SoccerWise - MLS Edition: Lucho Speaks Out In Cincy, Ramirez Traded To LAG + USOC & Roster Rules

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

If you watch Soccerwise you know sometimes Tom & Gass can get mad and say some harsh things. BUT Lucho Acosta has taken things to another level. The guys dig into Acosta's quotes to The Queen City Press about why he wants to leave the club. Then they breakdown the Christian Ramirez trade to the LA Galaxy, and where Columbus stand now. Of course the Soccerwise squad is stoked about the return of USOC and some big debuts, and then they get their CPA's up to read the fine print on the 2025 MLS roster rules (aka read Chris Ivey's great article.)7:45 Lucho Speaks Out29:18 Christian Ramirez Trade To LAG40:00 USOC 1st Round Matchups46:00 Digging Into The 2025 MLS Roster Rule Changes Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Breakfast with SoccerWise, an early morning recording for David Goss and Tommy Scoops as we send him off to the West Coast to a little bit of some warmer weather and some quality nature, a little desert in there warmer weather and some quality nature, a little desert in there. Time to go big time, baby. You are Coachella at this point, and you're going to be the headliner. I'll be at MLS preseason in Coachella once again. Yeah, all of that nature stuff is all cool,

except I'll just be either at soccer fields, which is a beautiful view, but I'll just be at soccer fields. That's my nature, or hotels. That's what it is is but this is fun bunch of this this event keeps on getting bigger um it is a lot of people are there in terms of for teams i hope that they're still a little bit lax with security in which i have seemed to have more free reign in those scenarios but if they're more serious about um hey man you're you can't go over there, that's fair enough. But I hope that continues, though. I love sitting, watching soccer with mountains in the background in the middle of the desert.

It's the dream scenario. I also, like, from streaming from afar, preseason is rough. Like, it's brutal. But in person, it's the best because it's just like low stake soccer everyone's having fun you see weird stuff people are like oh what if we play this person at center back what if we play this person at tag mid or these five signings haven't gotten in the country yet so like what if we just throw this kid in this spot and all of that is really fun and i enjoy all of that um so i'm jealous of it and i look forward to for the next year as people bring up coachella

to me being like oh yeah yeah my friend tom was a big deal there he's a bit of a headliner you're talking about the pre-season tournament right the coachella valley invitational it is uh it is the center of coachella is what many people say we've got a big show for you, mainly because Lucho Acosta decided to go off. So we're going to dig into his comments that he made to Laurel Fowler of Queen City Press coming up in a little bit. Christian Ramirez is headed back to LA as well. He might be on your flight as he goes to his hometown

to play for the LA Galaxy. He's already played for LAFC. He cannot do the Chivas LA double record. That is Mark Delgado's. I confirmed that with Heath Pierce, by the way. Mark Delgado, the only player to play for all three at a first team level. Is Heath Pierce the, like, I love that he was confirming that. Is he a stats and information guy now? Doesn't Heath Pierce have other things to do? He's a Chivas legend. like blood so like but so now i should call him anytime that i have a question did this player play for chivas like what if he's like i'm 100 sure you should never call him

because he'll just be annoyed that he got a phone call from you but me i'm allowed to send a text every once in a while to ask a question but yeah well you have to you have to go to the source if anyone's gonna know it would be him um so he confirmed that for me u.s open cup first round has dropped uh we're gonna dig into some of our favorite matchups some of the cool storylines and then we're gonna talk mls roster rules as the 2025 roster rules have officially been dropped as well. We don't really understand a lot of it. Chris Ivey, who does a fantastic job for 615 Soccer in Nashville, put up a thread and then turned it into an article at their new website that you can go and read.

So basically, we read his article and we're going to take the things he keyed in on and we're going to put them out there. Then we've got a little bit more time to dig into them ourselves over the weekend uh and maybe if we come back with some other ideas we will do that so a lot to cover tom you've got this trip coming i assume getting out of the northeast getting into some warmer weather getting into the desert that should relax you i heard last night you really showed all of your relaxation abilities woosa the field. Give us an idea of what the men's league scene was like last night. Well, last night we were playing a game and ball rolls out of bounds and I kind of turned my back to grab a mark. And somebody had the audacity to try to throw in the ball off my back and then try to dribble.

And as the ball hit my back, he's like, that couldn't have been the throw in. I know that logically that is what had happened, but my my brain was like there's no way that this dude just tried that and the ball rolls back to him and he takes another touch and I flew into a challenge just full-blooded completely clean I got the ball but I didn't care if I was going to get the ball and the dude had like a foot on me too and I was like I don't care this guy's going down and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't try to angle the tackle towards the goal that was off the field on the sideline where we were he didn't roll into the post unfortunately i stuck the shit out of him though that felt great and i kind of looked at him like you're fucking kidding me right

and like he he's on the ground and he has the audacity to start complaining that I tackled him too hard. And as I – because I was turning to walk away already, and, like, my blood was boiling at this point. And I turned and I was like, what did you – like, and I was like, you say that after you – I was like, I won the ball. All of these things. Two of his teammates come over to me not to be like, hey, bro, like, I'm going to – one guy just puts his arm around me and goes, dude, that was ridiculous.

I can't believe that he did that and he's actually complaining. I would have freaked the hell out like you did. Don't worry, this guy sucks. All of his teammates were like, I hate this guy. And then for the rest of the game, I'm starting to notice, like, this dude would either misplay a pass or demand the ball and then get upset about something. He, like, had, like, one good pass.

And his teammate that was, like, I was marking just goes, he finally fucking did something right. I was like, all right, yeah, I won this interaction. But he didn't come near me again after that challenge, and he had about a foot on me. So like you said, Gus, you never fight a man with nothing to lose. I like that you used the word won as if there was a victory in all of this for any of the participants involved.

Here's my thing. I, I'll be honest with you. In basketball, I was a inbound off the back person because sometimes, you know, sometimes the five seconds are getting down and it's like a good play. There is a different culture in soccer. It means different things. It means more.

And I think the culture of soccer especially in settings like this is like come on we all kind of know what we're doing you can't come in and try and like oh well what what if we like got an advantage it's like this isn't the world cup final like there is respect on the line as well as that and i will say the reason you won me over because you didn't start with me i'm gonna be honest i had to be won over is you learn about someone with the way they treat their teammates and like every game i play i don't like the person across from me right from the start and then i'll normally be fine with it even if they're antagonistic to me until you see the like oh this is the person who always demands

the ball at their feet does nothing for their team ruins their team's play makes everyone else time worse you're like okay i can hate this person it's okay it's acceptable so tom you are victorious in all of this my only regret is so it was funny because the guy was like oh that was clearly a foul which it wasn't it was a it was a strong as hell tackle but it was a clean tackle and i think the ref was like he was like no that's a throw in bro because he tried to put it down and take a free kick i should have walked towards him and turned my back a foot in front of the, like, just go ahead, try it again. I dare you, do it again.

That's the only regret I have that I didn't do that. We've got something to look forward to next week when you get back into the ring. Something for everyone, something for everyone to look forward to. So now that we've got that out of our system, we can dig into something less antagonistic, something with a little bit less intensity uh and that is lucho acosta's future in cincinnati it was a bit of a bombshell when this came down yesterday so as i mentioned laurel faylor queen city press i am a subscriber to her work i have been for a long time she has come on shows that i've worked on mls today um

we will have her on soccer wise at some point. I just was recently on her podcast. She does a great job covering FC Cincinnati. And so she got the exclusive conversation with Lucho Acosta this week. Lucho, as we have said, is with FC Cincinnati at preseason. He is not training with the team. I believe he posted on Instagram a video of him alone in the gym saying alone once again. And it's a long quote, but it has a lot in it.

So let's dig in and let's start just off the top. He said, quote, if my move out of FC Cincinnati occurs, it is all because of general manager Chris Albright. He said, Chris, in a statement, my frustration after the last game of the season was all because of general manager, Chris Albright. He said, Chris, in a statement, my frustration after the last game of the season was all because of my issues with Chris that had evolved to a point that the locker room became too small for the two of us. I'm very, very thankful for Carl and Jeff. That's Carl Linder and Jeff birding the owners for providing me a lifetime opportunity to be the league MVP.

And I'm proud to be a part of the project that elevated FC Cincinnati's name to be a respected powerhouse in the league. My frustration with Chris started at the end of the 2023 season, where we were close to making the finals, and instead of maintaining the team core, his lack of experience dealing with the players pushed away key players such as Alvaro Barrial, Junior Moreno, and Santi Arias. This season, we are having the same issues again, where lack of leadership from the GM pushed away

Yamil Assad, Yuya Kubo, and Luca Orejano, and even bringing back Alvaro so we could have a team that would fight to bring the championship to Cincinnati. Don't really understand what that means. My biggest frustration is because I want to win the championship so bad, but we need continuity with all the players on the roster for the following season. I am trying my best to stay around, but I can't be working under someone who doesn't even have the courtesy to respond to my text messages. My goal was always to stay in Cincy until my contract ends. Cincy at the top to Laurel Fahler at the Queen City Press. She followed up with asking Chris Albright and FC Cincinnati if they'd like to make a statement. And they responded, Chris did not, but with a team statement.

It says, FC Cincinnati's emergence as a winning team in MLS has been fueled by many factors, including most importantly, the leadership of GM Chris Albright. Chris and his team have assembled top talent, building out a first-class roster to contend for trophies and elevate Cincinnati on the global stage. This strategy, led by Chris, has resulted in FCC earning the second most points in MLS over the last three years

while navigating salary cap restrictions to secure high-performing players. Club ownership, Carl, Jeff, and Chris are all aligned on the vision and strategy as the club competes for trophies in 2025. Woo! Oh, baby, we are in it. I would like to say I probably wasn't fully in character

for the Lucho portion. Felt like I nailed the statement on the second side. We might have a second re-showing after this matinee performance of me in full costume i've got a cincinnati jersey in the back i can sort of really get into the character and get into the idea it was a long quote tom it's necessary because there are a lot of there's a lot of details in there and there's a lot of up and down give me the like from the moment you saw this start of how you've processed this and I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say I think maybe Lucho Costa is not a huge fan of

Chris Albright uh let me start with this too because I haven't gotten to give my kudos to Laurel well done by Laurel Fahler um to again to get Lucho Costa on the record to give him the chance to go on the record while also saying hey Chris Albright FC Cincinnati, FC Cincinnati, here's, you know, this is what he said. He's on the record. You can say whatever you want or you don't have to say anything. Like that is journalism 101 and well done to Laurel. And this is a great story. On the Lucho Costa stuff.

This is difficult. It's nuanced, right? Players are unhappy. Things happen. You don't know exactly the ins and outs. I don't know if Chris Albright wasn't responding when he said, hey, happy birthday or, you know, Merry Christmas. Great to see you. I love you. I appreciate you. Or was it like, get me the F out of this team? And then maybe he didn't answer. So we don't know exactly those kind of details.

I feel for Lucho that he feels that he had to get to this stage. With that being said, i don't really disagree with anything that that chris albright did or is doing um i guess i don't know for sure exactly how it's being handled so i can't speak to that but every maybe not every player most players around the league feel that they deserve more money all of us do in our own jobs. That is a very human response, a very human feeling to be either underappreciated, undervalued, all of that stuff. Everybody else showed up for preseason, except for Sebastian Giuse.

Everybody else showed up for preseason. These conversations with teams are very difficult. And you look at it like there's a salary cap. So let's go kind of point by point here. The thing that I don't think that lucho can really say is my goal is to stay in cincinnati until my contract ends i want to retire here chris is pushing me out the back door nobody asked him to go public with a transfer request the second they got eliminated from um from the the playoffs that was started with i want to go go back to Argentina to be close with my family.

I want to go to Boca Juniors. The original play was, come on, you have to understand this. This is my boyhood club. This is my home. Well, then Boca didn't want him. And all of a sudden it's like, no, I actually really just want to leave no matter what.

And both things can be true. Again, I'm trying to see both sides and empathize with both sides, but that rubs me the wrong way. There were links to this has happened with Brenner and Bupenza, particularly the latter one. Don't know that's who you want as your ally in this situation. And a couple of the more, and I'll stop rambling and let you give your thoughts as well.

The line of pushing away key players such as Ovaro Barrio, Junior Moreno, Santi Arias. Let's just go point by point here. Alvaro Barrio sold all of his things and said, I want to leave and go to Europe. A European offer didn't come. It was untenable. Alvaro Barrio had to depart the club. Because Alvaro Barrio started that situation with, I want to leave. That is my understanding of it. And again, maybe Alvaro or if Laura has different information, they push back.

I'm telling you, that's my understanding and I'm very strong on that feeling. So that's one. Alvaro asked to leave. Number two, Junior Moreno. Again, I'm not trying to be disrespectful to a player and hitting him with a stray. What has he done since he left FC Cincinnati? Pavel Buka has been very, very good. They replaced him with a very, very good player. Santi Arias, that was a good signing for a one year rental where they could get him for a cheaper number because he had to prove his fitness. He proved his fitness. Would you have given him a max damn deal? Would you have given him a 1.2 million David Goss? I wouldn't have. So point by point there, it's like, what else should the front office have done?

Luka Oriano was the next one. So in one hand, you're complaining that they pushed away Alvaro, Barrio, Junior, Moreno, Santillarez. Luka Oriano didn't show up for preseason because he wanted to leave. But also now that's a bad thing because they didn't let him leave. But if they did let him leave, they would have been pushing out good players that hurt the chances for trophies. I just think that there are too many different strands and like i don't know man like i'll go back to my reporting about this like people have told me there are

a lot of things that haven't come out of the locker room haven't come out of the club that there are stories here of like they blanket it with hey man that's Lucho being Lucho yeah there's I think a lot of the details in this as you said they don't totally make sense there's also just well there's a few things one clearly there's something personal for Lucho going on here and so whether he's actually trying to operate in truth and all of that and be a sports reporter on all of this. I don't know. So I think that's one thing I think he would tell you, my guess reading between the lines here is that if it was handled differently,

maybe Alvaro Barrio wouldn't have done that. Maybe Luca Reggiano and Yuyo Kubo wouldn't have done that. It seems like it comes down more to opportunity and money with some of that. So it seems hard to believe that's Lucho's belief. I think one of the things in all of this, if you're talking from a pure soccer point of view, most of the moves he's talking about here were the star pieces were put in place and they were low cost options that they were taking risks on, hoping they worked. And the reality was, if they worked,

they were not going to be able to afford to bring those pieces back. Santiaris was looking for any club to play at to prove that he was healthy. There was not a shot in the world they were going to bring him back because either he was going to play poorly and they weren't going to bring him back, or he's going to play well and he's Santiaris and he's proven he is who he is and he's not going to sign on a normal right back contract in major league soccer alvaro barial by the way was someone that they resuscitated from being a blown attacking wide player to one of the best fullback or wingbacks in the history of the league he overperformed his contract that's what happens when you overperform your contract this

is the same as ricky pooch coming out and saying, why is Dejan Jovolec gone? Because Dejan Jovolec has outplayed his contract, so we won a championship. Once that happens, unfortunately, the way MLS is set up, you lose that player. Junior Moreno, the same. He was a flyer on a piece that was on a struggling DC team. They needed to fill that hole at the time. And then, as you said, they went out and got a more sustainable piece in Pavel Buka from both performance and contract setup and Junior Moreno went out on along his career Yamil Assad the same story so I think from from my point of view a lot of these moves they made sense before they even happened like the year Santiaria signed you're like oh great this is going to go well and he won't be on the team next year or this is going to go poorly and he won't be on the team next year, or this is going to go poorly and he won't be on the team next year.

And guess what? He wasn't on the team next year. I also would say in the whole like attacks on Chris, I would just look at 2020 being the finishing 14th in the East and 26th in MLS and 2021 being 14th in the East, finishing 27th in MLS, and then 2022 being 5th in the East, 10th in MLS, and then winning the Supporter Shield in 2023. This historically was the worst franchise in the history of Major League Soccer. Chris turned it around in his first offseason. He then proceeded to win things for this team, put them in dangerous positions, and put them in a spot like this.

I just think we had to spend some time to say, Chris Albright's a good them in a spot like this. I just think we, we had to spend some time to say, Chris Albright's a good GM and major league soccer. Are there things he could do better? Probably. He'd probably tell you that that's humanity. That's the way it works. The Bupenza stuff.

They got wrong in the player. They chose to bring in. They're not the first team to be tricked by Aaron Bupenza. Turns out they're not the last team either. Cause he's now gone through two more clubs after him and the Brenner stuff as well. They resuscitated what was a bad move with Brenner originally. They were able to get the right deal out of it. It's the nature of the sport. You're buying young players. You're selling young players. Players are moving in and out of contracts. But at the same time, they have Roman Celitano. They've brought in Matt Miazga as a stabilizer.

They've added Miles Robinson to that. Notice Obina Nobodo, who they were like recognized as a key piece of their team, has not asked to leave. He's brought in on the contract he was supposed to be on and he has played up to that level and they maintain him on the team. But the thing is, they have maintained consistency in which they've tried to replace pieces, right? They've spent bigger and bigger and bigger trying to make these moves. So it is not, let's be real, what we have seen from some other clubs like a Colorado Rapids or an SKC where they haven't tried to take the jump. And that's where I think it's frustrating from the outside to see Lucho say this because they have tried to make these jumps. This seems hard to come back from.

From the outside. So, like, what do we make of the fact that this has been put out there? So, I think, I'm assuming that was the goal. And again, for Lucho to feel heard, like, I feel like I just kind of said, hey, I hear you. And then just disagreed with everything you said. Like, I'm assuming that the root of this or the root of his feelings or what he's trying to convey is maybe the interpersonal relationship of how not just the move, but how the move happened or how it was received or how it wasn't explained or whatever. Right. So maybe there's that.

Again, like I want to be careful that like I'm not just saying, oh, yeah, you're wrong about everything you're saying. But this could be, and like, again, I'm assuming that's why you go public immediately after playoff loss saying, I want to leave. This is why you go when you're doing your exit interviews and you're scheduled to speak to local media. And as you did your exit physical and said,

no, I don't have a single free minute. I have to leave. I have a family thing. And then two hours later, you're doing what appeared to be a live interview with ESPN Argentina from your backyard after saying, I don't have a single minute to do media that I'm scheduled to do here and then talk more about my request to leave.

I think you do all that to make a mess and get out. And that is what it is, right? Like we've seen that across all sports. see that in soccer a lot obviously and hell we're both big basketball fans like Jimmy Butler just got rewarded not only with a trade but with a new contract right like so this is part of the playbook if you have the stomach to make things messy um and he does but like I truly believe him when he says I I love the fans. I love all, like, he's trying to walk the tightrope of, like, I'm trying to do this for me and my family and for my own personal happiness. But also, I do love the fans. I do love it here.

If there was a different scenario, and again, the truth lies within somewhere there. So, that is where I think this is in terms of his exit and now what, right? Like you said, Pat Noonan, I believe, I forget when it was. It was at his exit interview or the first interview in preseason. One of those times or both those times, he used the phrase, the bridges aren't burned. Bridges are burned now. I can tell you that for sure.

I think bridges were burned before this interview. The club, I think I'd grown more and more definitive on saying he's played his last game for the club or I'm expecting him to have played his last game for the club. Bridges are burned. They will tell you, yeah, he could come back. Like, we don't have to give him up for nothing. I think that has to do more with negotiating ploys and like, hey, trying to not lose leverage. We could bring him back, right? Maybe. I doubt it. So now what? Well, they agreed a fee with the Studiantes. And the ownership group that's behind them

is something we've never heard of. It's called Foster Gillette. Even when that first bid was accepted, and what I was told is the bid is a lot more money than is reasonable to a bid for a 31-year-old who is as asked to leave. His market value shouldn't be super high right now. The number that I've heard for this agreement

is pretty unreasonable, and Cincy, no wonder why, they probably accepted it immediately. Since, even with that, I was talking to people like, hey, who the hell is this group? I haven't heard of them. Are they new?

Did I just not pay attention? Like, am I ignorant or whatever? It's like, no, we're trying to figure it out too. One person that is connected with a player that this group is trying to buy told me directly, I'm going to be honest with you. I need to see proof that they have the money to pay the contract or the fees or whatever. There is more and more discussions that are happening between sources in North America, South America of, does this team have money? Question mark. So that is kind of part of the

holdup right now of, you could write whatever number you want on a contract. If they don't have the money, they're just not going to pay it. So that's what's slowing this down. And that's what's slowing down Evander to prop. Like my assumption is Lucho leaves, Evander goes to Portland, David DaCosta goes, Evander goes to Cincy, David DaCosta goes to Portland. I still think that is the most likely outcome. But at some point, all of these teams have deadlines. Portland has to make, like, they have to have either Evander's here or DaCosta's here. But that is relying on Lucho leaving. And Lucho leaving is relying on people figuring out if this Estudiantes group actually has money. And then, like, whatever they bid, I'm going to tell

you, I don't think that other MLS clubs would bid because it is such a high fee and if that's the case then like they have to wait out oh if this team doesn't have the money they say they do or this deal isn't going to happen then fc dallas or insert another mls team that that needs or wants a dp number 10 can come in and say all right well that we both know that fee was ridiculous. What about $4 million or $5 million or something more fair? Again, I'm just using numbers here, not being kind of literal, right? So that's part of it, too, is that there aren't advanced talks, to my knowledge, with other MLS clubs because they have a deal on the table that is financially superior. But if that deal is something that isn't real, and again, this is just speculation.

This is what I'm hearing from other people in North and south america um and that's kind of what's holding all this up so we'll see how this gets resolved but i do know cincy lucho portland evander everybody involved in this wants a resolution asap it's just sinking time that's not great news i think for cincinnati of just and cincinn Cincinnati fans who we have in the chat right now live of just you want this done as fast as possible. And if you thought that was the closest scenario to get you out of this, now you kind of have to go back into some of these other conversations. As you said, you have to find a number that makes sense for everyone in all of this. That's different than the one being talked about. I know because I've dug in with the Sudiantes a little bit

since they keep coming up. Remember, Sebastian Drusi was connected to this club, but then River was the one to come back in and make the deal. Gosh, so I just, like, that was when River were, like, I got that out of nowhere. Sudiantes was like, oh, what's your price? Yeah, we'll meet it. And then Drusi said, I'm going to River.

I'm not going there. But, like, I think that was the first time I was like, wow, they came out of nowhere. And they put up a really big fee for Sebastian Drusi when I think that seemed like, oh, that seemed a little bit too quick. Yeah. They have signed Christian Medina, the one player for a huge number from Boca to a studiante. Everything else has been kind of in line with what you'd expect a club like that to buy and sell at and so the hope is it's new ownership and it's come out of nowhere but like they have something real behind them the danger and all of that is like there's not a ton of checks and balances and a lot of this around the world and

so it's a huge potential issue. Let me just reset on one quick thing. So Lucho wanted a new contract last year, right? Was that a year ago? Was that a year and a half ago? No, that was a year and a half because then he signed it and took out a page in the Cincinnati Enquirer. This is my city. Yeah.

I was just making sure we've already done this once before and that I had that part of my mind still working. It's clear from an FC Cincinnati point of view that there is trust and confidence in Chris Albright. I don't know, again, like I gave the numbers. They went from the worst club in the history of the league to a playoff winning team to a Supporter Shield winning team in two years, still using a lot of pieces that

were part of that bad group and they've continued to retool and remain competitive this is probably the biggest question mark they've had in chris albright's time just because lucho is so central to what they do um it is interesting with the evander stuff just because oh we'd love not the drama of Lucho let's bring Evander in who refuses to play for his team and goes out and says it publicly but it also took two years to get there with Evander so those could be the two years in which you could win something while you still have DeAndre Yedlin and Miles Robinson and all these other pieces at their peak and on the team and so I think for Cincy fans like this, but there should still be a level of confidence that this club will figure it out because they've done it every time so far.

Once again, if you don't go subscribe to the queen city press and get all of Laurel's work there. I'm a huge fan of it and it's how I keep up with the team. And we'll see what else comes out of this because Lucho sort of put that down Cincinnati, a little bit more coy on their statement. We'll see what the next few steps are, and we'll see what ends up happening. We're still looking for a resolution on the Yuya Kubo stuff,

which is very odd. Luke Orojano has shown up to preseason, and he's got to be a central part of what they're doing going forward. So that's a huge story to follow as well. A lot of moving pieces. Again, I still stand by my take that Yuya Kubo holding out is the biggest surprise. I don't know, like Nick Hagelin maybe would be the other one.

That's about it. Like Yuya Kubo, I was shocked by that. Let's talk about the other team in Ohio who's deciding, you don't get all the drama. Kucho Hernandez out the door, one of the best players in the history of Major League Soccer. We talked about that on the last show for a little while. We've gotten some feedback from crew fans. I think it's been interesting to hear where he stands and what his legacy is and the amount of time he had a crew jersey on versus the things

he accomplished and just the overall talent. We'll dig into Columbus in just a moment, but first let's talk Christian Ramirez. He is headed home. He is a LA native. That's me saying that as an East coaster, I don't know what Orange counties and Anaheim's and whatever counts as whatever he's from LA. He's going back to LA. He played for LAFC already. He now will play for the LA galaxy. And he has been sent for what could end up being $500,000 in allocation money starting at $250,000 guaranteed for someone who is entering the end of his contract and has still been a high performer in Major League Soccer. We did our season preview with Josh Gessman of the Corner of the Galaxy. We talked about this, and it'll come out this weekend. We didn't know exactly, Christian, when we did it. Then me and you sort of added a little bit of an intro to clean that up.

But either way, I think this was a type of move we expected, and yet probably as good a scenario as could happen for the Galaxy to try and cover for UL Village this year. I absolutely love this addition. Plus, it still gives them the room to sign a U22 initiative forward, which, again, I'm just deducing that that would be the goal, just given the rest of the roster and where everything else stands. This is an awesome fit, I think, between player and club. Christian Ramirez, what he showed with the Columbus crew of both being

individual in his own right, of he can do something special, but the way that he meshed with Cucho, with Diego Rossi, the way that they interchanged and found spaces and were just an absolute nightmare for any opposing defense, that's what he's going to be playing in between Joseph Painsill, Gabriel Peck, and then ahead of Marco Reus most of the time. I think that all these players are going to interchange.

It's going to be obviously different to what the Columbus Crew did, but both of the teams have similar possession-based ethos, and they have a bunch of stars that will be around Christian Ramirez. Realistically, for what his cap hit is, what his experience is in the league, and what he did last year, and the way it's not just the box score numbers. You watch those games, man. You have to remind yourself he's 33 and like age age is just a number all that nonsense like this is still a high level player in mls and i think that that's going to continue and maybe you wouldn't put him in a you know red bulls or philly maybe he doesn't fit there i think this

fits him perfectly because of what he showed in his interchangeability his his ability to you know not be high usage but also combine also get on the end of things but if I need to drag out all the way to the touchline and play across to a forward or a winger rather than the other way around just given it the way that like he looks his frame and his ability in the box he can do all of that and again you're getting it at 500,000 like somebody um replied to like one of my tweets talking about like oh like that seems like a lot of money like if you just go through the uh it's not a lot of money it's really not man and like i i don't even need to cherry pick the bad examples of like like the things that you know where you talk about some of the dps that have failed but as i'm pulling it up right now, so Christian Ramirez, 495 guaranteed comp last year. These are some

of the names just around him. Kerwin Vargas, 440. Georgios Koutsias, 470. Bobby Wood, 470. Ibrahim Aliu, 500. Willie Agata, 520. Elias Manuel, 580. Corey Burke, 570. Jamal Tiare, 600,000.

Mason Toy, 650,000. Christian Ramirez is the best player for that bunch. Probably, yeah. There were some fine signings in there, but Christian Ramirez is the most reliable name in that bunch. And, like, that's what the Galaxy need. Because if they do make a U22 initiative signing, that's the potential.

And that's the, like, oh, this player could be Jovulich or better. Christian Ramirez is what they need, which is a guarantee of just like a baseline performance. And I think he'll score a ton of goals in this setup. As you said, I think he'll help the pieces in that attack make their lives easier. Pain still should score more goals because Ramirez is playing with him and he understands the spacing and he'll be able to pull center backs and slip him through. Or pain still pinches off the wing and comes inside ramirez as you said can go outside and play comfortably there he's versatile he adds another piece of depth um josh had said in our preview conversation like miguel berry was not the first option at center forward because

all of the other pieces in the attack could play center forward. So you talk about a false nine in Fagundes. You talk about Painsill who played in there last year. Now those players don't have to play that position, which isn't their primary position. So it makes your team better from that point of view. Christian Ramirez, he has performed in huge moments in MLS Cups now, so he's got that experience. The guy has scored double-digit goals in MLS

when he's been in stable situations with good service around him. He is probably going into the most stable situation with good service around him that he's ever played in. Just because Cucho and Rossi were the ones ahead of him, that wasn't really the setup here. So I think the line on this, as we've been doing over-unders in our season preview, probably 10 and a half goals and I would take the over based on what I think he'll put together for this team and for them to

do it in a salary cap manageable way as they're trying to come off the championship roster and work their way back to sustainability I think that's a huge moment for the galaxy I agree like I can't say enough good things about this um what was the realistic pivot from daniel village it's another u22 initiative forward relying on that person to be the starter like you still need to have another option and hell like you need to have multiple options even if that u22 initiative forward comes in and is really really good because at acquiring Christian Ramirez, it looked like Marco Reus or Joseph Pinto were the other center forward.

So, again, even if you sign a U-22 and unlikely, but the first day he's hitting the ground running, you needed both of these players. And, again, I still think Christian Ramirez is absolutely the obvious starter. And, again, we're talking about an unknown here of who else would be there. Or, you know, they could go with Marco Reus as a false nine issue or whatever you want to say so it's Christian Ramirez this is pretty like reasonably as well as they could have done given their cap constraints no DP spots and like the high floor and what you just saw with him with Columbus all this fits perfectly

for me let's talk about Columbus what are we calling calling this? Is this a retool? I wrote reset. Is this a rebuild? Like, what's going on for Columbus right now? So they'll tell you it's a reload. Boom. I got the re part right. So they'll tell you it's a reload. And, like, I believe that that's where their head's at.

Like, I'm very much assuming a DP9 comes in. Or I can even go further than that. A DP9 will come in. And there's a chance that they use another DP spot on an attacker. And then the front three is new DP9, Diego Rossi, and a new DP10, or something within there because Rossi could play either of those spots as well. Even if those two moves aren't immediate, Dylan Shambos, AZ Jackson, Jason Russell-Rowe, that's not a Shield-winning team, but that's a, okay, if we don't get a deal done in the next week, it's going to be okay.

We can let this linger a little bit if we need to, or if there's visa issues, or if the player is just getting up to speed, or we're learning the system. This club is going to be fine if they don't have new DPs firing in March. And I think that's the best I could say about that. And that's why I would call it a reload rather than a rebuild, because the bottom isn't going to fall out for this team. They're still going to be very, very good. I think there are obviously questions. They do need to get these deal done. But I know that they're confident on being able to identify and

bring in new players. They want to be a place that develops and sells on players. That's obviously more so in the Cucho range of this, of that, hey, he's going to Real Batiste. That's an awesome opportunity for him. We wanted to, like, yes. They say they asked for it particularly now. When that offer came in and when everything was clear, he went. And everybody's happy. He's happy. They're happy.

That's what they want to be. And Christian Ramirez, his contract was expiring. I'm assuming that there's talks about a long-term contract with the LA Galaxy. So that's also part of it, too. I know that when America DeCali were pushing, Columbus were like, hey, we can try to work as long as no promises because we don't know if they're going to match. We're not giving you away for free, but we're not going to stand here. We're not going to say, no, you're off the table.

There's no price I can get you going. They could have said, no, we need you. But they kind of recognized that he would have gotten a new contract, obviously, from America to Cali, and that there's a strong possibility that one comes from the Galaxy. So they are trying to do right by their players, which we talk about on the show often is important. And they believe in themselves that, okay, we're going to go in the market

and we trust our ability to scout, and we trust Wilfred Nancy's ability to implement new players into our team. You want to be in a position if you're going to contend consistently where you are a place that players look at and say they will take care of me because you're going to need players to take risks on you either at the beginning of their career or towards the end to say, okay, maybe the number isn't perfect that I'm signing for, but it's worth it either because of the setup and the environment,

which Wilfred Anze has done great work with. I think there's a lot of people who are like, I'll get the best of myself there. I have a chance to win stuff and then I can reset my career after or just be a good place people want to be. I think part of like Dax McCarty finishing at Atlanta United is like,

sounds like a fun place to play and like live my life for a year or so. And you want to be a club like that. So treating Christian Ramirez as well is, is big for that. I wonder a few names that pop in my head besides the ones you said, Lassie Lappalainen is one who we've the best of his days we've seen with, with Wilfred Nance.

Could he help in the attack a little bit for now? I also wonder if there's a world in which max arvston pushes higher up the field because you have dewan jones and arvston originally was a center forward who you converted to left wing back can you have will he maybe fill some of the role behind the forward or as a forward or something like that just to get talent out on the field and give you your best 11 possible there are still moves that need to be made for this team like you said like they're not going to win concaf champions cup we've on this show said it a couple times like we've given up on that now that they've made

these moves in this timing because they're not going to get the rest of it done in time to be hitting form when they need to but they should still be competitive in the eastern conference and they should if they play this right, have a shot to get back into an MLS Cup conversation by the end of this season. So that's what's sort of on the edge for them. But this is a step back right now from where they were. And I think there's a little bit of worry just because Ramirez was one of those, like, veteran on a good deal.

We have that in our back pocket even though as you said the Cucho deal you had to make now it makes things a little bit more stressful for this team and for the fan base as they go forward in this season let's talk a little US Open Cup we got the draw for the first round a number of professional versus amateur matchups which are always fun and that's sort of the magic and the beauty of all of this. One day Tom's going to win his men's league that people throw balls off his back. Go play full 11s. Get out there.

Win a league title. Go to a cup in New Jersey and maybe have the opportunity to face off against the Long Island Rough Riders or Westchester SC or something like that in the big game. For me, one of the coolest things about this straw is there are a bunch of pro clubs that are going to make their debuts as professional clubs in competitive competition in the U.S. Open Cup. So you've got clubs that are going to launch in USL Championship, USL League One this year, where these matches are going to come before their first league matches.

One of them being Hearts of Pine in Portland, Maine, which is one I think all of us have followed from afar for a while. And it's one of those that they've crushed it on the logo. They've crushed it on the jersey. I've chatted with a few of their fans. I ran into a fan in Kansas City during the NWSL Championship who was wearing a hat. We've seen some of the rallies from afar. Like that feels like just a really cool way to kick things off of if you want a community-built club what a better way to launch things than to play

in the only real open competition in professional sports in uh the united states so that's going to be really cool to watch uh they are facing off against cd filense from massachusetts uh so a good little new eng England rivalry there. I got to shout out my Long Island Rough Riders who are in it again. They're playing against the Charlotte Independents who are going to get smoked. You're welcome. In this one, some of the ones that popped out to me, Forward Madison against Duluth. Love a little bit of niceties between Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Spokane, USL League One playing against Ballard, who along with Vermont Green have set records for crowds and attendance and interaction with their team out of Seattle. That was another one that caught my eye, Tom, where you're like, this is the point. This is the purpose of an opening round of a tournament like this. Shout out FC Motown. They kick off against Westchester SC. I'm looking forward to that one. That'll be at Montcclair david goss maybe we'll have to go to that one tuesday march 18th we'll see fc motown has been one of the best amateur sides in north america for a long time nick murray already corrected me these teams are not kicking off in this competition i should have just messaged him when i got i thought about it and i was like, I know I have this wrong. I don't know why I'm saying it.

Union Omaha is playing. Union Omaha is one of them. But the Motown Westchester one is going to be really cool. Tyler Adams, of course, bought into Westchester SC to be a part of that club. Brooklyn's coming in as well. So you're going to have triple the soccer teams the new york area on the men's side than what you had but motown is kind of like a rite of passage i think for teams in the northeast to have to beat them to have to play them and there's been some like top level internationals

that have played on that team both before and after their careers which i think is pretty exciting answer miami cf2 versus miami united fc let's go we can go to that one, Tom. You said we should go to the FC Motown one. I'm like, do you think I live in New Jersey? Yeah, but I thought when I said Montclair State University, like Red Bulls too, you would just like the Manchurian candidate just pop up and go to the airport. If it's at MSU Soccer Park, there's like a low-key chance I'm there. I met someone yesterday who was an MSU alum,

and I was like, go Riverhawks or Redhawks. Redhawks. Maybe that's why they looked at me weird because I said it wrong Losers is what they are University Really good One of the other ones that popped out to me Knoxville against Appalachian FC

Knoxville making the step up from USL 2 to USL 1 so going Fully professional I believe friend of the show Ian Fuller Is going to be the head coach of the team He doesn't know he's a friend of the show, Ian Fuller is going to be the head coach of the team. He doesn't know he's a friend of the show, but Susanna is a good friend of ours. So therefore he's a friend of the show. Obviously their gear and logos are top-notch, but Appalachian FC has some really cool stuff as well. All of these are great. You can go to US Soccer to see the

release. I urge you to try and find the best game as close as possible and go out and attend, go out and support. It is unfortunate with everything that's happened with the U.S. Open Cup as MLS has pulled teams out of it over the last year and a half and slowly start to bring teams back. But the best way for you to show that it matters is to physically go show that it matters, whether it's watching the game remotely or watching the games in person. I know we're going to be locked into this one. We're going to be covering it as it goes along. I've had the privilege of covering U.S. Open Cup games.

They're the most fun thing I've ever done. I got to call the Florida Soccer Soldiers upset against Charlotte a few years back, which was super fun. Orange County upsets as well. It's a blast. It is one of those reminders how deep the sport goes in this country and in this region that it's not just a few pros who are brought in from overseas but like there are high level soccer players deep in communities coaches people who care about the sport all over the country and we're seeing it from a pro side we're

seeing more teams come along but you have to be able to support all across of that and one day maybe if i get back into shape i'll try out for a team that can play in a situation like this it's something to strive for it's something to hope to achieve let's go from the fantasy and beauty of soccer to the rules and the mundane of soccer once again a shout out to chris ivy at 615 soccer they are the new nashville-based um soccer platform covering nashville sc but covering the league really well um i was on pharmaceutical soccer on monday chatting with um who was i on with with clay and valer sorry everything's going on ben right of course one of the best writers i think in north american soccer right now uh a part of

this project and then chris ivy the one who wrote, who was a full-time lawyer and sort of dug through the rules as a lawyer. And so we pulled some of the things he noticed, which were also some of the things we've seen in some of our group chats as well. The first one being that official recognition that the Club World Cup teams will be able to bring in some extra allocation money. So they'll get $750,000 in allocation money this year because they qualified for the Club World Cup. And they can also pull forward $1.25 million in GAM for the next two years that, in theory, they have to pay back by the end. I say in theory because it's like, I don't know who's tracking the GAM in two years years and what game looks like and all of those things. But it is our first external indication of an attempt to help these teams compete at this high level.

Yes, I think it's interesting. I kind of go back and forth of like, let's say Seattle is out in the group stage because they have a really hard group. Let's say Miami is like hypothetically speaking, let's say both of these clubs go out in the group stage. They got a max TAM slot between those two things for three games in the club world cup. When in reality, that's really going to help them in the regular season, the playoffs and other cup competitions. So I understand both sides of like Seattle, Miami should be pushing for this.

Hey, we have like, this is a global stage and Hey, we have extra games. Hey, we're already in two other North American competitions, and now this is the third, and more people are going to be watching. We need help. But will one more Max Tam player get you over the hump against Atletico Madrid? I don't think so, but he can get you over the hump in

MLS regular season and everything else. So if I'm another club, I probably don't love it, particularly the Miami side of this, because they qualified as the Sporting Shield slash host, whatever, right? So there's going to be questions asked, frustrations there, but I think this is a difficult one. I just don't think that there's one right answer, and that's kind of where I sit with a completely lukewarm room temperature take. I will say I think it's okay to award teams for being good. So, like, it doesn't bother me the, oh, you won things,

so therefore you qualified for something, so therefore you get more to be good, not just for those games, right? Like, Seattle earned a thing that now happened to affect them for the regular season, as I think it should. Like, I think you should award performance. The fact that it comes so like start and stop in terms of rules in mls is the tough part of like oh only seattle not for other teams that have won championships now they haven't won ccl and that's part of it and then you bring up inter miami being

a weird one which is like they're the only supporter shield winner that's ever gotten these rules set for them yes i can agree with some of the frustration there it's good to know at least mls is giving these teams some ability to help contend the fact that seattle got nothing for the club world cup they already played in and they just had to go and start their season in a most more competitive game even faster than everyone and like i love what jackson reagan's become but like help this team don't put a michigan kid on the field in a club world's cup game with that. They're just, they haven't played a pro game before. So I think some of that I'm fine with, but I can understand the frustration, especially on the inter Miami side.

Let's continue to go through some of these that Chris pulled out. One is MLS recently increased the amount of game that clubs can convert from sales from 1.1 to $3 million. It is no longer possible to convert any of the transfer fee of a designated player if they are not eligible to be bought down i.e above the max tam threshold of 1.74 million so in real terms that means cucha hernandez you get no game for that right so any player who is so far as a dp so far outside of the spending cap that they couldn't become a non-dp you don't get any money in allocation money right the team just gets the money so kucho

if i'm making up the numbers based off what i've seen he was bought for 11 million dollars sold for 16 million so the 11 replaces the 11 and then they get 5 million dollars in profits which the club can use how they want they could go and spend it it on another DP and put in that money, or I believe off the book, what, part of the U22 initiative, you could spend it on that as well. Or they could get a yacht. Or they could get a yacht, or build out the training grounds,

or get new coffee. Whatever it is they choose to do, they could do any of those things with that money as a club, but it can't be converted into GAM, which gets it into the salary cap. But it does then become, we've talked about threshold DPs for a while because there was an advantage for a while,

which was it triggered and opened extra U22 initiative or young DP spots or extra allocation money, all of that. A lot of that has gone away. But if you do have someone who's on a DP deal like that, you can then convert that into allocation money if you do end up selling them. So that's one thing to just note when you're looking at DPs on teams of, okay, this player could potentially be a sale that hits us on the GAM side of things as well. Yeah. And on this, like, I'm glad now that this is kind of written definitively. That's always good.

And I appreciate the hell out of the people in the Discord and the chat right now that want to understand and understand now the importance of GAM. It's more public, and I think the knowledge has increased. And I love it. Keep doing it. And I'm trying to find the correct words that, like, that shouldn't be the first talking point when we're talking, say, Lucho Acosta, talking to Vander, talking, you know,

Facundo Torres going to Paul Marish or whatever, right? Like, let's, it's kind of like if we're talking about the Luka Doncic trade, being like, oh, now the Lakers have his bird rights. Like, so that he gets restricted in free agency or something like that, right? Like, that's not the main point. And I appreciate all the sickos in us, but I do just kind of want to reframe some of these conversations that, like, this is good information to have like in your holster and like as you move the conversation forward um but again i do want to bring it off of a spreadsheet and back onto the field and thinking about some of the romantic sides of the game and the the smiles and goals and trophies and assists and moments more so than well can we get seven

hundred thousand dollars in allocation money for, it's not a pen. That's just for me. So I'm just saying. Shout out to A. Newey, by the way, in the chat, who just reminded me that we have Super Chats turned on now. So if you want to contribute a little bit or you want to send us a message or just I think he was just being nice or they are just being nice and wanted to send a little bit of money over for the work we do um that's always appreciated as well someone was talking in

the chat about the cash for trades cades cashfers whatever you want to call them one piece of the news that came out of this is a player can get up to 10 percent of that fee as a bonus that bonus is given by the team that's acquiring the player and does hit the salary cap so for example if jack mcglenn was bought by the houston dynamo from philly for two million dollars he could get a two hundred thousand dollar um player bonus for that sale that two hundred thousand would hit the cap for the houston dynamo yeah and so he's going to be you 22 initiative player so that doesn't matter um but like if they were trying to fit him as like a tan player then it would and i also think that's good that like there should be more incentive

like okay if if like if i'm going to be traded and i technically don't need to sign a new contract though like um for all of these it's not the exact like you know daniel which obviously signed a new contract most of these i think are going to come with new deals but just like if they don't then bang at least i get 10% of the transfer fee, which I think is totally fair. That's standard practice in global football as well. Which is, I think, the part where there was probably some negotiation of, we're going to put this in effect, but it's not a global transfer.

So how do we help the player and agent most likely make this feel worthwhile for them and accept it? Because rather than, let's say Cincinnati sells Lucho overseas, it's a sale inside the league. We have to make it mimic somewhat what happens outside the league. As you have said many times, it's a transfer. That's why I think I'm honing in on cash for. I've been letting all these marinate all week. You know, Cade, Ram, all this stuff, like relocation money.

I thought that was a good one too. I like Cade. I think cash for is more cause like, uh, Cade, I think Cade Cal, I think Cade Cunningham, then Cade and Clark.

I think that you're talking about, Oh, who did Cade get traded to? So cash for, I think is the one that's sitting with me now, but you know, my mind can still be changed and I'll go with whatever the people want. Okay.

Um, we have another one which confirms what we already thought, which is you can open up a DP and U22 slot via a loan if the other club acquires 100% of the player's salary. It isn't out for teams. It goes along with the second buyout now, which is just trying to help teams have more mechanisms to reset their rosters and sort of control things,

especially for new ownership groups or new sporting groups and new management groups as well. And then there is an additional roster spot that's been created. It's called, quote, an off-roster homegrown player. This player must be under 21 years old and still on their original contract. I like this. USL has done something similar, having the ability to bring in Academy players for home games that don't go on the roster in the same way and keep their college eligibility. Of course, in which you're just trying to find ways to get these players around the pro team without making everyone make a decision too early and say,

you got to sign a contract here that locks you in for five years, or you have to sign at this number. I like the idea of having the ability for players to be around the first team, get that experience without forcing them. And it's an advantage to teams that have spent on their academy. And that's the way the structure should be set up. If you are willing to take the risk, if you're willing to try and do this correctly, you should be given every advantage over someone maybe who isn't following you. So I think all of that really matters. And I think that's important.

I'm going to read through all of this this weekend because what else am I going to do? And maybe we'll have a little bit more for you as we get to next week. We did get another super chat here. Is Benjamin Rollheiser a potential target for the crew? Seems like a similar story to Kucho. Top flight guy, not getting time, but plenty of potential. I like the idea of a similar profile for a Kucho replacement. I think a lot of that makes sense of the crew have done successful in finding those pieces off of these big teams.

So it would make a ton of sense to have an option like that. Yeah, so I do know that there are some mls teams that are very seriously interested in this player and this player is open to coming to mls fc dallas have his discovery rights they had preliminary talks those talks did not advance and they have been inactive but dallas have kept those discovery rights because i'm assuming they believe there's a strong possibility comes comes MLS. Or at least a good possibility. Like that they don't have somebody they need to replace him with on their discovery list. Nothing pressing at the moment.

So, I think that bolsters, again, what I have already heard about he's open MLS. There's some teams that are interested. I know the question here on the Super Chat was to ask about Columbus Crew. That would make sense for me. I'm not saying that it is. I'm not saying it isn't. I genuinely do not know the other teams that are in i knew about dallas and that's why i was i'm able to say definitively that yes there was some preliminary talks but nothing advanced um so that that's where

it is on on that player and enui did figure out you're gonna go to that i didn't know if you missed it or not um no i saw enui gave us the super chat with nothing in it i appreciated that turns out there was supposed to be something in it. It was. Going to ask them about their thoughts on Joss Williams joining Pipa Higuain as the Cappies, as the first ever coach in MLS Next Pro history that had played in MLS Next Pro. The Cappies are Columbus Crew 2. So Pipa Higuain, Columbus legend, has left Inter Miami where he was coaching

and has gone back to Columbus to be the head coach of their MLS next pro team. Of course, we already have seen Lauren Courtois go from that job into a first team job. And so that's a pretty big role to get. And now Josh Williams, the assistant, Josh Williams is one of those players who he was always on winning teams and there was kind of like questions of like oh is josh williams good and it's like i think we've come to the point where if he is your third center back or potential off and on starter it probably means your roster is pretty strong because he was a very good piece at that he was part of toronto's teams right before they won mls cup but going i believe to 2026 2016 mls cup and then he was part of the Columbus crew for two MLS Cup championships. So I love having that connection to the team and connection to a high-level pro who can teach players, here are the things you can do to make yourself successful. Because one of the big issues for a lot of these young players is I'm the best player on the field all the time.

And they have to learn now, how do you scrap? How do you sort of train? How do you put yourself in a situation to be reliable for a coach when you're no longer the best player on the field and you may never be again so i love that signing i love the idea behind this i do believe there's initiative in mls to pay a player a little bit extra salary as an as one of your like coaches and you can do it with one who's a veteran. And I like that idea as well. We talked to Christian Ramirez about becoming a coach. He was already working with the Crew Academy.

I know Dax has been involved in this as well. You like to see this sort of pass on of knowledge as things go along. Yeah, Ali Bedoya, that has been his last two Philly Union contracts. Because that's a pathway that he wants. And Gus, just echoing everything you say, I think that's really awesome. This is a good thing. And it's not like that this is going to be taken advantage of because the monetary bonuses aren't so, where you're just going to have guys faking being coaches to try to get an extra couple percentage to keep them there.

So, like, this is a great rule, and the spirit of the rule is intact. And that is all for us. You are going to head to the airport so you can get on a flight and get out of here. Hopefully it's not delayed. Hopefully it's not delayed. Shout-out to Union Omaha, our fellow owls in this crazy world of soccer. And Coach Roy Duncie.

Shout-out to something I have no idea what Tom's talking about or why he's wearing it. And shout-out to all of you in the chat. Thank you for the super chats to the two of you who sent it. Thank you to all of you for listening via. And shout out to all of you in the chat. Thank you for the super chats to the two of you who sent it. Thank you to all of you for listening via podcast. Thank you to all of you in the discord. And thank you to all of you who have supported soccer wise so far and are enjoying things.

And we'll be back again. We've got a ton of season preview content coming for you over the next few weeks. We've got our live shows that will continue. Jordan Angeli is back in the saddle, ready to dig into all things NWSL. So get ready. Lock in because the start of the season is just around the corner.

Talk to you again soon. All right. Go do your thing have fun yeah okay bye