tailored to succeed because you have to have every single one of those things hit to hit at 18 yeah what do you think are the weaknesses in his game like the area the areas for improvement certainly in the air now i know he scored a header against honduras obviously but a lower number of

his goals come from the head than he would like for example on set pieces in particular i would like to see him get on the end of more crosses and and finish more crosses uh his post-up game is not particularly great which is funny because again against honduras that he one of the goals that they had he did a little post-up action sort of up near midfield that led to that goal. Again, he's not a post-up player. Like in games here for FC Dallas, when late in a game, if they feel they need a post-up guy, they go to Frank O'Hara because Franco Hara has that a little more of that sturdiness to him and has more experience and can be more of that scrappy post-up layoff kind of guy.

That's a weakness of Pepi's game. But even just in the Honduras game, you can see that like things that I've just said are his weaknesses, he has worked on them. and he does attempt to improve them, and they are consistently getting better. So that's one of the components of him that's so remarkable is that he does spot these weaknesses through himself or through the coaching. I'm sure that's a factor too. And they try and get better at them, and he is getting better at them all the time.

I know you guys have the third degree has a discord too, but we also do. And in our discord, there's been sort of a weird tangential conversation about weight training from Peppy and at FC Dallas. And somebody wanted me to ask you, you know, Byron has Dallas and Byron have this famous connection. And Byron has players like Leon Goretzka and Robert Lewandowski who look like bodybuilders, you know, when you see them with their shirt off. Is there, what's the FC Dallas? Again, I said this was a weird question. What's the FC Dallas like weight training situation?

Because that seems like maybe one of the next steps for Pepe is just to get ripped, you know? Yeah. Well, they certainly have one. I don't know, you know, listen, I'm not a, you know, biometrics fitness training kind of guy. But, you know, I, when I watch, when I look at Pepe, I don't necessarily see a guy whose body style is going to lend himself to getting like a jacked upper body. You know, he is really lanky. The player in the Dallas sister that he most reminds me of is Ariel Graziani. I don't know if you're old enough to remember Graziani's play.

I'm not. But Grasiano didn't, yeah, Bratzianni didn't. have a lot of upper body strength. We would like Pepe to get stronger, and he has filled out, like, between obviously 15 and 18. He's definitely filled out some. You know, he's right now going through that change from lanky teenager to grown man. You know, that's where he is at 18.

So he will fill out some. And Dallas does have a weight program. They have a weight room, and they give everybody in that team that has off-season programs that they do. they have a complete training staff that works with everybody in individual components. I'm not privy to what Pepe's is. I would not want to see him get too bulky because the best parts of Pepe's game are his movement. He presses well.

He also makes terrific active runs and is very active the whole time. He puts the centerbacks under a lot of stress with his movement and he pulls them apart and that creates a lot of space. Pepe's not a guy who will take a ball. and dribble five dudes and score. He's a guy that scores in combination and work with a team. He makes a group better. If you don't play balls into his feet on the move or static, if you don't play balls into him,

he won't score. And you can look back to, I think it was the U-17 World Championships when he was playing with Gio Arena. And Griffin Yow was the other winger on that team. Those two guys are shoot-first kind of guys. And Pepe didn't get a lot of touches and didn't get a lot of goals. You know, he plays better like with the deals with FC.

Dallas when you have Jesus and Paxon and Shobok Shone, who are all guys that are looking to combine, that's when Pepe excels because he's not a dude that does it individually. So that movement, I think if you turn him into a big, like, lumbering, hulking kind of guy is contrary to that that endless, relentless energy and movement that he has. Yeah, good point. Good point. So I know you've talked about this a lot, but when is, talk about it maybe for our audience. Sure. When is Dallas going to sell him to Europe?

Well, anyone who says they know when Dallas is going to do something in terms of sale doesn't actually know. Because the only people that decide that are, other than the player, of course, are Dan Hunt and Clark Hunt. The same with if they're going to remove a coach. Anything else they're doing, those two guys are making those decisions. Dan Hunt is the day-to-day runner of the team. he's in the office every single day. He's the most involved owner in MLS, in my opinion. So when they're going to sell is entirely up to those two guys and mostly going to be up to Dan with advice from Lucci, from Zanata, and Chris Hayden also, who's the head of the academy.

Those guys all give input, and then Dan will decide. So the question becomes risk, reward, return for Dan Hunt and the club, right? They're going to consider what kind of offers we have on the table. How high do we think they can go if we keep him for a little bit? Or is this the maximum moment? And then also the risk of the longer where to keep them the danger of something going wrong and injury or whatever else. And then you also have to factor in when opposition teams are going to have, not opposition teams, excuse me, foreign teams that are going to want to buy him, when they're going to have the amount of money necessary to do this deal. So the team internally is preparing for him to be sold this winter, potentially.

They're already looking at options, you know, to replace him if he is sold because that's their job, right? So it could be as early as this winter. I think there's a chance that it could be next summer instead because European teams have more money in our summer when they're in their primary window. And so that'll be the balance. I'm assuming it's either this winter or next summer because they will want to go sooner and try and maximize their dollar return while he's as hot as he can be because it's not likely he's going to get hotter. You know, next year if he's leading the league in scoring, that's only a tiny bit hotter than he is already. He's already in the top, whatever, and he's the leading American, and he's just made that splash on the national team. So Dallas will want to, and they also have learned over the years Dallas has that when they sell guys mid-summer,

it really puts a kink in their season and they've had a couple of good seasons go off the rails because they've sold a guy at the wrong time. So I think there's probably 60, 70% chance he's gone this winter that is that fast. What a great answer. Thank you. Let's talk about some other people besides Pepey,

Paxson Pomacall, a player that a lot of us have been excited about for a while. He's strung together several starts. Is he a little less fast and quick than he used to be? Is that temporary or permanent? I think when he first came back, I think he obviously was showing signs of, you know, the injury. And he told us when we had a guest on either this show or the kick around, I can't mention when it was. He mentioned that two years from now when he was doing the interview, he would be better than he is now. So the kind of injury he had is a very slow, long-term sort of recovery.

So there's definitely like a tiny bit of the burst I think is missing, only the tiniest little bit. But I'm actually very confident based on what he's told us that the progression will return. And since he's returned, he's gotten better and better and better and continues to get better. and he is quicker to get back up when he gets knocked down. When he first came back, he would get knocked down. He would be down for a minute. And now he's down for 30 seconds. So over time, I think he'll give back 100% to where he was.

Obviously, long term, there's going to always remain a concern for him because whatever this problem is, is probably not really ever going to go away. And I hate to be a cynic, but I'm sure that it's damaged his prospects in the long. large macro term because people will always be concerned about buying him because of this difficulty. Right. But, you know, what makes Paxton really great is a lot of it is mentality with him. He sees the game differently than some other people will do.

And he has a relentlessness to his game. It's one of the things he's taken from Bobby Ryan, who's sort of a figure that he looked up to, is his relentlessness. And that's part of what actually causes him these injury problems because he runs. through walls when maybe he shouldn't. And he actually needs to develop a little wisdom about the game to know, like, maybe I shouldn't run into that guy who's 6-5-250, right? And maybe I should, I'll not smash into that dude.

And maybe I won't hurt quite so much. You know, and the difference between now and when he first came back is that now he can actually go a full 90. The next game, he actually will, the next day, he'll actually be fine, where at first it was like he needed some time. It would not be the same the next game. necessarily if you played the full time. So there's a clear and obvious progression, and I'm confident that it will get back to where it was.

He's almost there already anyway. So we're all crossing our fingers cautiously optimistic. Nice. Do you, and I understand why he plays on the wing for Dallas instead of in the midfield. There's, I guess there's all kinds of reasons for that. But do you think he's as effective on the wing as he would be at the eight? I think he'd have a larger game impact at the eight. But obviously there's a concern with the amount of banging he takes when he plays inside.

He gets a lot more contact and it's a lot more physical in there than it is on the wing. He can be away from people a little bit. He still has large moments of impact on the wing. He's one of the few Dallas players that will aggressively go at the defense consistently all the time, you know, that tries to break guys down and we'll try and make chaos happen. He is one of the few players Dallas has that's a true gamer, like rise to the occasion difference maker like when it really matters. That's,

that's a, you can't teach that. That kind of is an ingrained mentality. So all those things are still true on the wing. I think in the long run, they'd hope that he's going to be an eight as he continues to recover, but also Dallas, both because they have a couple of signings like Brian Acosta and

Underst Ricarte that play eight. And also their academy turns out eights like, you know, candy. I mean, just like a relentless line of eights. So they have a lot of guys. guys that can play that spot. And they've really struggled this year to find good wingers, particularly early in the year.

And once they settled on Paxton is one of those guys and then got shunen in and participating and comfortable, those two guys have become solutions to what was have been a wing problem for the first half of the year. So short term, he's the solution where he is and he's going to be playing where he is. Long term, I think he'll be back as an eight. But long term might not even be like within the next two years. it might be more like four years down the line. Okay.

Does he have a chance at a national team call up this fall? This fall, oof. I don't know. You know, the problem is that in that regard is that the national team has a fair number of players, again, that play either that false wing style or that play eight. And when you're looking at national team callups, you're looking at guys that, in theory, are peak form, peak performance, you know, high end, as good as it gets? So you have to ask yourself, is Paxton out playing any of those people right this minute?

And I don't know that right this minute he is. You know, I think he'll get, when he gets back to peak form, I think he will be. And I think that there will be opportunities for him. Maybe not this year, maybe next year, maybe a year and a half, maybe two years from now. when he gets back to 100%, I think then he'll be back in that window. I just don't, I don't see it this, this season one,

Dallas won't love that because of the wear and tear on the kid's body. Two, Paxton's a guy who you almost have to look out for him because, because he won't. He will always say he feels great. He will always say he's ready to go. He will always say, I feel awesome even when he doesn't.

So you kind of have to protect him from himself and maybe tell him, Listen, now is not the time to go to the national team, you know, when we're barely keeping you together for FC Dallas. So I think short term, like in the next six months or so, I would think not. But I would imagine that sometime next year, yes, I think there'll be an opportunity. Okay. What about Jesus? Will he get a call up this fall? He's been absolutely on fire, as you've talked about a lot.

Yeah. Right now, he's playing in my mind. He's playing the best soccer of his career. I actually think he's a little bit motivated that he hasn't been called in lately because that kid is on fire. He's playing phenomenal soccer. Dallas uses him kind of as a off striker, we call it, because it's not really a classic 10. It's a little higher than that.

The key for him is the movement off of Pepey when he's taking advantage of the spaces Pepe's creating. Those two guys together. Both of them over their last five games have four goals and two assists. Jesus, particularly when Pepe was gone, Jesus pretty much carried this team. So he's playing as good as he can't, has ever played in his life. I think he's in perfect form to get a national team call up. The problem is that Bear Halter, for the most part, doesn't use that sort of underneath the striker player. Like, look at the game in Honduras when it was Policic, Pepe, and Sergeant across the top, right?

Now, Polisic and Rainer are both false wings and play underneath. So if you wanted to use Jesus in this sort of 10 off-striker kind of role that we've seen him excel with SC Dallas, if you did that in the national team, then all of a sudden he's occupying that space that both Polisic and Raina, when Raina's healthy, like to exploit with that outside-in false wing play that they do. So that's the big question for me with Bearhalter,

is if you can bring Hesus in as a nine option, where he's done well as sort of a false nine, or you kind of have to switch up and play more four-two-three-one, like a double-pivot look rather than the single pivot that Bear-Oster seems to lean towards more. you know the single pivot with a double eights Hesu's not really that double eight look I mean he could but he doesn't quite have

the defensive discipline to be back all the time that would be why that transition would be hard and then you'd have to say like as an eight can he is he better than the other options available I don't know you know so then all of a sudden you're talking about can he false wing better than Polisic or Raina and I don't know so that's that becomes the question is

where would he excel for Bear Hall that makes them worth bringing in, you know, it'll depend on injuries. It'll depend on who you're playing. What kind of needs you think you need tactically. So skill-wise, absolutely good enough for the national team. Just going to be if the coach thinks it's a good fit, you know, because people forget that coaches, go to national team coaches aren't just like, I'm going to pick 11 dudes. Right.

They have a roster and they have a system that they've set up and they've designed. So they're looking at individuals like, can a guy come in as an option for a specific position better than an option that I have. You know, it's not just pick 11 dudes and go. Like, there's a system there. And so you have to figure out if Jesus fits in that system. I mean, Burrhalter played Ferreira as a nine back in, you know, for a period of time. And stood by him even when he was kind of struggling, struggling for Dallas.

So maybe he, I don't know, maybe there's an optimistic case where he finds a way to fit him in somehow. Well, they've had enough problems at nine, you know, and that maybe Pepe is going to solve that problem, but you need more than one guy. So, like, it can't just be peppy. So if you want another nine, and if you like a dude that false nines a little bit as a change-up, you know, and that maybe that's where if you're using a more traditional wing, like a waya or somebody like that who wants a little more verticality in behind, then possibly Paisus nining and dropping as a false-nine works. That combo can work a little bit more. So again, it's about personnel matchups, right? You know, if you false-nine him with Polisicic and Giorana, then you're

looking at three dudes trying to drop into that zone 14 hole all at the same time and that's a mess. So again matchups personnel, who do I have, who fits? The false line, hey, susa the national team, he has produced there. So absolutely, again, system personnel, it all matters.

How would you rate Justin Chey's performance over the past few weeks? Well, for a 17 year old kid, amazing. You know, we forget he's 17. He is a converted attack. He was a forward and converted to a centerback.

He spent most of his time in the academy as a centerback. Last year with North Texas, because he's so young, they started using him as a right back. So he's learning to play right back. Still with Asi Dallas, he's learning to play right back. Lucci's very conservative defensively, particularly in the middle. But on the outside back, too. I mean, look how long it took him to trust Brian Reynolds, which is crazy, given how good Brown Reynolds is.

So the fact that he trusts Che at 17 speaks massive amounts about the kid's ability. He occasionally gets caught Che does upfield where something mistake breakdown happens. He doesn't transition back to defense quick enough and get back in position quick enough. But he has enough recovery speed so he gets back. So that's his biggest deficiency right now is, you know, his desire to go forward and be a modern attacking back, balanced against the need to get back into position. And it's one of the reasons why Nekosi Tafari, Nekosi Tafari, I guess I said that right plays more often than right centerback because his recovery pace and range covers up for Che a little bit. And it's one reason why I particularly don't like Hider O'Brien at right wing in front of Chee because O'Brien does not have the defensive discipline to be in the right position to cover up for Che as well, which Shune does if he's on that side or Paxton does if he's on that side.

So, Chase's been good. The upside is immense, you know, for a 17-year-old, phenomenal. So it's a work in progress, and the signs are that he's going to be just a massive, massive player. But, again, that's a dude that Dallas is presumably, and I'm assuming he's gone this winter. Byron's coming back in. They keep saying they're coming back in for him. So you can't build around him long term. He's only a stopgap right now because, and they want to continue to develop him, of course, because they want to get as much money as they can for him.

Right. So that's the word, I mean, that's the prediction as Byron will buy him this winter. Oh, yeah. I don't think there's any question. I mean, their head of soccer keeps mentioning them and keeps mentioning how they're happy. You know, they got their, their Byron 2 team got relegated out of Bundesliga 3, so they're back like in the regional league. So my read is basically they were like, and I think they've even said this, they're very happy to have Che here playing and training here versus playing in some scrub divisional regional league. Right. So they were happy to just sort of leave him here. And I'm assuming, and from people I've talked to, everyone is just waiting, everybody knows. The team knows, the players know, the player knows, his family knows. They all know he's going this winter.

The only reason it won't is if Byron decides to hold the line on or something. Or if FC Dallas, you know, FCDallas felt they got underpaid for Richards, Chris Richards. So they might want a little more for Justin Shea this time. So in how much percentage sell on do they? want you know how these things go they're always going to be a gum in the worst but again this is a player like peppy that we're all assuming is gone this winter okay as is he so is you know originally he was going to be a centerback is that is that still the the sort of the projection for him or is it more right back at this point i think i think so i think it's a center back i mean the

the only people that'll know the answer that of course they're going to be buying because they buy them but i think he's a center back um for me he has more skills that facilitate in the middle than they do wide. He can do wide, but he doesn't quite have that Brian Reynolds, Reggie Cannon, you know, verticality down the wing. Now, he does do a good job of it. And like if you watched the last couple of games when he went forward, right, he's not hugging the line and crossing.

He's doing it up the middle, right? He's doing these weaving runs and going through a couple of guys. That's a centerback kind of vibe. And his one-v-one marking, like his power and strength, his ability to man-mark a guy one-on-one are really high. His positional sense is a little low, but some of that is experience. So again, you could adapt into it right back, but it's about where you think you can maximize his potential. In my mind, I think you can most maximize his potential in the middle, because particularly like the modern centerback,

the ability to pass and to dribble, to escape and to help build out, that's worth obscene amounts of money. That's the new rare thing, that modern centerback that can build and can play out from there. And because he is a converted attacker, Riches was a better passer than Che,

but Chey's better with the ball at his feet and he's a better dribbler. That skill in a centerback is invaluable, and I think that's why people will. I think in the long term, to have to him to a centerback, but you never know. It'll just depend on what Byron wants to do with him, what they need and where they think they can maximize his value. You know, Byron, when they need a centerback, they spend 50 million.

They don't bring up an 18-year-old. So they're buying Che because they think they can develop him, presumably, and sell him on. I mean, look at Richards now at Hoffmanheim. It's on loan. It's Hoffenheim, right? He's on loan, you know. But again, it's not like they didn't bring Richards in and then put him in their team, you know. So that's kind of how they're working.

They're a factory, too, and they see a chance to get a guy cheap, developing for three or four years and then sell them for whatever so they can buy their $50 million dollar or centerback, you know. Right. Well, speaking of that kind of equation, this may be a dumb question, but is the FC Dallas Academy paying

for itself right now? It's got to be, right? Well, oh yeah, I mean, Reynolds money alone did, but the FC Dallas Academy is paid for by FC Dallas youth. They have going to somewhere in the neighborhood of oh man I can't even remember now something like 500 youth teams across you know the various parts of

north Texas and then they have affiliates all over the United States they have like 5,000 kids in their system the FC Dallas youth pays for the FC Dallas Academy that's why the FC Dallas Academy is free and actually is a profit making machine even before they sell players it makes profit yeah it's a profitable enterprise FC Dallas youth is a profitable enterprise before they even start selling players so the money that the academy changed generates actually in terms of sales actually props up the first team it it helps make fc dallas function and not lose money and operate not the academy the academy is already taken care of okay so that makes sense good yeah that's one thing that's one thing one thing people talk about here

with this team people that are around the team one thing the hunts have talked about the hunts say they reinvest any money they have sold uh for a player they say they put it back into the team Now, they don't spend money the way other people spend money, but they do spend money. Like, they spend a ton of money on the Hall of Fame. They spent a ton of money putting the academy in place. You know, so that money that they bring in, one of the reasons why there were not a lot of high moves this last winter and this summer was because they were waiting for the money to come in. The Reynolds money had to come in. The Kennan money hadn't come in because Boa hadn't paid at the time.

You know, so they needed this money to come in in order to do some things and get some players in. So that's the way they function. And they try and operate SD Dallas as close to a zero balance as they can. So the money from these sales is actually allowing them to buy more players. Now, they buy cheap and sell high just like a lot of other people do. You know, they don't, they're not going to bring in a $5 or $6 million or $15 million player. It's not how they work. But they do, they do spend some money, you know.

I mean, look, they're paying on Frank Gauhard, 3 million a year. So, well, actually, actually $2 million a year with some sort of upfront bonus. But, you know, it averages out in the end of $3 million a year. So they spend money. It's just not like other people. Well, I hope to make a lot more money on Pepe and Che in the next 12 months, 612 months. Yeah. Yeah.

How dependent on other local clubs is that FC Dallas pipeline? Because like somebody in the Dallas area told me solar and the Texans work hard to beat Dallas at the youth level. And apparently solar sometimes taunts FCD by saying, how can you be the best academy in the country when you're not the best in your own city? Do you talk about that a little bit? Sure. FC Dallas is very dependent on other clubs. I mean, across the board, they bring in players before the academy age. But across the board, too, and when they get in the academy, they recruit players from solar and from Texans and from El Paso and from Alabama and from Arkansas and from Mexico and from everywhere. They recruit from all over the United States and from the world. They bring in players from all parts of the world to this academy. So like anybody else, they recruit and the best people magnate towards FC Dallas because FC Dallas signs players and improves that the pathway to the pros can happen. Now, I know Sala Ler likes to tease FC Dallas about this. Well, you have to remember that, I think it's important to remember that the goal for FC Dallas is not to win Academy games, right?

If you wanted to win Academy games, then you would never. move a player up, you would leave them at their natural age bracket, right? You wouldn't sign homegrown until they graduated out of the academy. You would leave them down. And I'll use the current 19 team as an example. Like right now, Ricardo Pepey, Dante Seeley, Justin Chey, Colin Smith, and if they had kept him, Jonathan Gomez, would all still be in the FC, the U-19 team right now. So that's five guys.

Last year, there was another four that were gone, right? And they've got a guy in their 19 team now, we'll probably talk about later, who technically is a U-17. He's been playing up for three years now with a team above them. Their goal is to not win academy games. They don't give a toss about winning academy games. They only care about producing professional players. Now, in the context of any given game or season, do they try and win? Of course they do.

But the idea that, like, solar is a better team at whatever level you want to pick than FC Dallas, it's very rarely true because the best players, for Dallas are gone. They're not there anymore. By the time they're half through the 17s, a couple of them have been signed and they're gone. You know what I mean? So it's like,

you can look at the pros that Nico Carrera has gone to Europe. Jonathan Gomez went to Louisville City. Johann Gomez is in Portugal. Guys are bailing out and going to these other places. You know, the amounts of pros they're producing is staggering.

And then you can look, and a lot of those pros came from solar, came from Dallas, A Paxon Pomaco was not an FC Dallas kid. He came from solar, I think. Jesus Ferreira was an SEDALEC. He started as a U-9. You know, so it's a mix.

It's L. Peppies from San Antonio. Not San Antonio, Cumberary, El Paso, right? Colin Smith, who's a kid they signed from North Texas, came in as a U-17 from someplace else. Tanner Testman came in when he was 15 years old. Chris Richards and Chris Capus came in the final year when they had actually already graduated high school and came in their gap year from Houston Texans because Eric Quill recommended them to give them a leg up and a chance to make

the big jump. And both of those guys are playing at the highest level. So, you know, it's a, it's a, I get what the point is that like on the individual gay day solar often beats FC Dallas. Absolutely. They do. Right. But their kids stay there and they stay in the right age brackets.

They don't move on. They don't move up. They don't sign pros. They're not gone because Dallas doesn't give a top. about winning games at that level. That makes perfect sense. So how many, how many, well, let me ask this, would you trade some of this national recognition for player development,

which is justly deserved by FC Dallas for an MLS Cup? Is there a tradeoff there? Like, do you understand my question? Yeah. Well, I'm old enough that half my life has existed without a divisional and professional league and franchise, right, in my town. So to me, the only thing that matters is that a team is here that plays at the highest professional level in my country and I get to watch it play. You know, so survivability to me is the key for soccer.

This league, I think, is still not to a place where it's infallible. I think it could still fall apart. And so I can't really argue with the Hunt's mentality, which is the survivability. of the franchise long term is their number one goal. They're about the academy because they realize that they could get the cheapest talent available, the best talent available consistently, and bring it through their team, and have their team be relatively good from very little expense. And on top of that, that system could actually make them a profit through youth and through

the selling of players. So they figured out a way to prop up the long-term survivability of their franchise. So they operate this team with a budget. They have a salary sort of structure in mind. They really try very hard not to break that salary structure. I can't really complain about that. Do I wish that they would spend a little bit more money? Of course I do.

I would love to have Valeri. I would love to have guys that are difference makers at that level. I would love to have a Joseph Martinez here to watch and to play. hard for me to tell the hunts that they're doing it wrong, you know, when this club has survived for so long now with their method. And to be fair, their attempts to value sign don't have a high hit rate. But they have gotten Amaro Diaz. They have gotten a Michael Barrios. They have hit and had guys that they got cheap and young because they consider the foreign signings a lot of times until very recently to be like their academy.

They sign guys cheap and young and hope they. hit. And a couple of those guys have paid off. And over the time of this franchise, relatively speaking, it's been in the top half of the playoffs. They've only missed the playoffs like seven times in their entire history.

Right? They have like the top, they have like the second and third most wins in league history. Now, some of that's because of their longevity. And they have a high number of road wins compared to a lot of their teams because of that longevity. But consistently, they're relatively good. People get mad here because they don't win a

championship, but I have this joke slogan we throw around FC Dallas better than you think because they're consistently pretty good. Like right here right now, we're mad because they might miss the playoffs for the first time in quite a few years. Well, there are other teams that haven't made the playoffs ever, right? So this method that they use, this augmentation of the first team with the academy because the draft is decreasing in value, the academy helps you fill in six, seven guys in your roster that can play at a high level.

and then you try and augment it with big signings to their terms, big signings, Frank O'Hara, they've missed on this one, some mid-tier kind of value kind of Diamond and the Rough kind of signings. That's their method. It's hard to me to complain about that. Would I love an MLS Cup? Of course I would. But I can't argue with a billionaire and how he spends the money when to me, if the hunts were to screw this up and this team were to go away, that would be much worse to me. than it is to be a relatively good team all the time without ever having won the MLS Cup.

And they have won open cups and they have one supporter shields. So it's relative success, relatively happy watching a pretty good team most of the time. This year is not good, of course. Yeah. Well, I mean, from a national team perspective, I'm like, I'm totally in favor of what they're doing.

It's like they're the best franchise in MLS for the national team for sure. Well, and if you embrace as a viewer, or if you embrace the idea of the academy and you latch on to some of these kids and you get to watch them progress and you get joy from their progression. I mean, right now, they can throw out a front six that's all homegrown if you include Shune, who's not a real technical home run, but he's a young foreign signing. But that's fun, man. All those dudes are 20-something. That's a ball watching those guys compete and watching those guys come through. Like you get the chance to know them.

You know, they're young, local, fun. I mean, that's hard to hate that. Yeah. How many foreign scouts are monitoring the pipeline? For instance, people assume Pepe's recent heroics will earn him a move to Europe, but you've talked about how European scouts have been sniffing around for a while. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, it depends on the kids, of course. I mean, I know of kids that have been going to Europe on little summer training stents since they were 12, you know.

And there are kids that you hear about even at like 10 years old that foreign scouts know about them. Like, if you go out to, and this is probably true for everybody in MLS now, not just FC Dow. But if you go out to like the GA Cup or the Dallas Cup, there's more scouts and college coaches and international coaches. And you see them in their track suits. There's more of those guys than there are fans. U.S. scouts, you know, foreign Mexico scouts. It's unbelievable how many am out there. Agents, just agents everywhere trying to land kids.

You know, everybody is dialed into, I'm sure all of MLS. I only know about SC Dallas. everyone's dialed into these kids from age 10, 11, 12. I mean, parents, once or twice occasionally, I've had parents ask me about agents. Do you know what I think about this guy? You know what I think about that guy? You know, because they're already getting swarmed by agents. The kids are getting texts.

They're getting calls. The agents are telling them how great they are. You know, it's a tough landscape to navigate as a parent and as a young kid when now, you know, these European clubs are coming in. The European club now will come into a 14-year-old's living room and lay out a plan for them. If you come to our academy now, we will give your parents a job. You'll start with us as 14 years old. By this age, you'll be with this team. By this age, you'll be with this team.

And by this age, you'll be in the first team. They come in with a whole plan laid out for them to some 13, 14-year-old American kid. It is hard to turn that down if that's, I mean, I don't know, Byron, Dortmund, Liverpool is sitting in your living room. I mean, honestly, it's ridiculous. I don't know how they do it because it is a swarming fest of people just all over these kids from the get-go because that's that's everything in world football. And Dallas and half of MLS gets that and half of it doesn't. Yeah. I mean, it sounds far-fetched.

You know, if somebody, if I had a 14-year-old kid and some club said, well, you're going to be playing with the first team at Byron. Byron, by this age, I'd be like, really? Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is like, clubs have a reputation, and they can point to examples. You know, they can, they can point to Polisic who went over at, what was he, 15, 16, right? You can point to Giorina. You know, you can point, now you can point to these Americans who've gone over. And the fact that you're a couple years younger, you know, and they can, they can diagnose early.

Now, of course, like we said, there's always a million things that can go out off the rails. And in the end, it's going to be down to the kid. But they can say, if you do the work. And if you progress up, I think you're going to progress, you know, look how you're going to be set up for your family. Look how you're going to be set up for a thing. You're going to come. And they can seduce you with, this is actually, I'm a sidetrack slightly. This is actually a problem that FCDalysis is discovered with their buyer and deal.

When they send over those kids to the training, those kids get stars in their eyes, right? They see the facilities. They see the contracts that the 18-year-old kids are on in their academies, right? Because those kids are pros in their youth teams. and you're not here in the MLS until you sign the actual MLS deal, right? They see the way they have housing and cars lined up for those kids. They see the guys that they're playing with over there. You know, you look over in the field next door and there's Lewandowski.

You know, it's hard. That's super attractive. And every once in a while, they find a kid comes back and the kid's like, now like, well, where's my housing? Where's my car? Where's my, right? And you're like, dude, you're 16. It's like, over there they got it, you know. So it's like, there's a tiny bit of a problem there actually.

that they have to overcome. It's not a horrible problem, but, you know, what can turn a kid's head when you're 16, 17, 18 years old and cause you to derail? You know, how come I'm not getting all this stuff can be part of that factor? So the appeal of those European academies and the idea of like, even like I could take care of my parents. Like my parents can have jobs for life while I'm a pro, you know, because they're going to have the parents have to go, right? You can't just go as a kid. The parents have to go and take you with them. You know, that's how that works.

So, you know, that's what it's like here now. And if you're not aware of that for like your pro-MLS team, I guarantee you, if you have Academy, I guarantee you. Because we've gone from 20 years ago, there was one guy here that was a German scout, an independent scout that scouted for German teams. And there was some independent scouts that scouting for European teams. That's how Dallas lost the Funes-Mory brothers. It was because a guy here that actually had done some work for them, took them to Chelsea first.

And they got, then they got a look, oh, I'm not playing here. You know, because at the time they didn't have the ability to sign academy players. There was no homegrown deal when the Finnis-Mori brothers were here. And so they jumped to River Plate. And funny story is Oscar Prey actually helps facilitate that move to River Plate for those two guys. But, you know, they were both 18 when they did it, which is different. Times were different. But, you know, we went from one guy to now literally hundreds.

You know, it's a different world. And if your club has an academy that's producing guys that are MLS that they think will project to MLS, even if your team isn't a team that does that, I guarantee you they're being sworn by agents and scouts trying to get them and take them over to Europe. This is the new nirvana of scouting the United States is. Cool. I'm happy about it. That agreement with Byron, I don't want to get too deep in the weeds on it. But I wonder how, like, in the case of Richards and Che, it seems sort of obvious how it's working. But like, but in the case of Reynolds, a player sold to an entirely different club, does Byron have any, like, say in that or any right of first refusal or anything?

How does that work? I don't think there's a right of first refusal. But they, he went, Brian went three times over there to Byron. I know that there was at least some level of discussion with Byron, but in the end it comes down to what their evaluation is, how much they offer, you know, if they actually get to that point. In the case of Reynolds, you know, some of those Italian teams were coming in with money that Byron is not a pool Byron operates in.

You know, Byron buys players, but they don't buy crazy, right? They're of a more efficient business model than some of the other crazy teams that operate at a giant debt. You know, like your Chelsea's or your Man Cities or probably even lately, Juventus operate below, Real Madrid, certainly in the past. Barsup in the past, they pay money way past their earnings a lot of times, right? Byron doesn't really do that. So one of the reasons Byron likes this deal is because they get a chance to look at these kids early

and they can get in on them early, whereas Reynolds, they chose not to. Now, Reynolds had a late progression. Lennon's, even a year before he broke in, I watched Brian in practice, and I would even talk about it on the podcast. Like, man, I'm not sure it's going to hit. He wasn't getting it. And then all of a sudden, bang, he got it. And it was like, holy cow.

And it was in the season before he actually broke into the team. I was like, oh, it just, the light just turned on. He's ready. And it took him another year to actually break through. So he was a little bit of a late bloomer. And so the first couple of times Byron saw him, he probably wasn't very good. so maybe they didn't quite have the valuation on him that they might have had in other people. First time I saw Chris Richards, he was already 18, and he already had that passing vision, that 50-yard pass that he can make that no one else can make.

That's the thing about him that makes people light up. Is that a passing ability? So, you know, it's just a case. Every player's different. Every scenario is different. Every evaluation is different. You know, there are guys that, that Byron's had Paxton over there a couple times and they don't seem to be interested. You know, and we think Paxton is one of the goodest players.

as we have, you know, a lot of times I talk about the thing is, is that European clubs have, if you want to talk about like a 5-6, 5-4, tricky on the ball, tenacious midfielder, man, they got a thousand of those. They don't need Paxton. Interesting. Six-three athletes, six-three-two-thirty, jacked, run like the wind. Alfonso Davies, Brian Reynolds, they don't have any of those. I see.

So, you know, there's a value to that. that's what they can't get. That's what look at the guys they want. Chris Richards, Justin Chey, Brian going to Italy. It's these guys that don't, they got a thousand dudes like Paxton.

They got a thousand guys like Jesus for, they don't have guys that are 6364 that can like NBA players, you know. Interesting. I never thought of it that way. Yeah. Let's talk about, I don't want to keep you all day,

but let's talk about a few players coming up in this pipe that we keep talking about. sort of a big picture question outside of Antonio Carrera who I would like to talk about there isn't there isn't really another 2004 that is being talked about a lot jump right to the 05s and 06 is there is there are there any 04s that we might see get a homegrown deal and if not do you have any insight into why the 04s are so thin no there is not an o4 other than Antonio that'll get a homegrown deal for whatever reason the The 2004s are light, if you will, for some reason.

I've had a couple of people say to me that across Dallas in general and North Texas in general, that's true of the 04s. It's absolutely true of the FC Dallas-O-4s for some reason. And I can't put my finger on why I couldn't even tell you why. It's just that there's not, for a while, it looked like we wouldn't even get any. Even Antonio for a while we weren't sure about. And then 2005 and 2006 for FC Dallas, of course, are above average. the number of talent. And then 07 drops back, sorry, I did I say before, 05, 06 are above average, and then 07

drops back to normal again. But 04, you're right. No, nothing other than Antonio. Well, let's talk about Antonio. You spoke about him on the second to last podcast. He's training. He's getting reps with the first team. Is that right?

Yeah. He technically is just now into the 19-19 bracket. He was a U-17 last year technically. but he already has been with North Texas considerably, and he would get first team invites. Every once in a while, he would get a first team invite. He's been on the bench for North Texas. He hasn't started a game because they have two other keepers already.

But starting about, again, at the beginning of August, when they brought back in all the academy at the beginning of August for this next season, Antonio, rather than being with the 19s, has been exclusively with FC Dallas first team every single day since then, which is telling. It's no longer like, here's the first team. an invite to train like once in a while to check on you, it's now full-time with the first team. So to me, that's a red flag. I already thought he was going to be the next guy.

I assumed this winter. So now I'm convinced more than ever. Because our goalkeeper here, coach, Drew Kishon, man, that dude is a, oh, now with kids, he's very open and works with all of me. He's really great. But with professionals, his fuse is super, super short. He is incredibly demanding. And now that Antonio is effectively right on the cusp of 18 or he may be 18 by now. I can't remember which one it is. Oh, I just found it. He just turned 18 and he'll be 18 next March. Okay. But he's good enough now at the 19 level that he's in there every day. And Drew will not put up with somebody that cannot keep up with their, uh, their training regimen in the first team. So for him to be in there every single day is incredibly telling. And I think that means that

that he'll be the next homegrown, obviously, if they can work out a deal. That's always the key. So I think he's got all the tools, six foot three, all the tools to be a pro. I think, again, we'll see. Like, keepers are late, right? They develop slowly. But I think he's the next guy. Okay.

Well, there's another goalkeeper even younger who is super high. Can you tell us about him? Yeah, Julian Icestone. Julian Icestone is a 2006. He's six foot six already. and he was he was six three when he was like 13 and so now he's six foot six and he's a 2006 I think he's 15 now and he I mean when you're six foot six you would think of course he can dunk a basketball yes you can the thing about the thing that was always going to be the worry with him

was would he would he lose his athleticism because of his height right when you're that tall that young how coordinated are you are you kind of a gangly No, no, this kid is an athlete. Like, there has been an example I personally witnessed in the Dallas Cup on a game when they were playing a lesser opponent. They had a short roster. They needed to arrest some guys. They played him as a nine, like a Peter Crouch style nine. Now, I'm not saying that's a real viable thing.

I'm just using an example of how good an athlete he is. You would worry on a guy that size about quickness getting down, like a ball right at his feet, right? That quick get down. That's there. The side to side covering the whole goal is there. he's you know he's standing there with his arms well above the frame of the goal this kid is a is he and i say it's in a very in a completely positive way he is a freak of nature at six foot six at 15 years old so he's probably pretty much done growing so there probably isn't going to be six six

six is probably going to be it but um he's as big a keeper prospect as we've ever seen and right there with antonio within a year or two apart which is kind of funny so they're going to have two good keepers on their hands. I think Ice Stone might be difficult to keep. He's one of those guys that's being swarmed by international scouts and international coaches, you know, because they look at the size and they're just losing their

minds over the size and athleticism. So he may be hard to keep, but yeah, what a joy. And that kid is phenomenal, man. Yeah, he's good. No fear in him either. He'll crush people, as you can imagine that size. Awesome. Just got to listen to Coach Kishon,

I guess. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah, and he's had a little taste of first team training. He's had some North Texas training already, you know, when he was a U-15 even. So, you know, they know who's in the system is legit and who's not, you know. How about Matthew Corcoran? Can you talk about him? I hear, I've never seen him play, but I hear a lot of times he is like the best 06 in the country. Yeah.

Who can even say something like that, but. Yeah. You see the rankings that he's mentioned as the best mid or he's the one of the top two or three. He's up there. The trick is, and the thing that's funny about him is he is a six. He's a holding mid. I mean, he can eight, but he's really a six. So the funny thing is, as I joked, it's like telling you to go watch him and like how great he is. It's like, I would be like telling you to go watch a junior high football team and say, oh, watch out for the center. He's going to be a pro. And you're like, dude, I went and watched and he snapped the ball between his legs a hundred

times. And it's like, it's boring as hell. So like watching Corcoran can be like that. It can be really boring because a lot of the stuff he's doing is really nuanced. It's about his positioning. It's about his game reading. It's about how smooth he is on his first touch. The ball comes in and the first touch instantly sets it up to where he's going next. Right. Like I had a when the team went down to Mexico, I had a Mexican scout email me out of the blue with a video.

He's like, do you know what kind of player you have here and sent me this video of him? You know, and I've had a quote passed on where some German scout said they've never. never had a player come through this team like this, right? But again, he made his debut for North Texas when he was 14 last season, earlier this season, in fact, when he was a U-15, technically he was 14 years old, he made his North Texas debut. Now, he didn't crush it, but that's what Dallas does, is they put you into a tough situation, they challenge you and they see how you respond. He'll turn 16 next February, this kid now. He's now 15. They've skipped the U-17s with him. He's a U-19 now. They've totally just skipped the whole U-17 bracket. So he's a combination

U-19 and North Texas player basically at this point. The problem is going to be holding on to him. It's going to be difficult because he's one of the kids that from the age of like 11, he's been going over to Germany and training during the summer. Both of his parents played college soccer and his dad was a fringe USU 17 player. So they know lots of people. They know scouts. They know coaches.

So they're super dialed in and they totally understand how it all works. So he may be hard to keep, actually. We'll see. And again, you never know too with a kid. Right now he's 15. You never know what the next four years are going to do for him. You know, as good as I think he is. And believe me, he's one of the best players I've ever seen.

I don't know that it'll actually, you know, who knows how it actually translates by the time he gets to the pro level. Does he, well, two quick questions about it. Does he have an EU passport? I don't think so. Okay. I mean, both his parents are Americans, I think. I don't think he does.

you know, is he a good actor? Like is he physical and fast? He's, he's no, he's not fast. No, no.

He's subtle, smooth. Okay. Game reader, you know, game controller. Like he, the one knock I have on him right now is when they put him back

down with his native age group, they'll be like, oh, really, I got to go back down and he's kind of just plays around, right? And then you put him back up and he's like, I first saw him when he was with the SOSU 14 team.

And they moved, he was playing up a bracket. He was actually a, you 12 years. all at the time playing with the U-14s and the Dallas Cup Supergroup, the U-14 Supergroup, and he was electric. Like, first time I saw him within five minutes,

I was like, oh, wow. And that's, you know, it's about positioning, game reading. You have to watch him from kind of high up to see what he's doing, to watch how he's reading the game and how far ahead of the game he's moving. It's mostly his mind and his feet and his touch.

It's just an amazing quality player. And I hope he pans out, because as much as I've talked to, up now if he doesn't pan out i'm going to look dumb but you know he he's uh he's he's a he's a he's a he's a special one and we'll see okay anybody anybody else we should be looking out for in the academy yeah at the top level uh the highest level tarreek scott uh his his his older brother plays for tosa tarreek has exploded over the last year from he was he was way down my list until man i don't even know what happened he just won the golden boot for the u-17

in the MLS next playoffs. He's an explosive dynamic attacker, you know, sort of not a nine, but a wing attacking kind of forward, super talented. I think he's got bags and bags of upside to come. A guy for me that they, so far, they've actually left him down with the 17s. His name is Antonio Ramirez. I think he's super, super talented. the knock on him is he's a pure 10.

And you know how the game is these days. That's kind of a dying position. So, like, they use him as a false wing, kind of like, like, like, politic, if you will. But he's a little undersized. And so, like, every time I see him, I think he's just a glorious player. He's already been in U.S. youth national teams

and Mexico national teams, both. But when I mentioned him to the club, they're kind of like, oh, you know, we're not sure of the size, maybe. the position. So that's going to be one to watch because I think the kid's phenomenal. And I have a vague impression that Dallas doesn't think as much of him as I do. At that same 2008-2006 bracket, there's a Henry Kenesalis is a left back.

He's the best left back to come through here since Jonathan Gomez. Phenomenal, complete player. I love that kid. A guy I really like Malachi Molina is a, is a Brian Reynolds clone wing or even outside back. that kind of vertical flying absolute physical specimen. I love his game. Now he tends to drift in and out of games a little bit. He needs to focus up and get mentally tough,

but just bags and bags of talent there. I mean, we can go age group after age group if you want all the way down. There's just so much talent in this academy. Christian Kelly is a kid that has exploded lately. For a while, I thought he wasn't putting it all together, but he's like a Dante Seeley kind of clone. Plays as a wing, pace, nifty, combo dribbles.

He's a very, very difficult matchup in the academy. He's got a lot of upside to pay attention to you. So, man, we can go forever. There's a lot of them. Well, say the name. So that was the left back who is the best since Gomez is Henry what now? Henry Kennes-Alice. I think I'm saying that correctly.

Let me double check the spelling on his name. He's a 2006. I just flew right past him. I was going to double check how you say that name. Yeah, I just, I really love that kid. Yeah. C-A-N-I-Z-A-L-E-Z, Henry Canazals. I think the kid is a phenomenal player, complete defensive player and the verticality to get forward.

He's not tall, which is okay because he's a little young. You know, it's not a big deal on the outside if you're not tall. Just an absolute dominant defender. You know, he's the kind of guy that when he's out there, they can kind of vacate that side and give him like the whole side to himself and have that winger play much more internal because his ability to get up and out up and up down is unbelievable. So that's a player I love that guy. Let me ask one thing about Gomez.

Was his departure acrimonious? And how does FC Dallas feel about that? It looks like he's going to head to Portugal this winter. Yeah. I know a little bit, but I'm not a privy obviously to the intimate details of any negotiations that happened. I think if he would have been patient, if he would have waited one more year, he would have been a homegrown here. I'm convinced of that.

Part of the sticking point with him was that he wanted the ability at 18, which he just turned 18, you know, and his contract's about to run out. That's what he wanted. He wanted at 18 to be free. Yeah. Dallas, of course, didn't want that. They wanted a longer investment. They wanted to be able to progress him.

I think that's the biggest sticking point. When he left, at that point, they were, you know, he started for, he was North Texas as starting left back when he was 14. is a U-15 player. Come on going on U-17 player. I didn't realize he was that young when he was starting. He was that young. Yeah, he 14 and 15, and as a season when I he turned 15,

by the time the playoffs were happening, he was 15. So at the time, I think they were discussing the idea that there would be a North Texas deal in the offer to start with. And like I say, I think if he would have waited a year, he would have been 16-ish going wherever he would have been. Exactly, I don't remember. But I think there would have been a homegrown deal on the table at that point. But that was the thing, right?

He wants to be able to go. His brother before him had already gone. And so that model was there, that pathway was there. He kind of had his eye on that. And so they couldn't really come to an understanding about that. And I don't blame Dallas for holding the line and saying, we want to be able to have you for, you know, longer than just until 18. You know, at the same time, he's going to be a guy that you're going to like Weston McKinney.

He's not Weston McKinney good, but he's close. He's going to be a guy that you're like, I cannot believe we let that kid get away because he's going to have a dominant long-term career, I think. He's considerably better than his brother. I like his brother, but Jonathan is much better. And that's going to be one of the biggest misses since Weston is going to be Jonathan Gomez here. All right. Let me ask, I'm, these are questions that I'm personally curious about, like the history of

third degree.net. Okay. You were at one point part of like the one of the local newspapers. coverage of soccer, right? Well, we go back to, I found a third degree in 1997. I came back to Dallas from Boston where I had gone to grad school. And I wanted to make a website in order to teach myself how to do HTML encoding and stuff like that.

So I thought, what do I know a little something about? And I decided to pick soccer because I know a little bit about soccer and nobody did anything about soccer at the time. And the web was really in its infancy in a lot of ways. Like I called the thing of fanzine at the time. And I solicited people like, hey, everyone wants to write something, send me an article or whatever, and I'll put it on here. You know, and I sort of created this website. And then I happened to have a job in 1998.

I had a job where I had a lot of downtime. And so I went to my boss and I was like, hey, if you don't mind, can I drive 10 minutes up the road and go watch FCD Dallas practice or at the time? And he was like, yeah, sure, I don't care. So I started going to practice. And so from 98 on, basically, I've gone to practice almost once a week and watched training. And that's the difference between what I do and what a lot of people do is that I actually do go to training. And so the coaches a lot of times will open up to me and talk to me because I'm watching what they're actually doing. You know, I'm not just sitting in the stands of game and just mouthing off.

I'm watching them work. You know, I talk to them about what they're actually trying to accomplish. I watch kids progress and so I know what's happening. So round about Goodness, what year was it? I can't even remember. There was a point at which we reached the point where we were doing about a million hits a year with third degree, which for a soccer MLS site, I thought was pretty good. Absolutely.

And somebody did a, like a network analysis kind of thing of soccer sites in America. And we came up as like one of the most influential, if not the most influential side in America. And I think at the time, a lot of it was because I was doing drastic. stuff. I was going to the combines and doing scouting. I was going to the draft and doing stuff on guys. And so that gave me a lot of bandwidth around MLS. It was right around that time that server bandwidth started to become more expensive. And the place I was getting a free server was shutting down. And so I was looking around for a place to go. And a contact of mine, a friend of mine who writes for the website, in fact, Peter Welton at the time was doing some work

for the Dallas Morning News. So he talked to their guy. And they were like, well, we actually need somebody to do some soccer content. So we basically migrated third degree over to the Dallas Morning News. You know what? I lied. I skipped a step. I first got approached by, I forgot. I forgot. I first got approached by ESPN Dallas. You remember how ESPN had the individual websites for local cities? Yeah. Yeah. In the beginning, ESPN Dallas brought us on to be their soccer people for Dallas. And we were there for two seasons. And then they changed the way that they do business. And they changed it to all cowboys, basically, which I can hardly blame them for. So that was actually the website I had that was going away.

I needed a website. And the morning news said, well, we have a website and we can use some soccer. So I jumped in the morning news. So we were there for a decade at the morning news as basically their entire soccer portfolio was us. And after about a decade, I kind of, I was getting tired of the paywall. And I kind of was gotten to the at the time, 22 years of doing it. I kind of was like, I wonder if I can actually make a little bit of money from this. because I've never had to be a business

like I never had to make money which is kind of why I was able to survive so I decided to go independent and sort of roll the dice and create a Patreon and see if I could get a little bit of money coming in even if it was just enough to get lunch you know or whatever I'm not trying to make a living off of it

at this point so I did that I went independent and created a Patreon and then shortly after that we started the podcast and now we have a Discord 2 and all that kind of stuff so it's become a little bit of a moneymaker for me I still, I don't, it doesn't have to be a business. It's not important, you know, for my livelihood or anything, because I have a job, I have a career.

What is your day, what is your day job if you don't mind telling us? I am a sports television producer or director. I, I producer direct. I spent seven years on NASCAR. I spent seven years doing NBA. These days, I mostly do college sports of various kinds. You know, that's what I do for a living, which, as you can imagine, there's a lot of downtime between games. A lot of my skill set from that career translates to covering sports this other way.

I mean, it is slightly different, but there's a lot of, you know, my familiarity with professionalism around sports teams, around pros, around high-level sports environments. You know, I know where the lines are. I know people in various sports. I know how media functions. I know how the integration of TV and Internet is something. The reason why I created a third degree in the first place is because I thought, 20 years from now, TV and internet are going to be the same. And that's where we are. It is definitely happening. Right. So it was my foresight that that was going to be. So a lot of ways, my career, my career and my hobby are sort of converging in a lot of ways. And so now I basically, I'm a self-employed media company, quote unquote, that includes my broadcasting and my website and podcast and all that stuff. So that's what I do for a living. I don't want to talk about specifically the products that I work on. That's okay. Other than just to say it's mostly college. But, you know, that's where I make my living, you know, and I don't have any complaints about it. It varies up and down.

It's very chaotic. And actually having the third degree now generate a little bit of money lends myself to like a more even keel in my life and actually really like that part. So that actually has really benefited me lately. And we're about to have our 25th anniversary this October. It will be our 25th birthday for third degree. Congratulations. Thanks. Yes.

Yes. One thing I wanted to ask through all that is so the morning news wasn't like paying you? No. No? No. No, it was just a server to put our stuff on. You know, I asked them a couple of times that they were interested and they just weren't. There's just not the bandwidth for soccer, you know, for them.

And papers are dwindling, right? It's all going down. They're shrinking. Their revenues are shrinking. You know, there wasn't anything for me. At the time we first went there, you know, the cost of the bandwidth I needed for third degree was probably. like, man, I don't even know, $150, 200 bucks a month maybe. It would have cost me

at the time. Now, of course, I could probably get that same bandwidth for like $10. You know, times are changing on the internet as well as anything else. So over time, the value of what they were giving me, and listen, there was a cachet to having the Dallas, being the Dallas Morning News people, right? There was a legitimate

to that. Just as there was ESPN Dallas, it landed a little weight to our name. Over time, it got to the point where the professionalism, I think, of what we do and the quality of what we do actually lended itself back to the morning news soccer coverage, I think. Maybe I'm a little biased, but. Oh, I'm sure that's true. Yeah.

So, you know, I felt after a while, I felt like, I kept hearing people talk about betting on yourself in a modern era and the gig economy and all that kind of stuff. So I'm kind of rolling the dice on that to see how it goes, you know, and so far is so good. Again, it's not my career. It's not my living. So it's just an addition. So it really is working out for me. And I'm able to, you know, to do things like have the podcast. and have the Discord and these other things that with a little bit of money that comes in helps me facilitate all that stuff.

So things are going well. And there are expenses. Like it's an hour drive for me to go to training. You know, that's not nothing. Tolls and gas, you know, it's not, you know, so there is cost all this stuff and having a little bit come in is important to make it facilitate, make it be what it is. Well, we appreciate what you do a lot. I know a lot of our listeners do. And so tell us how, tell us how people can find your Patreon.

And, I mean, the podcast is pretty easy to find. Third degree net, I think. It's just the third degree, right? Third degree, yeah. The website is third degree. Dot net. Third degree.com was taken. Third degree.

But I brand everything third degree. You know, I have a business degree, so I understand the concept of marketing. So it's third degree to podcast. Our Patreon is third degree. You can find it on, you know, at the top of our website, we have a link to the podcast, a link to our t-shirt. shop, a link to our Patreon. You can find it all there.

You can easily just Google third degree and we'll come up. I'm sure, you know, third degree talking about soccer. There's not really another one. So we're really simple to find. And I think we're actually going to have to expand with people soon because there's now talk of a USL championship team coming here. And, you know, as time goes on, people come and go. And there's probably been 50 different people that have helped me out over the years.

We have a core of about four or five right now. So we're always on the lookout for more talented people that want to help out. Okay. Well, thanks again. Thanks again, Buzz. Really appreciate your time. And you're a great follow on Twitter. Even keel.

Thank you. Even keeled, not a lot of noise, just all signal. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you know, like I said, I work in media. And so I try not to be emotional. You know, I've been around a long time now.

And I've seen a lot of things coming and go. And I learned early on that if you just wait, things will change. So I try and I try and be clinical and look at things in the context and keep a perspective and not have knee jerk reactions one way or the other. And I try and base it all on my eyes. I listen to other people, but it's all based on what I see happening. And I think there's a value that people, some people seem to have gravitated too. So I'm actually really grateful that people, that anyone cares what I think. I'm really grateful for that.

I love the fact that someone wants to know what I think about something or think about a player. you know, and I love that I get a chance to discuss with coaches their ideas about what they're going to do on the game. You're coming up or won the game that just happened, you know? Yeah. I love that. You're there, man. You're at the practices.

It makes a massive difference. The difference between a Zoom call after the game and actually being at practice and watching and then having the coach come over and actually having a dialogue, you know, the difference in those two things is massively different. You know, people, even in media, sometimes don't understand that, right? The coach is completely different when the recorder is turned off. And you're just standing on the sideline of practice. And you just watch what happened. And you can say, oh, wow, he was really on fire today.

And coach would be like, yeah, he's been killing it. We're going to bring him in. He's going to start this, that. You know, they're much more open and amicable if you're there. And they've learned that you know where the lines are. And they learn to trust you. And they learn that you have a decent eye for what's happening. They're much more open and willing to talk to you about everything.

And it's a privilege. It's a true privilege to get to do what I do. Awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.