SoccerWise - MLS Edition: Vancouver For Sale, Chris Henderson In Atlanta, Facu Torres Transfer Update & More Scoops

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Massive news out of Canada as the Vancouver Whitecaps have been put up for sale. What does this mean for fans in BC and the future of the sport in the Great White North? Heading south President Of Liga MX Mikel Arriola has broken some news about changes to the Leagues Cup Schedule. And of course the ice cream shop is open with major scoops from Facundo Torres's multimillion dollar transfer to MLS free agent signings.8:00 Vancouver Whitecaps Up For Sale 28:00 Leagues Cup Format Changes 32:33 Atlanta United Hire Chris Henderson As Sporting Director 44:14 Facundo Torres Transfer Update 54:25 Cucho To Monterrey Transfer Rumors 59:45 Ice Cream Shop Revs, CHI, MIN & PORSoccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

what's up everybody welcome back to soccer wise david goss and tommy scoops with you for another big episode as mls never ever stops uh very excited about this one we've got a lot to talk about we are potentially on the verge. This is a little breaking news here. At SoccerWise, we're acquiring our first Major League Soccer team. It will be located in British Columbia, Canada. We are putting in an initial bid.

So we're working on that. We're going to talk through all those details coming up in a couple moments. We've got some news about Leagues Cup. We've got a new person in charge of things in Atlanta. And we've got of course about leagues cup we've got a new person in charge of things in atlanta and we've got of course the ice cream shop open all 31 flavors at baskin robbins as tommy scoops has been grinding since we last got on uh last week and i have not tom i went on vacation i went to medellin in colombia i officially a Paisa now. That is my home. It is where I want to live.

And as always, when I travel, the biggest shout out for me becoming a local is to Major League Soccer. And this time it's to Marino Henestrosa, who everyone famously knows. Columbus crew U22 player who's back in Colombia on loan at Atletico Nacional. They are playing in the cup final and the league final. He scored the winner when I was there as I got there. And I was like, yeah, you know, I'm like American. Yeah, I'm a U.S. fan. Like, you know, sometimes MLS players come here or Colombian players come to MLS.

It's like, he knows Strozza. And I said it to someone and they go, who, Mino? Mino's legit. And I was like, hell yeah, that's's my guy and now I'm legit in association so yo soy uh paisea now so David Goss tells me we're trying to do the schedule for this for the show and it's like hey I might I'm leaving somewhere Thursday don't know where don't know what time I said okay I guess he's driving somewhere he goes yeah no I still have to figure out my flight so So I was like, well, it's Monday. So, okay.

Thinking that he at least knows where he's going. He goes, no, he doesn't. So I get a text when he lands, the Heine-Strauss joke. And so I was like, oh, Goss is in Medellin right now. I was trying to narrow it down. Could he be driving somewhere else in Florida or the southeastern American seaboard? Is he going to go somewhere in the Caribbean? And no, he just pops up in Medellin.

And then I was like, oh, I wonder if he's going to be there for like a week. And then you were back. So I was very glad to hear it. Very jealous. I'm so insanely jealous. It's like you're going to Toronto for the weekend. Okay. Except it's not because it's Colombia and not Canada.

But Toronto's a great city too. No complaints there. i've never been to columbia i i desperately want to go i played with a few colombians in college that um every story that every story i've gotten from anybody from columbia is just sounds like the most fun thing ever and gosh it seems like you're confirming those sources i'm obsessed with medellin i went to cartagena once pre-covid um i went scuba diving there which is epic and cartagena is like a whole different vibe it's like being in the caribbean because it's on the caribbean sea and like there's like you know the colorful houses and all that

medellin is completely different it's in the mountains and i love okay yeah i watch narcos bro thanks they would be mad about that by the way i got a lot of like don't watch netflix vibes going while i was there yeah i like mountains i like public transportation i like sitting outside and drinking those are the three biggest things that i experienced in medellin and i was like six hours in i texted um andy who i was on his show last week. And he said, I think that you were on the first show of the year and I was on the last. So it's basically soccer wise is other sibling and was like, I'm a Paisa. Now I live here. This is what I do because it's eternally spring there.

So everything's built to be outside and everyone's just hanging out. Everyone's just chilling, crushing a coffee, crushing a light beer because i i love when i travel and drink the local beers and they're always like basically miller light like lagers and you're like yeah i could drink six of these because i'll sweat out five of them yeah within a minute of me consuming them and then they're like well you're gonna need to eat something with that so here's a giant tray of meat rice and beans that costs five dollars like you'll have to eat all of that and you're like oh fine if that's a part of this i can do that as well yeah um the the atletico now they played um i think they played america decali in the cup final it was two legs and i

got there right after the game happened and i put it on they just the sports channel in my hotel just showed it pretty much on loop for five days. Or however long it was there. And I just watched it like over and over again. I don't know, man. MLS season ends and you're kind of like, I don't know. I've watched a lot of soccer. What am I going to do now?

And then like you get sucked back in by all of these other leagues where you're like, it's so different and similar at the same time. It's just like fun to watch something where you're not like, how let me analyze how john nelson pulls in and like receives possession and stuff and you're like this is just pure vibes i'm here for it league mx final was this week as well yeah club america um the quote-unquote underdogs because they had a terrible regular season they are never underdogs making the run um there as well so i don't know it's just fun this offseason my buddy is visiting and uh he told me what liverpool has a league's cup game on wednesday or something like that he's like he's like i'm gonna go to the liverpool bar to watch if you want it's like of course i want to go watch a liverpool league's cup game what more

could i want to do right now i think they're playing south after does that get you in the in the league In the league The league cup quarterfinal 3pm on Wednesday Against Southampton Maybe we'll see Milbach pulled into the first team Wow That was just a joke It's the EFL cup

Southampton are crashing the league That's where guys like that Are going to get their opportunity But no it's just like fun It's going to get their opportunity if they're going to get their opportunity. But no, it's just like fun. It's fun to talk about random soccer and watch random soccer and probably watch five future MLS players based off the way this transfer window is already gone. Guys, you should have written that off as a consulting fee

as a scouting trip for insert any MLS club. I will actually do this. This is my direct appeal to the people. If there is an MLS executive, scout, whatever, listening right now, and they need someone on the ground, boots on the ground, in Columbia scouting for them,

I will take that for, like I would sacrifice myself for that. And not that I've ever been, but I'll throw Lima in Peru peru and probably quito and guayaquil in there as well so if you need scouts across that whole western pacific coast of south america i volunteer myself as tribute just let me know hit me up just you know set up a little housing or something and i'm yeah i mean i'm sure lafc is looking to fire one pablo on hell for your expertise is probably what this looks like i will say this i won't make you sign my son i still love that's a smart free transfer like and i'll leave it at that that's yeah i still

i'm not ready to give up yet even even they flipped him too so So they got something out of him. If you are looking for more self-confidence, when Juan Pablo on hell walks into a room and I walk into a room, you feel superior and potentially inferior based off one or the other. I'm just going to leave it at that. So I could provide an experience that is a little bit different. One of the great MLS players of all time, Colombian legend as well.

Shout out to JP. I MLS players of all time. Colombian legend as well. Shout out to JPA. I saw a number of JPA jerseys at MLS Cup from his Red Bull days, which was class. And I was stoked about that. Let's start digging into the news. Let's start digging into what's going on in Major League Soccer. And this was a bit of a curveball to come out to start the weekend. The Vancouver Whitecaps have officially begun the process of selling the club from the current ownership group. It was announced on the club's own platform on their website via a write-up with quotes from their current owner, Greg Kerfoot, who's the majority owner and their minority owners as well. So Goldman Sachs has been hired to begin the process to find a seller.

Sportico put in their article that their estimated value of the club is currently at $470 million, which they had ranked 22nd out of 29 clubs in MLS. Must be nice. And I believe back in 2002, Greg Kerfoot acquired the name of the Vancouver Whitecaps and technically the club at the time for $2 million and then assumed the debts for the team. This ownership group, which obviously famously involves Steve Nash, was brought together in 2008, officially created in 2009. And of course, the team made their debut in 2011. Immediately, you better believe the Canadian group chats were electric on Friday. What's going on? What's happening? And from my point of view, and I think from a lot of people's, these were the first three major thoughts that popped up. And we're going to dig into them. One was why now? One was could this lead to more investment in the club? Could this elevate Vancouver? And I think the biggest one and the scariest one for a lot of people is, or could this mean that the reports it mentioned that BC plays where the team plays their home games. The team does not own the stadium. The lease is up after the 2025 season.

So the upcoming season will be the last as part of this lease, which could start to shift things of what the team looks like going forward, what the future for the club is. And it feels like that on top of the World Cup coming to Vancouver and all the spending on the sport in the region seems to have been part of the trigger for the ownership group to sort of come to this understanding. Yeah, the timing makes sense because the valuations are all going up. And at some point, you need to turn the theory of how much you could get or whatever the value of what you have.

And if you want to kind of cash out, this is a good time. It's, as you said, just ahead of the World Cup, which Vancouver is host city. And it's a time where, like, everything is, all the momentum moving forward for soccer and North America soccer in that area. They don't have, like, the lease on the stadium is up after the 2025 season, as you just said. They don't own their training facilities either. So, hypothetically, whether it's a new owner coming in to keep this team local,

then you have kind of a blank canvas. You don't inherit any, like, Bridgeview deal like Chicago Fire did when they took over. And that was a problem that they needed to solve, and they solved it. But for this, it'd be like, okay, do we extend forc place for a little bit while we try to get a new stadium or a lot of people around the league of texan and again i want to stress that this is speculation and i don't know anything for sure but you can connect the dots here a lot of people across the league texan mean said this has to mean that they're moving right this has to mean that they're

moving right like this is a team that's been pretty irrelevant in their market for the large majority within the league landscape sorry for the, if not all the time, that they've owned the club. They had a really big boost with Alphonso Davies. That was a great success story. And that entire story serves as a microcosm for me. They made the playoffs maybe once with Alphonso Davies. And they took the $22 million that they received from Bayern Munich and their biggest significant signing was a failed five million dollar move for Lucas Cavallini and now that was

it like it took them several years to then go and get Ryan Gould and Ryan Gould was a free agent it's an excellent signing don't get me wrong but they got a big windfall they had some momentum from Alphonso Davies and then they kind of went back to not being relevant on a national market within this league. So this is a team that has been criticized for a lack of spend, criticized for a lack of care from ownership. That's a perception from outside. So all that leads to very fair speculation, in my opinion,

that is this team moving. Yeah, it is the clear sort of avenue people go. It's also rooted in a lot of, I think, fear and anxiety for a lot of fans. And we can dig into that. I want to throw one last piece conversation which is like well can this you know the province ends up being in a place where it's like oh new ownership group the new a new partner to work with or a partner that maybe won't accept the same terms that you were on so all of that adds to this and then i did see in canadian soccer daily a mention that apparently the ownership group said at some point over the course of the weekend that they were working on their estate planning. And that sort of pushed the like, what is the future of the Whitecaps inside of our portfolio as individuals and as a family, which is just wild to be like, if something happens to me, who gets the professional soccer team is like a nuts family situation to happen. So I just thrown that out there, but it's pretty ridiculous.

But let's start with the potential on the move. This came from the Athletic article that came out about this, which says the ownership group of all the people that are a part of this is looking to secure ownership for the club to continue in Vancouver, is what the Athletic article said. There has been no discussion regarding moving the team, according to sources briefed on the sales talk. The group has retained Goldman Sachs to manage this process, as we said.

So there's a lot going on here. One thing I want to put in here, which is, I went through and I may be missing one here, but I think of the five most recent sales in Major League Soccer, you have RSL in 2022, Orlando and Houston in 2021, Chicago in 2019, and Columbus in 2018. I say that to say the three most recent sales of MLS teams have happened to owners who do not live in the market that the team exists in. And I say that in saying it is really tough to find a billionaire who wants to own a sports team that doesn't already,

or a billionaire that wants to own a soccer team that doesn't already, or all the other things of which you are trying to thread this needle of a person with the money, a person already in the market. And then you ask the question of, well, if they have the money and they want to do it already, why aren't they already involved? And then that person being in a position to do it right now and do it at the terms, whether it's $500 million or whatever you add into that, that has to occur. But in saying that, those three teams have not been moved. So the potential does exist for an ownership group

to come in and own a team in another market and not live in that market, which I think goes into, you can't just like i did google rich people in vancouver and stop there because you don't know what's going to happen i do think rsl is probably the closest comparison here which we talk when when you talk about sort of like what could happen to this club this was sort of the feeling around rsl was like a new owner could bring things to a higher level because Deloitte Hanson on top of being a pretty awful human being and all the other things going on was not spending at a super high level,

but also the fear of like, we are not a major market. And so what's the attraction of having a team here. And that's, I think where all that fear starts to come in for fans, Chicago and Columbus, the two before Chicago, obviously a huge market, ended up with Joe Manzueto. And Columbus is the reason that this is all happening in terms of anxiety, because Anthony Precourt purchased Columbus as an owner who was not from that market, a Bay Area guy, I believe, and eventually wanted to move the team to Austin.

Hence why MLS had to push to find an owner who was more local, and the Haslams they ended up finding, and the Haslams obviously rebuilt Columbus, and then Anthony Precourt took a team and started in Austin on his own. So that's some of the background and some of just what I went through as you sort of process what this could potentially look like going forward. Yeah, and just the fans obviously deserve so so much credit all the credit for columbus crew staying in columbus um but to your point like this feels different than rsl orlando and houston for me like i i guess rsl is a fair one to say but like i guess i don't know the exact status of of their stadium situation when that sale was happening or the other stupid assets again.

It's very funny listening to you and I talk about these hundreds and millions of dollars in asset management and whatever you said. What did you say before? Escrow or some business term? I don't think I did. I think you just made it up inside of your head. Oh, estate. You said estates.

Yeah, yeah. All these things. They hit my brain and I'm like, this isn't GAM. This isn't U-20 technician. My parents love talking about their future deaths, so I have a lot of estate planning conversations. It's like their favorite topic. Jesus Christ.

Look at the people you surround yourself with, your family, then they're me with the Nylas. Yeah, you better believe. Anyway, my whole point is that I think the feeling from the outside is, yeah, there was definitely fear there, because you never truly know what's going to happen. But what happened with RSL is the majority owner, the Blitzers, or at least the person who really wanted a team, wanted to link up with a local person, which is Ryan Smith in this case. So you felt pretty secure that Blitzer and that side of the business wouldn't have went out of their way to bring in ryan smith to then be like oh by the way we're gonna move so um i think the fear is is founded here and again like to say it one more time the public stance is they want this team to

stay in vancouver there haven't been talks about about whatever right but like we're at the beginning of this process and speculation is is going to go particularly when don garber in his state of league updates when he's talking about expansion now now he's no longer saying you know definitely not or whatever the tune had been talking actively about what indianapolis there's there's obviously always been the speculation with phoenix detroit vegas seemed like that was absolutely going to happen before it ended up being San Diego because they were just moving around. There's a lot of appetite elsewhere on this continent for MLS

and the Vancouver Whitecaps are up for sale. There's only 30 of these teams right now and maybe that'll change in the future. Could change with expansion, never stops. But there's only 30 of these right now and there's nothing like there's a lot of history for the vancouver whitecaps in vancouver which i would love to be able to preserve but in

turn like rich dudes don't always care about that stuff um and it will be up to the fans to kind of fight for this if that is the case but like on the like rich dude side of things there are no deals tying them now to vancouver and now it becomes all right i could build a stadium in vancouver and you know whatever the taxes are canadian dollars that the difference between the canadian dollar and the u.s dollar i was talking to somebody at vancouver just about like the roster side of things about like yeah it's like tough because the cost of living is high here we pay the players in u.s dollars but we're getting canadian dollars like all these like little nuances that we really don't always think about. Or like you say,

a free agent that might leave Vancouver and sign in Texas or Florida. Just the difference in taxes is a significant number and it makes it difficult for the team. We might have to have an accountant on this show. Yeah, I should stop talking about these things. No, I'm not. Because the flip side is you get paid US dollars to live

in Canada. So you're making one to, you know, I'm just talking exchange rates here, man. You know? Well, costs of living in Vancouver and taxes are very high. I know those two things for a fact. So that's kind of a larger point. So anyway, like all this being said is that there is a lot of appetite from outside in other cities that would love to bring MLS to their city. And not a ton of assurances other than source trust us bro we'd rather the team stay in

vancouver well how much would you rather the team stay in vancouver would you take a two million two hundred million dollar haircut on this final price probably not because rich people don't ever do that and i would and and my point in enlisting these clubs is and the briefs and sales is like i think that statement is, yeah, best attempt. I don't think that that I don't think Goldman Sachs cares. Right. Goldman Sachs is going to go out and find the best deal that they're going to go out and find out. I mean, give them some retro white white caps gear and we'll see if they change their mind and they grow a heart. Right. Exactly. I'm not a historian on this, but I don't know that Goldman Sachs really gives a crap about any of this.

And so, yeah, I think there's going to be a hope for that. And I think what happened in Columbus was the league drove the move to find someone more local who would care about the local part of it and would be able to connect to it. So that's going to be on, I think, again, a lot on Major League Soccer. I think the fans, clearly, with what happened with Columbus, it matters a ton. Vancouver's statements, and this is obviously partially already them negotiating with someone, is, you know, our sales, our attendance is seventh in the league. Our sales have doubled. Like, all those positives that have happened. And we've said it.

The Canadian Championship Finals have been packed. They've set records for attendance it does it feels like if i walked into the room and someone was like why would i buy this that you could lay out the reason and say if you care the fans will care there is history yes there is local rivalry that is easy to access that's consistent that gives you these boosts and these tentpole moments throughout a season there's an opportunity to play in international competition every year because the canadian championship is so attainable and therefore they are a club that has consistently

been in concaf competition like it is that is all really straightforward to pitch but you have to find someone who's willing to invest the money and not expect return for a long time in building this and growing this. Your biggest hope, I think, on top of all of that is the feeling that the World Cup will be some sort of a boost. And therefore, now is the right time to look at someone and say, if you want to invest in soccer and you want to invest in soccer in Canada and soccer in this region, this is your best opportunity because someone else is about to spend a bunch of money, the province it seems like, to help the sport grow and accelerate over the next two years. Yeah, so I do want to clarify. Maybe I'm looking at this too realistically or what I think is more likely

to happen than I'm lucky. I'm framing it for all of the business side of things, why I would understand. I do want to be clear and make it known. Like I'm framing it for all of the like business side of things. Why I would understand if these, like I do want to be clear and make it known. I, my strong preference would be that the Vancouver white caps stay in Vancouver. I don't think a fan should ever have the team taken away from

particularly a team with this kind of history and everything else. So, so I do, I was remiss for not noting that. And I keep on saying business terms that I don't even know what they exactly mean. Um, as I'm wearing a track jacket and a backwards hat right now,

I don't think anyone thought you were trying to rip the club out of the city i just want to make sure that i'm not coming down too hard on the white cap so i am being realistic speaking i was when i was at the owner's meetings by the way i was wearing um like a shacket kind of thing it like i got when like the fourth owner said oh that's oh that's a cool jacket or something i was like okay you guys are messing with me because like like, you guys are all in, like, tailored suits or whatever. And I don't even know why they let me in. Like, not the owners, like, the security guards. That's clearly a crazy person that does not belong here with the money in this room.

And even Paul Tenorio has a little Eli Manning quarter zip on. I was like, okay, I guess I didn't get the memo. But back on track. A couple, even in the, like i i agree with spend money people care like do better to make yourself more relevant within the market that could work you you owe the fans better the fans don't owe you crap to come out to the stadium if you're routinely not caring enough and not putting enough of the product and and all the shortcomings that have kind of um riddled this team over the their entire MLS existence,

but even just the recent history. What I will say is, you talked about the Canadian Championship. 12,000 fans was the illicit official attendance, which is usually more than the actual attendance in the stadium. That is not enough for a cup final. It's just not. And a couple months later, they are supposed to be hosting a playoff game,

and they can't do it because BC Place is not, they don't have another event. They're preparing for another event. They needed the time to get the dirt mounds to do Moto, sorry, the bicycle one. Motocross, yeah. Supercross? MotoGP for some, I don't know. Whatever it was, they didn't even have the event. They were setting up for the event.

And that's laughable. Those are the things that go, okay, now I get it. Why, if somebody moved the team out of this region. Like, it's really difficult. And so again, even on the positive side, those are two really hard negatives that have to come with it. Yeah. The finances of MLS don't make a ton of sense for a lot of people.

A lot of it is like this future investment on the sport. Some of it is pure entertainment. Like, owning a sports team sometimes is just a hobby for some really, really wealthy people. I'm a New York Mets fan. Like, it's not about making money. Steve Cohen likes to make you and your Yankee fans feel broke. And I get it. Like, that's just an emotional experience he enjoys. So there's all of that. And then there's, of course, community investment. Like, there's no doubt that for a lot's of course community investment like there's no doubt that for a lot of people for a lot of sports owners it is like it's almost a political play of like i am a big deal in the city i don't say that this is 100 the reason why but arthur blank

is more favorably looked at in atlanta because he's the one who funds atlanta falcons and atlanta united and wins championships and people call him uncle Uncle Arthur and like there's all of that that goes along with this so we don't know what's going to happen it'll be fascinating to watch I understand completely all the anxiety coming from Vancouver fans I think it's completely fair I think it's completely nerve-wracking you mentioned the stadium that's going to be a big part of this is like is there the potential to build a soccer specific stadium in Vancouvercouver is there a potential to own your own building is there a potential to do that and if you do what does it have to look like because we're talking about flipping schedule and we're talking about the weather and all of that and like does it have to be a domed building can you have grass in the domed building can you have

a roof that moves like all those types of things make things really expensive i think that's one of the reasons we're probably still kind of waiting on a thing. A Phoenix potential ownership is like the weather in Phoenix. And like, what do you build? And I know the Phoenix rising do it, but like,

how do you build it out of a modular stadium? And if you do so, how expensive does it become if you have to have all these different ways to set it up? So it'll be really interesting as it goes forward. I will say I've heard from people internally in Major League Soccer circles that there has been some tweaks to language to allow the potential for the movement of a club, maybe even before expansion.

And then you start to get into some other conversations, which is if you want to move this team, if you move it into a region that already has a team, do you owe money to other owners because you're skipping the line in expansion yeah we know how much the expansion fee costs and if it's less to buy this team and move it you would assume there were some learned practices from what happened with anthony precourt and that there are some rules set up or at least language set up to adjust how you can do that because anthony precourt bought Columbus crew cheaply and tried to move them to a new city rather than to pay that expansion fee and all of that. I think we're good here.

We feel good on this. I mean, we don't feel good, but it is what it is. I think the last little piece then is, you know, as we said, you said,

Ryan Gould, free agent, like Stuart Armstrong. We've kind of joked a little bit about sort of a DP and name only um what the potential could be for Vancouver it's odd timing you add in Vanny Sartini being let go Axel Schuster did mention in his media availability like this is not really a super engaged ownership group so like does that make things better if you get an ownership group that's more engaged or maybe make things worse you never know uh going forward all right let's continue on with stuff that's not on a soccer field aka stuff we hate but also i guess

like uh michael areola was quoted at the league mx final that we talked about uh between club america and monterey uh and said that they would be adopting a new format for leagues cup in 2025 eliminating the month-long pause for the competition and opting instead for midweek matches he said quote we just approved the new leagues cup format we're no longer going to hold camps there we'll be midweek so mexican teams don't struggle and liga mx games will be played on the weekends we'll play a champions league style format meaning teams won't have to spend a month away which has has been a big sacrifice. He then started talking specifics about starting week five of the season. We don't know anything past that.

So it sounds like you at least take away the League's Cup break, which is huge because you had so many teams. I think Minnesota was like 35 days without a game, getting eliminated in the group stage of the League's Cup and then being off all the way through the League's Cup final. So you take that away, which is really big. You also, once you're already traveling, you open up the door to maybe MLS teams going to Mexico

because at this point you're not pooling teams in a region, so you're already requiring teams to travel. It does now throw back into issue the reality which existed, which was the Open Cup complaints and the CONCACAF Champions Cup complaints, which is the better you are, the more games you're going to play, the more crowded your schedule becomes. And MLS does not really have a good system to reward teams financially to then cover for the fact that you play a lot of games

and it puts a bigger strain on your roster and on your players. And that's an adjustment that will need to come. But I think going in line with what Don Garber mentioned at the State of the League of we want to limit the amount of MLS against MLS teams and limit the amount of MLS teams in it. This sort of makes sense. And like you can make clean groups 18 against 18. Or you can make it a bracket in two-leg competition if you want and then go from there yeah so what like the initial reporting or what ernst sander kind of accidentally said in a press

conference was seems like it'll be not every team playing in league's cup and mls so if you deduce that'll be 18 teams doing that it's playing this competition to kind of equal the number of Liga Mequis teams. Then I believe it's the non-Champions Cup teams playing in this. If that's... Again, I'm reserving judgment until all the final details come out, but there's still things to be worked out. And then, what does that mean for the Open Cup? Exactly how many teams

are playing? I don't know. This is all... This has been just a weird saga over the last month. There's little little details have been coming out about what to expect from league's cup next year i still don't know what to expect because we still don't have a final format um i think it does make sense like like the first year when it was all teams i really really liked it the momentum last year this year oh sorry last year wasn't quite the same because there was a lot of mls vs mls games in the knockout rounds particularly there

is the the big issue of teams taking having to be off for way too long because of just the nature of the tournament but for me there was like for every you know club america versus fc cincinnati or sorry monterey versus fc cincinnati whatever kind of like those oh like this is a great game chivas versus la galaxy yeah then it was like austin versus nashville in front of 800 people or like juarez versus tijuana in front of 900 people so that needed to be solved and hopefully this solves it but again like there's going to be a lot more travel and then there's going to be a lot more to figure out of okay we're talking about adding games to the schedule um we can't play an Open Cup game midweek because of all these other things.

But okay, now we can play a League Cup game midweek. So I'm very curious how often our team is going to be playing Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday. Probably too many because that was a big sticking point in discussions for a new CBA and the new scheduling that came out over the last couple years. So, again, I don't know what to make. I'll have bigger thoughts when this is all finalized and we can really see what it means

and particularly what that means for, okay, do Champions Cup teams get absolved from this tournament or does that mean that they're not an Open Cup or what does it look like? So I still have too many questions, guys. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's where a lot of us sit it's probably good to know that at least the understanding that it didn't work

the way it was is there um and as you said we're going to learn a lot um going forward so the non-off-field non-soccer stuff done let's get into the soccer stuff let's start with atlanta atlanta united you are reporting i believe um that they have officially a soccer guy Soccer stuff done. Let's get into the soccer stuff. Let's start with Atlanta. Atlanta United. You are reporting, I believe, that they have officially a soccer guy in charge. Give us the details. Hold on. Just you starting with, okay, now we'll talk about, like, just coming back to our wheelhouse. I just felt, like, much more comfortable. I'm sitting back in my chair now instead of talking about a competition that we don't know the final details or smart business terms.

I just feel much better because we're going to talk about a sporting director and arcane ms rosser rules that just it's a warm blanket of of comfortability and familiarity so what i've reported is it has been rumored it has been expected it has been deduced i can say officially chris henderson will be atlanta united's next sporting director, effective immediately. And with it, Inter-Miami will receive a 2026 second round Super Draft pick as compensation for Chris Henderson to go to Atlanta United right now. The move reunites Chris Henderson and Garth Loggerway. They had a ton of success in Seattle. And Chris Henderson is one of the most respected executives around MLS for what he did in Seattle, which is why he got the Inter-Miami job initially.

And the job has changed several times under Chris Henderson's feet without him really having any knowledge or any say in it. And he's rolled with everything, and I think he's been excellent at every iteration. First of all, he takes over and so ahead of the 22 season and he's immediately hit two months later with sanctions related to the Blazendweedy and Andres Reyes signings that he had no control over and he had no knowledge that was coming.

And he's got to play with a hand behind his back without allocation money and with his DPs being Rodolfo Pizarro and Gonzalez-Guin, and you can't get rid of them. And Blaise Petuiti at the beginning of that year. Jesus, that was a bad team. He did really, really well in getting out of that mess,

made them a competitive team, the team to be ready for Lionel Messi to take over, and then he's navigated the salary cap expertly and done things where sometimes it'll be, hey, Jorge Mas disagreed to deal with somebody, make it work. And then he did. So I thought Chris Henderson did phenomenally in Miami, and we'll see even more in Atlanta because it's him and Garth running the show, and there isn't going to be a Tata Martino bringing in players. There's going to be a little Messi and friends and stuff.

All of these are good problems, champagne problems, but Chris Henderson I think will have even more control now in atlanta as you lay out the issues that existed in miami it like really brings into view how well they did um right they were forced off julian carranza they had to trade lewis morgan who was their best player to new york for allocation money just to be able to cover the roster. That was bad. That already existed. And yet they still made the playoffs that first year. And they did so in leaving themselves open to bring Messi and friends in.

That was part of what he did the whole time was he brought in Alejandro Pozuelo on a trade for like $50,000 or $150,000 allocation because he knew he had to leave the DP spot open so that the free agency would come up so that you could then use it on Messi and whoever Messi was going to bring in all of that. And they continue to be competitive. And of course, for many people, as you mentioned in Seattle, his time there as a scout and then as head of scouting,

and then all the way up into the number two under Garth Lagoe, they brought in the Nico Loderos of the world. They brought in the Raul Ruiz Diaz's of the world. They were very good at summer acquisitions of experienced players from around the world who were the right piece to get them over the line. Even you think about a Victor Rodriguez who struggled with injuries injuries but then was clutch in an mls cup like flaco fernandez like all the way back through the years this was a team in seattle that changed a lot of the paradigms of the type of players you signed but did so without being the highest spending team in the league a lot of that is because of chris henderson's ability

to create connections around the world and scout and as everyone will tell you garth laguerway being first, no one in U.S. soccer circles or North American soccer circles has a better eye for talent than Chris Henderson. And I think this is the perfect chance for him to do what you hoped he would do in Inter-Miami, which is he'll have someone that trusts him above him. He'll have someone who gets what's going on.

Garth Agarway is not purely a team president from a business side, but he's going to let Chris Henderson build this team and build a roster he believes in. And I think you can see that example by the fact that they haven't hired a coach yet that Chris Henderson, they are waiting clearly for him to come in to be a part of this process. Yes. So that was where I was going to go.

The coaching search is at its final stage and they've been a little bit in a holding pattern waiting to bring in Chris Henderson. They didn't know exactly. Again, obviously these talks have been ongoing and trying to figure out, okay, when can he start? And that's why I was stressing the point. If he starts immediately, this is sitting the ground running. So this week the coaching search should accelerate.

They are at the finalist stage. They can start either talking contract, make decision, have Henderson speak to the candidates as well to make sure that everything's good. I mean, again, Garth Lagerwey, you should trust his eye for everything, get in a coaching search. And I'm certain that he knows a little bit about how Chris Henderson thinks. So I'm sure that there's a lot of confidence that the candidates here are going to be a good mix, but it's always good to have Chris Henderson come in and be able to kind of put a stamp of approval on it. So that's where that starts, and I'm assuming

that that's going to accelerate. They have two DB spots open. Is that what you meant to say? They have two DB spots open. This is a team that before Kevin Denke signed for FC Cincinnati for a league record fee, I believe that they were responsible for all of the top four highest

transfer fee paid in MLS history. They have U22 initial flexibility. I don't know exactly what it is. I believe it's two now with Ibarra and Sosa both officially gone. Or if they wanted to do two DPs and four U22s. I'd be surprised if they did that. Garth Lagerwey has always said, if you want to win, three senior DPs is the best way to do that. So there's two DP spots open and two u23 initiative spots

yeah they already have enough money and have shown a willingness to spend it without you know having a sale first to get the money but they just got um upwards of 50 million dollars in the summer so a deep pocket like a seemingly a pocket without without a floor has gotten even deeper uh they already spent 12 million on on Alexei Maranchuk to be the first DP to come in, and now they have four super high-leverage spots, a team that's solid enough around it. I know Stian Gregerson had struggled with injuries in his first year.

I think that that guy can be a 1A center back on a really good team. The midfield pivot, Bartosz Slic and Tristan Miumba, I like that a lot. Sabo Lobojenice, he can be really frustrating when he was like the guy that they looked at in the attack and be like, hey, you solve all the problems. That's not him. He's going to be freaking awesome as like a third or fourth option in the attack. And he's going to almost be a luxury player

when the new DPs come in if they hit well. So things are looking really, really good for Atlanta United. And I got to say, like, there are a few people that I trust in this league as much as Garth Lago and Chris Anderson with all the flexibility to get it all right. Yeah, the Saba comp at this point now becomes Jordan Morris and Christian Roldan of like playing around three DPs. What's your ability to affect the game when it doesn't have to be you? This is from a like external point of view as like a fan like david goss this is what you want to see because this is an opportunity for someone for two people who operate at a really high level with restrictions to see what's the best we can build

in mls like this is huge market huge money with people that are really good at mls like what's the fusion there? Inter-Miami was not that because Inter-Miami was Messi and friends and this whole other experience. I think Tim Bezbachenko and his group got really close in Columbus. Columbus is not Atlanta. And so the question is,

what is, how can Atlanta do what Columbus did? But maybe in a bigger area, you know, a more famous international city and all of that. LAFC has gotten very close, I think, to like what can be the peak of this league right now with the structure and the way things are built. I think we're all secretly hoping Chicago will get there at some point as well. And we're hoping we're on the road to that. We're going to talk about the fire in a little bit.

But like, that's the excitement. The excitement is, OK, 2016 was Nico Ladero sort of in a weird spot on a free coming back from Europe out of Boca Juniors, but was a Uruguayan full international, all of that. What is the 2024 version of that at the club that has set all the records for spending in the league look like? And I think that's what's really exciting for me as an external party. It should be exciting for Atlanta fans. I think as you named how that roster looks right now, Jamal Thierre re-signed. Again, short-term deal, one-year deal,

option for the next year. Like having some pieces in place, you don't have to rebuild the whole thing, but leaving most of the flexibility out there for it to look in the image of what Chris Henderson and whatever coach he now decides to help bring in and decides to go with what they want and what it looks like.

I will say this. I don't know what this matters. Carlos Bocanegra left as technical director. Chris Henderson comes in as sporting director. I don't know if there's a difference there, but it does feel like what Chris Henderson will do will be elevated and probably more control over that pure side of things than maybe what was going on before. And I think Atlanta fans should be excited because this clearly was the first domino that had to fall. And now you start to get into, as you said,

the coach and then you get into the DPS and then your 22s and you get into the sort of spine of this roster and building it into the new season. This year ended up being fine. They made the playoffs. They went on the run. It was exciting. It was fun. I think the expectations year one should be high i don't think we should be talking about oh just be good be competitive like even though it's chris henderson's first year it'll be a coach's first year it'll be garth's third season around this team and i think it's fair to say what's next for this club and

that might mean top five but like that's what the expectation should be this year and so yeah that it absolutely has to be um there there was a little bit of like fan discontent during this season um that like i kind of thought it was a little early but i understood it because they were kind of building for 2024 and it's like you had amari had yakumaki you thought you kind of had this nucleus and okay now the rest of the roster is better around it then it turned out that those guys end up being sold so yagomata was obviously we all saw that coming yaku makis was sooner than i think we thought um and growth lagerweights made some comments about um you know that needed to change as well the top of the roster also needed to change but i think that that side of the goodwill and the patience has probably run its course and if you end up spending x amount of

dollars this winter bringing probably a big name head coach then you have to be competitive immediately because you look at some of these other teams hell even fc cincinnati pat noonan's first year like the first couple months they were figuring it out but like by the middle of the season like oh this is a really good team like you can kind of see it um and that has to be the goal for atlanta so maybe give them a little bit of leeway in the middle of the season, like, Oh, this is a really good team. Like you can kind of see it. And that has to be the goal for Atlanta. So maybe give them a little bit of leeway in the beginning of the season as the players are finding their feet, the coach is finding his feet and everything from there. But like by mid season,

if this team isn't like strong, then I think that would be a disappointment. Yep. I think that's fair. And a lot will be decided in the offseason and you know the roster they put together and all of that which takes us into our favorite place the ice cream shop let's get into our scoops we've got a lot of big ones to talk about let's start at the top uh facundo torres we brought up last week i've got a poster of him if you're watching on youtube you can see shout

out to orlando city pr think, for sending these along. The Pedro Gaese one's my favorite one, obviously, because El Pulpo and, you know, all of that. Although as a Colombian, I would never root for a Peruvian. Like, get out of here. Yo soy paiseja. But I could think about it. And the poster makes me a little bit closer. Is my Fagundo Torres poster officially a collector's item now, Thomas?

Is his time in purple done? It is, unless that Palmerish also forget to register him before the transfer window closes. But they have a lot more time than Blackburn did with Duncan McGuire. So the Facundo Torres update is this roller coaster has ended with palmaris are finalizing a deal to sign facundo torres for a fee that can get up to 14 million which will be a new club record for orlando city and a club record for palmaris if the internet is correct which is i think also pretty impressive on the other side of this this deal kit was agreed between the clubs this time last week believe is when i was reporting it and i was stressed with pending personal terms we are confident that that's going to get done but

nothing's been done yet there cruz azul came in they tried to hijack it cruz azul felt really confident that they turned his head and they got him in and everything i talked to for sources around this orlando stance was clear. We agreed to deal with Palmeiras. We gave them our word. We're not going to turn this into some stupid bidding war like trying to juice up a couple hundred thousand extra to do whatever.

Like, hey, we gave them our word, and that's how we see it. We're not going to even entertain the Cruz Azul bid because we accepted Palmeiras. What I was told, too too is if Cruz Azul did kind of turn Facundo Torres' head and if Facundo Torres and his camp told Palmeiras and Orlando both hey, I want to go to Cruz Azul, I don't want to go

to Palmeiras, Cruz Azul would have had to pay extra because that's just how it goes. They accepted a deal from somebody else and for that trouble, that would have had to cost them more. But the club were focused on the Palmeiras deal. Palmeiras eventually did get those personal terms agreed with facundo torres and now that deal is at its final stages what i was told yeah two days ago whenever i reported it was everything was done pending signatures so pending signatures i don't know if it's happened or not yet facundo

torres to palmaris for up to 14 million it's uh a big moment for the club. We talked about a little bit when you first reported it last week. I, you know, we sort of debated where he sits in this league and what he means, I think to make a huge profit off of him and for Orlando to have the chance to reinvest in maybe an already more finished product and maybe two pieces, right? Who's the next Fakou Torres.

Now that you're in the new setup of the under 22 is in the way it works and how you can sort of build a roster where when Fakou Torres came in, he was the centerpiece of the team at a really young age with high expectations on his shoulders. Can you find two pieces maybe to replace him? One who's win now and one who can help you now, but can become the next $10 million to $14 million sale as you go forward. The other part I would throw in here is obviously brazilian clubs are looking at mls we talked about botafogo winning um winning the title and being filled with mls players tiago amada the obvious one but gregory all of that um i think

there's still a chance that facundo torres moves again in his career like if he plays well at palmeras and he breaks in at uruguay there is probably more sell-on option down the road, which could help this Orlando team. Yeah, and Orlando do have a sell-on clause as part of this deal. Peña Rol, in their original deal to sign him to bring him to Orlando, obviously had a sell-on as part of that, and now Orlando will have one if he does move from Palmeiras at some point. Palmeiras are a huge club.

Probably the biggest on this side of the hemisphere guys like it one of them sorry one of the biggest flamingo will tell you that they're bigger than the church they have 40 million fans officially but but so they're in that bracket with and then like boca and river and all that stuff like this is a huge team this is a huge deal so like i understand the first thought of being oh the assumption was he comes to orlando then he goes to europe well like the money's right on this deal the probably the same way or if not even more than maybe it would have been from a european club for both club and player and also yeah this is a huge club just because they don't play in the europa league doesn't doesn't mean that they're not right so i do want to make sure to have that corrected yeah they're moving good

oh no i would just say i i think that's what we're seeing right now and i would hope most mls fans know this but if not i think we should discuss like they're the upper echelon of teams in the world the top brazilian league teams are in there and spending the brazilian league is in there yes it is by far the financial strength of the americas when it comes to this sport yeah i would say league mx is probably second, and then MLS sits right there alongside of it. And so that is why these rumors and... That's why it didn't make sense, but it's possible that Thiago Amada goes there

and doesn't straight go to Europe. And obviously you've got a weird ownership set up there and all of that, but the Brazilian League is as big as it gets. Yeah, and then looking forward on this, a couple of things that I would want to say. One, Orlando now have an open DP spot and two U22 initiative spots, or if they wanted to do two DPs, four U22s.

I don't know. Regardless, they have a lot of flexibility because they declined the option on Gaston Gonzalez, and they lost Heiner Brusev in the expansion draft to San Diego, and now Torres is gone. What I will say, this front office and coaching staff, and I'm being careful to not repeat everything I said after they got eliminated for the playoffs, but what from

Muzi, Ricardo Moreira, and Oscar Pereira, what this trio has done is really, really strong, and I think in this Fregundo Torres saga, I guess you could could say from beginning to end as a microcosm of that they convinced one of the most talented highly rated players from south america to come to orlando it came on a big fee so that shows that ownership care that shows that

the front office can get a big deal like that done and all the moving parts that come with it and then a coaching staff that found the best or something close to the best of kundo towards a really talented young player but a young player nonetheless developing in a new city and a new team they've kind of tweaked the team around them and now they're selling them on for profit which is what they would have been telling him in the meetings like hey we would love it if you stay here for 12 years but realistically we understand that your future is going to be in europe or somewhere back in South America. And when the right opportunity comes, we won't stand in your way. That's what they did here.

So I think full credit to Muzi and Moreira. Again, we've already talked so much good things about Oscar Pereira. Now is where it's interesting. What do you do to keep this team moving forward? I think Martino Heda is a good starting point in terms of the attack. Ivan Agulo is a great complementary piece of the attack.

You have a couple young forwards in Duncan McGuire, Ramiro Enrique, who are really strong and good options. So do you bring in more of a classic winger, say, than Facundo Torres, or somebody who wants to tuck in and maybe occupy some similar spaces to Martino Heda? Or do you go with several young players with this and then take the gam and use the gam to help buy down some other players in this roster because they do have a lot of veterans in this roster um it's just more so like tan players than it is dps or senior dps right like it should be

luis mariel but we know how that went um see if they can get out of that this winter i'm assuming that that's going to be very difficult but who who knows? So Orlando City... $3 million a year. Yeah, that's going to be difficult. Might as well just go buy the white caps and then loan him there for that price. Generally speaking, it's been a lot more good than bad from this front office and coaching staff for Orlando City. And again, I think that this is another opportunity to point that out.

Yeah, they, up the spine, are as solid as anyone in major league soccer, right? The El Pupo poster, like guy say has his moments of madness. He's a match winner. Robin Johnson is as good as center back right now as there is in this league.

I think it's fair to have expectations for the other center backs. They signed last year that you get a gas theorem that it takes a year. I believe not. Legal is fine but like i think that's a place they could improve internally without making any external moves um and then the the question and then obviously they're as good as anyone defensively in midfield i think the question for me becomes you finish the playoffs with let's say roughly 5.8 million dollars on the bench and forwards,

who are true center forwards, and you said it, a traditional winger, can you find a piece that gets you the best out of a Duncan McGuire and if he's still there, a Luis Muriel? Because I don't know if that ended up being... Some cause fallacy. Maybe. But I don't know if that ended up being part of what happened, which was Fagundo Torres wants to come inside and score goals,

and he scored a ton of goals. He took the slack from those players this year. But can you go into a season in MLS with that much money on the bench? And can you go into a season with like three or four center forwards? So if that's the case, if you can't get out of Muriel the way you want to, what does this roster sort of look like? Those are some of the questions. But to go back to what you were talking about with Facundo Torres

and what they did, they also now have laid the groundwork for the next pitch. It is very simple for them to now go to some players that fit in this mold of Facundo Torres and say, this is how it works. We stuck by our word. We promise you that you will come play in a good environment, play in front of fans with great facilities in a nice place to live and the future of your career can be even brighter if that's what

you choose or you could be really comfortable and this could be a place that you end up and you're gonna get this nice poster happen to be sending to media when it comes out and also disney world pass you know we can't beat it it can't you get a resident pass if you live in florida so it's a little bit cheaper so you can go as often as well i do hear also they're opening up a new uh ministry of magic portion of universal for harry potter world so just go find just go tell weston mckinney like hey man you want to go to harry potter world as often as possible this is the place to come and this is what you gotta do locked in of course uh before we finish on the big names uh you have been forced to talk about cucho hernandez a little bit monterey losing to club america in the league mx final

and around the course of the last week there's been some connections by some members of the media with cucho Hernandez potentially being a way for Monterrey to upgrade um as they try and get into you know the sweepstakes so what do you make of this so there was a rumor in Mexico that said the deal's done or essentially done for Cucho Hernandez to Raiados which I thought was really weird considering they were in the midst of a final didn't exactly think that that's when it would happen um and i was told that there have been no official contact no bids to columbus so um if it if there is something and i don't doubt that monterey are interested in kucho hernandez they should be um i don't doubt that but it's definitely not about to be done um and i can say

that really strongly again i don't know if they will bid. This is something that, if it's going to happen, it's going to accelerate over the next couple weeks because in reporting out San Jose's pursuit of Brandon Vasquez, I was told by several people, it is completely preliminary right now and nothing is going to change until their season is done. And now their season is done, so now they're going to move full drive

into the offseason mode. They lost to Club America in the final. And this is Rayados as a team with minimal patience and a whole lot of money. You look at what, Brandon Vasquez has been there for a year or whatever, right? And he's been doing fine. He's been doing well. German Bertrami, it seems like there's a rumor with him coming to MLS every six months. And now maybe that he has Mexican citizenship.

That can happen in the future. But regardless, this is what happens at a team like Monterrey with their money, with their ambition, with their impatience of what we just lost in the final, would Kucho Hernandez have helped? And I'm telling you right now, if they want to sign Kucho Hernandez, they can financially make it work. They could throw a lot of money at him. And if Columbus aren't willing to give him a new contract,

and I don't know where that stands, I not saying that that they're that they're not willing to just don't know speculative if that's the case monterey could put in a very compelling offer to cucho hernandez and they could they could be the team that puts enough money to columbus that you know turns around it was like yogos yakimakis is one and it's not going to be exactly this way because of how kind of black and white it ended up beingos yakimakis is one and it's not going to be exactly this way because of how kind of black and white it ended up being with yakimakis okay if you're not going to give us a contract then we're going to go then we're going to have to go look for someone someone that will and i think atlanta thought yeah right um and then they got a 10 and a half million dollar

offer from cruz azul for a 28 29 year old player who had dealt with injuries and hadn't like again i think he's a really, really good player, but the $10.5 million offer was not coming from the Premier League or something, right? No matter how good I think Yagamaki's is. So, Ray Otto's, if they want to, and if they really want to make it difficult for Columbus, they could have a contract in front of Cucho

or, you know, the understanding of how much you might make if you came to this club, right? Like, don't want to get anybody in tampering trouble here, right? This is a thing that could could be serious but i do want to stress right now there has been no contact there has been no bid um no no talks ongoing yet but that could change pretty quickly normally when these conversations come up yakumaki specifically for me i understood because yakumaki's had dealt with injuries He was a generally natural center forward who didn't create a ton for his teammates. Obviously, the club wasn't in a perfect place either to be like, yep, this is our centerpiece.

So I understood the idea there, which is sort of keep your money fluid. You bring him in, you make money, you send him out, you can bring another piece in. I've said this with other players who have gone to Liga MX, the Lucho Costas of the world, when he first went. The Facundo Torres rumors of like, I get it with this team. You want to be able to bring this money back in because you don't know how long that player is going to be here. You want to be able to recoup it and set yourself up for the future. I think it would be really unfortunate

if that's what happened with Cucho Hernandez because Cucho Hernandez is an MLS MVP like that's how good he is so the ability to improve on him doesn't exist and in this scenario he would really be going because of the contract and the money if if Cucho said this La Liga team wants me and I want to go play in Spain and I want to play in La Liga and I want to play in European competitions Columbus physically cannot do that and you can't match that and you can understand this scenario would be I just think more upsetting to see it happen because the real only reason would be money and if if a team like Monterey just exists in a financial

reality that Columbus doesn't that's one thing but he's a DP on a team that's owned by an NFL owner. Like this is not money. We are talking about that is life changing money in their realm. And you see the result for it. And there's no like, Oh, how much is he worth? He is worth going to finals,

winning championships, selling out your building, being this hero. And hopefully he's going to be playing in the world cup with columbia and like you're going to be connected to that so i think it would be really unfortunate if this happened because of the way it's set up and the way this move would be but also i understand that monterey has existed in a space that a lot of teams don't and um they've got the potential to splash huge money going forward let's dig into some other big moves before we finish up here

um you have reported most of these so you can run through them but let's dig into some other big moves before we finish up here um you have reported most of these so you can run through them but let's start with chicago yeah jack elliott the club are finalizing a deal to sign the free agent center back and bring him to chicago as the new defensive anchor for greg berhalter's new regime jack elliott for me was look at him and albert rusnak were probably the and jeremy bovis he be the third. The top free agents on the market. Again, Rusnak, the expectation is he's going back to Seattle. So Jack Elliott, I think, was the top realistic free agent on the market, particularly one that made a ton of sense for the Chicago Fire team.

So I think it was an excellent signing by Chicago, and that deal is being finalized. It's done. He will be a new Chicago Fire player. Tom, you couldn't teammate me there? I'm blowing my nose. You couldn't give me three extra seconds on that? I thought I did.

You got to be more efficient. I got to be more efficient with it as well. This is as good as you can get to start under Greg Berhalter. You just said it. Probably the best free agent available genuinely. Also, the best free agent at a position you want to use free agency on.

You don't really, if you're Chicago, where you sit and where we think they're going to operate, you don't really want to bring in a number 10 DP inside of the league if you think you can go big and all of that. Centerback is a spot where you want someone you know can play in this league and has the attributes that you want out of that player. And it's why Jack Elliott, I think, always made sense staying in mls but with a different team i think his value in this league is probably bigger than it is externally leaving but it's probably higher than what philadelphia is willing to pay this is the perfect start for chicago to just say can we raise the floor can our baseline be better so that we can then go out and try and hit big on some of these offensive pieces? But at a minimum, the safest positions, goalkeeper now and center back, are better than they were.

And they're going to continue to get better because goalkeeper, you just assume with age, you continue to prove in that spot. Yeah, and for the particulars of Jack Elliott is that he's a really good ball-playing center back. And everything we've seen with Greg Berhalter in his entire career is he's going to want to play with the ball. So Jack Elliott, in addition to being an upgrade on everybody they had, no matter what the, his profile is really strong within our,

the, the system that we expect this team to play. So I'm very excited for this. Like he didn't have a great year for Philly for me. That has more to do with just a down year. There was a lot of players on Philly that didn't have a great year. philly for me that has more to do with just a down year um there was a lot of players on philly that didn't have a great year it was just a year from hell for the philadelphia union sometimes those things happen sometimes it's inexplicable it is something to watch to be fair to say oh like hey it wasn't it wasn't a great year in the

contract here but for me i feel pretty strongly that jack elliott is going to be just fine and just what we expect him to you always have to like i don't know where the final number is going to come in. He won't be cheap, but that's free agency. You have to pay a little bit of an upcharge because it's on the free agent market. And guess what? Good players cost money. Like, Keanu Costa was, like, what, 1.5 when they signed him last year? Yeah, maybe that's not the most valuable deal, but it's not egregious.

And, again, good players cost money. And when you're bad for so long, you have to pay a little bit extra to get these guys to come in. So these are deals that I think are very good. And if you're going to overpay a little bit, I'd rather it be Keanu Costa and Jack Elliott rather than Gaston Jimenez and Rafael Chius. Yep.

And he's not even 30 yet. He's got some time to play in this league and you don't have to pay the transfer fee. So the uptick in salary kind of ends up being similar across the life of it. I believe Chicago then officially announced that Koutsios is going to be headed to Lugano on loan for the year. That has been this sort of dumping spot for the Chicago Fire. They own both teams.

That is why, or at least Joe Monsueto owns both teams they did this with um what ignacio ali seda as well yeah in the past boom let's just start naming players that play there it also technically opens up a u22 initiative spot if you have the belief that you're not going to get stuck with kutsias coming back you can use that spot full-time or you could use it on loan if you wanted to. It just opens up more flexibility and more freedom for this team, one that I think we both kind of said last week when we did the whole the last three MLS teams have not made the playoffs the year before.

Which of them out are going to be in? I think we're both kind of intrigued by what Chicago could be under Greg Berhalter year one. The start of that is cleaning out a lot of the players. That's what Chris Henderson did in Miami. And then you start to pick up the next generation of players. So this is the start of that, sending out a U22 initiative player. Let's go to Minnesota here.

Tom, another really good move for this new front office group. Sounded like a little bit you were low. You're like, Minnesota here? I don't know if you caught that. I don't know if that was just a brilliant slip of subconscious. My household watches a lot of hallmark christmas movies and by a lot i mean a lot and pretty much all of them are filmed in canada or parts of northern u.s and they've all got these weird fake accents well that was well done i thought that was seamless uh chivas uh

have signed miguel tapias mike Tapias, from Minnesota United. I'm told the fee is north of $1 million. The reports in Mexico were less than $1.5 million, so do the math somewhere in that range. He's a center back. He was signed from Pachuca. They signed him on a contract expiry, but I think they paid $150,000 to get him in February rather than waiting until June, if my memory serves me correct. So this is a good piece of business for Minnesota United. I thought he was a fine center back. Nothing

great, like nothing that they can't replace. And again, getting a fee, a seven-figure fee, I think is really solid by Minnesota United. And he goes back to Mexico, but this time with Chivas. So they made money off a player who doesn't start for them. Yeah.

This is like crazy. This is also where Chivas is the most convenient thing in the world. Cause they have to sign a Mexican player, but like, great. They got out of a player they don't want and they made money off of him. And they made money in the neighborhood of like, we're going to talk about the revs signing Brian's bios.

Like we're probably talking in the realm of between one and two million dollars that you're spending for a center back entering their prime in their prime that comes down the last whether it's from south america or europe so like that is unbelievable again for a player that you chose not to start it has been a really good five six months for minnesota and continuing there the Revs officially announcing signing Brian Ceballos as I said from Fortaleza 23 year old Colombian um center back it has it is clearly a position of need and focus for this group this is the second center back they brought in they traded out Dave Romney so like this is where the Revs are choosing to start the overhaul for them oh oh my god yeah so they already brought in Mamadou Fofana Brian Ceballos like that's the So, like, this is where the Revs are choosing to start the overhaul for them. Oh, my God, yeah.

So, they already brought in Mamadou Fofana, Brian Chabios. Like, the assumption is that's going to be the new starting center back pairing. Like, Andrew Farrell, I believe, is the only player who can play center back that remains on this roster year over year. So, again, as you said, it was very obvious, very clear team that conceded, what, 74 goals last year that they were going to want to get better defensively? They bring in Alassane Youssef in the summer. That's a midfielder that should help kind of make the job easier for centerbacks.

But again, very clearly, these were the top priorities for this team going into the winter. Fofana and Chabayos, new starting centerback pairing. And again, I like both of their profiles a lot. I like it a lot. I don't know exactly how quickly they'll land. And again, sometimes signs don't work out. But I'm pretty bullish on these two signings. It's just for me about, can it come together quickly? Because there's not going to be a long leash for Caleb Porter. And if they start really slow, which again, that could be a worry with new players and particularly new international center backs.

But I'm choosing to be optimistic in that these two profiles look really strong. Yeah, I think that's fair. I also should be staying corrected, which is they started this overhaul when they swapped Henry Kessler for an expiring Tim Parker contract in the summer. So that's how early into the season they were like, this has to be the fix for us they brought in javier yaga and then like that was a play because they wanted to bring him in and then decided we got here okay no we just need a clean slate everybody everybody out andrew fowler you can say and unless they move veroni there is less flexibility to change the attack and i think

there's fair reason to believe a lot of the attack kind of works, right? Carlos Hill is behind Ricky Puj, as high-level chance creator and one-ball player as you have in Major League Soccer. If you can fix the defense, you are probably headed towards a playoff team already from where you stand and then the potential to open things up and change things even more. There is a report out of Brazil connecting them to a 22 year old center mid in Bruno. There is an X in the middle of this name that I don't know what to do with. So I'm going to say Prashettas from Red Bull Braga and Tina.

You can't just, Bruno, you can't just throw letters in there and have me figure it out on the fly. But that would go to, I think a little bit more ground coverage and help in central midfields obviously trading Ian Harkes and Mark Anthony Kaye you mentioned Alhassan already who I was a huge fan of I really liked him but I think you're still probably trying to fill minutes in there they have put a lot of pressure on Matt Polster over the last few years can you either make his life easier can you supplement him for some minutes as well or you can you push him and have more starters in that central area

and make Carlos Heal's life easier and throw him out wide and let him have a little bit more freedom and stuff like that going forward? Let's finish on a couple more updates. You mentioned Andrew Farrell. Legend got re-signed. I want to throw in here Jose Roberto Nunez, who's in the chat, hanging out with us. He just reported, and I believe you reported as well, that Alejandro Bedoya.

Fully announced, yeah. Oh, well, then there you you go Why am I complimenting anyone David Goss is reporting That Philadelphia Union have officially announced That Alejandro Bedoya has re-signed with the club That's just cool And that's the way you'd like to finish Didn't feel this way two years ago

Jack Elliott on the gym curtain leaving Maybe they felt like he had to They needed someone to keep a a little uh continuity I'm shocked I'm shocked in this timeline so this goes back to last year um Jim Curtin had to fight tooth and nail to get Alejandro Bedoya back on not an expensive contract and one that came with a player development role which is also where how Andrew Farrell re-signed with with New England In so many, you can have one player on the team that if they're doing coaching stuff or academy or front office

or whatever, right, like that some of that hit goes. So again, all that is a pretty insignificant contract. And Alejandro Bedoya was getting annoyed about it. And at some point near the end of the season last year at training, just asked straight up, what the hell's going on? And Ernst Tanner was like, all right, if you want to have some conversation here, we don't want you back.

This was before the last contract. And now Jim Curtin is gone. And Ernst Tanner and this front office is clearly like, we're doubling down on everything that we did and we're doing. Jack Elliott, see you later. Like all these other players, like, that's fine. Who cares? Like, we'll just go get a new team.

I was shocked that I thought Alejandro Bredoya was just going to land wherever Jim Curtin did if Jim Curtin takes a job in this cycle. Or if not, there's a lot of teams that can use a player like Alejandro Bedoya. It makes me happy that a club legend is staying. But just based on what I know about the relationships and where the relationships were, with Jim Curtin gone and everything else that happened,

I thought there was no chance of this. So this warms the heart that this this is romantic re-signing. And I'm very, very glad that Alejandro Bedoya will not wear another MLS jersey. Also, he's 37. I think in my mind, it was like he's probably going to retire if he doesn't want to move. Because a lot of times people don't want to move at that age in their career. And if he settled where he is, you don't want to go to come back. Where like a Dax clearly was still moving because he was going to end up moving eventually with his family and so he wasn't rooted to the places he was in and wanted

to keep playing so uh yeah really exciting news i think for philly fans a nice little glimmer of okay at least there'll be some familiarity um as well anything else you want to finish up on yeah just one more so the portland timbers have acquired the negotiation rights for Kevin Kelsey, and they are now in talks with Shakhtar Donetsk to sign the forward. He would be U-22 initiative signing. I don't have any confirmations that a deal is set yet or anything, but I'll just say Portland probably don't execute this trade without having a pretty good idea of what it would cost to get Kevin Kelsey both in terms of transfer fee and in salary so if i had to guess that this would get done and kevin kelsey would end up with the portland timbers on a u22 initiative deal what i know with cincy is there were that did the

negotiations to get kevin kelsey to come in originally were really frustrating and difficult and changed every couple days it was pretty volatile from what i was told of what the asking prior what like oh we can't possibly lose and we need him for the rest of the season it's like well he's appeared in like you know three games off the bench of your last 22 and you have a 15 point lead at the top no we couldn't possibly lose him we need him here um until the point was they they ended up agreeing the deal and just said screw it uh purchase fee seven million dollars we're never gonna pick that up unless he comes here and scores 15 goals, and hopefully that happens. But the purchase option was $7 million.

Since he was trying to negotiate with Shakhtar, clearly said we can't find a deal here, and then now Portland are going to come in with these rights. So I don't know if it'll be all the way up to $7 million, but that's what the purchase option was, and that's what Shakhtar wanted. So I don't know what Portland can do to knock that figure down, but that's all I know. It is, like, an interesting move from what we saw from him. Do you? I like, so, I don't think that it was fair.

And, like, I think Cincy will tell you that, too, that, like, we didn't want to bring him in to be like, okay, 19, 20-year-old kid. For sure. That hasn't been playing much. You go solve all of our attacking issues. And he came out like he was a very talented, inconsistent young forward, which is what talented young forwards tend to be.

And I love this for Portland because, again, I just generally believe in the player, so maybe that's the root of the disagreement here. I believe that this is a good player and he's going to be a good player in this league. And what I will say is, Felipe Moura, are you going to bet that he's gonna play this many minutes as he did last year because i'm doubtful based on all the injury history he's had so you need of a good secondary forward or somebody that can challenge uh mora for minutes and again i know that jonathan rodriguez can play centrally too but like i think that backup forward and finding

it in a cost-effective way was a priority for portland this year and somebody who can challenge for minutes with with mora and i think that kevin kelsey fits all that yep i don't disagree with any of that what i would say is where i'm allocating my resources i've already got 1.4 million dollars on felipe Mora at center forward and he is the thing I was gonna say is I think they're similar players and then Jonathan Rodriguez is an option there where it's like can I get more value just having a backup wide player where Rodriguez you know becomes my center forward in saying in all of this like I think at best you're back to, if Felipe Moura goes out, yeah, you're maintaining the level. I don't know that he improves this team the way they play.

And there's got to be improvement somewhere. If you're losing Evander, we're like in a whole new conversation. So if it's defensive, is U22 initiative spot not a spot where you can use some money and get a better upgrade at a defensive position than where you stand well how many u22 initiative center backs come in this league that immediately hit right like tomas ovules was a seven million dollar player and he has a bit and like again i don't like it's just more likely to use u22 nitro slots in the attack because that's the nature of these positions and young players breaking in i will say so if evander leaves they're spending that money on a new dp attack like that's that's just gonna happen so again it's wouldn't be fair to say okay I will say, so if Evander leaves, they're spending that money on a new DP attack.

Like, that's just going to happen. So, again, it wouldn't be fair to say, okay, it's going to be a like-for-like Evander replacement, and that's going to happen immediately. Okay, new signing, he'll be an MVP candidate. Not fair. But, like, it's not like they're not, they wouldn't be replacing him. And, again, if they know that they're doing work, that if he's gone, they'll be ready to go. And then in defense, I will say Phil Neville and Ned Grabovoy particularly have talked about how much they really like Finn Sermon, the young New Zealand, I believe, center back,

who came in during the season. Eh, what are you giving me faces for? How old is Finn Sermon? They already have a talented young center back was my overall point. Fair, fair, fair. It's not like you need it. What are you going to do? Start two young, young players?

And then between Zuparic, Kamal Miller, Miguel Arau, like, again, I'm expecting better from Kamal Miller this year. Again, maybe I'm just wrong, but like,

I feel like they're in the market for another center back is what I know as well. Yeah. Jack Elliott was somebody who they were interested in. Would have made sense.

So, again, I'm assuming that another center back comes. Like, I don't think that this was an either-or situation. Yeah. well yeah jack elliott was somebody who they were interested in um what it made sense so again i'm assuming that another center back comes like i don't think that this was an either or situation yeah um a kamal miller for him to have a better year at center back they have to play him at center back that's probably one of the issues or or they could play him as as that elbow back at left back which i think would be the best one if you're not totally convinced with with your center backs i don't think that one mascara claudio bravo pairing is playing have playing them at the same time is sustainable i don't because we saw it last year yeah it kind of has never been um but still i would say yeah i from what i saw from kelsey i'll be interested to see how he fits but i get your point of like you already kind of

know and u22 is an affordable way with your hope is improvement um they also have three u22 initiative players the way we have it listed they could pull someone off that santiago moreno i continue to be grandfathered into that i don't actually know the exact wording on like at what point do you age out of a u22 initiative spot um so that could be part of it oh wait a minute what are we no no no we're so they have two senior dps that they could do up to four u22s right which means that they would not bring in another dp which oh i'm just saying we don't know yeah sorry sorry so yeah i thought you're saying one of you 22s had to leave. They're still setting up as a 2-4-2 team and not 3 DPs.

That's just something to note and something to think about with this team. Okay. First of all, shout out to everyone who's been in the chat throughout the show. You guys have all been awesome. Really appreciate you joining us, lobbing scorchers, just throwing stuff in here. Lowell Thompson, a really good question about Toronto FC, which I think we can dig into when maybe we have a little bit more time as and maybe some news comes up around them uh as they continue to look for a new manager and have traded for tiago androge out of the expansion draft and all the other things they're doing uh as always

thank you to jose nunez who's i I thought, breaking news during the show. But either way, is an awesome person to have in the chat. Some Orlando fans talking Disney stuff as well. So thank you to all of you out there. I will be back on Wednesday with Jordan Angeli, her final show of the year, before she goes away on a nice long vacation and goes backpacking around the world, which is pretty cool. She's so much cooler than us. She's so much cooler than us. Are you kidding me? Myself and Tom will be back on Thursday.

And we're going to work on some year-end stuff to have for you next week. I've got some interviews already banked that we'll run as well. I think we're going to take the week off from live shows for sure and then come back the following week. But we'll have some content for you

because I know for myself, sometimes you like to step away from family and people and go for a walk and listen to something and whatever it is. So we'll have something to fill that time for you as well as we come to the close on our final year here at SoccerWise. Tom, anything to close on? No, first year, not final year.

Sorry, are you already killing us all? Our final shows of our first year here at SoccerWise. Yeah, I'm ready to. News to me. I'm ready to. Listen, in Medellin, I don't have first year here at SoccerWise. Yeah, I'm ready to... News to me. I'm ready to... Listen, in Medellin, I don't have enough time to do SoccerWise as I run the Metro. That's why you went to Medellin to try to find somebody. You've officially put the podcast up for sale.

You would like to keep it local. I have done so. My other option, though, is to just full-time cover the Colombian League and therefore don't need to know things about MLS or anything like that as well. A lot of big news coming out in NWSL circles. So we'll talk about all of that on Wednesday. Tom will continue to break news.

We're going to work to put together a couple special episodes where we're going to sort of do some big picture conversations. So continue to please hit us up. I know I haven't done a mailbag specific episode in a while with MLS Cup and everything. There was a lot going on. So I'm going to dig into all of that. And I think we have some really good ones that can help us shape some episodes as we go forward into the off season.

So with that, thank you once again to all of you for listening. Thank you to all of you that were here live with us. Thank you to you, Tom, of course, for being around and we will talk to you all again. Very,

very soon