SoccerWise - MLS Edition: Playoff Push Reset, Whitecaps DP & USMNT Roster

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

With MLS entering the homestretch of the season Gass & Tom start their weekly temperature checks. The guys will set the stage for the playoff race while talking through how the weekend results affect it all. Of course Tommy Scoops is also always talking transfers so he lets you know how excited Whitecaps fans should be about their new DP. Also who made the best move at the close of the transfer window? Also some big mailbag questions sprinkled in. 5:04 Mailbag Should You Retire Jersey Numbers 11:02 Best Match Of The MLS Weekend 15:36 Playoff Race Recap 24:54 Shield Race Reset LA Galaxy/LAFC Results 39:00 Bounce Back Wins For Philly & FC Cincy 44:50 DPOTY Award Handicap 53:06 Whitecaps DP Signing Stuart Armstrong 59:11 Summer Transfer Window Close Top Moves 1:06:30 MLS International Call-up Highlights 1:12:25 USMNT & CANMNT Roster Reactions Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

David Goss, Tom Bogert with you for SoccerWise. Another week of MLS and NWSL coverage coming to you live on YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter, I believe. Although I can't make Twitter work right now, not in a streaming way. And like, I cannot get it to work in my life, which would not probably be a me problem. That seems like a larger issue. Further, technology, not my problem. Or you can listen to us, of course, anywhere you get your podcast. Thank you all for joining us.

Did not do a mailbag episode yesterday because it was Labor Day. You can get access to the mailbag via the Patreon. You can subscribe and join us and be in our Discord and send us messages and all that type of stuff. So we're going to sprinkle it in over the course of the week here. We've got some today, some NWSL stuff to do with Jordan tomorrow. Tom, how was your time off? How relaxed were you over the last three days?

It's been nice. Not going to lie. I've been indexing on college football, just hanging out, taking the last weekend of summer here. And even today, getting back to normal work, like just because the window just closed. So I think a lot of people are at least trying a little bit to get away from the phones.

Like I haven't had many messages or calls from sources. Is this just what dudes do for a normal work day? You don't have to drop everything at all times to make sure that I don't miss a story. It's nice. I've been writing. I just felt my focus has been better this is all good is it because you're a big time television star now do you have all your assistants taking those phone calls do you have your shams no no no no because i'm still i'm still down to earth like uh was it sunday i got a huge

sicilian pizza just incredibly large and i was like i think i'm gonna eat all this within 24 hours and i did and i was very happy hate myself for it but i'm still happy duality of man tom you know people who normally protest and give proof of how down to earth they are those are people who are super down to earth you know you're the one accusing me of having assistance yeah um i thought you were wearing a Napoli jersey And now I'm realizing it's a New Jersey Kit Exactly, North Jersey SC

Got Satriales, the Tony Soprano From the Sopranos, that was one of their shops That was a butcher shop in Soprano Shout out Born Off Sides UK They made this delightful kit Just going full jersey short There's so many shout outs in that whole thing. I'm glad you had a good time.

I'm glad we are back together. I'm excited to do this once again. Of course, always breaking news. We're like moments away from starting. And the Vancouver Whitecaps just shatter the landscape with a designated player signing in Stuart Armstrong. So huge names moving around for us to cover and get into. And now we are into the final homestretch of the regular season in Major League Soccer. And so every week now going forward, we're going to reset playoff race,

shield race as long as we still can. We'll get into that as we talk about it and some of the other big storylines for you in case you missed anything, what you should be paying attention to as we go forward. And, of course, on this show, we've got a little national team to talk because we've got the U.S. versus Canada coming up on Saturday. Tom will be, I believe, managing the U.S. for that game. You are available for it? Oh, unavailable. Can't make it, so.

Because you won't wear the Nikes. That's why. I would do it. I'm just saying I'm available if U.S. Soccer wants to reach out and hit me up and be like, we need an extra coach. We don't have a full-time coach right now. I would be available. Apparently, Nico Estevez is an assistant.

He is indeed. Back in the fold. I was unaware of that. Yeah. Back in the fold. So, Nico Estevez back to his home roots, of course. Mikey Varas, who we talked about last week, potentially being announced as San Diego's first ever manager.

Was he officially announced? He was not. We're still standing on my reporting. Got it. Which is obviously correct. We did a really fun segment with Bobby Warshaw sort of explaining how this happens. He went through all the available candidates, how an MLS team goes through this process, challenged us to say things that we felt strongly about, which is hard for us,

and we ended up both hiring Mikey Varas as well. So if you want to go listen to that, you should go back and listen to it. We titled the segment Make It Make Sense, and Bobby Warshaw came on to help make it make sense for us. And we'll try and do a little bit of that for you in this one, but let's start in the mailbag. Let's start with, uh, John PA here who says, how do you feel about retiring numbers in

MLS? I was thinking about how fantastic this crew team is and how iconic Cuccio is in that team. I think in the context of the transfer window and signing a Cucho replacement, five years from now, are you really going to tell Victor Giorgis he can't have the number nine in Columbus because it's retired? What better ways are there to honor iconic players for a club? I wish it had said Mbappe, but it was still pretty funny anyway. This was better.

It was better as Giorgis, 100%. That was excellent comedic writing by John Pia. Do you have any strong feelings on this how do you honor players in a sport in which the position num the numbers are basically aligned with positions and everyone wears the same number yeah so so that's the thing it's in soccer you can't really retire numbers because it's too iconic like you can't take away the number nine shirt the number seven like again look at you know big european clubs for all the stars that they all the legends that they've had with all their more history because mls is just a younger league like you can't take away the number nine shirt at real madrid or the number seven shirt at liverpool you kind of go on down the list right like so i'm not in favor of retiring a number even you know not not because

victor yorkies is going to be upset about it, but just in general, I don't think that you can do that. So for me, it's about having a ring of honor or club ambassadors. That's something that... Portland was something that they... I don't know if anything became official. That's a good point to think about and bring up. But Diego Valeri, they had plans to make him a club ambassador. They had plans to do a testimonial friendly with LaNouce, all that all that stuff we need more of that i am firmly in favor of all of that i think that we need to treat our legends better i think it'll be cool that dax mccarty hopefully gets a little bit of

like a retirement tour here or whatever like a victory lap at the end of his career here because he's one of the best players in league history um so like we need to do more of that not retiring numbers but ring of honor club ambassadors and particularly testimonials i think that would be a thing that's really cool one of the jokes everyone always makes is like build the statue that's actually probably the best way to honor a lot of these people because i think ring of honors are cool chicago fire have done it for a while they've respected their history because they have such a strong one um new york red bulls have gotten i think pretty active about honoring especially the Chicago Fire have done it for a while. They've respected their history because they have such a strong one.

New York Red Bulls have gotten, I think, pretty active about honoring, especially the Luis Robles, Bradley Wright Phillips, that era now of the team, which was the most successful they've had. DC United, I believe, has done a bit of it as well. It's cool. Then the name sits up there and it's not connected to a player and all those things. It's fair. If you believe someone like Diego Valeri, and I think Diego Chara as well,

that are, like, uniquely positioned in a way in which they are the club, it elevates to the level of statue, and I like the statue idea. Because then you've got the statues to go see and, like, walk around and take pictures with, and it's more of a physical, strong, like this is what this player means to our club. Yeah. Rather than just the name, which is where the retiring number part comes of like,

it always sits there and no one wears it. Like that has even more, I think, importance than a ring of honor. So let's get the artists involved. Let's get the community rolling. Let's get some metal on the hot fires and let's get the community rolling let's get some metal on the on the high hot fires and let's get some statues in here and i think kucho's probably a year away from being a statue guy because if he wins like all the things in the next year and then he leaves he'll probably have won

enough stuff yeah to be in that conversation it's still interesting though so like even in that scenario that he'd be here for like three seasons like three full years like it's funny that like you can have such an outside impact on the club or uh one that i've made fun of in the past is like birmingham city retired dude bellum's number he was there oh really yeah it's like what the hell are you doing like did they retire his number so you can't wear the number anymore i'm like that they announced it as that i don't know if that they've either reversed it or said okay this was just a temporary thing but that is something that they announced when he was sold to brucey adornment it was like he had such an impact and it was like he uh yeah like he's an awesome player like i feel like it's a bit step

too far and like i don't want to start raining on parades already but if it's you know i don't i'm trying to think of how this goes bad of like all right the portland timbers again with with valerian char those are two dudes thousand percent deserve a statue and then it's like i don't know what if charlotte fc is like man we want one too and then just like you know what do not put the bram bronico statue up right now i'm at least a little bit worried that there's gonna be one where we're like it gets out of control what are we doing here kind of like rivalry kind of like how we name things rivalries in major league soccer and everything has to be a rivalry you do get in tough spots like if you're tfc you got jovinko you're putting up a josie one you're

putting up a michael bradley one are you putting up more than that are you adding more to that so yeah you're right it could get out of hand pretty quickly at the same time you're funding the artistic community so like it's a win-win in all those situations no you you just had the check made there there's not there's nothing i could push back on that well done guys well done uh have you seen the malik neighbors stuff that he got the jersey number one i didn't even know the jersey number one i'm a giants fan i did not know the jersey number one was retired i wasn't super locked into all the retired numbers the players 1934. Played 100 years ago. And then he wanted to wear the jersey.

And I got into a car on Friday because I had to drive to a wedding. And obviously the first thing I do when I get in a car is put on Sports Talk Radio. Because I never listen to it. And I'm in a car and I'm stoked. And immediately, first caller in, this guy screaming at the host. It is disrespectful that he even asked asked who does this rookie think he is and the host screaming back at the guy going what are you talking about have can you name the guy name a single stat of his the family okayed it the family okayed it and i was like oh man i

am back so i look forward to us onWise in 20 years having some screaming debate because the best player on the planet at 13 years old signing with an MLS team is not allowed to wear the jersey they want because we've retired Zarek Valentin's number at the Portland Timbers. Shout out to Zarek, one of the best in MLS. So this is a great question. Thank you, John PA. For this one, let's dig into the weekend so we're going to start every week with our best match of the weekend which has nothing to do with

any standings or anything it's what we enjoyed and then we'll go into biggest wins for the playoff push we'll reset the playoff race and then we'll go to biggest win for the shield race as well and then we've got some other categories in there that we will go into we're starting with best match and my question is is there a limit to the amount of times i can put a specific team's matches in this category no there's no limit it's all vibes so we get to do whatever we want i mean it'll be a little silly if it's every single week but you know we'll cross that bridge when we get there and i'll be sure to keep you in check well i'm gonna say columbus then who we have celebrated quite a lot over the last few weeks on this show i said coming into the game i thought nyc fc played them the best of any team at league's cup you saw a lot

of that again in this game um you saw nyc fc take an early lead dominate possession in the first half in columbus which is impressive to do back, get the goal off the blown set piece play from Columbus for Mounsef Bakrar to go coast to coast and bang a goal somehow. Against all odds, he gets a goal. And then you have three goals, two goals in stoppage time and a red card to clean this one off.

A 4-2 win for Columbus. Come from behind once and then react to the goal late twice um and just like an open and fun soccer game and this is the type of games i want to watch it wasn't my only one on the list because i was prepared if you were going to put me on a limits restriction but it was my favorite match of the weekend yeah that game was great and really important. Again, I think that I'm going to talk about this in another little subcategory in a couple minutes, so I'll save my thoughts. But it was very important in terms of the Sportish Shield race

and everything else. So the crew finding a way. This could have been a classic letdown game. They rotated the team, figuratively hungover. Who knows if they were literally hungover when they beat the Philadelphia Union in a really good game. So it's like, like oh this is going to be the trap game they come back home they just beat NYCFC recently uh now everybody's rested to start you know we just did it with our backups and you know we don't lose at home all this stuff and then kind of when NYCFC

scored early and then scored um to tie it up like later it's like oh yeah like this is where a team drops points and then as you said the Columbus crew came back and picked up all three points for me I'm gonna go out west the Dallas Colorado game was pretty bonkers that was a lot of fun it ends 3-2 Colorado Rapids the game was in Dallas we got a 90 plus 3 game winner from Darren Yappie I believe that's his third goal now since uh since the summer so that was really awesome again the 18 year old academy product and hafa nuvaru kind of tied it up a little bit before that so this was i thought a really fun game by the way i didn't check the chat before we moved off the retired numbers there's a lot of good info in there there are retired numbers for example megan rapinoe's number was retired

last week when i heard the convo about her number being retired, I disconnected the actual fact that no one can wear the number anymore from, like, the honor. So it does exist in soccer. Just throwing that out there for anyone as we move on. As I pull us back to then come back forward. Colorado, continuing to roll. Yep.

I don't know that I had any big expectations for them coming out of League's Cup. I said so many times the season's already been an accomplishment that I don't know that I really set any standards on what we need to see from them going forward. And that's why something like this was also huge for them. And they're going to continue to put themselves in a home playoff spot. That's pretty big. Yeah, I totally agree.

And that has to be the updated goal for the season again. It doesn't make it a bad season if they finish fifth. But I think that they are significantly better than Vancouver. Vancouver are the team that's in fifth. Portland sixth, Houston seventh, Seattle eighth. I just think the Colorado Rapids are the best team out of that group. And it would be unfortunate and disappointing if they did not get that fourth spot.

We'll see how kind of the season evolves. Again, they're three points up on Vancouver. Vancouver have a couple games in hand, and I could definitely see them overtaking the Rapids, but I just think that the Rapids are a better team, and that has to be the goal to finish in fourth for the rest of the season. Look, they're only three points behind Salt Lake and LAFC, so that's a possibility.

And I guarantee that those are their ambitions. Why can't we catch them, right? But a realistic goal hanging on the fourth year. To be clear, they're three points behind LAFC with two games more played because LAFC have less games played. But you are 100% right in like if they are able to beat out RSL this year and with all the stuff they've already done, that would be massive. And you would love a situation where if you get stuck against RSL in the playoffs,

you have home field advantage, whatever round it is and whatever goes on. So that would be massive for this team. Let's go into the playoff push because as you sort of went down that list, we started to get closer to the line. We've got multiple lines in Major League Soccer because everyone gets a participation trophy and everyone wins. So, of course, nine teams make the playoffs. Eight and nine play in a play-in match to make the actual postseason.

And then you've got five through seven who automatically qualify. And we'll be going on the road in the first round. And then one through four after that one. A couple big results on the line for these playoff teams. So right now, sitting here, you've got Seattle in eighth place in the West, Minnesota in ninth place. Austin have dropped down to 10th and Dallas sit right behind them in 11th. And you, I think your result was from the Western Conference of the biggest win for a playoff push team. Yeah, the Portland Timbers beating the Seattle Sounders 1-0.

Again, keeping a clean sheet. Keeping a clean sheet while playing two actual fullbacks instead of having to add another center back out there. Again, no Joseph Mora, no Jonathan Rodriguez. Again, you're playing your rivals. Just an awesome result for the Portland Timbers. So, like, I don't think that they were in danger of not making the playoffs. So I'm kind of rejecting the premise here.

But I'd much rather talk about the Timbers trying to push for seeding and the Timbers looking like, okay, that was an adult serious performance that maybe you can win a round in the playoffs. And let's see how this defensive unit continues evolving as the season goes on rather than being like, well, Dallas lost. Now they're three points below the line. Who cares? Like Dallas, Austin, I think those teams teams even if they get in as the nine like they're either going to lose in the playing round or get smacked in the first round of the best three

so for me like I'd rather spend my time talking about this Timber Seattle game I think that's fair um we have some other categories coming up that I'm going to drop this game in as well. But this was a mass, as you said, this was a massive performance and result for Portland. I think the two sides of that, of like the way they played with the players that were missing against their rival, pushes it into this conversation as well. And a huge moment for this Timbers team that is kind of sitting in a weird spot. I thought it was interesting. Phil Neville. Did you hear that?

Yes. He made a comment like coming out of the St. Louis game saying most people are saying this is two points dropped for us. I see it as a point gained. It's a game in which we wouldn't have come back and gotten the result in the past and a game that we weren't capable of getting results out of. And we think these two matches are home games against good teams and if we come out with four points it's a victory it is the spin zone from phil

neville it is spinning hard on one hand yeah like coming back from behind against st louis like you're right like there is something to be said about that that's not the top line takeaway you scored you gave up four goals at home to st louis who like are a better team now than they were before the window but st louis was still second to last in the western conference right like so yeah sure technically but um i think four points was the minimum from their swing between for those two years right like so you just would have thought the four points would have come flipped win over st louis draw seattle yeah but i think the victory lap on yeah we tied st louis at home four yeah but i think the victory lap on yeah we tied st louis at home 4-4 and i told you i was right i think that's a weird victory lap yeah i would

agree with you um but phil neville always working i'm gonna go to the eastern conference so in the eastern conference right now charlotte sit in sixth on 38 points orlando sit in seventh on 37th toronto and atlanta are the two playing teams toronto 33 points atlanta 31 then just below the line one point behind is the philadelphia union dc united sit two points behind the line and then a two-point gap down to montreal after that and i'm gonna say atlanta are the team in my mind that had the biggest win for the playoff push this weekend they go on the road to I believe was a 55,000 person crowd in Charlotte they get the victory 1-0 against Charlotte a game that they were very good in and deserve to win this was not

even though the goal if you go watch the highlights and you say, Fortune, a long strike, not a ton of pressure on him, sneaks it in. That goal was probably their worst chance over the course of that stretch of time for this Atlanta team. And they get Maranchuk into the group. They go on the road. They get a huge victory. And this is an Atlanta team then that sees the two teams behind them get victories. This weekend in Philadelphia, going to the Red Bulls, which is which is arguably i think the other result you could put in here and then dc united

going to toronto so for atlanta when you look at their schedule when you look at who they have to play they've got one of the toughest schedules in this groupings of teams it is going to be all about keeping the teams behind them away i don't think they're going to rise up the standings i don't think they're going to make a run for a home game they have to maintain and tread water and this was a unexpected result to say yeah now you have a little more breathing room now if you make a mistake somewhere else okay you could look at these three points and say they swap for each other and that they fit in there so a huge result for them um And as I said, a really big performance. I mentioned Maranchuk getting his first start for this team. Pep BL also got his first start for Charlotte.

Let me ask you this off one game. Who would you rather have building a roster? Pep BL or Maranchuk? Is this a serious question? It is a serious question. This isn't. Okay. Maranchuk, very easily miranchuk um has a much

higher pedigree much longer resume um he's still in his prime as well and there's a reason why he was on the team that won the robo league last year um so i think this is very comprehensively alexi miranchuk so three days ago I would have blindly agreed with you and said, absolutely, let's do it. I got a taste of Pepiel, though. And I'm telling you, I'm going back for seconds right now. I am interested for sure. Obviously, the fact that his team lost to the other guy's team at home is like not a super positive for my takes and and what I thought I saw but he was lively he was the center of the game he was constantly getting touches he was constantly moving the game around to make everyone else's life easier and like so one for Charlotte it's

huge um for them to have a guy who wants this because they've never had a player like this in their entire time and somehow Swiderski looked worse with all of it which is bizarre but I thought Vargas and Abada looked really good in this game love the addition love the signing I just want to say that okay but Maranchuk floated in this game and kind of like chills and lets the game sort of develop around him now he's new and he has to get into it. But I like the aggressive play of Pep Biel. And so I'm a Biel-solite. So look, both things, like I think that this is going to work out

as a good signing for Charlotte as well. Pep Biel, unfortunate that he cannot be bought down if they choose to keep him. So that's going to be, I think, a storyline for the rest of the season on even if he's pretty good, what do you do at the end of the season? But this is a profile that they needed. You're right, they haven't had this profile. Gosh, you're talking about touches.

You're talking about he goes and finds the game, and you're saying that he was all over the ball and Brancuk was drifting away. Tell me how I'm wrong. Pepio had 37 touches. Brancuk had 62. So that's not a small margin. There is no way that is true.

That's not a small margin. There is no way that is true. There is no way that is true. 42 passes completed to 24. It's not close. I don't believe any of this. Are you just a stats guy now? Yeah. I was like, I don't believe that that was right.

And that was one of the games. I didn't see that at all. That was one of the games that I didn't get to watch the 90 minutes of because there's 100 games at 730. So I called Devin Kerr, who was calling that game for Apple TV. And his kind of analysis on both those players is that, yeah, Biel was trying to do stuff, but like maybe, you know, wasn't quite coming off. They're still trying to figure out how to adapt to each other in that attack. And same thing with Miranchuk, except that his style was rubbing off more on the Atlanta United players

and that everybody seemed more calm and they were passing the ball and being more patient and keeping control of the game in the ball yeah and then another person who i formed out asked how it was j sam jones the excellent msrcard.com daily newsletter writer uh he was telling me he's like i think that there's a strong possibility that the team is better off with miranchuk than almada because of the play style and the effect it will have on the rest of the team not not to suggest that or not saying that Miranchuk is definitely a better player than Almada but just that this style is probably going to be more beneficial for the team it felt like Saba was more engaged and involved um because of that style of like quick passing connection on the top now I will say this I will not be defeated by the stats nerd.

I will not be run down by the analytics community led by Tom Bogert, as usual, riding in on a Texas instrument calculator, demanding that everyone shoot three-pointers on every single play of the game. So I'm not going to let you you spin me but i think that's an interesting thing to have heard and uh i look forward to watching the rest of this as we go along let's jump into the shield race so in the shield race in major league soccer right now i don't know if you've heard of them inter miami lead the shield race right now they're on 59 points with 27 games played 2.19 points per game that is the lead in

the eastern conference and the lead in the shield race la galaxy right now lead the western conference on 52 points but they have played 28 games so they are on 1.86 per game. LAFC are better on points per game. They've only played 25 matches. They are five points behind the galaxy on 47 points, but slightly ahead on 1.8 points per game. And then in the East, you have the next two teams, Cincinnati on 51 points, 27 games played. And then Columbus, 49 points, only 25 matches played for them as well because of Leaks Cup and CONCACAF and all the run. Them and LAFC have the most games to make up. Tom, starting this conversation,

are all of those teams in the Shield race when i reset this every week or should i start ignoring some of these teams that i just said ignoring some of the teams you just said for me it's a two-team race at this point and the only reason that i think it's a two-team race is because of all the respect that we have for the columbus crew and i even think that you could put you could have pushed back on it if they didn't get a late winner against NYCFC this weekend. So as you say, with the numbers, like, again, I'm just framing this around two teams because I don't think the other ones have a chance to catch into Miami.

Miami are 10 points ahead of the crew. Crew have two games in hand. If the crew win both of those games, which is not a guarantee, they're four back. And they do play into Miami down the stretch for the rest of the season miami have won eight of their last nine games without lino messi messi is very likely to be back in two weeks when they return to play he's back into training right now so it's very fair to assume that he's going to be playing like they're only going to get better and the only reason that we're not like oh it's over like is because one of the teams chasing him is the

Columbus crew and we have so much respect for them so I think this is getting closer to calling it we're not there yet and like again I'll repeat myself that like this isn't because of like oh well they're only x amount of points behind it's because of the crew because like as you said the Galaxy LAFC uh they might have I got LAFC I don't think have the same points per game as the crew. But right, like you could have made the argument that, oh, you know, they're still in the race. I just don't think that they're good enough to make up this distance. Okay, I think you're right. I don't know that I would have said that on Friday.

But now in going into the biggest results of the weekend both of the la teams tripped on themselves and probably that was the only ground they had especially lafc playing at home even though it was against a really good houston team so lafc lost 2-0 at home to houston they obviously played the leagues cup final last sunday then they went to seattle and won the u.s open cup semi-final on wednesday then they came home on saturday to play houston slightly rotated but again a very strong squad for this team uh jerud it seems like picked up a little bit of a knock bogus got the start up top aaron long stepped into the back line once again it looks like jesus mario's gonna be out for a little bit and we'll talk about that coming up in defensive player of the year stuff in just a moment and then

Houston throttled them uh in LA and it was a lot of the things Houston are always going to try and do but Ezekiel Ponce was really good in this game he gets the opening goal off a set piece but he gives them an outlet when they try and build out. When LAFC would press high, they had an outlet to dump it into him and then let the center midfielders run off them. That was a predictable outlet. That was a physically dominant one. And then you see his individual quality, his connection with Ace Ace, the way he likes to play.

He looks like a really good addition. LAFC were messy in their transition moments. The ways you'd expect them to kill houston they just weren't clean in that first ball out bulanga was not as dangerous or aggressive as what you'd like to see this was a huge result for houston and it probably drops lafc out of the competition for this yeah and another like again houston played excellent like that was a really important performance for the Houston Dynamo because when you go back to the Western Conference Final last year,

like, they had a similar game plan, right? Like, this is their game model. They want to have the ball. They want to pull you apart. They want to beat you with the ball the same way that, say, the Columbus Crew are trying to. Ryan Hollingshead, after that game, was doing interviews and was like, yeah, they're not good enough to beat us with the ball.

We want you to have the ball because we're more dangerous on the count. Like, more or less saying that like we didn't we weren't in in trouble at any point just giving them the ball because we don't think that they could break us down well they did this game and they had an individual moment of brilliance uh from lawrence and ollie and he's been awesome i had like you never exactly know how you 22 initiative signings are going to fare particularly immediately this dude hit the ground sprinting and it looks like he's suffered a severe injury um that's kind of the words that's coming out of houston right now that that they think it's a you know a very long

term injury which absolutely sucks because he's been so much fun um so first and foremost for the player like that it's just particularly after like the high of schooling that goal against LAFC to then end the game with a potentially severe injury. And then for the Houston Dynamo, like Nelson Quinones took him him a little while to really adapt to this team. He was a lot of fun down the stretch last year. And then he suffers a season ending injury in preseason to an already very

thin attacking unit. They kind of survive in advance throughout the beginning of the season, do enough to stay where they are in the standings, and then, okay, we're just going to build in the summer. Ponce is ready to go, debuts on the first day. Lawrence and Ali, you know, they had that deal done. They couldn't announce it until MLS announced the roster rule changes. So they were ahead of all this.

They did everything right. And Lawrence and Ali, Ponce, they both look like really, really good players. And Ponce in particular being more of like a bonus just because of the U22 initiative versus signing it in prime DP number nine. And so they've done everything right here. And still it doesn't matter sometimes. And that's just really cruel. It sucks.

It sucks. So Anale just posted on Instagram a few minutes ago saying, it's hard, but I will be back. Thank you for all the supportive messages. They help me a lot um Ben Olsen post game said there's a cloud over this win we're hoping to hear better news but it seems like his knee's going to be done for the year so as you said it was a real high and low for Houston because they made the moves to get over the hump they couldn't get over last year those were the exact moves that got them over the hump against that team in the same building where they were stopped in the western conference finals and

then to lose one of the guys moments later is brutal for this team um so lafc we're putting them out of the supporter shield race houston a massive victory a massive victory by the way for them in playoff positioning because they still need to lock their spot in the other is the la galaxy went to st louis lost 2-1 i will start by saying st louis were really fun in this game i have been intoxicated by the new st louis team under hackworth with the new addings toy shirt gets a goal in this one hardell gets a goal in this one betcher's playing well klaus came back and was available for them came off the bench and helped them see out the game this is a team that looks completely different from who they were there's balance to the way they play now they sit in kind of a mid-block most of the time then they

go and press they create the first goal then they sit off a little bit but they never let the galaxy get too much possession they weren't and there weren't too many moments where they were suffocating they had enough triggers to get themselves out of their defensive third and go and play a little bit and push the game and the atmosphere in the crowd was awesome for this one st louis jumping up the watchability rankings which we did a week or two ago uh and i think they'll be one of those outliers of like you're not watching them because of playoff standings you're watching them because they're fun every week going forward. And then that galaxy as fun, as I'm talking about St.

Louis, this is the second worst team in the conference. You're going to push for a supportive shield. You can't drop points in a game like this. Even if it's on the road, they didn't have Ricky Pooge. They started, um,

Marco Royce. I almost said Marcel Hartle. They started Marco Royce in this game as the 10, and they could not find a ton of attacking impetus in this one. They were not dangerous. They weren't able to break lines consistently with St. Louis, and they lost 2-1 on the road. I get why they're playing Joseph Paisley up top sometimes,

and you're going to have to do different variations to try to keep everybody happy in terms of minutes. But I absolutely hate when Painslow is playing as a nine. It's just clear that he's better as a winger. And again, I understand to try to get all these players on the field. This is better than having him on the bench for Miguel Berry or something. I get it. But these are big questions for the Galaxy going down the end of the season.

Multiple players are going to be unhappy to be on the bench for a playoff game and like dan jovovich if he's fit should be starting as a nine he just fits better um and then like i don't know how you pick uh three between you know fugundes ricky pooch pack painstay and royce but like you're just gonna have to and it is like yeah i don't think that you can kind of shoehorn paint cells and nine again and again maybe like i'll be wrong and this is what the end of the regular season is for like when we're talking about i don't think that they're in the shield right so this is the time to figure it out and fine-tune it but i don't love it st louis good for them for the win it is only their second win since May 12th, which is a wild thing to say. And an even more wild thing to say,

I'm not ready to say that they're dead and buried for the playoffs. I was flirting with whether I was, like, I just assumed so, and then I was like, let me just double-check their schedule and make sure. They have two games against Minnesota. Minnesota is the team that's in ninth that they're chasing. They're nine points behind them. That's still very steep. But I would not be surprised if they win both of those games.

They also play Kansas City again. They play at San Jose. So the schedule is pretty soft and soft in the way that they're playing two of the teams. They have three games against teams that are directly in front of them for the playoffs. So I'm not ready to completely rule them out, but like obviously margin for error is very slim, nine points below the drop with, you know seven games left or whatever it's funny because the model for

this would be what skc did last year and when skc did it last year everyone kind of leaned on well we've seen this team do it before so it's like not shocking right they kind of reverted to what we expected now st louis has had one year in major league soccer they won the western conference obviously at a lower number than normal but they still won the western conference and then it was what they revert to the mean they did this year and they've dropped all the way down so if they revert back to what they were last year with this added talent and the changing coach and all of this you could see them make a run i think the part that's hard is jumping all these yes you mentioned they play a lot of them and like austin were lifeless this weekend it was scary to watch that austin performance because i think we've talked about josh wolf a bit

it felt like a team that gave up on their coach in that game dallas again drops a big result so like when you're looking to make the playoffs they, you're going against teams that don't get results consistently. That's why they are where they are. I will accept the St. Louis life support that you are providing right now, and I will continue to keep them in our playoff push, which means you're scaling our Western Conference playoff push every week now down to 13th place and St. Louis. That's the thing.

And, like, you can tell me this hypocrisy. I disagree. But, like, I said Kansas City. I think that they're cooked. They're done. Like, I just don't think that they're good. So, usually, like, you could say, oh, it's MLS. You know, anything can happen.

It'd be crazy. Like, these teams down here are bad. Like, but I think St. Louis are solid now after their summer transfer window. So, like like i wouldn't say that there's 13 teams still alive but like again i think that they're they are on life support for this but like again dallas are only three points behind hey maybe frera and and musa get healthy but like i just don't see them jumping over right like so it's selective for me at this stage. Um, say, uh, SKC, they play at Red Bulls,

they play at Seattle and then they play the Rapids and Minnesota. But that is, I believe either side of the open cup final. So they have a tough schedule going through. And I don't think it's wrong to say that you see them differently than you see this St. Louis team also because of momentum at this point of the season. All right. I love it on the momentum at this point of the season. All right.

I love it. On the Galaxy side, I agree with you. I think Greg Vanney agrees with you. Like, he brought Miguel Berry in off the bench at halftime. They scored 50 seconds later. Jovalich just hasn't been healthy. When Jovalich is healthy or if he is ever healthy, I think it'll be the setup you said.

Also, Ricky Pooj not being available this weekend. I would be shocked if all four of those guys are available most of the time and so like you're probably in a situation where you're not really having to make that decision i was underwhelmed by royce in this game um he is going to take some time to get up to speed reminder like he this was his off season so this is technically his second game of the year uh coming off of last season so he's gonna have to figure things out and if the galaxy want to stay competitive at the top of the west he's gonna have to figure it out uh quickly so those three segments we're gonna do them for

you every single week coming forward now let's add a few more in here you want to talk bounce back win of the weekend uh i will start then and say the philadelphia union they lost to uh columbus crew two midweek in a moment where it felt like a chance for them to make a playoff push and then they come back and they go to the red bulls and they get a 2-0 victory ty burribo continues to score goals uh they've now added a few more internationals which is pretty impressive for what we thought they were going to do over the course of this summer window and philadelphia stay alive they're only one point out of the playoffs right now i would not have guessed that a week ago when they went and when they lost at home to a columbus team that as you mentioned was fairly probably hung over going into

that game yeah and andre blake was excellent again and i think that we're just going to keep saying the same things that we did during the league's cup run like andre blake is capital b back and that's the margins that this team needs to survive and again when you have ty rebo scoring goals like it's as like i don't want to be too reductive but i think it's as simple as in may they were getting nothing in their defensive third and their attacking third like andre blake was out and in their attacking third like andre blake was out and in their attacking third like ty buriba was stapled to the bench and they weren't getting much so like well they'll win that midfield circle yeah and like it'll be it'll be a dog and then and then it's like oh like there's a deflected shot that went through the goalkeeper's

hands and it's like all right this is weird for a philadelphia union team so like this is a good team just straight up as long as andre blake is Blake is Andre Blake which I think he's proven yes he is indeed and Ty Brebo's still scoring goals like this seems sustainable maybe not to the exact levels of like again both those players played really really well against the Red Bulls um Ty Brebo's miss from two yards out and an empty yet not standing the game is already 2-0 there that can be swept under the rug and gotta leave something on the table it's bradley ray phillips style right set the goal scoring record and henry kept talking about all the goals he could have scored you gotta leave them coming wanting more um and then so for me my who's back of the week

fc cincinnati 4-1 win at home against a reeling cf team. Cincinnati did not have Lucho Acosta. They didn't matter because they have Luka Oriano scoring goals from his own half yet again. And this is their first win. They snapped a four-game losing streak, which dated back to pre-League Cup. So this was an important win, one that they absolutely needed, should have had. This would have been a disaster to lose to this Montreal team with how much that they've been struggling at home. No loose cause.

It doesn't matter. This was a good get-right game, and now they play the Columbus Crew next week, or their next game, sorry. That's going to be very, this was very, very important to go into the international break, beating a team that they absolutely should have beaten. Yeah, Tom mentioned there,

international break coming up. Not every MLS team takes off, but some do. So for some of these teams, they have 13 days off now between mls games 11 days off between mls games other teams will play this weekend we'll obviously preview the weekend coming up on thursday we'll talk all about it we'll recap it next week as well but for a lot of these teams that's why we're not like oh next game this is important because that's in like an eternity in soccer world time so we are not even there yet

as you said huge result for this cincinnati team um over the course of the weekend that 4-1 victory you that is who's back who's back out who are you done on who are you giving up on who's out like again this could have been the inverse of this from Montreal, but I'll save them for right now. I'm going to go with Nashville. They lost 3-0 to Orlando City. This is, I believe, 7 or 8 losses in a row for Nashville. They have not scored a goal in MLS play since July 13th. It is September 3rd. The summer's over. They haven't won in MLS since June 23rd.

Very, very bad for national sd right now even after bj callahan took over uh during league's cup or um sorry in july so he's had plenty of time now in the training ground they still have the pieces uh the foundational pieces of a team that made the playoffs in each of the first four seasons so it is apt they've absolutely turned into a death spiral and i don't see them climbing out that's that's a hard one to top you should have went with montreal you picked the big one i probably could have gone with montreal i'm going with tfc on this one they lost 3-1 at home at dc united they didn't have bernadesi they still were horrendous it didn't really matter um they gave up goal they gave up self-inflicted goals on one end they make mistakes

playing out of the back they struggle 1v1 defending the finishing wasn't there at a high level as well i was a little confused by the setup quite honestly in watching this team they're like trying to rotate the wingbacks inside and play as central midfielders and all that they're just really weak in central midfield and they're easy to play through if you're saying that coming out of a dc united game like that's tough if jared stroud's running the game on you that's like a tough reality to live in and that has nothing nothing to do with getting bernadeschi back because he's not gonna assist you in that part of the field he's not gonna work off the ball and come back and help in any way at all so i think this is a tfc team i wouldn't be surprised if they don't make the playoffs is how I feel right

now. It also feels like there's some question marks around the group in terms of the like drone stuff that is not being talked about, but like is living there and being dealt with. And I don't know, it wouldn't, it wouldn't shock me if this group kind of gave up in a little bit going forward.

And this kind of felt like that first result. And shout out to DC for taking care of business and getting it done. One of the nicest set piece goals you will ever see for Martin Rodriguez. And a team that continues to sort of roll out the same pieces, but sometimes get different results out of it. Matty Patola, I thought was good in this one as well. But as I said, it's an easy midfield to deal with. So maybe that's more why than what I saw.

And looking forward to watching more of this DC group. I thought at least they came out on the front foot and they played aggressive the entire game. They made aggressive subs. They tried to win even on the road. And I think they deserve a shout out for that in this one. Let's finish up this section with a question from Clady troyer

from the mailbag who says as we head down the final stretch of the mls season which players make up the pool of defensive player of the year contenders attacking and goalkeeping stats seem easier to decipher so it's more straightforward to get a read on the contenders for the other awards but gauging defenders feels more subjective who deserves recognition here so of course your question is correct here in that no one understands who the best defenders are and someone undeserving either gets voted in or wins every time and someone deserving gets left out of the conversation it is normally just to help you gauge who will win not just who we think is best it will normally be a center back it won't be a fullback and it

will normally be one from what one of the top four to five defensive teams statistically in the league yeah yeah so the defensive play of the year like all these awards narrative driven right like so that's one place to start like these are people who are voting on them and as goss said normally it just comes from you know pick the best center back on one of the best defensive teams right you look in the past walker zimmerman that's how he won it several times aaron long with the red bulls and he won it you know um i'm kind of struggling to remember the list of winners for this award but like that's usually a safe bet to make for defensive players so with that being said and you and i trying to narrow down some suggestions like adilson milan is the first one that I came up with.

He plays for Charlotte, who are one of the best defensive teams in the league. So there's that. He's, I think, unquestionably, like now that Ream's there, it's a little bit different, but since the beginning of the season, unquestionably the best center back on that team, which cost, you know,

Yaimar and Jackson Reagan in the past in that they split votes. You know, Aaron Long and Tim Parker, that was a little bit difficult to split when it was the Red Bulls, right? Like, so not just, it's like Zimmerman was great because he's clearly the dominant center back on that team. And so when Nashville were the best defensive team in the league, it's like, obviously,

Walker Zimmerman's going to win this award, right? Like, so that's another caveat to add to this, that like teams that have two really good center backs that are difficult to distinguish, like they're going to split votes and that's going to hurt. Like, even with like Jacob Gless ended up winning it in the past but jack elliott i don't even think he got on the ballot because they weren't allowed to nominate more than two and they put kai vonder on it right like so that helped take away the split that being

said milando also has the narrative because rising young talent in this league this charlotte team is is much it's a very big pleasant surprise in the league i don't think anybody expected them to be this good or this solid defensively um so dean smith takes a lot of credit the defensive unit as a whole but melanda i think is the person that would be the beneficiary of this in this season uh another couple suggestions mikhail houston dynamo he's been really good um this is loki one of the best stories of how a team like he started with their second team that was where like he was loaned there as a bit of an older player i think he was you know 21 and like that you know that's old by mls next pro standards of like oh is this kid gonna make it or not he got into the first

team got a starting spot he's been really good um yaimar and seattle like seattle are one of the best defensive teams in the league he's someone but like i don't think that they're gonna finish high enough in the standings for him to really get the votes here. And then LAFC, like, have the best expected goals against. And their dominant center back is Murillo. And then I think that we both like Noah Isla for the New York Red Bulls. But again, like, I don't know how much distinguishing there is between him and Sean Nealis in terms of who's more important to this defensive unit. So they might split votes there.

What do you think about those five? I think those are, that's a good group to come from um and i think my guess is my vote will be coming out of that group mario i mentioned got hurt um i believe it was against seattle or was it at the end of the game against columbus one of the two if he's out for a little bit of a stretch or that team slash that team falls off, he could be in a dangerous spot. Although, in fairness, this is a voted-on category, and I don't know how many people will have seen Mikael play by the end of the year. So, Murillo might end up being. If you polled the average national writer or somebody who's voting on this,

or, I don't know, I was going to say, the captain of an Eastern Conference team. Have you watched the Houston Dynamo more or LAFC? It's probably LAFC because players are on this as well and managers and coaches. That shouldn't be part of it, but God, you're right to bring that up. That is absolutely part of these votes. And I try really, really hard to not let it be

and to try to use our platform to push out any information that we can. But, like, it's just, like, brother, Messi got how many votes for newcomer of the year last year? He played, like, 300 minutes in MLS. Well, that's why I was going to say the other broken one is Jordi Alba is probably going to lead defenders in assisting goals. And Inter-Miami are, like, the 12th best defense in the league, 13th. They are nowhere near this conversation.

That would be a joke. You want to bet me right now he gets votes? No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying if that happens, that'll be a joke. I know. And I was hoping for a little bit of Freach Chang on the side of that joke from you in that whole bet. All the names you said, though, I think are right.

Columbus. I voted for Melanda on the 22-22 list. Was it last year or two years ago at this point? It would have been last year, right? Might have been two years ago. I don't think he was. He wasn't eligible by a matter of a week last year. So two years ago, I voted for him.

I love his potential. I love what he does. If he were to win defensive player of the year i think it would be the worst winner that we'd had in terms of his ability to defend today like he is still a weakness at times 1v1 he still loses a ton of battles and that is partially because he's young and because he's still learning but like if that was the case i would find that really interesting i'm also happy to be proven wrong over the last 10 games to see what he does and what he adds um i would say if i was building a team i would probably take mikhail first of all these players yaimar would probably be up there as well of these two

i voted yaimar like two years in a row i'm not going to vote him this year based off what i'm seeing he's never going to win it so i can give up with him uh on that as well one of the other names i will add in here is veselinovich at vancouver he has consistently been the one that keeps that back three to five together and keeps things really clean they are one of the better defensive teams if we we think Mikael's not going to win it because people are watching, Veselinovic's not going to win it either. That's a good shout. I think I was remiss to not have him on that list.

And then also Columbus Crew have one of the better expected goals against and goals against in the league. But I think that goes down to splitting votes. Rudy Camacho would probably be the guy, particularly for Defender of the Year over Steven Marrera but like are we sure that Rudy Camacho is more important a better defender than Stephen Marrera like I think that both of them could be in this conversation but like I think that they're going to split votes plus like there's going to be fatigue at some point the Columbus crew like all right you get you've got league's cup you're

going to play the campion's cup reynolds cup champs like we're talking about kutcher all the time wilford nancy maybe you don't get defender of the year as well okay relax uh i think i think uh i think camacho will get in there i forgot about that name i think camacho will end up being a finalist but like what in this whole thing what i would say is that like their best strength defensively is that they have the ball for 70 of the game And the game is played in the attacking third. So I don't know.

So I don't know if that would help them with the narrative side of things. I'd rather proper center back lad be winning this award. Kicking people. But tweets are wrong. That's the beauty of the voting process in democracy. That is the beauty of democracy. And you forgot Veselinovich. So now I'm going to give you a full segment to celebrate the Vancouver Whitecaps

and all things them so that you can make up for that. As I said, they went down to Austin. They got a 1-0 win this weekend. They were phenomenal in this game. They dominated possession. Gauld scores at the end of the first half. It gets called off. They come back.

What? They're 51% possession. In the first half, there was a point they were at 66%. Cool. Against Austin, who won't the ball. They went and dominated the game. Also, game states, if you're leading 1-0 on the road, I would hope you don't have more possession for the sake of the other team.

Go on. I'm pretty sure at the end of the first half, they were at 66%. Whatever. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. You're the stats guy. You're the stats guy. It's unraveling. Go on.

You're the stats guy you're the stats it's unraveling go on you're the stats guy uh and then off the back of that they signed a designated player stewart armstrong 32 year old attacking player he is scottish uh he signed a deal through 2026 he has spent the last six years with southampton five years in the premier league i think and six and one year in the championship Overall, 191 appearances for Southampton. He's got 51 caps for Scotland. He started in two of the three group stage games in the 2021 Euros, and then he appeared once in the most recent Euros for Scotland, who, as I have said, are the worst international team to watch on the planet. In the most recent season,-24 in the champo

uh he finished with six goals seven assists in 42 appearances overall he got injured in april didn't play again and then was released at the end of the year i assume tom that's why he's eligible right now is because he's a free agent yeah yeah and and another tidbit like this came up in the Discord, which again you can get into by subscribing to SoccerWise on Patreon. But another question that came up, like Reggie Cannon just got released. He's not eligible to be signed right now by an MLS team. Like the fine print of the rule of teams can sign free agents right now.

The player had to have already been a free agent when the MLS secondary transfer window closed. So Stuart Armstrong was obviously that. He has not had a club since early summer. And, yeah, so that's why he was eligible for this. DP signing, Tom. Do you feel electric? Is this the big move you've been waiting for?

Let me start on the positive side. I'm very glad that they made what they believed to be a significant addition. I was killing this team through the summer disappointment, growing into ambivalence of like, alright, if you're not going to change the roster or do anything beyond the outskirts of this squad guess what, you're just going to lose in the first round

and we know how this story ends I don't know if he changes that or not but I do want to commend them getting this signing done, because it would have been easy to say, I will go into the winter, try to sign somebody else. If this is not a DP deal that can be bought down.

So if he's firmly a designated player through 2026, this is an abomination. And I think it's even unfair to be starting this conversation without knowing the answer to that question. But like, for the sake of it, like, if this is a Nico Giochini deal, where, like, this is just a temporary DP, this is

the easiest way in terms of accounting salary cap, all the minutiae there, that's fine. I'm totally good with it. And I commend it even more, again, for trying to do something to change the team. But if a 32-year-old midfielder, Scotland International, Southampton from the Championship last year, if he is a designated player firmly, awful not good enough right like um and again i'm worried that

this is a false premise and i'm getting myself to having this taken worked out for what will end up being no reason so i want to keep hammering that point um but i i really really need to know the answer to that question hopefully after the show I'll try to figure it out. Yeah, you're going to be the one that gets us the answer. That was the thing. So as I'm criticizing Vancouver, I'm the guy that should be finding this out. So Vancouver should be criticizing me for not asking the question before doing this. I just want everybody to know, while I'm being very mean to the Colorado Rapids and potentially looking on the negative side of this signing,

nobody yells at me more than me. So just don't worry about that. I would add that you just called them the Colorado Rapids and potentially looking on the negative side of the signing nobody yells at me more than me so just don't worry about that I would add that you just called them the Colorado Rapids that's probably not going to go over super well in the conversation Tom's ready to jump out the window on this one I will say one thing which is even if he is the low-end dp the accounting has changed a bit with the 242 option of they could have added another u22 and brought in a million in allocation money if they hadn't gone this route to potentially cover someone's contract in a situation like this so even if he is a low-end dp and they're able to get it get off of it next, it is a little bit of a cheap move in general because you're just using more of your salary cap space to sign this player rather than having gotten another player on top of him

or potentially two more if you could have added it and done the math the right way. We don't know the exact details on that and all of that. I will say this. Sounds like they're a better soccer team than they were two days ago. You look at this guy. You look at the way he plays. He should fit them really well.

He's direct. He's physical. He's 32 years old, so he's been around. So I think there's some belief that you're going to get a level of performance. Obviously, there's going to be comparisons to Ryan Gould. They both came up at Dundee United together. This is a player who's been in the scottish national team when gold hasn't which is a comparison point for the positive if you want but he's a player who i watched tape

i checked out some of his stats and all of that he is direct both in pass and on the dribble and he will go long quickly and he will follow up the play and he will play north south that's what this team wants i think he fits the setup as well of like one of the two forwards and it might even free up gold to just be able to go and play where he wants i think he's kind of the player they wanted shop to be and he hasn't been that guy and with the way they've pulled vite deeper consistently in this group they're looking for that second attacking player to be able to play off hopefully a brian white if he's healthy and can come back if not whoever else it is up top um and i think that's what this player is supposed to be so at this point in the window of there is no window

open and you have no other options short of memphis the pie being signed who ky718 wants to know what's going on there don't think he he's heading to Vancouver. This seems like the best they were going to do now and has the potential to elevate them from fifth and sixth in the West to fifth and sixth and could be dangerous in a playoff season. Yeah, that's fair. And to your point, they were better today than they were two days ago. So I commend them for that. And they bought out Luis Martins at the end of that. So continuing on that road of success uh as they go forward i hope they

dominate more games and of course they'll host the canadian championship as well against toronto coming up uh later in the month let's let's jump into the ice cream shop real quick here window closing on friday uh everyone watched you on cbs colazo being the number one host in all of television just like jimmy fallon and now you are here to talk us through it. What do you want to do here? Yeah. I'll run through a couple of the deals that got done on deadline day that had to do with MLS.

And then a couple of things that haven't happened and won't happen. So I think the first one for me would be Noel Buck on loan to Southampton until January with a purchase option. I'm very glad for him that he's going to go somewhere to play. Like he's going to play with their U21s. Like he was announced by South Hampton Academy's Twitter account, not South Hampton's first. Like I think that that's obvious, but wanted to say that as well.

What it is, is the potential for a long-term look of, okay, he's going to be here and train with us for the next three and a half months or whatever it is until January. And then they're either going to decide to pick up the purchase option or not. There's some people who have, you know, made a fair point of, is this better than playing an MLS? As a whole, no, if he was starting every week. But this gets him out of the Caleb Porter torture chamber.

So I am very glad that he's going to Southampton. And, like, his value is cratered. And, like, while not playing, like, if this was, you know was the winter, I think Southampton just pay $4 million, and this is a permanent deal. But things have changed over the course of a year, so now that they do it with a loan, with no, I guess, immediate risk, and then if they like him, they pick up the purchase option. If not, he goes back to New England.

So, all in all, I think this is a good move for Noel Buck. I agree with you. It's unfortunate because that's like the revs are a mess reason that it's a good as you said the caleb porter torture chamber um that's the reason that it's a worthwhile move and that sucks yeah for a team that also sucks he's a good soccer player The revs are bad. But he did not win the spots against the other guys in that group. He has not he has not outplayed Harkes or Kay or whoever else. And now they've added a Nigerian full international into that conversation as well. So for all parties involved, see as much allow him to recoup as much value as he can. If you're the revs, you're going to keep a sell-on probably

when you do let him go as well, and your hope is that maybe it even grows back to the number you thought you would have gotten originally. Yeah, so again, I think that this is good for all parties. Another deal that got done to a Premier League club, U21 side, Christian Fletcher going on loan to Nottingham Forest for one year, so this one goes to next summer, and he'll be with Nottingham Forest's U21 team to start. And then there's a purchase option there as well.

The DC United homegrown and U.S. Youth International excelled for Swansea City's U21s last spring or fall. So he's already got experience in this, you know, with the U21s out there. I don't remember. i don't believe that swansea city's u21s were in the top u21 flight um nottingham's is so like this is could be a slight step up again for christian fletcher but the fact that nottingham put a like purchase option in this deal like again i think this is super interesting i wish that there was a way that he was getting more minutes regularly for dc united i think that that would be better in this scenario like we just talked about buck but same thing he wasn't you know a way that he was getting more minutes regularly for DC United. I think that that would be better in this scenario, like we just talked about Buck.

But same thing. He wasn't playing a ton. He was getting some minutes. And if Nottingham Forest are coming with a loan with a purchase option, I think you do that deal. So Christian Fletcher, again, I know that he was pushing for that move. So that's another one that happened. As for a few that didn't happen, Matai Akimbone, sticking with DC United Homegrowns. Bournemouth made a bid.

I was told it was far below DC United homegrowns. Bournemouth made a bid. I was told it was, you know, far below, uh, DC United's valuation. Um, and if you remember Tim Bespachanko, the former Columbus crew president works for the conglomerate that owns Bournemouth. Um, so I think that there's some familiarity there.

He wasn't going to be able to join until the winter anyway, cause he's still 17. So there probably wasn't a ton of urgency to get this done. He would be staying with DC United until the winter, no matter what. So in DC's, um, camp camp like why would you accept a deal that's below your valuation if he has to stay until the winter anyway so just reassess this if there's other offers in january because board with aren't the only team that like them so that's one that didn't get done uh another couple that didn't get done like die Rossi was linked with Columbus Crew I was linked

with Toluca I cannot tell you how quickly that got shot down and for me well he wants to play with Kiki Olivera that's the thing I stayed uh like I said I let it go here on this show making jokes about the Christian Olivera Toluca stuff um wasn't wasn't gonna let that one go they were also Toluca were also linked with Martino Heda, and in both of the instances of the rumor, they were both alleged to be in conversations with Toluca.

Toluca has not contacted Columbus or Orlando. I can say that with 100% certainty. And I can say with even further certainty, the Columbus crew are not letting Diego Rossi go right now. Like, this is just such a non-story. It was frustrating to even have to be asking the question. So those are a couple to look at. Um,

San Diego signed Alex Mighton from the, uh, I'm blanking. I was, was that not even for him? He was one of the 700 players of not him. Yes. Uh,

England youth international. He's eligible for the United States. Uh, I think that this would indicate to me if he's coming to San Diego, that he has an idea that he wants to switch to the United States. That's just speculation, but that's what I would guess. It's a nice low-key signing by San Diego, and they're trying to loan him out. So he has somewhere to play for the next three months, but we'll see what happens there.

And then lastly, Johnny Cardoso. Real Batiste traded his discovery rights to Tottenham for X amount of game. No, sorry, I read that wrong. Tottenham negotiated a pre fixed fee with Real Betis to sign Johnny Cardoso. If they want to trigger it at some point in the future, that fee is 30 million euros. It's 33 million us. Just think of it as a release clause.

That's only active for one team or discovery rights. Welcome. Welcome. Get ready to learn MLS buddy to English. Well, they, and they own, if someone else buys him, they get a sell-on fee of it. Yeah, I forget.

Yes, I don't know if they need to buy that percentage. Oh, like they would have to purchase. This is so convoluted. Or like, it'll be funny, and this happens in Europe as well, which I think is odd, but it is what it is, of like you could pick up the purchase option that had 30 million euros and then in the same day

sell him for 45 million if that's what his price goes up to. So it's, it's a weird one, but here we are. Mightn already loaned out to Norzaland. He already was? All right, great.

I didn't check over the weekend. Yeah, San Diego is owned by the same ownership group that owns Norzaland so they basically loan them out to their own team it's a competitive team i like this move it's fun it is like one of those okay let's go before we really build a roster in the rules and know what we have like what makes sense and it's if he's available to this right nottingham as you mentioned have 97 000 players um highly thought after it fits into the right to dream setup as well young players that you're going to value give opportunity and put them in a good spot i thought this was a cool move it was one that like came across on friday

and i was like ah cool yeah yeah that's a thing to do that's more than just like oh sergio ramos rumors whatever um so i thought that one was really cool the johnny stuff super exciting if you are anyone who cares about these players and the us men's national team or anything like that uh to have a player playing at that level in the pool as well let's talk internationals we're going to get into the usmnt roster but before we get there a lot of mls players called up to other national teams some big ones some some new ones, some getting called back into teams.

So I wanted to ask you, who gets you most juice? Who were you most excited about when you were like, oh, no way, that person's going to play for this team? Cucho Hernandez, back with the Columbia national team. For me, this is long overdue. I'm super happy for the player, and I'm super happy just in general that you can start MLS and get into a big national team like Columbia. Like he, I don't remember exactly every call up or not call, but like it wasn't like he was a regular for Columbia when

he was with Watford and then stopped getting calls when he came to MLS. I think he was already out of the fringes of the national team and he's worked his way back into it through his excellence at the columbus crew and that's awesome um and i'm glad to see that the columbia national team head coach wasn't like oh you play in mls like sorry you're out right like so like you can work your way into those teams and again he's got 17 goals and 12 assists in 24 appearances between mls and leagues cup this year and like that doesn't encapsulate how incredible he's been on the field and what he means to his Columbus crew team.

So I'm super juiced about this. Like World Cup qualifiers, I do hope that he gets in a couple of these games because he's earned it. He's got four caps in his career. Two came in 2023 here in the U.S., which doesn't feel like a coincidence against the U.S. and Mexico. Well, yeah, and they were outside of fifa's windows too so like it was and then he played and then he played against saudi arabia in 2022 so like you said he

is getting into a really competitive team a team that made a copa america final this is four competitive games in world cup qualifying and literally the example is diego chara could never get into the colombian national team because he played in Major League Soccer, and now Cucho's getting this opportunity. This was kind of what inspired this, so I'm glad you started with the good one. And I'm really excited. No, I'm really excited about this one as well.

This is one of those, I think, maybe more for us old head MLS fans where we're like MLS versus ECL and we root for MLS-y spaces. I'm going to watch the Colombia game for sure yeah not that i wouldn't i love columbia especially home world cup qualifiers it's legit bar and kia is awesome to watch uh so that's a big one joseph pain still called back into the ghana team for the way he's played at la galaxy i think is a big one as well that's a really cool one uh mateusz Bogusz is called into Poland I love that's another one I'm just about because like Poland isn't you know Brazil right but like that's a big uh international team and he was not like before he came to LAFC he was on loan in the

Spanish second division so again this this is a player working his way into the senior national team through his play in MLS um but the big one I'm going to say is that Martin Posse has been called up to the Indonesian national team for the first time ever, called up or helped and assisted by the Indonesian FA president, I believe, and Eric Tor here, who's name some will recognize. He used to own DC United and was very cheap about it and didn't really do a very good job with owning that team and has maybe been in some ownership groups otherwise around.

He's Indonesian and helped build this. If you've never heard this before, Martin Paas, originally born in the Netherlands, raised in the Netherlands. Obviously, there's a really strong connection between those two countries. Colonialism, that's the connection. And there is like this incredible groundswell of indonesian support for martin pos he's he did

a couple interviews where he said i'd like to play for the indonesian national team that's my goal that's my desire and and then since then he's worked on his passport he has come in as one of the highest vote getters in mls player of the week saves of the week goalkeeper of the highest vote getters in MLS player of the week, saves of the week, goalkeeper of the week, as well as for the MLS All-Star game, purely because of his Indonesian fan base that has flocked to him because of his desire to do this. It is one of the most MLS stories of all time. And now we're finally going to get to see him do it.

I guess I probably should have lucked up who the Indonesian national team is playing in these games. So I'm going to do it on the fly. The numbers that the FC Dallas social media posts with Martin Paas, they do similar numbers to Lionel Messi and Antonio Hane. It is awesome. Like, he's like, we were joking before the show that he hadn't debuted yet, and he's already, like, a huge star. Like, they love him. Like, he hasn't even played yet debuted yet, and he's already a huge star.

They love him. He hasn't even played yet. He's got a 100% approval rating. I might not play at this point. You can only go down from here. But yeah, so this Martin Paso is really, really cool. So they play at Saudi Arabia, and then they host Australia and Indonesia for these two games,

which are some huge games for Indonesia. It's World Cup qualifying because everyone except the U.S. candidate Mexico is going through World Cup qualifying. AFCON qualifying as well. This is going to be like a show. I promise you I will turn this game on and be stoked about it.

Bro, where would you watch this game? I'm pretty sure CBS has they had the rights last cycle so I assume they have the rights this cycle. Yeah, I was the only one watching. i was the only one watching i was like what do you do a pay-per-view game like the south american world qualifiers used to be well i'll just go to my indonesian soccer bar down the street you wouldn't be shocked if i had one no admit it no but if you just like went on a three minute rant about like your favorite indonesian cuisine a thousand percent would have believed that like i i'm almost surprised that didn't happen.

Yeah, I'm not as much of an expert on Indonesian food. So I don't want to like step into the wrong space. I also really want to look up this roster and see if there was, cause this is one of those countries that will have other, would have American players, but they don't.

American born players. Philippines is the big one that you see on the women's side, but especially, but on the men's side as well. so those are the national team ones we'll be circling of course the u.s plays canada on saturday then mexico plays new zealand on saturday as well and then they swap and the u.s plays new zealand next tuesday in cincinnati and canada plays mexico on tuesday as well here in the United States.

And I believe the Saturday game is in Kansas city. So if you're in any of those places, you go, um, if not, you're going to watch on TV and then listen to our coverage as well. I think if I'm remembering this correctly, the U S agreed to play a game in Mexico,

right? Coming up October. Yeah. Yeah. Which is cool. It's going to be the first friendly since the Michael Orozco fiscal goal for Juergen Klinsmann in Mexico for the U.S.

So that'll be, I think, 10 plus years. It is not a game that normally happens, but necessary because all the teams are hosting the World Cup. So Mikey Varas, he is the interim coach for this game with Nico Estevez and then goalkeeping coach Jack Robinson, who is working for U.S. soccer. So my assumption is whoever takes over after this, we think it's Mauricio Pochettino, Jack Robinson will remain the goalkeeper coach.

I have the roster down here. It's most of the names you'd expect. Diego Cochin, one of the surprise call-ups. Austin Trustee, Marlon Fossey as well. Two of the other ones, Caleb Wiley getting added to the group. Aiden Morris, one of the surprises a little bit. But Tyler Adams, of course, is out for this cycle. Haji Wright back into the group.

Josh Sargent into the group as well, now healthy and available. Do you have any big-picture thing? We're going to dig into the roster more and the game specifically thursday as a preview any big picture thing that you want to see or you're excited about yeah i hope i'll dig a coaching like if he earns some minutes that'd be super cool um i didn't know that he was this close to being called up to the senior national team i'm well aware of how talented he is and he was definitely one of like the elite level youth national team uh talents that that i had, like, the elite-level youth national team talents that I had.

And to see him with the senior national team is very cool. I hope that it's not done for the wrong reasons, in that he can technically still declare for Spain and Venezuela, I believe. Like, he's eligible for several different nations. So as long as that this is done on merit, and, like, he's been progressing through the Barcelona ranks, from what i've read for for people who are plugged into barcelona like they truly believe that he's mark andre terstagen's successor that he's you know the best goalkeeping talent coming out of the academy for a while um so yeah i'm super excited to see him

with the senior national team and like particularly with the fact that matt turner is not starting at crystal palace fell out of favor like ethan horvath is what he is uh like between schultz and coaching like this is a this is a big window for the both of them uh peru is the other country for coaching as well uh he's a miami guy shout out miami best out there uh i think yeah those would be really exciting those would be interesting for me it would be aiden morris yeah he's he was fantastic in mls i don't know that he's a national team player he's gone over he started to get minutes in the championship tyler adams is out obviously that is a hole in the team if he played at a high level in these two matches it would be a good first step to say oh he could be a part of this group and he could be a threat going forward i totally agree like dude if i'm luca del toro i'm looking over my

shoulder um tanner tessman john luca buzio two standouts from you know the cycle that ended with the olympics like did adan morris pass them like i i don't know the answer to that question but like i i'm curious to see how this team evolves under marisa porcino when he starts like adan morris is a much different player luca del toro like he could fit what what potch wants I'm curious to see how this team evolves under Mauricio Porcino when he starts. Like, Aiden Morris is a much different player than Luca Del Torre. Like, he could fit what Potch wants to do much better than Luca Del Torre. Like, I think that there's a real pathway to him being a regular in the senior pool because of how good he's played for Middlesbrough to start. And, like, to your point, like you said,

you're not sure if he's quite a senior national team level player. A year ago, like when he was Canada, we're trying to get him to commit. I was like, look, man, I'm a big fan of Aiden Morris. I love what he's doing with the crew. Do you really think that you're going to displace Weston McKinney and Tyler Adams and Eunice Moosen? And to his credit, in his mind, yes was the answer to that question. And that's why he didn't take the Canadian call.

I thought, oh, cool, you could just go start for Canada or at least be the number one rotation option and like over the course of a year like i'm rethinking my answer to that question like i think that he's he's proven that he can be in the the a group for this team and and like shout out to him he um he has started all four games for millsboro which is huge the fans love him dude tweet about aiden morris and like just look at the replies like they love him but you mentioned so i think you said this last week tanner testman moving to leone was not going to get called into this group he is probably in the conversation around this um but wasn't going to get called in and my guess is

he's just he's not a starter anytime soon and he's going to fight for minutes and he probably doesn't really get called in until next summer um until he fights his way through leon so that's the opportunity for aiden morris which is like you're going to get those call-ups now and um my guess would be that whoever's running the u.s will also be safe with tyler adams when he ever comes back because you don't have competitive games to play you need him on the field for his club team he needs to be playing there so here's the opportunity and then Johnny we talked about with the uh with the potential transfer to Tottenham he has not started for Real Betis yet this season William Carvalho has come back from I think he was suspended for potential sexual abuse charges I know the sexual abuse stuff happened I don't know why he wasn't starting last at the end of last year.

Johnny was starting in his place. Now Johnny is not, and Carvajal is starting alongside Mark. Pick a last name that's Spanish. I can't remember. Mark Rocha? The guy who played for Leeds. Yeah, Mark Rocha. Thank you.

And all of that. So it'll be interesting to see what happens in central midfield. Obviously, the other one is Tim Weah, not a part of this group, I believe because of injury and McKinneyism. But on the Weah one, who's going to get the other starts on the wings? We've got some messages in the Discord being interested in seeing Haji Wright get the start on the left and Pulisic on the right. Brendan Aronson could get opportunity here as well.

Gio Reyna, of course, could get opportunity out there, but we don't know what the ideas are for Mikey Varas of what system he's going to run and how it works as well. So a lot to watch for there. One last question on the U.S. and then we'll do a quick on Canada. SingElectric says, looking forward to 2026, how much of an L is it for the U.S. usmnt as a program that they weren't able to get pochettino or another coach into the role in time for this window related what are you looking for from the usmnt we already went through that what is your reaction to the fact that it'll be an interim manager for this window really frustrating there's not a ton of windows left and this game

against canada and jesse marsh like that's a big, again, it's not the end of the world. It's just an annoying disappointment that they couldn't get this deal done. This was, what, two weeks ago news was breaking or more than that maybe now that an agreement was reached? Like, I think reports came out today that, like, all right, they're finally preparing contracts and stuff and things can be signed this week. You couldn't have done that a week earlier to have Mauricio Pochettino take over? Like, it's really disappointing there's not going to be a ton of times for like every

every window has to be maximized for new coaching staff to come in to evaluate the players and to start putting their game model their principles with this group and it just feels like a missed opportunity for him to not be here I agree with you I will say if they could get him there, whether he's the coach or not, that's fine. Like if they could get it done in a way in which he's there, meets the players in person, is at the camp, all of that, that's probably enough in the fact that like they're playing New Zealand in one of the games at home. It is what it is. I agree with you. The Canada game is a big one.

There's going to be extra juice to it because of Copa America, because of Jesse Marsh. And there are a few games left with juice for this U.S. group to challenge them and feel pressure and all of that. And this is a big one as well. So I think it's a big one. On the Canada side of things, it's the group you'd pretty much expect called into this camp. The two big new ones is Stephen Afrifa, who's played really well for Sporting Kansas City.

I didn't realize he was Canadian when he got called in. I was stoked about that. And the other one is Nico Seager, who's Croatian-Canadian, had said he wanted to play with the Croatian team, had been with their youth teams, playing with Hodgk Split, and now he's accepted the call-up to Canada. He is a true defensive midfielder, which is massive for this group. It is one of the biggest holes.

If you could find someone who can cover ground and fill in space for Steven Eustachio, this team takes a huge step up. That's been the biggest hole. They started Sam Piet at the World Cup. That's not sustainable anymore. Oso got chances at Copa America because he's physical and tried in there, which is great. Ali Ahmed coming through, obviously prayers up for Matthew Stranier, the best player on the planet. But like,

this is the hole in the team. Center back has been solved. That was the hole. Moise Pombito has solved a lot of that. Derek Cornelius has solved a lot of that. The six is the problem for this group. And so to get a dual international with high potential to come in and be committed, that's really exciting for this group. And I think that's going to get a dual international with high potential to come in and be committed, that's really exciting for this group. And I think that's going to be a big part of what we're going to be watching for in this camp. The rest is just watching the league on best 11 play because everyone on this Canadian team now plays in France all the way down to Theo Bear, which is hilarious and awesome as well. All right. It was a fun one, Tom.

A lot to go over. The playoff push is underway. We will preview this U.S.-Canada game more on Thursday. We'll talk about all other things going on. Shout out to Vancouver Whitecaps for randomly signing a DP at the last moment for us to hit on this show as well. If you don't already subscribe, go subscribe to our Patreon. You'll join our Discord, get into our conversations. You get our depth charts as well. If you don't already subscribe. Go subscribe to our Patreon. You'll join our Discord. Get into our conversations.

You get our depth charts as well. And we've got some other exciting news. And stuff going on. For the end half of the season. So you can get involved with all of that. Thank you all for listening. Thank you all for watching. And we'll talk to you again very very soon. Thank you.