Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #722: Balo to Everton crashes and burns

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Charlie B, Vince and Belz try to make sense of the news. Maybe the Saudi league or Turkey? Maybe he stays and contributes at Monaco. But he's not going to the cloudy, working class streets of Liverpool. Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus 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: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedCheck out our store, where you can get Scuffed hats and sweatshirts and other stuff: scuffedpodcast.com/storeAlso, 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.scuffedpodcast.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 when we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody, it's an emergency episode. Ballo does not get his move from the principality of Monaco, this window, to another top five league. And it seems to have collapsed in dramatic fashion. Let's get into it. I have Vince and Charlie Bone with me. Vince, first you. High level.

How are you feeling? How are you taking it in the news? You know, I'm... I'm taking it in a lot of different ways. Number one, I am ultimately disappointed that the move did not transpire as, as it was supposed to, I guess. I mean, at the end of the day, Ballo in the Premier League would have been a win for all parties, I think. At the end of the day, maybe even more so than a Barcelona move, maybe. I think

For the non-Sicco, I would say yes for sure Premier League move greater than Barsa Which, you know, it's a crazy world we living in That I'm able to say this But when we are referring to Everton But yeah, so a little disappointed in it And then also, you know, I think listeners will know Who's sad I'm going to take on this?

And so now I'm just anti-Everton. All my homies hate Everton, man. You know what I'm saying? For jerking my boy around. So that's how I'm feeling about the whole situation. Okay. Okay. Yeah, it's funny.

Well, Charlie, Charlie, why don't you, what's your sort of high-level feeling about it? I'm just, I'm dying to hear from the man himself. What happened in that room? Will we ever get the full story? Will he speak to it? did he suddenly ponder his his tax profile as he as he as he considered contemplating moving from the french riviera and a in a low tax existence to a cloudy the cloudiest part of a cloudy nation and the most working class part of the most working class city in that nation and um he would still be on the water though it's true the water is a little different One of my favorite posts on Blue Sky was one of the OGs, Heisenberg camp, was quote tweeting the Ornstein tweet that broke the news of the deal being off. And he said, sitting there talking to David Moyes and thinking about how you currently live in Monaco and don't pay taxes.

That phrase sticks in my head a lot the last 24 hours or so. To your point, Vince, about Monaco versus, I mean, sorry, Everton versus Barcelona. it's as much as we all view Barcelona as an iconic club and it is obviously do you think more people watch Barcelona games in America or Everton games? I think it would have to be Everton games. I mean, I know we can look this up and get the exact numbers but. But we refuse to. We refuse to do that.

You got to have the Spanish language numbers. Yeah, the Spanish language numbers are probably tilted. Yeah. True. I thought Barcelona actually could use him. That's what was frustrating to me is that there was never more stake underneath that sizzle because they don't, you know, they really haven't replaced Robert Lewandoski. And I thought he would have, I thought he would have feasted on the service.

That he would have been a great option for them. But I guess they didn't feel that way. You always know, I mean, so much of the coverage of the, this in recent transfer windows is the overwhelming might, financial might of the Premier League. So even a club like Everton probably has, you know, proportionally more resources than almost anyone to bring to bear. So I'm sure that's an issue. But maybe then we need to ask a question why they were, why they appeared to some accounts to be doing a little nickel and diming the 11th hour here. I think that was a factor as well.

Just for those listeners who have not follow this closely, what happened exactly? So as far as we can tell, Everton was chosen by Flo, number one. This has come out Everton's CEO, Tiago Skuro, did an interview. That's a Monaco CEO, right? Who did I say? That's it. Yeah. I think we're getting, as I perceive, we're getting Everton's side from what they're leaking or what they're feeding to their ITK journalists in the UK. So I kind of feel like we're getting that off the record, Everton standpoint. But Monaco CEO has gone on the record. Right. And I just bring up his interview at this point to say that he mentioned that Ballo chose Everton over other offers. Maybe one of those offers was Barcelona. Who knows? knows. Who knows? But he chose Everton over other offers.

He goes to Liverpool to get the medical done. Check out the training ground, talk to David Moyes, all these different type of stuff, I guess, that you do to get a transfer done. And something gets flagged during the medical. And during... Something is flagged during the medical. Deal is in limbo. and during this time Everton are flirting with other striker options

and then at the last hour literally the last hour they had to file an extension to get the paperwork done to get the deal over if there was going to be a deal Everton agreed and Everton and Monaco agreed on a fee

and at the end of the day Ballot left the you know the prom queen at the at the, at the door or whatever, to run and find us long, lost love, you know, that's, that's, that's how I'm just, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, all your homies hate Everton, then. Because, all right, so how I see this is, all right, all right, first of all, once again, going off of Monaco's side of things, uh, Mr. Tiago, he says that everything, he, this is a direct quote, everything was going well. Around 7 p.m. we were contacted by Everton, raising questions about Balagin's medical, which for our medical staff, as well as for the player's personal medical staff, made no sense at all.

The explanations were not enough to justify or to bring concerns regarding the future of the player, which there aren't. All right, so just right there. Okay, it seems to me like he's saying Everton kind of brought some Fugazi stuff up. And if Monaco doesn't agree, first of all, he's saying they brought something up and they didn't explain it well at all. That's direct quote. He's saying there wasn't, explanations were not enough to justify or to bring concerns regarding the future of the player.

All right. So it seems like they brought up a petty issue to regarding this transfer that gummed up the entire deal of the entire process. While this is happening, and you got to think about flow, being in Liverpool there, going he has said yes he is going through the medical all this different type of stuff this gets flagged

now he is in limbo okay you think about making from a personal standpoint making this big move you're excited whatever this thing comes up and you have no idea what the hell they're talking about and they're not explaining it well you know that like that's going to put you off that's going to put you off and while this whole limbo situation is happening you are reading reports that they're trying to sign Zirksi from Manchester United they're looking at other options, etc. And this whole time,

and maybe he got out and got to run the streets of Liverpool, saw a whole bunch of young Wayne Rooney's out there, rough and tumble. And you know, the more and more he looked at... Carrying Billy Clubs. Right? The more and more he looked around,

he was like, What's going on here? He's a London boy, isn't he? Yeah, exactly. He's hearing the accents. He's like, oh, nah. No, like, I think the more time the went by, and this is just not good treatment in general.

If you have an issue and you properly explain what you found and what the issue is, I would assume that all parties would understand and be like, okay that's a valid issue let's go ahead and clear this up and this is another thing when uh mr tago talks about ballo's medical staff this has been known flow balligan has like a whole team around him whole like performance team that uh that helps him helps him maintain his body all this different type of stuff i don't know how many people it consists of but i but i know for sure that it's a thing i think i remember i'm talking about it at the beginning of last season before you know he really did his thing from Monaco. So

it's somebody who knows his body, who maintains his body very well, and it has his own personal team around him. Like, you know, it's just, it especially if you have that as well, it seems that it would be

it would be hard to sway a man. Like he, he's going to be less likely to get pulled around by Everton, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like if he really knows what's going on and his team knows what's going on, And also, Monaco is backing them up in this and saying, it's a little fluky as well.

I don't put it against them to fill some type of way, basically. Yeah, okay. That makes more sense. That makes sense. And I just want to read, Charlie, I want you to weigh in here real quick, but just read another part of the Skuro quote, which was, he said, you know, I signed the contract ever since,

I know we kind of covered this, but just to be 100% clear, I signed the contract, Everton signed the contract. At the last moment the player decided not to sign And basically, Balagin's allegation is that I'm not feeling well Because of the way the club treated me I'm not feeling well because Everton's medical department

Raised doubts about my future or my health I have nothing, no health problem So I'm not comfortable signing a long contract here And that's the way we finish our transfer window So yeah, I mean that basically he's saying That the same thing you are more or less But On the other hand

Now you're headed to Riyadh, brother You know, I mean, is that better? Al-Wadabia, man. He's going somewhere with some saying. Yeah. Well, Monaco's very methodic about this, right? They have this cycle. They made a lot of money on player sales.

Apparently, it's sort of a three-year plan. You say he'd been here three seasons. They consider that the time at which you should ideally move on. and what's fascinating. So I noticed, you know, obviously the different media reports, it's a little bit like shining a flashlight in a dark room, right? So everybody's wish somebody would just turn the overheads on, but in the meantime, we have a couple different versions of things.

So Sky Sports, his correspondent is reporting that there was the Everton found evidence of an injury in the medical. Monaco and Ballo himself refuted, saying he's ready. to play. Everton were late into the evening at this point. Everton decided to proceed with the transfer, but attempted to renegotiate the deal on on cheaper terms, which led to a more performance-related contract. Monaco, as you just said, sign that deal.

Sky Sports is reporting that nothing changed with Balligan's personal terms. So this medical issue doesn't seem to have changed what he's getting paid or the length of the contract or anything. It was Monaco that, if anyone that would have reason, to balk at the new terms, right? But it seems that Bala was offended that as this is all going on, they had parallel outreach towards Manu over Xerxes, and he seems to have taken offense at that.

And they're saying Everton's side of things is, I'm, you know, this isn't, we still want you. It's just we have to cover our bases, right? Everton has been left in the lurcher because they had already agreed to sell another player, right? So they're short in the position because they'd already signed off on a deal. Meanwhile, there's all these dominoes, right? So Chelsea is affected because Monaco pulled out of another deal.

They were only going to sell two players. And so now everybody's mad, right? So there's so many different interchangeable parts. I'm really, I hope we hear from Bolo himself. I'm fascinated at this idea that he, because he seemed, you know, we saw, we learned so much about him, at least in the public eye this summer, he was just, and it's even more so in retrospect, like he was so balanced at the center of this firestorm, players get headlines written about them all the time, right?

But to be in, to have president of the United States, have Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino essentially be part of this completely, or almost completely unprecedented saga that in essence sort of, it will always be associated with his name. And he was just cool as a cucumber throughout, right? And he was very poised. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just struck by that in comparison to what we're hearing about him. And maybe it's just a man's got to have a code kind of situation here.

I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, I guess it is kind of interesting to me that even from what is probably the Everton point of things, they did admit that Ballo and Monaco had an issue with the medical, which I guess really isn't that, wouldn't be that uncommon. If the buying team flags anything, I assume the player and the team might have an issue with it, unless they were being shady, which I did see, there was one French journalist that alleged that Monaco was hiding something from Everton, which we'll see how that plays out. I want to know, I want to hear from the certified nursing assistant that botched this whole thing, you know.

Have either you been to the doctor's office recently? Man, it sucks. Doctors offices suck. Especially when you're when you're a top level athlete, right? And you're you're treated like a racehorse essentially and poked and prodded and weighed and caliper and all that stuff. You know, that you have to be wired differently to deal with that. So there's a, I have you guys ever watched the, I think it's called Take Us Home. Amazon did a couple seasons of, but BTS, full access, Leeds United documentary with when Bielsa was in charge and they're desperately trying and failing to get back into the Premier League from the championship.

And Bielsa is known to be a freak about fitness. And he's like that they're, they're in the room when it's actually Luke Ailing, who's now. a teammate of the Middlesbrose at Borough is one of the guys. Like they're going to get weighed, right? They're getting weighed constantly. And they do the body fat BMI tests and all this stuff. And these guys are, you know, you have to have a certain comfort with your body. You have to have a certain ego to be a professional athlete, right?

And these guys are sweating it. So it's something we don't even think about, I think, as normal human beings. And then to have it be happening in 11th. hour of the transfer window closing day. That's a lot. It's a lot. Is that documentary a look inside into the depths of a well-oiled machine? Does it feel like?

A little bit of both. A little bit of both, right? They're very, that was probably, I mean, it's a fascinating look into Bielsa, the SpyGate thing with Frank Lampart and New's Darby County happened while this is going on. there was a lot of dramatic stuff that that good fodder for for the documentary. But they're also, they gave them access to stuff like this, deadline day, trying to get deals over the line, players flying or taking trains or driving back and forth and agreeing to terms.

And then you, again, the interchangeable thing where, okay, this fell through. So now this team won't sell this guy to us. And now we have to do this. And the leadership team, I think most of them have since moved on. they were just in the early stages of this what's now a full-on partnership with the 49ers and their parent company. So, yeah, some quirks for sure. And I think it gives, it's a worth while watch for any soccer fan because what do you think of the club? Because there was almost an uncomfortable level of access, you know, that had already been granted and they let you in.

So it's, yeah, it's a fascinating thing. And we're, I think we're still only now as Americans, like, just catching on to what all this, what goes into this sort of designed chaos, design drama of the window. I asked because, you know, the Sunderland documentary about which was a club that was really failing at the time the documentary was being made was a look into a machine that was not well, well-willed at all, you know. And I wonder, you know, we think we see this product on TV and I do wonder in the back of my mind. is Everton just, I mean, was there just a doctor or, like, I joked about it being a CNA, but like a doctor who just kind of screwed things up

and made it like much more unpleasant for Ballot than it needed to be in some way or something, you know? So, well, one thing that I've learned, I guess over the past 24, 48 hours, is that allegedly Everton be messing up a lot of transfer stuff. supposedly. This is what I'm seeing, what I'm reading, what people talk about.

Apparently they've lost other players, even in this window, that I've just said no to coming. Now, that could just be they didn't want to play for Everton, whatever. But it did see, well, it's obvious they left their transfer business up to the last day at window. If they were thinking about selling Beto and then coming to graph flow, I would assume they had time to come. come in before, you know, the past week or whatever. Well, and they, yeah, they'd already had a headline making controversy in this window

because an academy kid, a local homegrown kid named Harrison Armstrong was going to be sold. And 19-year-old prospect was going to go to Nottingham Forest. And part of what factors into this is like the, the, the, the, um, squad cost ratio rules sort of incentivize you to to sell your your your academy kids or your homegrown kids because it's peer profit right and and so so this deal was apparently almost done and the fans revolted the fans were chanting about it in the terraces and basically telling the ownership through chance and songs that that they were not going to stand for this and and it led to the move getting scuppered.

So, you know, you can just, you can just tell there's... They had a belly club. There's a lot going on here, right? And there's a lot of moving parts. And I think it's, again, that's a club in the city with the tribalism is so deep, right? So let's us not forget. Always a context. How they treat a young Anthony Robinson.

You know what I'm saying? had my man out here in the wilderness playing for Wiggin. I mean, I mean, Everton lost the opportunity for their left back of the future, man, because they couldn't see the vision. So, you know, maybe. And really,

the past, I guess, what, two seasons have gotten out of the mud, but they were deep in it at a point in time there. So, you know, it could just be that, this club has some issues has some issues but I mean

we just we just don't know and in their defense right Tim Howard has spoken about this Landon Donovan spoke about their experiences of the club recently and they generally have really positive things to say about the culture the support the way the way the the club treated them and the way they felt welcomed and all the deep traditions in the in the locker room and everything and so I think that's they're always stuck in Liverpool shadow, right, to some extent, but they're also deeply proud of

the identity and their place. You would think that there would be more cachet that they would be outgrowing some of those old, old style English stereotypes and perceptions because they've got a beautiful new Waterside Stadium. Again, you know, even a mid-table or a lower table, lower mid-table club in England has so much financial power. Everybody wants to be in the, in the Prem, it certainly seems as though Balo wanted to get onto that stage. Yep. So, and maybe it's just a person-to-person interaction at some point, right? You have to look people in the eye and shake their hands and convey your future to this person.

Yeah, man. That's what I wonder about. I do want to say something about Landon. Of course he's going to say positive things about Everton. He had all three and a half of his good appearances in a European League at Everton Football Club. Those three months are amazing. I mean, just think about the timeline here. Mr. Tiago, he said, so 7 p.m.

is when they get questions about the medical. And I think he says the time to sign was like around 1 a.m. or something like that. They had filed the extension too. Right, right. So, yeah, yeah. So the section would have given to 1 a.m. Because it ended at 1159 kind of thing, right? I guess.

I believe so. Yeah, so think about it. 7 p.m. till 1256, this whole thing was in limbo or whatever. Like, I don't know, man. It starts to get dark in Liverpool. I could clearly see where Ballot was just like, ah. You know what?

Maybe this ain't the place for me. Sun don't went down. I mean, he's going to get plenty of sun where he's headed. You get a lot of sun there. That's the thing is like with all of this, you can come up with all kinds of scenarios about why he might feel, might have felt some kind of way.

But the outcome, the outcome is not good in the short term. I don't think, I'm not sure that it's predetermined, though. I'm not sure it's predetermined. Mr. Tiago left some wiggle room in his comments. So first of all, deal collapses, he says,

after the deal collapse, so basically he said, our financial plan was working almost perfectly until 7 p.m. when the medical got flagged. Salary reduction was on target. We were able to bring in the players we want. We had everything approved by the DNCG,

which is, I guess, the French financial watchdog. In advance, we would have a very small financial gap to cover in the winter. So that makes me think. maybe they can still cover this financial gap. Maybe it's a bigger financial gap, but maybe still one they can cover in the winter. And because right after this, he's asked,

Ken Balligan stay, and do you blame him for not signing for Everton? Today, he is a Monaco player. There's a chance he stays. You see, I'm reading this passage with the optimistic inflection I put on that. There's a chance he stays. On Everton, I was not there. We have to respect the decision.

We try to do the work on the club side. we found solutions, even in slightly better conditions for the player and for Monaco in terms of payment flow. And the reality is when Balo mentioned to us his feeling that he was not comfortable, he didn't want to sign, we didn't see ourselves in a position to push him. We had to respect. Makes me wonder. Makes me wonder. I mean, look, basically, they couldn't push him to accept this offer.

So can they push him to accept this offer? any other offer if he really doesn't want to go. You know, regardless of release calls being met and all the different types of things. Does he have to go this window, number one, and can they make them? It seems like the answer, maybe no. Yeah. Cool. I mean, and Everton side of it is that they were, Everton was surprised that that balligan was made it feel unwanted.

Again, I'm reading from the sky sports thing. They never renegotiated his personal terms and clearly want to get the deal done. And they feel that he misunderstood their Xerxes approach. They were not turning their attention to a different player. They were prepared to sign both players. So, in a lot of times, these moves crashed like this at the 11th hour, you come back in January. But if there's enough bruising, there's enough bruising that that may be, that may be tricky. And then we didn't even talk about there.

There's even a U.S. Mexico angle here because Monaco, we're going to take the non-EU roster spot that Balagan is occupying and use that to sign Eric Lira of Mexico and Cruz Azul. So that move fell through. So this was even on the lips of Mexican pundits, Cesar Hernandez was posted earlier tonight about football picante joke that Balagan won't get any discounts on his next Cancun trip.

so uh i mean yeah that that's four clubs caught in this uh at least yeah at least but if yeah i mean i mean and i think turkey was mentioned because turkey's window stays open right so does does ballo go to galatasarai or somewhere like that i don't i mean there maybe that's not the best particular solution but if mosea went maybe maybe turkey's hot this this autumn it seems to me that most Turkish teams have strikers. I've even seen a couple signed today. So who knows? Who knows?

Maybe we get Antalya's sport coming in the back door or something. Lovely city. Lovely city. No, seriously. I mean, gorgeous place. Do you guys ever think back on the start of the Valagan story from the USM&T standpoint? I mean, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, and dagger trip to Florida.

I think about all the time. The USM&T fan base snooping it out. I mean, this guy, this guy runs on instinct, I think, to some extent. So maybe that's, you know. Got to respect that. I wasn't right. Yeah. And also, you know, I think my sort of superciliousness about the big picture is probably

irking some listeners, but, you know, it's still four years, four years until a world up. Like, he can, he could take the, he could take the fall off and it's fine, you know. As I think somebody on the Discord made the point, like, like, you know, given how much football these guys have to play, you know, it would probably extend his career to take a semester off. Well, semester. But that's the thing, like, that is in the cards.

You know, if he denies, if he doesn't want to go anywhere, he can get froze out, he might be training with the U-S-17s or whatever. case scenario, right? Right, right. Yeah. That's the worst case scenario. It's hard to see because usually that's just for undesirables in general. Yeah, I mean, they need the goals.

They still want to make a profit from him, et cetera. So maybe that's not going to happen. But yeah, so we'll see, I guess, within this next two, I don't know when the Turkish and Saudi windows. The Turkish window closes on the fourth, so in two days, and the Saudi window closes on the sixth, four days. Oh, okay. So we'll know in a week. Brilliant, brilliant.

But it does kind of make me wonder when he says they still would have had a financial gap to cover in the winter. Like I said, maybe it's just a bigger financial gap, and they just get this stuff done in the winter. I mean, they could even get the deal done now. you know, and announce it and do all that type of stuff, like Fulham did with Rico, or we thought was doing with Rico, you know, that type of thing. So, you know, if Ballot comes back, because Tiago talks about this too, he's like, I don't know.

Basically, he said that they were happy to keep Lameen Kamara. And then he also said, you know, Balo, we had come back, we got to talk to him and see what the plan is. if flow comes back with some solutions see that's the thing when you want that jet you got to be playing a guy have a team around you got to you know you said no to this you got to you got to come back to them with the with a solution don't come back to them just like uh you y'all understand right you don't understand you know no

come back with some solutions have some have some clubs uh in contact hopefully if if clutch knows what they're doing which at this point maybe uh maybe it's up in that air maybe something there But come back with some solutions. And if you do, you can be like, hey, we got this club right now, willing to meet this clause, or willing to meet your valuation, et cetera. Boom, we can get this done in the winter. That, I think, would be the win for everybody.

Because nobody wants to see Flo go to Saudi or Turkey. The January window is a smaller market, right? But there's more desperation. there's more urgency in the market. So maybe you don't have as many choices, but I would think he'll, if he's in form, if he just keeps scoring goals, that's the key, right? And that's the part he can control.

And there's the super window, right? The FIFA September, October window. This is going to be a great subplot heading into that, assuming hopefully he's fit and firing in a month or so here. We'll see if we get him to see if you can get him open up on one of those USM and T Zooms. Yeah. You think you will be fit and firing.

All right. So that's the... Go ahead. Well, just one last. I guess I got to throw this question out. Is clutch ass? Is clutch ass? Does Charlie, the Sky Sports say anything about the player's representation?

Or anything like that? I don't think so. But it's worth ask? I mean, well, if we're being... thorough here, right, do what's their experience level in the intricacies and nuances of a deadline day move, right? I'd have no doubt. I would expect that they have plenty of human capital staffed up with experience of these matters, but maybe not necessarily. That's like a, that's like several layers down and I don't want to cast aspersions. Oh, just that'd be a natural question

or two. That would be probably a European perspective question, right? Do these guys have the institutional knowledge on this? Speculative. This whole thing just brought up another thing that I forgot that I read. Apparently Super Agent Jorge Mendez

was involved in this somehow like towards the end. I don't know if he was from the beginning. But yes. A lot of people have been saying this. I could just be... I don't know.

I didn't even know about this. Vince, you're blowing my mind here. So I don't even know what's going on. Is it clutched through by proxy? You know, I really don't understand the agent inside of an agent, inside of an agent, like those little Russian dolls or whatever. But it seems like we did have some soccer. expertise involved here.

This is something I learned relatively recently just a few years ago. Actually, I guess it is more than a few years ago now, but like even on the Germain Jones move, when Germain Jones came to MLS after the 2014 World Cup, like Ron Waxman, I don't think he was, he's on the client list for Ron Waxman, but Ron was one of the people who broke news back when Twitter was popping like that, soccer Twitter. And he was one of the ones who gave the insight because he had sort of been, as agents have explained it to me that you are, you may have your primary agent, but you can authorize an agent in a certain period of time or a certain country to assist with a move.

Right. So it's sort of a way of projecting more, giving yourself more options and broadening the scope of what you're trying to do. So Ron Waxman was involved with the particulars of this move, which ended up being so weird with a, you know, drawing of lots and the whole New England versus Chicago thing. But there could be there could be half a dozen agents across half a dozen countries and leagues. Right. If you've authorized them. And it is it is very much the Wild West, even after FIFA's attempts to police it a little bit more in recent years.

So nobody knows anything that's going on. See, this is why soccer. remains a beautiful game because you can't tie it down. You can't say, not even on the business end. You can't tie down in any way. Also, just real quick, Charlie, you brought up Ron Waxman. Is that the guy that tweeted, is that Jesse Marsh's agent? Yes.

That's a man that tweeted that Greg Burrhalter would be there. Okay. I don't know if he is the agent at the moment. But he's the one that made the post. Longtime agent. Yeah, exactly. He's the one who essentially, when you talk to journalists are like, oh, Ron's tweet was what popped everything off.

Because that let us know what was going on because that was the window into the inside negotiations. I thought I knew that. Yeah. Okay. Understood. Yeah. All right. Also, Jack McGlind to Stoke, I predict three to five, three to five bangers by Christmas.

Oh. You guys got any, you have 30 seconds to talk about Jack McGlynn. Well, I was beginning to wonder if this was going to happen for him. when he moved within MLS, it was a question, right? Did he miss his window for getting Europe? Turns out he didn't. Houston worked with him. They acknowledge it.

It wasn't the perfect timing for the club. I'd give him credit. It is a club record fee for Houston Dynamo, I believe, outgoing. And I'm just... What is the fee? What is the fee? I think 5.5 are thereabouts, 5.5 plus add-ons. So...

Man, that's how you know them boys. I did no academy development. I mean, that's a whole other pod, right? How are you not making better use of an enormous talent pool on H-Town there? But he's such a particular skill set. I'm really curious to see him in the champo. I'm even more curious to see if he and Bombino, Luca Bombino, who just went to the same place from San Diego,

F.C., both get minutes because that's fascinating. And if now championship teams are truly like turning. their their scouting lenses toward MLS that that could we'll see if it's just a fad but that's that's really fascinating and um i think he's going to be mcglin is going to bring a certain his skill sets will be you will stand out in the rough and tumble the champo for sure they will that league is not that good all right um hey thank you fellas thanks everybody for listening uh if you want to skip the ads join the patreon you know the drill we'll see Thank you.