Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #620: What happened to the FC Dallas pipeline? With Buzz Carrick

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Buzz Carrick, the founder of the 3rd Degree, the Dallas soccer blog and podcast, joins Belz to explain why the pipeline of elite talent at FC Dallas, once so full, has stopped producing (at least for a little while). Detailed conversation about a multi-faceted phenomenon with a guy who knows the pipeline from valve to valve.3rd Degree blog: https://3rddegree.net/Podcast: https://3rddegree.castos.com/And here you can join the 3rd Degree patreon, where you get Buzz's "burns," which we discuss on the pod: https://www.patreon.com/c/3rdDegree/posts 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. Our guest today is a legend of soccer coverage in America. He runs the third degree blog and podcast, vital sources for fans of FC Dallas and American soccer in general, I think. And I strongly recommend joining the Patreon. Buzz Carrick, welcome back to Scuffed. Thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me on. If you look at the birth years 1998 to 2003, which you have in detail, F.C. Dallas graduated a truly remarkable number of high-level talents that were born in those

five years, six years, I guess. At the top of that list are Weston McKinney, Chris Richards, and Ricardo Pepe. But there are a lot of others, Tanner Testman, Jesus Ferreira, Reggie Cannon, Ali Zendahas, Pax and Pomacall, Brian Reynolds, Edwin Serio, and there are more than that. That pipeline, by say, 2021, when the 0-4s were turning 17, it seemed like a gift that was just going to never stopped giving, but it, but it did. It did kind of stop giving, at least from a national team perspective. What happened? Well, there's a whole lot of things have happened.

Let's talk about all of them. Yeah, first you have to understand that FC Dallas had a head start on everybody else. They were the one of the, if not the first group to embrace the academy system and the value of the academy system. So they, their first classes in 1991, which is darn near a decade before this. golden window that you're talking about. And then Oscar Preha set the thing up with a whole lot of really good coaches that are really good recruiting. And then the other thing to remember is that DFW, North Texas in general, is a hotbed for soccer talent. And always has been. You can go back to the great Dallas Texans teams that won multiple national championships with guys like

Diego Hernandez or Clinton Dempsey. You know, this always has been a phenomenal area for talent. So because of the territory rules and such, Dallas gets all those guys automatically. And then they had a lot of really good recruiting coaches and a lot of really good developing coaches at the time in the academy. So it all peaked in that window that you're talking about. And it peaked with an absolute explosion of talent. And the real trick is that on top of the local talent, they also recruited really well. You know, you can look at half those names you mentioned are not from here. Right.

Right. Reggie's not from here. Alex and they have some pep here from El Paso and both played for FC Dallas El Paso, but that's not an academy side. They had to go out there and be recruited and scouted. Chris Richards is not from here. Taryn Tessman is not from here. You know, these guys were went out and found by people and scouted by people and brought and convinced to come here. Now, again, because they were one of the first ones that really adapted this, Essadales adapted this academy system.

And they were already showing a willingness to promote guys as a first team. You know, your Kellan Acosta's, your Emerson Hydeman's, your Victor Uloas had come through, Jesse Gonzalez. And so they already had guys that were coming through the first team. And so people would come here. The rest of MLS realizes that you can add players this way. Everybody else makes great academies. Everybody else starts recruiting. And that advantage went away.

And on top of that for S.C. Dallas, they started losing coaches through attrition. You know, they lost a great number of really great coaches either to other clubs or more often are not moving up the chain. You know, you can look at Mike Uvaris's San Diego head coach. right was a key part of what was happening here luci gonzalez became their own first team coach and then is gone guys like peter lusanne great recruiter uh became a head coach here as interim head coach but didn't wasn't it'll keep the job havere morales goes to enter miami and it's a big part of what their success has become with their academy the bazaan brothers oscar pray himself gone you know so those attrition happens in the coaching ranks which is not to say that the people left are

bad coaches per se. But the reason guys get hired away is because they're the elite. They're the ones that go to a national team program like Alex Aldez, guys that can really develop and really recruiting, really take things to the next level and talent ID. So this attrition happens. Also, when Lucia Gonzalez left, Chris Hayden, who had been vice president of youth, took on the academy director role. So those two jobs were combined into one job. And I think it's a problem that those two jobs are one job. I think they should be two jobs. There should be an academy director full-time. What does the vice president of youth do?

Like, what is... Runs the other 5,000 clubs that FC Dallas has in their system. Like, FC Dallas's youth system isn't just six academy teams. It's a gigantic, humongous youth academy with 5,000 players in the Metroplex alone and all these other satellite programs. Which are a feeder for the academy, essentially. Yeah. Chris Hayden ran the club that became FC Dallas youth.

So, like, FC Dallas Youth is a big academy. A big club just like Dallas Texans or solar or anybody else that runs a big, huge, massive club than Metroplex. They happen to also run an academy on top of that. So that should be an individual position. I think you can see there's a reaction to that because Senator Orantale, the technical director here who works under Under Sanata has now sort of stuck his hand in and taken a overall grab of the academy to sort of integrate it more completely and thoroughly through North Texas up to the first team and make sure everybody's sort of on the same page. So I think there's a little bit of a recognition that Hayden has stretched a little thin, in my opinion. So you combine all those factors, and there's just a little bit of shine off of the Scedhouse Academy. It's not the best way to go anymore.

That's not the program that can get you through to the first team. It's not quite as elite of coaching and talent as it used to be. So, like, it's still very good. I don't think that anyone would say that it's not at least top 10 in MLS still and probably it's the top five in most conversations in terms of developing. talent. But it doesn't have Weston McKinney that's obvious yet right now, and we'll see. There's a bit, the other thing that happened that makes it look bad is that through 2003, they've sold all these players, right? S.C. Dallas sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. They never had

Weston, but Reggie got sold and A.S. got sold. Cabas they weren't able to get with all. He's come back. Chris Richards was sold. Saria was traded away. Hasis Farah was traded away. Brian Reynolds was sold. Tanner Testament was sold. Jonathan Thomas and then they never were able to cap. Ricardo Pepe was sold. Justin Che was sold. Jogo they missed on. Dante Sealy was let go.

So like this elite group of talent in that category are all gone. And that includes guys up to 2003. And then you look at 2004, 2002 and 2004 were both poor classes. 2004 was only Antonio Carrera and he was just sold to Tigris. So after that, there's this gap, there's a space. And a 15-year-old is not really going to help you. So you look to 2005 and now you're talking about Nolan Norris, captain the U-20 team up until he aged out of it, Anthony Ramirez, Tarek Scott. That's the next group.

And they're waiting for that group to become MLS, constant, and capable. Another problem that's raised its head. This is a long conversation, I promise. They struggled to keep guys. Like look at 2006. Matthew Corcoran plays for Nashville. Julian Istone. they lost to Brentford, the keeper,

key role figureoa, they lost quite a long time ago, but he was in their academy for two years and they weren't able to convince him to stay. So like there's elite players that are doing what we call a Jogo, Jonathan Gomez, who skipped and chose to sign with somebody else in USL

or go somewhere else. With the Luce City, right? Yeah. And, you know, now he hasn't turned into Pepe, but whatever. He still went to Europe when he turned 18 and all these kinds of things. So, like, you know, they've, they've struggled to necessarily get everybody. in, you know, but then when you look to like the 2007 class, you're literally looking at,

let me count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven players already under contract from 2007. Now, you haven't heard any of them because they haven't broke through yet. But, you know, they had Santiago Morales, Javier Morales' kid, who's a homegrown for Inter Miami now. They had him at one point, but obviously he's going to follow his dad. So you look at the current classes and on. They had this high volume of kids. A lot of them in national team programs, right?

They have Isaiah Kakushi just hurt his knee as a U.S. youth international. Jaden Ketreis has a cap or two. Leonardo Areno Reha has got a cap or two. They have Tarka Scott and Al-Ka Malina who are Jamaican youth international. They have Ramirez, who's a Mexican all over the place youth international. So they still have this volume of talent, but because of this drought gap, they haven't broken through. And a big part of that is because of Nico Estevez. Nico Estevez did not like kids.

He actively programmed FC Dallas to use the bottom of the MLS roster, the supplemental roster. He wanted veterans signed into those roles so that he could have veterans off of his bench. Like an Omar Gonzalez took a supplemental spot, which could have been for some of a kid who could have gotten minutes. Instead, Omar Gonzalez got minutes. So when you push, yeah. You know, in this club, like we said this when Nico was hired. Like coming out of the senior national team program, okay, oh, They went outside their system.

I'm trying something new. Okay. But this club's DNA is the pipeline, right? So like if you bring in a guy who doesn't love the pipeline, doesn't love the kids, doesn't want to play a kid until they're, quote, ready. So that lack of interest in bringing kids up sort of stopped the pipeline. And when North Texas FC won the title last year, they did it with having five or six guys that were draft picks, were signed from USL, that were.

between the ages of like 21 to 24, they got sent down and played down. So you're shoving the talent back down the pipe and there was a bit of a stagnation for a couple of years. So all those... Has there been an acknowledgement? Has there been an acknowledgment from Hunt or any other leadership that Nico was the wrong guy

for the job because of that? Well, I don't think they ever pointed a finger and said he was the wrong dude, but in the press conference after that, when they let him go, they talked about getting back, to their DNA getting back to their homegrown. And they went out and signed a rash of kids to combinations of straight North Texas deals, hybrid deals and homegrown deals. As I mentioned,

seven signings already from the 2007 class. Now the talent range varies, of course. And right now, you don't go, oh, look, there's the next $20 million car to Pepeppy. That's a generational player. Western McKinney, once a decade, right? That's, you know, we don't know that that's in there yet. But they've redoubled down to that way. And Eric Quill, of course, was at North Texas SC here. And he brought in the first place, Chris Richards and Chris Capus to this academy, had them somewhere else and said,

you guys need to take them from me. Like the funny story with that is that the DA National Championship, he went to Lucci before they played FC Dallas and said, watch my game, watch these two players. You need to take these two players from me after the game. Then they beat FC Dallas on their way to winning the title. Cool did. And after the game, Lucci walked over,

was that, yep, you guys are coming with us. And took them to FC Dallas. And then they played in the academy for one year, and then they tried to sign both of them. They knew when they brought them there they were going to sign them. And they played for a year and they tried to sign them. And then Richards, of course, was signed and Cabus got blocked by the Dynamo. But, you know, that kind of quill DNA youth development is in his, you know, for this club. He's a guy that fits the system.

He's a guy that's bringing guys through. And like, it's not high volume yet because they still are working on turning over the squad. but you see a lot of these homegrown now on the bottom of the roster. They still play for North Texas, but they come in and they get the 10 minutes here. They get the game there. You know, it's moving back towards the way it needs to be. You know, we want to see Nolan play it more, but he just got hurt. You know, so there's guys yet.

And at the end of the day, sometimes it also needs to be on the kids. It's like, okay, you have the talent. We've signed you. Okay, let's go. You need to now do something. You know, it's not always just like, oh, you didn't coach him good enough. Sometimes it's like, okay, kid, you know. Right.

It's time. Not every homegrown makes it and becomes elite. You know, mentality matters. Well, let me ask a question from a listener. So this is from Lindsay, who's in Dallas, long time, third degree and scuffed listener. She just says in her question what you just said. FC Dallas leadership has stated a desire to return to the play to kids model. And Quill has the background for it in theory. We've seen a little bit of it.

But how likely do you think we really are to see more kids coming through and succeeding with the first team under Quill and Sonata? Probably because Quill wants to win, right? He needs to win games. I think you've talked about this on your podcast. Can you talk about it a little bit more? Yeah, the Hunts have a stated mandate that the playoffs are the minimum. It's actually a shame, I think, that they think that way.

Because a new coach, I think you need to give him a little time to sort of build his squad and work his way in. So there's a pressure on Quill to win enough to make the playoffs. At the same time, you're trying to turn your roster over. But Quill is a believer in youth. I mean, he, he is the guy who brought through a lot of these guys, like Pepe played for Quill, right? So, like, Jogo played for Quill. He won that 2019 championship at North Texas starting a 15-year-old left back and a 17-year-old right back. You know, like, he was a peppy was in up front.

He had guys like that haven't become famous in MLS terms, but Arturo Rodriguez and David Rodriguez, both teenagers playing in that squad. I remember them. He recognizes young talent. Like he raves about Diego Garcia, a player, we've been waiting here for a long time. Yet, at the same time, the club technical director and the head of soccer operations are still signing $13 million strikers and $10 million wingers. So at some point, you have to have a balance of those things. But what we have less of is we have less of these journeymen, 33-year-old veterans that are eating these minutes that are available.

Like you can centerback, of course, is an example, is a notoriously. difficult to develop youth talent at. They happen to get lucky and found this kid in Portugal who's 19, 20 years old. His name's Alvaro. So he mostly plays for North Texas SAC.C. He's the fourth centerback here on the first team. Quill's already used them

three or four times in the first team. So like, is he ready to be the front line starter? No, but is he an academy guy from the homegrown? No, but he's still 19. He still recognized young talent and was willing to use him. You know, they just traded, sold, excuse me, Michael Farfan,

because of Nolan Norris and because of Josh Troquato, who's a 17-year-old who just turned 18 a week ago, excuse me, homegrown, they just signed. So that they signed a hybrid deal and he was at North Texas SC and he got so good so fast that they tore up that hybrid deal

and accelerated him and gave him a straight homegrown contract. So again, two guys that are 20 years or younger, 21 and younger, made Marco Farfay and expendable. So you sell him. So yeah, it's there. But playing kids is a whole thing. luxury. A lot of times you can't play kids if you stink, right? Unless you have the power from the owner to be able to say, I've got three years guaranteed. I can stink for a year. I can play a whole

bunch of kids, but who gets that? Right? That's so rare. Quill is supposed to try and make the playoffs. So he has to do it slowly. Now, Oscar played a lot of kids, but he was getting 60 points of season and winning supporters. So he had the luxury of mixing in kids. Lucci played a lot of kids two of his three years and it's at the end of the third year it ended up costing him because he had too many kids and not enough veterans perhaps and he ended up getting let go so it's hard to say that exactly is like that wasn't the exact reason why he didn't because he played too many kids but because they love the kids they want to you to play kids here it's a complicated process yeah for sure so i mean you did a burn recently which is one of your quick audio notes for patrons about the disconnect between the age groups in dallas's academy so this is something it seems like you're hearing from a lot of different people that there doesn't seem to be a plan for this player. Can you describe that and what effect that has? Yeah, there has been, again, I think this comes back

to a little bit of a lack of substance and structure. You know, F.C. Dallas or MLS teams in general are not IACs or Byron Munich or pick any giant massive club that has this humongous system with massive amounts of trainers and coaches and guys that are programs and all this kind of stuff. So basically, S.C. Dallas has a philosophy, and I'm not sure I agree with this philosophy, that every coach has the control of their team, at least they have up until now. Like, for example, North Texas SC, John Gall, the coach there can play who he wants. He can play whatever tactic he wants.

Now, he generally tries to replicate the tactic. that the first team is playing, but not always. And he doesn't always play 100% with a development mentality. He mostly plays with a win mentality. Because you see when they do win a title, here comes the owner and the TD that on the field holding up a trophy,

talking about how winning this MLS Next Pro trophy is a verification of their system. Well, who cares about winning an MLS next pro title? What do you care is about winning MLS? Who cares that you send out a bunch of older guys and won? You know, a good example of that being bad is that last, when they won that last year, they took Logan Ferrient and they sat him on the bench for four North Texas games. He didn't play.

He just sat there. But because he was on the roster, that meant he was playoff eligible. And then the playoff rolled around and they sent him down and he started all the playoff games. Rather than Tarek Scott, who had been leading the team and scoring to that point and was a, you know, doing really great things. You know, so in a way, you can think how they, they sacrifice. the idea that they're going to win this championship and they sacrificed one of their up-and-coming exciting players getting super awesome crunch pressure time like would it have been better for tarc Scott and for developing a home run into your first team Logan Ferrington didn't need those minutes

yeah so you know that that kind of mentality has been here for a while now and every coach in the academy got his own way with how he wanted to play now they do have this over overall philosophy of style. Like, okay, we went in the Lucci era and the Niko era, it was like, we're going to pass, we're going to do it out of the back. It was noticeable that when Quilla took over, that they all adapted more of this verticality that Quill likes. But there definitely was not a seamless integration.

There definitely was not, and I heard this over and over and over again, what's the plan? Where's my individual development program? Here's what you're bad at. Here's what you're going to be good at. I'll tell a story about Julian Istone when. Brentford met with him. They came in like the very first time and said, here's a video of you playing through a bunch of games in MLS Next Pro.

Brentford had done this. Here's what you're great at. Here's your weaknesses. Here's the program we're going to put together. It's going to fix and make you better all your weaknesses. Like they hadn't even signed them. This is the first time they met with them. And they had this complete developed program for how they were going to make them better.

Here's the teams you're going to be with us for the next three or four or five years. They had it all done and laid out before they even, for the very first thing, they were having them. That level of detail doesn't exist in the Essadales Academy. I'm not familiar enough with other academies to know if that's true. I assume it is because nobody here has a gigantic huge academy staff of hundreds of people to do that kind of program for people you're scouting, let alone for people inside your own academy. So because of that individualness of the coaches, you sometimes got mixed messages from players about what level you're going to be at. Am I up, am I down?

How important am I that kind of thing? Now, they've made an adaptation since January of this year. The new, the newish tetan director who's been here since the beginning of 2024, Sandro. He works underneath Andre Zanata. He is now putting his hands into the academy and making sure from U-14 and up that there's an integrated plan of how we're going to play, who's going to be on what rosters, and how much they're going to play. So we immediately saw like two U-17s immediately were moved up to play with the 18s and 16 was moved up to play with the 18s. They're going to play all the time. He has now determined who's going to coach what team for the team for the 18s, and the 16th was moved up to play with the 18s.

this next season coming up. So they're taking control of that aspect and trying to fix that aspect. So there was a recognition that it was true that there was a lack of integration and they're fixing it. Now, whether you think that's good or not, it depends on what you think of Sandra. And I will say that their hit rate on foreign signings has gone up since he's come here. So I think he's out of positive influence. We'll see what happens with the academy. They immediately have 15-year-old starting for the 18s again.

They immediately have guys coming up to North Texas all the time that have never played before. You know, we still need to have more control of North Texas. and eliminate some of these older guys, these foreign signings that are basically off the trash pile. Somebody's agents sent them over. They're like 23. Nobody needs that. That's not going to help NLS.

The NLUS is way too good. I mean, it helps you win a North Texas title, but who cares about that? Yeah, that's the thing is I can understand, I can understand the requirement to make the playoffs, you know, for the fans of FC Dallas. They care about the first team. I don't understand, like, being super proud of stuff

that happens at North Texas. I don't either. You know, they, to call it a valid. of your system seems weird to me because it doesn't mean anything. It's just a stop. It's like, you know, who cares to your U-23 team and won anything? I mean, nobody even, half the people out there and never even heard of that team and only like 5% care about it in any way at all.

So it's like, you know. Right. You said there's not a Ricardo Pepey, or at least we don't know of a Ricardo Pepey in the pipeline right now or West of McKinney. Who do you think is like among all these younger players? who's the most likely to be a big hit? I know you're very careful about how you talk about this stuff. Well, you know, sometimes they have different feelings than I do about who's really good.

For me, the player that you're most likely to see soon that really, really gets me, makes my brain, soccer brain, tingle, is a kid named Sam Seta. He's a 2009. He's an American Brazilian kid. plays nine or winger his his uh the things that you look for in a player that that the ball touched that silky i don't even mean like it stays at his feet i mean like that supreme silk the the burst the explosion the ability to go by guys you know he's an electric player he's a 2009 so he's the guy that like when sandro stepped in as the academy he immediately went from u16 to u18 and immediately started every game from there on out.

It's a really special player. I get really excited when I watch him. But when you're in 2009, he literally, I don't think he's even 17 yet. So, like, you need to wait a little bit. FC Dallas, you know, doesn't have right now a guy who, like, at 16 is going to be in the first team. That's not, we're not seeing that away. But when you move, the thing about set of this nice is he is under contract. But then you move into the roster of young kids.

You know, there's a Liam Veracic, who's a left back, centerback is pretty exciting. Steel Cook, super exciting. Yeah, say more about Steel Cook. There was a question from a listener about that. Yeah. Steel Cook is a very exciting youth national team player.

He's a bit, has been a bit short and a bit thin. So he, you know, at like 14 or 15, he would get smashed and he got hurt a little more than you would like. But he's very frequently involved. with youth national teams. He is a supremely talented ball handling midfielder, creative. There's been some clips of him, you know, scorching like four or five guys in one run and scoring really talented player.

He would need to get a little bit bigger and stronger because otherwise he'll just keep getting smashed. You know, if you can, you can be too thin and too small. Like, you can look at Luccio Costa, who was 5'3, right? But he was a bulldog. You would smash him and he would just bounce. You know, they're young guys like that. But if you're young and you get smashed and you're out of the game,

that's not, you're not going to make it, right? That's a difference. Right. So moving past him, I really like Tamahali, who's a U-16, really exciting, slashing player.

Benji Flowers with the U-15s just scores absolutely astronomical levels of goals. His older brother plays football at Oregon. So like you're talking about an incredibly athletic family. He also plays American football, though. So he's going to be tugged. I mean, he's a, you know, big time prospect on both sides.

I think he's a bigger soccer product because, talent, because he's in the national team programs, whereas in football, I think he's just, you know, a college player. I mean,

I don't know enough about American football. I'll tell you how he projects when he's 14 years old. But, you know, they have really talented players coming through. Now, is any of them, peppy? Man, who knows?

I mean, you know, I don't know how you spot Peppy at 12. I didn't. At 16, I saw Papi. And I thought, wow, what an electric player, that guy's going to be really good. How good, I mean, who knows? I'm not that kind of scout.

But, you know, you can recognize talent when you see it. And you watch these kids in the academy that are absolutely electric and no one can touch them. They just do whatever they want. You get you excited. But there's a whole list of players that 14-year-olds were exciting. And 19-year-olds, they're not even going to college, you know. Right, right, right. I can remember cases of a guy, me being excited about a 14-year-old who was the best player in the state and the second best midfielder in the nation.

and then by the time they get out of high school, it's like they didn't even go play college ball. So it's, you know. But those are some names that I'm super excited about. Okay. But any of them are like five or six years away. I don't know that any of them are like at 16 playing in Fresley Dallas. I mean, we'll see, I suppose.

On the back to North Texas's sort of identity crisis, is there anything more to say about that? Like the how they are, they're kind of a reserve team. They're kind of a development team, but they're not really either. Well, it's, um, I'm certainly okay with sending down a first team player that needs some minutes or injury recovery. You know, that's something it's for as well. For me, though, it's too clogged up currently with these guys that come from, we've signed them from New Zealand or we've signed them from,

they're 21 that we've signed up from a team in Ireland. It's like, dude, there's a reason why by 21, 22, nobody wants a guy. It's like, because they know that there's not going to be an ML1. or higher level player. So to me, like you're wasting your time. Like if you're trying to develop players or trying to have players that can help you win at that level or can help you have a guy maybe that you can develop and sell to USL. I mean, like, what's the point of that? You know, if you want older guys in your squad to pass on blah, blah, whatever, well, that's what you bring down a guy here and there from your first team, you know, that's 20 instead of 17.

Like, there should just be a bulk of minutes going to academy players into the best academy players. the signing guys out of college to be, you know, just a North Texas player, a division three player. It's like, why, why bother, you know? At the end of the day, like, as long as MLS Next Pro remains a U-22 team league, just make it a 16, 70 and 18-year-olds, you know, it really, the problem overall is that that league needs to, in my opinion, merge with USL1 because you need to play team,

that are made up of guys you want to play against teams that are made up of 30-year-olds right they're trying to make a living and try and they're give their last gas to get a higher level of play guys that are 25 and come out of college that were really good you want to play against those guys you don't want your team that made up of those guys so like yeah that's a that's a problem that's not an absolute house problem that's an everybody problem right is there any have you heard that there's any chance of that of oh no i you know i i i would say the opposite that us all wants nothing to do with l s but it's a because, you know, the answer to that is that more independent teams in the MLS Next Pro,

more of these teams that don't belong to U.S.L team, to MLS teams, more of your, what was the name of the New York team that was basically the rhinos revisited that was in that league for bed. Yeah, and your chat in Newgas or whatever, you know, you need to get some of those teams to come into the MLS Next Pro, and that will help so that it's not, you know, by doing that, you would also have more teams in any specific area so you wouldn't have to travel as far. You know, that's all important. I'm near Chattanooga, and, you know, CFC is part of MLS Next Pro now. And it's, but I feel like it, there has to be sort of a suspension of disbelief from the fans about like them, how meaningful these games are when you get the, I don't know, the reserve team from Charlotte coming over.

It's like, I don't know. Does anybody really care, you know? One of the funny things about the way soccer is in this country right this minute is the audience in general, not people like us. Or people like your rabbit fans, but your average fan doesn't necessarily know what they're looking at. So like to them, they don't see a whole lot of difference between D3 and D1. So they're just excited. There's a pro team. You know, they can't, they're not as nuanced as like a let's pick any other sport.

Like a major league baseball versus, you know, double A. Like a baseball fan can see the difference. But a lot of times in soccer, I don't think people right now can see the difference because they're just super excited. They have a pro team in their backyard. Yeah. You know what I mean? Have a beer in the stands. Going to a game, it's two hours, have a beer, cheer when our team scores.

You know, the guys in the end zone are bouncing up and down and waving the flags. You know, it's all spectacle. It's all fun. Yeah. You know, it's only 5,000 fans. It's not 80,000 fans. You know, you only need, if you could average 5,000 fans in MLS Next Pro, I mean, you'd be the best in the league. You'd be making money.

And on a small level, you'd be making all the money you would want, you know. Everything's relative. You mentioned this earlier, but what's the state? of the Byron relationship, the FC Dallas Byron relationship. Is it still exist? No. That died. Justin Chea killed that.

How did he, how is he guilty of that murder? Well, he, it's not him, it's not his fault. FC Dallas felt that they sold Chris Richards for too cheap. And then when they, they had this program where they were sending over players to train over there, right? And all those players would get their head turned And they would come back and they'd be like Man, I don't want to be here, screw that. I'm going back in Byron, you know, sign me.

So Justin Shea had the worst reaction of all those kids In terms of like, I don't want to be here because Byron wanted him. They were like, oh, we want you to stay. We want to get you loan here or whatever. And so he was like, I'm not playing for South anymore. Screw you guys. Well, FC Dallas felt they sold Chris Richards for too cheap. So when Byron said, hey, we want Justin Chey,

they were like, sweet, three mill. well they weren't paying that for Justin Shea. So that was a festering problem. And that's the house not giving Byron what they wanted on a plate made Byron say, you know what? See you later. So that deal ended. Now,

what did they, can you remind us? What did they sell Richards for? I think it's about a mill, million five, maybe. Not nearly as much, you know,

but a huge sell. To Hoffenheim? Yeah. No, to Byron. Richard. Che was eventually sold to some. Dallas felt that they had sold to Byron for too cheap. Richard's for too cheap.

I see. Yeah. Huge sell on. You know, they've made a bunch of money off Chris Richards. They're not mad about that part. But like the initial fee they felt was too low. So next time when you want our one of our up-and-coming youth national team stars that we've developed,

we're not going to give them to you for nothing. It's like you got to pay a little bit to get him. Yeah, I mean, fair enough. But he spent like two years in Byron for Byron's like reserve team. I mean. Che? Richards. Richards.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Richards signed with Essud Dallas in the middle of the season. They couldn't put him on the senior roster. Well, what are we going to do with them? Let's loan him to Byron for six months because they liked him when he did the little training thing. At the end of the six months, it was the January window. We're going to come back to NLS.

You're going to be on the first team roster. Byron said, we want to buy him. Great. They sold him for what was like a million or something and a good chunk of money. And then Byron took him and they did whatever they did with him. And then the exact same thing sort of happened with Justin Che. Justin She was playing with North Texas SC. He goes on a little training thing.

Byron like, hey, we want to keep that guy. Essadales is like, okay, it's three times this is expensive. We sold the last guy too cheap. This guy's more expensive. And so Byron was like, no. So they ended up selling him to Dallas did to somebody else for less money, but more than Byron was offering. But at the end of the day, that's what killed the Byron deal.

So now they have a deal with Benfica. So when they bought Petermusa, at the same time, they did agreement just like they had they used to have one with tegris they used to have one with cap parinise down in brazil then they had it in baron now they have it with benfica now we haven't seen other than petermusa being sold here we haven't seen a player like moving back and forth so i'm not sure what all that deal encompasses probably like sending over coaches in the winter and doing clinics and exchange of stuff we'll see it's relatively newish but there hasn't been a lot of activity for it so i'm not even sure what the point is other than maybe grease in the wheel so

you can get Petermusa. So we'll see how that goes. But that's who the current deals with is Petermuda. Byron Munich is now with, well, on the L.A. teams. I want to say L.A.F.C. maybe. It's not who they have their deal with. I can't remember.

It's one of the two L.A. teams. Okay. I got three questions about Athletico, Dallas. From Mateos in Boston, Josh, in Redding, California, and Chris in Arlington, Texas. Okay. So what's the state of youth soccer in Dallas, aside from FCD? Dallas and is Athletico Dallas in a good spot to make headway

with clubs reluctant to work with FC Dallas? Kind of a big question, but... Well, that's a lot in there to talk about. FC Dallas for better or for worse has gone with what has ended up with sort of a scorched earth

policy in the sense that they recruited everybody else's best players and sometimes coaches. And then the youth sector, of course, you're taking my players and my coaches, you're taking my money. So like there's a lot of teams here that don't like FC Dallas, and they try to ingrain their kids a don't play for FC Dallas sort of mentality. And so you'll see really good talent that'll come through another system here that Dallas

will have offered like all the time. Everett Fisher's a good example. They offered him like every year and he always stayed with DKSC. Bailey Sparks refused to play for FC Dallas, even though they offered him every time. and he ended up bouncing up to Kansas City and then playing for their second team, then going to SMU. And so now he's like 25 and he's on, like, is it a men of Miami's second team? You know, so like youth national team player, Bailey Sparks.

Yes, yeah. Not like Weston where he's in every, or Nolan that's in and every team, but he was in and out of teams. Bailey was really talented young player. I'll know it'll ever convince me that he didn't hurt himself by the path he took. If he did just come to Essendales, you know, you could even go. with um uh dang it i'm drawing a blank there's an mycfc kid uh who came up through one of the other cubs here and was a never fc dallas philosophy and you know it happens but with the territory rule

you can't you don't have a lot of wherewithal to like move around and now with the tagging thing they're still tagging like the four five 10 best players you know around town so tagging can you for the uninitiated can you explain what that means well they changed the territory rule It used to be that you sort of owned all 10 million players in your yard, but they changed all that. So now you have to specifically, you can tag. It's like 10 players that don't play for your academy in your market. I think it's maybe 9 or 10 like you're around as per year.

And that if you have that tag as you go to college, that tag will survive in college too. So it means that like this is a reaction really honestly to Chris Capus where it's like. So a lot of times what happens is FC Dallas will tag a player. They don't have to tell them that they tag him, but Elsie Dallas tends to go around to that player and go, hey, but we've been tagging you. You might as well come play for us. And it works.

I mean, they get every like Sam's that of the kid I was telling you about. They tagged him. And then they were like, hey, we've been tagging. And you come play for us. He was like, he was with BVB International, which is a licensed BVB arm. It's not like it's an actual BVB Academy. They're in the second tier of academy. It's outside of FC Dallas.

It's solar DKSC, Dallas Texans. And then beyond that, you get your Dallas Hornets, which is the new MLS team that has a really good relationship with FC Dallas. And then you renegades, which just became Athletico's club, not to get back to the athletic question. So the thing with Athletico is that they've done what FC Dallas did, is they've sort of partnered with a team that already existed. Dallas stated with a club called Inter Dallas.

And so if Athletico Dallas can offer an alternative pathway to the pro game, there probably will be some players that will don't like FC Dallas that will go with Athletical Dallas thinking that like hey I'm really good I can sign a pro deal with them 16 17 18 years old and that gets me around the MLS territory rule you know like how that's going to work when sate alice mill might still be trying to tag guys that are in another pro club's system because it's a USL system I don't know there's a level of politics there that I don't that's beyond my current guess is to which way it's going to go but I think you can see where that might be an issue but when they sign that pro deal,

hypothetically with Athletico, you know, that's a circumvent. And now you could sign with whoever you want to, and the rules get different, you know. So how it all is going to go is going to be a complicated question. And there's going to be a pathway for kids to skip MLS, skip MLFC Dallas. And it's not just Athletico because we're getting a USL team in Fort Worth, too.

So there's going to be two teams that are going to start in the USL championship or in the Super Bowl Premier League when that comes. I mean, Athletico has said for sure they're doing that whenever it lands. So the team of Fort Worth doesn't have a name yet. It hasn't been officially announced, but it's coming. So Dallas is huge, right? There's 8 million people here, the gigantic market. So it's just another rival U.S.L team that's going to be, if they get it announced by 2027,

they'll be in the championship. But when the premier thing hits, we're being our background information, our sources are tells us that they're going to go to Premier League two. So those two USL teams are going to be in Division 1 trying to compete with them unless, and they're going to offer alternative pro pathways here in town. So the landscape is going to change. We're on our way to having like seven or eight professional teams here. It's ridiculous.

Yeah, it's cool, though. You know? It's cool. It is cool. But it's going to be crazy to see how it all what plays out. I mean, it's, I spent a lot of time thinking about youth soccer. And I see video of like the way U8 teams, some U8 teams in Dallas play. And it's really not like, like, most of the country's not like that, you know, how good they are.

You know, you got like U8's playing like, city. It's not like that other places, you know. No. Well, that's what I mean about Dallas. It's like this is, you know, everyone knows where the hotbeds of talents are. Cali, Ohio, Jersey. Texas has always been up there, North Texas. Houston has always liked behind. I don't know why. But, you know, the talent is here. There's lots of great clubs here that have a lot of great coaches. You know, there's a lot of ex-pros that live in this area from South America, from Europe. You know, it used to be really heavily English, but now it's super heavy Latino.

You know, there's spectacular teams here. Everyone plays the ball. Almost everybody plays the ball on the ground, passes it around. You still occasionally have teams that play to win with like, we've got a six foot four guy when he's 14 years old. We put him up front. We just boot it up there and he scores and we win. You know, it depends on what your goal is.

You should go to win or you goal to make players. So there's a lot of really well-run academies here. The E-CNL, great ECDL teams, pretty good MLS, next pro teams, all competing for the same talent, you know. So it's a real hotbed. And every year, there's one or two players from other teams that are pro-capable to come out of here. It's not just FC Dallas. This is from Andre and Salt Lake City.

Has the introduction of Austin's MLS teams made it harder for FC Dallas in the recruitment or development of youth talent? Because like Ricardo, Pepe, okay, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, the introduction of Austin FC changed the behavior of the first team of FCLSA and Houston both. because Austin proved that you could draw 30K in Texas and your stands if you've marketed your team. So Dallas changed their behavior from that. But it has made it harder because the teams here that hate FC Dallas funnel their talent that they think is pro or MLS Next pro or whatever it is to Austin.

So every Austin team will have two or three really talented players from Dallas and their team. You know, maybe it's not the guy that's as good as peppy. some really good talented players have shifted down there. So it's harder for Dallas to keep. But it's a two-way street too. They've grabbed guys from Austin as well. You know, so it's,

but it definitely made it harder. Which you can do if you tag them basically or the, the territory rights don't have the same. The territory rights don't play. Like if a kid doesn't play for FC Dallas, he can go wherever he wants. You know, they tag them in terms of their MLS rights to be a homegrown eventually.

You know, but if they move away, way, it's only in your backyard. Like, if you go play somewhere else, then you can't, I can't tag a dude in Florida from Dallas, right? They've got to play in the metro place. They've got to play in your area where you tag them. But what you see happen is like, it may or may not even be a kid you've tagged.

They can go down to play for Austin FC. If they play for Solar or they play for Texans, they can go play for Austin, no problem. Now, in MLS Next, if you go from one academy or another, they have to pay. Like, there's a fee now. So, like, if a kid comes from FC Dallas to Austin or Austin to FC. Dallas, a fee will take change hands. They pay a certain amount of money based on how good they are. And the tagging carries through even into your own team.

Like FC Dallas has to tag, I think it's 45 players in your top three or four age brackets that are your players that are worth more money to you. So like there's a price break, basically like if you were to get poached away or leave or whatever. And some of them they can't even take it all without paying like a good chunk of money. Because they don't want is all this poaching. They don't want inside the league, everybody poaching players from each other. They want to have that not happen.

So they've implemented this price category. But it happens. Like R.S.L, I don't want to slam RSL, but Salt Lake City itself is not a talent hotbed for players. So RSL's youth club, they bring in lots of guys from other places. And there's probably five or six players right now that play for RSEL's Academy that we're with SED Dallas. And what happens is they lose, they're not getting enough men. they think they should be able to play more. Where's my program? I'm not happy. You're not treating me like I'm peppy.

Okay, you know what? I'm going to go play somewhere else. And they go play for RSL. And if my understanding is correct, R.SL is paying a fee to get those guys unless S. Seattle says, you know what, we're cool. You can just have that kid. So there's a layer of stuff happening in the academies in terms of that kind of recruiting and transfer that I'm not necessarily 100% dialed into because I'm not a recruiting guy. I'm going to watch the game and tell you if they're a good guy. You know, I do know of five or six players that in the last two or three years that have left out and landed at RSO.

So it does happen. It doesn't move. But I do know that there's payments involved most of the time. Okay. Josh from Flower Mound, Texas asks. FCD doesn't have Spanish language social media accounts and rarely does interviews with Spanish speaking players. Is this a choice or just the hunts being cheap? Both.

Okay. Yeah. Because, I mean, you were just talking about the, you know, the profound Latin influence. the Dallas soccer ecosystem. Yeah. The hunts spend money differently than other people spend money. They spend money on what they think is important. Like they're in the middle of this $180 million stadium renovation.

Well, that's not nothing. That's a lot of money. They've built this amazing complex of fields. They've built this amazing academy. All that costs money. Now, because of SSOS youth, they make money with that. But putting it all together costs a lot of money. So they spend money.

Petermusa costs $13 million. That'll spend money. But if you look at the way they run their other organizations, like the chiefs, for example, just Google anything about the chiefs. And you'll see what people say about how that clubs run, fan experience, what it's like to play there, the amenities, all that kind of off-field surrounding the team stuff. So there's the way they operate. So, yes, it's about money.

It's about how they perceive the impact. And one of the things that I'm not going to defend them here, but the 30-mile radius thing is real for teams, right? They focus on that 30-mile audience, drive to the stadium, come into the stands, right? Still, tickets, bus and seats, merch, food, all that stuff really matters at MLS still. It's not the NFL, we're still at the TV. It's at MLS. It's still about in the stadium, right? So that 30-mile radius is where you've mostly focused your average.

advertising your money. So that's exclusively, but mostly. Well, for Esty Dallas, that's not a lot of Hispanic. There is Hispanic. Believe me, we have Hispanic audience everywhere. There's plenty of Hispanic in North Texas. But most of the audience up there is family, right? It's weekenders. It's casual fans. It's like, you know, there's not a super great, launch FC Dallas games. The sports section is not, those guys try super hard. They're awesome. But it's not amazing. It's not LAAFC.

It's not you pick your what your poison, what club you want. It's more family. That's who they market. That's who the hunts have consciously chosen to go after. So for them, the money spent to try and market to the Hispanic doesn't make sense to them. That's their decision that they've made. Now, I disagree with them. They used to, they did it for a bit.

Like, don't think this is in a vacuum. They used to do it. They did it a lot when they were at the Cotton Bowl and they were down in East Dallas and that Hispanic walkup was like 10K a game. Then it really mattered. And like when they moved. to Frisco that matter so much. Athletical Dallas, just to be contrasting, 100% right out of the gate,

dual language, everything. Spanish, Hispanic name, Athletico, right? That ain't Ringo. That's Hispanic. So, like, some of their minority owners are big in that community. They get it, but they're in a different part of town. They're trying to appeal to a different kind of fan. They're not going for

families. They're going for young and cultures that are ingrained to the game. Totally different playing, totally different style. You know, so for them it makes sense. So that's really all it. So it's a conscious choice for up by SCD Dallas. Budget, yes, of course, but also, you know, where they are and what their core audience is. That's a really fast, I was just reading a few weeks ago. That's a really fast growing area, too, like that 30 mile radius is increasing in population rapidly, right?

The 30 mile radius for FC Dallas has more people in it than San Jose earthquakes have in their 30 mile radius. Like when they went into Friscoe, they had one high school and now they have like 14. They keep them small, but they have a lot. It's like there's more kids when they, when they, shortly after they built that stadium, there were more kids under the age of five than there were in the entire school system. Like that's one of the fastest growing areas than it has been for like 20 years.

North Dallas has been exploding for decades. So the amount of people there is just off the charts compared to when they first moved there. They were way ahead of the curve. You know, and even just without 30 mile radius, they're still one of the highest market teams in the league just because that's such a huge area and we include the whole metroplex of course that's number one number four in the country i think four or five somewhere like that so but they don't have like the whole metro i mean they draw from all over but it's not the same as the

other big pro sports of course i suspect there's a contrast between fc dallas and austin in that austin's probably drawing a lot more like single single people who have a lot of disposable income yeah which may be why they can get 30k at a game as opposed to fc dallas is a thing families, you know. Austin in general is like that more so than Dallas is in general. And then you include that Austin's more downtown. It's not downtown, but it's more downtown that you're right, more targeting that young, um, fluid cash looking for entertainment. Dallas is that what? Do we still call them? I don't even, I don't even know what you call them millennials, you know. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, I mean, definitely definitely different approaches. But like I said, like the FC Dallas, this is crazy

to me. Coming out of COVID, they had lost their, like, head of marketing, VP of marketing. They didn't have one for like two or three years. And then Austin did what they did, and had these huge crowds. And FCD out always, we should try and get that. They hired a VP of marketing. His name was Jerome. I don't remember his last name. Amazing. Does all this crazy stuff. They go from averaging 12K a game to that season, sell out two or three, the next season sell out, seven. The next season, sell out every game, home game. And they've sold out every home game since. after three years, I think or so, maybe it was four years. He decides, okay, I'm on to something new and he leaves the club.

And they did not replace him. They took, they took some kind of digital somebody they had and no offense to this person in their 20s. And they promoted them to like director of marketing and that person has that job. So like they saw what Austin did. They thought, this is amazing. We're going to go get a humongous awesome 30 year of marketing vet. Boom. Look at all the sellout.

didn't replace it. Now, to be fair, maybe they thought, well, when we're doing this stadium, Renault, we're only going to have 12,000 seats available for three years. And if it overruns, maybe it's going to be four. So maybe we don't need to try and draw 30K a game when our stadium only holds 12. So maybe there's a calculation there, perhaps. But to see how successful it was for like three years, it was amazing to see this packed out awesome stadium where Dallas wasn't the bottom of attendance.

All of a sudden, they're in the middle of the pack of tennis. It was great. game atmosphere was amazing everyone was having a good time and then listen the new stadium is going to be amazing but these next three years are going to be painful with that you've watched the game

I'm sure the limited seating where half the stadium's closed it's going to be like there's going to be a flip of sides coming up and they're knocking down this they're knocking down that it's going to be a mess for three years but coming out of the back end of the FCDA stadium is going to be ridiculously good you're going to have a roof on it

and big old crazy awesome stuff so yeah I mean can you I know I'm keeping you longer than I thought I said I would, but can you give a little more detail on what the new stadium is going to offer? Well, there's a bunch of renters online and they can give you really awesome pictures, but generally speaking, like the $180 million is just for the stadium renno. It'll probably be more than that by the time it's done.

But they're tearing out down both. You've seen the south end how nice it is with the Hall of Fame. Like they're basically doing that everywhere. There'll be big new huge video screen, big new structures on both sides, a big roof over the whole thing. There's some fantastic pictures out there. It's a really nice renovation.

It looks really good. On top of that, there's a further renovation around the whole stadium that it's not the stadium itself that'll probably run about $2 billion that's going to happen over the next three or four years that involves like a giant hotel, offices, mixed use.

It's a whole gigantic complex that's happening around the stadium. The Atlanta Braves model sort of. Yeah. modern sort of surround the stadium with things and infrastructure and a big office building and a hotel and a music venue. At one point, there was going to be a sportsbook slash gambling aspect, but then gambling didn't pass here in Texas. So that part got cut. You know, the idea is to be able to have with, of course, just all these things around the stadium, but also with the hotel, bring in pro teams as a training facility. Like it's one of the listed

training facilities for the World Cup, you know, the fields out there. you know, the first team grounds. Hopefully they'll get the hotel done in time that that can be part of that or whatever. So there's a massive man. And the hunts, I mean, that's $2 billion. Like, maybe they're not paying for all of it. Maybe there's partners and such. But like that stuff has not been formalized and 100% laid out like the stadium has.

Stadium's happening first. But they have out pictures and renderings and there's votes that have happened. And the whole thing's being cleared and moving through. And it's going to be an absolutely massive, spectacular thing. And at the end of the day, I'm sure the hunt's going to make a lot of money with that, you know, I mean, that's a humongous real estate project. And they own lots of areas around there up around the thing that they went quietly bought up stuff. So they're planning for the future for a big, huge complex with FC Dallas at the core of it. So that's the

Seattle is never leaving that area. But that doesn't mean those huge other parts of the Metroplex aren't available. Fort Worth and Dallas have been vacated by FC Dallas in a way. So that's what. Is the stadium supposed to be ready in 2028, you said? Is that? Yes. Yeah, 25, 26, and 27 are the planned three, the middle of next season. They will flip the fans from one side to the other. Probably have to also flip broadcast because theoretically the east side, they knock down first. So the east side will be built and renovated. And then they'll move everybody over there, move the media and the TV over there.

And then they'll knock down the west side, which is the press box now, that big huge structure over there on the west side, all coming down, all being replaced and rebuilt. And then eventually they'll tackle some of the north end where the stage is, trying to make the stage a more usable. I think the stage is mostly going away. There'll still be some capacity to push back seats and do stuff there. But for the most part, they're going to make it more usable, more friendly, more fan-oriented for games.

And some fans will get up back on that side. Perhaps the supporters will end up back on that side. We'll see. Is the capacity going to increase? I know I can Google this, but okay. Yeah, yeah, it is. Not dramatically. Most of this move is about more sweet.

and amenities and fan experience. That's the thing, right? They're spending $180 million, and they're not like they're double in the size of the sands. It's about roof and video and sweets and media and fan experience, whether it be audio or food or merch, like all that. It's to take the stadium from, to take a 30-year-old stadium, not 30-year-old stadium and bring it up to be one of the modern stadiums in the league. Make it exciting. But the size won't be any bigger. Not really.

I think it's going to go up. You ask me off the top of my head. I want to say 22 to 25 somewhere in that neck of the woods. It's already like at 21 or it was before they, right now it's at 12. Okay. Hey, I think that's, I think I've taken enough of your time. Buzz, thanks so much for doing this. Sure.

Anything you wish I had asked? I feel like anything you wanted to get into? Not really. I don't think so. Right now, Dallas is going to be fascinating. This is not Academy oriented, but with the absolute debacle that Luchio Costa was in terms of how he worked with the team and what a disaster that was and how that unfolded so quickly to have a guy not want to be here and not, they don't want him here anymore. And they managed to sell him and get something out of them. It's crazy.

So now they have two open DP spots. And they have a boatload of, they already had a boatload of money. And now they have even more money on their roster. So they're primed to make a couple of really excited. moves if they choose to. And that's the end of the day. That's the thing. Will Zanata and Orlandelli come through with talent to take this team to a next level?

You know, Quill's turned over a lot of the mid to the bottom part of his roster. He's getting in some of his own guys. They're showing they have faith in Quill. So the next year and a half will be really interesting to see like which way they go with this team and the talent they try and bring in with these open spots. Can I interest you in Gio Raina? I think Dortmund wants 10 million? for him? No. No, you cannot. Look,

I think you want somebody who can run. Yeah, Gio Raina is a phenomenally talented player. He would not be a good fit here specifically because A, it is brutally hot here. And B, Eric Quill is a running effort kind of guy, like run through a wall kind of guy. He wants some warriors. He is not going to lucci ball of the wall around and play 500 passes. There are clubs in MLS where Giorina would be amazing. FC Dallas is not one of them.

It would not work. It would be bad. Fair enough. Yeah. And that's nothing to do with him. I mean, I mean, what MLS team wouldn't take that guy in a heartbeat?

I mean, just because it's not working in Dortmund. Doesn't mean he's not phenomenal. We've seen what he does for the national team. Great player. In Dallas, no less. Last time he really showed out was at that Cowboys Stadium. Yeah.

All right. Hey, thanks again so much. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you. Thank you.