Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #536: Pochettino's first press conference, a reaction

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Belz, Watke and Tara go through several key clips from the press conference with Mauricio Pochettino, his first public appearance as coach of the USMNT. And they react to them. It's a great time to be alive. 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 Scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody, we have a podcast because Mauricio Pochettino earlier today made his first public appearance as the U.S. men's national team coach. It was a press conference in New York City. I thought it was pretty cool. Tara, I got Tara and Waki with me. Tara, what did you think? I am so excited. I thought the audio issue was pretty embarrassing.

But once Potch got going, I forgot all about it. I'm just ready for the new chapter to begin. Hats off to Sydney, to Matt Crocker, to JT. A new era. We're in such good hands. And Tara, the reason you were able to forget it so easily is because just how charming of a man we have leading us now. Yeah. And he looked great, handsome.

He did look handsome. He had a navy suit jacket on, white pocket square, going with the shirt. Yeah, I wasn't expecting it. Got a good watch bracelet combo on either wrist. There was a picture of all of them walking in or walking down some hallway, some corridor. He was the only one who ended up on stage and it was J.T. Batson, Matt Crocker and Cindy Parlo Cohn up there. He was the only one who was wearing dress shoes too. Like this man means business.

He's wearing black dress shoes. Everybody else is wearing sneakers with their suits. And you know what? I didn't see those shoes. They match his wristband. It's black. Coordinating. That means something.

It does feel like a new era. We're really taken by this man. We've been bold over. He can do no wrong. So let's get into some clips. He was asked, I mean, let's get right into it. He was asked by Stephen Goff. First question, Stephen Goff from the Washington Post,

if he had watched the last two games. What was your opinion about them and what needs to happen going forward now as you build towards the World Cup? Yes, of course, that we were watching the games and it's difficult to shush because I think we cannot be unfair in the way that we are going to shash. Circumstances are so special after the Cup of America.

Situation wasn't good, really good, for the player to manage in the last two games. But the most important thing is to see the potential that we have, the very good player. I think to send the message to everyone, not only the players that were involved in the last few games, if not only the players that play in Europe, but the players that play here on USA and the MLS.

If not every single player that is around the world, we are going to try to pay attention and all from now they have the door open. It's only about to perform and try to show that they are capable to join the national team. I think that is one of our first idea that we want to translate to our player. They need to understand that if they perform, we are going to be there watching. The door is open. Even an MLS. It's a better way to say the name of the league.

we should say it like that from now on. Yeah, it sounds way cooler that way. Garner a little bit more respect. Yeah, maybe. But I think that's exactly what our players need. Do I think it's true? I'm not sure, but, you know, your seat's not safe.

Yeah. Try a little harder. I agree. I don't think there's going to be some dramatic reorganization of the player pool. But to certain extent, you've got to say that. The other thing that struck me about that clip is he was, you know, he's being sort of generous to the previous regime. Maybe not to the previous regime, but generous to the players who didn't perform very well in the last 10 days or so. You can't judge too harshly. Or maybe he's being generous.

Maybe that's how we should also think about what we just saw. Maybe he's showing us a new way. The circumstances were terrible. They were. Were they really that terrible, though? I mean, I can appreciate him being generous to the players. At least I'm able to, I think I'm able to do this, appreciate him being generous without actually myself being all that generous.

That's where I land. I think he's giving us permission to just follow him on this and just forget ever happened. Okay. And I'm going to take that opportunity. Yeah. I think I forget it. I am not that mad about the games.

I'm just mad that nobody cared that they were getting beat up. I'm still kind of pissed about that. Yeah, I wonder what Pachitino's shit-housing advice will be. He wants, well, he talks about it a little bit in his autobiography. He's going to want more of it. Really? What does he say, exactly? I don't remember the exact quotes, but he wants more guile.

You're going to put in some more fouls? We don't foul enough in the right parts of the field. We're going to need to start doing more of that. You know, I am getting this book sent to me. So I'm going to be up to date soon. Probably like five days. I'm sending everyone the book, Adam. I haven't talked to you about it because I wanted to give it to you in person.

So it would be kind of a special moment. Okay. Should we get a video crew there for the moment? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate it. We should start having contest on the Scuff podcast where people can win this book.

Let's see how many of these books we can give out. Just really bump up his numbers. So this is a clip of him talking about how we're going to play. It was in response to a question from Doug McIntyre, who I thought did well to welcome Mauricio. I think Maricio appreciated that. So here we go. The first thing is we love the aesthetic in football and for us is really important and we want to play a good football, exciting football. We are in USA. You know, I think to convince our fans that join us is about to attract, you know, and the aesthetic is really important. We want to

play nice football, good football, exciting football, attacking football. And then of course, If we want to have the possession, because we are coaching staff also, the philosophy is to have the ball. We need to run because we need to move. We need to give option, good angles to your teammate. But then also the opponent is going to play. And the opponent won the best, won the ball. But when we don't have the ball, we need to run. We need to be aggressive.

We need to be competitive. And all of that that we need to, I think, to translate, to create this platform that when they come, you know, the player arrived to the national team, they need to know exactly what we need to do, how we need to compete, how we need to behave like a team, and the potential is there, the talent is there, is only to create the best platform for them to express themselves. I love that the first thing he talks about when he talks about running is getting open for your teammates.

Yeah, showing. And it's a really, yeah, really underappreciated, important part of the game. And, you know, so he goes on to talk about, you know, running and winning the ball back. But he starts with running, running starts with making yourself available, creating good angles for your teammates to pass you the ball. This man is talking my language now. It's going to be one of his biggest challenges he faces getting us to actually do that, though. Yeah.

That's not to doubt he can do it. But he just needs to understand this is the United States he's coaching now. There's going to be some resistance to that idea. See, all I could think about is it's mid-September already. This man is getting these boys next month. It's coming. I'm so excited. We're going to Mexico.

Weeks away. I'm thrilled. I mean, think about how much of a sad sack, Polisic just looked. He's getting the guy. He's getting the guy. I mean, everything, everything just happened. Did you get the sense? Maybe we'll get to, maybe there's a clip later.

Pocitino was maybe, you thought Poulosick was a little bit too sad? I did. Yeah. Yeah. He did. And when that is the next clip we're going to play. But I just think it's going to be interesting to watch that relationship, to monitor that relationship between the two of them. Because Pulisic was so sad that the thought of Pocitino being the coach didn't even seem to,

you know, penetrate his sadness the other night. Like, it was just one and another, you know, a sort of a string of hopeless pieces of information that were being presented to him. I wonder to what extent it's, you know, we've gone and had these two underwhelming games, we'll say. And now he's the one giving the first public reaction to it. Is that there's a performative element to it.

he feels like he needs to play this part for the people. And maybe he just overshot the sadness in his performance. Could be. Yeah. Yeah. He also might just be a very, very sad boy. I just think we got to get him away from the television cameras. Just like he's not that guy.

Yeah, that's probably a part of it. Paul Chitino's going to help with that. When in doubt, we know the guy to put the camera on. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's not that he, like, necessarily loves the camera. The camera loves him. The camera loves him.

Charm. Charm. Charm. Let's listen to his Pach's interpretation of the Pulisic comments the other night. How can you change and improve the culture of this group? I think we need to, what means culture? What means, you know, build something. What means to philosophy? What means? It's difficult to describe in words, you know, culture.

I think in that case that you say to me, Christian was really frustrated after two games and it's normal in the way to show the frustration was about to talk. I was disappointed, you know, about the result and the performance. But I think what I'm going to tell you, the culture is USA culture, you know, is there.

In all the sport, you know, USA have a great athlete. In all the sport, all, you know, It's a winning culture, winning mentality. Great athletes, winning culture. I think it's only in soccer. We need to inspire many, many sports that we have here. But I think for me, one of the most important things that we need to aspire is in the women team. I think we have Emma, that for me is the best coach.

I want to say, hello, Emma. I don't know where you are, if you are here or no. But, you know, now, we have Emma that is the best coach in the world. and the women team in the history won everything, Cindy. And I see, we need to match you. So he takes a question about Pulisic being sad. He says, you know, it's understandable in the moment. And then he turns it into a compliment to Emma Hayes and Cindy Parlo-Cone.

That we need to, the men's team needs to match the women's team's mentality and culture. He's not wrong. No. I mean, I love that he has a great relationship with Emma. And that's one that I'm really excited for. But I think you're right. I'm also really excited to see how he and holistic mesh, especially at the beginning. Yeah.

And this is just a free idea for the media people at the Federation. Do like a series of videos where Emma's just showing Pocitino around. Maybe Atlanta stopping coffee places. This wasn't... Diners and dives. This wasn't in the presser, but in one of the articles, they talked about how U.S. Soccer, they're going to buy Potch and Emma a home outside of Atlanta.

Do you think they're going to be neighbors? Put them in one home. I'd just put them in one home and turn it kind of a reality show. Like a duplex? Maybe we give them two different homes, but there's like a common house in between. Yeah. Or they can do meals and stuff.

That would be wonderful. A mansion with a west and an east wing. I mean, Emma and Potch were so close that Emma checked in on the hiring process the day of the semifinal of the Olympics to see how it was going. It sounds like she was kind of badgering them throughout, really keeping the pressure on. Get it done, folks. Like, honey, we had a simple. my final to win. You're checking in on a hiring process?

I'm glad she can multitask, but wow. He went on and on about her later, too. But I didn't cut all that, cut all those clips. There's plenty. Anyway, he was happy to talk about Emma. He was very,

I think, sort of dismissed Pulisic's sadness. We're talking about it. Him may be being a sad boy. He's not talking that way. There was a lot of talk before the coach was confirmed about if our coach indeed did to live in America or if he could live in Europe. And I didn't really have an opinion either way. But I'm glad he's living in America. Do you guys care? Yes, I like it. I think it's more fun. Yeah.

Particularly if there's a group house, they're going to be living in. Which I guess that's not what their reporting is. Maybe that was just some speculation we did. I mean, he's going to be living in Atlanta or outside of Atlanta. I think that that is very fun. Not that it, not that I cared either way, but I do, I do like it. I want him to live in Trillith, the weird Chick-fil-A city where our facility is now. The facility is, yeah.

That would be wonderful. He's going to be spending a lot of time in Europe, it sounds like building relationships. relationships with players and clubs, which I guess is a normal thing that all coaches do. Yeah. But like with him, everything he says is also some things coaches say, but it just, it feels different to me. Yeah, he could say the, I mean, because Burrhalter also said he was going to build relationships with clubs and stuff. And you're like, yeah, yeah, you know, seems like a good thing to do. When Potch says it, you think, oh, he's going to like actually be able to build relationships with clubs, you know?

In the New Zealand pregame, it came up the problem we were having was playing time at clubs. And the way Crocker talked about it, he almost made it sound like Potch is going to these clubs and strong arming them into playing our guys. He said he said he wants the players to feel like that the staff care about them. And even that, I was like, well, that's going to be new. The coaches are going to like really care about them. It's not new at all, though. No.

But because he said it, I was like, this is going to be a new experience for them. But Greg was almost cared too much about them. I think Timway compared him to a fatherly figure. But, yeah, because it came out of Patch's mouth, it sounded nude to me. Yeah. There's going to be a little tough love here. And I think the sort of play versus compete concept that he, he talked about, I think, is that.

Let's play the clip. But I think the most important is to create something special, you know, to feel something when you are right to the national team. It's not because the player come and okay, because they call me and we are going to play. No, we are going to compete. And compete is completely different to play. And it's too many responsibility from the player.

And of course, our responsibility to create, you know, the platform for them, you know, to play. perform. But that is the most important is we have many examples next to us that we need to follow and give our best. I love that. Yeah, that was probably the most important part or one of the most important part. Yeah. You're not just going to play. No, you have to compete. It goes hand in hand with when he said that there aren't any friendlies, I think, pretty well. Yeah, very well. Which a clip I didn't cut, but yeah, he rejects the idea of a friendly. He said, I mean, I don't know if he really believes this, because I don't know if I really

believe it, but he said whether you're playing Cop America, World Cup, or a Friendly, it's the same. Yeah. It was a question, it was a question about, like, the lack of competitive games leading up to the World Cup. His answer was he rejects the notion of a friendly, which made me excited because 2016 Team is coming up quick. And this is going to be another case where really getting us to show up to a friendly is maybe a bigger challenge than he's yet aware of.

Right. We don't, we don't, we don't do that. So we have two, so we have like a growing list of big challenges for, for Potch. Number one is getting people to move off the ball. And number two is. getting people to get up for friendlies. Let's keep track. That's the one I'm most excited for it to see, like, punishment for, though.

Yeah. If you don't show up for a friendly, I want some punishment. Yeah. Totally. I mean, we got, things are dire enough that it needs to be pretty draconian. You know, if you take a playoff in the first half against Guatemala, two-game suspension, basically. I want to see your head. Well, now, he will say he does not believe in punishment.

So what will happen is you're going to get a talking to, and then maybe you might just disappear. Yeah. It's more of a disappearing he'll do to you. I like that. Very Italian. And Argentina. Let's take a break and come back and talk about some more clips.

We're back. He was asked. if he thinks we have enough time. This goes hand in hand with the whole, we only have basically friendlies and Nations League between now and the World Cup, but he was asked if we have enough time, and he thinks we have enough time.

Yes, look, I think everyone think that it's no time, you know, to prepare and to arrive in our best condition to the World Cup. What I wanted to tell you that I am in the opposite side. I believe that it's time enough. I don't want to put an excuse, I don't want to create an excuse

for the player to say, oh, yeah, but no, now we don't have time to buy the new ideas, the new philosophy. No, football is like this, is to touch the right button and start to perform. And of course, we are talking about soccer, no, football soccer. And I think the players are so intelligent and so talented and they can, I think, play in a different way. And for sure, I think we have time. We have time. And we need to really believe in sync.

things. We need to believe that we can win, that we can win only a game, we can win the World Cup. Because if not, it's going to be so difficult the journey. And we want players that arrive in the day one in the training camp and sinking big. Not only do we have enough time, we can win the World Cup. That's what he said this morning around 11.30 a.m. Eastern Time. Yeah. We have all of the talent. but I don't think we have the belief because if we did, we wouldn't let Canada beat us up. So I think that's something he could solve right away.

What I like about this is he's looking at the situation. Each camp, in point of fact, there isn't enough time. But since that's a set fact, it's better just to deny it's the case and say this amount of time is enough. Yeah. There isn't enough time, though. And really, we probably can't win the World Cup. I mean, we can. It's technically possible.

But I like how he says, you have to believe that you can, otherwise you can't really do anything. Well, he said, you have to believe you can't. Otherwise, it's a difficult journey. Right. Both of those things. It's about making that journey easier, because that's the part we're actually going to live through. Right. And I take the, it's going to be a difficult journey to mean something.

Like the belief has to underpin the entire project. But maybe I'm over, over reading it. No. I think you're reading it perfectly. Thank you. You're welcome. He poached it a very good job of saying you're welcome to a journalist when they nodded, thank you. Yeah.

That's right. He said thank you very much a lot to you. he was asked about the weaknesses of the player pool or no he was Ron Blum probably my favorite member of the press corps he asked what are the strengths and weaknesses of the player pool he did the cardinal error of asking a two-part question second part of his question was

is this the best generation of players for the for the US I'm Mauritio Ron Blum from AP going through the player pool, the goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, attackers, what do you see as the strengths and what do you see as the weaknesses? And do you think looking from far, this is the best generation of American players to work with? I don't see weakness because I don't like to talk about witness. If I, we are seeing some winners, I'm never going to explain, even to them, you know. we are always positive.

I think we have a very talented player. I think, of course, the confidence was a little bit low, you know, in the last, after the Cup of America, but I think we are going to work into recovery. He doesn't see weakness because he doesn't like to talk about weakness. How do you read that, Chris? Or Tara, Tara? I think it's going to frustrate some of our players in a good way.

What do you guys think? You mean that he's not, that he won't tell them about their weaknesses? I think he's going to find a way to talk to them about their weaknesses. He's just going to frame it as differently. Yeah. And also probably we'll actually talk about their weaknesses. I'm suspicious that he doesn't talk to players about their weaknesses. I think it was a nice thing to have said.

Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, good. The answer, the answer cracked me up, though. because I too really like Ron Blum and I just thought it was I just thought it was a really great way to try to get him to say you know, what players, what players suck.

Yeah. Did you guys notice Ron sort of softened his delivery? His voice wasn't quite as intense. Yeah. He flattened it out a little bit. I just, I'm worried, not worried, I'm hoping, once Pontchino gets acclimated, he goes full four again. Yeah, he's like, I need this guy of calling me a little bit, and then I'm going to get going.

Yeah, there was a slight bit of deference there in that flattening and the smoothing out of his voice. That definitely wasn't there with Burr-Halter. It was just like, the way he spoke to Burr-Helter was like, I don't even really want to be here in asking you questions, but I'm going to try not to waste my time and yours by asking this question as simply and bluntly as I can. Yeah, it was a little less like that. I agree. Potch also answered the question about the, is this the greatest generation of U.S. players? And I think this is really good. Of course, I think it's a very good generation of, you know, of player.

I think it's only be together because in football, it's a collective sport. all we understand that but on the end we need to show that we play like a collective on the pitch and of course we need to work in that he starts to say it's only been together for a little while you know and then he breaks it off and says we all know that soccer's a collective sport and that's what we need to work on but i think there's a lot in there he's clearly in his studies of the team he does not believe that that this team plays as a collective in the way that it should. And I'm just really excited about that part of what he is going to try to work on.

Me too. Ron Blum got two good pieces of content out of his question. He remains, I think, on top of the power rankings for me. Yeah, no question. We should have a formal power rankings, by the way. I'll work on that. Okay. Yeah, we did learn some things about press conferences and generally, you know, two-part questions can be pretty ineffective because the guy can skip the part of the question he doesn't want.

And then you get sort of, you can sort of soften the question, the question that they do answer. The problem, I think, was a combination of doing two-parters. And then even within a single question, they would start using a jumble of phrases designed to, like, you were saying soften or defend the question. which I was, I think, correctly interpreted by Pontchitinos. This is just a nonsense thing that has just been said to me. And I don't understand what you just said. He started kind of pretending he didn't understand, I feel like. Once he got his first repetitive question,

we got a little insight on how he's going to respond to stupidity. And I really liked seeing that. I think it was like, why did you take the job asked twice, just in a slightly different way? He was done. He checked out right there. That was it. That was basically the end of the press conference.

Because he had not only been asked about it once. He'd been asked about it twice, once in English and one it's in Spanish. By the time he was asked the third time. And that's when he was like, all right, I'm going to my happy place in Murphy. And I'll see you all later. And he had already said everything. That was basically at that point, he said everything that he was going to say. But I mean, I think we got valuable.

Like, we got a look into maybe how he's going to be, you know, like responding to Serginio when he's back. Like a little bit of how he reacts to some silliness. It's not, I think he handled it well. He just, he just handled it. Yeah, he did. Without disrespecting anyone. Growing up. Yeah.

But we, on our end, do need to, on. you know, the journalist and needed to kind of tighten up quite a bit. We cannot have a performance like the last half of the press conference again. No, that was, it wasn't good enough. There were other questions to ask, you know? I mean, what would you guys have asked if you had been in there and had, so just so everybody knows, they didn't take questions via Zoom, I don't think, did they? I didn't think, no, I don't think so.

And then, so everybody who got a question was they're live, including someone from Long Island Soccer Magazine. First I'd heard of it. Who asked about Borah Milutinovich, who I think is somebody, Pacha checked out, but it is somebody he respects a lot. So you got a little bit of an answer there. Where was Long Island Soccer magazine during the Burrhalter era? Burhunter came of age playing in Long Island Youth League's camps.

We've had Joe Scally this whole time. I know. Was it Long Island? Island soccer magazine is a slightly different name than that. Long Island, let me see if I can find it. It was a soccer magazine from Long Island. That I'm sure. It's called soccer Long Island magazine. That's a good name for a magazine. They have the whole thing to work out there. I guess one thing I think could have been asked is, is there a player for the national team that you've seen and maybe particularly intrigues you and in the role? that they can play for your team.

I think that that's a question that occurred to me. Because that would give him an opportunity to praise somebody without, you know, committing to too much. What he might have done there, and this is why it's hard asking these questions. He might have gone back to, I need to meet the players first because he would gone into a stock thing about feeling

the player understand their emotion. And first it's trust, and then you go from there. Right. He definitely could have. the least maybe a 50% chance he responded with that sort of that flavor of no comment. What else, guys? Anything? I thought it was nice how much genuine respect he showed to Sydney and Crocker and JT throughout the whole process.

Or at least it seemed that way to me said that's one of the reasons. he took the job, why it went through so quickly. He, one of the questions was about the process, like we said, he commented that there was a leak, like we weren't supposed to know about the timeline like that. But he just showed a lot of respect to Sydney and the others. and it just seemed like there was a lot of good energy up there like what he's been teaching us about. And I just think that was really in full force throughout the presser. Yeah, and to the energy, I was thinking maybe a question could be asked about that.

But I don't know if I'd actually get into that with him on the first one. I think that's a second, third press conference, not a post game, maybe in a early in the camp at the back half. Then we start asking him about universal energy and the way it works and how he thinks about all that and why it can't win soccer games. Yeah, it'd have to be a very carefully phrased question. Yeah. Not something you could probably come up with on the fly. Yeah. You know, one other part of the press conference, which we should talk about, is there were three questions and answers in Spanish.

I don't speak Spanish. But we do have a Discord user, Andre, who translated some of the answers. And I think they're interesting. He said, so he was asked, I think, in a couple of different ways, why he took the job. So, again, sort of leading to his, perhaps some exasperation at being asked again in English. but one thing he said is how interesting the challenge is this is from Andre's translation

how interesting the challenge is to bring the men's team to a higher level we have had a lot of experience in our clubs in the past and this is a challenge that takes us out of our comfort zone he's talking about him and his coaching staff his three assistants

that go with him everywhere it's easy to choose things that we are used to but here is to enter the unknown to exit out of your comfort zone to challenge yourself in your group to refresh ourselves in a soccer that was always attractive from far away. But now we can see it here. Touch it.

I like it. I'll say that much. That's, I mean, that's something that Emma Hayes has commented a lot on how refreshing and knew this experience has been outside of club soccer. She was exhausted and now she feels awake again. So I think it's speaking to that quote a lot. Another thing he said is I like the One Nation One Team motto. The evolution of soccer in the U.S. is obvious.

We have come here with our clubs and play summer tournaments here, and we see how things and the fans are growing. There's a lot. He talks about Messi's arrival in MLS and how many players have been exported to Europe. And there's a lot of talent here, and there's 350 millions of soccer fans here. not strictly speaking true, but a nice thought. Yeah. Could be.

It's aspirational. Yeah. Put it out there. Put it into the world and it'll come true. There's soccer fans with a dormant energy that he's going to ignite. That's right. And then the third question was about him being the first Spanish-speaking, you know, primary in language. Spanish-speaking men's national team manager.

He said, I hope all the Latinos come to the games. We need to create a point where they all want to watch the games. We have to create an environment where all the games are sold out, a game where they have fun and enjoy the atmosphere, but also we win the game. Argentinian managers, they are valued because of their passion, and who better than an Argentine to translate that passion to others. I thought that one was so meaningful.

Multi-dimensional, lovely. Yeah. I'm even more excited after recording this with you than I was after the press conference, guys. Me too. They had the Coca-Cola pretty prominently displayed in front of each of them. Nobody touched their Coke. Front and center, Smartwater, Coca-Cola. I'm surprised we didn't have like a Citadel logo anywhere from our new boss, whatever his name is.

Griffin? Yeah. Yeah. I'd like a jersey logo. Big on the front. Stegosaurus somewhere? Mr. Dinosaur man? Yeah.

You know, I told my son about the dinosaur and he wanted to know what kind of dinosaur it was, and I didn't know. So it was a Stegosaurus? Yeah. I looked that up right away. Stegosaurus. I know he has, Griffin has his critics,

but that is a pretty cool type of dinosaur to have. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, and Normie would get a T-Rex, he got Stegosaurus. Yeah, if you just have a T-Rex, it's like, you don't, it doesn't even really show you that you're that into dinosaurs. So what? You got a T-Rex, big deal. Yeah.

But a Stegasaurus is still mainstream enough that it's, it's, it has that power to it. And now he's an American hero because we have a real deal coach who, was so good at this press conference. And he's going to be so good to our boys. And we have games next month. We don't even have to wait that long. Yeah, it's a matter of weeks. It's coming right up.

How different do you think this, his roster is going to be? I wish it was going to be different just to, you know, keep things spicy, but I don't think it's going to be that different. You don't think he's going to have any wild cards for us? Yeah, it may be. Hey, Zeus, Mickey and Tony were going through the archives and maybe dug up something. I just want our players to know that nobody's safe, but we don't have that many players. So not all of them can feel that way.

I just can't wait for the first time when he yells at somebody for not moving off the ball. In a very constructive and sort of positive way. Yeah. Yels at them for that. I haven't watched enough of him on the sideline to know, but the impression I get is if he does that, he will not necessarily have meant to do it in public. So maybe I won't get that sort of... This is going on his... ...what he says in his kind of puff piece of an autobiography that he did.

So it could be completely wrong about this man once we actually get to see him. Well, if not punishment, I want them to... to want to impress somebody instead of feeling like it's, you know, their team or they own this team and they're the only players that could ever be on it, you know. And I, my impression is the worst punishment of all would just be knowing this man is upset at you. Yes. Yeah. You don't want that. Disapproves.

Even if he disapproves of you, that would be devastating. They need to impress a new man. Yeah. Maybe that's what took over for the reporters in the back half of the press conferences. They were just terrified of his disapproval. So they sort of backed out of their own questions. Yeah. And then ended up confusing him.

They were in a tough spot and they were going to be nervous. That is pressure. Yeah. I mean, even Blum, even Blum wasn't untouched. Pressure is a privilege. Exactly. Fellas. This is exciting, or an exciting moment.

We're all under a lot more pressure. Yeah. Speaking of which, let's get this episode out the door. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.