SoccerWise - Goals Galore In MLS As Cream Rises To The Top + USOC & Conca-Champions w/Andrew Wiebe & Matt Doyle

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

The crew is back together to break down a wild weekend of MLS Action. From the multitude of 6 goal thrillers to the winless sides Doyle, Wiebe and David review the whole weekend. Then they look ahead to a massive week of soccer across US Open Cup & CONCA-Champions 2nd legs.7:15 Whitecaps Destroy Min On Road To Supporter Shield Favorites16:50 Joy In Houston & Anguish In Portland26:30 SKC Solidifying For Wicky29:47 LA Galaxy's Search For Chemistry33:05 FC Dallas- San Diego Stunner40:00 USOC Round 1 Name Bowl44:11 STL, PHI & CLB Remain Winless55:19 Orlando Part Ways w/Oscar Pareja & Plans For The Year1:03:10 USMNT Weekend Stars1:08:10 CONCACAF Leg 2 Previews

We are ready to roll here on soccer-wise coming off another massive weekend of action and heading into one of the biggest weeks of the year. We've got U.S. Open Cup. We've got CCL on the docket. We're going to be watching soccer 19 hours a day for the next four days. We had a thousand goals scored this weekend. I had an Irish wedding the weekend before St. Patrick's Day and then a massively delayed flight. So I'm excited to be here, guys.

Yeah, your energy level is waning already, and we're 30 seconds into the show. You seem to be less than 100% fit. I feel like I am doing better than I expected at this point. So I actually felt pretty good until he said that to him. Well, it's a little hair of the dog on a Monday, just to make sure you're in peak physical condition for the inevitable crash later.

All good. How do they celebrate, like, St. Patty's Day weekend Eve in Baltimore? Dave, what's the vibes? Everyone's got green on. Everyone, this is one funny thing. There was a St. Patrick's Day, 5K run at 1 p.m. on Sunday. I think that is the weirdest thing I have ever heard. I don't know who that's targeting.

I don't know what the point of that is. There was a parade as well. Fell's Point was lively and electric on Saturday when I walked around. Congratulations to my cousin who got married. And his wife is from South Boston. and her mother is a twin. Her mother is a twin who's one of six siblings, and there are two sets of twins,

and they all have twins. And the family photos was like my family, which is nine people, and then 57 people on the mother's side and like 42 people on the father's side. And it was, they were ready to go. They had hand-knitted four-leaf clovers for people to wear on Sunday.

After we finished brunch at the James Joyce, everything was on the Irish breakfast or blood sausage you know beans eggs the likes there was a mashed potato bar at the wedding which was the bar oh my god what an experience that is what are the

what was the topping in the mashed potato bar that you were just like mind blown didn't know that this could go on mashed potatoes this is amazing nothing was didn't know but if you throw caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms yes sir anything especially in mashed potatoes so it's good I think short rib was like the main winner for people that they threw on top. But, you know, I like to keep my mashed potatoes separate from my main.

General winner there. I'm a mixer. I don't know about you guys. My wife always makes friend of me. I will, she's like. Mix up a meal. Yeah, she's like, I need a bite of everything, but it's just that one thing. It's exclusive.

And I'm just like, you know, we're going to. Oh, yeah, I'm the same. We're mixing it up here. We're getting a little bit of everything and everything. It took me a while to realize this because when we plate, my wife makes us plate in that way, where it's like beans go here, sweet potatoes go here. sweet potatoes go here, rice goes here. Oh, no.

And then I've realized, and then I just missed the whole piece around. Oh, yes, we need some overlap. So it doesn't really matter. Some strategic overlap. Megan makes you plate in a certain way, like you're nine? It's for her. Okay. It's what she wants, because she wants each thing separated.

But you can do, you could do your own plate. You know, it's true a while where it's one of those moments where you realize, I don't know, it still hits me every few days of like, oh, I'm an independent human being and an adult. I could do whatever I want to. And this is like the sort of situation where you have the wheelbarrow groove. And like once you got the groove, you just let the wheel go in the groove.

And then you figure it out from there. I almost jumped off the cliff last night because our flight gets massively delayed on the way back. And the person at the desk is like there are, there's a 6 a.m. flight tomorrow that has like one seat on it. Or there's the same flight tomorrow. night at like 720. But we're supposed to have thunderstorm, so that one might get delayed.

And I have all this stuff in the morning that I have to do, but I can work remote. So I'm like, there's zero chance I'm getting on a 6 a.m. flight. I'm either flying now or I'm flying tomorrow night. And Megan's like, I'm flying the 6 a.m. flights that I can go to the office. And it was this moment where I was like, so we're flying separate, like in my head? And then the guy behind the desk looked at me and goes, she's always right. So you're doing whatever she's doing. Never met the dude before.

And I was like, all right, man. That's a lot. You're doing a lot. There are two people making decisions for Dave. By the way, it would be that Megan would marry the person who wants to mix when she is a very strict, everything has its place on the plate person. Those are the.

For sure. Oh, yes. You and me both, brother. You and me both. So as usual, this show, everything has its place, but me and we have just mixed everything around out the gate to open things up. As I mentioned, it's a massive week of soccer. We've got U.S.

Open Cup round one. I'm really excited. We put together a bunch of really fun stuff that we're, going to be rolling out on socials across the kickback network to help us cover U.S. Open Cup to help you get prepped some big games this week. I think a prime one for everyone is the Vermont Green, Portland Hearts of Pine game that people are very excited about that I'm sad that I will not be at, but I'm excited to watch from afar.

My understanding is all games are streaming across CBS and YouTube. So you can watch all the games in U.S. Open Cup. I think they had like a lottery draw to get tickets. for that game. Yeah. And they were like, the stadium's what, like 4,000? And they had like 40,000 applications for tickets for that. Yeah, it's, it is an event in, in New England soccer.

It is like landmark type of U.S. Open Cup. I went to their first Open Cup game. They beat Lexington, I think. Lexington's first year, maybe even before they played a league game. And it snowed. And I fell off the top of the bleachers with some IPAs in hand. It was a great night. A late night all time.

In Vermont, the percentages of ABV they throw on those. It's irresponsible. It's honestly their fault. They were like, oh, it's going to be cold. I was like, well, they'll be here. They're like, yeah, I'm like, I'll be fine. I'll bring a jacket. I'll have an extra jacket that I can purchase in venue.

And I survived. But that's going to be one of the big moments. And then obviously CCL second leg, which we're going to talk about as we go through this. We'll talk a little national team. We did a huge show, myself in Doyle, last Thursday, where we predicted what we thought would be the roster. we debated some of the big points that we're thinking about around the national team.

So you can go listen to that one still as we await the roster coming out for this final March camp. And we're going to be doing a USM&T segment going forward for every Thursday show that we will be inserting as we still are waiting for Tom to come back and rejoin us. But he is still floating Ebrahim Aliu trades that I thought he just republished from last time. Just retweet it. Just reverse retweet that thing. It turns out you can always go home. If you're listening on Serious Radio, we run a little bit long. You can always go find the show on demand in the serious player

or anywhere you get your podcast listening to Soccerwise. But we like to start every show with the best things we saw of the weekend. And since my vision was a little blurry, we're going to start with Matt Doyle to open us up. My vision was a little blurry after Vancouver dismantled Minnesota United 6-0 because my head was swimming. The caps were so good. and they needed to be because they got just humiliated midweek by the Sounders and in Concorda Kev Champions got placed.

So to come off of that, like, I mean, the Sounders basically ended the tie, right? The Sounders went to Vancouver 1-3-0. They're not going to lose a second leg. Vancouver's continental journey is over to come back after that and to take all of their anger and frustration out on what has been. like a half decent Minnesota team. So like the levels between and like the clarity and ruthlessness they played with, even without Thomas Mueller in the starting lineup and some of it was rotated. It was it was really, really impressive.

And I am officially changing my pick. Vancouver white caps are going to win the supporter shield. Like it was that level of a performance from them in this game. Can I ask a question here? It just occurred to me as I listened to that and sort of reflected on the white caps of the last, you know, whatever, 16 months or 14, whatever it is.

Is Yesper Sorensen the singular best personnel move? We're talking players, coaches, GMs fill in the blank in MLS in that period of time. In fact, you could insert whatever period of time you want because taking the white caps from sort of average to below average to basically league best in this amount of time, pre-Muller,

Mueller is absolutely incredible. I mean, it is one of the best coaching jobs I think we've ever seen in the history of this league. I said last year that it was the single best coaching job that I've seen in MLS that I've watched all 30 seasons, right? Just to go from what they were to what they are now, what they became in 2025 and to do it in the face of roster makeovers, but also a mountain of injuries. Especially along that back line, he was constantly juggling and getting more out of guys like Presum-Platman, but also Preso.

Yeah, Preso starts this game. And that's just injuries, like existential concerns about the present and future of the club. I mean, it's absolutely unbelievable what he has accomplished in Vancouver. And he is probably the reason they have Mueller as well. Like, Thomas Mueller does not go to the Vancouver White Caps if he watches those games and doesn't see,

the output and the performance and the swagger and the belief that that sorensen has injected in that team like to your point i just look at what he's done in terms of player development alone let alone the tactical side of things and it is it's astounding like it's it's basically like hey imagine mLS at its best this is what it is in my opinion this is what it is yep and i i just hope that they're able to spin this these good vibes and this incredible soccer that they're playing into a full year of it across multiple competitions. Obviously, Conca Cap Champions Cup won't be one of them. And I hope that that helps land them an owner who keeps the team in Vancouver

because it would just be heartbreaking if they end up anywhere else after this season or the next. The Caps are North American soccer, man. And this is one of the great teams that we've seen in MLS history and one of the great coaches that we've seen in MLS history pretty clearly already. And God, I hope they're there for another 100 years. Are you on yes-was payroll? Because it's both the praise, but then also the bulletin board material of they won't be advancing.

They have no chance to advance against the Seattle Sounders. Just to be clear for Vancouver fans out there, I think last week we said no chance San Diego wins and no chance that Cincinnati wins. I think we like dismissed them pretty quickly. And both of them went out there and won, one with nine players on the field. So for Whitecaps fans,

they should feel pretty good. about Doyle putting the nail in the coffin as early as he has. And I will say the one. It's not that early. They're down 3.0. They've lost 3.0 at home. That's fair. I will say that 3.0, it felt like the bottom came out for them for the first time really since

Yesper Sorensen arrived. And while I think there's enough data points to believe in them to have them bounce back this weekend and just be them at their best was huge of like, okay, there was a moment of that Seattle game. We were like, you could kind of see it. fall apart because there was no expectations about this group a year and a half ago because a lot of these guys don't have huge resumes that they've they've done it before and there continue to be injuries and big pieces missing. And so there was some point in that second half of that Seattle game

where I started to worry, okay, what does it look like this year for Vancouver? And I think to come back and just annihilate a team that was what in Western Conference semifinals last year. And you know, Hamas Rodriguez made his debut down five zero in major league soccer. Welcome to the league baby like his his his interview on the Gilbert arena show is going to be great about waiting for the right moment and it it arrived it was there yeah yeah so um so I think all of that like that was really big to see so the um stat that the MLSPR blue sky account put out was that right now Vancouver has a plus 13 goal differential it is the biggest goal differential through four games in MLS history yeah and the the

second place right now is NYCFC, San Diego, all of them are tied on plus eight. So Vancouver has just opened up the season and just slapped everyone around and then continued on their merry ways. And they've done it while integrating, you know, AZ has been really, really good replacing Ali Ahmed and Javan Badwal who was awesome. Yeah, I mean, he's been, you know, I don't think he's a game breaker or anything, but he gives them quality minutes at like three or four different. spots and is just miserable to play against. Like he he's always got a foot in and just like forcing the pass backwards, forcing it.

Even if he's not causing a turnover, he's just taking rhythm away. Ryan Alumi hasn't, you know, really broken out yet this year. But I, of the the teenage center forwards in ML, like he's actually my favorite. Like, and then, you know, remember Brian White in that first week against RASL, he missed like three chances. Yeah. And it happened in CCC as well. was like, oh, it's finally going to happen with Brian.

Now he can't miss. Now he's scoring goals left and right. But the big thing is we heard Pat Noon and talk about it after Sincke got their asses kick against the revs. Like the movement for Sinci is not good enough. Like we're not coordinated. We're not. I forgot the exact words he used, but that like that was his point. And then you watch the caps play and they are who they are because of that coordinated movement.

You watch them get into an. out of the half spaces and collapse the opposing defense. But then they take the extra touch to bring the defense with them before playing the next pass. And it's just, I mean, it's almost like the clockwork orange thing that we all think of when we think of the great Dutch teams of 50 years ago. That's who the caps are within this structure that doesn't give anything away against the ball. Their rest defense is so good because everybody knows where they're supposed to be. be in relation to everybody around them.

And then adding Mueller to it, who's, you know, the great space interpreter of the past 16, 17 years, has only catalyzed the whole thing. This team is really, really, really good. Really, really, really good. Dave, can do me a favor before we move on? Can you just please pronounce the Moldovan left back, a 20-year-old left-back that Vancouver Whitecaps started?

Get out of my face, sweet. Get out of my face. I will, I have been thinking about this. and I don't have a great answer on your, I don't know, fake thing you created around Sorensen to try and prove. I think the answers to that question alongside of it of like immediate impact. And I was trying to think obviously messy. Well, yeah. I think Cucho, I think Cucho, yeah.

Is one where it's like you're talking to MLS Cup immediate. I think Nacho Piaotti is one. Cucho missed the playoffs his first year. I understand. But he said over what, a year and a half, 18 months, whatever the phrase we used was. You know, my. Since the start of 2020. Okay, so Cucho within that time frame was in the playoffs.

Dave has expanded my fake, my fake framing here, which I appreciate. Nacho Piati was my other one. I couldn't think of another coach specifically where it's like arrived difference. And then there are a bunch of GMs. And I mean,

if you're just thinking about the same time frame, but with Nantes, what are you going to say in Columbus or in Montreal? Either. Yeah, he took two teams that were just asked. The crew had missed the playoffs two straight years. He takes over and leads him to an MLS Cup win, 57 points, man.

Yeah. So those are the answers on that list alongside Sorensen. On that one, big week for Vancouver. We are going to talk about their CCL game to come up later in the show. For now, let's move to the next best thing we saw. Weeby. What do you got for us? Listen, I loved Mateus Bogus Shed L-AFC,

and I was sad to see him go to League of Mackeys. I understood why they did it. And, you know, the price tag was right, and the moment was right for player in club. but I was ecstatic to see him come back to Houston and very curious to see what version of him we would get in Houston. The one that was sort of, you know, got put on the backburner at Cruz Azul

or the one that was such a game changer, particularly in transition moments for L.AFC, and we got that in the 90 plus 15 or what, 105 minutes in, here comes Maddie Bogush to score the game winner for the Dynamo at home against the Portland Timbers. And I'm both ecstatic to see Bogush doing things like that, because I want to see as many good players in the right situations and thriving in the league

and also just despond it for the Timbers Army in general because my God, how frustrating would it have been to watch that moment from your team? Literally 105 minutes and you get beat by the one guy that you know is going to sit back there and hit long balls in Jack McGlynn. There's no pressure on him. I understand. It's late in the game. But you allow him to hit a, what, 70 yard ball over the top. to one dude running, the dude you know who's going to be running, two guys on them, you get chopped up and you lose a game because of it. It was like the yin and yang of, oh, that's awesome. I love that.

And oh, my God, that has to just absolutely rankle that entire fan base in Phil Neville. It was two sides of the coin. And me personally, I love that. I love the emotional output. I love people being joyful, but I also, no offense, not as a hater, but you know somebody's got to be in pain when that happens and so this was one of those MLS moments where I was like yes oh oh no Portland are in a place and Phil Neville keeps talking about it they're not they're not in rhythm they're not playing up to their potential

and the flip side is the Houston Dynamo got something to hang their hat on never at least didn't throw the players under the button after this one which which was a new tack for him he he was actually mostly complimentary of of his guys. And I thought, you know, the bitter irony about them finding a way to lose this game is, I thought that they were really, really good in the first half. I went back and I watched it. He changed his pressing structure from kind of a 424 to a 433 and that met and real strong

man principles. And that really threw off the dynamo. If you go back and you watch that half, I think every single time the dynamo tried to build from the back, they had to play a long ball. And it was Neville's tactical choice To turn the game into a game of first ball Second ball instead of letting it play out The way that the dinah.

And like that was really good job by him But then you saw the second half Like Ben Olson made like a couple little changes Well he brought Aceh Ache Acheon at halftime Right and it changed to a 3-5-2 Got rid of Ezekiel Ponce which Keep an eye on that one Yeah I was going to say that that feels like maybe a general

statement then And going with super mobile front two of Bogush and I forget who else was. It was Guillermo. Yeah, Guillermo. With, uh, I took a step back and just like, let you have that one. With an Ali, like coming out of midfield. Yeah. And Portland couldn't quite figure it out, but they still fought and they still scrapped.

But then at the end, the point is like you have to have clarity in who you are as a team and how you want to get pressure to the ball. and Portland still doesn't have that. And that's what we saw on that play, Weeby, because if you watch, like, they're just kind of sitting in a block. Like, Kelsey is chasing the ball without actually keeping any defenders

in his cover shadow. And Felipe Moore is just trying to poach. And then the extra man that Portland has at that point is like, okay, if he's not going to be up front helping you win the ball back immediately, at least have him on the back line so you don't give up a 70-yard ball. there is that the timbers are up a man at this point in the game.

And the extra man is just sitting there in central midfield. And that doesn't make any sense to me at all. So even when things are going right, relatively speaking, for Portland, they're going, they're going really wrong. And I think after Oscar Farah was dismissed last week, I mean, if you're looking at who's next on the hot seat, at this point, it probably is Phil Neville. It was my entire blue sky mentions on Saturday night. Like immediately after the game was like, talk about Phil Neville this weekend.

And that's all from Portland fans. So we got some of it last week. We got a lot of it this week. I think we'll talk about Oscar Prey out coming up in a little bit. I think maybe some surprise how quickly that happened, which opens the door, I think, to fan bases, maybe realizing that front offices are considering this stuff faster in a season than maybe anticipated.

And now Portland struggles and all of that. Maybe that they feel like that's the answer. But yeah, Kelsey had come on. one minute before that too as like he had fresh legs let's see if we could throw him out there there there was a lot that i mean it was a fairly chaotic game veld missed the penalty which gara then hit the rebound then veld scores later then you get the red card but pantomis gets stepped on his head so there's like a 15 minute segment where they're just trying to get his head to stop bleeding it was like a bizarre game overall but i think besides the bad portland stuff i think for houston it's good to have these positive

moments, Bogus in transition. Jeremy looks like a player when he gets guys. When he gets guys at pace, he's really good about picking his way through defenders. Like at full speed, his stop and go is really, really good. And so when he can get up to speed down the left wing,

right as he gets to the edge of the box, that's where he starts trying to beat you. And it's not a step over and explode. It's like he's quick and tactical with his movement to try and fight between defenders. He's got a good hezzi. Nice little he. Nice little he. Imagine talking about the Houston Dynamo in this way

with at least three truly elite in transition pace type of guys based on who this team was two and a half two years ago where they didn't have that attacking pace I think you have to give credit to the- Griff Dorsey. No, fair. But you have to give credit to the front office,

I think, for recognizing that like they had a big hole in terms of their ability to beat teams in open space and they were a little one note and making some changes around that. The flip side, you know, let's check out the, Ibrahim Oliu wingback experience as well. So he comes back for 750,000.

I didn't look this up. How much did he go for originally? We don't know. I'll look it up while you guys talk about how big of a movie this is. That would know that off the top of their head. Tom's yelling right now as he was going to this. Just like, oh, of course it's this. Of course it's this.

March 12, no, that's the one that's coming back on. Now this is a Google race. Yeah. Either way, I think. I think Houston's in trouble if Ibrahim Al U has anything to do with their outcomes this season because we got a pretty solid body of evidence that he's not really an MLS caliber attacker, right? There's there's no end product from him. And to be fair, there hasn't been from Lawrence and Ali either.

And I think, you know, he, he kind of fell asleep a couple of times. So maybe they're looking to upgrade him. But I'm, I don't understand why. I don't understand the why of this trade. It doesn't make sense to me. The original trade was $450 guaranteed with add-ons that could rise to $750. So it's the same trade.

Well, no, it's $2.50. So he's a $200,000 discount up to $750. And by God, I would love to see those. So he played bad for two years. What are those performance? For sure. For sure. But still, it sounds like it's going to be in the same territory

after having more data points that, as Doyle just said, is probably not an amount of player. I know the dynamo in a better point. game-wise, no. They are. It's true. It's true. It's hard to be worse. It's good to waste. Like, look, this was a chaotic end and a great individual effort from Bogush. I'm still skeptical on the Dynamo. They've won two out of their three games, but those two were home wins against a fire team that is struggling and against this Portland team who were talking about the manager maybe getting sacked. So, you know, I don't want,

I don't think anybody should get out over their skis too far, but it is interesting just because they've changed the formation a bit. They've changed McGlynn's role to being more of a regista rather than a number 10. And now they have this flexibility to go to sort of a 352 instead of a 3421. And they have answers in a couple of places where I think they only had questions last year. But I need to see more before I'm truly convinced about the Houston Dynamo. Okay. I think that's fair.

Big win for them, though, anyway. Weeby, before we move on to my stuff, do you want to talk about Walmart for a little while? Listen, Walmart Saturday Showdown is a premier property that everybody knows and loves, and God bless sporting Kansas City and L.A. Galaxy for putting on a good game after a draw, squirreless draw the year before.

I will be magnanimous on your program, Dave, and just remind people that the Walmart Saturday Showdown will again be next Saturday, Philadelphia, desperate against Chicago Fire, but I will save my takes for after your best thing. because that's just, this is your space. And I want to respect you. No, because I want to do this, which is I've mentioned two times.

I'm not going to say a lot that SKC are more competent than I realized. Yes, I agree with that. And as Doyle, this is what Doyle's done both times. Let's measure that. Let's measure that because the level of, Doyle, you shake your head. But to me, the level of competency, maybe not competency, but ability that I saw within the group that they had put together, I thought was like very much. level and it may still be but I felt like starting the season looking at the roster I was like

definitely no doubt this is your spoon team now see if Montreal I should always have them in mind when I'm saying such things but what I saw in this game is that there is there is a possibility for this team to sniff the bottom level of the playoff spots I still don't look at them and say playoff team but Daniovalich is just clearly on a different level than I think honestly I think most number nine's in this league and then if manu garcia can play like that every other game even and las iberg johnson is is what they thought he was they get another centerback and they get another winger and like you see how it works but like there's only 14 games for them before the world cup break well like they've already signed a centerback i mean Israeli centerback i think he's coming in the

summer and then i i think you should expect the u22 centerback to come in in the next week after talking to david lee that's what seemingly all the writing sort of in the sand is yeah they're not they're not terrible they're not terrible they're not good but they're not terrible i'm going to go more ambiguous than you on standings of they are not as civ defensively and they are more in control and possession than i thought they'd be this year i think for the most part across the board it's a pretty high technical level the group that they have and so when they're in games i don't think they're completely overwhelmed i don't think there's a ton of final third quality except yovitch which is like this weird

weapon that doesn't unlike pets are moose you can't tap into him and have him expand his game so you have to provide him with those chances which keeps you in games because you never know when he's going to pop up and score but overall i feel like through the middle third this team is more entertaining to watch and more comfortable in possession than i listen i think leslieberg johnson was a big difference maker in that sense i'm not sure i agree in possession i think they're super i think they're loose with the ball. I think that they give the ball away an awful lot. Yeah, but that's fun to watch. It's not, yeah, it's not. Not if you're raffa Wiki, it's not. I mean, I'm standing next to him on the sideline. There's a reason I'm not. He said before the game, like, this is our biggest issue. We've got to fix it.

And it's like, well, how do you do that? Like, they're just sped up in midfield a lot. They give the ball away in really poor positions. But Burjohnson is going to change some of that. I felt like they did not have a player in there other than Manu. And it's why they had to drop him so much who wanted to take responsibility for tough moments and wanted the ball and then could actually progress the ball and stay calm and find the right moments. I think Berg Johnson changes a lot for them. I just don't, I'm still not sure if there's a ceiling on that that's above like 10th in the West. But. Okay. And then next week you've got Philly, Chicago. So you're back to 10th in the east on that conversation. I mean, now it's the desperation derby, dude. The union got to be absolutely. I mean,

and the fire are a little bit in the same place on that one. Do you have any concern about the Galaxy? Like the Galaxy fans are yelling. And, you know, I think it's two straight losses for them. And it's sandwiched in between a CCC, sorry, CCL. I know how you guys do on this show. Win against what Harbor View, I think it was. Like I watched that game in.

Mount Pleasant. Sorry, that's on me. I knew that. I watched that game. I think they've got the two concerns I would have for the Galaxy outside the obvious of peck and paint will not being there and you can't solve for that really are I still don't think that they have like true chemistry and maybe the two most important partnerships on the field,

which is centerback and their two pivots. And for Greg Vanny, I just feel like that is the key to everything that they want to be and do because they want to use the ball to shift and unbalanced teams and give themselves a space to change the rhythm with those difference-making players. But like, I just, I don't see them doing that particularly effectively. I thought Justin Hack, though I really rate him.

I didn't think he had a great game. And I just still think Serio and to a greater extent, Elijah Winder or Sanabria or whoever it is that they play back there, are trying to find that rhythm and that balance and that ability to sort of play together and be a partnership that advances the ball into really effective spots. I don't think they even know what their partnerships are or are supposed to be at this point. And to be fair to the galaxy, they were coming off a midweek game. and I wrote about it in my column, a tactics free zone, saying, like, try not to read too much into these bad performances from certain CCL teams because March soccer has a tendency to lie to us.

That said, the galaxy, the two goals that gave up in this one came from their rest offense, came from not having guys in the correct support positions in case a turnover happens. and turnovers happen on most passing sequences, right? The vast majority of sequences in soccer and in the turnover, what do you do then? Are you in position to actually at least turn it sideways, man? Don't let them play vertical. And the answer too often for the galaxy for years now has been no. And it's been personnel agnostic.

And it was, I think, a little bit worse in this one because it was a new pairing on the back line. And, you know, I think they, maybe a little bit of a trap game, sporting Kansas City at home. So they were kind of throwing numbers forward, especially out wide. And then I think they got frustrated

because they were creating good chances. They weren't just finishing them. So there was a lot of stuff adding up. But it's just fundamentally, structurally, I do not think this team looks like what we were talking about with Vancouver, how they can be a possession team and be really adventurous with the ball.

and you're going to turn it over, but then they immediately get pressure to it and either win it back, in best case, win it back and go again or at least turn it sideways and don't let the opposition jam the ball down their throat. The galaxy have not solved for that under Greg Fannie. I think I had the galaxy preseason ninth in the west,

so I don't feel worried because this is kind of where I thought it would all be. We'll talk about them a little bit more when we get to Concaf coming up in a little. my best thing I saw FC Dallas baby go and win a game Eric Quill came out the gates

pressed high on San Diego tried to impose Dallas on the game and it was pretty much the polar opposite of the game against LAFC last week I thought they played well against LAFC

and should have probably gotten a result out of it it felt like it was going to be the same this week I thought they played well and it felt like the chances they missed they hit the post

all this stuff that it was going to be, oh, they should get a result out of this one. They end up stealing the tie and they get it at 3-3. They went down 2-0 and 3-1 and fought their way back to a 3-3-draw. But formation change for Quill. He flipped the wingbacks twice during the game

like for the start and then in the middle. So showing a little bit of creativity, showing a little bit of flexibility and empowering Musa. Like I think you could see it in the goal, the first goal he scored. And the celebration, the reaction. It's just like he's got numbers

high up the field around him. There was a lot for him to do. He's engaged in the press. They went and played arguably the best team in major league soccer, definitely the best team in possession. And they decided we're going to press high. We're going to condense the field. And we're going to try and win it in their third and try and create chances

rather than sit in and try and survive against this team. That's not something Eric Quill has done his entire time as head coach. It's not something they've done successfully at all. And so to see them have a couple different options. And it just felt good emotionally to watch them. impose themselves on a game and say this is how we're going to go out there and win it rather than we can survive and then musa can score in a game and so it was a big result for me for a team that i was pretty high on and a player in pet tarsusa that his MVP campaign is rolling along

imposed Dallas ought to be eric quills like rally and cry impose Dallas go impose it got to love let's go baby do we think that this was indicative of a philosophical shift that we're going to see from Dallas over the course of the season or do we think this was opportunistic knowing that San Diego were coming off of a bloodbath against Toluca,

knowing that Yuppi Shiref was not in the starting lineup for San Diego and my God, did he make a difference in the effectiveness of Dallas' press in the second half?

And also, you know, trying to integrate Valiente, who, you know, he works really hard for a 10, but he has not done anything particularly special yet as a 10. Yeah. I think it was opportunistic.

But I'm fine with that, which is have this club in your bag and use it at the times you're going to use it. But last year, we wouldn't have thought that they'd even think of this. And so I'm okay with that. It was what, like the 5-4-1 with the two holding mids and then two sort of tens underneath Musa, which I think works for Valiente. He's more connected. Like he moves the ball quickly. He'll get off his foot. He'll connect.

As you said, if you get him in open space, it doesn't feel like he'll kill you. so the entire build of the game is not can we get him isolated and create the game, but I think it keeps the game moving quickly in those areas. And then you see that lets a Kumungo and Johansson get higher up the field and just be in more dangerous areas. And I think that's kind of a good option for them to have going forward, but I would still start Farrington. And my guess would be that they will play behind the ball most of the games, most of this season. But I think they're good at that too.

So it's not a negative thing, but it's good to see that they have. have sort of this option if they want to. Why am I not offended by Dallas spending so much time playing behind the ball? Like what makes them more attractive to watch than so many of the essentially bunker and counter teams that we've seen over the, is it just that Musa and I don't know Ferrington didn't start this one, but Musa and Farrington together are so much, like is that it? Is it, is it Camungo and whoever happens to be playing right? wingback is it that they can unleash it and but kumungo did like a viny junior type of thing

on them to equalize and like why why it like does it not set off like all my alarms from an aesthetic sense uh when i watch this team play unlike say like gary smith era nash you know like like yeah or dean smith you know era did gary smith i mean was it did you feel that way immediately or Was it an overtime thing? Because I think so... It was an overtime thing. So, like, sometimes at the beginning, right, you can accept it, especially because Pater, because, you know, early days of Quill and Quill's attitude seems to sort of permeate

through. And you're like, yeah, we're, you know, like, we're going to come at us. You know, we're in the bunker. We're just going to wear hats. Yeah, exactly. Like, maybe over here. Yeah, I just shout out to Kailen Carr for this absolute fire. But yeah, I think, I think it's an overtime thing.

Weeby, you will love that in the chat. Someone said was Webe even conceived in 1994. I was eight years old. No, people think you're young. God bless. I don't know how they think that when I come in on this show every time with like bags the size of this hat under my eyes. But, you know, hey.

So I will say, I think part of it is Dallas are entertaining in possession because they are clean and a lot of their players are individually dangerous. And so it doesn't just feel like defend and dump balls or defend and have set pieces. Like when they have their moments, it's fun to watch. And when they have their moments, there is quality. there on one side on the other side my frustration sits with the ownership of like this team's being cheap this is a good team if you go and spend so i don't have frustration with quill like i think he's doing the right thing inside of his role and i don't have frustration with the players who are

underperforming like i think that part disconnects me a little more where some of the teams you just named it was like no there's talent there and you're choosing not to use it in ways that could be more entertaining is this any different that's a little different is this any different like Petar being sort of the, you know, the sun in the universe within Dallas versus like early days Nashville with Honey is that guy? Like, what's the difference? Actually, Petar is more expensive. Pater had a better resume. I mean, I'm not, I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but.

Oh, you're saying that. Dax McCarty in central midfield is like, those are balls. Yeah, they're guys who are. Yeah, they're ballers. But they're not. They weren't like, you know, those guys are, those guys were Tam players. Like, it's not like they were huge international signing DP. Like we went out and dropped $5 million on them.

Let them use the ball. Don't be low block. I don't want to relitigate 2021 Nashville. Also after three years when you've had some level of success, how is it going to graduate? How is it going to continue to move on? Which I think if Eric Quill is doing this in three years and there's quality there, then maybe there's a little bit of frustration on that one. Okay.

Enough on Dallas and Nashville in 2019. We can move here. You don't want to hit Sam Sarver's pregame fit? I just, no. Okay. before we let weby go weby had he really wanted to do some u.s. Open Cup preview action for us and i think you had done a lot of you've watched a lot of tape oh just grinded tape put in a lot of grind and what you wanted to do was present us with the most interesting matchups based off names

correct that you've never heard of before or heard or heard of him just absolutely glad to see them again in the US Open Cup which is just a top tier competition that we know and love so if you're just running through it i like the South Georgia torment against FC America CFL spurs. Like FC America CFL Spurs, I know nothing of this club, but the idea that we would tie all those letters together and throw America and Spurs into it is brilliant. Also, I don't know.

I'm not MLS Soccer.com. It says if necessary. Just to be clear, by the way, that's a game that won't be occurring because South Georgia tournaments it went under three weeks ago. So it's an official victory for. It's an official victory. My guys, FC America, CFL Spurs. with a huge victory, non-victory there as well.

I am delighted to see Aztec FC in here taking on Colorado Springs. That is wonderful. I would also throw in just the fact that we have a team called Florida Badgers. Yeah, that's a great. And they will be playing at Patriots Point Soccer Stadium. Listen, I can go America on that one. Red Force FC. That might, you know.

Red Force seems to be using Riverplates Shield. Correct. So my guess is it has some connection there. Listen, your guess is as good as mine on that one. B-O-H-F-S-S-Luice. Both of St. Louis is really, that's a positive one for me against Union Omaha. I would also throw in Cruisers FC with a Z. Yeah, half the Z.

Yeah, I really like that one as well. And then I probably finish you off with Orange County against just Laguna. It just feels extremely fitting to me. And I welcome El Farolito back to the competition. love them we know them well uh the fact that they got sacramento republic at this stage is also straight out the gate giant killers man absolutely so i want to i want to see how that one goes down but i'm looking forward to uh some scintillating u.s open cup action and uh i have to say goodbye because producer rich is yelling at me to come do instant replay so check that on apple tv and youtube

and yell at me in my comments all right thanks weby as always thanks boys see you uh for open cup we've got some coverage we're going to be doing at kickback, as I said, I went through and built out the best amateur runs that we've seen in U.S. Open Cup history, obviously Al Farolito are a major part of that. The big matchups that we've circled that are must watch from a neutral point of view, there's a Pittsburgh Derby, so Steel City, who plays their games at the Pittsburgh Riverhound Stadium are playing against the Riverhounds in this first round. I mentioned off the top, Vermont, Portland is going to be a huge one. It's the first time those teams have ever

matched up. Vermont, the first time they played an open cup, Portland had not launched yet. And then last year, Portland ended up going on a pretty nice run before they'd ever even played a league game. They got their first open cup victory. And I think they knocked off Rhode Island, which was the League One championship upset. And then Alfarolito, Sacramento,

was the other one that we had circled as if you don't have a team in this and you're saying, what are the games I should watch, those are probably the three that I would put at the top of the list. Virginia Dream, Carolina a core another one as well. Virginia dream. It's a really cool team. They have a really cool background. So I'd say go look it up and learn a little bit about them. But we're going to talk to Open Cup

on Thursday as well as we sort of like go through everything, review it. And then obviously Concaf is happening at the same time. So the next few nights from 6 p.m. through one p.m. on the east coast at least. You've got soccer everywhere you can find it. And kickback on socials, blue sky, Instagram, everywhere is the place to follow it. If you don't already, you can subscribe to our Patreon, get you access to our Discord as well. Let's talk about some of the other big headlines from the weekend before we move into Conca Calf Talk. And I want to start with the winless runs. We mentioned Philly a little bit there, Doyle, St. Louis and Columbus as well. Some of the big teams that have failed to win a single game so far this season. What do you make of

these three squads and sort of how worried are you? So St. Louis, we knew the This is going to be a rebuilding year. And I've seen some good stuff from them in terms of how they want to use the ball and how they want to get into the final third. The lack of top end quality in the final third is, it really has been too much to overcome through four games. I think we saw that a lot on first kick when they just completely overwhelmed Charlotte and got one goal at one point.

out of it. Like, that was a game they should have won three to one or four to one. But it did, like, there were some glimmers of hope when Brennan McSorley and then Mackay Joyner got on for like late cameos and suddenly they could, you know, do some stuff. So hopefully the, you know, Yon DeMay has given the holdovers a chance and they have not taken it. So let's see the guys who have been really good in the lower tiers. And then the other part with St. Louis is Falu Fall and Mamadu and Backe fall.

haven't gotten on the field together yet. And the hope is once they do, that that will give this team a different dimension against the ball and especially on set pieces. I think they're a little worse in terms of results than I expected. But about what I thought they would be in terms of process, which is a little bit promising other than the annoying thing about join or not playing. Yeah, I agree with you. Like, I think there are ideas.

I think the ideas are clearly being communicated to the players. I think the players are picking up on it and they seem engaged in wanting to be a part of it. But you could argue that the three to five best players on this team haven't really played this season. And then I think you would argue they didn't even sign what should be their one or two top end players. And that goes, I think, back to what we be mentioned with SKC of

the way this season is set up, it is okay to put down building blocks the first half of the year, make the signings in the summer around the World Cup. and then come out of the World Cup break where the majority of games will still occur and potentially put on a playoff push. If you're a team like St. Louis who came in a little bit later,

front office new, coach knew, and didn't want to panic move into, here's the big D.P that we're building this whole thing around two weeks into us being here. It opens that door. They need to get some results to like be alive and be coherent and have some belief. And back to like the Thomas Mueller in Vancouver thing

of like put some stuff on tape. for the recruits you want to be like, yeah, I want to be a part of this and I want to go there. And obviously the stuff going on with Edward Luhin and our hearts go out for him and his wife passing away after the long fight she's had. Like all this is non-soccer stuff that you just can't even calculate for and you can't even figure out. And so there's a lot happening. But I think coming out of all of that, you look at it and you say, I can see a soccer

team here. I can see ideas and that's sort of where you can believe that it could get better going forward. Yeah, they haven't looked helpless. They've been frustrating because the execution in attack has just not been good enough, but that's that's kind of what we we thought the story would be. With Columbus, it's good. I was just going to say before we move on, if you're listening serious radio, you're going to leave us. So you're going to have to come back and go find the show on demand as we're going to talk about Columbus, Philadelphia, and Cockcalf right now, and you can get us rolling through that. Yeah, I wrote a bit about Columbus, uh,

for my column for the newsletter this weekend. And it's so disappointing because for three years, this was to me the most attractive team in the league. I think they're the most aesthetically appealing team in MLS history. They won with it. I think it was 57, 66, and 54 points over the past three years. And did that while changing personnel a bunch, won MLS Cup, one Leagues Cup,

made ConcoCab Champions Cup final, finished second of the sport. Like, it worked. And part of the idea behind signing or replacing Nazi with Henrik Richstrom is that he was close enough in philosophy so that he wouldn't change too much. He would take it and there would be some adjustments. And I think that's every coach is right and that's what you should want.

But man, he's changed a lot. They played this weekend in a flat 4-4-2 against Nashville's backups. Diego Rossi for some reason playing as like a ball progressing. right midfielder. So, like, completely taking him out of the kitchen. And when it comes to partnering Wessam Abu Ali and creating anything, it was the worst attacking performance I've seen from Columbus in years. Like, I can't remember.

And obviously, talent, we've talked about this, is a huge shift. First game, but like, Andreas Gomez is a huge addition in this league. Like, that's a big time name to go get. So they're still investing in this. which adds pressure, but also should have an answer at some point that it becomes competitive again. You would think. And I mean, to be fair, they were competitive in this game, but not good. It's a rotated Nashville team that just played CCC.

That, like, is not really the bar. Yeah. And as soon as Hani Mukdar and Sam Surridge and Andy Nahar came off the bench, I'm not going to say it was entirely one-sided, but it was clear who the better team was. The team with actual attacking ideas, ideas of how to move both on and off the ball in a way to create chances, which ended up winning them the game deep into second half stoppage. And it's, look, I mentioned it with the Rossi thing. Like, he doesn't fit if you're going to play him at right midfield.

And that's arguably your best player. Why are you doing that? But it's also, by going to a flatback four, you have Stephen Marrera playing as a. just like a generic centerback in a two and you take away his ability to get on the ball and either over or underlap and initiate the types of attacking movements that made the crew so good and so much fun to watch. And then on top of it, I think the structure is gone, right? Like they don't rotate behind the ball into the sort of three, two five setup so they They're not as good against the ball as they used to be.

They end up getting bunched up in, you know, little corners of the pitch in a way where it's just like one ball over the top and, or, you know, one diagonal. And it's off to the races. And that lost them the game back on week one against the timbers. It's a lot. It's a lot of changes from a coach who I think was not hired to make a lot of changes.

I was hired to like minimally adjust, but keep the sort of through line and the through line has disappeared. Yeah. It is worrying, I think, right now for this Columbus team. It's hard to see the obvious way that it turns around. Andres Gomez just coming in could be that as he settles in and gets connected,

but it feels like parts that don't exactly fit together. And then on the Philadelphia side, they go down to Atlanta. So they helped Atlanta get off this list. So congratulations. to Philly for being an impact in this. I watched the first half live, went back and watched the rest of it. Philadelphia just looked like they were on their heels.

Like Atlanta dictated the game. They attacked them. And we've seen that a bit from Atlanta here and there. And then there's not that final third quality and there's not that last burst. And that's been their problem. But it felt very passive from a Philadelphia team. And it feels like a group that they don't have overwhelming talent. They never have, but even less now.

And some of the pieces still trying to fit in. and it's hard to see in the cloud that this club is in right now what the direction forward is right after having won a huge trophy. Yeah, I don't think they're as bad as they looked in this game. I think it's... How many weeks are we allowed to say that? Yeah, right. How many times do you check through that?

But like, we watched them against Kluv America midweek in that CCL game, and they actually outplayed Kluv America for most of that game. They just didn't have the final third quality to turn that into goals assists and I think that is going to be the story of the Philadelphia Union's 2026 season. Like they're going to have more, you know, acceptable performances than outright bad ones. They just got rid of their best chance creator and their best goal score and their best defensive organizer and their best attacking super sub. And now their coach is refusing to play the young guys who might end up trying to,

or, you know, being an answer to fixing that. And that is a pretty bad stew. What we saw in this game, I think, was just, you know, shoulder slumped heads down after the really frustrating result at home against Club America. What has to happen now is Bradley Carnell has to make sure that this doesn't become, but it's already a nosedive. It can't get, it can't go into like full tailspin. If it does that, this team doesn't have the talent to pull themselves out of it.

All of this is happening within the macro picture of the fans should just be furious at the way this club is run. Yeah. Right. It was an unsurious off-season. Yeah. Yes. But it was like an unsurious off-season if the idea was to build on the supporter shield victory and actually compete for a cup. If that was the goal, you don't sell Tyberino, you don't sell trade, whatever, Yaakov Gillesniz.

And you make Kai Wagner an offer that he can't refuse. He has been your best chance creator for five years. He is virtually irreplaceable. If you want to hoist a cup, then you keep that guy. And the fact that they got rid of all three of those guys, I don't care that they then took the money and reinvested because we know they're only reinvesting. so that they can sell. If Al-Ado scored 15 goals by June, they would sell him in July.

Like, that is just who they are as a club. So it was a finger in the eye to the fan base. And, you know, the union are not as bad as they looked, but they're not good. Okay, let's talk Orlando here, because we haven't really talked about Oscar Preya in the situation there since it happened because we record our U.S. show right as it was occurring.

And we haven't been back on since. Orlando City, they were on this list. They opened up the year with three straight losses, getting smoked at home by the Red Bulls, the 2-0 lead against Inter-M Miami that falls apart to the 4-2 loss, and then the Craypo Red Card at NYCFC in the 19th minute, and they lost 5-0. So off the back of that, Oscar Pereja was let go from this club

after four years as head coach for this team. He made the first playoff appearance. He won the first trophy for this team. They hosted an Eastern Conference finals last year. They hosted that U.S. Open Cup final. Any moment of history that doesn't have Kaka has Oscar Pereja connected to it for this club. He is no longer a part of it. They've for now elevated Martin Perilman, who was the two coach who became Oscar's assistant to interim manager.

He got them a victory over Montreal. So I don't know. Maybe it's like, hey, Montreal's coming up. We got it. We're going to get a win here. fire Oscar now and then we'll get the win under the new head coach if that was part of the thinking. But starting first, I think is like big picture what's going on with this team because as I said, Pereja is a giant in their history. He is a big time MLS head coach. And moving on from him is like

a huge statement from the front office. Mercado Marrera now officially in charge of that, which he hadn't been up until this offseason. It's a big step for this club. It is. And I think it's of a piece with what we've seen from them over the past year because, you know, they moved on from Louis Muzi as CSO. It's why Ricardo Marrera is now the guy calling the shots. They've moved on from a ton of that roster. Caesar O'Raho, a big part of it. Luis Muriel, not that that was the wrong decision, but, you know, selling Alex Freeman. And it's just been a lot of turnover.

And eventually it was going to get to the coach. I do suspect that this was, you know, we all. always see mutual parting of the ways. I think this was mutual. I think Oscar had run his race in Orlando and wanted out. And I think that means we're headed into a new era. I mean, very obviously, we're headed into a new era with this team. And I don't think the ceiling is particularly high, though they did play well the first 30 minutes

against Montreal. They just then immediately shut up, you know, shop and just try to try to hold on. onto a one goal lead at home against one of the worst teams in the league and like that. I didn't find a particularly inspiring performance or a compelling case. This team is going to be back above 50 points this year. It's and you, so you bring in an interim who is in-house, who is the assistant. Everyone who's like deep cut Orlando people, I did a couple of his ML's next pro games. They know the scores on those games are crazy.

So there is a little bit of a difference there from Oscar really wants to keep games controlled, as we've seen over the last few years with Orlando to these things might open up and we might get some five three and three twos and all of that. And that could be a shift. But to me, this is like, okay, can we do a warning shot across the bow for the players that like, this is for real and we're not messing around. And then you're going out and you're trying to find the next guy where immediately people start bringing up Jim Curtin and Wilfred.

And I don't feel like Orlando's in that ballpark at all for guys like that. I mean, maybe maybe if part of the pitch to Nancy is like not to Antoine Griseman, but like we will give you a strong say over the roster. And like that would, I mean, he'd probably listen to that. But I don't think Nancy wants to come back to MLS. I think he wants to be in Europe. Obviously, try to redeem himself after everything that happened. happened with Celtic.

Turns out coaching a team in a league, guys who can't trap or pass the ball is not going to be super conducive to Wilford-Nancy's style of play. The Dundee Derby was on at the bar on yesterday, Dundee United against Dundee. I don't know what the other team is. I walked in, it was on every TV. I was like,

what is happening right now? Did someone just sit on the remote? Or is there like a diehard Dundee United fan in here? I don't know that, like, Jim Curtin turned down Atlanta and we know what their budget is. I don't know that he would move to Florida for this opportunity. I think it's just if you put the echelon of teams in the leagues in the leagues, I think I flipped. I should have put an ass on the other thing. That's fine.

Yeah. You're powering through. I'm impressed. I, my point, like, even if, let's say, those things weren't a factor. let's say Nonse was like, I want a job right now and I want, and if it's an MLS, I don't care. And let's say Jim Curtin said, I am ready to move and take a job. I don't think Orlando sits there. So I don't think it's unattractive.

They have invested in the roster. They have their own facilities. They have their own building. They have a pathway. Like, it is not, I'm just going to say Colorado, which is they're playing in a different, unfortunate, like shallow end when they're looking for coaches and hence giving guys first opportunity. But I don't know that that's where Orlando is.

I think Orlando is probably if we were to put them as team specific would sit like somewhere between what, seven and 12 in terms of attractive job and ambitious club and all of that. Lower than that. You think even outside the 10 to start? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So it's like that's the part that's really hard now to put your finger on.

The Felipe Luis rumor started immediately because he is from Brazil where Ricardo Ferrer has signed three plays. from in his one window. I actually covered some of his G8 Cup teams for Flamengo when he was first started coaching. He obviously has a crazy resume as a player with Athletical Madrid, with Brazil, with Flamengo as well. And we've seen, I think, example, Matt Wells of like young coaches who are looking for opportunity. They see MLS as attractive.

A big reason why is there's no relegation. And young coaches are like, if I have ideas, I can go try them because if I lose, it's not ideal, but I can still keep the job. And so it has become a place that people know that and there's connections to League MX, which is some bigger money. If that's where you want to go, there is clearly a bit of a pathway to Europe,

whether that has been ripped off or not. Maybe not anymore. I'm unsure. Would your assumption be that Orlando probably plays out the rest of the year with this interim coach? I think I will give it to the World Cup break. Yeah.

I think that a lot of things are going to be up in the air after the World Cup. Like it's going to be changes, you know, globally in terms of who is available, both in terms of players and coaches. So I think Martin Perlman is coaching for a full-time job right now. And I think they're going straight into the woodchipper now. I think their next three games are like Nashville, L.A.F.C. and somebody else could, something like that.

So he could prove a lot, but he's going to have to keep proving it because I, I assume ownership and Ricardo Morrera will be interested in some of those Felipe Luis level or maybe slightly smaller than that level guys who are available. Potched Orlando in the chat right now, which is perfectly timed. That's great. Okay. So we're going to talk about cockcalf cut up before we get there. I want to talk a little USMNT.

We're going to be doing this every Monday, just quick hits on what we've seen from the weekend. We're obviously still waiting on the roster. that's going to be the big decision maker of who's had good weekends or not because who gets themselves on that is going to be the real option. But we mentioned Alex Freeman in this. And I think that's one of the big names, gets a start. This or gets off the bench, sorry, for Villarreal gets game time. He's played, what, 27 minutes since he's gone there before this. And I think a lot of the reaction we got to our show, which I don't disagree with is like, Alex Freeman probably has a spot, whether it's at right center back, right wing back, or the first one off the bench at the bench at the.

those two spots. So everything he has to do now is like to not lose it. And the little moments of just getting playing time are probably going to be enough in such a short window for him to maintain that if that feels right to you too. Yeah, no, no, that's it. That's the exact same thing with Alex Freeman. I'm glad he got those minutes in a win. I think he was on the field for for Pepe's goal or rather in a draw. He was on the field for Pepe's goal. That was important. And hopefully just keeps growing into his role if that happens. Even if he's not a full-time starter, if he's just like the 14th guy,

that's good enough for him, I think, to keep his spot in the U.S. hierarchy. One who's not going to lose their spot, but was a promising one to see as Christian Pulisick went the full 90. He has struggled for goal contributions, whether assists or goals over the last few weeks into months. But he has also not gotten the full

90 minutes in terms of trust and support and all of that and being central to a lot of things. We've seen frustration from him when he's come off a number of times over the last few weeks. So Doyle is just promising to see him at least get the game time, if not the goals. Yeah. First step. Hopefully he, I mean, I don't care. As long as he's healthy come June, I'm going to be okay with it. We know that Christian Polisic is going to start for the U.S. men's national team.

Maybe he's saving all those goals for the World Cup. I would be totally fine with that outcome. And the other obvious one to me was Diego Luna, which is similar to Freeman, we said, like he is ahead of people because of his relationship and what he's done for Pod and what he's meant to the team, but he hadn't played yet. So just coming back, he appeared off the bench for RSL

and the 2-1 win for them. That's a big moment for him, which probably puts him on this roster, which gives him that last opportunity to show off in person. Yeah, I think he's already in the World Cup squad. We talked about this, His, well, first of all, he produces goals and assists, right? Like, I think he's the second leading goal contributions under Pachitino,

and that's not something you turn your nose up at. But also just what he represents culturally when Pachatino was trying to get these guys to start fighting again and not in the Tim Wea at Copa America way, but actually, you know, leaving it all out there on the field. What Luna did, I think, signaled a shift in the team. And I don't think, like, I think he's clear. one of Pocitino's guys because of that. And so having a little injury wasn't going to keep him out.

But it's obviously it's very nice to see him back. And hopefully he plays 35 minutes next week. And then hopefully he can go in these friendlies. Also, kids are all right. Another win for RSL. Maybe not totally down to the kids. Big goal for the new addition in Spearings. like never looks at goal never really shifts his body the shot comes out of nowhere but from

25 yards out yeah it was like really really impressive and it was one of those moments where you like sit up when it happens you're like oh okay that's interesting and that was his debut for the team so it'll be big to see him and one of the things one of the things that we saw from r sl and i know this is we're going off script a little bit here but what we want to be we saw from rsl is they're they're definitely more comfortable using the ball and sort of these long, you know, buildups that aren't necessarily reliant on long balls or switches, which has been Pablo Maestroini's MO for the whole time he's been there. It's like he wants to switch the field of play. They hit more long balls than almost anybody. Now, I look at the data and the data says

they're still hitting a lot of long balls, right? So it's not like a complete, they haven't completely divorced themselves from who they have been. And I think that's, good. What's better is that you can see structure within how they're using the ball when they are keeping it short and sort of up back through, but in smaller places than what we're used to. And I think that's going to play really well to Diego Luna's strengths. And I'm hoping that that reveals itself really, really quickly because it would be nice to have one of our attacking midfielder getting on the ball a ton creating chances, putting the ball in the back of the net. let's jump into CCL before we get out of here so Tuesday Wednesday Thursday we've got games um we have obviously

away goals are count in Conccaf still so all of those goals from the first leg massively important any goal scored in the second leg totally shifts the ties for these away teams um let's just go through them one by one let's start Tuesday night 9 p.m. Eastern time opening game allelense against lafc yeah knew it wouldn't be easy, but Alholense, the goal again out of nowhere in that first leg. And L.A.F.C. now are up against it going to Costa Rica. Yeah, they got to go to Costa Rica and get either a scoring draw and then win in penalties or, well, a 1-1 draw and then win in penalties or a win or a 2-2 or 3-3 draw gets them through. It's, they should do it, right? And we've already seen them go on the road in Central America and get a big win. It was 6-9.

at Real Espani or 6-1. They also won at Al-Holense last time they went there, and then they lost that home to Al-Holense and got through on the tie. It was just reversed, where it was first leg away, second-leg home.

But they... L-AFC have not looked good now for like three or four straight games. They have looked leggy. And you go back to that, after that 6-1 win in Honduras, the fact that Sun and Buonga and Eustakio started the second leg,

I still can't wrap my head around that. Why did you do that? And I know like, okay, Jeremy Obamacy still hasn't been able to play yet, so you have a little less depth than you did. But like the reason- You got a five-goal lead. Who cares? You have five-goal lead. You have Nathan Ordaz.

You had Amin Boudre. David Martinez. You know, get Jude Terry out there. Like, and so I think we're already seeing the grind of multiple competitions wear L-AFC down a little bit. And I hope that this sounds stupid. 36 hours from now. I hope that they go down to hello L-O-Wense

and they win 3-0 which they are capable of but I'm telling you that son has looked his age right and Denny Boonga has looked he struggled a little bit to find chances out of you know from possession and that doesn't bode great for what's coming this week and maybe

even into the future the one positive for them is four shutouts across four MLS games, first team to do that in league history. If the defense holds up, you would assume you're going to score a goal at a minimum. Like this team has too much firepower normally not to. And so it creates a game state

where the opportunity to go on the road in Central America and get a result is there, but it is going to be really, really difficult. Al Holense is going to be not only clearly up for the game, we saw in the first leg, like there's not a lot of intimidation. this atmosphere is going to be nuts.

It's one of the best home atmospheres in Costa Rica. And it's going to be the biggest game of the year for them as they are clearly leading in the table. They're going to win the championship. And so this is their big chance to knock off a team with World Cup veterans and all this type of stuff coming down. And I think there's a ton of belief that they can do it. So that one sits at 1-1 right now.

Cruz Azul Monterey is going to be the second game that night. Three to lead for Cruz Azul. And then Wednesday, we get four. games on the docket all four with MLS teams we start with the all MLS clash Miami versus Nashville 7 p.m. at zero zero you kind of mentioned felt like

Miami's through I don't agree with that at all and I will say I'm gonna say it feels like they're through but I thought that Nashville were the favorites entering into this series and they were poor last week and got that scoreless draw

and that worries me given the history between these two teams. So speaking of like lineup decisions, B.J. Callahan has rotated this team to start this year with two competitions. And he clearly has partnerships that he likes where it's, okay, we're going to rotate both center mids, then we're going to rotate both forwards, then we're going to rotate both. Like, it doesn't feel like it's one one here and there. And I think he's done it well, which clearly they're first in the east right now. They are alive in this series. And I wonder if this is the time where it's like, well, now we got to pull the band. Like now we're going to.

we got to go all in. It's got to be your best team on Wednesday night in this game. And that's where I think there's a bunch of confidence, which is the moment those guys came on the field against Columbus, the game started flowing. And like Christiana Spinoza, no look layoffs, running into space, those guys were on the field last week and a scoreless draw against Miami. But Cochran was in, tag set didn't start.

Like, there was not their full starting team. And I think there was a, they were missing a little bit of pop in that middle area that they can play off of. but it will also be fascinating because you assume Miami has most of the ball in this. I mean, Miami's fully arrested. Miami sent their their next pro team to Charlotte and got a point. Which they got to now pay for it because so many people bought tickets.

And you know, Messi doesn't rest. Right. Like, so this gives you an idea of how seriously they're taking it and how badly they want it. And by the way, Their defense has actually been pretty good since that that 3-0 against L.A.F.C. in week one. So they have figured some stuff out.

What they haven't figured out is the attack. Like the balance is off. Bertrami has not really contributed much. Messi is shifting from one spot to another. They try, you know, Javier Mascherano is trying to unlock everything. Yannick Bright has really struggled on the ball. And I thought this weekend was David Iales. chance to say, no, actually, I can, I should be doing this job. And he did not make a compelling

case for that. Now, granted, he was surrounded by children. So it was not the easiest thing in the world. So they're like, the answers or the, the questions that we thought they were going to have, um, they still have them. They also still have messy. Yeah. In a game he really cares about and he's rested. Um, I have, I have a tough time picking against that. Yeah. I'm stoked for this game. It was dampened a bit last week with the way that game played out where I was stoked for the series. I'm still going to keep my my hopes up. The second game after this one is Club America hosting Philadelphia at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Club America leading one zero. As you said, Philly played pretty well in that first leg, but I said it going into last week. Club America

plays poorly on the road in international competition and they normally, you say, oh, it's actually more open than I thought, or this ties closer than I thought, and then they normally go home and win. Yeah, this feels like Philly is going to come out with their hair on fire for the first 25, 30 minutes, pressing everything. And it'll be nil, nil, and be like, Philly has a chance. And then Flob America is going to get one and the floodgates are all going to open and it's 3.0 or 4. Yeah. And I wouldn't even be shocked if it's like, okay, 2.1, we felt like Philly was in it, but they were never really going to win this. now if we're wrong it would be epic because going and beating club america on the road is as big a thing

as you can do seattle vancouver the next game at 11 p.m eastern time alongside to lucca versus san die Seattle leading three zero all three are away goals so they would have to lose by three goals and anything from four one up they would lose the tie that feels somewhat unlikely i will say what's fun this game's in spokane it's the first game for seattle to play there as a home team because they're laying the grass down at Lumen Field. Seattle Rain will play a bunch of games there, be pre-World Cup as well. So I think that will just be a fun little quirk that, like,

I'm here to tune into, although I'll be watching 900 Open Cup games at the same time. And I will probably be mainly focused on Toluca, San Diego, which it's three, two coming into this one, or is it three one? Three, two. It's three, two, but two red cards, one to Ingvartson, which I don't think is a big deal, but the one to do a, Yeah.

It is, I, I, I'm so impressed by everything San Diego's done. It, like, I cannot imagine a world in which they go to Toluca, which is what, 8,500 feet above sea levels. Yeah, it's the highest one, I think in Mexico. It's the highest home stadium in Mexico, I think. Yeah. And without Manu Dua and they come out of there with, with a result that will see, like, I just cannot. conceive of that happening. Do you have an idea of what they do at centerback? Honestly, no. Yeah. That's one of the things that I can't tell if it's someone gets converted in

there. Like if there's an idea of like, do you play Annabal Godoy in there or something like that? Or then it's do you go down the list and you, what, is Ian Pilcher playing in there? Like, I'm not really, it. Manu, doa has been a constant. Chris McVeigh has been a constant. Like it hasn't really been a position that they've rotated a ton as they've been. The, other issue is well so they do have the the danish kid yeah oswald so how do i don't even know how you say his last name he looked awkward this yeah he is tall in a way that doesn't look like a soccer player and when they built through him he looked very uncomfortable especially when he was getting pressured yeah and then you know i think curran sergeant could play there but he's got

a knock obviously audreyis is not you know a going concern do you know me Maybe Pilcher sliding in to play alongside McVeigh, who was rested, by the way. They only played the final 20 minutes. And I think that's, you know, there are obvious reasons why. Andres Dreyer was rested as well. So, I mean, they're going to have some firepower, but they're going to have some questions. And they're going against what I think is the best team on the continent. So good luck.

Of note for Toluca, Marcel Ruiz came off, injured in the Concaf game, did not play this weekend. It's probably the best player on this Toluca team. I think I'm seeing reports out there worries that he'll even make the World Cup now. Like it could be pretty bad. So that's a huge factor in central midfield. But Alexis Vega, who didn't start in the last game while he's coming back from injury, got the full 90 on the weekend. So that's a huge piece to their attack that wasn't available that is for this game. And we have not seen San Diego be put into this experience.

Like Pumas was one thing, but like this is the whole test that we're talking about of, can you go and do this in these toughest situation? I think Vancouver proved it last year. I think Columbus proved it a couple of years ago. So this is San Diego's big test here on Wednesday night at 11 p.m. Eastern time. Then on Thursday, they like Galaxy play Mount Pleasant, who will have all their players available because they'll be home. But they lead 3-0, and I don't know, that one feels pretty done.

And then Tigris, Cincinnati at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Cincinnati, 6-1 loss at the New England Revolution after leading 1-0 in that game. But they beat Tigris 3-0 when we said they had no chance. in this tie. It just feels very chaotic for this group. Yeah, it does. And again, that's what Pat Noonan was saying after the game. He's like there's no control and there's nothing coordinated about the way we're playing and it has to be better in league play. He did specify in league play because obviously things went really well for them repeatedly now in Continental play.

In that first leg, Tigris came up with the ball a lot and left space. for Sinti to counterattack into. And as uncoordinated as Sinci are when they're in possession, they're still a really dynamic and dangerous counterattacking team. The nature of the score line means that Tegras are going to get on the ball and they're going to come up field and they're going to leave space to counterattack into. There were some nasty words, I guess, between Kevin Denke and Nahuel, Guzman, the Tigris goalkeeper afterwards.

not well basically threatened him that's how danky took it anyway this could be a big minute or a big big moment for for for for Kevin Dankay because it is going to be like look man since he's going to have 30% possession and they get one goal here and I think it puts the tie away yeah if they don't it is not at all out of the question to take a four nil down in down in tegris it is wild to be up three zero on a team and for it to be like, yeah, I don't know, it's like 50-50. We still need one. We definitely need one.

But Tigris, a lot against them in that first leg, and that's how good they've been. And they are the team that they just do enough to win. It is not like, this is how we play and this is what we want to do. It's like, okay, if you score two, then we'll score three and we'll win a championship. And that's the exact line that they've lived on for a long time. This team feels capable of doing it as well. Okay, we're going to get out of here. The news just dropping that the MLS,

postseason schedule has been set. So it's going to be decision day, international break, and then come back for all the playoffs straight through, no break inside of the playoffs. And MLS Cup is going to be on a Friday, December 18th. So it's the first time in my experience covering the league

that the final will not be on the weekend. I can't say that I hate it if it's a Friday night game. Like it gets lost sometimes in the weekends of everything else, but the reason they're moving the schedule is because it gets lost anyway. and that's part of the problem with where MLS Cup sits. But it gives us a whole international break for us to break down all the series as we go into it here at soccer wise. And it gives us a whole playoff run to follow and engage with, which we love to do. And we're going to cover the whole season all the way going up to it.

So thank you to all of you for being here. Thank you to all of you for listening. Thank you to you, Doyle. Thank you to Andrew Weeby. And we'll talk to you all again very, very soon.