SoccerWise - MLS Cup Edition: LAG Make It Six + Trades & Scoops

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

An epic MLS Cup final is in the books and the LA Galaxy have returned to the top of mountain. David & Tom talk through the incredible match and take you behind the scenes on the ground of all the best celebration moments. Then they talk through the future of these two clubs in 2025 and beyond. And of course Tommy Scoops is all over the half day trade window breaking news and breaking down Cincy & Colorado's big trade, Philly canceling their Superdraft, and much more.Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Welcome back to SoccerWise, everyone. David Goss and Tommy Scoops with you here for our final MLS Game Recappee show of the year. MLS Cup is in the books. Congratulations to the LA Galaxy. A ton to talk about and a ton to do. And of course, the MLS half day trade window, Tom's favorite moment of the year. A ton of huge moves have gone down. And Tom, I know you don't want to waste time. So let's dig straight in right here. Juan Soto to the New York Mets. Do you feel alive? I went at you at our last show making a Mets

joke and I did not see the scenario coming. So you deserve the victory lap. Congratulations. I'm just happy that you get to pay Juan Soto $55 million when he's 42 years old. So that's going to be really fun and really good. But until then, that's cool. Yeah, the best part about it is it's not my money so it's like really not a problem for me and the second

best part is as you know very well tom the world's gonna end and we all die so who cares about 15 years in the future right i was gonna i was actually gonna undercut you with i hate the it's not my money i don't care thing because when your team spends money don't stupidly and i'm not saying that this is gonna be stupid or not but if it is spent stupid it doesn't matter if it's your money or not the person whose money it is will stop spending more look at toronto fc to bring it back to mls after they bill manning waste just lit 45 million dollars on fire from uh insignia and berndeski mls he was like we're not giving you any more money because we don't trust you so dude maybe that'll happen this is gonna give you

maybe it will first of all i would like to now officially turn the the la dodgers contract style of like just defer everything for the future that's the next person's problem into the official tom bogart contract style of like the world's gonna end so it doesn't matter but this is gonna give you some serious life. And I appreciate that. We're already off the rails here. I have a friend who will go unnamed legend though, who texted me yesterday before the Soto news came out.

This is a Toronto native who said, quote, I don't want the blue Jays to get Soto because if they get Soto, there's no way they'll buy out and senior MLSLSC will buy out Insignia at the same time and I was like dude you are the only person in the world with that thought process right now and it was amazing

we didn't plan that either I was just riffing and I was like oh like let me think of a bad MLS contract boom Toronto FC and then you actually had more info on that that is wonderful well we are cooking we get to do one show in person in venice beach and now the the chemistry is always there it's even better it's delgado to brugman to pain still boom this is what we are right now we are flowing uh and

we are ready to rock and we're ready to talk about all of this uh on the big show so we've got as i said mls cup to dig into you broke a couple scoops, which, by the way, if you, let's say, aren't really on Twitter anymore, you're not on Blue Sky yet, you don't like being on social media, any of those things, you can have access to a feed of all of Tom's tweets and skeets and all that type of stuff directly in our Patreon. So you can subscribe to our Discord. If you subscribe to our Patreon, it gets you into our Patreon. So you can subscribe to our Discord. It gets you into, if you subscribe to our Patreon, it gets you into our Discord. Everyone's hanging out

and chatting about all these things. We've got a rumors page as well for the rumors, not the real Tom stuff. And then we push Tom stuff the moment that he publishes it in there as well. If you want to, you know,

if you're sitting at work thinking, how did I not know that Ian Murphy is on the move? How am I waiting for this information? You get there, you don't have to wait anymore. You just keep that up all day. Obviously, there's going to be a lot to talk about over the coming weeks. We've got expansion draft on the horizon on Wednesday. We've got a super draft coming at some point. We've obviously have free agency and a bunch of transfer news and all that type of stuff. So I think now is where

we're really going to settle into a nice little sickos groove, both at the discord and on the show. And if you want to be a part of that, you just got to subscribe. Now is the perfect time to do it as we head into the holidays and shout out to everyone who's already in there because it is so much fun and the best place to be. Let's start talking MLS Cup here. And before we dig into the game, I have to say this, and I told you this in person, me and Tom, lucky enough, thank you to MLS Communications for seating us next to each other alongside Joe Lowry. It was the legendary row at MLS Cup. We were in the last row of the press box, so we couldn't see the near sideline. So it's all of us

standing up every time the ball comes there, But locked in being hilarious all game, just ripping one-liners right behind. I think Red Bull staff that was like highly emotional, having the worst time of their life. That part was a little bit unfortunate. I felt bad. I did too. There was a moment where I was walking around the concourse right after I got to the stadium, probably an hour or so before. I think it was actually right when the teams came out onto the field for warm-ups galaxy came out first they get the huge cheer red bulls come out they're getting booed all of a sudden all the new york

new jersey guys are like waving the crowd on to boo them even more because it fuels them and i just like i'm standing on the far side of the Galaxy Stadium opposite their supporters, which is where the hill is above it. And I just look out and it's Kendrick Lamar's blasting. There is a plane going overhead publicizing some wine cooler thing, you know, with the thing behind it. all these crazy combinations of like El Salvador jerseys and LA Dodgers hats on LA Galaxy jerseys and Metro Stars jerseys and palm trees in the background and the hill on the field. And I'm like, this is American soccer. Like this game, this MLS Cup was, this is our history. This is what we've built over the last 30 years or so. like you feel it a lot of times it's different everywhere but it felt like pure american soccer to me in that moment i totally agree and again as we talked about on the last show i hadn't been to dignity health sports park before this is the

first game that i've caught at this stadium and it was awesome it was magic so shout out to both supporter sections too by the way red bull supporters were in by the game kicked off at local time they were in they were in a tent they were making noise um i even walked by and was talking to one of the broadcasters who like made a joke like we talked about how impressive it was and then uh he turns to me he goes yeah um like do you think they'll be able to like they're they might be uh going too hard too fast like we got you got to build this like are you gonna have the same noise and they did they had it for hours and hours so that was really cool obviously the LA Galaxy supporters absolutely brought it as well there was it felt like a big game it felt like a big

atmosphere it's a silly thing to say because it was a big game and it was a big atmosphere but I don't want that part to go unnoticed that yeah this was this was a really awesome day around the game and then on the field the game itself was really awesome too yeah i was loitering at the top of the um i think it's angel city brigade brigade um supporter section for the galaxy behind the goal and watching them set up and they have the the streamers that they tie down across the uh across the supporter section from top row to bottom and getting the card stunts ready and you know everyone's sort of loitering coming in and getting ready for the game and going to get drinks and stuff and it's like it was buzzing for sure it was absolutely buzzing uh and then let's dig into the game now

it was buzzing right off the first whistle because the new york red bulls starting center back andres reyes who was announced in the starting lineup, fell ill moments before the game started and had to be swapped out of the starting lineup for Noah Ailey. And the Galaxy scored two goals in the opening 12 minutes of this game. This was ultimately, I think, the deciding thing in this match was that the Red Bulls were incapable of starting this game at a high level because of this. And I hadn't thought of it in this wording until later today, where I realized your starting center back getting sick five minutes before the game is so Metro.

And we talked about the death of that so Metro on Friday, and it is alive and well. It was not ideal to have to replace the center back that close to kickoff like sometimes there are injuries and warm-ups and it happens 45 minutes before the game so the player that's out there like the typical cadence is the starters are doing like a possession game and the subs are chilling doing rondos that's how these games go like not like not just an mls everywhere else so no isla like he apparently like they said Reyes threw up, like, five or ten minutes before kickoff. Something, like, really tight.

So, Isla had no clue that he was about to be started. Like, not only was it a late, it was, like, to the last second. I got the text, like, as the teams were about to walk on the field. And I was like, what? I was like, yeah, he's sick. He's been replaced in the lineup. It should have been something that we focused on more, I think, watching the game.

Easy to say that in hindsight, right, that this might be an issue. What I didn't love was very quickly apparent Noah Ilub should not have been the central of the three center backs, and Goss, to our credit, and Joe Lowry, we said this at kickoff. Because he's much more comfortable on the outside, and you have more freedom to attack forward. He is so good on the ball. That's what makes him, I think, that he's going to be a really really good player i thought he was good it's

also what it's also what we saw for 60 minutes yes because but it was already two nil when they made that switch to drag him out of the central of the center three and put him as one of the wide ones so i thought that was a little weird i guess that they were trying to do the least amount of changes as they could just kind of direct replace them but that one felt like that should have happened from the beginning and this is again with sandra swartz like he didn't do anything wrong like he's been incredible on this run in the playoffs i think he's an absolutely excellent coach but he got that one wrong so in the post-game interview with him the way he worded the experience of the andres reyes situation happening makes it sound like in my mind,

Reyes may have ended up being fine, but with the timeline counting down, they had to make a call because what we ended up finding out as the game started was if you make the move 16 minutes before the game starts, it doesn't count as a substitution. You just can't replace them on the bench. And I think, because everyone has said now, like, Andres Reyes on the field postgame looked fine,

and also we don't know how he feels and we don't know where he is. Yeah, that's dangerous speculation. I don't feel comfortable. Agreed. But I think what happened was they just got stuck in this time crunch, and you get in a situation where you're like, well, I don't want to not make this move and then have to sub him in the first

minute of the game. But because it all happened so late and so fast, I don't even think they had time to think about it and say, oh, so now Sean Neal is slides middle. I think it was just like, we got to get this guy ready to play. We got to get him on the field. And then going back and watching the game, you see them walk out for starting lineups.

Like Noah, I like kind of looking around like where and like he got hit by a boss with the reality that he went from a substitute and as a defender you want to always be ready but most likely you're not playing unless there's a huge injury until the 75th minute to try and close things out to hey man you're starting against the la galaxy on the road in mls cup and so you said, the swap with Niles, that's the game-changing moment of the match. Obviously, the goal follows it for the Red Bulls very quickly. But what you see on the first two goals that the Galaxy score and what you see in the game is the Red Bulls came out on their heels and they weren't stepping aggressively.

They were not winning tackles. They were losing 50-50s. They were ceding space. They were backtracking. And the Galaxy were happy to take advantage of every single inch that the Red Bulls gave them. And so the opening goal, it is a, what, comedy of errors.

You've got Peter Stroud steps high. I don't know why, to challenge Bruggeman in midfield. Then Bruggeman's able to play a one-two past him because Stroud has pulled himself out of position. He's now charging down the field, down the middle of the field. Pain still makes the run from outside in. Islay drops off the run while the Red Bulls other players step. So Islay keeps Payne still on and

then in the end it's shot directly into Coros Cornell it was it ends up being a savable shot on a 1v1 and Cornell who has been the best goalkeeper in the playoffs lets it in under him and it's just you're never going to win a soccer game if your spine falls apart and it is the worst case scenario for this Red Bulls team and then on the second goal they lose a second ball and I have no idea what happened but Jovalich coming from the right side charges down the middle of the field and Isla as the middle center back decides he's going to shade left in case there's a cutback to Peck rather than defending the middle of the field against the guy in possession so Sean Nealis comes from left center back over to the middle, chasing Jovalich.

No one steps. And now you've got the LA Galaxy number nine, what, 10 yards from goal? And to his credit, it's an unbelievable finish. Off balance, at pace, what he does. But, like, the nature of the sport is stop the ball. The nature of the sport and the way the Red Bulls play is to be aggressive and press and try and win battles, and the Red Bulls were not in the game. Yeah, they got just absolutely smacked in the mouth in those first 10,

13 minutes, but I think that second goal was, like, the 13th minute. And, yeah, discombobulated, not quite ready, not sharp, which is, again, not what this team has been for this entire playoff run. And when they've been really good this season, this is the opposite of what they've looked like. I'll go on the other side of this, too. Like, I think all your points are fair about how the Red Bulls could and should have maybe defended that better. But I want to look at, guess how Brueggemann started for the LA Galaxy. We talked, not just us, extra time, all of our friends in the written media, all of our friends in video media.

I don't remember a single person saying, not even like, I would start Gaston Bruggemann instead of Ricky Pooch. He wasn't one of the options. All of it was, is it going to be Fagundes, Royce, which two out of three, Fagundes, Royce, Delgado? Gaston Bruggemann was not brought up a single time by just about anybody. I feel pretty comfortable saying that. So that was a controversial and surprising decision by Greg Vanney.

Gaston Brueggemann wins that MLS Cup MVP. Gaston Brueggemann played that ball. So that through ball that he played to Pinto, that was, I just think, an excellent move. Again, the Red Bulls could and should have defended it better, but I'm looking at it on the side of, yeah, Greg Vanney pulled the strings here on a decision that none of us were even talking about or had as like a

possibility and it completely worked out and that was a like that that's a master class in in a decision like it just is if you go back and you listen to greg fanny's comments all week he is so good at avoiding what it turned out to be the reality he got a lot of Royce questions and he answered all of them truthfully that Marco looked good that Marco was available that Marco was going to be a big part of like he never he doesn't lie but his ability to obfuscate and I go back to this because in 2017 I was like on the beat covering TFC through the end of the season in the playoffs and they get to MLS Cup, and the ball kicks off, and they're playing in a back four for the first time all year.

And I start racking my brain to all the comments Greg Vanney had made and how he wasn't saying it, but he wasn't not saying it at the same time all week. And it was the second time he has done this to me and to all of us. He loves a tactical change in a final. He loves to play the opponent. And he said postgame, everyone said, well, when did you decide? Bruggeman, he said, he basically said when the New York Red Bulls won. Like, obviously, it was Ricky Pooj related.

If Pooj is healthy, Bruggeman, I don't think Bruggeman starts. It's not a factor. But his decision in replacing Ricky Pooj, and we had talked about it for a while, is Fugunda as a replacement? If he's not, how do you play a different way? What do you do? His decision was, we're going to win central midfield physically. We're not going to lose second balls and Peck and Payne still are going to win this game for us on the wings. And he told Bruggeman on Tuesday, was what Bruggeman said, that he was going to start

in the game and Gaston said post game, like, it's been a really tough year for me. And that was my first thought when he said it was like, I can sort of put this crap year behind me and have this moment to finish he also said he saw the assist in his dream the night before the final that he would have an assist from that spot for someone which i don't know you know hindsight's 2020 maybe it's a convenient dream to pretend to have had or it was real whatever i'm not gonna we're not gonna jump guess i'm not gonna inception gaston brugman right now uh we don't have enough time uh and all that yeah we can't get into all that and obviously as you said it was a master class move from vanny and this was the gaston brugman we saw come into this league because when he came into this league for the first half year, year,

he was an elite central midfielder. He was dominant physically, but it's his calm and ability on the ball that takes him to the next level. He's not just a ball winner. And so to get him back at that level and for Vandy to know, okay, he's ready because he hasn't been that guy for a year because he's been hurt. He just hasn't been able to be that guy it all worked out perfectly it was incredible i was happy for him that he won mvp because he deserved it i agree and you don't often see that the texture on the

ball to pain still is gorgeous i was saying to you in the start of the second half he's just all of a sudden he's balling first 10 minutes the second half gaston brugman comes out and he's playing ricky brugman or he's playing gaston pu 10 minutes of the second half, Gaston Brueggemann comes out and he's playing Ricky Brueggemann or he's playing Gaston Puig. Whichever one you want to call it. He looked so good and so confident in that midfield. I want to go back to one of the first things you said. Did you, dear listeners, hear

that little capital J journalist bona fides from David Gossett? When I was covering TFC, you know, I was beat writing. I was on the beat. I wasn't writing. I was on the beat. I was on the beat. I wasn't writing. I was on the beat. On the beat. I couldn't write for the life of me.

I misquoted you. That's a lowercase J, journalist. That's why I misquoted you. That's not good enough. Yeah, so that's the thing with Brugman. Paul Tenorio and Sam Stachkel can attest, a Northwestern grad would never make that mistake. So your point about Brugman is, this is a this is a really good player he's just dealt

with injuries like particularly over the last like 18 months like towards like the end of last year if i'm my memory's ever me correct he's he's just been injured right and like not not to start to go to the negative side or like what does this mean in the future like all right cool you want mls cup now what um like he could be the first mls cup mvp to then get bought out like i don't think it's gonna happen but if there's a non-zero chance he's on like 1.4 million and they're gonna have captain strengths this winter so like that is in like a funny little side to this that like who knows what they're planning around for next year as you said if ricky puja starting or if he's available like if he's available he's starting obviously brookman isn't if marco royce isn't injured he's starting like

i feel very very comfortable and confident saying that i was talking we were we were interviewing not i was talking to we were interviewing marco royce in the locker room after the game and i kind of put it to him all right dude like you don't have to do any games this year now how fit were you how healthy are you and he was like if this was a regular game there's not a chance I would have been playing he said I have the only day that I could train a little bit was yesterday and match day minus one training sessions are a walkthrough there isn't like the high intensity playing like that does not like that's not like okay full training I'm ready to go I just ran did a test run for the 90 minutes or 45 minutes

or however much I'm going to play. But he was like, look, I was going to be out there. I had to be out there. I had to. Like, Ricky wasn't playing. I needed to be out there. I had to play. So, again, a confluence of a lot of different things.

But it was really brave of Greg Vanney to go with Gaston Bruggemann instead of Diego Fagundes. Yeah, absolutely. And quick credit to Marco Reus, by by the way because he comes on late he almost scores on a second touch yeah probably wish he had that chance back but he to no end pressured everything the Red Bulls did where basically the Galaxy dropped 10 players behind the ball and Royce was the only player near midfield and he pressed the two center backs or whoever was in the back that were playing long balls and knocking it around he pressed them time and time again just knowing

he wasn't going to make any effect but like i have to go and close down and he did it back and forth and back and forth that's a guy who's played in the bundesliga played in champions league finals came here on a tam deal like that's how committed he is and obviously as he said after they are fucking champs and that was a legendary moment at the uh at the parade ceremony thing the day after the game that happened yesterday that uh we will talk about let's talk pain still here because i think a lot i mean i know on friday right we said and i said all week i think peck's gonna be the mvp of this game if the galaxy win. Peck had played at that level. Ricky Pooj is out.

You're looking for someone to lead you. And I thought Peck was good in the game. But Payne still scores the goal. And from the moment he scored the goal, he was on. And he was aggressive. I thought he should have gotten a yellow card and Dylan Neal this early with his turn. But everything for him was north-south. Everything for him was north south everything for

him was attacking the guys in front of him coming inside being a menace being a demon and it's not that we don't know he's this player because he's been this player all year but he has quietly played second and third fiddle for large stretches of this season he was good enough to be the match winner in MLS Cup he knew he was good enough to do that. And at a time when his team needed it, he's the one who stepped up. Like, Brugman won MVP, deserved, that's great. I think I'm going to think back about this game, and I'm going to think about the Joseph Paintsdale game. I agree. And so, yes, Gabriel Peck really came on the second half of the season. He's been incredible, and that's why all the focus is on him. Joseph Paintsdale, when they were assigned, Joseph Paintsdale was the sure thing and again he was really really good this season don't get it

twisted it's just gabriel peck was out of his mind so these two were awesome but paint still came at in prime came from uh europe where he had several years of success at different clubs this was the safer bet this was what we we thought okay immediately this is going to be an absolute star next to pooch peck should be too but we'll see it's a young player come to mls like who knows how quickly it'll work out so pain still it's almost as if we forgot about how incredibly good this player is and how well he fits within this team the two of them were absolute menaces i think i tweeted in the first half or early second half, Gabriel Peck's nutmeg counter was at least five. He was just out of control.

Anytime that he touched the ball, he was trying to make somebody, and he usually was. Those are just nightmares to defend. And so going back even to the midfield choices is that the bet, as you said, was we need to value winning the second ball more than we need, say, another creative outlet. Because what we're going to do is just we're going to we're going to go from deeper in central midfield and then go to go to our wingers whenever we can. And it worked really, really well. And those two players are absolute stars that can carry a team. Again, Ricky Pooch is so centrally dominant to what the Galaxy want to do.

And it's a good thing. want ricky pooch on the ball as much as possible but in this game you saw that oh like in a different team if joseph painso had to be the guy that were forcing balls to him at every chance he could be gabriel peck could also be that like this team has an embarrassment of riches in attack that the defense just needed to needed to be just good enough. And after Amiro Garces got into the starting lineup, they were there. Because his transition defense ability to recover was what kind of set the team apart, which made them much less vulnerable going, again, in defensive transition more than anything else. Set piece is still an issue.

As we saw, that's where the Red Bulls got their goal on. And they looked like they were going to score any time that they cleared the first man on a set piece. But in the end, the Galaxy did just enough to hold them off. And the Red Bulls' valiant fight at the end, it looks like a couple times, like, oh my god, they're going to go an extra time. Oh my god, they're going to keep this up. Because 13 minutes in, we looked at each other and said, it is much more likely this game ends 4-5-0 at the moment.

That was the feeling. It's like, oh, Red Bulls, this was fun, but their game is predicated on not chasing the game their game is predicated on set pieces transition and defending really well down to no you can't do much of that i think i said to you after cornell let the chance in like uh-oh and then after the second goal i was like did we just hit midnight and red Bulls turned into a pumpkin? And then I think, thanks. And then Edelman ends up heading a defending free kick off the crossbar in the 20th minute that would have made it 3-0 to the Galaxy. And right after that is when Niles and Isla swap positions. A few minutes after that, they score the goal.

And then from 2-1 on, I don't think I have ever seen as dramatic a switch in an MLS Cup as that. Like, we have had closer games where 20-22, you know, Philly scores, LAFC scores. But it was even throughout, and it was whoever took those chances. It wasn't Philly's out of the game, now Gosdod gets a goal, and all of a sudden they're back in the game. And we have, for the most part, seen a team get up in MLS Cup

and, like, kind of cruise out. Columbus last year, Seattle in 2019, TFC in 2017, Atlanta in 2018. Those have been most of the MLS Cups. They're either tight or one team, once they take that lead, they cruise. I can't remember one that shifted in a way in which this game ends and I'm saying if Red Bulls score, they're winning this thing in extra time. From 2-0 down and completely out of it to 2-1, and if they get the second, I think they're going extra time

and going to win this thing, which is absolutely wild to think of and to do it on the road and do it the way they did it. Let's start with the goal, by the way. Because on the goal, if you go back and watch this thing, Maya Yoshida's clearance that leads to the goal is one of the best touches in this game. He literally like acrobatically flicks it on

from inside his own six to get it away. But it's Sean Nealis who challenges on the second ball to keep it alive in the box. And then it's Sean Nealis who takes it down and hits the goal of his life.

And Sean Nealis now for the rest of his life is an MLS Cup goal scorer. Shout out Massapequa on that one. Yeah, that was again again they fought back and then to your point there's a couple moments fords were get the post in the second half and then the one that keeps sticking with me maybe it was because of the angle that we had it at there was this kind of a scramble in the box in second half stoppage time and fordsburg was kind of his

weight was on like his left foot and he was leaning towards his left the ball kind of ricocheted spilled to him and if his weight was on the other foot he's he's got an open shot from six yards out it just it was like so painfully close it went by him and i think that was when like the ball goes out he just kind of dropped to his knees like oh my god like that was the moment so again full credit to the red bulls for fighting back i want to get into what do you want to do first the our stories and stuff from the celebrations and everything from being in the locker room after the game or do you want to talk about kind of how this roster came together first real quick before we do that oh for two so i want to i want to yeah yeah third option

uh i want to say one isla and harper had two huge chances on free kicks as well as you mentioned um i just want to say shouts to the performance the decision from from Sandro Swartz to finally swap Niles and Isla, and then the performances from those two guys. Because Niles was dominant in center back, what they needed. Stepping forward, no nonsense. I'm going to win anything that's near me. Nothing goes through me, even though he's not as clean in possession and can't really pass out of that spot.

And then no Isla. All of a sudden it's Steven Marrera where he's like, oh, you're going to give me space. I'm going to step into this. I can hit huge switches to Harper if I need to. I could dribble by guys. He underlapped on John Tolkien at one point and got himself into the left-hand spot.

So I know it was a tough game for him. I thought you saw all the positives of him as the game went along, and that was the reason that the Red Bulls had their opportunities and Forsberg should have scored. And, like, that's the bet. The bet is Emil Forsberg is so good that we get in these spots. He finishes. He takes advantage.

Lewis Morgan had a quiet game. Van Zier had a quiet game. The Red Bulls were not in this game for 30 minutes. And then once they got into it, they looked really, really dangerous and really, really good as it went along. Let's go. So you want to talk. So let's talk celebrations first. Okay.

And then we can talk roster. Ricky Pooch main character energy. You wouldn't have known he didn't play. He deserved the celebration. He was fun as hell on the field in the locker room. By the end, when it was winding down, there were three players left in the locker room. Two of them were Ricky Pooch and Diego Fagundes.

And Ricky Pooch looks at Diego Fagundes. And with a smile, he points at the empty beer bucket. And then jumps in with a cigar. And then Diego Fagundes just wheels him out as Ricky Pooch waves bye to people. That was delightful. And if that was his only moment... He put in a championship performance in the locker room, let me tell you that. If that was his only moment, that's a good game. That's still a seven out of

10. He, we had him blowing O's with a cigar. Ricky, I was not familiar with your game on that front. He was a lot of spraying, a lot of fun. Like the first before, before us written media were allowed in the, in the locker room as like the players are kind of coming in from a different way. I hear John McCarthy go in and he'll just go go somebody get me some bleeping beer and then uh apple tv had a camera in there and somebody sent uh kayla our guy kayla pongrad sent us a screenshot from the broadcast of john mccarthy still with his gloves on of course holding like i don't know 102 beers in his arms and so he very quickly got the beers but um a lot of dudes a lot of dudes getting beer poured on them marco royce when he was doing some media he was about to answer like a

question and i think it was diego vagundes who walked up behind him and just pours an entire mclob ultra down his back and like marcos ah it's cold it's cold it's cold and then i think some of my other favorite moments from the locker room was. Wait, let me just throw this in there for anyone listening to Tom and being like, weird. Sounds like Diego Fagundes was pretty involved as well. Diego Fagundes was pulling the strings as the central force of post-game celebrations. That was also an elite performance from Diego Fagundes. That was. Another guy, shout out to our guy Johnny Nelson.

John Nelson was one of the dudes. Absolutely high usage rate in the locker room celebrations. He in there he was in there for the long haul you were not subbing him off early in those celebrations so they were bringing it we got a lot of good videos photos and stuff some of the other guys like oh mark delgado was another one he was great his voice was absolutely gone when and like i think he was being really really nice about anybody who wants to ask me questions and like yeah I'll take because some guys just he rightly. He also don't want to talk. I want to celebrate with my he also.

And I don't know how people saw this on TV or what happened. He went down with a shoulder injury, basically on the final play of the game. And he's yeah. And he started crying. And in the postgame, he said, I was crying because of the emotion of winning. But also my shoulder does really hurt but it's not so bad that i was crying and then he'd be like but also it does really hurt like he wanted everyone to understand he could be crying because his shoulder hurts but that's not

why he's crying so he's in pure jubilee i don't like i i didn't understand the gravity of that of that moment of like his shoulder because like he he goes, yeah, man, we gave it all. I gave everything I had. I did everything I could. And he goes, excuse my. And I think he had done enough interviews that he was just kind of past trying to finesse some of the words. He goes, excuse my language. My shoulder is fucked.

Yeah. He said that a couple times. Oh, did he? So maybe. So he was just, I got him in reruns. But real quick, I'm just running this out. it's just you know sentence after sentence that doesn't always have to do it it's just like notebook style here just giving you all my thoughts um the two others that i thought was was what were fun was joseph paints hill is sitting in front of his locker

and they have the tarps up so that stuff doesn't get in your locker. He FaceTimed with somebody. I think he was just kind of on his phone. And I see he's holding a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I swear to God. And I was like, you're such a legend. And I want to live in this moment forever. But then I was like, sorry, do you mind answering a question or two? And he did because he's a good guy.

And then there was Gabriel Peck. I didn't know if the emotion overcame him because he was sitting on a table kind of by himself in the corner and he had done a lot of media before this too but a lot of dudes are like running around screaming like getting celebrate like that and like i think gabriel peck made sure to take a moment sitting by himself and like he kind of had his head down his head in his hands and like that was really cool to see it's like like the weight of this moment and everything else so those are all the ones that came to mind for me david goss you were also in the locker room getting in the mix on the front lines getting you know sprayed with mcglobe ultras just like the rest of us what were your favorite moments uh all pretty much a lot of the same mark delgado was awesome like so friendly so much time but also like you could feel the like calm happiness for him

and he he gave some quote about home depot center and like once i heard that i was like bro i am locked in right now reminder this is a chivas usa homegrown yeah who has now gone about his career away and came back and he got to win mls cup for a second time under Greg Vanney. Like, all of that was so cool to see. Gaston Bruggemann, the end of his MVP performance was, I don't know if you saw this on social media or whatever, Ricky Pooj runs onto the field postgame to celebrate, and he's limping because he just tore his ACL. And Gaston's like, forget this.

And he throws Ricky on his back, and he carries Ricky around for, like, the next 10 minutes. Also, Ricky Pooj probably weighs about 75 pounds, so pounds so it's like not the worst thing in the world and gas stone just being like bro i had you in the 90 minutes i got you now as well um which was legendary so so so sorry and uh i'm remiss ricky pooch started the day in a suit he looked incredible and then slowly he had his jersey on. And then by the time they were lifting the trophy, he had tracksuit pants on. And I don't know if the outfit change was planned or not, but he went from 9 to 5 to works over, let's party, boys.

Sorry. Yeah. And shouts to Landon Donovan, who I thought was fantastic all day. He wore the Ricky Poo's jersey out to carry the trophy out. And then Ricky ends up showing up on Sunday to the ceremony in a Landon Donovan jersey, which is just like a cool thing about this club that this is a club with history and it matters. And all of these people are a part of it. So all of that was really cool.

Greg Vanney is an unbelievable quote when you get him on topics that he wants to talk about now. And a lot of what he wants to talk about is the future of MLS, the development of MLS, where it's come. He is obviously a local. He is someone who has seen the galaxy for a long time. He has seen this league for a long time. He was fascinating to listen to post game about just like what they've accomplished, how they've accomplished it, how they've got here. And so I thought that was all really fun to listen to. And like, he's done something special.

I think what Bruce and Caleb Porter are the two that have won at multiple clubs. Right. Suppose. Yeah. I threw that out you out of nowhere, but I think that's the case because Bob didn't win MLS Cup with LAFC. So what Greg Vanney's done is not assumed,

and it's not something that has always occurred. It wasn't easy. You put up a tweet with the depth chart and showed all the moves they've made under Will Koontz. There are some really good hits that were under Greg Vanney because he was basically the sporting director for a while. There were also a lot of misses that they had to rebuild. And I think credit to Greg Vanney to be humble enough to have Will Koontz come

in and help him get to where he wanted to get and not say, no, no, no, I don't want to listen to someone else. I'm the guy and like, this is my territory and this is my space. And then credit to him. And I think I said this on Friday, he has built great teams in different ways. He's built great teams in different ways because he understands I have to get the best out of my talent the way

they play, not the way I play. This is his dream team. If anyone goes back and looks at those Toronto FC teams, they signed winger after winger because he wanted wide play and the reality was that the team was built through the central in Bradley, Josie, and Jovinko. Bradley was already there before he took over. Jovinko was as well. And

he leaned into it and he figured out how to win with it. Then he came to the Galaxy and he worked with the pieces he had until eventually it's this team now. But to have one MLS Cup in different styles and different ways is a testament to him. And it was really cool to see him get to enjoy it after and enjoy bringing the Galaxy back and putting them back where they him. And it was really cool to see him get to enjoy it after and enjoy bringing the Galaxy back and like putting them back where they belong. And everyone post-game had to say like, the Galaxy are back, we own this, all that stuff. Which, true or not true, I don't know.

But that post-game celebration on Sunday looks like they are back. Like to pack out a parking lot in LA, which is all LA is, so you don't really have many choices. To pack it out, to have Joe Payne still doing blessings live, to have Ricky just take over emceeing and be like, I'm the captain of this ship now. And a lot of other parts that went down in this, I think Ricky said, I'm here for life,

which is, I don't know'm actual legally binding that moment is but if it's feels like a positive cut back to i don't not comparing ricky pooch to carrie irving but the first thing that comes to mind is carrie saying yeah i'm resigning to like the crowd that all cheers and then like two weeks later he goes i want to leave yeah so it's not legally binding but i believe him i believe him much more than i believe carrie hervey i would i would feel that way as well um if it was me i think two a few things are really exciting about this win one is will coon said on this show a few weeks ago possession is back baby columbus did it last year galaxy does it this year it is a copycat league it used to be copycat

uh pressing yeah i know it is now copycat possession houston dynamo last year it's not a guarantee it's not 100 but i think we are in a really good place right now that there is a model to follow for teams to say, if I want to win, I could build it that way. Because I think as neutrals and fans, I think it puts the league in a really fun place going forward where you're going to have at least some teams to try and build this possession style. And I hope the other part that comes out of this is teams say, oh, also, we should go spend $10 million on wingers from the Belgian League and from Brazil

and all these other things. And the Ricky Pooj moves of like, shoot your shot. Try and get into the 11th through 15th player at a young age on some of these biggest clubs in the world and see if there's a central piece that you could find. LA is obviously unique as a city. And so they're going to have advantage for someone like Ricky Pooj to say yeah i'll live in la hollywood that's all cool but like this league is a copycat league and i think we are in for a really good time that the last two

champions are teams that other clubs are going to go try and mimic i like this take and optimistically um it is very aesthetic to watch this play um i wouldn't go as far as to say bank copycat does what everybody has to do because the philadelphia union aren't putting out 20 million dollars to sign joseph baines and gabriel peck and that's more of the if you're a team that spends well you have the chance to do this but it is really hard to do it in a salary cap league. A lot of the best possession based teams in the world, they are outspending all of their opponents.

So yeah, like both things can be true in that it's a smart tactical philosophy, but it's one, you can't do it if you're at a, at a deficit spend. Let me say it this way. If you are Greg Berhalter and this is how you want to play, you now have example one to hand to your owner and say,

believe me, if we do this, it's not impossible to win this way. And not every person in this league, not every CSO and coach wants that, but the ones that do now have the ammo to say we can do it this way and win no that's a good point too but but for me like I just I just kind of wouldn't blanket it that way because hell you even look at the way that LAFC won their trophy in 22 like that was a team that

went from possession to counterattacking or trans or maybe not counterattacking maybe it's a little bit too far but transition based that's where their best chances are being created you look at Philadelphia Union they dominated MLS for five years or whatever. That was all transition and pressing. NYCFC, they played better soccer, say, under Dyla than Cushing, but I don't think that this is going to be a be-all, end-all because then the other side of that, too, is, okay, then if 12 teams are trying to play like this,

the value of the possession based players go up and then you need to find the next edge you need to find the next way that you can get value on your team so i'm fascinated by that too but all right and now i want to talk about how this team was built because this is the driving force again everything has to work in tandem the front office the coaching staff the players everything else but this team was in a really bad way for a long time because it was more about trying to just sign names or sign good players without any consideration as to how does this player fit with not just all the players, but particularly our best players. Ricky Pooch. That's where we're starting point is.

So when Will Kunz took over and I'm writing kind of a feature on how this was all built. So I'm going to use some quotes from that. And he was like, yeah, we obviously wanted to build around Ricky. And with our two DP spots, like Joseph Paints and Gabriel Peck, even the guys that they didn't sign, one, it's you need to be able to run off the ball. You need to be able to be goal dangerous to everything else that Joseph Paints and Gabriel Peck are. He said even the targets that we either bid for and didn't sign or some guys like, all of them were like this. But also, we made sure that everybody was competitive as hell.

And I think that was another backbone to it. So the two wingers were the two most important signs. If they get those wrong, they don't get to MLS Cup, no matter how good they do around the margins, because you need your best players to be your best players. Those two players are who really pushed it in MLS Cup, as we talked about for the beginning of the show. Obviously, Ricky Pooch brought them there. It sounds simple.

It sounds obvious, but it is worth congratulating. You built a team with a plan, with profiles that make sense with your the coach wants to play possession let's do it like that and we're going to build around ricky bushman and do all that so the starting point there is they knocked it out of the park on peck and pain so and they put up the money required to get it the other ones maya yoshida comes in he came in as a free agent and that came after their transfer ban and they were only allowed to start signing players who were free agents

after the window closed Maya Yoshida I think has been really good Mickey Amane excellent signing this winter excellent excellent excellent he kind of went under the radar because he's a right back

and we're not like locked in say on the Japanese league but this guy was a winner this is a guy who fit the team really well then you kind of go further down the roster

John McCarthy had two teams calling him this winter the LA Galaxy Philadelphia Union but this guy was a winner. This is a guy who fit the team really well. Then you kind of go further down the roster. John McCarthy had two teams calling him this winter. The LA Galaxy and Philadelphia Union. Philadelphia Union, he would have been a backup. LA Galaxy, he was coming in to at least compete for the job. So this wasn't like a highly sought after, this was a no-brainer free agent, though, again, I think that he should have been.

John Nelson is another one. He was at St. Louis. They had bad talks. He was playing well, I thought, was having contract talks. Those talks went sideways. All of a sudden, he's on the bench for the rest of the season. He's a free agent. He wasn't exactly the top of the market free agent. He ends up winning a starting spot over Julian Alde, and he was really, really good in the final. Edwin Cerrillo. I don't really know why the fc dallas didn't want to keep him but part of that trade was i think it was 50k up front and then like whatever the final number was if it was like 400 000 all of it was predicate all those add-ons were if you would sign up so like this was a guy

that even dallas were like i don't even know if it's gonna happen right so this team was just built so smart so well and they both and foremost, hit those star signings that fit within the structure and could carry the team. But you look at Cerrio, you look at John Nelson, you look at John McCarthy, you look at Amiro Garces. And one of the things that Will was saying about him, he's like, look, obviously they're not all going to hit, but they kind of all hit.

And Garces was someone who they really liked his physical gifts, they really liked his potential. But it's like, hey, man, you never know, right? Like sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes the players don't adapt, but sometimes it takes a while. And he was as important as anybody else into this cup winning team. So from top to bottom, the way that this team was built is what drove them to win MLS Cup for me.

I completely agree with you. And I think some of the things in there as well, because, you know, some of the terms, for example, profile is a term like in the soccer world, someone will say like profile, that means like what type of player and how, what do they do? But it also is for our conversation as well. Like, okay, where does it also fit in your team for example Jonathan Bond getting paid what he did at his position in MLS doesn't fit the profile of how you build a great team at his performance level so they reset that profile and found a guy in John McCarthy that they knew could be effective but also would give them license to spend in other positions. And then you go to the profiles of Garces just being the right fit alongside Yoshida. You had

Yoshida in place. What could you do to make his life easier? What could you do to make that parent? The reason Garces available is because he doesn't naturally do a lot of center back stuff. Doyle sent us this during the game. He is one of the lowest in the league for center backs at aerial 50-50s one and crosses cleared. So he doesn't do the dominant center back stuff, but Yoshida does all that. But Yoshida can't chase over the top anymore. And Mickey Imani is going to play higher. And so Gar says the right signing for you to come into this team and make a difference. So you had a lot of pieces like that that made

sense and i just went back and looked at the the 2022 playoff team just to see and it's a lot of similar signings that weren't the right piece in the right place right the raheem edwards of the world the kelvin leardams of the world the sega coolie bollies very similar profile to signing amaya yoshida of a europe European player who was available and open. And can we just get it done now? A lot of those were the right ideas in spaces, but just not the right people because of the fits or because of the salary cap hit and how it made it harder for them to play with better talent around them and stuff. And they've nailed a lot of that this time. And they put it all together.

I want to give one line from Gregreg vanney about john mccarthy post game uh someone was asked about like why him for this team and he basically gave this line where he said he doesn't give a shit what people think about what he does and his point in it was saying even if ricky pooch is like like if john mccarthy gets the ball and decides, I'm going to play this long. And Ricky Pooj turns and says, no, play my feet. John McCarthy is going to say, no, I don't really care, dude. And like Greg Vanney made it sound like that was something he was looking for from that position to have someone with just like the goal to play the position the way they felt they should play it. And John McCarthy's long ball is

what leads to the second ball for the goal second goal like red bulls pushed high and he said yeah i'm not wasting my time with this and he slices a goal kick long um into the opposition half neilis wins the first header knocked down to delgado and boom it's in jovilich's feet and he's gone and i'll take the mea culpa on this. Like I said, John McCarthy wasn't good enough to be a starting goalkeeper for an MLS Cup contender. I thought he struggled in the CCL run for LAFC and I thought he's good, but he's not great. He was great this year and he was great in big moments

and he was great for this team and he was the exact guy they needed. And shout out to, I'm pretty sure, someone wearing a Harrisburg City Islanders, John McCarthy neon jersey at the game. I assume that person's last name is also McCarthy and they're related. But if not, even more legendary. And if they are, congrats.

And I hope you enjoyed it. But as you said, this team was put together, you know, all of these little moves that were the right moves at the time. And it wasn't about winning MLS cup. It was about making smart moves over and over to continue to grow your talent base and grow your depth. It's not just that Ricky Pooj was hurt. It's like the way a salary cap league is built. You lose a DP. Look at the Red Bulls.

They lost a meal Forsberg and they went on like a 12 game win list street. So to have a Gaston Bruggeman and an Edwin Cerrio and a Mark Delgado and a Diego Fagundes and a Marco Reus in depth so that you can still win games just goes to the credit. And shout out to the front office and the coaching staff for not saying, Julian Aude has to be in the team. We spent money on this guy. Like, this guy has to play. John Nelson won that spot over him after an injury and it never went back. And he was that final piece that kept the game moving and did his job

and all that type of stuff. A lot of stuff to be excited about for the galaxy. They're not going away. It'll be interesting now in MLS, whatever we're in 4.0, 5.0, 6.0. What does a smart, intelligent, well-run LA Galaxy look like? Is it bigger than, can it be on the levels of Atlanta at its peak? Can it be on a level within LAFC at its peak? Can it be on what Columbus has done, right? Can this be a team that consistently now contends in CONCACAF? Can they go to a club World Cup? Can they set records and, you know,

put together a complete team? Because the galaxy of the past did that in a different era. And so what do they look like in the modern era is going to be really fun to watch. I want to real quick here, just mentioned the Red Bulls. As I said, I thought they played incredibly well. I thought it's hard to say this at an MLS cup, but they, I think should leave this game feeling like a lot of positives happened in the fact that they got hit with this crazy curve ball. They were out of it and they finished MLS cup as the better team on the field for run of play from the 12th minute on until the end. And that sucks. And that's not what it's about. But in the grand scheme of you were a seven seed at Sandro Schwartz's

first year, you've already signed Chopa Moting, whether that's good or bad. It sounds like some other pieces might be around on the horizon. Like, I think there should be a ton of hope for Red Bull fans and the Red bulls that they are on their way in a positive direction yeah so so the red bulls they will sign eric uh maxim 12 motang uh that's done i don't know the roster designation yet uh they are finalizing a deal i believe was the last update i got on the chilean international fullback marcella morales they were finalizing a deal for a polish uh 20 year old center forward from the second division, the guy that they tried to sign in the summer. So these are the additions that are coming right now. I still hope that there's going to be a bigger signing. I still hope that,

like, my understanding is Felipe Carbajo doesn't have to be a DP next year. He's on loan until the summer. So I don't know what would happen with a purchase option after that. So if they're going to be active with that designated player spot or not, but we talked about it in the last shows. And again, I keep on repeating myself because it's how we feel. And then I think is, is obvious is sign another player like that, like Forsberg.

Again, they tried with Van Zier, didn't work out, but a player in that range, even if five minutes, it doesn't have to be like this huge name of email Forsberg, just take another big swing so that if, and when Forsberg isn't going to play 3,000 minutes, that the season doesn't crater.

So, Joe Pomoteng, do you think that he's that player? I don't think he's that player. And so I think salary is going to matter a lot on this, which is like, okay, if he wants to pull a Marco Reus and like come for a little more, Reus is probably a bad example. But like, if he's like, yeah, I want to live in New York. I've already made enough money. Fine. A piece as a rotation.

Great. As a DP. No. Now, if Carbazzo comes off the books as a DP and you sign another legitimate chance creator, I think you could be really dangerous. I'm not sure where that is.

And honestly, looking at this team, if you sign a legitimate attacking piece that plays similar not similar to for us we're in a similar area does lewis morgan become a wingback like where is the last or is van zier just out of the starting lineup like because think about it i would say that yeah because it's not because it's going to be edelman and carbaggio it's going to be forsberg it's going to be then you've got two striker positions, and if you're playing the same setup as this year, then you've got two wingbacks.

And like, we saw Luis Morgan get pushed out wide the end of this game, and someone reminded me coming up leading into this week that he was like a true winger at Inter-Miami before he got to the Red Bulls. He has now been a double-digit goal scorer two straight times. That seems like a hard sell,

but like, those would be champagne problems to have for a Red Bulls team. That's never had that problem before to have question marks, but I would like to see it be a bit more of a central attacking piece for them to go with because you've knocked it out of the park on the back line. Like you are saving money in the fact that you have legitimate starting center backs on good contracts. Cornell another year on a really good contract. He's on 550 a year.

Like for what you got in the playoffs, unbelievable. You have some really good deals. And then the last piece is we don't know John Tolkien's future. I think you've mentioned the rumors around Marco Morales, 21-year-old Ude Chile, left back. And so if that's the replacement because Tolkien is headed to Germany or whatever, you assume that that's coming with somewhat of a profit. And how can the Red Bulls reinvest that going forward?

True. Yeah. So the talks last over the summer for Tolkien were, I believe it was going to be a loan with a purchase obligation if the German club didn't get relegated. And I'd like the purchase numbers I was hearing was like between three and four I think if I remember again we were joking that you asked me about who was the Chilean left back that the Red Bulls are about to sign that I reported a week and a half ago and I was like I don't remember so I need to search it so I believe it was between three and four and that sounds right to me for John Token but again

this uh Marcelo Morales like this is a looks to be a sour and intolerable player. He's got two caps with Chile. I think this would be a really good signing based on his profile and everything else. And again, that has to be Tolkien insurance. I assume that. I know that he was ready to go in the summer. The bid came after the MLS transfer window closed. So I don't blame the Red Bulls for not doing it.

But I think if you reset and an offer comes this winter for Tolkien, it's time to go. Yeah, I don't... i'm gonna reserve judgment on the troppo motang signing until i hear more about his roster designation or how much salary if he's a cory burke replacement if he's 500k i'm good cory burke yeah fine you didn't get much out of him that's fine if he is considered a big piece i would love it i would almost love it agree if he's a big piece, then you're in a lot of trouble. That's been Red Bull's history. The hope is that that is different now.

They paid for 2,200 fans and staff and everything to come to LA. They had this big moment. Like, can you spur that Mario Gomez in the building, baby? Let's go. Like, be inspired and push it even further. Don't sit with it. Let me close this segment out with this. And then we're going to dig into all of the stuff that's going on today

that you've been reporting on. It came to my attention yesterday. The last three MLS Cup winners did not make the postseason the year before. So the Galaxy missed the playoffs last year. Columbus missed the playoffs two years ago, fired Caleb Porter, hired Wilfred Nance. LAFC missed the playoffs two years ago fired caleb porter hired wilfred nance lafc missed the playoffs four years ago fired bob bradley hired steve trundle one mls cup that means that one of dc united toronto philadelphia union nashville new england chicago Chicago, Austin, Dallas, St. Louis, SKC, or San Jose are your 2025 MLS Cup champions. Which one of those are you putting on the trophy?

I still don't even have a good guess. I want you to go first, and I want to see if you can win me over with your argument. Okay. I don't feel great about any of these, if I'm being honest. I don't feel great about any of these, if I'm being honest. I don't feel great about any of these definitely making the playoffs. So the one thing about those three clubs, but mainly the Columbus and LAFCs was Columbus was two years removed from winning MLS Cup. LAFC was two years removed from winning a supporter shield. The Galaxy are a reemergence of a dynasty, but hadn't been as successful over the last few years.

None of these teams really, outside of Philly, are the, they were great, it was a one-year blip, and they are back. I find it hard to believe that post-Jim Curtin, Philadelphia is just going to bounce back. But in this model, they are probably the most obvious one to say, can they get back to what they were? Unless you want to throw the revs in there and say 2021 supporter shield, which could be another one in all of this. So I don't feel good about any of this is my point. And I think because of that,

I'm just going to swing big and i'm gonna say chicago you bastard i was about to say you told me to go first i know but i thought that like then when you i was like okay you're saying philly i'm just gonna disagree and i'm gonna come with a good one and i'm gonna win him over uh but you talked yourself into a chicago fire so the upside play here is the open dp spot They're going to spend a ton of money. I've heard some targets, and I don't always know if it's true or not. The latest targets I'm hearing are much more encouraging than the first ones. It's kind of how it works.

We're talking Chicago here. It's not expected. Talking Chicago here. Also, reminder, Greg Berhalter, the last time he coached an MLS game was MLS Cup. No, sorry, Eastern Conference Finals. What are you talking about? Yeah, my bad. Red Bull Arena. I was in the press conference room that day. Lowercase J, sorry. Eastern Conference Finals. What are you talking about? Yeah, my bad. Red Bull Arena.

I was in the press conference room that day. Lowercase j, journalist. Yeah, so I would say Chicago because they have what is an established, experienced MLS manager that is well-respected coming in and that they can kind of turn it around. They do have Hugo Kuipers. They do have Brian Gutierrez. They have Kellen Okosa.

Some pieces around the team that I like. And then the idea is if you can hopefully use a buyout, say, on Gasol Jimenez, maybe you bring in two DBs. Maybe you just spend a lot of money, and that could happen. New England, same thing with the players there. But I will say I think St. Louis are going to be good next year. I just don't trust the way that they play to make an MLS Cup run. But I think out of the Western Conference teams, that's the one that I was looking for. Yeah, St. Louis is the team right now that

finished in a way in which if you extrapolate what they were summer on out next season, they are a good team. They are a contender. I do actually wonder if in the returning to greatness, are we going to count Austin's second place finish in the uh finals two years ago for a roster they are currently tearing themselves apart because they do not like it i want everyone's answer on this and we're going to come back to this one on thursday and see what other people said and what other fans are out out there said but i will say this for all those fan bases congratulations on your 2025 mls cup trophy one of them's gonna get it so you might as well throw it out there uh let me say this before we dig into the half trade window

state of the league was on friday uh at dignity health sport spark we didn't really talk about it because it wasn't super interesting there wasn't much that came out of it um a lot of people want to talk about apple tv numbers and mls wants to tell you that it's great and they're not sure. And that's all you're going to get from them. There was some conversation about looking at the schedule. Nothing concrete. There was a comment saying nothing massive changing and spending coming, which I think was frustrating for a lot of fans and should be going into the 2026 World Cup. We didn't get details on what that means.

We're going to learn about that and talk about it more. U.S. Open Cup, it was mentioned by Don Garber that they will play in the U.S. Open Cup. We don't know what capacity. And I think the most interesting thing right now that I'm pulling and sort of guessing at is Leagues Cup. I think Don's comments were something like we want more games between MLS and League MX. I think the point of that is not having a group stage where two MLS teams are in the same group playing each other. If I had to guess making this up completely, I bet you it's a set bracket 18 teams, MLS versus League MX in every single matchup to start and

either two legs or single elimination to go from there. And that's what it becomes. But we have no idea and we'll continue to figure out as it goes along and talk about it. Let's dig into our half day trade window. This window exists because the expansion draft is on Wednesday. So I believe the expansion draft is 10 30 PM Eastern time because it's happening in San Diego. Uh, the expansion draft list will come out tomorrow on Tuesday. That will give us an idea of who teams are protecting. San Diego is going to take five players, every team that has a player taken. Then they are exempt after that. You can't take two from the same team, and you get 50K for each player. I came into this sort of being like, oh, expansion drafts don't matter,

and you're not going to get good players. Then I went back and reminded myself on the last few, and St. Louis did well. 2022, they got Nico Giacconi. I can't even talk right now. Joey Canes. Joe Akini. Work through it. Keep shooting. Indy Vasilev, John Bell, John Nelson, and Jake LaCava.

So Indy Vasilev, good piece. John Nelson just started an MLS Cup final. John Bell started in the Western Conference final, not as a full-time starter. And Joe Akini, they got money for. 2021, Charlotte, their actually best part of their draft was they took Tristan Blackman and Ismael Tajeri-Shradi knowing they were going to trade them. They ended up getting 875K for those two guys, which isn't bad. And then 2020 was a tough one for Austin.

Their top pick was to trade Kamal Miller for 225K and a super draft pick that became Freddie Kleeman, legend, in place of Kamal Miller. Otherwise, they didn't do a ton with it. So we'll have your coverage on Thursday after the Super Draft to start to see what San Diego is putting together. You've already broken news about San Diego over the last few days. Yeah, so I'll get that out of the way. So they've acquired the rights to Chris McVay from D.C. United. His contract office has declined. It was $50K.

That's a good, I guess, debt feast or whatever. As you're filling out your roster, all these guys aren't going to be brought in to start. They also acquired Tomas Angel from LAFC in exchange for $200K in GAM and a second-round Super Draft pick. I low-key really like this play because that's a roll of the dice that it doesn't... They have a ton of

allocation money like other expansion teams do. That doesn't kill you if it doesn't work out. And this is a kid who was really talented with the Colombian youth national team. He's the son of Juan Pablo Angel. He got signed to LAFC, and he didn't quite work there. He was on loan to Phoenix Rising. Some Phoenix Rising fans have said he wasn't very good there,

which could be a concern. But again, a really talented young player for $200,000 in game, I would sign up for that anytime. I want to talk about the expansion draft too, Goss. My thoughts on this are teams mostly have been using this as let's get players 14 to 18 on or even 18 to 25 of like supplemental pieces honestly like so you kind of go back to the charlotte one what they did they traded two of those picks um that's that's going to be something that's really enticing for uh san diego i'm assuming they'll trade one i don't know that for certain but i do know they're getting calls about when people are trying to figure out

who's being protected who's being unprotected so that's what what like and what charlotte did as well like they did mckenzie gains because he was going to count not as a senior roster slot so that's what you need to look at here rather than like so we're going to see the unexpected list and you're going to be like oh what if you could throw i don't know let's say julian gressel he's left unprotected by miami oh like that'd be a great signing and like i think that would be but teams haven't used it so i don't we don't know exactly if what san diego is going to do but the recent history would tell you that it's more about depth here's the one thing that's interesting and maybe maybe this Tomas Angel move blows this up,

but in what we just said, it is normally because clubs don't have academies built yet, and so they don't have homegrowns to sign, and they don't have a history of signing minimum roster players that they've built into their roster that they like. So normally they try and fill those pieces because they're like, if I'm going to pay a starter, I want to go out and pay that starter myself. Except you have a club here with Right to Dream that is going to look very different. And I do wonder if it is the Chris McVees of the world

that they end up trying to say, can we find spots 10 through 14 of MLS experience here because that's not what we're going to have. That was my one thought. Then they went and traded $200,000 allocation for Tomas Anel, and you're like, never mind. Maybe they're just going to go draft five kids from another team. I will say I think any homegrown under the age of 25 is automatically protected,

so it makes that harder. Correct. So you end up getting guys who are either signings from MLS Next Pro in USL or former draft picks for other teams. Yes? I will also say that there are going to be backroom deals, handshakes of

hey, we'll give you this international roster slot for much cheaper than it should be. Can you promise not to take any of our players? So watch out for that in the trades today. I do know that they have I don't know what's been announced, what hasn't, but I do know that they were getting a couple international slots.

Don't know from where, but I would say, I can't say this definitively because it can't be written definitively. All it can be is, I promise not to take one of your players. So watch out for that. Somebody said when I reported the Chris McVie trade,

they were like, oh, it's 50K. That's how much you would get if somebody took, like that must be, they won't take a DC player. like i don't like that the the opportunity the opportunity to exempt yourself is much more expensive than a player that you declined the rights for so what i would say is those are the ones to look at and say oh let's say if it's seattle get a couple or trade a couple international slots that's where i would look rather than that and one last point in the expansion draft we don't have the yet, but look at the really good teams.

Look at the deep teams. You think of Columbus, you think of the LA Galaxy, you think of LAFC, you think of Inter Miami. How do you, you're going to have to leave a good player unprotected. And it's about the gamesmanship of figuring out, all right, I don't want to lose, let's say Christian Ramirez. I don't want to lose Christian Ramirez, but is he expensive enough and maybe veteran enough that they won't take him?

Rather than say, all right, maybe, yeah, Chris Ramirez is going to play a lot more minutes than somebody else that we might protect, but that person might have more value. I think with Charlotte,

it was like Nico Ladero got left open by Seattle and everyone freaked out. And Seattle's like, there's no way they're going to draft our DP. They want to go sign their own. That's kind of the game you're going to end up trying to play. Yep. Yeah. So look out for that too.

So again, I'm going to, I'm going to write something about this when the expansion draft list comes out tomorrow about kind of my mock draft, the five I would take or what I would do, you know, with a four, I'd take plus a trade who I think is going to go under the trade,

all that stuff. So I'm looking forward to diving into that. But again, just the big picture thoughts on this is those are the things to watch out for when you're thinking about the expansion draft, when these lists comes out. Again, assume that the cost-effective player

who might start nine games rather than the guy who goes, bang, pencil him into the starting lineup. Yeah. Okay, so let's dig into what's happened so far today. You have been cutting out to get on the phone every once in a while during this show already. While we continue to add news, the ice cream shop is open, baby.

Get ready. Get locked in. Let's get some scoops, mint chocolate chips, strawberry, everything in there. Let's start with the biggest trade of the day, and then we'll move from there, and let's start Cincinnati and Colorado. Yeah. Colorado Rapids have acquired Chidozie Awaziam and Ian Murphy from FC Cincinnati for $1 million in allocation money plus add-ons. This is a move for Cincy to alleviate some salary cap constraints. They signed Chido Awaziam in the summer after Matt Miazga broke his leg and was put on the season ending injury list.

So Matt Miazga's salary cap number was taken off the cap. They're bringing back Miles Robinson. They are bringing, like, Miasga's coming back. Chidozie was there. They then signed teenage Hadabe. So I was told is that they needed, that they were probably going to trade two of the three of Hadabe, Chidozie, and Ian Murphy.

And what it ends up doing is they traded Chidozie, Waziam, and Murphy to the same team. I really like this for Colorado. I really, really rate Shidozie Awaziam. I'm assuming that this means that the Colorado Raptors are going to be playing a back three just based on their personnel. It looks like Laos and Ubuquay isn't coming back because the option was declined.

I have not heard any news that they've agreed a new contract. I've also heard a little bonus that I haven't tweeted yet. Andreas Maxu. There's some legitimate interest in the Middle East for him, and that's something that I'm told is possible. Doesn't mean it's definitely going to happen, but there's a possibility that this center back,

that this defensive unit is completely reshaped over this winter, and the first piece of that is Jadozia Waziam. And a little side note, Jadozia Waziam, Reggie Cannon, Boavista boys reunited. So I think they take yeah like so that that's it that's just that's a little bow eye in there um i like this move as well as you said it's a million in allocation it's a lot colorado rapids don't go out on the market and spend a crazy amount of money so when they like a piece in mls that they already know is locked

into a contract and wants to be here and can be here and they've seen them play in this league they're gonna go make that move i think awazi and we both fell in love like immediately when he came into this league with his ability to defend but even more his ability to pass and his confidence in the back line that's a guy you can build a back line around if it's with maxu you now arguably have the best center back pairing in the league if it's instead of i think that's fine because now you save the money on maxu who's been sitting on that dp-ish deal for a while and reggie cannon feels like a pretty obvious fit as a wide center back and then you've got that third position that you need to figure out which is not the worst case scenario um for a club like

for a club like the colorado happens to say we just got to find one starting level center back. It might be Ian Murphy. I haven't been convinced consistently, but I would say when I look at an Ian Murphy and I think about some of the players at that position in their careers, the longer you're in this league at that position, the more you learn about guys

and figure out their tendencies, the closer you get to being starting level. I didn't think Dave Romney was, for example, and then six years into his career, he has established himself as a starting center back in this league and so i think ian murphy could be on the road for that love that move and then as you said makes sense cincinnati we calculated just you know saying it out loud they were roughly going to be have five million in salaries for centerbacks alone on their books coming into this year. If Miaska had stayed, now they get rid of two centerbacks in Murphy and Awazium. Hagelin, they've already, I believe, declined his option as well.

So he won't be back. And now they're able to fit. I think they said that they're in discussions with him unless there's been an update. I mean, that's not really where the money is, the issue. So that's all fine. So now they've been able to reset things. If it was me, I would have loved to keep Awusium, and I would have traded Teenage Hedebi. I still don't have a ton of belief on $850K a year.

The Teenage Hedebi is the guy. But next to Miazga and Miles Robinson is going to be as good a situation as he's ever going to be in. And the trade makes a bunch of sense. You get the allocation to help sort of fit things around, probably in the attacking side of things. And you're getting more money for Chidozie Awazian. And you're pulling $400K more off your books.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus whatever the transfer fee is. So, like, again, like, they had essentially three Max Tam centerbacks and plus Awazian, who, I mean, plus, sorry, Hadabe, who was, like you said, I think, what, $900,000 was his budget chart last year. So that all makes sense. And again, this team is going to be expensive because they need to buy down Obi Nobodo because he was a DP and they're buying him down off his charge.

You need the allocation money there rather than just putting him on that charge. I'm going to stick with Cincy. No, no, I was going to ask you to do this. I was going to. So I'm sticking with Cincy that Alvaro Barrio, Cruz Airo, announced that they're not picking up his purchase option. Again, Chris Albright said last week that, look, we can't close the door on anything, but it's more unlikely than not that he comes back and plays for Cincy.

So I'm still assuming they're going to try to find a transfer. But, again, guys, me and you were thinking of a scenario, like, how cool would that be if he did come back? But I want to stress that that is the unlikely. It would be ridiculous because Orojano has shown he can play in the attack. And so you'd have, but I want to stress that that is the unlike. It would be ridiculous because Orojano has shown he can play in the attack, and so you'd have, but I want both. No, that's what I'm saying. It's not like, oh, no, we can only start one. It's like you would have Orojano full-time as a forward now

with Barriola at left wing back. Also, we were saying it in a world potentially where you don't know Lucho Acosta's future. So you might actually also need Orojano to be your 10 because you don't know Lucho Acosta's future. So you might actually also need Orijono to be your 10 because you don't have one anymore. So it's unfortunate that it kind of seems like the door is being closed by him on being there and being a part of this club. But it is what it is.

And one thing Cincinnati has proven is their ability to replace that guy and continue to be good. So that was a huge trade. And I think some would say that's the biggest trade of the day. Not in Tom Bogert's world, though. Tom, let everyone in on what has made you the happiest today. The Colorado Rapids have agreed to deal to acquire all of the Philadelphia Union's Super Draft picks for the next three seasons. That is eight picks because Colorado apparently already had their second or third round pick this year.

I don't even remember what that came from. But Colorado now owns all of Philadelphia Union's nine picks for the next three years. And they paid, I believe, $350,000 up front. There are some performance-based add-ons that was described to me that it comes at a cap, but all of the add-ons for the specific picks are if they play X amount of minutes, if they start X amount, if you make the playoffs. So things that obviously the Rapids hope happens, that they hope to pay more because that means that they're finding gold in the draft.

The Rapids still believe in the draft in that you can find value there. Again, they found Moise Bumpy. Not fair to expect or hope that that's going to happen again, but they sold him for $7.5 million. And this is a team that they truly believe in their academy as well, but they're of the opinion, we want to have as many avenues as we can, as many ways as we can. Again, they feel really good about just their general ability

to find players in the draft. So that's where it makes sense for them. On Philadelphia's side, Ernst Sander's done this before. Does not like the draft. He's traded all his picks in one year. And this is, and I've talked to Philly about this over the years, and this, it's that they want to use every roster spot they can on their academy kids, they're putting a lot of money into the academy, they're putting a lot of value on the academy, a lot of, you know, this is our

culture, and so we're not going to go draft a kid from Duke when we've had some, another midfielder in our academy for, you know, the last six years. We want to give that person a chance. So he doesn't like the draft, but that's because he wants to promote his own young players, promote the work that is in the club's academy. And I'm just going to say, this is a time-efficient trade. Instead of Ernst Tanner and the Philadelphia Union front office having to do different deals, they said, let's go to Costco, wholesale value. If you want all nine picks, make us an offer.

I have so much juice from this, guys. We were in LA. The MLS Cup is a whirlwind. You're doing a billion things, work, seeing people you love. My battery is empty, but my heart is full. Not to be super, again, romantic about it. But I love, I get to see you in person, all my friends. But I'm beat, man.

I'm tired. We flew cross country yesterday. I'm ready to go and just not stop talking for the next 14 hours thanks to this trade so i thank you to the philadelphia union thank you the colorado rapids you have given me juice for the rest of the week it's just one of those moments my i always had a joke with my friends in college that we really liked when people play their roles you have a friend who's an asshole and then when they're an asshole, you're like, nice. They're being the thing that they do. And that's hilarious, right?

When Tom comes in and goes, you know, nothing matters in life. You're like, yes, Tom's on point. Tom's doing his thing. To have Ernst Tanner trade away all of his super draft picks and Porg Smith go out and acquire a team's all of their super draft picks is two people who are playing their role to a perfect extent. It's a Grammy award winning performance from both sides. And it is absolutely incredible. I'm also going to throw this in there because I'm going to be the guy. I get what Ernst Tanner's doing. I think it's fine. It's weird to me to completely close a

door on an avenue to bring players and talent in. Let me go two years in the past because I think that's a fair number to say it takes more than a year for Superdraft picks. 2022 Superdraft, Roman Celentano, Thor, who they got money for, Patrick Schulte as the 12th pick, Ian Murphy, who we just talked about, Simon Boettcher in that draft, who has now gone on to be a player. He got taken, by the way, 16, with Taniola Wachee taking 17. Like, we're talking about guys that are making a difference in the draft. Philip Quinton, number 25, he's a starter. By the way, Nick Markinich, who just got sold to Spain, second-round pick in this one, Luca Gavran.

Kevin O'Toole, the legend, the GOAT himself, taken in the second round pick in this one Luca Gavran Kevin O'Toole the legend the goat himself taken in the second round of this draft Jasper Laughl Wilson in the fourth round like there's talent there I do so I just think it make it there's like value there for Colorado and they're going to use it because they as you said they have with Bombito they know and they and they don't have as big of a talent pool to pull from an academy point of view is what they would say. And so to be able to fill the two-team with a ton of college guys, and it's just if we think the hit rate from Super Drafts is 7%,

well, now we've got double the amount of draft picks to have that 7%. So how I'm saying that this trade gave me life gave me juice everything else i think your last bit there of just naming college dudes from the 2020 going through the wikipedia of the guys are gonna name i think that that was your version of that like i could see it on your face as you were getting more and more energy talking to me if you got me 10 years in the past and we were talking like 2020 2014 super draft i would have been locked and loaded and ready to go. This was absolutely amazing. Let's hit a couple more in here. Let's hit the ones that have happened today first,

and then we'll get back to some of these that I had thrown in here. Let's start with RSL. This is an interesting move. Yeah, Real Salt Lake acquired Tyler Wolfe from Atlanta United, 50K, Caucasian money. This is Goss NBA brain this is a sign-in trade Tyler Wolfe they re-signed him to a new contract so after they declined his option so they could trade his homegrown rights to RSL so he doesn't come up like so the expansion draft

they don't have to protect them because he's auto protected little silly things but that's just kind of the machinations of that trade and it's them kind of rolling the dice. Like you talk about the Rapids in terms of, we want to expand our pool rather than just our academy. RSL has been doing that for a long time. Tyler Wolf has played MLS minutes already. Yeah. Yeah. He had five goals in like 800 minutes and 23.

I think he's played something like 2,000, 2,500 minutes across all competitions over the last two years. Like this is a guy that's proven he can be a rotation player. Yeah. Talk to me about some others. I want to do Matai Akimbone. DC United and Bournemouth have agreed to transfer in principle for Bournemouth to sign Matai Akimbone for a deal that goes up to 2.5

million DC United retain a sell on clause. This is a deal long in the making. As you will remember, I've been reporting on this since the summer that Bournemouth, I think, are up to like four bids rejected before this deal finally got through. They bid at the end of the transfer window in August. They came back in October, and now here in December, they've agreed a deal for January. Matai Kamboni just turned 18 in October, so he's able to go January 1st immediately. He's going to start, obviously, with their U21s.

This is a long-term play for Bournemouth, but this is something that D.C. felt was important. One, obviously the valuation has to line up, and they finally got there after a lot of bids rejected. But one, this is a good deal for the club, they think. But two, they think it's really important that we want to show we're not going to stand in your way. If the deal is fair, we're going to let you go. if matai akimbone wasn't going to be a starter as

well they really couldn't be like no we need you here and it's like well if i'm not going to start i need to play even if it also ones or whatever right like so we talked about this last week i think um clubs that understand sell-ons right clubs that understand that while matai akimbone might be worth 1212 million one day, getting three now and 30% or whatever you get of the next move, because Bournemouth is a selling club and maybe the next move, because that's one of the things I talked to the USL president last week of like, they're like, we're just waiting for the second moves to hit so that we can start getting even just training compensation at high levels when you go to some big teams and some of

the big leagues like that. There's a ton of value there dc has to get kids into their academy their big failure right now is that good talent in the area doesn't come into their academy this is how you convince them to do it is by saying like we've got your best interests in mind and i think we had tim bezbachenko on this show who is helping lead things for bournemouth who said like yep it's a great market that we're going to want to start to come into and getting U.S. players and Canadian players is going to make a ton of sense. So sticking with D.C. United, they traded for NYCFC goalkeeper Luis Barraza for $50,000.

That bolsters their goalkeeping room, and they are also working on a U-22 initiative deal to sign South south korean 21 year old goalkeeper kim joon hong from john bach uh the washington post first reported that information but that deal is coming along it's getting closer and closer they're completely overhauling this part of the field they were very bad defensively in 2024 they went into the offseason and got rid of every single goalkeeper on the roster they've signed one from the tampa bay rowdies whose name escapes me.

They're bringing in Barraza, and now they have what they believe to be their starter in Kim Joong-hung, if and when that deal gets done, as I'm expecting it will. Oh, man. Morgan's going to be so mad that we didn't know the Rowdies goalkeeper because I can't think of it either right now. You just tried to Google it real quick. That was a bad teammate.

I saw you typing, and I should have just kept on going. My hands couldn't move fast enough. To be I, I, that was a bad teammate. I saw you typing and I should have just kept on. I couldn't, I, my hands couldn't move fast enough. I'm to be clear. I'm sitting at my niece's table. And so I'm currently on my knees because I couldn't sit in the mini chair that I was sitting in anymore. So I wasn't going to get there typing as well. Goss's in-laws.

Don't let them out of this. This, uh, by the way, dude, I wouldn't start throwing basement slander out there because it's about to be a long couple months for you so you should watch that's fair that's fair a u22 initiative on a goalkeeper is an odd move to make in major league soccer

yeah it's um i believe completely unprecedented is there anybody i'm forgetting like i know that san j Jose signed a Polish goalkeeper who was their third shot. I forget if they used the U-22, I just don't know. But essentially, it's difficult for young goalkeepers to hit and hit immediately. And there's a lot of good, valuable,

domestic-based options here in MLS. Again, you just talk about John McCarthy. He was free agent last year, just helped win the MLS Cup. So that's partly why. But again, I don't like to be binary and be like that's how you have to do that's how you have to build a roster like if this is a really good player then right um I will say this I'm not out yet on Luis Barraza as a starting goalkeeper so I like that move as well and the key yeah and

the key with him is he is specific he like he's comfortable with his feet and he comes off his line well so I think he fits in DC and could be the right pickup uh for them anything else you want to talk about i don't believe so at this stage as as things oh jossie's artist bought out um by austin fc so that removes about a million in salary cap from their from their roster he is the 10th all time leading scorer in Major League Soccer. It just has not worked out for him in Austin. 33 years old. Curious to see where he'll go next, but this opens the move for Austin.

And this team, I'm assuming, are going to spend money on a center forward, despite already having Diego Rubio in this team and against Sebastian Drusi with the way he kind of plays in that space. But if I had to guess, I think that's where he's going to spend some money. And it also now, I think jose has answers out right back now right bruce arena loves the giassi's artist and right back he loves to bring a former player in so keep your eyes out for that everyone if you're looking for a target striker right back at the san jose earthquakes i do hope we get to see another peak giassi year i just hope he gets to finish in a way that he deserves and it felt like austin

was going to be that for him. I don't know what's left anymore, but also this is what we've seen in sports. Sometimes when you're getting paid out of an old contract, okay, now you go take a smaller deal and maybe it fits the role that he should be at, at a winning team, an interesting option as a backup center forward for a group that might be looking for one heading into this season. Tom, you feel good? I feel nothing.

Playing his role. Taking even more phone calls than normal today. I tried to have to do health care. And my wife sent me something. And I guess she had a free hour during the day. And I looked at it. My brain couldn't compute anything, just in general, because of health care stuff. I don't know any of this. My wife sent me something and like she's just I guess she had a free hour during the day. She like was looking at stuff and I looked at it. My brain couldn't compute anything just in general because healthcare stuff.

I don't know any of this. And I tried to take a screenshot of all the calls I made just to say I'm not ignoring you. I promise. But this is what my day has been. I had to take a 10 second screenshot video to scroll several times on how many calls that I had taken today. So, yeah, I feel nothing. I love to hear that. I love to be here with you. I love to do this show. Thank you. I hope you all out there listening love it just as

much. I think we are going to be well be off now on Tuesday because we did this show today and we might be off on Wednesday as well as I have some family stuff to take care of. And I think we're going to come back either Wednesday or Thursday to do our second show of the week. We're going to recap and react to the expansion draft as well as resetting news. And then, I mean, we've got some interviews that I've already put together and we've got some interviews we're going to put in.

But I think me and Tom felt, for the most part, we're just going to keep going. Like the MLS and North American soccer, it never really ends. We've got a ton of time now to dig into some really cool topics that a lot of you have sent us and a lot of you continue to send us on the Discord and the mailbag and reach out to us about on other platforms as well and the news always keeps rolling hence why tom feels nothing and will feel nothing as we

continue to roll on so once again congratulations to la galaxy thank you to galaxy fans for an awesome atmosphere and awesome experience thank you to everyone who stopped me to hi. Thank you to everyone who made Tom feel like a big man by taking pictures of him and taking pictures with him. Shout out to Red Bull slash MetroStars fans who were around and were also really awesome. And thank you to all of you for listening. Hope you all have a good one, and we'll talk to you again very, very soon.