SoccerWise - MLS Edition: New Coaching Connections In Philly & Atlanta, Thank You GAM & DP Signing In NY

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Final Soccerwise live show of the year time for Tom & David to dig into the big MLS stories. With so many coach openings in MLS the reports are flying around and it sounds like PHI & ATL have landed on some big experienced names. On the transfer side of things Red Bulls have signed a new DP to help lead their front line, but is this the big signing the fans have been waiting for? Speaking of DPs is Charlotte coming back to the table with Miguel Almiron? Plus a ton of free agent movement around the league. 8:15 Bradley Carnell In Philly 14:55 Ronny Deila Back In MLS? 25:05 WE GO GAM! 32:00 Red Bull DP Signing Choupo-Moting & Breaking New Signing 44:30 Almiron & Charlotte FC Once Again? 53:00 Free Agency Recap Yueill, Godoy, Abubakar & More Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Welcome everybody back to SoccerWise, David Goss, Tommy Scoops, aka Dante DiVincenzo, aka Charlie Warnk, aka Chris Childs, the Knicks legend in the building for this one. Our final live show of 2024. Tom, we started this around June, I think. We will have one more episode coming out on the MLS side of things during the holidays that we're going to pre-record, so it won't be live on YouTube. Myself and Jordan already pre-recorded our final NWSL show. But Tom, the year has come to a close a little bit early to start reminiscing,

but it feels like a good moment to do it. Do you feel as alive as you ever had? I feel as alive as I ever have, which is just off the charts alive all the time. Pure energy, all gas, no brakes. That's how it feels. On a real note, though, this makes me very happy. This has been delightful. Poor Gus doesn't know how to handle um serious moments like this so i'm gonna make him squirm right now he's taking a sip of his water shifting uncomfortably goss i love you

i love you too tom i also would like to be stated i wasn't taking a sip of my water i was taking a sip of my black coffee after eating my tuna sandwich because right now my mouth is basically a Larry David episode. And when you say serious things and I respond with a joke, it is just an even more Jewish New York thing that I do. So thank you for your kind words, Tom. Nice to meet you and have a good weekend as your life continues on. Shout out to Morgan in the chat as well. We have great news that she made her drive safely. Yesterday she was streaming as she drove from Florida to New Jersey,

which is an obscene thing to do. You're a crazy person, Morgan. I respect it. I'm glad she's safe and in place. She did it for her dog, so you can respect that, I think. And New Jersey, so you can respect that as much as everyone. Shout out to EG in the chat as well, a legend. And Michael Spillaneain who just opened up

the chat with go nicks which is exactly what i want to hear big game against the t wolves coming up tonight the return against julius randall and dante dante's coming back by the way i need a tommy scoops on dante coming back that's what i'm waiting for and then i'll start to follow you on blue sky officially at that point if you want tom scoops and you don't want to be on social media all the time, you can subscribe to our Patreon. If you do that, you get access to our discord where we have a feed that just auto

populates all of Tom's messages on blue sky and everything that he's breaking all the news as the off season goes along. And you know, news continues to come fast and heavy. Great spot to talk i mean when the gam numbers dropped this morning you knew the discord was going to be lit we've got usl conversation in there about the expansion of the jägermeister cup and everything that that means we have nwsl talk in there about the lynn williams trade that happened earlier today we've

got national team conversation and debate going on, Canada and the US. We had actually someone who lives in one of the towns where the Hallmark movies are consistently recorded or filmed. Because I mentioned that my accent was getting weird because I watch all the Hallmark Christmas movies that my wife makes me watch. And he was like, we are the reason why. So we will take credit for that. And the dream now is that they get a cpl team and there's a hallmark movie where it's big city marketing agency woman goes home because she has to

she falls in love with the captain of the cpl local team then their christmas tree farm is under threat because big corporations want to purchase them and she's able to use all of her finesse and powers to save the christmas and free Christmas tree farm in the town. That's, that's it right there. Was that AI or did, did you come up with that? Because that was impressive.

That is perfect. Dude, they're all the same movie. We need to take it. We need to take it into a pitch meeting. We need to stop the show. We probably should. Flesh this one out.

Shout out to my guys at Goodform. Hit me up, Pete. Tell him that, tell him that I guys at Goodform. Hit me up, Pete. Tell him that I'm ready to go. We've got, as well, by the way, as the holidays come up, I want to mention we have a sit-down interview with the president of Orange County SC, Dan Rutstein, who was kind enough to sit down with me for an hour, and we dug into it.

We talked from his point of view as someone who manages a USL team and knows budgets and knows how the league works we talked about pro rel we talked about shifts in calendar we talked about the sustainability and future of usl and all these things it was a really fun conversation um i guess i should probably put a warning label on my emails about interviews saying like i it will be an hour sorry I, this is not going to be a 15 minute conversation, but that was really great. And we're going to drop that one next week as well. As I said, we've got the gam numbers now. So we're going to talk about that coming up in this show,

two huge pieces of news around coaching vacancies in major league soccer that we're going to dig into in Philadelphia and Atlanta DP signing for the Red Bulls potential one coming up, maybe for a team in the Carolinas. A couple of big free agencies as well. But I want to say before we start, shout out to the Catamounts. University of Vermont. UVM, baby. National champions in the NCAA.

It was the first national championship game for any UVM team of any sport, any gender. They came from behind 1-0 against Marshall, who had won it two years ago to win 2-1. Obviously, being a Vermont Green diehard, I was stoked about it. A lot of Vermont Green alumni, some MLS Academy alumni as well, including a Philly Union Academy player on that roster. So congrats to UVM. Did you watch at all, Tom tom have you seen any of the highlights i've seen the highlights i have i have that looks like an insane game that golden goal moment was so cool i know that that's so american to be golden goal but i loved every second of it

like that the reaction everything else our good friend my good friend at least devin kerr on the call i don't want to put words in your mouth devin kerr on the call because he does a billion things all the time um i've been talking to him about the college cop by how excited he was for everything and I know he has as much passion if not more passion than anybody uh in the country for it so I thought that was really cool to get that kind of game that kind of moment like it transcended not just because like college soccer sometimes doesn't even pop out of college soccer like into just the American soccer world it did that it popped into like the American soccer world. It did that. It popped into like the mainstream sports world. You had like Tony Reale tweeting about it.

Ryan Russillo, a proud UVM grad talking about it. Like this, like I saw it more from people. Is he a UVM guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Burlington. I saw David Aldridge tweet about it. I assumed he was a UVM guy too. But like, so all that is that I saw it more from people

who don't talk about soccer. And I was like, Whoa, that's cool. So I thought that was super cool. And again, that, that moment, I like, I've watched the goal like several times in the celebrations after.

Did you notice in watching the goal or the highlights or any of it, something familiar about everything that was going on? Why? What, what, what? Uh, the mustaches.

Yes, I did. The UVM. I did all the pictures after I was like, is, was this a team-wide thing you know how dudes would would you know bleach their hairs together because i saw somebody who's somebody who's clean shaven but i don't know if that meant that he just can't grow mustache and that's fine we don't want to shame here so i don't know if this was a team-wide thing or just like

a really a great coincidence that i need to buy a jersey i think someone talked about i don't know that i heard it but the coach had it. And then a number of the players had it. So I assume it was like a playoff beard thing. And they were not like, oh, I have a mustache. They were Tom-level mustaches is what I would say. Yes. They were National Championship-level mustaches.

Yes, they were. So congrats to UVM. If you haven't or you don't, I don't know what I'm pitching now. Just go to Vermont Green's website and buy a Vermont Green jersey or a shirt or a hat or whatever. And you can go support a lot of these players next year when they play for them in the USL 2 season. I believe it's Andrew Nystrom, shout out legend in the chat, who said Ryan Zelifro was the academy player. I think the Union Academy player who who was on the team there. Which takes us into our first big topic.

We are talking Philadelphia Union as they look to, of course, replace Jim Curtin for the first time in a decade. And we got the first name connected to it. Jose Nunez, a great friend of the show, as good as anyone covering this team, reporting that Bradley Carnell is the number one option for the Philadelphia Union to replace Jim Curtin and to become the new head coach. Tom, what do you make of this? What have you heard?

Yeah, this is real. What I'm told is nothing's done or agreed or finalized, but he is indeed the frontrunner. This would make sense given his high-pressing, gigging-pressing pressing background what he showed at st louis he knows this league he's very familiar with the bundesliga um i don't know if his paths cross with ernst tanner but i'm just assuming that everybody who has played in the bundesliga or worked around the bundesliga has crossed paths with ernst tanner over the years so i think this

is a seamless fit i'm surprised that i was surprised if that isn't the dumbest sentence i've ever said because this makes a lot of sense given all what I just laid out of stylistic fit. He would want to play young players. MLS experience. Did well in MLS. Thomas Lesch was their top candidate. And when I was talking to sources around this, they were hopeful, but they were like, we still need to convince him to come. The Salzburg job opens up and he takes a salzburg job don't blame it anyway philadelphia union like

i think they understand as well too like so i think all my focus had been on that and i didn't i guess consider who the next candidate would be because i know that they were working hard on thomas lich bradley cornell i think makes a lot of sense guys where do you sit on this one it i actually had the same reaction where I was like shocked because I hadn't thought of it and then I was like how could we not have thought of this how could this not have been the first name so um Ernst Tanner I think officially worked at Red Bull Global to an extent in Austria mainly but was a part of the Red Bull family from 2012 to 2018 and Bradley Carnell was hired as the red New York Red Bulls assistant coach in 2017 with a deep background as you said

in Germany and all of that my guess is at some point their cross their paths crossed or someone they both are close to has connected them over time I would have thought though that the person would have been an Ernst Tanner high pressing youth development person and not someone where we have similar ideas and now I'm finding you here in MLS and then I bring you over. does the style of play and the push for young players when Bradley Carnell was interim manager at New York Red Bulls he was starting the Caden Clarks and the Daniel Edelmans of the world in his short time in that role and even in St. Louis where they didn't really have enough to push young academy players through they still gave Miggy Perez opportunities out the gate and he was able to create chances for that player to make a difference. And, you know, career goes up and down after that, but it is what it is. So in hearing it, it makes a ton of sense, even though I, for some reason, didn't get there and peg it out the gate. And I would say, if you're anyone associated to Philly, my big fear was we were going to get a 23-year-old, you know, off-field analyst from Liefering who was going to get this role. And Bradley Carnell is clearly qualified for this job.

I didn't have those fears. I understand that as a bit, but I was very confident that wasn't going to happen. Yeah, so the top line for me, and again, stress again. Nothing's done. Nothing's created. Who knows? But that is kind of where things are at. If it is indeed going to be Carnell, if this does get over the line,

and I think that this could be said about whoever they end up with, whether it's Cornell or not, what we are going to see is a team that's going to be top five in pressures, they're going to be top five in high-intensity sprints, they're going to be top five in long ball, whatever it is. You are going to see this team go all the way, go back to what Ernst Tanner wanted to bring in with the high-pressing and transition that they had done for a while under Jim Curtin we're going to see even more of that because again

that that was the big difference between Ernst Tanner and Jim Curtin and why there was a power struggle and Ernst Tanner eventually won for there to be a change in direction at the club because they saw it differently so I'm I'm not only just expecting them to go back but even going you know another step further because this is going to be a coach who has listened to the gospel of Geegan Pressing. Somebody who, again, did what he did in St. Louis. You can just go back and look at whatever the underlying numbers were for St. Louis in their first year and the first half of last year. Even when it wasn't going well, that was a style that they played. So that was the number one and probably the number one and number two top concerns for this job moving forward and then the third would be more homegrown minutes more young player minutes

more development up and down the roster whether it's homegrown or not so those are the things to expect from this hire and again those are what all the candidates are going to have in common so that is the expectation philadelphia union 2025 yeah they are going to jam the first team with as many of the academy pieces as they can there's a ton of talent in there whether they are going to jam the first team with as many of the academy pieces as they can. There's a ton of talent in there. Whether they're ready to play or not, we'll find out. One thing to note, we really saw Bradley Carnell stay in a 4-2-3-1 in his time in St. Louis. I wonder where that leaves a Baribro and Ura of, I don't know that both of them fit in that team.

And Gosdog, I think, fits fairly cleanly in the way that they played and most of the other pieces I think if they move away from the diamond do the two forwards would be the one and you could just say oh we'll finally have depth in a position or maybe that's somewhere where maybe another MLS team is looking and saying like oh can we get in a conversation here to grab a player who's already in this league? Wouldn't assume there's a ton of transfer fee options for them outside of Major League Soccer, although Baribo finished on a pretty good year, so maybe there's options there. But as we have said, it makes sense. It's not shocking, and it's probably a positive for Philly to get this done sooner rather than later so you can start to get the ball rolling on next year but he was fired within a year and a half of taking over at St. Louis so there are negatives

there as well some of the St. Louis performances were not as based in the underlying numbers and the quality there and we're a bit fortunate and so that caught up to him this year and St. Louis chose to go a different way that's something that that Philly's going to have to weigh and figure out, okay, what do we think is real? What do we think fits with what we do? And what will he look like in our setup? I would say Philly's probably more geared because of the way they've built from the academy all the way down into a style of play for players to step into this system and maybe have a little bit more depth to be able to perform in that style over the course of long summers and multiple years and all that type of stuff going forward. So a huge report there.

And then right on the back of that, we get a second news story about coaching that the potential for Atlanta's coaching search to come to a close. Tom, talk me through this. Yeah, Ronnie Dyla is absolutely in the mix for the Atlanta United's coaching search to come to a close tom talk me through this yeah ronnie dyla is absolutely in the mix for the atlanta united head coaching job he is the top target one of two finalists i know the number two because chris henderson said that um on a press conference speaking with media yeah tuesday about you know he said i spoke to both finalists kind of thing like i think he didn't mean to say it like that but it's not happening but ronnie is the top

choice i know that much his contract was terminated with his UAE club, Al Wada, yesterday, Wednesday morning. Don't know what the connection is here. I think people can guess what the connection is here. So Ronnie Dial, again, I'm told nothing is done. Nothing, whatever, right? Like, there's still stuff to do. Chris Henderson coming in, taking over,

obviously accelerates that because they didn't want to hire a head coach before sporting director because Chris Henderson has to be on board with everything. Him and Garth Hogaway see things similarly. They have a really great relationship, obviously. So I doubt that he would have any concerns, and I doubt that he wouldn't. Just in and of itself, Ronnie Dial, I think, would be a really, really good candidate. But again, I want to stress, nothing is done. Nothing is agreed.

But it's trending that way. He is the finalist. Hopefully, we'll know more soon. I know that they want to stress nothing is done. Nothing is agreed. But it's trending that way. He is the finalist. Hopefully we'll know more soon. I know that they want to get this squared away ASAP. Again, it was sporting director first, then the head coach, and all these were difficult to navigate. So we'll see where that one goes. But yes, Ronnie Dyla, that is a name that is a target for Atlanta United.

Reminder on the resume for Ronnie Dyla. NYCFC head coach 2020 and 2021. Won MLS Cup in 2021, stripped down to his underwear and did push-ups on the field, which he promised he would do, and then left the club after that, leaving in 2022 to go take over Standard Liège. During the season, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Right, to go take over Standard Liège and then ended up coaching Bruges before going to Saudi Arabia. After that, maybe hasn't gone exactly how he would have liked in Europe, overstander liege and then ended up coaching bruges uh before going to saudi arabia after that maybe hasn't gone exactly how he was would have liked in europe um over that time and i think when this atlanta job opened up we all made the list of who are the biggest names connected to major league soccer because atlanta is that big of a job and that felt like the profile we brought up the dome terence the patrick veras and the ron Ronnie Dylas of the world right CFG really hit on these coaches over the course of that time the teams were successful on the field they also produced players that they were capable of selling a lot

of these also coached some pretty big name players not as big maybe as what Atlanta has been bringing in but some big name pieces in all of that and there was a ton of success and all of those coaches then also have international draw of big name, have worked in other markets and connections to help you recruit the next set of players. So none of the three would have shocked us because we mentioned all three of these names, except Randy Dyle had taken a job and it felt like he was maybe the most settled of all of them and was locked in. Although Domey Terent ended up having decent success in Liga MX this year.

The other names that got connected were big names like the Marcelo Gallardo's of the world as always but then some more realistic ones of pieces that had MLS connections so for it to come back around to this would not be shocking in he has a clear distinct style of play he cares about the way his teams play he's had success in this league He has an understanding of what it takes in this league. And he has experience across the globe of how to manage different personalities and different players who maybe come from other backgrounds, which has felt like an issue for Atlanta. They have not always had personalities and players that fit with the personalities of

their coaches. And there's been that disconnect and lack of success from some of their big signings like an Arajuho and a PT Martinez pieces like that that have not fit in so all of this makes a ton of sense Patrick Vieira was a big name we heard that was exciting I think Vieira's teams were even more open and they were more um intense about the way they played than Dyla's but Dyla's teams were always fun to watch they They always played good soccer. And he developed Tati into one of the biggest sales and biggest future prospects in MLS history.

Man, that's exactly where I was going next. So first and foremost, MLS winning experience, what he did with NYCFC. And to your point, what I liked is that he wasn't dogmatic. It wasn't, you know, this is exactly how I want to play. We're going to go. He tweaked the team based on the players around and like what he had and what he felt like they needed to do during those runs like it wasn't like you know throwing out different

tactics every single week or whatever but like i think that's an extremely valuable quality in a head coach in all of world football but particularly in mos because you can't say i don't like the left back go get me a new one it's like well it doesn't quite work like that right you look at tati tati cassiano it's like so in 2019 he had it he had a good season and that that was obviously under viera um or the previous manager i think that was here losing the timeline whatever my point is is that he did have a good season in mls before ronnie took over but when after ronnie was the in between that's right dome sorry so the the last season and a half before tati castellanos went on loan to harona and then eventually sold the lazio for uh 15 million or whatever it was in in those 49 games he had 32 goals and 10 assists and he went

from this is an interesting player i like this guy to this is a player on the cusp of the argentine national team and he played his best soccer under Ronnie Dyla. And this isn't like a perfect player and like, okay, you put him as a 10, you put him as a nine, you do whatever, right?

Like there's some players that's obvious, right? Tati Castellanos had to be developed. It, that was an excellent developmental story. What has been stark since he left is this team has been very bad at, at developing young players. NYCFC that is.

So combining the winning experience mls knowledge and his ability to develop players i think makes him an excellent candidate i've seen a couple people say that they're underwhelmed when his name came out and you said marcel gallardo his son plays for atlanta united too and i was told there was zero percent chance he would take a meeting with atlanta even that like so that wasn't like so you could say that's underwhelming if they didn't get Marcel Guerno that was never a realistic possibility you know Jose Mourinho wasn't coming to Atlanta United right now right like all these things to say is Patrick Vieira probably

would have been the A plus hire Ronnie's probably A for me right or Jim Curtin and Patrick Vieira I think would be A plus well they definitely tried for Vieira and then he went to Genoa I know that they tried for Curtin and Ronnie Dyla like it's like it sounds disrespectful to even say that he was another option because I think that he's a top option for an MLS club in his own right and I like if this does get done I think this is an excellent hire it it's interesting how you put it this I think the stark nature of just excitement about Vieira and just a little bit less about him makes it very clear with people of like, we thought we were getting this and, you know, we have no kids.

We have our Patrick Vieira. We have a Patrick Vieira at home, right? It's the knockoff version. I don't think that it is, though. And I think what you're saying is fair. He won an MLS Cup. He's had his own career. He's been on his own path.

He just coached two of the biggest teams in Belgium over the last two years. That's a high level. One of them won a league title after he was fired in the same season. So that's not great. Fair. Allegedly. God's working on all of us. But if someone said, when Hernan Lozada was originally hired, with his resume, we were excited.

We thought that was exciting. Now, DC is different than Atlanta. Well, we did know that he didn't do water breaks at training. So, like, how could we know? But we were saying his, like, profile as a young up-and-coming coach in Belgium, that was enough. He didn't even work at the places that Dyla worked, and Dyla's already had success in this league.

I think where the promise comes for me, one, is I think there's a level of stability coming from this move. Just in the culture of the club that has been lacking for five to six years, basically from the moment Tata has left. The other is, it's a coach with MLS experience that doesn't feel like it's putting a ceiling on you as an MLS club. And I say that in, I always bring up Atlanta

being this club that can change the paradigm of what a successful club can be. Because of the market, because of their spending, because of their fan base, all of those things. The goal for Atlanta should be bigger than what Houston's imagining their goal is. I don't know that Ben Olsen can do that. I don't know that he can help you recruit the types of players and win in international competitions and change the game because of his personality and his background ronnie diala i wouldn't be shocked if he was help capable of helping you do that even though he wouldn't have been my first option and

so that's where i get around to agreeing with you that this is a good hire and it would be a good step forward and you'd have to think the energy from now Garth and president all the way down through your CSO and Chris Henderson and Ronnie Dyla could be very strong and that helps this club I agree and I think that that's an excellent point as well the so Tata Martino is the best example of this in major league soccer of what he does for your recruitment not just his scouting but the fact that Tata walks in, Tata gives you a call. Like I've told this story a few times. I'll keep saying it again.

And we're going to talk about this player later. So it works. Miguel Amarone did not know where Atlanta was. Tata Martino called him and he said, Tata, tell me where I fly. Tell me where I go. Tata called,

I'm coming. Ronnie Dyla, like, again, there isn't a manager in MLS that has that kind of sway like Tata does, particularly with that market because of how deep and how talented and how valuable it is to do that in Argentina. But Ronnie Dyla is a guy that like,

you can bring them in a room on a call with a prospective player. And even if they have no idea who MLS is, I think they know who Ronnie Dyla is. Like, so I think that that, that will be beneficial that again, it's not going to carry the same weight as Tata. It's not going to Javier Mascherano probably. Right. Cause obviously everything he did as a player. But there's still something there,

and I do think that's important for a team like Atlanta United because you have all of the finance, you have all of that, and you want it to come with a little bit of a name as well when you're in these talks with these new DPs. They have a lot of money to spend, and they have a lot of flexibility to spend it on. So again, I'm extraordinarily optimistic about this again if this gets done i would be very very optimistic as a fan let's talk about that money because not only

do they have dp money to spend but now we officially know they got that gam baby they've got that good general allocation money as major league soccer here on this what beautiful thursday afternoon th Thursday morning, has officially released the amount of general allocation money each team has available to them and will be putting it out, we hope, fairly often going forward. It is very clear when you look at that list that Atlanta United, with over $6 million in GAM potential to use, is the biggest pot. But the way allocation money works

is you have a salary cap and then you're able to pay players over that salary cap, bigger contracts than your maximum wage, as well as helping buy DPs down into other things. So it really extends your salary cap. And what we are seeing is every team is given at least 2.9 million a year. And now with the list we have, you get to see how much other teams have to work with.

And we are going to, over the course of this holidays, as soccer-wise, figure out how to work this into our salary chart tables, as well as our depth charts, to try and use this information to help us figure out, at best we can, how well clubs are functioning and what they're doing this doesn't tell us everything paul tenorio has a good piece at the athletic basically laying out i think his phrase was wheel of fortune we've got a bunch of letters but we still don't have all the vowels it's more information which is good it's not everything but it's a step forward at least on this thursday afternoon yeah i agree look this is positive another step for transparency you mentioned pa thursday afternoon yeah i agree look this is positive

another step for transparency you mentioned paul tenorio i know that he's shedding a happy tear on this uh this has been his crusade to try to get better transparency around mls it is a noble one and your your service is appreciated paul this is a step forward because i you know i have general again like my job and what i do is I'm supposed to know all of this. I'm as best positioned as anybody who doesn't work for a team to generally know this. And I didn't really have any idea because these things are so arcane. And teams didn't always know what other teams had and stuff too. So this is really good.

What I will say is this is something that you can look at with broad strokes rather than it tells the whole picture and everything. Because everything in tandem in MLS, discretionary spend, salary cap spend, allocation money, what you have, how you're using it, all of those things go into it. So getting another piece of information is huge. What I hope is next is that when they release, so what they've done in the last year as well is the club profiles, the roster profiles, which laid out what every team is doing. That's been excellent. What I hope next year is they signify how much money a player is being used to be bought down because then we'll really know exactly how much allocation money is accounted for and everything else.

So with Atlanta United, I'll use this as an example, which we keep talking about them, $6.5 million. That comes a lot from player sales, and particularly Caleb Wiley. The most valuable way to expand your allocation money is selling a homegrown player, somebody you didn't spend money on, because you get all that fee. You can convert more of that into GAM than anything else.

They sold him, they sold Thiago Amada, they sold Yorgos Yacoumakis, and they got another bump from Ezekiel Barco. So that's where they're getting that more GAM. What that tells me, and an example of you can use this as broad strokes, they have an expensive roster and they haven't added more DPs. If they didn't have this allocation money, they would not be able to buy down all of Stian Gregerson and Bartosz Cilic and Sabalov Janice. Those are three players that if they're not exactly max tam they're probably not far off

you need allocation money to buy down those players in particular fc cincinnati they're going to buy it on obi and waboto to open up another dp spot that's why they needed to do some of the trades that they did to to regenerate gam to keep this team together and to keep those players while also adding so that's one way to look at it rather than anything else but again like we don't know exactly how much is committed for other players other teams and everything else san diego this was interesting because we didn't know exactly how much game expansion teams got now we know it's like a double what what they had and like again it's incredible to me that a couple teams have more allocation money than san diego because of what they've done new england was one that's

surprising they have 5.6 essentially and that And that could grow. Noel Buck is on loan at Southampton U21s. Southampton pick up his purchase option more game immediately. Esmir Barak Terevich, he's not long for this league. Whenever he gets sold,

bam, more allocation money to New England. And that's going to help. That helps inform. We talked about the two new center back signings. And I was like, those are two going to be

two expensive guys who don't exactly know how quickly they'll fit. I love their profiles, but these are the knock-on effects for the salary cap. Well, they have the allocation money to buy them down, and pretty easily.

So things are looking good for New England in their roster build. This is a part that I didn't even know how well off they were with GAM. I would throw a few things additionally in there. One is TAM still exists. So we've got Omar S. who says, well, all of Atlanta's allocation money

has already been used up by buying down Saba, Schlieus, and Gregerson. You don't have to buy them down to the maximum budget charge. You can still buy them down off DP spots into TAM numbers and then still have TAM that you're using. And so this isn't all of the money they have available that means it is not all already used up and as you said you can continue to make trades and make moves to try and acquire some more we also know that if when you qualify for concaf champions cup you get a chunk in there there is nothing in any language that says anything about the club world cup because that's new and i know garth complained a bit about trying to set seattle for that and how they had, you know, one hand behind their back trying to deal with that.

Miami and Seattle have qualified for that this year. People are asking questions. We don't know if there'll be any additional like support given to those teams to help them add spots or to help add money for them having qualified for that to then compete in this new competition. But there are options like that, whether it's through League Cup, CONCACAF competition, MLS standings, Open Cup, whatever it is, to try and award things as Tom goes and talks with his associates over in New Jersey as we get through this. We don't know 100% as we said what this means. We're going to continue to dig into it. It just dropped on us right as we were getting ready to do this show, but we're going to continue to dig into it. And as I said, we're going to figure out how we're going to put this in our salary cap table so that that gives

you the clearest picture possible of what your teams are doing. And as was said to me once by a executive in Major League Soccer who'll go unnamed, I'd love for all this to be out there because I want people to know how good I am at my job. The players, everyone knows how good the players are. Based off the results, people know how good the coach are. I want people to see that we made good moves. And like you said, oh, this team has more allocation money than I would have expected.

They've done a good job and they are able to build a roster or use these spots in a really good way. So we're not the only ones who want more of this out there, but it is a good day for MLS fans that steps like this are being taken. As usual, they are halves and three-quarter measures. We'd love all of it to be out there, and I think we all are waiting for the day for that to get done. Let's dig into some signings that have already occurred. Let's start with the New York Red Bulls, who made a designated player signing yesterday in. Eric Maxim Chopomoting, coming over now from the Bundesliga, has played.

He is 35 years old, so has played a long career across a few European leagues. He will be the newest piece of this Red Bull team. We talked about it when the reports came out a week or two ago about what this would mean. And I think we both said, if it's not a deep, well, I know I said, if it's not a beat DP deal,

I don't mind it. It was a DP deal. So I mind it a little bit more now, Tom, what have, what's been your first reactions to this official? So the one thing I will say is I don't know with 100% certainty, if this is a deal that's over Max Tam,

i.e. he cannot be dropped down. I'm assuming that's what it is, unless that this is just an accounting mechanism, because maybe it is. So I just want to say that. But I think it's fair to say I don't exactly know if this is a DP. And I think that two things can be true. Yeah, he was a fringe player for Bayern Munich last year.

There's a lot of room between fringe player, not good enough for Bayern, but good enough to be a really good player in MLS, right? He turns 36 in March. So that's another worrying sign. He has not, he played 1,100 minutes in the Bundesliga in 22, 23, where it should be said he had 17 goals

and four assists across all competitions in 1,800 minutes-ish. Like, that's a really, really good player should be said he had 17 goals and four assists across all competitions in 18 in uh 1800 minutes ish like that's a really really good player two years ago right how many like how much has he lost since then we don't know but i think that there's a lot of room between not being able to play a lot for bayern munich and being a really good ms player that being said the 36 years old he's not a player that's really ever played a ton a ton a ton of league. And that's partly been because he's been at a team like buying. You're not gonna, if you're there,

he's been at PSG, it's been at other places, right? Like, so that's kind of been the trade off in some years, but what I think that the Red Bulls needed most from this DP spot, obviously a very good player that goes without saying, but their biggest issue in 2024 was when everybody

was available and when i say everybody you can you know lessen that to just a few players emil floresburg lewis morgan extraordinarily important for this team when everybody was available they were very good they get to amlas cup when just one or like one and a half two of those players were not totally there they were bad it wasn't they were less they were bad they won three games out of the last 21 including leagues so the idea for me going into this if i was building this roster would be our third dp needs to be an innings eater it has to be because emil forsberg at his age he's still going to be a top class player in this league but he's still in international sweden he's not going play he's not gonna start 30 games

and that's okay lewis morgan i think he's very good his injury history he's with scotland as well he is not gonna start 30 games that is also okay triple motang i think if you set the over unders for minutes expectation next year he'd probably be below those two guys and again if he plays 2400 minutes in a regular season give or take right and he's productive this is a good signing i don't care if it's a dp but i think that there's a lot of of room for that to go wrong what i will say too if i'm going to stay optimistic is does this mean that they are expecting to get out like dante van zier is going to not be at the club next year because if that's the case then they have another dp spot to use and that changes the math on this for me too

but for right now i understand why fans are a little bit underwhelmed and a little bit worried that it's a dp but i've been complaining for years or had been complaining that the red bulls weren't signing any senior level players all they were doing was signing u23 players and playing this like u23 team i want to acknowledge that by like while i'm saying whoa they could have done somebody younger and so like I understand that there's a house of cards there sometimes. I do like that they're signing. And I do believe that they have a center back that's coming soon that is going to be another interim player.

I like all this. I think that they're going to be a very good team next year. If 12-0, 10 scores, 13 goals, and has eight, seven assists, that's a good season. I don't know if they're going to get it or not, but I think if he plays enough minutes, they will. It's just i'm worried about how this is gonna age and how many minutes he will play so the i think all of that makes sense and to me even with what i was saying last week of like non-dp i like it if you were to tell me outside of andres reyes and maybe

a couple other side pieces that all of last year's team comes back and you're just adding another piece they're a better team right they're a better team than the team that just went to MLS Cup if Chopu Moteng comes in they don't get rid of Van Zier Carballo comes back for the year not as a DP so you're literally have the exact same team that just went to the final and you're adding now an experienced attacking player who has scored a bunch of goals in some really big leagues i'm was with a friend who's a byron fan this week and they they were like oh whoa that's a big deal and you're like is it and they're like he was a good player for byron two years ago like he was a huge piece of what they

put together and so he has that experience he's not that far off from that and if you told me okay because he's a free agent and we're able to get this deal done it ends up being a low-end dp because that's the way the the roster mechanism gets used but we still have the same three dps that were on the roster last year plus him and it's not well now we can't afford carbio or now we have to get rid of a dante Zier, then this team's going to be better than they were. And I think he fits in really cleanly in that he's a versatile attacking player who can have Lewis Morgan running verticality in front of him, and he can be dropped in, picking up the ball, being dangerous, striking from distance, or he can be the guy who plays on

the highest line if Van Zier's sitting underneath him and Forsberg's coming off the wing slash sitting underneath him like that i think is really useful for this team and that they had three players who had a very specific skill set and attack this year now you bring a fourth in who's flexible so whoever's out he can fill in for and you can rotate the pieces around based off form and based off what you had i think you saying two things can be right at the same time is true on this one it can bewhelming, and yet the team is better now because they made the move, and those both can be right at the same time. I agree.

Gots, you want me to break some more New York Red Bulls news right now? Hit me. So I did just get a confirmation, and so that center back I alluded to, the New York Red Bulls have signed center back Alexander Hack he's a former German youth international he's 31 years old he was just in Saudi Arabia and he's been a free agent he has made a ton of appearances with mindset in the Bundesliga he is again a 31

year old center back Alexander Hack who has a ton of Bundesliga experience this is a win now type of move and again like I'm going to keep on using the same lines that I have that that might disappoint the criticisms were they're not signing enough in-prime players, that they're playing this too much. You can do both youth develop and you can challenge for trophies. They're coming closer and closer to that right now. And again, for whether or not we think Choupo-Moutang is a perfect signing or not,

whether Alexander Haak I think is going to be a very good signing as well, at least that they are treating this a little bit differently. Again differently again in 2021 i don't think that they had any players that uh started a game that were under 20 over 26 years old so this is a very good development i think sandro schwartz is a fantastic coach and again i think that this should help with i guess the optimism looking at the new york Bulls going into the next season. I feel like I just got flexed on. Tom's just out here. I'm having a Red Bull conversation.

Tom goes, well, let me break news about the exact team we happen to be talking about. I was working on it for a while. At this exact moment. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. You just out of thin air created a transfer and completed it while we were still talking. As you said, 31-year-old. Took me a little bit to find said, 31-year-old. Took me a little bit to find this.

31-year-old German center back. You mentioned just playing most recently in Saudi Arabia, but long time for Mines before that. It's a good move. You can understand Andres Reyes' trade, by the way. That brought in, what, $750,000 in allocation money overall to fill that position. You now have three full-time center backs on this roster with Noah Islet still there, Sean Neal is, and now this signing and hack,

and you've got a guy in Dylan Neal is who you were able to swap in and out as that third center back. It leaves you the flexibility to go for at the back if you want, or stay five at the back going forward. And so it makes a ton of sense for this team. And you would assume overall with the Andres Reyes trade the allocation you bring in and then the salary on this player the club is probably making money on these two moves while still hopefully maintaining performances or even taking a step forward I do think Niles and Reyes had some similar skill set

and so if you can find someone a little more comfortable in the ball to throw in there, you can change the dynamic a little bit. And Isla provides that as well. So this is pretty exciting, I think, for the Red Bulls to bring in, like you talked about, two experienced players to add to what you did last year. If you can keep most of it together. And then saying that, I think we should mention,

we think John Tolkien probably has played his last game for this team, but most likely Daniel Edelman and Peter Strout are back next year, and they've got more young pieces coming through. This team should, at a minimum, be at the same level they were, and that was, at the end, a team that went to the final. Yeah, and so that's a great point, too. And again, a couple of these random thoughts, it just so happens that a few of these have come together over the last 24 hours, like Chopin, Motang, through this. But a random thought I had this morning was looking through the rosters on SoccerWise. Again, you can go to Patreon and you can get our depth charts. But I was looking and I go, like, youth development comes kind of in waves, right?

Particularly when you're in the New York Red Bulls area where Philly can go up or NYCFC can go up. Like, there's only so many kids that go around. The Red Bulls are in an awesome spot in youth development right now was why you know better than me but like so John Tolkien Daniel Edelman key start is good players again like you said John Tolkien has probably played his last game for the club um but that's a success story because of how good he's been and what he's going to like he's going to continue his career Edelman still here Peter Stroud I think is really good it's a really solid almost player key rotation guy Julian Hall and Adrian Mameti are huge talents like these are two of the biggest in their age groups 16 and 15 years old and then there's aiden stokes uh davi alexandre like tanner roseborough

16 17 and 16 those like serge goma and so that's where i was going next like so serge goma's a little older i think serge goma is really really good I'm just praying that he has an injury-free season because when he's been on the field, it's like, oh, that's a pro. That kid, he's going to make it as long as his body holds up. So I'm really, really rooting for him because you never want to see a career

be derailed by injuries. But that's just what I just named seven or eight guys. And so, again, you can have the youth development, plus you can have the veteran players, plus you can go sign the Polish center forward, the 20 year old using the u22 initiative like they can do all of this and so i am very happy with i guess the diversification of this roster build right now which it hadn't been in the past yeah and um i'll add rold mitchell and i think tanner rossborough to the names you said really I did say Rossborough. Really good pieces at Red Bull too.

Really good young pieces that they have. And that's where maybe a non-transfer fee for a Chupa Moteng at DP for this year or so is okay. Because we think in a year that a Julian Hall or a Serge Goma or a Roel Mitchell will be ready to take over this spot and so we're going to basically pay a veteran out on a front loaded contract so that we don't get stuck with this player and then like a Van Zier have to figure out okay are we going to sit our DP for the young player even a club with an ethos as strong as Red

Bulls in doing that still really difficult to do to sit a designated player to play a young piece so I think you're right. And I, I like how you said it, that youth development comes in waves. Cause it's something that I think people miss with FC Dallas. Yes. People like what happened.

It's like, there are things that have happened. Oscar Pereja leaving, Lucha Gonzalez leaving that has changed the way Dallas is Academy works. Also Austin coming in and Houston getting serious has affected them as well, but you're not going to get a Brian Reynolds, Chris Ritchell, Paxson, Pomichael, Westman, Kenny every year. But you're not going to get a Brian Reynolds, Chris Richel, Paxson, Pomichael, Wes McKinney every year. It's just not going to happen.

And so I think for the Red Bulls, I think there's been a little bit of a lull in between Tyler Adams and some of these other pieces. I think that lull is done. I think there's a lot of really good pieces for a couple years coming through. And so if the club can set themselves up in a way to win now and compete now while leaving space open for those players, think that should be pretty exciting um that is one designated player conversation uh there seems to be another one happening give us the news from

north carolina charlotte fc remain in talks to acquire miguel amarone from newcastle obviously i've reported in the summer that they worked to try to get him in on MLS transfer deadline day or thereabouts. Newcastle at that time wanted upwards of $20 million, which was just an unreasonable price. Newcastle didn't want to lose him. Eddie Howe, I should say, the manager, didn't want to lose him because he didn't know if he was going to be replaced. Well, this season, Miguel Moron has played 119 minutes in the Premier League, so he hasn't been a key player. They haven't had as many injuries as they were worried about, which, again, is good for them. So they're in a different spot right now where they are going to be open to a winter move

at a much more reasonable price. Now, I can't say for certain what the exact price would be because these are negotiations, things change. But sources both in America and England believe that something around up to $ million and not past 10 million, but including add-ons. So that could be, I don't know, seven plus two and a half with add-ons. That's a much more reasonable fee for Miguel Almarone because for him to come here, it's going to be a very big contract. He is a star player. He is excelled in this league. We all know who he

is. Everything he's done, to sign Miguel Almarone, it's not going to be cheap in terms of his salary. So being able to not spend a big transfer fee on a player who's 30 would help that a lot. Nothing is imminent. Nothing is even necessarily advanced. But Charlotte have his discovery rights because there was a rumor that linked him with Atlanta. Charlotte have his discovery rights.

That is the priority. I don't know if the Atlanta one is true. I guess that it's not. But if it is, Charlotte are in the driver's seat. Charlotte are maintaining conversations for this player. There is Saudi Arabian interest in Miguel Maron still. He still prefers MLS over Saudi. I believe his agent just gave an interview today saying that he turned down the opportunity to go to Saudi.

He doesn't want, he would rather come here or stay in Europe. So that's one to watch. Again, they have an open DP spot. They would like to bring Pep Biel back if they can do it without a DP spot. And then, so if let's say Miguel Maron comes in, then we'll see what happens with Karol Swiderski. And then if and when Karol Swiderski leaves,

whether that's now, this summer, or at the end of the season, a new DP comes in. I really like this Charlotte FC roster. What they need is a couple high-end pieces to add to this team because the foundation is so strong. And I think Miguel Almiroan is as high of a floor as you really as we realistically can know imagine being Miguel Almiroan the career you've had and being able to like go home to your family

and say I have the chance to play with Patrick Oshima like I have done so much, but yet there is a higher level and an experience out there for me. And especially a player who lives off service and assists sometimes, the chance to serve one of the great finishers in URI history, one of the great players from New England of all time, it is, it's as big as it gets. Cause you named, you know, Swiderski out, get rid of all these other pieces and let him do his thing. It would be huge. It would be huge because when you think about those Atlanta teams, you could build a style around Miguel El Niron, right? He's maybe outside of Vela on his peak year

and maybe Jovinko at times. He's the best transition player in MLS history. And so you talked about that core or the base that exists for Charlotte. You have a lot of good defensive pieces, but a lot of good defensive pieces that I think are at their best in a block. And so you are probably going to end up being a transition based team. And so to go get the transition demon,

the best way to build that. But also if you end up shifting things, where they're ski out, maybe you open up other DP spots. You decide to go get a 10 and become more possession style.amay run still going to be a great player in that setup he could be the best 1v1 winger in the league if you choose to isolate him and do that if not he can play off of a forward and help you create chances it it's a no-brainer if you can get it done particularly at this price point and charlotte seems willing to do that and i think this would be the first move

that charl Charlotte would ever make where it would sort of fit with what they've always said they wanted to do. And the shot across the bow against Atlanta is saying, okay, you're Moran Chuck. You're starting to figure things out, but we're not going to go anywhere. I will also say too, that I, I still have a lot of Leo about a stock. I like talking to our good pal,

Matt Doyle. And like, I know Doyle doesn't quite love the Liao Batistock move. I don't know where you stand on it. I guess your thoughts are in a second. I still have a lot of Liao Batistock. I think Miguel Maroon makes that better. Like Kerwin Vargas,

I think is a good player. Again, Ajimon Swierski can like, Swierski can be a good player, right? Ajimon, we just talked about everything there. They have a lot of players in the attack that I like,

but I don't love as a one. Pep Biel is another example of that, too. I really like his minutes in Charlotte. Not quite a DP and not quite the 1A on a team, but if you have Miguel Almiron, one, just the quality he has, the burden he can carry and will carry if he comes to this team, and the gravity that he's going to pull away from defenders and just taking away oh my god like it's nil-nil

roll the ball to the alabada please create something we need like that is going to make these players i think a lot more better when they're more complimentary rather than okay how do we build this around carol twerky how do we build this around the albada so the knock-on effect of assigning again hopefully miguel maron but even if it's somebody in his class in his caliber that can be the the one a give me the ball i'm the guy i think that's going to make the players around him better and all of a sudden an attack that has that you know didn't always show up i think that that that knockout of the same players with just that plus one is going to be so much better.

Yeah. Yeah. I think if Abada becomes just the 1v1 guy and doesn't have to carry and create the attack, his life becomes easier. And as the Goss theorem guy, I agree with you.

I like the minutes I saw from him. He should have scored against Orlando. It makes their life a little bit easier. That would have been a nice way to finish the season. But I like the minutes I saw from him, and I think there's a ton of potential for him to be a special player going forward. And then I like that spine.

I mean, Kalina having the year he had, the options they have now at center back, Melanda, Privet, Ream, and then into central midfield, where as a destroying unit, they've been good. It's the creativity that's lacked. Like you said, you bring in El Moron. You take some of that off Brant Bronico's shouldersron you take some of that off brand bronico shoulders you take some of that off diani shoulders like they could be better at the thing they're actually good at and focused on it and i think it's a really good start to the offseason for charlotte and it will be nice to see an offseason with the

same coach making decisions for the team he wants to play like that's something charlotte has lacked everyone has been trying to clean up the roster from before them and build a new style on the fly and now you have this opportunity with some stuff in place to do it the i know the schedule just dropped yes and everyone wants us to talk about this uh the big news coming out of is that there's going to be a featured sunday after sunday evening game that's going to be a standalone game living on Apple TV of course that will have like a big broadcast around it which I think people are really excited about because of the ability to focus on one game and for other people for you to watch other teams games and not you know have your game at 8 30 p.m eastern time on a Saturday and miss everything else I think that's

really cool we got the dates around around the break that's going to be during the Club World Cup and the Gold Cup from June 15th to June 24th. And then the All-Star Game the following month after that. Leagues Cup, it says, will live from July 29th to August 31st. And I think I saw a rumor about it being set up in the Champions League style of the Swiss format. Not sure if that's true.

Yeah, I'm not sure if anyone has. Everyone is asking us what are the best release videos. I haven't watched them because we're currently on, so I can't give you that information right now. It does seem like there are also some more standalone Saturday afternoon games from teams, right? Yeah, and I'm excited about both of those things. Again, both things can be true.

I think this was an obvious change, but we can still applaud that the change happened. So it's going to be good for us to all be able to watch more games next year and be able to sort of have your finger on the pulse. I know a lot of people have said to us in the Discord and in other places like, yeah, it's hard to follow teams

that aren't your own right now because you can throw on 360 while you're watching your games but if you go to a game you miss the entire match night on a saturday and so now a chance for some other more spaced out games and for us here at soccer wise we'll talk about what we want to do around some of that but i would love to hang out watch games with people and so maybe that's something we can figure out as this schedule comes out. You ready to jump through some free agency right now? I'm ready to jump through free agency, David Goss. Free agency is good.

It feels like it's working. Let's start in New England. Jackson Yule has signed a contract with the New England Revolution. He was on, I think, both of our top five free agent lists. He was one of the guys we were all interested in. I think I listed like six teams connected to him, and I did not have New England as one of those. What did you make of this?

I saw a skeet on Blue Sky, and I went to look for it before the show, and I couldn't find it. So if you've seen this, please give me credit to the person who got it. There was just a picture of the Revs logo and the San Jose Earthquakes logo, and it was like, why can't we stop these teams from swapping players?

I don't understand. Something to that effect. Because Nick Lima went to San Jose after the trades, again, obviously, between San Jose and New England. But this is interesting, guys. Like you said, this wasn't the obvious fit. I knew that New England wanted more midfield help and more options and depth. I don't think that Polster or Yule are depth. I don't see how you can play Polster, Yule, and Yusuf, who I think is their best central midfielder right now in a limited sample size. I don't know how you play all three of them and

then also Carlos Hill, because this is a pretty clear 4-2-3-1 team with Hill at the 10, Chonkalei and Langone on the wings, and Veroni or whoever is going to be the center phone so this is we don't know the numbers on this deal yet this is either an awesome like wow you got him at rotation level money and now you have several starting caliber players and whoever gets the minutes gets the minutes that'll be good or this is like okay we have all that allocation money and we think no buck is going to be uh sent away or transferred away and we're going to get more that we can afford to have a luxury like spend in central midfield i think either way that's good right like what's the worst case scenario here he doesn't win minutes and that his contract doesn't look great because he didn't like and same thing with pollster uh vice versa of like these are players that are being paid are probably being paid to play minute a lot of minutes i think

it's not a bad thing to have too many good players like it's a salary cap league so it it is everything does affect something else but given the gam report that was just released i think this is where it's coloring my opinion on assigning immediately more than anything else that i've seen but goss what do, what do you think about this fit? I hadn't thought of it that way. And I think it's fair to say they've got this luxury if they have extra allocation money that other people don't. This is how you use it as just another piece, more talent. And I don't ever disagree with that.

What worries me about this is the Carlos Heal part, is jackson yule is a high possession low ground coverage central midfielder and carless heel is the highest possession no ground coverage and what we have talked about for years is matt polster doesn't have enough help in central midfield to cover for carless heel jackson yule doesn't make that easier it probably makes it worse and so it's not just is there enough minutes for all of it to fit together? I don't know how it all fits together unless Caleb Porter is able to get them to a place where they are so high possession, a la the Columbus crew, that those strengths erase the deficiencies because of the style of play. I would be shocked if the Rebs got there this year, but that could be the attempt.

That was just my first reaction is, I think it's hard to bring a player into central midfield in this team. That doesn't cover some of Carlos Hill's deficiencies. To help make his life easiest. Because he is, outside of Ricky Puj. The highest usage, most effective player in this league. And for Yule. Where I don't love it is. Go to a team where you're going to be the possession guy.

Go to a team. That's what I thought would happen, where they are looking at Minnesota was the obvious one, where if Hassani Dodson's going to cover ground and do work for you, you can go be on the ball a little bit more. Or some of these other teams that you talk about, where the team can kind of run through you. Now, you're not going to set a team up around Jackson Yule based off the year he had last year, but it feels like there's some space in the league for that to have been the case and so that's where this one really shocked me but if Caleb Porter is trying to make a bigger shift in the style they play and even when you go back and look at his crew teams right in between Greg Berhalter and Wilford Nance they were a high possession team as well and often they had multiple pieces in central midfield that their

dominance was on the ball I think Darlington Agby's better than this than all these players so that's the the as I like to say levels to this but that's where it sort of sits I think San Diego was one of the other teams I was thinking about for him they've now announced that they're signing Annabelle Godoy as a free agent this is not the nashville annabelle godoy but it's also not probably the nashville contract and they don't have to give up any allocation money to get him i think it just makes sense in the like veteran who's been there before through an expansion just can he be a guiding force for some of these young pieces yeah and and i'm gonna throw it right back to you with a question that's impossible to answer

because they have 15 or 16 players under contract. Do you think Anibal Godoy is being viewed as a starting piece for this team? I think if he started 18 to 20 games for a team this year, that's a team that could make the playoffs. I agree. I don't think he has 34 games in him. Plus, it's a Gold Cup. He probably is going to play for Panama again.

But I know you're saying unless it's a Gold Cup, he could play 34 Gold Cup matches. And he probably would. He probably is going to play for Panama again I know you're saying Unless it's a gold cup He could play 34 gold cup matches And he probably would Not to the level of Who's our favorite Costa Rican center back Wow I am blanking right now Francisco Calvo He's not as national team heavy

As Francisco Calvo Calvo only shows up if the anthem plays By the way all his MLS team should have played the Costa Rican anthem pregame in the stadium just so he thought. Put a patch on his team. He thought it was a national team game. They hire O'Shea Nation as a full-time fourth official just to be on the side. So he's always like, is this a CONCACAF game? Oh, okay. No, I didn't realize we were trying today. Adam Okunoi is not on that level, but I think he can be a decent piece for them. And I think you are not losing MLS games because he's on the field. You mentioned, by the way, Nick Lima.

He is headed to San Jose, back to San Jose, where he was an academy player leaving New England. It's been a slow run for him over the last few years in this league. Boom. Bruce Arena. If he knows you and he's worked with you before you've got an opportunity we probably should have had the nick lima one pegged maybe we didn't think we'd go back to san jose wheel we were asleep at the wheel a couple other big free agency ones you mentioned this already jack elliott officially signing with the chicago fire what popped out to me this is a

one-year deal with an option for 2026 this is the best center back prospect in free agency in major league soccer this is a guy who is still you know what 30 years old 29 still has a ton of years left and had been a defensive player of the year finalist over the last few years i'm just surprised that he couldn't get a bigger deal and i'll be curious to see this number my estimation this is pure conjecture what I thought was maybe because they don't know what the team looks like going forward as Gregory builds they were like we'll give you a crazy one-year deal and then we'll figure it out from here and so he said it was worth it to not have the years guaranteed but to have this but still a good move for Chicago

Fire and Lalas Abubakar who we we mentioned last week, signing officially as a free agent with Dallas. They have just been desperate for centerbacks. I still like his game, especially in a back three, which Dallas might play. And it is a truer centerback next to Nkose Tafari as anyone they have had in the two years he's been a starter. And so I think it's a good matchup for the two of them DC United making a couple moves as well they have traded for Lucas McNaughton and brought in a Brazilian winger from Poland Zhao Pelglo I guess from a team in Poland I have never heard of before and I am not going to try and say the trade for Lucas McNaughton 150,000 allocation money with a potential 50 more Tom DC as we've seen,

I think they're trying to make some MLS moves to bring in some known quantities to help build out their roster. I like what they're doing, particularly in three transfer windows. In case you guys caught it, I was in between like and love, so I just said neither word.

I just had a stroke in the middle of saying like and love. Somewhere between like and love is what I feel about this team right now. What they've done over the last three transfer windows, including this one. So we're not very far into this transfer window. There's still going to be more to do. How quickly Ali Makai and the new front office got out of a lot of bad contracts. That's not easy.

That shouldn't be taken for granted. They've done it. They reset the cap sheet. In the summer, they ended up bringing in a couple signings. And they were still just trying to preserve as much assets as they could moving forward. So they completely took away the entire goalkeeper room. They've already signed two. A third's coming, Kim Joon-hong, a South Korean U-22 initiative goalkeeper.

Again, last I heard that that was being finalized, but again, maybe things could have fallen apart. I don't think anything's been announced. That being said, there's one. They're looking at a U22 initiative, South Korean center back as well. Everything else that they've done around this roster, the only holdover bad contract, and bad is relative, right? The only holdover contract that they haven't either gotten rid of or extended,

because Benteke was extended and saved a couple of their young players on the team, is Mateus Klik. And I think Mateus Klik is a good player. Heus Click. And I think Mateus Click is a good player. He's not a DP in this league. He's a good player. And, like, that's what's interesting. It's like Max Tam versus DP. Like, you could be $10,000 over, and it completely changes how we view it.

They're trying to move on from Mateus Click this offseason. If I had to guess, I think that they will be able to. I hope that that would mean that there's going to be a budget to sign another attacking dp but mateus click again this is another both things can be true situation that maybe that should be the title of this podcast i keep saying that um click has been fine he's just not enough of a somebody to move the needle for dp for this group as well because they don't have enough going on around him i hope he stays in mls i do know that's a possibility because he knows he can go back to poland whenever he wants and he's very happy here he's happy at dc and maybe there's a way to do the joseph martinez transaction where at he went from atlanta to miami it was kind of a trade um

miami ended up giving him like allocation a tam deal and then so that alleviated the money atlanta had to pay him but atlanta still used the buyout on joseph after trading him i think that's what should happen with paul ariola's trade to seattle by the way just as a non-sequitur because dallas i think is going to eat like 800 000 or a million and why carry that money on the cap if you use a buyout right yeah so kind of the same thing with click where there might be there are other teams that could be interested in them and maybe that happens and then they could bring a dp if they bring in a dp attacker that can play off bentake and really be like a second banana to christian bentake like this team gets super serious super quick like maybe not top four serious maybe not big playoff run serious, but, like, this team just missed the playoffs,

and that was a transition year. That was a year with a lot of things. Their best, their most used passing network was goalkeeper to Penteke. That was what it was last year. And they still almost made the playoffs because Penteke's an animal, and he's incredible, and he's great. Like, I have hopes for this team. High-pressing transition teams usually do well in the regular season.

There is a high floor there, just generally speaking, if you do it right. This team is in a new spot, and again, I really hope that they can get a TV spot open and use it. I do hope that they fill the other two U22 initiative slots because this is going to be a 2DP for U20 initiative team. There is room to grow here and i like what they've done so far honestly didn't think the lucas mcnaughton random brazilian polish winger was going to spur and i didn't say lucas mcnaughton or xiao peglo one single time no um got a lot of juice there i will say i laughed out loud because i've been obsessed with watching the Instagrams of this guy who pretends

to be a Philly sports talk call-in complaining about the Eagles. And you just said, Mateusz Koc, good player. He's a good player. And it like literally triggered immediately for me. So if we can get a lower

Delco reference in as well, then maybe I'll send it over to the guy. I'm a WFAN guy, not WFAN. Yeah, to see for sure. To see if he'll throw us on his page. Adding to everything you said, which I think is all fair, right? They're moving in the right direction.

They have not, I think they have not tried to cut off their nose despite their face in ways of like, can we get these guys off the books now? We'll worry about the future in the future. It's a slow build so that the books are clean and you can bring in the right types of players. But right now in our depth charts, we had Lucas Bartlett, Garrison Tubbs, and maddie patola as their three starting centerbacks

i don't love lucas mcnaughton as a starter in major league soccer i do like him as a third or fourth option depending on how many you play but i like him as much as i like any of those three at that position so to get him on the deal you're going to get him i think is a fine pickup and they need more attacking help and as you said you can manage this roster in a way where you can create a huge infusion of attacking talent with that one dp and change everyone's reality like we talked about with al miran how much easier does kud di pietro and jared stroud's life become if they have a true 10 around them who the game runs through and who teams have to send support to and have to double and have to manage and have to worry about it makes a lot of these players a lot better and

Mateusz Klicz is an interesting piece for a different team to say as a non-DP do we like him as a second eight and even like at the level of a Bartosz Schliez or something like that where you're like this is not the center of our team just a good starting central midfielder for this group all right I think that's most of it for us. Jimmy Maurer has signed with the Houston Dynamo. I assume that's not the starter. And Steve Clark is either coming back or they're going to continue to look

for the full-time replacement. NYCFC officially sold Nicholas Acevedo. I want to shout out the outfield here. I am a huge fan, obviously, because I always shout them out. They did the research to say Prince Ampansa is not on the draft eligible list. He is a fantastic center back prospect who'spansa is not on the draft eligible list.

He is a fantastic center back prospect who's been at Wake Forest for the last few years. NYCFC Academy piece that I think could be close to playing in MLS probably this year at a really good position. And that goes to four announced Generation Adidas signings for Major League Soccer. So that's four pieces that 100% will be in the draft. And I believe there's one senior who has been signed.

So that's five pieces that will be in the Super Draft, which is happening sometime in January. But not on a broadcast is what we have been told. And so that's good. Do you know when it is? You just gave me a look like when is the Super Draft. Tomorrow. No, it's not.

Yes, it is. Are you kidding me? Yeah. It's tomorrow. Everyone, watch the Super Draft tomorrow We'll be back You can't watch it You can follow it along True

Right Follow along Follow along on the interwebs Maybe they'll go full Original style Where what I believe the first ESPN draft Was just a phone

Sitting on a table And people calling in Making their draft picks In like the 1980s So maybe Maybe they'll try and do One of those on TikTok Thankok thank you to all of you for watching thank you live thank you to all of you for listening as i said this is our last live episode of the year we've got an interview coming out next week we've got our year in review with jordan angeli and myself

and tom are putting together a year in review some preview stuff as well to get you some content and some coverage while you go along over the next week week and a half hopefully you have a relaxing time an enjoyable time around friends and family or whatever you do um i know for me i'm being told i'm eating latkes on christmas day which feels aggressive but it was told to me by my christmas celebrating family that that's what they want to do so i'm there and I don't really care either way. As long as there's fried potatoes around, I am always happy. Thank you to all of you for following along this year,

but we've got some more episodes coming out and then we'll be back in the new year. We're not taking a very long break here on the MLS side of things. Jordan is going to be backpacking around New Zealand and the edge of Mordor and Tom is going to be in his apartment the same way it is as will I uh ready to go for the new year in Major League Soccer schedules are out it's going to be a good one it's going to be fun we're going to be talking GAM every day for the next 12 months so get hyped get ready thank you all for you for listening thank you for all of you for watching we'll talk to you again very, very soon.