SoccerWise - MLS Edition: Historic Transfers For Atlanta & Chicago + US Open Cup Details & Evander/Lucho Update

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Everyday the moves in MLS seem to grow and grow! Today Tom has reported that Atlanta United have finally sealed the most expensive signing in league history Emmanuel Latte Lathe to pair with Miguel Almiron. HOWEVER Chicago made some history of their own before breakfast as Jhon Duran's sell on fee from his massive move to Saudi Arabia has now made him the highest sale in MLS history. Also of course Gass & Tom react to the news around MLS participation in the 2025 US Open Cup, and open up the Ice Cream Shop for all the latest scoops from Vancouver and more.7:00 ATL Record Transfer Closing On Latte Lath17:30 Chicago Fire Big Windfall From Duran Transfer28:30 Breaking News On Red Bull Signings32:10 Pedro De La Vega Expectations For 202535:45 Lucho Acosta & Evander Developments43:28 US Open Cup & Leagues Cup Formats54:30 Ice Cream Shop- Starting Dejan Javelin Liga MX Transfer & Flaws of u22 Initiative1:04:10 Stuart Armstrong Departing Vancouver1:08:40 SKC Multiple Transfer Targets Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

what's up everybody and welcome back to soccer wise tommy scoops and david goss with you on what is in front of me at least a gorgeous thursday afternoon i am so excited to be back with our second edition of The Basement Diaries, which has become our favorite running segment as Tom has joined the legions of successful people who operate out of their parents' basement and has become a high achiever because of it. That's great. We'll just go full send on these details. Yeah, let's get into it. I wasn't going to directly say that I'm currently in my parents' basement.

There is no life crisis. I'm getting ready to try to buy a house, and this just makes the most sense. So I wanted to say that. You don't have to have an excuse. You don't have to have reasons. There has to be context. I love you for you. Because then you'd be like, what happened?

Did you lose all your money investing? Did your wife leave you? Those would be fair follow-up questions. None of that has happened. um you know what did happen my my sister uh she got her pictures taken down that was on the wall behind me and i felt i was gonna do it before the last show and then i was like that seems really mean and selfish and self-centered and then my mom saw the show and said oh my god take those down so uh my sister i know she's listening and my brother-in-law i know he's listening i know he's

laughing hysterically right now and she is kind of just giving him a smirk that's uh maybe lightly fuming maybe not fuming but um sorry jess tough break here you hate to see it you really do jess i just want you to know having never met you're top of my power rankings for bogart so like just know that you at least stand in our hearts and minds through this and thoughts and prayers in your punishment for all of this tom i will say this for most people if you're watching on youtube hi um we also now have turned on our super chats so if you'd like to send us a message or ask a question or just send us a little bit of love you're welcome to do that if you are listening via podcast welcome welcome as well.

We love having you there. And if you're watching later on on YouTube, you can see as well. Tom has 75% of the outfit on. He's got the kappa zip up. He's got the hair pulled back. He's got the mustache flowing as usual. But before we came on, you had the full 100%. Can you take us back there for a moment?

I can do that for you. You should have teased this for a super chat. But we'll give it away for free. Oh, yeah. If we get enough. He's got the Grateful Dead pinky ring on. And he just put on his. Let me find a better word than the D word I was going to use.

His pickup truck sunglasses. Let me call a better word than the D word I was gonna use His His pickup truck sunglasses Let me call it that This show is off the rails and I'm so happy Tom's in a place right now where he would For sure bat over 300 in his Men's softball league And he would tell you about it all week That's where he stands right now

But everything that hits the gap I'm not legging out a double I get to first base or I hit dingers That's where he stands right now. But everything that hits the gap, I'm not legging out a double. It's a casual. I get to first base or I hit dingers. That's it. Bro, you're a power hitter. You're on the team for a reason. It's deep or not.

In real life, I was such a classic leadoff guy and just contact guy. And then the kids started knowing how to throw curveballs. And that ended my baseball career. I have this funny thing, which is I bat lefty. I throw and bat left. I don't write with my left. I don't kick with my left. It is so unfortunate.

If I was a lefty, bro, you better believe I'd be putting up digits right now for Union Omaha. Like, shout out to my owls. I would be the end of my career, lifetime, I'd be Austin DeLuz

in my dreams if I was a lefty. But just having a right foot, I was never destined for that. But I only batted left. And the best part about it was right as you got old enough for stuff like that to happen, people thought they were smart and they started yelling shift. And there's something about my swing, and I'm sure someone who knows baseball better will tell me why.

I could only hit oppo field. Little slap hitter. I literally only could. What? Little slap hitter. Right. I think it's because I was late on most pages I think that's why did you have did you have an uncle Rico in your life who was like dude you can get to the big leagues as a left-handed reliever like this kid I know he's a righty he's gonna be a lefty just trust me bro and is that

what happened you uh you know I could throw over that mountain right you see that mountain right there I could throw over that entire mountain and? You see that mountain right there? I could throw over that entire mountain. And now he looks like Greg Berhalter, that actor. Oh, does he? That's John Greer from White Lotus. I don't watch White Lotus yet. I don't know yet. Give me a break, dude.

I'm still working through my shows. I just watched Slow Horses, which is unbelievable. And everyone should watch. And now The Recruit and Night Agent have returned on Netflix. slow horses which is unbelievable and everyone should watch and now the recruit and night agent have returned on netflix i do not like the night agent but my wife does so we watch it i like it like i watch absolutely you like it i don't know i wouldn't say it's it's entertaining i'm not gonna pretend like it's not it's low it's low calorie entertainment i enjoyed it yeah 100 but it's like low low calorie we watch low calorie entertainment

that one it's like you're sucking the one out of it at most that's fair uh we're like the recruit is the best and it's so fun and that one's coming back so then after that um i will get into shout out to bubbles tf uh he said tom is a atlanta united fan i'm giving you a hug uh we appreciate the super chat we appreciate everyone else who's in the chat as well right now. We have a big show for you. We have two historic transfers that have occurred for Major League Soccer teams over the last 24 hours. One, Atlanta United getting the deed done, as Tom has reported,

and they are going to spend the most money ever on a player. Chicago Fire woke up with a notification on their phone their bank said we have just put a little over eight million dollars into the account do what you will with it they didn't have to lift a finger and we will talk about why but off the back end of john duran's what looks like will be a massive transfer to saudi arabia fromston Villa. Chicago Fire have now had the largest sale in MLS history based off the numbers that John Duran has put up for them. So we'll talk all about that. And those might not even be the biggest stories.

We've got Evander and Lucho updates coming for you. We've got to talk about Dejan Jovalich, who is now being connected to the biggest club in Mexico. And on top of all of that, right as we got off the show on Tuesday, Major League Soccer finally dropped their format for the four cup competitions across all MLS competitions coming up for 2025 and 2026.

So we dropped a social video for you. If you don't, follow us on Instagram, Blue Sky on Twitter as well. And of course, subscribe to our YouTube. We put it up there. It was just a quick minute and a half reaction and sort of explainer of what it is. We now have more information as the official League's Cup format for 2025 has been released here this afternoon. So we'll dig into all of that and talk about all of that as we go along.

But we were going to start here anyway. We appreciate the input from the fans so let's start in atlanta we know miguel almiron got over the line last show the consternation left was would latte loth become the all-time uh highest transfer in mls history would he be the next number nine in atlanta united and tom you are now reporting that they are going to get there. Yes. Sources have told me that Atlanta United are finalizing a new potential MLS league record transfer to sign Emmanuel Lattailat from Middlesbrough for a fee of $22 million plus another $6 million in add-ons. This is a huge deal. The current record that's about to be

broken by Lattailath was FC Cincinnati signing Kevin Denke earlier this offseason. That was $16.2 million. That's a big, big deal. Latsailath is already $6 million more, plus Atlanta will hope that they're spending $6 million more on add-ons because that means that they've won things and he's been doing really great. So Emmanuel Latsailath completed a medical already in England. He came off from Burroughs' last game with a groin injury. I was told in the moments that like, we don't think it's bad from kind of all sources, but nothing that they could know for sure. He's done a medical. Everything was all right. He's all good. There are just formal steps to follow, but that hurdle that they were kind of stuck at, that kind of threatened to really toboggan this deal, they've gotten over.

They solved it. Emmanuel Latté left, coming to Atlanta United. A deal is being finalized for $22 million. Do you feel that? You feel that deep inside of you? That is a huge number. We have talked for a year the transfer kitty that atlanta had built up historic in major league soccer the gam that they had put together the sales that they had made over

the last 12 months tiago almada caleb wiley yakumakis some of that matters because it's all money coming in and out some of it doesn't this is This is not a GAM signing in Latte Loth. But this is Garth and Chris putting their fist down. This is Ronnie Dyla now being involved. This is the future of Atlanta United. in Major League Soccer, but has been without a North Star over the last four or five years. This is really exciting if this all comes together correctly. I love the profile, as we have talked about in the player in that I think this is a Premier League player that they are purchasing before he's played in the Premier League. And you're taking that tax off, but you're getting the quality. And he's a late bloomer entering into his prime. And he is what you were hoping Yakumakis was going to be, which is someone who will be there for three or four years for someone who you can build it around and someone who's a consistent performer for you.

He's put up big minutes since getting to Middlesbrough after struggling for consistent time and struggling to find a consistent team. And now, as we have said, the pressure for him, it's going to be immense as a record transfer, but it's not going to be all on him. Like the biggest name at preseason, the biggest name at opening day, it's going to be Miguel El Miron. And that's like a pretty good place to be in if you're Emmanuel Latelath. It's an incredible place to be in. And again, we keep talking about Alexei Maranchuk of his through-ball ability, and that's his best quality. Guess what?

You pair Latelath with his ability to run in behind the timing of runs, his athletic ability, and finishing off chances. Yeah, like, maybe he misses chances like any other forward, but he's going to get a ton of chances within this team because they wanted to have pace around Maranchuk. Obviously, Sabalo Bajanitse is a killer in transition. Miguel Moron, we know that he's one of the best ever in Major League Soccer

when in open space, and I have a good feeling that he's going to be just the same again now that he's back. That deal went official earlier today on Thursday. $10 million up front plus add-ons. With those players around, Maranchuk will have more room to cook to conduct to play balls through to get these players in a better spots and i think it fits a lot so one thing that we didn't talk about on the show on tuesday was atlanta united made a bid for 18 million dollars for arthur cabral benfica player as i was reporting throughout that

story the latte latte was not dead, but they got to a point where they said, hey, we're not waiting forever. We can't wait any longer. We've already waited longer than we should have, and if there's no resolution here, we're still going to try for this. Their top target was Lattelat, but they said, we're not going to be left at the altar with nobody to sign because Arthur Cabral goes somewhere else

or another target they had goes somewhere else, right? Like, so they made an $18 million bid and that player is nowhere near the type of profile that Lotte Loth is. Not suggesting he's like significantly worse than this player. He's more of like a proper nine. He's more of a Yakumakis, maybe with a little bit less pace, but not somebody who's going to run it behind. Somebody who's going to be on the end of crosses for Brooks Lennon.

It could have worked that way. But I know that their goal this offseason was to be more athletic and attack and create more space around Alexei Maranchuk. I think the profile of Latsay Lov fits a lot better than Arthur Cabral. And therefore, I think that this will be a better signing. Yes, maybe. Yes, it is obviously an exuberant fee. Yes, it is the most opulent fee in league history.

And there could be an argument. Ah, would is the most opulent fee in league history. And there could be an argument, ah, would it have been better if it was $18 million? Yeah, maybe. But who cares? They just got $50 million in the summer. They can't go and spend, if they save $4 million on this deal, they can't spend it on another TAM player because of the roster rules.

They have as much discretionary funds as they need. Atlanta United have always been among the most ambitious and the highest spending teams in MLS since they've gotten here. And that should be congratulated. That deserves to be rewarded and excited about. And again, whether or not this player might have been better at $18 million, I don't really care. I think that this is going to be an awesome signing. Doldit the Great says,

Les Pacey GG is not a very fast dude which i love right or at least in the ball i haven't seen there 40 times yet so yeah so i think but he's more along that that like lots i love is going to be like his pace jumps off the screen you know again you don't need to be a scout to watch one of his highlights and be like wow that guy's fast uh patrick delaney who i know is an atlanta united fan who's been pumped about this move. We appreciate the contribution here. He says, since everyone else is throwing around money, thanks for all your coverage, gents. We'll get to some of these other questions from Tim and Claude in a moment.

But I actually really like this in the chat, which is Paolo says, how many goals plus assists this season will be a success for Latte Loth considering his transfer fee? That's an excellent question. Do you have a number in mind, Gus? Goals plus assists? I think the over-under, and we're probably going to say MLS competition. Only MLS comps here because it's easiest, but you can include playoffs.

I think that number has to be 17.5, 18.5. If we're including assists, it has to be 20. Interesting. I think that anything that he does there will be bonus. And like, again, with secondary assists and MLS, if you're the center forward, you should be getting a, you should luck into a couple of secondary assists just because you're the person closest to the goal all the time. He needs, like what they care most about is getting goals from him. They're going to get assists from El Morón. They're going to assists from sabalov janice from maran chuk in particular this dude like i'm more interested in the goal number

it's got to be 17 and a half goals for me like honestly if if it's and particularly if it's less than 15 i think the only way that happens is an injury or like i'm just completely wrong on rating the signing so for me it's 17 and a half goals but the thing is year one i guess there's two ways i look at this the biggest way is do they make a white an eastern conference finals right because if they make an eastern conference finals it's worth it whatever he does as an individual as long as he's a starter in that game aka you haven't made it because you've replaced him you haven't made it be and've replaced him you haven't made it and he doesn't maybe go full nelson valdez on you where he all of a sudden shows back up

in the playoffs but if like he is a piece of this team getting to the next step it's fine whatever the goals are i would be surprised if that happens with him scoring less than 14 or 15 goals or let's say combined now right because there's a world in which Saba goes off now because of the way this is set up. And you've talked a little bit about his skill set and you watch some of his games. He's pretty comfortable with the ball at his feet when he drops underneath. So like in this world, goals combined, if it's 14 goals, but it is 8 to 10 assists because Saba and Miggy are pouring them in. And he's drawing pressure and Maranchuk is taking shots from outside the box off layoffs and stuff like that. Shout out to Ricardo Pepe, by the way,

for the layoff yesterday on the first goal, and then what, a goal and an assist? That is the most David Gott sentence to be like, instead of talking about goals he scored against Liverpool, it's shout out to the layoff. I love it. Yeah. That chest down, dude, that's classic.

That's class, and i only see class crack carlo pepe so i could see that like i could see being accepting this signing for maybe those lower numbers but i think we both sort of land on goals plus assists so you're making the line what 20 and a half yeah for the combined yeah yeah and you're saying over yeah i'll go over optimism baby come on dude it's it's it's the preseason it's we're looking at a league record signing i can't come out here and be like all under right like everything makes sense on paper for every single team maybe not every single team in mls right now but most teams in mls you talk yourself into it so if i was sitting here

hating and being like no way and i truly believe this too but it's easier to talk yourself into the better scenario than the negative one yeah it uh it's exciting times for atlanta united they are now firmly in the preseason favorites conversation based off the way they finished last year based off the way they've rebuilt uh in all of this maddie click coming in like that is a huge move for them on top of all of this. That costs them nothing. There's a lot to like. There's a lot to be excited about. And Atlanta United is ready for the season to begin at this point.

This has been sort of the final building block. We are, by the way, spoilers, we're working on our season previews that are going to be coming for you with CONCACAF Champions Cup. Some of them are going to be recorded a little bit early. So we're not going to know all the moves being done. But for the most part, I think we've got some really good stuff set up for all of you. And I'm really excited to do it. Let's move on from Atlanta here and let's move into Chicago. A team we have talked about a lot in this offseason.

We've talked about Neymar. We've talked about Bamba. We've talked about Triple G. We've talked about Pineda and all this nerd stuff. And we missed the most obvious, which is that they were about to break that transferred record. John Duran, originally a massive transfer out of MLS, has hit the ground running at Aston Villa immediately. He, probably earlier than I expected, started to find goals in his opportunities off the bench. He's taken over, sometimes as a starter, sometimes off the bench,

always scoring goals. One of the most promising young players on the planet, I would say, at an attacking position. And that has now come to fruition. And this is a huge part about sales, where you sell a player and what the next move potential is and the percentage you get. And we just use the term sell-ons because that's all we really get at the time. But then when it hits, you start to see why it matters so much. Tom, walk everyone through the details here. So let's start with just the basic facts. So John Duran is leaving

Aston Villa for Al Nassir in Saudi Arabia. That is going to be a deal worth around $80 million US plus add-ons. So we'll start with this. He was sold for an initial fee of $18 million in 2023. There was $4 million in add-ons. I was told all those add-on hits. So the base fee right now is $22 million. And the way that these work, and I didn't want to say it either in the Discord or anywhere else because I was pretty confident that most deals,

if not all, maybe not all, it's sell-on percentage of a profit that you get. Right. So people were asking this in regards to Miguel Almarone, where Atlanta had a sell-on. Does that mean that they get to cut off some of the $10 million they paid? No, because the $10 million that they're paying to get him now did not surpass the $19 million plus add-ons they paid for him to leave in the beginning.

So, John, you take the $ million out of the 80, that's 58 million, and then they had a 15% sell-on clause on that. That's 8.7 million. All of that math comes down to this is now a deal worth $30.7 million, breaking the outbound transfer record in MLS. That was Alphonso Davies at $22 million because Miguel Almarone was misreported by everybody, including myself, because this was the language that came out of Newcastle and Atlanta United. It was both sides of the Atlantic.

That deal was misreported as $29 million because that's what both of the clubs were saying. I reported last summer that it was incorrect. That was including the add-ons. That was including a valuation of the sell-off. It was only $19 million up front, and I don't know if or what add-ons hit. So I'm going with Alphonso Davies was the biggest transfer in MLS history. Now there is no discussion. There is no debate.

John Duran at $30.7 million. And guess what? Aston Villa have add-ons in this deal with Alan Asir. If those add-ons hit, Chicago will get 15% more of whatever happens there. All right. So, Chicago, build a new stadium. Like, just invest it immediately. This is a crazy number. And this is like I started with.

This is the value of making sure for both the player and the club that the sales are the right places. We've talked about this with some clubs that have done this really well, of having those conversations. Listen, we don't know what's going to happen, by the way. We didn't mention the Atlanta side. I think you just reported Caleb Wiley has been sent out on loan to Watford. We don't know what's going to happen with Caleb Wiley,

but getting sold to the biggest name as soon as possible may not always be the best move for a player's career. If there's no minutes there, if they don't have a plan for you, but also for a club, there is that value in, okay, can we send them to the right spot,

which will then sell them on. And we have seen the intent for some clubs to find Belgian clubs, to find clubs potentially in Portugal as time goes along, to find clubs in Italy or most especially Germany that are selling clubs that will pay enough to make it worth giving that player up at the time to replace that player. But the idea is that down the road, a bigger number could come in. This is probably beyond what anyone hoped for but like this is the model now so that's a really interesting point and

i want to say this talking to sources england is the destination and when they talk about they like there are several gms that i've spoke to and say if i'm doing a deal with the premier league team i don't want i don't necessarily i'm not dying on the hill if I want a sell-on clause. I'd rather, okay, let's say that we value the player at 10 million. Instead of 8 million plus a 20% sell-on, it would be just give us a 10 million. Because you guys don't sell players. You guys buy players. You're the buying lead. So that was what's so interesting about this. John Duran's different because of his age. There was always the probability that he would be, he wasn't going to spend 15 years at Aston Villa. But in general, a lot of these teams look at England as, okay, instead of a sell-on, like for a player, if they're not 20

years old or 19, whatever John Duran was when he left Chicago Fire, it's more about, let's get the most money right now because we don't trust that you're going to sell on. And again, with the info about most sell-on clauses are profit-based, not total fee- on. And again, with the info about most sell-on clauses are profit-based, not total fee-based. So again, you look at a Miguel Almarone, the sell-on clause there was awesome. There was a possibility, but he was in his mid-20s when he went to Newcastle. The likelihood, the probability that he was going to get sold on again for a significantly bigger fee than 19 plus the add-ons to then get the sell-on was unlikely but like that that's still part of the value so that's just kind of an interesting thing that these teams talk

about when it comes to sell-on and everything else and some some uh fans have pointed out like yeah like this is cool but what does it really mean for the fire right now and not not a ton other than like this is a success story this is awesome this this is the best piece of business that georgitz did as sporting director. Probably by a long shot, or like Gagos Lonina's career has not gone great at Chelsea. Getting $10 million up front was pretty good, too. That was the same window, by the way, John Duran and him. But going back to John Duran, they signed him when he was 17,

one full year before he was allowed to come. And there was already several European clubs trying to sign him. Chicago Fire got that deal done. If they waited even a month, he's not coming to Chicago. allowed to come and there was already several european clubs trying to sign him chicago fire got that deal done if they waited even a month he's not coming to chicago so i think that's phenomenally well done by chicago fire he always wanted he always thought that he was ready to be a day one every minute starter for chicago fire um they slowly brought him in and he did really really good while he was there and now he's off to al-nasir and and again this is a super interesting career he's a fun player he's a really good player um we'll see

what he does in saudi arabia with the colombian national team like this he's at an age where he could then be back in the premier league at some point in the future right like so this is all super interesting and this is all super new with the money that's coming in saudi arabia yes like i was talking to sources at Chicago, like, Oh, like West Ham are interested in them, like in the summer. And I think the fees were like 35 million or something like that. And I was like, Oh, like, I know you have a sell on. It's like, Oh, cool. Like, like we'll talk about it. If a deal gets done, didn't get done, didn't get done. I was talking to somebody yesterday. I sent David Ornstein his tweet about the details of this fee. And I got a response going holy shit like 80 million oh

my god like we're about to get paid bro and a few things on this one i think all of us are frustrated with a lot of the mls roster rules by the way we are working on we put it out on patreon the depth charts are coming they're going to be updated they're going to be new they're going to be clean they're going to be really really fun we're all frustrated with a lot of these rules, but this is why the U22 initiative exists because a player like this is not a player going to build a competitive team around. Can you take shots on 17 year olds and 18 year olds who can have this potential going forward without totally hampering your roster? And this is how something like that works so that's a positive uh claude

copeland in the chat says kind of disappointed to see him go to saudi arabia absolutely it is not a league that i watch it is not a place that i enjoy watching soccer that much and so to a player who you have talked about is fun is exciting but also the reason that this number is so crazy is because saudi arabia is not operating in a proper transfer. It is not the way clubs should function. They are not spending money they make. They are not spending money. That's reality. So it is at least fortunate for Chicago that they got into the gravy train somewhere. But it is like breaking the entire pyramid and system that you talked about, which is there are X clubs at the top and it all sort of moves towards that. Saudi Arabia is an outlier in all of this, but it's why you end up

with this record number because of everything that happened. Claude also asked about, I believe, the New York Red Bulls. We're going to talk about that coming up as well as Pedro de la Vega. But for Chicago now, as I said, like you shouldn't have expected this number, but you got it. And it feels really strong at a time where Triple G is saying, we are a sleeping giant. So I agree with that. What I want, like someone in the chat said, and I've gotten this a couple times of like, okay, cool.

Like they got the money. Like now what? Like what? Does it mean anything? No. And that's a positive thing because you can criticize Chicago Fire for a lot of things. Yeah. You cannot criticize them for financial ambition on and off the field,

both the playing roster and what they're doing with their training facility. So Joe Monsueto paid to break the lease in Bridgeview to go to Soldier Field. And like you said, you're joking about a new stadium. This doesn't change anything because this is a team that, whether or not they got an additional $9 million for Jaron Duran, the money is there and the ownership is giving the money there. So I think that's all positive, but it doesn't change anything because there wasn't anything to change. And that's another kind of point to be celebrated rather than like, oh, what does this mean now?

It's like, no, no, no, this team already had the budget. They were already trying to swing for Neymar. So this is all good. Sleeping Giant is all good. Sleeping giant is all good. It's just, I have sporting directors and higher ups in MLS offices. Like they'll always say that we would prefer to have, give us a 20 million salary cap, two DB spots, and then that's it. And we'll figure it out from there. So if that was the case, then they could buy, you know, roster spots nine through 12 and use that money but they can't and they already had um a

large enough budget where you know they thought they could go get namor so this doesn't add to the discretionary spend because it was already there yeah um it will be i think for these clubs it's always good to then see a go through of like what can they spend on the academy all that type of stuff but as you said this is a big spending club already um and we'll see the next steps for chicago they still have the open dp spot to play with we don't know what that will look like we sort of kicked around the idea when we talked about them previously of maybe it doesn't happen in this window because gutierrez is a big time starter for them and they've spent money across the attack already uh and maybe they wait for the summer and see what happens going forward let's dig into two of the super chats before we get into our next topic um tom let's start with the red bulls any update on a new dp

for the red bulls daca or another nine option i think it was pats and daca at lester city who has been most recently. I'm not responding to every single dumb rumor of interest. I'm just not like, yeah. Number nine update. I don't. So Timo Werner interest like that's all real. Right.

And maybe Pats and Daka is on a list. But don't confuse somebody suggesting that maybe they're kind of looking possibly to, you know, think about considering making an offer of a free loan or, you know, whatever, right? Like, yeah, Pats and Doc is a name that came up on Twitter. That's it. Like, again, maybe he's on a list somewhere, but who knows? I do have additional news. I was under the impression that I broke the news that they signed Raheem Edwards a couple days ago.

They just announced that today. I assume that that meant that Chilean international left back wasn't coming in. I've just been told Marcello Morales is done. They are signing that left back as well. And that is a really strong profile at his age, a couple Chilean international caps. Again, I just figured they'd been working on this for a while. And then the news of them signing Raheem Edwards, I just deduced, okay,

like that means that that signing isn't happening. I'm told right now, breaking on soccer wise, that that is done. That's huge for Red Bulls because I love Raheem Edwards. At wingback, maybe he is a serviceable starter. Maybe he can win you some moments, but overall he is not an above average starter right now in Major League Soccer. So to have him as a depth piece is great and to have another starter that you believe in and then you have raheem edwards there to make the transition easier if he starts a few games at the beginning you also know he's capable of swapping positions so he brings you a little versatile versatility and veteran and veteran

you you killed me for saying eagletarian so uh, yes, I'm going to get you for all of those trip-ups. I really like the Raheem Edwards fit for this team because I think that he makes sense in this system with this team and just extrapolating it for Canada. This is a very similar system what Jesse Marsh is going to play. I think it's a very good move for Raheem Edwards for the Red Bulls I'm sure that it's not a crazy expensive deal and like you said he can play a couple different positions when the Red Bulls go to

three at the back he's awesome for that wing back um so I think especially chasing games because he's comfortable coming inside he's comfortable with the ball in space or with players around him with the ball at his feet that's a good way for him to fit and something he could bring the red bulls they haven't had in the past and he could play on the outside of a four two three one in the attack if necessary um in a pinch it's not something you'd want to do as often or he could play on the right side um which is an added bonus for this team kyle duncan i think still injured he's sort of that flex piece that you have that you can move from both sides so you just add add Edwards to that now and it just gives you even more depth and potential for minimum that Van Zier gave you most of that year, most of last year.

And so like, you're already a better team at that point in that position than you were. So if you bring in anything at the number nine, that gives you like reliable minutes or attacking piece, that is just added bonus to all of that, to a team that made it to MLS Cup last year and has that spine coming back and has a lot of strengths for them to rely on. Let's do this one before we dig into Lucho and Evander. Let's go further up the coast in the Pacific Northwest. What should I expect from Pedro De La Vega this year from Tim Olsen? So what their vision was when they signed him last year was

we think we're really, really good, whether we sign him or not. And they were so excited that they were high on the player. And it was like, if he gives us nothing, we're going to be great. But if he gives us something or more than something, we're going to be even better. So it's like a ceiling raiser. So I still view him in that way. If he sucks, that's going to be disappointing.

But they're going to be really good, I think. He's somebody that he can eliminate players off the dribble at a higher level, at least, or a higher ceiling, unlike anything else. Paul Rothrock was awesome with that. Georgie off the bench, I'm already blanking on how to pronounce his last name.

Manungu. Georgie Manungu. I was going to say that right, too. Damn it. Should have trusted myself. Georgie Manungu, I was going to say that right too. Damn it. Should have trusted myself. Georgie Manungu. I loved watching him come off the bench. Imagine that player except you just spent $7 million to get him from Argentina. A highly rated, highly pedigree. So for me, I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm worried about all the injury updates because it wasn't one long-term injury.

It wasn't one medium-term injury. It was every single time it seemed like he completed three training sessions in a row, Brian Schmetzer had an update that he was feeling something and needed to be out. So, if he's right, he raises his ceiling. But the best part, the beauty of the Seattle Sounders this year, they have

a lot of dudes who can, on any day, be the match winner. They don't have somebody who's Kucho Hernandez, they don't have somebody who's Danny Buonga, but they have five or six guys that it's like oh he scored the winning goal or oh he was awesome today and he won us that game if they started a playoff game and they're attacking for let's say it's set up that way with Obed Vargas and Christian Roldan at the base of midfield is Albert Rusnak, Jesus Ferreira, Jordan Morris, and Paul Areola that's a team that you would pick in most matchups

in mls if those players are on so that's the scenario that exists of like you're saying if dela vega isn't good it is not the end of the world for this team last year though the injuries were a huge concern the injuries i think really killed his momentum of like finding the league he is physically i think a light player so he has to have minutes at the physicality level of mls and at the speed of mls to get used to it and he never got that last year and so the hope is this year he comes back understanding sort of what the league requires and there is less pressure on him he was the only creator in the attack for large stretches of last year jesus ferreira can be that guy.

Like Obed Vargas talked on this show that he wants to be that guy. So now you're adding that push from the number eight. Christian Roldan starting in central midfield all the time. That's more attacking impetus than you had at the start of last year at that position. So there's more there to make his life easier. And then the potential still exists. The underlying numbers say he was still really dangerous with his take ons last year. Yes. So for all of his struggles,

for his lack of playing time and all of that, the one skillset they got him for, it did show it just wasn't often enough. And it wasn't consistent enough. If he can just stay on the field and bring that, it is a bonus. And so I think cautiously optimistic is a really good one for this because historically the Sounders have had players like this work out.

They have enough of a setup, enough of a structure, the scouting program, all of that, that normally these players work out for them. Speaking of working out, for Portlandland their signing of evander worked out and now it feels like it's going in the other direction you did some reporting on this whole conversation give us the lucho evander name xdp that you want to as well that um everything is kind of connected to each other so let's start with the first domino to fall. It was Estudiantes and the Foster Gillette Group. I still feel uncomfortable talking about sporting groups rather than just talking about teams. Foster Gillette Group, Estudiantes,

has agreed a fee with FC Cincinnati to sign Lucho Acosta. There is no agreement. Nothing is imminent on personal terms. So that is still open. There are MOS teams that are still interested in Lucho Costa. That deal is not closed. It is not guaranteed that he will go to Estudiantes, but they agreed a fee with Cincy. So one part of that is done. In conjunction with that, Cincy have been more and more likely Lucho Costa is going to leave, and they have had their targets. One of their top targets is Evander. I am told that they are pushing to sign Evander from the Portland Timbers in an interleague trade for cash, not allocation money. This was what this rule was meant for, was for Evander and Lucho Costa.

Those are the two people that can move within the league that previously definitely wouldn't not have been able to. So nothing is done there, but they are pushing hard. My view on this is if Cincy want the player, and they do, that they have a higher probability of signing him because of the finances they can throw at him, the opening in their team and the need for it. Plus, they have a really good team. They have a really good facility, a really good stadium, everything else that comes with it.

If Cincy really want a player, I'm usually assuming that they'll get that player, both by finances and convincing the player to come. But I'm told there is no guarantee there either. The Portland Timbers have been saying all offseason, we are totally fine if Evander comes back. He is one of the best players in the league. We will be ready to replace him if we need to, but we are completely open with him coming back.

What they need is a resolution very soon. And there will be a deadline soon because Portland Timbers have their potential DP replacement for Evander ready to go. Davide da Costa of Lens in France. That deal, what it's described to me as, they feel confident they can execute this pretty quickly and say, if we have a deal agreed for Evander or we think it's about to be agreed, we will do the paperwork or formal you know, formalize the steps to complete a deal to sign David Acosta. So all those things are happening right now. And by the way, Dallas are still very interested in Evander. And if not, maybe they could be a home for Lucho Acosta. And if not, they still need a DP10. So all these things are connected to each other. And those are how those

three deals happen. But again, the news today is Cincy are pushing for Evander, as I've said that they're interested, but they're absolutely having talks and trying to get a deal done. And Lucho Costa, there is a fee agreed with the Studiantes, and there's no guarantee that he is going to go there because if he stays in MLS, if he stays in the United States of America, I should say, I believe he gets his citizenship in five or six months. And we've

seen Mauricio Pochettino bring on Mako Milhevic from, again, Argentinians. Oh, you're saying he likes Argentinians? Argentinians. And just even taking that away, Lucho Costa is a national team level player. He would at least get a chance to be looked at, I feel pretty confident in saying. So that's another wrinkle into this too. That doesn't mean that he's not going to leave MLS because of that, but that sweetens the pot to staying if there's an offer from another club so a lot going on here nothing is done everything is fluid but all of those situations are all connected the national team part was always the weirdest part of this of like he was the one who who wrote the letter and said I want to play for the national team and all of this and then he

brought up a scenario in which it at the time was impossible for him to stay in major league soccer. Now it's become a little bit more possible, but it seems still unlikely. The Estudiantes connection, the reason the Forrest Gillette conversation comes up is because Estudiantes is not a club that has the money in the past to give Lucho what he wants and to give Cincinnati what they want.

That is the numbers that he's at. So that's where it's necessary to talk about the fact that there has been cash brought in and there is financial backing at the club that has already spent a decent chunk of money over the last year outside of the lines of what we're used to for a club like Estudiantes. So it makes it all a little bit more realistic. If you're Cincinnati, I mean, it's not like Dallas is an exact rival. So it probably doesn't really matter to you, but it's not a bad idea to sell him outside the league

and not have him be able to come back and hurt you. And for Portland as well, Cincinnati in the Eastern Conference probably feels a little bit better than sending him to Dallas and having him come to your building every year. And I'm going to face him twice a year in Evander. So it makes a ton of sense. It's interesting still to me with Cincinnati. I get a ton of it, which is known MLS quantity.

We know exactly what we're getting. I still don't love the fit in the system, but I think the reality of it is, unless you're going and getting Emile Forsberg, no 10 is going to fit the system perfectly. You're going to have to carry water for that player no matter what. If Evander is engaged and willing to be a part of it, he, listen, the guy is like a physical marvel. He's gigantic. He's athletic. He's able to close space if he wants to quickly as a counter pressing player from the 10. If you can get 15, 20% more from him in those positions, then you're getting

all the great stuff. You're adding a little bit of what you do and he can be an MVP candidate once again for you and help you kick off from there. The last piece, the Portland piece, this is an interesting signing. He's 24 years old. He has played a number of minutes, but he's not a full-time starter, and he's not a 10. He is not central to what Lenz does. So there's a little bit of risk there, which is, like, you haven't seen him play exactly the role you want. He is one of these pieces, which is, if he is the sixth best player at this club at this level what is he for us i will say i like this in that i like that jonathan rodriguez is in place

and like you have between rodriguez and santi moreno and whatever you have at the nine you have known quantities in the attack and so a player like this in costa who comes in and has to find his feet it probably doesn't tank your season if it takes him six months to figure it out. Yeah, I'm sorry to kind of change the subject a little bit. I do want to circle back to, and Patrick Delaney said in the chat, how does Acosta get his citizenship before 2026? Needs five years of continuous residency in the U.S. Don't take my exact timeline as fact.

I'm not an immigration lawyer. I'm not saying, I'm trying to and I'm not saying I'm trying to be I shouldn't have said that with certainty. But my general point was, if he stays in MLS, he will be on the path to citizenship at some point within, I guess, the year or ish. Again, people smarter than me are working on that people with law degrees are working on that. But it is a it is a good comment to kind of bring up that um again i don't i don't have that timeline exact i don't believe but that's that's part of the math here and tom we always bring this up he skipped the week of immigration studies at his law degree and we all it always comes back to bite us and it's one of those things that i just

can't get over that tom felt that it was more important to bite us. And it's one of those things that I just can't get over. That Tom felt that it was more important to go watch Liverpool in Champions League that week. Imagine me while you're in a courtroom. Than to sit in a class. You'd be, listen, I've seen My Cousin Vinny. I know what it would be like. And it would be pretty good. Listen, it's a bullshit question.

Great movie. Great times. Let's move on to our next topic, which is weird one but it is an important one we got the official news out of major league soccer about the reality which is that their clubs play in four different potential regional competitions they play in concaf champions cup they play in leagues cup because we have to um they play in open cup or they don't, which has been a problem, and they play in the Canadian Championship. There is obviously fixture congestion as an issue. So Major League Soccer put out on Tuesday afternoon

how the clubs will be allocated for 2025 and for 2026 for some of these competitions. One of the keys to know, no club can play in more than two of these competitions so that is the attempt to try and control roster or fixture congestion a little bit and in doing that you have teams that should qualify for some competitions being knocked out of them because they already have their two filled um we have conca calf we already know we already know the 10 clubs that are in CONCACAF Champions Cup from Major League Soccer they qualified via Canadian Championship, US Open Cup, MLS Playoff,

Supporters Shields Cup all those things so we already know those clubs that's already one competition all of those teams are in so for a team like Vancouver they will then play in Canadian Championship they are then limited to what else they can do. Let's start with the US Open Cup. And then we'll talk about League's Cup because we did get more news on format. So now we know what it will look like here in 2025. But on the Open Cup side, it'll be 16 MLS teams competing in the US Open Cup. That is doubled from last year, which was eight. There are still 10 MLS Next Pro teams that will compete as well. They are obviously all teams that are two teams that don't have their first team competing. And then the two independent clubs that exist right now, which is Chattanooga and I think Carolina, off the top of my head. For these teams, technically it started at the top of the standings for qualification.

But because of CONCACAF Champions champions cup and leagues cup being built out of teams that did well you end up falling down the list as you look for the teams who are available the playoff teams that are going to be in u.s open cup are charlotte minnesota houston nycfc red bulls orlando and portland who were sort of a playoff team they got into that playoff and got crushed at home when they shouldn't have been the home team in all of that two teams that are not in this are last year's finalists lafc in sport in kansas city but in general this is a larger increase for major league soccer 16 of the 27 available teams are in the u.s open cup tom what did you make of this when you heard about it and sort of what's your view? Yeah, a lot of different ways to go here.

First of all, U.S. Open Cup, look, you and I both feel pretty strongly all MLS teams should be in the U.S. Open Cup. This shouldn't be a question. It shouldn't be a debate. Yes, it is better 16 instead of 8 from last year. But again, we want it to be all 27 American MLS clubs and all three Canadian clubs in the Canadian Championship. That's obvious.

I understand where the league is at with fixture congestion, but this is a non-negotiable for me. You should add second team call-ups. So if the teams that really don't want to necessarily burn their starters in these games, you can use your second teams and you can bring more players up and have more freedom of mobility between the teams. So that's just where I stand. And that's always going to be my first thought on this.

The other is, um, leagues cup going to 18 MLS teams versus 18 league of MECI teams. I didn't think that they were going to do this, but I really liked this update. Um, all games are going to be in, um,

the United States or Canada. It will be hosted by the MLS club. And like, so that's not perfect, but there is the CONCACAF Champions Cup that has the two-legged ties between the nations, between the leagues for games in Mexico. Again, as we've said in the past,

Liga MX wants these games in America, in Canada for the Mexican-American fans, the Canadian-Mexican fans of their clubs. So that is the impetus there. The business side of the game wants these games to be north of the Mexican border. I understand if the sporting side of these teams don't totally agree, but that just kind of is what it is. That was one of the reasons that this competition was founded.

But I didn't think that they were going to reduce the number of MLS teams, and they did. I think that's a good step in the right direction, and it will only be MLS versus Liga Amekis games through the quarterfinal. So we won't have a dead rubber group stage game where it's Red Bulls versus Toronto in front of 3,000 people because we've seen that game. Or FC Juarez versus Mazatlan in Austin in front of 45 people.

So eliminating those games is good I actually think there were more people at that game than at a red the Red Bull home game in League's Cup competition I think there were more Juarez and Mazatlan fans uh available for that one yeah so so that that's where it is for me Gus what's your kind of arching takeaways on the overarching yeah I think the League's Cup stuff makes sense i i just alluded to what i thought it would look like um in the video that we did for social on tuesday and it's not super far off it's a little bit off starting with open cup um yeah i want to see every team and it i think it it still devalues the competition and that's not a knock on other teams like that's not saying a usl league

one team that gets an upset or a championship team that makes a run didn't that's saying that it still shows a lack of respect for i think the landscape of the sport and the competition in not putting all your teams in it for example it should the league's cups should come after right if you're going to say there are 16 teams playing in the u.s open cup it should be the's cups should come after right if you're going to say there are 16 teams playing in the u.s open cup it should be the top 16 teams after canadian champ or sorry after concaf champions cup which you've already qualified for that go into u.s open cup and then it should be league's cup but either way i think all 27 teams should play in the u.s open cup one thing i i don't know how i feel about and i'm curious what fans think out there who are season ticket holders or who go to games. So one of the things with Open Cup is a lot of

teams host not at their home stadium. And while sometimes it looks not great, or sometimes it makes some logistical issues, I do think it's kind of fun in the like, I'm not going to sell out my stadium. Let's go to Kennesaw and let's bring the game closer to other fans geographically or bring in other people there have been some really cool nights obviously starfire is like one of the great moments in american soccer lore at this point but there are other good examples of that where i think it can be a way for there can be valued MLS teams which is can we sort of connect to a different part of our market or our fan base or whatever that I believe with the new rules coming in this year is being pushed to the side so you are supposed to host inside of your

official home stadium unless it's physically impossible I don't know how strict you are on the physically impossible thing so maybe it happens more often than I think. I'm curious what other fans think about with that. I just, I think that's been a cool little mix of what U.S. Open Cup has sort of had. And I think it's one of the ways that you're able to make it feel different and not just feel like, are we playing 47 games every season and obviously only playing in two of these cup competitions max for teams um get you there as well i do want to give a little credit i think to sporting kansas city and lafc who last year i thought were good proponents of why you should play in this i think charondolo and vermice and kai kamara on this show and a lot

of people that were involved pushed the idea internally of why they want to play in this competition, why it matters, why it's still a big part of MLS clubs. And I think the fan bases did that as well. And so I think that was a really huge part of us moving this way. It feels like we're moving in the right direction

and hopefully we get back to where we should be. And hopefully that's a part of the sport growing and all of that going forward. On the's cup side it's better it's less as you said dead rubber games i think it's less games in general which is pretty big it's also not a straight month so there are two phases to this that group stage will happen in like a three week span i believe or a two week span And then teams will go back to their competitions, Liga MX and MLS regular season, and then they'll come back for the knockouts.

And those knockouts are only quarterfinals. So it's only four clubs from the two sides. And so what you have here is you have all 18 teams from both leagues. All the games will be played in Canada or the U.S. still. All will end in a PK shootout, so there will always be a quote-unquote winner for all of the games will be played in canada or the u.s still all will end in a pk shootout so there will always be a quote-unquote winner for all of the games um and every playoff team minus vancouver are playing in this because vancouver between canadian championship and conca calf they are already used so san diego will replace they asked to be in the canadian championship

to defend their title so that's why san diego is um in the league hell yeah yeah love that um and we've talked about it the canadian championship vancouver games over the last few years have been like high points for the club so it makes a ton of sense and i love to hear that uh this opening round it is split eastern and western conference 18 teams in each there are three groups of six inside of that all of the groups are split between three mls teams and three League MX teams. You only play the teams from the other league. So the three MLS teams will only play the three other League MX teams. Then in the standings, you are only in standings with your own league.

So basically, you'll play three League MX sides. Then you'll be placed based on your points in standings against the other 17 MLS teams. League MX will be the same. And the top four from those will move into the quarterfinals where they'll face off against each other. So the top four League MX, top four MLS teams. It is convoluted. It is bizarre. It is weird. It is how they are trying to make this work. And we will see if there's any value to that format. it's very odd to have teams playing against each other for different standings in a group stage right so if you're atlas you go into a game against sporting kansas city it doesn't really mean the same to you how are you going

to play what are the teams you're going to put out there what will that look like but it is a little bit better i think than what we've seen so far and so there's positives there and hopefully it continues on into whatever it becomes whether it's games in mexico whether it's an even smaller competition whether it doesn't exist whatever it is um i think there's a future that we're coming to and the point of this by the way that it was 25 and 26 is we feel like the world cup is going to cause some schedule changes in 26 so a lot of this is like this is where we are now we don't know what the future looks like and we're going to leave ourselves open for that and i can understand that talking mls league mx

let's talk about the latest potential players moving across the two leagues it's been a huge story over the last few years uh It has increased once again this year. Mateusz Bogusz going for a huge number. Emi Ochoa going for a huge number. To Mexico, less Liga MX to MLS signings than we've maybe seen in the past. I think in this transfer window, there's another potential one, Tom, coming up. Let's open the ice cream shop with the LA Galaxy. Let's do it.

Tigres have made a bid to sign LA Galaxy center forward Dejan Jovovic. Dejan Jovovic is in the last year of his contract. He is aging out of the U22 initiative, and the Galaxy can't give him the pay raise that he would get with Tigres. I'm told that there's nothing done here yet.

The player is still weighing his options. He could be somebody that's traded within MLS with the cash transfer system, somebody who could then get a big pay raise from another MLS team if that happens. But the Galaxy are kind of stuck here. One year left on Daniel Vlitch's contract. I think it's super interesting that it's Tigres going for him because it shows kind of how good of a player this guy is.

This is a DP number nine that the Galaxy had last year on a U22 initiative clause uh a designation they had him hitting the cap at 200,000 this is a very very good player he had I think it was like five goals six goals and two assists something like that in five playoff games he absolutely was awesome down the stretch he was he's a very good forward but um the Galaxy are going to struggle to keep them this year. This was surprising to me. I think it's surprising because of Ricky Pooja's injury of like, are the Galaxy really going to take that big a step back this year? It's surprising because if you had asked me what number nine is Tigres, I called them the biggest team in Mexico.

I got debate in Twitch chat, which I appreciate club America fans. Don't tweet that or your mentions are dead, bro. Absolutely. And I don't care, but still Tigres are the highest spending team in league MX. If you had asked me what number nine in MLS is Tigres going to go sign? I wouldn't have guessed this,

but it makes a ton of sense, which is for them to give him a massive raise. They're probably still coming in at a number lower than what they normally pay because he is a young player. You can believe that he might even get better. The thing he does well, he does elite. He doesn't do a lot of other things on the soccer field. And I think Tigres is the type of team that's fine with that. They have the pieces around it to carry him.

They want to go out and get another finisher to add to Ibanez. tigress is the type of team that's fine with that they have the pieces around it to carry him they want to go out and get another finisher to add to ibanez you know day on your village is going to score goals you know he's going to score goals against the competition you play against you know he's going to score goals in concaf you know he'd score goals in leagues cup like he is proven at all these levels and so he makes a ton of sense i would say in a different way you mentioned a trade for cash rsl comes to mind we talked about rsl last time and i said i wish they'd gotten the jeremy abobase conversation does rsl have enough pure creation to make day on jovelich worth it and probably turn him into

to a dp yes i don't know i think i don't know if they do i think so i think that's where a move like this maybe makes sense, where another team that wants to spend that number wouldn't see him as the guy in MLS. Yeah, Sporting Kansas City would be another team that would make sense for me. They have DP spots open and are ambitious to try to fill, and we're going to talk about them a little bit later. I wanted to turn this conversation a little bit, Goss, that the U22 initiative and non-DPs leaving MLS. So I was talking to one source just in general about this, and it relates to the Matty Boguch deal. It relates to, in a lower sense, the Omar Campos deal.

MLS clubs are, with the U22 initiative, they can't pay more than $700,000 or whatever the exact number is. Tigres can pay $2.1 million in their sleep, dude. And they can pay whatever fee it's going to cost, the same way that Cruz Azul, totally fine paying $10 million for Matty Bogus and tripling or quadrupling his fee. So one executive said to me, are we just being the proving ground for Liga Mechis teams?

You have MLS put up whatever the fee is for all of these U22 initiative players. Liga Mechs clubs, watch them adapt to MLS for a year or two. And then the ones that are really good, your Dan Jovlich, your Matty Boguch, your whoever, okay, we'll give you $10 million or $5 million or whatever, and then we're going to give them a contract that you're not allowed to give them because of the salary cap constraints. And that is one kind of something I want to write deeper about,

talk to more people about that. I find super interesting about a deal for this, a deal like Bogus, a deal like some others. It will be interesting to see if the total number spend and then sold is a positive, right? Think about all of the U22 initiative players that don't hit.

Add those to the transfer fee numbers for the ones that do hit. And then find the difference between what you're making and what you're losing. If there is still value. Because if overall, the reality is that. And yet, MLS clubs all combined are plus $55 million on the U22s they bring in and the ones they sell. That might be the reality but like fine right we've talked about understanding where you live in the ecosystem i would say in all of that i think it's listen we'd love for open caps and like none of these rules but it's probably worth

having a u22 you know moved into a non-U22 roster spot, one per team, right? Where you get at least one guarantee that if a guy hits and he wants to stay, you can find a way to do it similar to having a homegrown or whatever it is. Or roster rules. Tom, I got you. What do you want to call this? The U22 God's theorem? Here's the thing that you don't understand.

Hell yeah. And you've got a pen in your hand that's perfect i need to uh i well that's because you don't see all the red string back here i got the full charlie day setup of like if i can just get this one rule signed then the rest of it's all gonna come in it'll all make sense once we get this one rule initiative passed but that's like that gives you that gives you that space because the point is to sell the players like the point is not to build your team on the u22 initiative play yeah yeah no no that's fair but like and yes like that is an important part

of it of like yeah it sucks for lafc to lose bogus but they signed him for a million and sold him for 10 and that's just kind of the way the world world. But the other side of that is, again, I don't know if LAFC would have given him a two and a half, three million contract if they wanted to. Like, I don't know if they wanted to, but they don't have the option. LA Galaxy don't have the option for Dejan Jovic right now because they just don't have the space. So it's less about that.

And, again, that can be weighed, but it's also, all right, our best U-22s are going to go to Cruises or are going to go to Tigres, are going to go to Monterey, are going to go to Chivas, Club America. And then we play them in Champions Cup. And then, like, the Galaxy are in Champions Cup. Like, if they move Dejan Jovic, which I kind of think that they're forced to, unless that he wants to bet on himself and play out his contract as is. And even at that, the Galaxy would probably need to do another move to make the difference in salary cap because, again, he ages out of the U22 initiative. He hit the cap at

$200,000. His salary is more like $700,000. They need to come up with $500,000 more in allocation money in salary cap states, whatever it is. But if they lose him, they would have to go back to the U22 initiative. And then if you get a player that's as good as Dan Jovovich,

which is, it took him a little bit, and that had to do with the players around him, Chicharito in front of him, Douglas Costa was the DP on the wing for him rather than Gabriel Peck and Joseph Payne. So all that being said, so maybe take a little time, and then second year in, oh, he's awesome.

Bang, here comes Monterey, wants to go sign your center forward too. So it's difficult to continue to be competitive with these top Liga Mequis clubs on the fly. And the Galaxy is a very good example because they're in Champions Cup. They just won MLS Cup. And thank God that they got that trophy because this offseason, I think fans would be a lot more upset about it. I had one person joke like maybe they're going to trade another fan favorite. Now it's Mark Delgado's gone and maybe Dejan Jovovich leaves and Gaston Bruggemann who won MLS Cup MVP.

But that's just the reality where it is. Thankfully for them, they got the trophy. Nothing else matters at the moment. But it's difficult to then go into Champions League the next year and be one of the best teams in the competition. You would expect if this move comes down, one, we've already talked about it. It seems like they're not going to put Puj on the season ending injury list. So they're not going to put Pooj on the season-ending injury list. So they're not going to have that DP spot available to them. The assumption would be they go out and sign another U22 initiative forward. You would hope they can find the right player in a veteran as well.

Maybe one on loan, at least for half the year, that can come in and score some goals. I think you could get close to double digits with Peck and Payne. So on the wings, even if it's just Marco Royce and Diego Fugundes behind it, like I'd put Tom's over under at seven and a half goals in major league soccer with those players. So I think there's like a good space there where it's,

even if it's like a Daniel Rios on loan, or is there someone more veteran in Europe or South America who's like, yeah, I wouldn't mind go live in LA for six months and play on loan or whatever it is and the team's still holding some of it. It feels like there's enough there for the Galaxy to remain competitive this year. Then you get Pooj back.

Then you sort of kick on to next year of like, how can we really juice this thing? And maybe you get a U22, some experience, but it's not ideal. Shout out to Michele Giannone, one of we really juice this thing? And maybe you get a U22, some experience, but it's not ideal. Shout out to Michele Giannone, one of our favorites on this show, who says Chicho 2.0, go get your bag day on. So maybe he goes to Tigris one year, two years,

Brandon Vasquez style, comes back as a DP and everything's built around it. Brandon Vasquez, another one, right? He had to leave to make the money that he thought he was deserved. And then he comes back and makes the money he thought he deserved in Major League Soccer. So maybe there's something a little bit broken there as well.

Tom, anything else here in the ice cream shop? Yes. A couple more that I want to get to. Stuart Armstrong is leaving the Vancouver Whitecaps. He is being – a deal is being finalized with Sheffield Wednesday. Stuart Armstrong, we hardly knew you. Started off.

I feel like the Popeyes meme right now. I just lived through the full Stuart Armstrong experience. He wanted to go back to England. He wanted a chance

to push over the Premier League. They are somewhere near the promotion playoff spots. I don't know exactly where they are. The champo table obviously changes

every match day. They're somewhere within that they feel like they want to push for promotion. It's what I've reported on Josh Windass and Santos wanting them. They don't want them to leave. They think that they have a legitimate chance. Hey, you get in the playoffs, you never know.

A very American concept, I shall say. But Stuart Armstrong is leaving the club. Will remains to be seen if they fill it with a DP spot or if they use the U22 initiative. Again, this is a team that is trying to be, the ownership is trying to sell. I doubt that they're going to put $5 million up for a new DP, but I could be wrong.

Well, they've also never done that even when they're not selling the team, so I feel pretty confident that they're not going to, but maybe I'm wrong. I was just trying to find, like, total stats here. Stuart Armstrong, six appearances for the Vancouver Whitecaps. I think it was 11 across, 10 across all competition? Okay.

But he looked, God, he looked so good in the playoffs and down the stretch. Like it's, I was critical of the signing when it happened. And I came around and I was like. Go through the full experience. And then I was like, all right, like watching that playoff series and then watching him against LAFC, even though they And then I was like, all right, like watching that playoff series and then watching him against LFC, even though they lost, I was like,

all right, man, like if he's like this for the next year, even if the contract doesn't look great at the end, I was wrong. Good signing. And now he's got it two weeks before the season starts three weeks before the season starts.

What's up for here? Yeah. What's tough here is like you talked about with the ownership one, they haven't spent already and they're trying to sell. So they're not trying to bring on more costs and that's where it's like you could convince me very easily oh if you have a replacement lined up this team could be even better like we kind of keep asking are they at their ceiling where's their ceiling again i think jayden nelson i like this piece i think he fits in here and he's 22, and I think his ceiling is pretty high,

and he can be special. Pedro Vitae has a lot to his game. They've brought in Ocampo as well. But, like, we are back to square one at this point for Vancouver of there's not enough support for Ryan Gould. How are they going to get better? If you roll the same team out year after year, how are you going to get better? And I don't know that the coach is enough to take a huge jump if you're losing a DP.

And Armstrong, I talked myself into, maybe he is the one that makes his team better. He played 330 minutes for his team. 330 minutes. I'm just laughing because Fripp in the chat says, absolute legend, double digit appearances. But like, goddammit, he looks so good in the playoffs. And I was like, I see it, man. I see the optimal scenario.

I see what this could look like if he starts 25 regular season games and then goes into the playoffs. So it's unfortunate. And, again, I don't want to make light of this. He asked for this move. He asked to leave. So the Vancouver Whitecaps are in a tough spot. So I hope just for the front office, for the staff,

that they are able to get some sort of money to bring in a replacement. I know that they wanted to sign another U-22 initiative attacker already. Will it be two of those? I just hope that the discretionary funds are there so that the front office has a chance to replace this player. I was just trying to look through MLS and be like, is there anyone else I'd like to see there? Eric Williamson would have been one.

He's already been moved to Charlotte. That would have been one where it's like, can you just bring more pieces into that central midfield and maybe one of them hits in a different way? There aren't super obvious names. Like, Hassani Dotson doesn't help them fill this role. Maybe it pushes Pedro Vitae higher. And so there's option there.

And I do think we had the debate in our chat. Me and Weeby were going back and forth about Dotson and Mark Delgado and where he stands. I think Dotson is more of a game, a match winner at the central midfield position than other players are. And so you might get a little bit more there and then Vitae, you're starting to see what he's like, but he has shown so far his most comfortable position is deeper where he has the passing lanes in front of him not always having to beat defenders 1v1 and all of that

either way this is a step back in a really bad moment let's move on here uh and let's talk about sporting Kansas City let's do it a lot going on with SKC. Hit me with it. Yes. I've got the names up now. They are finalizing deals to sign Spanish attacking midfielder Manu Garcia and Russian winger Shapi Suleimanov from Aris in Greece. Total fee for both is somewhere in the region of $5 million. Garcia will be their DP number 10. And while they're at it, they have submitted a offer to Red Bull Salzburg for a Swiss youth

international, American born youth international center back, Brian Oko. Oko is like, you know, message board superstar, big one of the dual nationals. Could he be of course playing center back? There's a ton of excitement there. SKC has had one of the oldest and slowest center back pairings for a long time in Major League Soccer.

Either of those. Not always both, but always having all of those elements as a part of it. So to get a young athletic center back should be exciting. Rosero, I believe, is coming back coming back coming back from injury but still coming back i think he showed that he's been probably their best center back signing outside of fontas is one year since ike opar and that's what we always go back to with this club so that feels like a good upgrade that feels like a smart place for skc to make a move and we talked about the other two uh last show they feel like high level tam low low level DP signings, very similar to the Eric

Tommies and the Gotti Kindas and sort of Johnny Russells in the past, but they're younger at least. And so you're hoping that you're getting more fitness, more minutes out of them. And right now, this is like, I think this in Houston might be the two thinnest rosters in Major League Soccer right now. Like I just, what we have in our depth starts, it's just not a starting MLS team. And so the moves have to come at some point. Maybe two guys having some familiarity this late in the window helps them sort of hit quicker and maybe helps you catch up a little bit. I'll say it again.

I really, really like the profile of Manu Garcia. And I stand by, again, it's a pretty basic take, but a DP10, if they hit, they can elevate so many players around them the same way that I think an absolute killer defensive midfielder can because the knock-on effect with other players in a team. Like, if I'm rebuilding,

and I'm not trying to take a shot at the Chicago Fire, I'd rather spend $12 million on a DP10 than I would on a Hugo Kuypers, which, again, Hugo Kuypers is a very good signing. But last year didn't turn them into a playoff team. I think this year he's going to be even better. But the point is DP10 can have a bigger effect on your team and then, again, give Chicago some love. Them signing Kellen Acosta last year I think was that type of signing

that should make the back line better, that should make the players around him better. So that's why I really like this Garcia signing. And you're right, maybe we're a little bit worried about some of the total talent on this team. But again, if Garcia is really, really good, Eric Tommy looks better. Daniel Shalhoub looks better. Steven Afrifa looks better. Salih Polovov looks better. Willie Agata is going to get a run as the unquestioned starting center forward, unless they bring in a DP number nine, unless they get in the Dejan Jovovich game. They're not, I think, as bad, not as many questions now with these two signings about to be done, plus the idea of bringing Brian Ockel in, because to your point, that diversifies that back line group in terms of profile, both age-wise and in terms of what he does. Like,

a quick look at some of the comps. He's fun as hell, man. That dude loves – he hasn't met a situation he doesn't want to dribble out of. So I'm excited, again, whether that means good or bad. But I think that these are three potentially really interesting additions by Sporting Kansas City. I'm going to assume you didn't say Mason toy's name as disrespect. I'm going to take it as disrespect and it's going to be noted for the rest of

the year as disrespect. So I want you to be on alert for that because that's the reality of what's happening right now. But as you go through it, yeah, there are a lot of pieces that if you have a key piece around them, they can be difference makers. They can be comfortable in this team team if they do sign oko do wonder what it means about robert voladier i mean he

was a u22 initiative for them they've they've played him they played him a ton with skc2 he was able to sort of win a spot uh as a starter for the first team but the idea was fine let him settle and then he becomes a starter. They have three center backs right now. Yeah. They need a fourth, no matter what. And then you figure it out from there. And, you know, I think Volodair is a solid player, whether he starts.

I don't think that this is an indictment on him. It's that they need a fourth center back no matter what. And I like the play for a high-talented young player. I don't know if he would be U22 initiative as well. They have the flexibility to use one more U22 initiative slot. I don't know if Brian O'Cole would be it. I know that the idea is to try to get him on loan, see how that goes, and then include a purchase option on there. But he's somebody who has struggled with injuries a bit in his career. So maybe you don't even need to use the U22 initiative slot because i don't even know if this would be a crazy expensive deal by way of fee or of salary of contract but they do have an open u22 side if they want to use it yeah you would assume if salzburg says he needs to get

minutes sending him to the country where he has citizenship so he doesn't count as an international is a pretty safe spot to be like all right let's send him there let him get minutes and see where he stands after all of this i do appreciate the clamor in the chat the moment i said thinnest roster of like no no my team is more messed up than this uh and shout out to rg loss for the dallas reference i obviously also wasn't including montreal in this because montreal lives their own life and does their own thing although they've made a bunch of moves uh over the last few days as well sorry Montreal just a random a random thought that I have pre-season tradition unlike any other is me looking at the Montreal depth chart that that we have and being like there are five to seven different starting best 11 combinations that

I don't know which one is right because also good, you're kind of like, I could sell myself. Oh my god, yeah. That wasn't meant to be an indictment. That was meant to be like... And they always have three or four guys I'd be like, I have never seen that name before. I have no idea if this was an academy player, if this was a signing. And then one of those three or four always hits.

Ismail Kony, Nathan Saliba, whatever. Jules-Anthony Vilsan. When they signed him, I was like, this guy could either never play a minute for this team or he's going to score 12 goals and we're going to be like that sick. But he did neither of those things. Turn on an Ottawa game, turn on a Cavalry game, turn on a Halifax game. You're going to see that person tearing it up.

There's also always the three Canadian dual nationals that you didn't know were Canadian dual nationals from countries you didn't really know played soccer anymore or ever. So I look forward to the Comoros Canadian international left back that they sign coming up in the next few days. Orlando getting a shout in here as well. Nowhere near as thin, even with the Cartagena injury. This is they have three starting center forwards, including two multimillion and one who's a DP. Like this team is not as thin as the ones we are talking about on some of these other rumors. All right.

I think that's all for us here. We've got a special show coming up tomorrow. We have a big interview with someone who's connected to an expansion team that is going on around the North American soccer sphere that will come out tomorrow, both on YouTube and on the podcast. Thank you to everyone who was in the chat here live today.

Thank you to all of you for listening via podcast. Don't forget to rate and review us. That's how other people find our show. And we are trying to get as many people under the umbrella as we can to preach the gospel about both Major League Soccer, NWSL, soccer in North north america the national teams and all of that huge thank you to everyone who has now engaged in our first ever week of super chats we have gotten some awesome contributions sent out to chris as well uh who just dropped us a nico hagan uh trade with a super chat here seems like everyone in the league is pretty set. Goalkeeper-wise, it's my bet that the crew trade

Nico Hagen dead. I saw Nico Hagen dead, and I was like, Jesus Christ, what's going on? No, it's not. Gave me a heart attack there. I don't know why that bet happened. I guess the idea was Nico should get playing time and teams will be out there looking at him.

It's a good spot for goalkeeping. Orlando City fan TV. Quickly on Orlando City. Any new Marco Paslic, Orlando City news? I don't have anything new that I can totally say right now. And you can kind of read between the lines if you want. But when I reported that they were focusing on other targets, I was very clear to say this deal is not dead.

So do with that what you will. There's been reports that maybe it's alive. It was never dead. So I'll keep you updated when I have an update. I just like that we're going to close the show here on do with that what you will. Tommy Scoops in the basement. David Goss here. Jordan Angeli coming back around the corner as well.

We had a great set of shows this week. Thank you to Pardeeb once again for joining us to talk NWSL on Wednesday. We've got a cool interview coming out next week with an immigration lawyer that I've been teasing for a while, but now will finally drop. We're going to get into our season previews as well, and CONCACAF Champions Cup is just around the corner. So thank you to all of you for listening, and thank you, Tom, for being here. We'll see you next time.