SoccerWise - MLS Edition: Week 1 MLS Reax + CCC Preview w/Matt Doyle

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

We are off and rolling in MLS! Well maybe a few defenders /goalkeepers didn't get the memo, but Week 1 of MLS is in the books. Doyle joins David to talk about who was most impressive week 1, who hit the ground running, and who they have some early concerns about. Then they dig into all the CCC matches coming up the rest of the week.11:40 Kevin Denkey Debut & FCC Win22:02 Philly's Big Road Win28:44 San Diego's Dream Start & LAG Question Marks46:57 Nashville's Young CMs + Style Changes53:00 LAFC 1-0 Win Over Minnesota1:05:46 Inter Miami Continue To Be Must Watch1:12:35 TFC 2025 Prospects1:14:10 CCC Leg 2 Previews For MLS Clubs  Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

What's up everybody and welcome back to Soccer Wise, our first live show of the Major League Soccer season. David Goss and No More Scoops. We've got Matt Doyle in the building for the third time in three weeks, Doyle. You are a permanent fixture now. I can't get rid of you if I wanted to, but I'm honored to have you here. I think we all knew that this was coming, especially because apparently Tom's pretty lazy. What, he took a personal day? Is that what happened? I think he had said that he only watches European soccer, so he really wanted to be focused coming out of MLS week one. Yeah, focused on the Champions League is what he

told you. Championship I think was the phrase. Okay, all right. Yeah. He's just trying to make sure Patrick Oshemong's next landing spot could be more comfortable enough for him. Tom is on CBS this week, so if you want to watch Tom you should watch Morning Footy on CBS or Paramount Plus, Colazo Network, anywhere you can every day this week because he's on every single day just breaking down the real big stories like Robin Van Pierce whether or not he's good enough to be fan or manager. It's great because they clip a lot of it out so I can just troll Tom without even having to spend the leg work of like getting all the way there on every clip not that I wouldn't watch every single thing he's on what makes him the

Best though is no so go ahead. I kind of interrupted you good. No Everything sure though is that you can like he's just so knowledgeable about the European game like it he could give you 90 seconds on Marlon Fossey because Tom is not the type of person to send like a panic text to the group chat at 530 AM. No, at 530 AM, he is up grinding tape of standard liege and like it comes through in his performance. It absolutely does. Also, of all the names, I was like, this is one that's been around. It wasn't like a 19 year old. It wasn't David promised David on the Canadian side. We were like, who I weirdly watched last week where you're like, oh yeah, okay, this guy just popped up.

Maybe it's worth knowing. Yeah, Tom is the consummate professional. We love him. He will be back on Thursday is what I've been told. We're gonna have Joel Arian as well on Thursday. You should be reading back healed if you are not. He had his winners and losers of week one. They had unbelievable team by team preview content

that's still worth going back and looking at if you haven't. And a really interesting piece that just popped on backheel's main page from Elliott, you want to give me an assist on the last name? No, it's Brian McKay, I believe. Oh, okay. Brian McKay. There we go. I was going to say Elliott McKay, so I would have half of it right by accident. Really good research there, David. Thank you. Where he talks about Major League Soccer

and sort of taking advantage of the messy effect or not. It's a good, bigger picture piece. And we are in it right now. Like 2025 MLS season has started. Club World Cup is in what, three months? The full Men's World Cup, the biggest one of all time, will be here in the United States in a little less than a year. Canada, Mexico as well. Like, this is what it was all built for.

It is fun to watch. It is entertaining. Is it as big as it possibly could be? That's sort of the question of the piece and I think it's worth going to read. Feel free to jump into our Discord if you are already a member to talk about it if you want after. Send us any questions and we're going to try and answer that question, I think, a lot of weeks here on this show and sort of try and do some more content around stuff like that and covering the sport in North America. But for today, we're going to talk about some games because we finally had the games. We spend like two months scrubbing preseason stuff and guessing formations.

And then it all finally comes and I kind of forgot on Saturday at 7.35 that it all comes at the same time. And then I, as fun as it was, and it was more fun than normal to start, like the goals were flying, I remembered why I'm a little bit annoyed that I have to have 14 screens up at the same time. Yeah, it's a lot. I think what we saw because of the early game,

the standalone game between LAFC and Minnesota, and then the success of the first edition of the latest round of Sunday night soccer, because it's not like this is the first time we've ever had soccer on Sunday night. 11 players on both sides. One ball on Sunday. But getting to see teams and like focus on one game and like getting to really know two teams and like we got three chances at it this weekend. It

was really refreshing and I'm I'm hoping that it's all a really big success because I would like to bring back the airness to football. You know, I loved having that on Friday night and you could put two standalone games on Friday nights and these are look. These are star building vehicles. You know like this is a chance for someone who's a fan of I don't know the Sounders to get a look at Atlanta United versus Orlando City and understand latte has like Mac McClung

hops or you know Martino Hayes movement in the final third like stuff like that that you if you're watching 17 games at once on Saturday night you kind of don't get a chance for so I'm hoping that you know I think the Sunday night soccer this week it was successful and I'm hoping that we keep getting more of that to the point where the decision makers and the schedule makers are like, let's get more of these standalone games and give fans around the league a chance to get to know more than just their team. Yeah, I agree with you.

I'm curious if there's anyone in the live chat or anyone listening later, if you want your games on Fridays, because I think there's the right markets where it's like would be perfect right a Friday night, Friday night lights, like allow all the energy around it. Great start to your weekend. And then we've seen the other markets and I'm thinking specifically of Dallas right now who lived on Unifish and Friday night games,

where it was like, traffic home was not gonna happen. And the stadiums were empty for teams that were good where when they didn't play those games, they had full buildings. But I think like for me as a fan, I when they didn't play those games, they had full buildings. But I think for me as a fan, I'd love a Friday night game. NWSL does it with the Amazon Prime deal. And it's an awesome way to start the weekend.

And like you said, it starts the conversation immediately because everyone's watching that one thing. And everyone has this connection point of like, okay, the rest of the weekend is going to be compared to the Kelvin Yaboa goal or the Jeremy Obobese goal Obviously, but you Boa didn't actually score of like you all have that point that you kind of go from We had that in our discord this weekend It was like firing off a lot of fun stuff someone keeps putting polls in there Which I really appreciate about who's gonna score and debut tons that will score and how many goals? I love when the history is made, like highest scoring opening weekend,

when there's been the most teams and every time it goes up, you're like, wow, four more goals and two more games. How did that possibly happen? But it was fun. I said, because in the beginning, it felt like it was flying from a quality point of view. There were a ton of goals early in the seven 30 games when we always come in excited. And then normally you get what you got in LAFC, Minnesota of like, Oh, point of view. There were a ton of goals early in the 730 games when we always come in excited and then normally you get what you got in LAFC Minnesota of like, oh, that final third part is the last part to come out of preseason. And that was assisted by every defender and

goalkeeper making sure to create chances for every single attack across the league as well. Yeah, I mean, yes, in part, unquestionably, yes, there were some when playing it out of the back goes wrong, um all-timer moments across the league for everybody from like the brand new goalkeeper to the backup center back to Jordy freaking Alba like just I like I don't even know what happened with that one but also like yeah, they were really good goals. You know, Lat lot. His first goal was freaking incredible to watch him get up off the ground. Bomba, just immediately

understanding where the space was going to be against Columbus and exploiting that to the point where Wilford Nancy had to adjust. And Wilford Nancy doesn't really adjust in game all that often. He just trusts the system that he's got. And Miami being awesome for the first 20 minutes and Messi doing classic Messi stuff and then Toto Avilus doing Toto Avilus stuff. You're right. It was like right out the gates.

There was a lot to really enjoy. And then there was a lot to really enjoy and then there was a lot to freaking laugh at because like it's just it was very MLS um time after time after time after time and shout out to Joe Lowry who I think put a super cut of all the when playing it out of the back goes wrong moments up on up on his blues guy. It was savage that Joe was like took Toodle Ramen's tweet about it a blue sky blue sky skied about it and was like Oh is name not enough. Let me make sure you see all of these people who made these mistakes So 10 15 years ago for MLS soccer we used to have a piece of content Called not goal of the week and it was remember this this well

It didn't last very long because people got upset about it people in high places But it was it would do Numbers every single week, and it was all just blown chances Yeah, it was it was almost like shat in a fool type of thing where it's just like Kaikomaru like Kaikomaru's famous miss where he like miss from literally one yard out like that was the pinnacle of it But like there were other look every week in every league in the world. There are incredible blown chances. Yeah, we we did that for soccer.com back in the day. It lasted less than a year.

It was really good though. I miss it. It was it was eventful this weekend. It would have been a large piece of editing for anyone who wanted to do it. Let's start on a high and then we'll get back into some of the mistakes now. There was... I just want to, I just want to interrupt and say that I've already started on a high because Figo is in the chat. Shout out Figo.

Papa Figo back from vacation. We appreciate having you here as always Let's start with our winners of week one He would like you to say the New York Red Bulls who I actually think could find a way into my worry meter Which might come up a little bit later in the show because after the weekend Then I have to sit down and watch all the games for the first time and I actually most recently watched Cincinnati Against the Red Bulls. But let's start with our favorite performances of the weekend oil. It could be a winner.

It could be what you enjoyed watching. What stood out to you in week one? I'm going to go more holistic and say big spenders were the big winners because of you know, Latte Lat is the new single, is the new transfer fee incoming record. He was awesome. Two goals and they weren't, and this is something that Kaelin pointed out to me and we were talking on Sunday morning, like these weren't him using his speed to get behind the back line and just do stuff that few other players can.

This was like the first one was a You know Joseph Martinez style While this little guy can really get up header in the box and the second one was a Wando goal and if you're scoring those types of goals in addition to You know, he's probably gonna score 10 or 12 goals just by being faster than any defender in the league If you're scoring all those types of goals you're going to more than justify that amount of money and this was a brute force win that um atlanta got because they just had more talent on the field and latte loth was the biggest part of it the other one is kevin denke who was the the record signing for what about three weeks before atlanta got a lot of them and this guy like

my big question with Dan Kay was, just because of the way Circle Brouche played, because like Tom, I'm up at 5.30 a.m., grinding tape with the Belgian league. My question was, is he going to be more than just a poacher? And to be clear, I'm okay with a guy who's just a poacher. Like if you can poach 15, 18 goals a year, you're worth the money. And with a team with Origano and Evander,

it's probably enough. Exactly. But he showed so much more than that. His ability to come back to the ball in link play and then actually hit a pass before the pass. He was really comfortable with his back to the goal. And then he gets the game's only goal which was a massive error from Carlos Coronel but like he capitalizes on that and then he's still finding chances. Didn't bury any of the late ones but like still finding chances late with sort of like classic striker stuff. I think we are into an era now where parody is going to start to fray a little bit, where there's going to be some correlation between big spending teams and winning in a way that we really haven't seen over the past 10 years. because front offices have gotten smarter and they've hired people who are smarter about scouting and they're going to spend money in smarter ways. If you have a checkbook, an owner willing to spend on the infrastructure before you

spend on the players, it's going to be like a really small needle to thread for the Montreals and the Philadelphias of the world. I wonder if the other added piece of that is then also just the sheer numbers. So it's like, I've always said goals cost money, the difference between $8 million and $4 million and the difference between 24 and seven, that gap also is growing in those players, right? So when you talk about Hafen Navahu, who is a really good player in Major League Soccer,

being like a record signing, and then Denke and Laté Lat being record signings, I think you may get more bang for your buck in guaranteed because you're into a different stratosphere of what MLS signings were in the past. And so you're doing your work, you're making sure they fit your system, but also like Denke, they probably spent more than they had to to make sure he was here in preseason and then you're spending more than you have to because

he's younger and therefore he has more time that he can be on the team, which means the next signing can fit in easier if he's still there and there's already that central point and you know, Almeyrone is kind of going to be that now for Latte Lath. Like I think there's other, on top of what you talked about, I think there's reasons to say $25 million could be really well spent and then the gap between the other teams, which are like, well, we have a DP center forward. And it's like, the label isn't enough anymore. Like the label just means you also use that mechanism.

It doesn't mean we're talking about players in the same stratosphere in terms of what they're capable of. I think that could be completely fair. Then the other side though is like it's Major League Soccer and everyone's kind of kind of shuffle their way through performances. I will say on the Cincinnati game, I thought Evander was fantastic as well. You saw most of why he is so special. He Likes to pop up everywhere on the field So so much of the game goes through him which means he can constantly set players up Like you see the amount of times that he tries to slide pass tries a slide pass and then you think you have it closed

He drops the shoulder fakes out wide and then clips it to the far post. And it's like been building and building and building. And I thought you saw the wing backs be as involved as they've ever been for Cincinnati centrally like being finishers or potential finishers on the back post. But there were a couple of wing back to wing back attacks. I think yet Lin almost scored a goal and angle almost scored from the right side as well. And that's like you can anticipate a little more because you know, Evander is going to hold the ball for a goal. And Engel almost scored from the right side as well. And that's like you can anticipate a little more because you know Evander is going to hold the ball for a while. You also know his vision is going to find you.

And I think Yedlin is going to have a huge year because quietly he was fine last year. But when they picked him up, I thought he was going to be Bariol on the right side type impact and he wasn't that throughout 2024. He wasn't but like part of that was Miazga getting hurt, Haglund getting hurt, everything kind of fell apart around that and like in large part because Obin and Nwodo had to do so much work protecting the back line and then Lucho stopped having any positional discipline so that kind of killed both of Nwodo and Buccia in terms of their ability to

hit progressive passes and Yedlund was just like, I guess I have to defend. I mean, this is my job is going to be more as a defender this year. And it was the right way to approach it. He's just like a smart player. He's a veteran. So it was the right way to approach it. But like the fun version, the fun way to approach it is I think what we saw in this game. And to do it without Origano, who's finally back in the fold now, long-term contract, and to do it without Miozga, who I guess is still a couple of weeks away. Yeah, I mean, since he has a top three team in the league

heading into this game, top four, I guess, heading into this game and they didn't give me any reason to think otherwise. No, they shouldn't. And I think for them coming through CCC, and we'll talk about the games coming up as well, but they're pretty much through to the next round with the four one. They won four one. Yeah, at Matagua, because they had Pavel Buka of course the great goal scorer in major league soccer who was Taking first I think in our Golden Boot draft last week when we finally finished things. Remind me Did you did you pick Cincy to win the shield? No, I did not I picked Seattle

Okay, I'm one weekend. I don't know. I don't feel I'm zero percent concerned about Seattle I think the East is deeper and I think the East is deeper. And I think that I think there will have to at some point, I could be wrong about this. I wouldn't be shocked if I am because if Anders that could. I thought there would be some growing pains in moving pieces around that would be dropped points. And in saying that, Seattle pooped the bed and dropped points in game one at home

and Cincinnati didn't. So I was on Nos Arietes with Jeremiah O'Shaughn yesterday and he pointed out that Seattle I think had five one goal home leads in the 85th minute last year and four of them they dropped points. It's really, really weird from a team that is so solid defensively. But his take was that a lot of that last year was they weren't good at being on the ball and sort of pushing. Yeah. Pushing for to make it 3-1 instead of.

Well, that was the story this weekend right they should have won two one they should have won three one it felt like a three and to Dean Smith's credit he said that after the game he's like we did not we'll take a point but we did not deserve one there so like full credit to to Charlotte FC because I don't think there are a lot of teams in the league that would have I mean it's Christian Kalina like I don't think there's a lot of teams in the league that would have I mean it's Christian Kalina like I don't think there's a lot of teams in the league that would have walked away with a point after that performance, but it goes back to what I was saying like I

after all that and playing on some short rest, I just don't I can't bring myself to get at all concerned about Seattle if they're still doing this 5 weeks from now that maybe we talk. It's fascinating that they rotated heavily, but only in the attack and I get the depth is there, but like, doesn't that make you more worried and want to rotate the defense to try and make sure everyone stays healthy?

Either way, they still were not able to hang on to that lead. But let me throw a last thing in here on Cincinnati, because if you go back and watch, and I'm sure everyone's watched the goal with Denke, but the highlight doesn't get it that well. If you watch the real time, he points to Yedlin for the ball into the space. And then when he sees Yedlin start to shape his hips, he gets his body into Hack on the goal side. And that bump is all he needs to then have the advantage. And so you can say Cornell should have come out cleaner,

Cornell should have punched it, whatever you want. Hack is five yards behind Denke the entire play because Denke does that. Then five minutes later, Denke kind of knows Hack's coming for him because he's frustrated that he lost the battle and he takes the contact with a turn and creates a chance going past Hack. And it's like, that's a 31-year-old Bundesliga veteran at center back. We're not talking about no one in major league soccer. And so I'm really excited for what he is and what he can be. And if he's going to hit the ground running like this, like I said, coming out of the CCC game, the

way he strikes the ball is unbelievable. So he's going to score goals from all over the field because he gets over the ball so quickly and he hits it, I think in different ways from the same posture, rather than having like open up his body and shift the ball on him. And then if he does these things, he's going to score. It's a really good point because like, those are the little battles like Kailin always talks about this and the you know, being around Bradley Wright Phillips, who was one of

the best in league history at those little types of one v one battles that nobody notices except strikers and centerbacks. Strikers and centerbacks will tell it talk to you about that stuff all day and like nobody else noticed but it's like yeah you bump him two seconds before the ball is played because you just need that yard and a half of space and if you do have that yard and a half of space then you're gonna at least get a chance out of it. And yeah, like Denke basically out-foxing repeatedly a 31 year old Bundesliga veteran speaks really well of the money that Cincinnati spent this

off season. On the Latte Lath goal for comparison, Stéan Gregersen has a 10 yard run up and their heads are at the same height when Latte Lath heads that ball in, taking the step back and going up into the air to head it. And Gregersen comes straight across the ball. Like if he's a half second away from getting there, but it shows what Latte Lath can do. I want to talk about another winner from this weekend or positive performance, whatever it was, which hasn't been mentioned as much. It was actually fascinating how many teams went on the road and got results. And that's the Philadelphia Union, going and putting

up four goals in Orlando, doing so with a 20 year old at center back, a debutant at central midfield, also a young piece, Dan Lee coming back and being a part of it. So like kind of a new spine for this group. New spine and a new shape too because it was a 4-2-2-2 instead of the diamond. And the 2-2-2-1 made a lot of sense with what they are capable of doing. And it was extremely effective in this game. So for one thing for Orlando was Robin Yon son I think picked up the injury in warm ups so he got rotated out at the last second brocallo comes in slagle get shifted from right side to left side. That was like a comedy of errors that just went in the same direction over the course of the game but for this Philadelphia team. They were able to keep the ball in the areas they wanted to to go press but because of the way they were lined up, Gosdok in the front two rotated as often as

they wanted. So you had more change up in their attack. And then Quinn Sullivan found himself in super dangerous areas. He wins the ball back on the first goal on the right side of the field, and he sets up the second goal coming down the left wing cutting inside for a cross to Gosdok. So the attack was more connected. The press was more dangerous. It felt like on the first goal that the Philly wing or fullbacks were higher up the field

than they normally were last year when they did win the ball back. And that's all into the fact of, as I said on yesterday's show, Tom said that they'd overcommit to pressing and it would be enough this year. I didn't believe in it. Week one so far, I'm wrong and Tom's right. this year. I didn't believe in it. Week one so far, I'm wrong and Tom's right. I mean, it was a great win and they gladly accepted the gifts that that very bad central defensive pairing was willing to give up and like Pedro Galease, the union had four shots on goal and they scored four goals. It's not the first time we've seen like Pedro Galease started last year in just terrible form as well. So it's like there's a we've seen, like, Pedro Golese started last year in just terrible form as well.

So it's like there's a danger of overreacting, especially because Philly did not look great defensively. Like, they, you know, like, they were committed to the press and that was cool on the goals, but when they weren't scoring goals, they were chasing and this could have ended up 4-4 pretty easily. So it, I like, I understand the enthusiasm and Ty Boribo's for real and Gazdag we know is for real and Quinn Sullivan, I'm pretty sure is for real, but there are still, in my mind, there's still going to be a lot of questions because even at their best under

Bradley Carnell, that St. Louis team gave up a ton of chances. They gave up so many chances. Roman Berkey had to be Superman in 2023. We know Andre Blake can do that, but it's like, you don't want to keep asking your goalkeeper to do that much. And then the other thing to consider is, look, it's easy to press in February. It's easy to press in March.

It gets harder and harder to press effectively over the course of the season. And especially once it gets hot in June, July, August, September, we see it year after year after year, the effectiveness of pure pressing goes down. That's why Jim Curtin changed the game model a little bit over the past few years and that's why the Union tended to be better in the summer months because they could absorb. And I'm happy for Union fans, you know, who are still high off the Super Bowl, but like, I think there's a danger in reading too much into this.

The flip side is that Orlando have to do something to create some central defensive depth, especially if Bricala is not going to be it. Like Rodrigo Schlegel is not a starting caliber center back for a team that has aspirations. That's where, by the way, cause you know, I always made fun of we, because we would look at every team and MLS and say they don't have enough central defense depth because no one does. It's MLS, but they don't have the full solid two starters to start the conversation into depth. And if Bricola is not that guy,

what happened to Oscar Perejas developmental chops? starters to start the conversation into depth. And if Recallo's not that guy, then it's dangerous. What happened to Oscar Perejas developmental chops? Oh, you mean Tommy Williams? Exactly. He loves him in the summer of 2021. He's going to give him minutes. Or was it 2022 or 23 or 24? I mean, to be fair, the kid is just 20 years old.

So he is still a kid. But at some point Look oscar's great fc dallas teams from the middle of last decade those teams were built with really good top and talent but also from within yeah with academy kids that oscar got the best out of and there just hasn't been much of that at all from Orlando City and he's been there more than Half a decade now. So let me say three things in his defense fairness Whatever one was he built the Dallas Academy. He left for Colorado. He came back So he had built that pipeline up for years before he got there

To his center back is a tough spot to do it in Major League Soccer There aren't a lot of teams that do. And three, like he played Alex Freeman 35, 40 minutes. That's true and he looked good. At a safer position. Yeah. But if you are going to strike out on two center back signings, then you need to hit on something else. And an Academy piece, a six, three center back who can move well would be one.

And it would have been nice over the last few years in midweek games and open cups and leagues cup and all that type of stuff to have gotten him more minutes. And if it didn't work, you kind of be in the same place you are right now. I've had that opportunity. So I think that is frustrating. And I think it is a worry, not just if Jansson's hurt or not. The giveaway on this goal is Bricolo doesn't look at his own center back's feet of where to play and then Schlegel just sticks his toe out at it because he's off balance but also because he doesn't anticipate the play.

So they both look bad in the same moment. I will say I like Pasalic. I like his game. I thought he might be a pure straight line runner. He comes inside. You like the guy who scored two goals in this game. Yeah, I was Really daring. Yeah, I was intrigued. I would say he's Ivan and Gula with goals Which you have to love and I'm sure everyone will be very excited about that Do you have any other big winners from a team-wide point of view that you want to hit before we talk some more individuals?

I mean we have to mention San Diego, just the way they looked. And I wrote about it a little bit in my Sunday night column. It reminded me of those great RSL teams of 15 years ago, their ability to, it was a slightly different formation. The 433 from San Diego, RSL of course played a really narrow diamond. The idea though was the same with both, which is you're not going to play through us. You're just absolutely not. If you're going to beat us, we'll give you the wing. You figure that out and if you can beat us that way, well done, but you are not going to beat us up the middle.

To that end, the demid, Svirkov, I have to learn how to pronounce the man's name because he was literally doing a Kyle Beckerman impression out there. He was so good. The amount of times he was just the right guy in the right spot at the right time and just casually walking away with the ball after burying somebody. I don't want to say it was a lot of fun to watch because the first 70 minutes of that game were not much fun to watch at all, but it was impressive to watch.

And to the Galaxy's credit, they did eventually start getting Mickey Yamani to the end line and creating danger during tactics free zone time. But when you do that, you take the risk of getting countered to death. And that's exactly how San Diego got that second goal. So it was just like check after check after check from San Diego FC. And the fact that one of your two DPs is the guy who got both goals and then got player of the week.

There haven't been many better debuts than that one. And from like a narrative point of view, to go to LA Galaxy and like playing that building in their first game after lifting the trophy finally, like there's a lot that can go wrong for you and it can fall down really, really fast. So I think for San Diego to have played the way they played because they played like as a cohesive unit and stayed together both in their tactics and in their like team spirit and all that type of stuff, that's a pretty ideal start for 23 people who have never really met before and didn't play soccer together five, six weeks ago.

I think there's gonna be question marks as it goes along of like top end attacking talent. And as teams start to adjust to them, is there enough chance creation? Is there enough finishing? But in week one, it's exactly what you'd wanna see in like unbelievable experience for them. Did you feel like Luca Dellatorri

was experiencing enough pressure on the field when he was out there to really lift his level and Find the right levers to to play as hard as possible No and I would like for the community of butchers as well as milk people and potential postmen and women in the San Diego area to Apply the pressure necessary to elevate him to that next level because that's the way it would be if he was in the San Diego area to apply the pressure necessary to elevate him to that next level because that's the way it would be

if he was in the Austrian, you know, Bundesliga or wherever else. He could be playing right now. He was good though. He is, he's a funny- He's a fun player to watch, man. He's a funny soccer character just overall, but he was good.

He was fun to watch. Jasper Lauffelsen finding a fourth life in major league soccer was like a great part of this weekend because he's always counted out and I just love that he scraps along and plays two positions that are in his position. He's a good player, man. He's a very good player. He's a very good soccer player. He doesn't have all the, he's basically not athletic enough to do most of the things, but every coach every once in a while will be like, I like the soccer player part. And so I'll bring him in.

For San Diego, they go home this weekend now. So their first home game, I believe it's against St. Louis, which will be fun to watch. We're gonna do worry meter towards the end, but let me ask since we're here, are they like Galaxy on your list? I dropped them in my power rankings from fifth to like 15th. Ooh.

Part of it might be an overreaction, but Sanabria just did not look like he knew what he was supposed to do. And then when he did get on the ball, he didn't look like he was capable of doing what he needed to do. And I think that was driving Greg Vanney nuts. Like Weeby was on the sideline saying like,

Vanney's been yelling at this guy for the entire first half. So already going to make a personnel change in the engine room because Elijah Winder was much better. And I think he was a big part of why the galaxy suddenly started to be threatening. But the bigger worry to me is, Marco Royce just didn't look up for it. Yeah, and I thought that with Ricky out

It would be not easy, but it would be like just very clear like oh we're gonna get the ball and Royce's foot between the lines and Again to San Diego's credit they were selling out to prevent exactly that But they like the galaxy still should have been able to find him in those spots Again, to San Diego's credit, they were selling out to prevent exactly that. But the galaxy still should have been able to find him in those spots more than twice, which is what I think it was the entire game. And then the other part of it is, boy, that guy's pulling out of a lot of challenges. David Goss would not stand for that.

It is over 30 mensley. I have a group chat that they would say quite specifically, where's the dirt on the jersey? I'm not seeing enough dirt on the jersey. Right now I am not seeing enough dirt on Marco Royce's jersey and given that Ricky's out until at least August and Paintsle's out probably, I guess, until April April that like I am sudden like that sparked some worry in me for the LA Galaxy. I think all of that is fair. I think the way it felt plotting at times and without direction I thought Fagundes lost his positioning a ton because he wants to come inside and

play and yeah never threatened in behind by the way, never. And then and then I think Christian Ramirez, it will get better, but it felt very one note for the LA Galaxy. And last year, okay, it had that at times, but then Ricky could up the tempo and drop the tempo and up the tempo and Payne still could do so as well. And then I think you start to see some of the holes of like, okay, you money tries to get involved I think Garces brings a lot of talent talents to this team that you know help Maya Yoshida I don't think he's picking out all of the passes when you do sit in to like create chances

And so now it's like you're exposing his game Yoshida has to cover more ground because you're starting to pinch up the field John Nelson as well you start to see some of his deficiencies in possession and attack exposed and then it all starts to sort of go downhill on itself. And so if I was the galaxy, I think there is reason to be worried. You pointed this out, I think in your piece, which I was talking about in the discord, I thought Widener was awesome when he came on the field. Yeah, he really was.

When I have seen him in USL, and I always quote John Morrissey, who covers USL better than anyone. Fantastic job. Fantastic job. Go read, especially now as we're getting into the USL seasons, he talks a lot about his physical capabilities, and he is a dominant ball winner in midfield. And so my question with the Galaxy was, could he do enough in possession? And he looked comfortable in a lot of the areas

he needed to. And then he did the things he does well, great. In this game, just breaking lines with his physicality of like, I'm gonna make a ton of runs through the lines. I'm gonna change your shape and I'm a threat on the back post or I'm a threat over the top then. So now you have to adjust to it and you have to react to me. And I think that could all be a factor for this team as

well going forward. All right, last one. No, I'm going to put on my conspiracy cap. I'm going to the tin foil cap. You ready? I think Mikovic starts over McCarthy because they really want to have someone that they can sell and get three million worth of GAM for. And given how much MLS goalkeepers have been sold for over the past five years and given Mikovic, his profile, he's from the Balkans, Balkan goalkeepers for whatever reason, go for a lot of money. And so there will be teams all over Europe interested in him. He's pretty young. So he does have the profile of someone that they could go out and get $5 million in a transfer fee for. And if they get that,

that gets $3 million for them to apply to next year's roster budget, which means they will actually be able to keep their team together. So I think they're taking a risk. So they're going to try and keep him in there as much as possible to hope that they could sell him. Yeah, he's going to get a really long rope this year. That is my conspiracy theory brought to you by as yet unsponsored, but we'll find someone to sponsor this. Would they not do? We're open to it, by the way. Also, reminder, we've opened up super chats in YouTube. So if you're watching live and you want to put a little money to your comment, it will

automatically make its way on the show, including this one from Brendan Moynihan who says, Golden Boot Draft update, Goss is on pace for a record setting, 170 goals, pop the champagne, this is clearly sustainable. Give me my money right now. Not that we've got anything for it. It's all pride. That's a dirty Jersey. I'm getting, that's what you get when you give for your effort, team Goss.

So thank you, Brandon, for both your contribution and for your comment and your update and anyone else can throw anything in there if they want. Wouldn't that be the same with Auday then? Wouldn't those be like the two they could sell? Cause there's not a lot of sellable pieces outside of Gabrielle Peck So I think this I think they spent too much on all day

Yeah, like they would have to sell them for like six million dollars and I don't think that's gonna happen So I think it's just like John Nelson is a better soccer player at this point I thought Ruben Ruben Ramos was pretty promising Yeah and they need to do that. That is the next thing for the LA Galaxy. If they start developing their local talent the way the Sounders have or Philly has, it's just...

Oh my God. Tony, I'm getting started. Yeah. They've been sitting on the world's biggest product, gold. One of two. Yeah, fair. To be clear, LAFC have been just as bad, if not worse. Do not disrespect Nathan Ordoz like that

They have been sitting on the world's biggest gold mine for 30 years the galaxy have and they have just like Steadfastly refused to pick up a shovel and start digging. I wonder how much Sellers remorse they have for selling Jalen Neil before the cash for a rule Yeah, I was thinking that same thing and I I have talked to some people who are also like, hmm, Montreal got the deal when they needed to get the deal because they are probably not the team that's going to drop $2 million on an internal move, but they got it for allocation money,

which they already had inside the league. Either way, a good first weekend, epic moment for San Diego. I'm excited to see it. So Snapdragon Stadium is hosting the She Believes Cup final between the US and Japan and then the double header, of course, with Australia and Colombia on Wednesday night. And then it will be the home debut for San Diego FC the following week. Pray for that turf. Pray for that turf. It has been one of the worst fields in the country. And then I believe San Diego Wave hosts

week one the following week as well. And then we're into it until we get to college football when they add what 125 athletes who will walk around on the field and stand on sidelines on the field. It is, it's gonna be interesting, but it's a cool place to watch a soccer game. Like every time they've had a big event there, they host the NWSL final, they hosted the women's gold cup, all those types of things.

It's been like a really good atmosphere. Would you move to San Diego? Would I? Yeah. Do I have like anything else related to it or it's just generic? It's just generic. It's like you and Megan both get jobs where you can work completely remote. You're financially secure. I'd be happy to live in Tijuana, I think. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I'd do the drive across every day if I had to, or the walk, whatever it ends up being. I'm not sure if San Diego is my city specifically, but we were invited out there by the San Diego football group. So I could go out and find out. I will say this. We haven't talked about this on this show. I stayed at the Saquon Casino and with a group of friends who had all worked in professional soccer. And we came up with this dream of starting a USL

team tied to a resort somewhere in the United States. And like six months later, they announced an MLS team. What I'm saying is if you live in a city that doesn't have an MLS team and you want one, invite me, build a lazy river and then talk it out with me on that lazy river. Branson, Missouri. I'm line one, Dave. Ready to go to the Ozarks? Yeah, I would be happy to.

Zippy Tuna, by the way, thank you for your contribution to sponsor Doyle's conspiracy segment. So we're already partially the way there with our super chat. So we appreciate your contribution there from Zippy Tuna. Let's move into, well, we're kind of just talking about everything as we go along, but I was gonna have us do favorite debutants specifically in MLS, we talked about Latte Loth,

we talked about Denkay, Anders Dreier, we have to hit that because he's the other DP and we had someone in the chat be like, we spent $5 million on him and he has the same amount of goals as Latte Lach. Totally true. And he was huge for them in this game. And it's sort of a lot of what we talked about on this show, which is he's a finisher on that right side and Chuki is going to come inside and create and Delatory is going to create. And we don't know how much goal scoring they're going to get at the number nine position and Dreierers on the field to be a goal scorer.

And he did that when it was necessary to close this one out for them. Yeah, I mean, he accepted the gift with grace on the first one. And the second one, he was just, you know, doing what any professional winger should do in that situation. He's going to be a really good player in this league, which is not a surprise at all given his pedigree and his age and physical profile and all of that. Tip of the cap to Tyler Heaps in the front office and the coaching staff and the ownership for going out and being ambitious with these types of guys. That said, the D-Mid is still the one who stood out to me. Schwerckov.

How well does he have to play for how many games for you to learn how to pronounce his name? I'm going to have it by the end of next week. And I guarantee you by the next time I'm on Soccer Wise, it'll just be rolling off the tongue. I'll sound like a native Danish-Russian speaker. Because he's Danish Russian. Yeah, no, naturally. It's one of the strongest communities that you are a part of. It's one of the things you associate yourself most strongly with. He was part of what was a ton of pieces that came into the league and played really well. A lot of them were unknowns. So there was a number of college draft picks

that got signed really like the day of the game slash in the last week. Because I wrote down on our rundown favorite debutant and then I put in all caps. Is it a battle between Bo Leroy and Jamar Ricketts? Jamar Ricketts did technically play 34 minutes last year, so he couldn't come off this list, but then Wyatt Myers right there, staring you in the face saying, don't forget about me. I think it was Bo LaRue. I don't think it's LaRue.

I was so focused on the first name, which is a name that I don't know how to say. I don't know anyone with that name. And every time I see it written, I hate it. Is it always Bo? Is it always? Yeah, it's always Bo. Now I know.

I didn't realize this guy was from, he's from the San Jose area. He's like a local kid, because it's such a Cajun name. Bo LaRue. Oh, he's the backup quarterback for LSU. What's going on? He's going to start on the MLS team in New Orleans as his created because I was floating

in New Orleans and talked about starting your assault team. There you go. But he was in the starting lineup and I had literally never heard of him before. And I can't tell you the last time that happened to me with an MLM player Like I had like because I had heard of Jamar Ricketts And he was great by the way and I had heard of Wyatt Meyer who was literally signed the day of the game Just because he's a Cal kid and like Caleb knows his family So like I had never heard of Bo LaRue before but but like well done to all those guys. LaRue had

the assist on Ricketts goal, which turned out to be the game winner. Wyatt Meyer, college center back primarily, though he played everywhere. He played in central midfield for Nashville next to a 19 year old, Matthew Corcoran. So it's like, there was a lot of that. And for the most part, including like the 17 year old kid that DCU not sorry, NYCFC brought out against Messi and Johnny Shore. Johnny Shore. Johnny Shore is a legend. Who sounds like the fifth member of the Ramones. He's, I think he's a Connecticut kid. Is he? Yeah, and I wonder he's got he's he's got dirt on the He might be Manhattan. Some of the other ones maybe are Connecticut. There's a big Connecticut contingent right now at NYCFC You know that Storrs, Connecticut is considered the sixth borough. So like it makes sense I have heard that from one person. So yeah, it's out there. You're right. It's something people are talking about

Anyway, there were a lot of like really um positive You're right. It's something people are talking about. Anyway, there were a lot of like really positive moments like that around the league from teams that needed them. And specifically San Jose needs that. They need to have kids from their academy. They need to hit on their draft picks if they're going to rebuild this team into something respectable or beyond. And Nashville need that. Nashville have never been a team that develops young players.

So the fact that they got two of them into the lineup and performed pretty well, like they should have won that game. It's really positive for those fan bases. Cocoa Rowan is one of those players that I think I often hope expansion teams will do and they don't which is like you're basically buying an academy every once in a while because you don't have one yet. Nashville just hasn't had one. They haven't really created a robust one. They've done some good things with Huntsville. It's been a lot of like older players, college grads, whatever, which is fine because those players can come and contribute into your team. Literally what we're talking about with San Jose is Peter Hincky says in the chat, um, that La Rue cooked last year with Town FC and had

like deserved the opportunity. Jamar Ricketts as well. So like that's fine. But when I saw Cokoro and get the start, I was like that is that the youngest player in Nashville history? And I immediately went on. Youngest starter. And Ben Wright had it. Yeah. And 615 Soccer had it. And like, that's huge for this club. If he plays well for a year or two, that's the sale of that first player that funds the academy for the next X years. That hasn't really happened for them.

They have the one player in sippage that they signed as a center forward. And otherwise they just haven't really been able to produce players. And you can have arguments about regions and talent and all that stuff, which I think a lot of that is overrated. Like there's enough good soccer players everywhere in the United States and Canada, clearly, where if you do a good job of scouting and coaching. I mean,

RSL and Montreal have two of the most productive academy systems in North America and nobody 10 years ago would have told you that Sandy Utah and Montreal, Canada are two soccer hotbeds. If you have the will to get players into the Academy system and into the first team, you absolutely can do it. You just have to be committed to that vision and building out that infrastructure. And so I think this is a good first step for Nashville to also like admit that, or sort of spend money in this way

and say like, this is important to us. They've gotten younger overall as a team. Although I thought, I thought Takseth was really good in this game. I think he's interesting. I like having another player who's just high technique, decent physicality, makes Honey Muktar's life easier. I thought Andy Nahar is going to be really good this year. And so that's not going in the younger direction, but like when he plays at fullback, he can be a game changer. He can be amazing, but he's 32 years old and has never been the most reliable guy in terms of his fitness. I think they do

need to go out and make an investment at that spot. Maybe in a player like I don't know Marlon Fossey. I was gonna go in a different direction from what we talked about earlier today which is if you asked me to pick an Eastern Conference team that should with whatever money Miami will keep, trade for Julian Gressel. Nashville would be the number one team, I would say. Yeah, though, like, Gressel is not going to be a fullback. I think he will be alternating between depth at wing and fullback for this team.

But like, he gives you a different look. And for a team that has Sam surge floating on the far post Like get him some crosses. Yeah. Well, I mean even though he got four of them in this game He had every chance to put the ball to back of the net but no like especially if they would be Interested in going to sort of a 3-5-2 and playing Gressel at wingback, it would be the best fit. I still kind of feel like he's going to end up in Atlanta. Yeah. I still, because I think they do want to go to a 3-5-2. They want to play Latte, Loth

and Almiron up top. And they want to have the extra center back on the field because they frankly need it with the way they defend. And if're gonna do that I mean, it's a choice between Gressel and Brooks Lennon in the big games. I would rather have Gressel out there at right-wing back Oh interesting you think he would come in and be the starter at that position. I take him over Brooks Lennon. Yeah, I Had not considered like in me thinking about this. I was like, okay if Miami eats enough of the contract he's coming home It's good depth. It's talent. It's a thing that Garth and Chris Henderson will always do, which is like MLS talent they've

seen before. They'll trust to put more in their roster. Fine with all of that. And I think for the fan base, Almeyrone comes back, Gressil comes back, like everyone's happy to go lucky again. I had not considered him being a full-time starter over Brooks Lenin because I think Brooks Lenin is a match winner at that position for them if that's how they're going to play. But you could convince me because they're different styles and the one thing that pops out from

this is... The difference in the style, the main difference in the style is that the crosses that Julian Gressel hits are to his teammates and the crosses that Brooks Lennon hits are to the end line. Right. But you see the hole in that wall behind me? Brooks Lennon is going to hit that harder and faster every time than Julian Gressel is going to.

And sometimes I want a little bit of that in my team. The Atlanta midfield does not track. That's one of the things we saw in this Montreal game, Nathan Saliba popping up. So whether it's a third center back or a different personality in midfield, and okay, it's week one, like I'm fine to say it'll get better and hope that it will, but it's definitely something to watch for with Atlanta

and changing the formation up could be a way to make yourself a little bit safer in those central areas, which is what killed them against Montreal, who shout out, pretty good performance in front of 60 plus thousand. Yeah, I thought they looked good. And it was from halftime on, so they got younger at halftime. They changed up the team, and I think they looked better after that. And so I'll be interested to see what Lauren Quantois goes with next time. For debutantes, I have a long list of guys in MLS who didn't play for their teams last year, who now play for their

teams who looked good. Does that count? Yeah, I mean, it's a different kind of thing. But like, it's worth talking about. So we did Evander already. Jeremy Obobese gets the goal for LAFC. Let's talk a little bit about that game. Minnesota came out flying, couldn't get a finish, and then LAFC sort of adjust, find their feet, and then smash and grab Jeremy Obobese gets the goal and gets subbed off with his last touch. What do you make, what do you make of this match? I don't think it was a smash and grab because I did think that LAFC were the better team

the entire second half and honestly the last 15 minutes of the first half. Igor Jesus, the new, is he Brazilian or Portuguese? Brazilian. I think he's Brazilian but he was playing at a Portuguese club. The de-mid, he actually flattened out. If you look at it, they were playing a 4-3-3 and because Minnesota were playing with a 2 up top they were kind of overwhelming the LAFC centerbacks and like a large part of that is just

What like what a player Yaboa is like he's coming back and like got Aaron Long on his back and just turn and burn so is. He's coming back and got Aaron Long on his back and just turn and burn. So Igor Hezuz, after about 20 minutes, was dropping back almost more like an old-fashioned stopper instead of a modern D-Mid. I think that gave them the support and caused a little dislocation between the Minnesota midfield and the front line. And that allowed LAFC to sort of write the ship up until half time. And then out of the half, they just flipped Mark Delgado and Timothy Tillman. And it made sense.

You get Tillman on the left side, or excuse me, the right side of midfield. Tillman wants to keep the game small and play in like tight pockets of space. And that gave him and Palencia, who's the same type of player, and Davion Martinez, the chance to combine together a little bit and pull Minnesota over to that side. Whereas look, Mark Delgado, I think is a better player overall than Tillman, but he's not as good in tight spaces.

What he's good at is making the game big with his range of passing, and that's literally how the goal happened. And you want someone who could put a player into space, you want him on the same side as Denny Buonga. And that made the goal. And credit to Obobacy for not only coming back and starting the play by contesting a 50-50, but also smelling the chance. He sniffed that out really, really early and he was in the right spot to get on the end of that nice little pass from Nathan Ordaz, perfectly weighted right into stride and ripped it home. It was just the way it played out

with creating that partnership on one side between Delgado and Pawanga, and then on the other side between Tillman and Martinez made me higher on this LAFC team than I thought I was going to be after the way this game started. L.A.S.C. team than I thought I was going to be after the way this game started. Hmm. OK. I think that's a fair way to come away from it.

I. Wasn't because it was sort of a reality of of what we've talked about for five months, which is like this team is even more in the mold of what they were at times two years ago of like being completely allergic to possession. And I think you saw in that first half just the inability to take advantage of spaces left by Minnesota and be able to play into those spaces and connect. And so if it wasn't vertical and if it wasn't direct, then there wasn't really much there for LAFC. But then they won one zero because they're, they have a ton of talent and they all fit that really well. So I kind of feel exactly how I did about LAFC. I feel great about Minnesota still, although Mike Bekstran in the chat says thoughts about Yerboa

bawling but having no support. I still haven't seen anything on why Robin Ludd didn't start this game. He came on in the 65th roughly, but it's just the obvious one piece of like, well Pereira is supposed to be this, but no one really linking the game for Yaboa. Yeah, no, I mean, like starting with Yaboa and Tani up top, I think it was the right call. I think that it put LAFC under a lot of pressure. On a different day, Tani probably makes it 1-0 inside of five minutes.

But the real problem is that Pereira has not been that guy yet. And maybe he never will be, but he's out there playing as a 10. He's supposed to be the one who has the genius moments to. He never takes a player out of the game. Yeah. And like that's a worry because they spent on him and they're clearly committed to it. And look, Robin Ludd had 15 assists last year, right? Like if you're trying to win games right now, it's hard to argue that Robin Ludd is the

one who should be starting on the bench. And then beyond that, look, they signed a couple of players this off season, a South Korean kid and then a French kid to play central midfield. I thought Will Trapp was really, really good this game. I'm generally not a Will Trapp fan, but they got to get those guys onto the field if they're going to elevate to the level where they can seriously threaten the LAFCs and Seattles of the world. I thought part of Trapp being good was I thought Dotson was very good and it's the two do the

things the other one doesn't do and Hassani Dotson was playing for a contract in the first 35 minutes of that game. Should we plug Anders GoFundMe to buy out Hassani Dotson's contract on behalf of the Sounders so that Andersers can bring him home. If anyone wants to continue to contribute, we'll allocate those funds across Matt Doyle's Conspiracy Theories platform, as well as for the freedom of Hasani Datsun,

which by the way, will be converted to an Nicosia Tafarai fund pretty soon. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be like, get him out here get him to a team. He should be on he's a to me it's a very clear fit on this team because he would step into midfield and connect passes and he would go on runs and become an Unexpected factor in the attack like that's one of the things that makes him good The things he struggles with at times are staying as part of a clean back line. That's what Aaron Long's good at and that's what you have. So I could see this team play all three of them

and be successful or I will spend the next nine months yelling about how every other team should trade Franckosi to Farai and I want justice in that position and all those types of things. So we'll see where that goes. For the other MLSers that popped this weekend on new teams, Jack McGlynn, I talked about it on the recap show yesterday. If you haven't listened to it, it's out via podcast. He goes down soft on the Moosa foul or no foul that leads to the second goal. That was no foul.

Okay, I don't care either way. He does the thing where he expects the foul. I've seen you play pickup. If you hit someone like that and they went down you would have been standing if You would have been standing you would have been standing over him Screaming yet him it is all of the like Oh, I'm gonna look like a soccer player thing that people do which has frustrated me since I was 11 years old but Everything went through him.

He looked awesome in this game. He's going to hit blind balls to the far post over his shoulder. He's going to step into the final third and create chances. He's cracking shots from distance. Like we don't get this very often. You talked about it with Diego Luna last year. We're going to see a bit with Brian Gutierrez, although Bombo was awesome, which is like a young American player being the center of an attack in a team and Jack, we're not going to see that chance. We're not going to see it with with Brian Gutierrez next week.

Because he's suspended. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But no, you're right. And it's fun to see a team take a chance on a domestic central midfielder. It doesn't happen all that often. He mostly lived up to it in week one. That said, man, the Dynamo made a lot of changes. They paid for it in week one with both those goals were absolute gifts. Then the other thing is you talk about the worry meter. I'm worried about Ezekiel Ponce. Yeah I like he does not he does not look like anything more than maybe an average number nine in MLS and for a guy who's the club record signing like that's

That's bad news. And then the other aspect of it is He's a number nine who wears the number ten I never trust the guy like that like you're about the if you're a number nine who wears the number 10. I never trust a guy like that. Like you're about the if you're a number nine where the number 10, you're about the wrong thing. You're about the wrong things. Why do you wear number 10? I'm the best player on the team. So it doesn't matter where I play. I'm just not a player.

You're not a player. You're a forward. You have no personality. My counterpoint on the Houston thing is they sold Mikhail on the day of this game. Sviachenko not a part of this. And they are structurally were not really broken down. And the two goals they gave up were insane mistakes from the back line, which you would assume even

if Ethan Bartlow is not at the level of Mikhail, that those don't occur. Now, this was in a hurricane against the team whose number 10 had just arrived like eight days earlier. And so I'm not going to take all of that. But that would be my counter for Houston fans is like, it actually wasn't structurally poor. It's not just your one-to-one defending issues trust the process But I don't don't really trust the talent. I'm sorry. It's it's I'm gonna need to see some You know proof of concept from the guys that they do have though Femi Awadesu was pretty good in his MLS debut Apparently he's something of a social media star. It's like half a million tick-tock follow Maybe we should have him on this show so that he can promote us.

We could have Steve Clark on because he's not really doing anything right now, which is still one of the most bizarre things that's happened in MLS. Last one to mention here before we move into a little CCC talk is Jay Nelson. Awesome to see him come back. Portland shot themselves in the foot. We had a bunch of people in the chat talking about Kamal Miller and Portland being on the worry meter by themselves. At the beginning of this, it's what 10 to 2 or 10 to 1 now across two games?

9-1. 9-1. 5-0 and 4-1 back to back. Kamal Miller picks up the early red card and Vancouver did what they had to to take advantage. Maxime Crapo helped them get there as well, but Jayden Nelson starting on the right side of that attack. The reason I like this for him and I said it when he came is he's not a pure winger and I want him to be inside. I want him to be around the game. Those moments with TFC that we saw was just like quick high usage player connecting the game,

using his quickness to counter press, using his quickness to pass in and out of tight spaces. And I think we're going to see that more for Vancouver because of the way they set up. I hope so, because he's really toolsy. But he's not, you know, to your point, he's not really an instinctive playmaker and he's not a great 1v1 dribbler. He can, like he's really good in tight spots in the way that he showed in the first two goals and then the second two, like I was really happy to see him be that effective in the open field because he hadn't, in of how tools he is he hadn't shown that ability That I'd ever seen and then to get the the assist like that on the run and the goal like that

Look he's not gonna I don't think this is a guy who's gonna put up ten goals and ten assists But if he's five and seven or five and eight that matters a lot to Seven or five and eight that matters a lot to the caps like that type of productivity From their third attacker matters a lot and if you get Pedro Vita being super effective on top of it Which I thought he was in this game then Well, like I was down on what in Vancouver going into the season and that'll make like if these two guys are gonna play Anything resembling the level they played at in this game my pessimism is gonna look stupid. A added debutante here from the chat Jeffrey Tebbott says Lucas Engel who is very good for Cincinnati as well so that's that's

another name to throw in there. Segovia was the last one I was gonna mention which was probably still the moment of the weekend. Like, Inter Miami, you cannot get away from it. It is must watch. It's there. It's, I mean, it's box office, man. It really is. It's the show.

And it's interesting because people talk about it. I feel like people coming out of this game were like, oh, here's the question marks about whether or not they can be, you know, a trophy contender. And it's like, this is what it was last year. Like this is what it is. Messi has built it around him. Messi's the best player in the world. And so he does enough to make it work, which means you have to listen to him and everything else is chaos. He's a player GM and we know what that did for LeBron, but LeBron went to what? Six NBA finals in a row or whatever it was. Yeah.

Like that's what this is. And so it's super entertaining and fun to watch as from the outside. And this played out exactly the same, which is like they shot themselves in the foot. They shouldn't have gotten the points they did. They got the points they did on his pure, you know, magic moment. It's late in the game. It's Mascherano coming off the sideline screaming like, you can't turn it off. That's for sure every single week. I, the, the one difference to me is that the first 20 minutes of that game felt like it was going to end up being four nil Miami. And they didn't often feel that way to me last year. I'm trying to find the

match momentum tracker to see if I'm remembering this wrong over the first 20 minutes. But Messi is just playing inside as like a second four or even a true number 10 now. And they have have kind of a flat 4-4-2 behind him. Um, and that works for, um, for in terms of like protecting him defensively. Cause he doesn't do, he doesn't play any defense anymore. Um, which is fine. He shouldn't, he's too old. On the set piece, which was comical on a lot of levels, uh, that NYCFC scored, he's standing on, not on the side where the goal happens.

He's standing on the other side of the box. He doesn't react at any moment. Like I watched him the whole time. He doesn't react to the pass. He doesn't react to the goal. He just stands there and is like, this what happened. Now I'm gonna go score again on the other side. But like they looked both against Sporting Kansas City

in that first game and the first 20 minutes of this game, they looked much more compact defensively and better structurally than they did almost at any point last year. And I think I need to see them play more to see if it really is this 4-4- four one one, but it looks a lot like how Argentina have played over the past five years and obviously they've had an incredible amount of success and it's just like, okay, we

have our midfield set up where one guy is going to provide penetration and everyone else is Messi's bodyguard and then we also have a forward and it's like okay that works So we're gonna do that and it is even with the result I'm pretty high on what I saw from from inter Miami But they just have to have a come to Jesus moment about Toto Avilus like it's not just third on the death chart at this Point it's like fourth or fifth like he he should not be playing minutes ahead of Ian fray

yeah, Ian fray should be ahead of him on the depth chart and obviously David Martinez and The what is guys named Falcone as well Mac Max Falcon They like he should be like Toto Avilis should not see the field over any of those guys And it's in and out of possession with him, which is the hardest part. It's not just like, oh, when we're chasing, he's turning the ball over as well. A bunch of other stuff. I have only watched the first episode of Onside. Have you watched it? I haven't. OK, so on the first episode, it's Inter Miami

playing at the LA Galaxy in the opener last year. And it's basically 25 minutes of Ricky Poo's, Dan Kalishman and Greg Vanni talking about Messi. And it's 10 minutes of Kalishman and Vanni in like coaches rooms being like, we gotta track Messi. After he gives up the ball, track Messi. Once he gives up the ball, that's when you track Messi. He's gonna go get the ball. Don't look at the fucking ball.

Yeah. And they don't do that and they give up the goal. And then in my CFC does the same thing in this game. And it's like, I think Justin Hack, who's back. It was Justin Hack. But did you see? Did you see what happened? Like, Messi set him up.

Because and shout out to Felipe Cardenas, who did a great job of pointing this out, because I made a video of the first Miami goal where we're just showing how messy always smells that direct run into the box. And Felipe pointed it out on Blue Sky where it's like, it's not just that, it's the way messy sells that he's not thinking about it because he takes an extra long follow through after playing the ball back to Jordi Alba and makes it feel so casual and Hack completely switches off for half a second because of that and as soon as Hack turns his head, Messi goes.

It was just like this is the simplest stuff. The thing that we all will remember about Messi and will be telling grandkids 50 years from now, Weeby's grandkids. I was going to say yours, mine, Tom's. What are we doing here? Grandcats. 50 years from now is the 1v1 stuff and the incredible passing and the free kicks and all the stuff that is inimitable. Nobody else has ever done it at his level. But the thing that makes Messi the greatest of all time is that on top of it, he does the stuff that anybody can do

at a higher level and with more consistency. And that first goal is the perfect example of it because anybody can make that play where you sell the fake essentially and then make that run where you like as soon as the defender turns his head, boom, you're diving directly towards the penalty area and you know, he scored 800 career goals and he's assisted on 450 more and probably half of them are off of sequences that resemble that in some way. Well on the second goal I was going to say, Parks is behind him. He's got two NYCFC players

behind him. Hack feels, and he's right, he has to shut down the run centrally and he leaves open this window which three players in the world are going to hit and then Segovia still has a tough finish, right? He makes it, he takes away the threat from the way, but it's like, this is a kid who just joined this league who came off the bench in the highest pressure moment and he chips the keeper. It was overall an awesome goal. Uh, they are on again tonight against sporting Kansas city. We have our worry meter here, which we went through most of them already.

Should I, should I tilt the camera so that you can see the cat starting to fight? Because this is really good right here. Inter-Miami level box office stuff. This is Toto Avulus. Jeffrey Nesker says, Doyle, what do we do with our TFC panic button this year? It's still hidden in the closet as per your advice from last year. Yeah, just toss it in the trash. I don't think there's gonna be anything

worth panicking about. I think what you should focus on this year is Bernadeski still being bought in, which he clearly was, and a couple of young players actually developing, which we might've seen a little bit with the left wing back there. And the pass that

Queijo hit, that led to the first goal. Like, I like Queijo. I don't think he's going to be like best 11 caliber guy, but like, there's some talent there. So just like, hang your hat on that for 2025 and you have a really clean cap in 2026. So that's what you're looking for, in my opinion, if you're a Toronto FC fan this year. I did this panic meter and I wrote down a bunch of teams and I put question marks next to a bunch of them. And the only one where I put both teams from one matchup was DC Toronto of like, is this a sign of panic

for both of them that neither of them could beat each other? So I will be- Dude, if DC get Fidel Barajas, which I think- I think they did. Did they get officially get it across the line? Yeah, I think so. Okay, that's awesome. That makes them so much more fun to watch.

DC United agreed to, it's give me sport official. So- Okay, yeah. Depends on what you wanna do, but Sam Seysko will be in my text right now if I don't say it correctly So I'm just gonna move on and go to CCC So we've got Miami SKC coming up tonight Miami leading 1-0 because Messi scored one of the best goals you've ever seen in Six-degree weather and then LA FC are hosting Colorado up to one Colorado

That's the big one draw at st. Louis Clearly rotation for them. Obviously they're going from Colorado St. Louis. Clearly rotation for them. Obviously they're going from Colorado St. Louis out to LA for this game. This will be the focus. What do you make of some now you've seen these teams for two games each of like what this matchup is LAFC hosting this time needing to get the win?

Sorry, she's destroying the couch. Oh, God, this cat. Look, I like what I saw from Colorado in that first game. They were holding on for dear life then this weekend against St. Louis, short rest, and also missing three starters at least, maybe a fourth fourth and then two or three other rotation players It's hard for me to imagine They won't hit the wall in this game. LAFC is still a really tough place to play Colorado for as good as they've looked

As resilient as they've looked as good asffen has looked, and I'm not historically a big Zach Steffen fan. It's hard to imagine they're going to be able to get the result they need out of this game. And longer timeline, maybe that's good for them, right? Maybe not emptying the tanks with a long CONCACAF Champions League run is the best thing for this team to get close to 50 points again and to be credible in leagues cup and the playoffs. But, yeah, I don't know.

I'm not expecting them to advance. I'm still expecting LAFC to find a way, but I'm pretty impressed by what I've seen from the Rapids for two games. Yeah it's uh it's an uphill battle for them but I think it's one that should feel attainable at least in this matchup of like if you sit in the block for portions of this game I think LAFC will show frustration as long as your triggers are right on where and who you want to press and and where you open up game. It feels like the potential for Colorado to get a result here because you get the one goal and you sort of like change everything. Now LAFC need to it becomes you know a tougher task for them.

You start to add into the frustrations they've already had. I thought Ali Larraz looked good again, again St. Louis. I like his I thought he I thought he looked better physically than he did last year i don't feel like he got Overwhelmed physically much at all in this game whereas last year it was like oh this is like he just can't keep up At times so that was that was a really good data point for for colorado right there and he's Can bring different elements into central midfield? Um jose tencio can bring them too now, so there's like less pressure on him to always be the piece in midfield. And so I think that's a nice option

for this Colorado team. Cabral still doesn't give you a ton. And so there's like a low ceiling on this attack. It's really on Georgie. And then if Cole Bassett's not available, you don't have as much threat coming out of midfield. And it feels very isolated in the attack. It's like can O'Meara get on the end of something? If not, you need a set piece or something like that. I think Cude Pietro helps this team a ton when he's back. He's injured. Okay. He's injured. Yeah. They're still trying to get him back to fitness. Yeah. I love if you swap him out for Cabral, it changes the attack. I don't think that's the I don't think that's the plan though. Don't do

that. Cabral is going to be the starting right winger. And then Cuda Pietro, I think will be starting left winger but like playing really tight. Georgie is the 10 and then Bassett and Atencio as the deep lying guys. So what's weird about that is Rosenberry's been playing left back for the start? Because Sam Vines and Jackson Travis are both hurt. But Sam Vines was not the starter last year. When Sam Vines was healthy- He was. No, he was.

He was the starter when he was healthy. He lost his spot a lot last year and- He was, I mean, he was playing through injuries all last year. So I think that's- I didn't realize the Vines family was in the chat it was in the room right now Sam Sam Vines and Jackson Travis sounds like a country duo it does yeah Sam Vines also likes to get a jersey dirty so I respect Sam Vines he'll run through a wall you just need to see it from them Sam Vines of course played in Belgium for Royal Antwerp. Grind and tape

at 5 30 a.m. Yeah, that's the only place. That's where soccer starts. We wake up with Belgian breakfast and then we go from there. Miami SKC, are we giving SKC a chance? They rotate on the weekend. Miami will probably play much better than Sporting City will but like Miami is always capable of Blowing it just because they have chaos agents in the middle of that back line, but I would be surprised But it's not like it's not done No sporting Kansas City. I guess they were rotations This week the segment of the Austin sporting KC game. I watched This week the segment of the Austin sporting KC game I watched had a little bit of blood coming out of my eyes.

So I had to flip it over onto another game in the middle of the evening. Wednesday night we have Cincinnati hosting Matagua up 4-1. That one feels kind of done. RSL 0-0 against Herodiano and then Seattle hosting Antigua up 3-1 which feels kind of done as well. We haven't really talked about RSL. They got blown out in that San Jose game. They come in here at 0-0.

It has obviously not gone as planned. Elias Manuel is supposed to be the center forward. He's refusing to report to the team and play for them. And so there's a pretty big hole at the top of the attack for this RSL team that they don't really have an answer to. Yeah. I mean, it feels like they're going to have to go shopping. And like the obvious one, and I think we talked about it maybe even during the Golden Boot

draft is Duncan McGuire because I don't think he's going to get that starting spot back for Orlando, which is fine. Like players lose their jobs. Ramiro Enrique has been really, really good, but he's still a super valuable Prime goal scorer in this league and Utah makes a lot of sense for him given He's pretty much exactly what what that team needs But for now, they're just they're a team that's completely undermanned they lost 70% of their goals from last year and look it

and got a tough break with the Elias Manuel thing. It is tough for them. The other name that popped up to me, I was when I was watching this weekend and he wasn't even on the field, he was sitting on a bench, which won't happen because it would be well, maybe I'm wrong. I kind of assume once people have left somewhere, they're not gonna go back Danny Musavsky like doesn't play And he has been good in Salt Lake before but there's also a reason he's not in Salt Lake anymore And I would assume the the animosity from that whole experience probably gets in the way

I asked you right before we got on how much money would Logan Farrington cost form XC Dallas and you kind of gave me the answer I expected which is it would have to be basically an external million X dollars Transfer right. I think so because Dallas doesn't need the game Yeah, they like it would have to be a godfather offered. So we're talking for three million plus. Does that sound too low? If anything, three million sounds too low given he's on a team friendly contract

under player control for at least two more years, three more years I think. Yeah, three million's not too low to me because it's a fake number that you're probably never going to actually get outside of Major League Soccer. So it's like they need it for a specific reason being he's already in the league and other transfer windows are closed and all that type of stuff. And he's not necessarily a starter for this team.

That's where it comes up. He's probably, him and Duncan McGuire are probably the two best non-starting center forwards in the league right now. Unless you consider Jeremy Abobese to be one. Which is another one, but he probably is not going to get three in. How much would Olivier Giroud cost for RSL? You saw the, he really likes wearing that neck thing when it's freezing out, when he's in Colorado, so I think he's eager to live in Salt Lake City.

It's very stylish. SideQuest78 says Kai Kamara as a short-term fix for RSL. It is one of the when he's in Colorado so I think he's eager to live in Salt Lake City. It's very stylish. SideQuest78 says Kai Kamara as a short-term fix for RSL. It is one of the teams he's never played for. I do like that one. I do like that. We expect to find his way on a team. So RSL, a little bit of worries. They are kind of the one undecided on Wednesday night and then Vancouver play Saprissa on Thursday but we will be back on Thursday. Joe Larry will be with me. I don't know if Tom will be or not. I think it depends on the Belgian league schedule. So I'll check the Jupiler league. Jupiler? Ju-a-pler? Sure.

Yes. I knew Doyle was going to be all in for that one. I appreciate everyone in the chat throughout the show. We appreciate your contributions and support for our- Oh, there was one more team There was one more team that I wanted to cover for the worry meter. It's the New York Knicks just oh and seven against the Celtics Cavs and OKC. Just don't have it. Do not have it when push comes to shove against the best teams in the league. What's your worry meter on the Knicks David? So because honestly, cause they're soft.

So I got an email yesterday. I told my wife that I would run a half marathon in Sedona in February of 2026 if the Knicks and Mets both won the championship. So I feel pretty good right now. You're definitely not gonna be running a half marathon. So it's kind of all working out for me, which is the focus here.

And that's all I'm going to choose to think about. You've always been more of a sprinter than a distance runner. You know, short bursts. For sure. Short bursts, 50 meters at a time, and then a day or two break and then 50 meters again. But Juan Soto did hit a home run on his first spring training game. So we've got a lot to enjoy. We've got a lot to be excited about.

Thank you Doyle for closing on a high and closing on a positive. That's why I like to have you here. Thank you to all of you for listening. Thank you if it's via podcast or live and everyone in the chat. Thank you as well. We've enjoyed things so far this MLS season

for only one weekend. So a lot to cover, a lot to talk about coming up and we'll talk to you all again very, very soon.