SoccerWise - MLS Midweek & Salary Release

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Major League Soccer is rolling with a midweek sporting 58 goals across 11 games. Tom & Gass revel in the historic hat trick for Julian Hall, Cavan Sullivan's first MLS goal, Nashvilles dominant form, and the curveball at the bottom of the West. Then they put together the best XI contracts in MLS and talk about the spending divide.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Soccer Wise, David Goss and Tommy Scooped with you for a big episode coming off a massive midweek of Major League Soccer. Two guys in Nick shirts just hanging out, Tom, being normal. Bing Bong, baby. We got a long time until the next round starts because when you win in a sweep, you get time off. It's so hard, man. Rust is such a fear. It's such a fear for those of us at the top. You know, it's kind of like how you start figuring out how to like cut food. or pour water when you're of the elite and you have people in your life who do those things for you. Like, what is a driver's license? I don't even know anymore. That's how the Knicks feel living in the world they live in while John Parker cries in his little corner about being a sad fan. We are waiting for that, but we don't have to wait for MLS anymore. So we got a big show coming up

for you. We will take into everything we saw on Wednesday night. I forgot what the deluge felt like when every game's at the exact same time. I think there was 11 simultaneous games going on at one point, maybe it was nine. It was 11. It was 11. It was when the 830s kicked off. And John Mueller, our guy wrote a good tweet, he had MS 360 on. And while there was 11 games, by the way, shout out to blue sky.

Sorry. Skeet. There was 11 games on at the same time. And John tunes into MLS 360. And they were showing one of the teams warming up for the next round of games. Why? Action packed, baby. Action packed.

But I was there the whole time for the night because I had a game on my TV. and then I had, you know, 360 on my laptop. And I watched the games on the TV, but it was like, normally I have like three different screens on where I'm like, oh, I'll watch all these games. And it just felt useless. Did you rotate yourself? Is that why you just went two screens?

You were like, hey, you know how all these themes are changing their lineups because of load management and minutes keeping people fresh? You're like, tonight I'm going to go with two TVs, one of which is 360 because I'm load managing myself? Yeah, so my laptop's been in X-Pro for a while, put on some decent performances, it's been fairly scrappy. I just thought deserve the opportunity to get a first team shot. And obviously with the four-day loan-up, it's only the second time appearing, so it felt like a good one.

Yeah, I think I just, defeated's not the right word, but like I was like, oh, I'll put these three games on. And then things started happening as the Charlotte game wore on, which was the first kick. And I was like, you know what, it's a 360 night. I'm throwing it on. Kev can do this for me. I don't have to do it myself. Good point, man. And I'll just watch goals while I made a cassidias for my, me familia.

Well, you feel like there's just constant phomo when all the same, like, I don't want to put on the wrong game. And then like 15 minutes goes by and like my third screen, whatever game it is. And I'm like, if you came into my room right now and asked me, name one thing that happened in the last 10 minutes. Exactly. So you need to challenge yourself and remind yourself to really focus. But when everything's going on, you want to be watching everything all at once. and then sometimes you get nothing. And like last night was one of the times where like,

it just feels like my ears are ringing, just sensory overload, overstimulated. And like that was not a good way to spend the night and probably not a productive way. But man, it's MLS and I love it. It was definitely overwhelming.

And it's fun sometimes. It's not fun all the time. It's a great reminder of why it was terrible every week as the standard setup. But it's awesome when it happens. I think Sasha said at some point, why don't we always just play Wednesday games since there was 58 goals, which was the record for an MLS match night.

My favorite part of this, because you said that was, I went into the, I think the Reddit post about that. And I love reading comments down. And like one of the third comments was the last time this happened was on X date. And I watched the only zero zero game of that day. That was in 2022. That person is haunted by the reality that they watched the worst game of that night.

And I get it. I'm surprised. that it was so I feel like they set this every year because there's more games yeah more teams and then it happens to be like okay this is the one night that 15 games are played at the same time so you have a chance or one of the few nights because I like that's been that's been a recurring bit

for you over the last however many years as they keep that yeah like we've seen that tweet 17 times well it's the most MLS thing of all time of like historic and it's like well it's not historic because there's no it's not apples and it never is we're going to do that like five times with all the age stuff Gavin Sullivan historic done this. It's the biggest night in MLS Nextbrough history. It's the third night in MLS next pro history. Yeah, of course it is. We know of this. We're going to, you know, um,

the cabin Sullivan with Freddie adduce. It's going to be like all of the NBA stats where it's just like, yeah, the first person since Wilts Chamberlain. Everything cabin does from here on out is just going to be the first person since Freddie. Yeah, probably. Um, so we're going to talk about all of that. We've got a little bit of news and then we're, of course, got a weekend coming of action. And then we got the MLSP salary dump. So all of that's been up. in our depth charts go over there to check it out um shout out to john and hootsky for handling that for us um but you have a little bit of some insight on what what stood out to you and we'll chat about it a little bit as well as i'm just going to go full bill simmons create trade rumors

uh left and right for you but first before we start wanted to note uh that we have our first ever soccer dot com partnership uh episode that has come out today so it is our u.s soccer um coverage that we've been going through, myself and Doyle, as you heard last week, we did a segment as part of this show, which was our Paraguay preview. So for today, as our launch, we did a special full episode. So we have Jay DeMaridon, who is, I think, my favorite former U.S. national team player,

just to chat with great vibes, good energy. Also lives in Vancouver. So it was experiencing the World Cup hosting sort of from two sides of this. So we chatted with him. We chatted with him about the experience of where players sit right now, what they're going through, all of that. I think for all of us, we're hoping for some good vibes on this team and like a little bit of scrappiness. And Jay Demerite, I think is the model of what we're hoping a lot of these players follow of like,

just make your own reality. And then it can happen. So we chat with him. And then myself and Doyle talked about Johnny and how it affects the roster build. And we talked a little bit as you brought up on Monday with the extended World Cup. How does Mariso Pochitino go about putting together this roster in terms of guys that may not be available the whole time? or how much we think guys will actually play in the opening three to four games of this World Cup.

So that is all on its own episode this week. And going forward, we'll roll that segment back into this show. And then, of course, we will have your USM&T coverage when the World Cup kicks off. So we'll have a roster reveal reaction show. We will be covering the Senegal and Germany games. We will be in Chicago for that Germany game. We're going to put together an event for the day before the game.

We're going to be at the stadium as well so we can meet up with people if anyone's going to be in the area. And then we are going to be having a daily World Cup show that we're going to be doing live from New York City every single day. That's what daily means. So we'll have a ton of coverage for you. I'm super excited for all the like annoying parts about this World Cup. Annoying is a very nice word to use. There are still all these moments where I'm digging in and I'm like, it's a freaking World Cup.

And I'm learning about Curisow and I'm learning about Cape Verde and the potential. We did our deep dive for first touch that's going to come out about Columbia. and we talked with Andy Deosa, one of our friends who's a Colombian American. He's going to be down in Mexico for two of the games just to go watch this team. He followed them for the Copa America. And he just talked about like, he's like, I've been waiting for this for 10 years. Because as a Colombian American, I know how much this team means to the community here and how big a party it's going to be and how much they're going to rally.

And so, you know, I've been chatting with people in Miami as Scotland fans are getting ready to come. Brazil fans are getting ready to come. It's going to be cool. It's not going to be as cool as it could be. But it's going to be cool and I'm very excited. So I hope that everyone is excited as well and wants to join us for this journey. And it's going to be great. We're going to be digging in.

We're going to be doing the show that we always dreamed of of just talking freaking soccer all the time, but around the biggest stakes games ever. So roster is starting to come out. Congrats to Michael Boxall and Finn Sermon. MLS reps, maybe. Congrats to Samir Barak-Tarrovich as well. I consider him an MLS rep. But go over and check out that episode. So make sure to go to Sucker.com to get your jerseys.

We have our own code kickback that you can put in and get you a goal club membership automatically. And then you can start to build up some points. I got a lot of gear. So I'm going to be swagged out. I'm not going to look cool, but I will have cool stuff on, including I got a Senegal warm-up top. And I didn't really look at the schedule properly, but I am attending to Senegal games. I'm a Senegal fan now. There you go.

That sounds perfect. What other country could I possibly have chosen? besides that. So definitely excited about that. Okay, let's dig in Tamales. Tom, 58 goals. I don't know if you heard most goals in a match night. And four teams didn't play. So there was two less games than there could have been possibly. It was a lot of goals. It was all over the place. We have a lot to hit here, individual and team. I wanted us to start with Nashville because this was the one we built up, Nashville, New England, and man, Nashville put them in their place. Like, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard for Nashville.

Right. And a night where they're not at their peak. They're missing a lot of pieces. And it's like, oh, yeah, Brian O'Cost is going to score goals for us. This is crazy. This seems crazy. Goals, plural. Goals, plural.

That was not a miss speak. Yeah, listen, Nashville are one of the very best teams in the league. New England are punching above their weight right now. And you're not going to win 17 games at home. They had won their first six. So this loss is fine. This loss, I think, reframes where we should be viewing this team. And I know we said all of this on the last show,

but I don't want it to sound like a victory lap or anything like that. I'm not taking anything away because they lost to a really, really good Nashville team at home. As long as they say above the playoff line, that's an excellent year for New England. And this game kind of showed the gap between these two teams, obviously a bit unique with Brian. with the Costa scoring twice,

um, rather than a more defined natural win. Uh, I know Honey got on, on the score sheet, sorry, Magic Hall got on the score sheet. Christian Espinosa was really,

really good, really creative. But like, this was kind of a controlled game by both sides. There weren't like a ton, ton of chances. Like the numbers were pretty low. I know single game stuff.

That could, I could get a little bit wonky. But like New England, I don't know if they were three no worse than Nashville, but Nashville were very obviously control the game and deserved winners. Yeah, I think it showed to me, just Nashville has different ways to beat you, which is the story now.

That's a great point. In a game where they don't dominate possession, in a game that they don't have surge, I think the Acosta goal show you some of what they miss with Yazbek. So Acosta was able to do it this time, especially the opening goal he had, which was late runner of, like, Espinoza pushes to the end line. Hani is and Madrigal are both on that line with him. So now the whole defense has collapsed. And then when Espinosa cuts back, I think at times in the Tigris game,

there's no one there. In this one, Acosta is making that run, that Yazbek runs, that Yazbek mates and scores. So I think that was the big sign to me. Obviously, the huge mistake for Matt Turner is hard to get around. And I don't want to read too much into one issue, but I think he was kind of trying to shoot the moon to be the starter for game one of the World Cup. You can't make a mistake when you're doing that. And like, it feels ridiculous to talk about a four-year cycle boiled down into one club mistake. But that's how far I think Matt Turner was behind.

Although in saying that, Matt Freeze picked up an injury, but stayed in the game yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little knock. Yeah, just he's a jersey boy. He loves it. It's no big deal. A Harvard man. Yeah. Right.

I guess they're both jersey boys. But the other thing I will say, so one thing that stood out is I love Peyton Miller. I like him more than most people. I've been a fan for a while. But the limitations of playing left back are at sometimes you're going to be up against a great winger. And you saw the help he needed. Yes. And the revs are not good enough to flip the game and say, okay, fine.

Well, then you have to go defend Peyton Miller. And he's going to push. And the way we're going to keep you off the scoreboard is that you're going to have to defend him. The revs just don't control the game enough and they're not dangerous enough to make that game. And Pete Miller is still learning as a defender. So I think those things stood out. But as you said, it's been a good season so far for the revs. It is.

This is the gap. Now, in saying that, this might be the only gap in the Eastern Conference. Because that's the mess in the middle puts you two to nine is like all in the same world. Yes. But like I think Chicago are better. I think NYCFC are better. I think Sincere better. This just seems now it seems like I'm following on and taking a victory lap.

We refuse to prove it. We're going to game in and game out. And like that's what makes it really tough. I agree. And I think the most salient point on this to boil down the game is Nashville, as you said, of the different ways to beat you. New England's way to beat you is Matt Turner is awesome and Carlos Hill is awesome. And defensively, we're solid.

And that's it right now, right? Like, you're not getting anything special from the center forward. You're not, like, Langoni has been good this year. He's definitely been better than previous. But he's not like a match winner or at least a consistent match winner on that basis. The most regular and the most repeatable and perhaps the only repeatable pattern of victory for this team is Turner's really good, mistake-free, and maybe is match winning, which he has been often. The defense is solid, and then Carlos Hill is at the center of something special going forward.

And when one of those three things don't happen, it is very, very difficult for this New England team to win, whereas Nashville are a great example of they can do a lot of things differently. And one thing I wanted to add before we move on, Reid Baker Whiting, man, just what an excellent trade. It's such a fun player. You watch it, when you watch the games, like the way that he interprets space and he's just like him and Andy Naharra. It's an extremely fun fullback pairing in that they kind of go wherever, but it's not like reckless because they're intelligent about their movement. Reid Baker-Witing loves to dribble out from the back. If you look at the heat map of this game, it looks like Nashville played without a left-back.

Because Reed-Baker-Witing, his average space is like on top of Corcoran's average space. Like that's how much he's pinching into the midfield and moving forward. It's a nice, extremely fun wrinkle. And when it's done, like it could be reckless, but when it's done well, it's really fun to You just like the rolled shorts. You just like that thigh game. There's that too. And then like he insane.

The combo with the shorter socks too. Insane. A lot of white leg. It is a lot of white. It's a lot of real estate. Yeah. And the jersey colors help with the stark difference in skin. His skin tone and maybe it'll change in the summer with a little bit of sun, but I don't think

so. He strides inside on guys and you're like, hey, it's not playing soccer. That's not real. Yeah. That's not real at all. You know he's also in the locker room just leg up on the, like something out of a comedy TV show, like the league. Just like leg up, thighs out, like throwing a little tiger bomb on there. Just like, yeah, what are you guys thinking for the weekend?

He's like slapping like his calf muscle that it's like obviously ripped. It's just like, I love the roll shorts. But yeah, I said it. I said I didn't understand when the trade was made. And I haven't understood it since of just really well done by national man. Really well done. And reading the tea leaves of what's out there and what else they could add. I think most people would have been surprised if you brought pressure in on Daniel Lovitch

just because he's been such a consistent piece for them. But now you look at the season, it's like when they rotate, left back, they rotate from Reed Baker Whiting to Daniel Lovitz, which is why they're still in a shield race while also going to a Concorda Calf Semi-Final. Let's dig into that mess in the middle of the Eastern Conference. Let's start with the historic, historic night, of the hat trick for Julian Hall. You did that organically. You didn't even try to set yourself out.

You caught yourself in the middle of that. He is the youngest player in MLS history to score a hat trick at 18 years and 50 days in an MLS regular season, eclipsing Ricardo Pepe, who did in 18 years and 196 days. So it was two in the first half for Hall and then one right outside of halftime. So it was also very quick from him in this. 78th minute was the third goal. Was the third goal, yeah. So not quick.

Well, the first two were like right out the gates, though. Seventh and 40th. Yeah. So boom. my guy flying at a time for a team that needs some results and we've asked the questions

of the young guys and who's there and what not and listen there's a lot he does well but the biggest thing is just his ability inside the box to find openings

and then fashion shots he doesn't take a lot of touches to get to his spots he doesn't overwork when he gets possession around the box it is how can I get my body turned and how can I get shots on goal

and it has been effective Julian Hall's movement off the ball is freaking awesome. And I would say this if he was 26. It is insanely impressive for an 18-year-old center forward to move with the intelligence and the directness in which he does. He does not waste steps. He does not waste touches, which that is something that takes a young player a little bit to learn. Because sometimes you're trying to do too much.

You're used to the youth game where you're pretty much the best player on the field or close to it at all. times so you want to do more. He went from talented youngster to serious and consistent productive adult center forward. And this is a kid who turned 18 during the season. Even looking at

the first goal, the first pass, I forgot if it was Donkhor or Mametti. They tried to spring Julian Hall. Julian Hall made a fantastic run. It was a good block by the Columbus centerback. But the first thing that starts that play is he's trying to make a running behind. Okay, that ball got blocked. Let me recycle. Now the ball's wide. Let me find

right run. Okay, like Kate Cowell, really nice assist. Like, it was behind Hall. He didn't like, he kept his body shape and body control really, really well. He lunged at it, but it was completely controlled. Yes, it was a tap-in, but it wasn't like that in and of itself. He made it look super easy. Finding tap-ins is absolutely a skill for a center forward. And again, it is very difficult to find this movement and be so natural with it and intelligent with it at his age. He is phenomenal. And the third goal is the corner kick that gets knocked down to him. He scored a couple of goals like this.

Yes. Again, stays active, stays engaged. It's not easy. These are the highest pressure moments and he's able to stay composed in those. and he clearly has the understanding of like, it doesn't matter what it looks like, get it in the back of the net, which is a huge leap for players.

He's at nine goals on the season. He's in like an 18 person tie for fourth in the league. So Kipers and Messi are at 11, which is the top. That's already a great season for someone at his age. Dude, right? Like if we were talking about this in preseason, be like, wow. The over under for him would not.

Awesome. Yeah. The over under for him would have been six and a half, seven and a half. and I mean, depending on your confidence in him, it also would have come down to minutes. And I think that's the other thing is he leads the press. He works throughout the game. Maybe when he's out in transition, he could lay it off every once in a while. And that could be something that him and Kate Cowell could work on.

But besides that, like, he is doing everything else well where when he doesn't score goals, he deserves to be on the field. Michael Bradley would only play him if that was the case. And he plays in front of a designated player because of that. So it's a huge credit to him. And what's interesting is as you talk about him as a young player, I've said this. Like I watched his youth Red Bull teams. They were fantastic because they had a ton of talent.

He did not stand out as an individual like some of the other players that we talk about in the stratosphere of like between 17 and 19, they're world class. Like I would say like even a Kevin Paredes stood out. Now part of that is credit to the Red Bulls, which is Mehmeti was in his team and Tanner Rossboro, I think is going to be really good. And like all these other players were in their team that have national team futures and are really good, which is a credit to that. It's also a credit to him that he understood even at that age how to play inside of the system and to like be a part of it. And I think that's really, really cool and really special. And obviously him and Kaelin Kara are boys. So we know he's going to have a bright future.

And have good fashion sense. I'm just so eternally impressed by this kid, man. I can't say I can't say enough praise. and Audrey Mehdi as well I know we've talked about him a lot I think and Audrey is 17 now I believe How Okay because Doyle wants to do this for me all the time

But you know Doyle's a sucker so I don't get sucked in So for you as a real person Who operates not as a cartoon character How many injuries away are we from him being in a genuine 2026 world Mehmeti I'meti It's four

And like He does this all the time He like makes us be position to like, wow, you don't like Audrey Mamedi. It's like, no, dude, like, I just try to find the depth chart. And I agree with you. But so more to the point, Julian Hall is actually within that conversation. For sure.

I've maintained for a while that like the highest scoring American player or whatever the hottest strike, American striker is in MLS or Europe or wherever at this time, whether they are Baligan, who's very hot right now too, or somebody further down. I assume like Brian White, and I think Brian White's been very good this season. But Julian Hall is the one who is the hottest right now in the MLS, an American center forward. He's tied for the highest scoring American player in MLS this year with the nine goals. He's got another three in Open Cup with the injuries. He's at least within the conversation for the final center forward spot on this roster.

And that is a huge credit to Julian Hall because his big. biggest fan supporters, I don't think you would sound crazy if you said this in January, right? So for him to be in this conversation, it's real. We'll see what happens. He will be discussed. At the very least, he damn well better be in the first camp after the world. For sure. Both these guys should be. Yeah.

We're going to talk about Gozo later. I think Gozo should go to the World Cup. But obviously Gozo would be in the first camp after the World Cup. like the way that he's made the jump from again a few minutes in the first team really really good youth player to like oh no like this is a senior footballer now uh i noticed that you made sure to sneak your um to sneak your open cup comment in there otherwise you'd have to say his name and you like so many in the mainstream media refuse to discuss preston judd's world cup campaign which is off to a raring start this season another other big goal yesterday.

You also refuse to talk about Montclair, New Jersey's own Jamar Ricketts, who should be in that next camp after the little cup. I would just basically call up San Jose, R.S.L. and Red Bull. That would be my post-world cup US 17 cap. Bruce and Bradley and Schmetser and Mr. Rainey. Neutral option, BJ Callahan. He's from Southern Jersey. He's worked across all these players.

He's got no dog in the fight. I guess Matthew Corcoran should be in that group as well. And he should be, by the way. in the national team group when we get out of the World Cup. But a huge, a huge performance from Julian Hall. A big one for this Red Bull team. Like, they have struggled. And now they're up to six.

If they had one serious defender, this would be such a fun team to be talking about. One serious centerback. I would still say one serious. Yeah, that's fair. Like, I like Maddie. Like, Dos Santos is a starting level player. He's an attack-minded fullback.

Yeah. Justin Che is bad. They don't have anybody who's naturally, like a plus defender. Yeah, Justin Che is back, which I think will help them. And he, but he has to find his feet now again after being off from injury. Plus, he's also a guy who has to learn how to be in every week starter because that's not been in the case in his young career. So Red Bulls move back up the list.

Columbus, another loss for them, a tough season. Let's stick in the east. Let's talk FC Cincinnati and Miami. Anytime these two teams play, it's like a hairbrain game. It just makes no sense. and you wrote this in, which I think is so totally true, which is Miami scores five goals, and I think three of them are baseline direct results of massive mistakes for FC Cincinnati's backline.

That doesn't include a Miasga clearance off an attacking player. That should include it. That landed for Messi that went in, but he was offside because of the timing sequence around. I thought you were talking about the other one that he hit off. That's how bad this was. That's how bad this was. I thought that was going to be the biggest mistake of the game. Oh, my God.

The opening goal, Miasga literally just clears the ball off of Messi and into the goal. One of the goals is a set piece that's played on the top of the six where Celentano and Chirilla collide and it's knocked in. And then another one is an own goal on Celetano, which I think is a little bit harsh. If a goalie is on the ground and the ball comes off the post and hits them, I don't believe that should count as an own goal. I understand the momentum of the ball is not going in at the time. But like, blame someone else. Closest defenders should be blamed for that. Like, don't blame a goalkeeper.

And there was a couple of fires that the back line put out. But it was Miyazga and Miles Robinson next to each other, which is like a godsend for this team. And they conceded five goals at home. Yeah, it's, it's mind-moggling, really. Selentano, like, he collided with Stefan Shriela, who unfortunately had to go out with a head injury all that play. Like, that's a misunderstanding. say it's unfortunate but that's that's another mistake from roman selentano like a player who doesn't which i would argue as well the miasga mistake at the beginning is actually on selantano too because

the easiest solution to that was selantano comes out and takes it like there's enough of a gap there and selantano comes out and then stops as if he's getting in position to save a shot rather than just coming through it so you could argue two of them were on him um and but then so matt miazga has not played 90 minutes a single time this season in his seven MLS appearances. Miles Robinson hasn't played 90 minutes in any of his five appearances since March 8th.

It's just everything's weird with this team. For a team that spends so many resources and has so many good, really, really good defenders, like Miles Robinson is always going to be in the Defender the Year conversation. Matt Miyazka is a former MLS Defender the Year. It's not looking good from getting back

to that level since that injury, which is very unfortunate. And a team that was built off of boring and sometimes uninspiring 1-0-2-1 wins last year is incapable of that at the moment. And it's just, it's just odd to see. I will say the attack looks much, much better. Avander and Denke, their partnership looks much, much better, which is super encouraging.

But this comes at a time where they can't defend. And Miami, I will give them credit because they took advantage of the, of the mistakes. And they also force some of them. They press pretty well. as well, which is not something you'd expect in a team that's starting Messi and Suarez. And I so credit to them for that. But like, Sinci should be better than being able to handle it.

And maybe we shouldn't spend as much time at Sinci as Miami because it was strong performance by them. But it just feels like Sinci gave away a lot of those goals. Let me go full Bill Simmons for you on this because I know how much you love it. So in postgame comments yesterday, Rene Viler, head coach of D.C. United, who, who likes to tell the truth was, I think asked why Aaron Herrera hasn't been starting, or with René Weiler, you never know.

It might just think he decides he wants to say. And he was like, Aaron Herrera doesn't want to be here anymore, so he's not playing. He doesn't want to be a part of the club, which set off some alarm bell. So Aaron Herrera is on $950 something thousand dollars, because now we know, because MLSP salary dumb. Yeah. And has been good but not great over the last few years. it is the last year of his contract.

So my assumption is if he's going to move inside of major league soccer, you're not giving up much for him because you've got to go and resign him to a new contract and you have no guarantees that he's going to stay. If DC's head coach is talking about it, you've lost leverage. That's one. So shout out to René for being big on the negotiating tables. And I would assume if you're DC, you just want out of this and you just want to, like, move away. So I, in my head, the two teams that popped up that you could convince me should go make this move are Cincinnati and FC Dallas.

Sinci is interesting because Buka's been very good at right wingback, which is not his natural position. No. He had a goal and an assist in this one. He has been much more aggressive than I expected him to be. But he also pinches inside. So you can, you know, Evander can connect with him a little. even if that was the case I think starting Aaron Herrera

at right centerback might be better than all these other situations it would be since even have enough room to make it happen and then what do you have to give up for a guy that then you have to figure out the next deal which in MLS

you actually don't want the guy on your team is what I realize because you can offer them the most money in free agency and if you don't want to spend that amount you don't want to have to tell them no where if you're a different team you're like

hands are tied sorry you know just the heck situation but yeah so those are my two teams what are your thoughts uh for cincy i really love that shout and teenage hadabe made me on 1.3 million dollars yeah so the way you fit him in is yeah the way you fit him in is i know he's injured but like the way you fit him in an easy way if you don't want to get too too complicated is just a buy up and Debe again, he's been out since April 22nd was the last game he played. I do it's been a bit. I was just double-checking that info. I don't, I assume that they don't want to.

I don't know where the other obvious way is, but I'm assuming that they are right against the cap because they've got a lot of TAM players, and this has been the thing with CENC over the last few years, where, like, they are in win-now mode. They have a lot of really good players, and they've done really, really well to keep a lot of these players together on the roster. Kyle McCarthy is their cap-go. He's a genius with this stuff.

So I'm sure he has a solution that is much more complex and better than just buy out one of your other players. But that's the first thing that would come to mind for me. Because like if you do at Aaron Herrera, do you plan to play him at right centerback. Well, now you've got Miasga Robinson, Hagelin, Sherella, Herrera, Almas Powell. Kyle Smith has played there. Kyle Smith, Gibberto Flores. Like you don't need another defender. Yeah.

So, you know, or if. If there's another MLS team that is interested in teenage that, you trade and you buy out a million of the 1.2 or, you know, amortize over. But my point is you hold, you save 20%, 30%, whatever the number is. And maybe that's a solution. If there is another MLS team that's interested in teenagehood, I would like for you to reach out to me first because I have some really interesting product that I could sell you that could change your life.

A sea of Montreal jersey. There is a powder that will be able to make you fly. And everyone in your life will love you. So if you'd like to sign Teenager Debbie, please call me. The other one I put in, as I said, was Dallas. I think Dallas you could convince me in two ways, but I think he could play wingback and he could play centerback for this group. And they're a defender short of just being a good enough group.

So whether that's like Shaq Moore plays left centerback, whether that's one of these guys plays wingback. I mean, they've been playing bin Yamin at wingback. They have played Camungo at wingback. they have had to play Sebastian to be I think more menacing you'd like to so that was the other one for me where all the other teams he's either already played for or they've got the spot they've got the spot filled in a way in which you're not going to go out and get someone else I mean the galaxy could always use a defender I'd be shocked if the galaxy was trying to spend more right now on this group especially on a guy who's you'd have to resign after this season if he did well where who knows what the cap space is and what that team situation is do you have any other Aaron Herrera teams before I move us Um, I honestly didn't think deeply about it because like, I love the Sincy one so much. Okay. Um, what I will say is, yes, he's expensive, but guess what good players cost money.

Um, it's like when, when, uh, real salt like traded him to Montreal, that's part of the reason. And it was just like, well, yeah, good players cost money. I got, um, uh, what were you supposed to do? Pay him a contract to play? Yeah, you might be able to find somebody else who, you know, hey, he, this, this other player could be anything. Maybe he could be Aaron Herrera. Um, I text, I texted a source about like the, like, the, father. quotes about Aaron and I just got back quote well at least it's out in the open now

we we stand your N a we love to be able to talk about it so we stand you making a public on the outside okay anything specific on Miami you want to hit before we go to the next game no I mean like I'm still you want to play my voice memo from my Italian friends more room there's more room for growth and like I'd like to see more but it's difficult to like that after they just, you know, beat what I believe to be a good SINC team on the road, came back a few times, so showed resiliency. And again, they're pressing a little bit more, which is, which is good. Bertrami gets a goal, though it was a gift.

They just leave a little bit more to be desired at all times. And I don't think that's just because our expectations are unrealistic. I think it's just the performance are warranting criticism. Yeah. Even after they win and score five goals. Yep. Okay. Orlando.

Lock in. If Orlando is playing, there is a 70. 25% chance they're going to win 4 to 3. Of the three of their last four games have been four three victories. One of them being an Open Cup game against the revs in Providence. Then obviously the 3-0 trailing in Miami,

the comeback, and then this one against Philadelphia, which was reversed, where they went ahead big. Then Philly came back and then Martino Hayda finished it off for them. Sandwich to 2-0 lost to Montreal in the middle of all of that. But like, this Orlando team cannot defend. And I appreciate them understanding that now and saying, all right, screw it. We're going to try and score four every single time. Yeah.

What the, these last few games before the World Cup break and thus Antoine Griseman's debut for the club after the fair, after the break is to stay within striking distance, a touching distance of the final playoff spots. And this is a conversation we had, what, beginning of April? And you were like, yeah, but they can't defend. And I was like, who cares? Defending's for nerds. Like, they'll figure it out.

No, they haven't. They agreed with you. They were like nerds. Like at least their goal difference is negative 17. It's the worst in the East. But like, look, man, Philly have not been able to attack whatsoever this year. You play Orlando and you get a few goals. Like so I want to be positive and say like well done by them.

Yeah. To get the result, to get the three points. That's all that matters. But, you know, maybe I don't know if they'll stick with Perl them in. through the World Cup break, or if that'll be a time to go on a coaching search, or maybe not. I don't know.

I don't have any information. I'm just saying, whether it's Parliament or somebody else, probably defensive structure is the, is the complete focus throughout that time. And you hope that they can just be average, if they're slightly below average, defensively,

this will be a super fun, but not a serious, like, trophy contending playoff team, but it'll be a super fun team. But if not, I'm worried that the Greasman arrival will be like, messy in his first year, Insignia and Bernadeschi in their first year back when we were optimistic about the signings,

where it's just like, oh, here they come. There are a few points behind the playoff line. Now they got their guys. They're definitely going to get over. And then it falls off in class. Toronto didn't do it. Orlando City right now, they've conceded 37 goals so far this season.

The expected goals against is the worst in Major League Soccer. I think they're a little soft in goal, and they concede the most amount of chances. So all of that is on everyone's fault. and then I think for them, the best groups they can put together offensively have Eddie Atuesta and Brian O'Heda in them

and I think both of them struggle against the ball. So that is the like overcompensation with all of it. But big Griff Dorsey, baby. Get him around the box. He's got a nose for it. Really, really. And congratulations as a father.

He did his celebration where he put the ball like to pray. Carlos Cornell. They had a deal agreed, a medical done. He left them at the altar. He just ignored them. He didn't keep bringing this up, Tom.

Don't make them think about it. What I'm saying is, gosh, really good decision by Carlos Cornell, who has played exactly 180 minutes this year. So, awesome. Occam's raised on this one. Would you rather be in goal for this Orlando team? Or would you rather be on the bench for another team? I'd rather be in goal for this team. I wonder, I haven't actually looked, and we did a little bit about Paraguay.

I don't know that Carlos Cornell is still in the conversation there. I know he was the starter for a little while, but from what I looked at, is not the start of there anymore and I assume part of that has been weird at center forward and in goal yeah in terms of like the weird at center forward is bad is another word for that but yes uh but not playing he hasn't been he hasn't been in the team over the last three windows and he hasn't played for paraguys since 2024 yeah and i assume not playing for club team doesn't help you does not help you get there uh Philadelphia are on pace for the worst season in mLS history currently they are in 0.46 points per game 2013 D.C.

finished on 0.47 points per game. To be clear, I don't understand math. So I don't know if that's just the point of the season that they're in where the number is slightly less or if that does mean they finish on overall points different. I also don't remember my assumption is 2013. They played the same amount of games. You just played against.

I was looking at this when doing Kansas City research, but then when Kansas City plays a Galaxy, it's really good. So now, but now we can shift the research to Philly. Yes, in 2013 they played, the same amount of games. Okay. So Philly is on pace to be the worst team.

They won the Supported Shield last year. It's bad, Tom. It's bad. Yeah. Listen, McCona has not been good this season. It's been very confusing and disappointing. Cary Larson has not stepped into the conveyor.

Yeah, this conveyor belt of signings that Philly usually make when you go, oh my God, how are they going to replace this player? And then they just do, whether it was Jack Elliott, shoot, I'm now I'm forgetting.

but like Casper Shiboko up top, the midfield, everybody in the midfield, Jose Martinez, but they haven't replaced glasses. Yeah. But Glessness replaced somebody. I'm just forgetting what you're. My point is they've had succession plan up, succession plan after succession plan,

that I was at a point, particularly with a player of his age for Sir Rarson. I was like, oh, he has to be good. The union or siding him. And it hasn't been that way. So we talk a lot about the attacking frailties of which are very serious and detrimental to the team.

I've been more disappointed in defense because, you know, McCona, I viewed as I voted up defender of the year last year. And I think he still has a very, very bright future in Europe. But this isn't going to help Philly's negotiating position. That being said, we've had the Philly conversations. We've had all of the things that are wrong with them. I'm just going to point, just move up, move us along, Kevin Sullivan scoring, becoming his first ammo as goal at 16 years old. For me, he's earned, take away his name, take away the hype, take away his age. Just look at it as anonymous play.

players, he has earned that he's a first choice attacker for this team. He didn't, and I think he's being viewed that way because he started a few games before this. And they rotated. And it's fine. He's not going to start every single game. No players should, particularly the way that they play. But it was clear that he was going to come in off the bench anyway. He came in just before halftime because of an injury. This is what we were hoping for in Calvin Solvin's 816 season, that he was going to be, if not first choice, very, very close to first choice starter within his group. He has earned it.

He is the bright spot, a bright spot slash the bright spot of the union season. Him and Frankie Westfield. Honestly. Like, so goal and assist last night. The youngest since Freddie Adieu, he had the assist. What was it against Charlotte? Like, he's made differences when he's on the field. And he offers something different that the other attackers, like his, his creativity on

the ball and his kind of direct like one-on-one ability to dribble. he has to be a first choice started with this team. To me, there is one of the big stories, and I brought up in preseason and it still stands as, I think Quinn Sullivan may be the biggest loss to the attack. And that is because every other attacker on this team is shot out of a cannon in a straight line

at 110 miles per hour, and no one else moves left to right. Like there is no nuance or creativity to these players. And Quinn Sullivan, I think, was the big one who did that last year for this group. And I think Kavana is doing some of that for them now, to your point. Like you watch one of the, I think it was Oloskey's goal, where Kavana has the end line, but he comes inside.

He finds a ball to the far post that, like, isn't the expected ball. And now all of a sudden defense is in scramble. Alaski reacts well. He's coming across goal. So Kevin, I don't think got the assists on that one, but like he creates the moment. And this is stuff Kevin's always done. It was really interesting watching him as a young player because the hype,

he like, we'll play one touch if he can. Like he has not been a guy who puts his head down dribbles. And part of that with young players or talented players isn't always like selfishness. I think there's something I'm learning from watching basketball and stuff is like a player thinks it's their best way to help a team win is by doing a thing. And they have to be shown, oh, there's actually other ways to help teams win. And that's not always like this is a bad person.

it's just the understanding of the way it's always worked for them or the way. And sometimes it's true, right? For Messi, for Namar, like when they put their head down and dribble and create, it does create wins for their teams. Yes. Because they're the 0.000000%. Kavana is in that percent, but his understanding of how he can affect a game is really high. And as a kid, part of it was because he got so much attention, he kind of knew,

hey, if I pull wide and keep the game moving, they're going to bring defensive attention to me. and I know my teammates can go and cook otherwise and create chances. It's a little different here because he's 16 with pros, but you see the understanding, which is how I can keep the game moving. There is an understanding of tempo of a game, which is really hard to see in Philly system because they never really want to put their foot on the ball,

but Kvin does get it and can do it. And so I think you're seeing a lot of that play out. The dream scenario I still think would have been if Quinn was healthy of. Okay, you're coming in, you're starting midweeks, you're starting open cups, like you're a road. I mean, Champions League, all that stuff. As you grow into it, that didn't perfectly happen. Or maybe that is what happened, but because they didn't have Quinn, we were all yelling,

why isn't he playing more? And as you said, now he's starting to get there. And he has earned it and he deserves it. But for Philadelphia, it is the one bright spot in a dark season. So that part is really, really tough. I don't know what they can change. Like they flipped so much of the roster coming into this year, which is, this is just what Philly does that you'd have to assume they have to give the Sari Larson's of the world

another year to decide. But that means you're kind of in a spot where this is what you're getting for the rest of this season. And my guess with this is the performance will bump. I mean, if they win two games in a week, which is very likely just because there is talent there, they're going to be way off that mark of like worst theme of all time. But to be a playoff contender seems a little bit unlike. for this group.

Yeah, they could have used some more, I think, one experience attacking signing. Somebody who I respect, I was talking to yesterday, and they say, like, yeah, like young players will run and run and run, but then where you need them to be, they don't run there. Like, that's going back to the Julian Hall stuff. Like, it's so impressive what he's doing because that is not the norm. This team has too many young attackers. and when we talk about the salary dump that came out, Philadelphia Union are the lowest spending team in MLS on salary.

They either traded, transferred, or allowed a free agent to leave three of their four highest pay players from last year. They have one player making over a million this season. Andre Blake, he didn't play yesterday. Who is injured now? So it's a really, really, really difficult way to win. Even if, like, Ezeko Alto, like, that, that, was a multi-million dollar investment in terms of his transfer fee his salary is i think 500,000 something

in that range so this just the salary numbers in and of itself are not indicative of everything but usually you don't get to breaking seven figures until you're a veteran and those are the players that help you win now slash help those younger players find their feet and improve and i think that they got the balance a little bit skewed in that they don't have enough like you you could still bring through and develop young players you won't only you don't block them if you have three key constants. You're Andre Blake, Jacob Glesnes, and then, you know, Tyberro.

Tyberibo, right? Like, yeah. Okay. Well, we will see what happens for Philadelphia going forward. We do have some rivalry games coming up this weekend. Orlando has Atlanta. If you consider that a rivalry game, if they do, it is not exactly in its greatest form. If you're listening on Sirius Radio, we're going to go a little bit long here so you can

search soccer-wise on-demand anywhere. you get your podcast or in the serious on-demand player. Let's go to the Western Conference, some big games, as we noted, coming into the midweek on that side of things. We had another Xavier Gozo moment. First of all, I made like this wild DeAndre Yedlin will be defender of the year candidate because I thought the way this team set up and what he would be would be perfect. I was stoked to see an example of that in this game with his 65-yard driving run and then setting

up Gozo for the opening goal. Gozo's got five goals and four assists on the season. And Tom, you said it before when we brought up Mehmetian Hall. Should legitimately be in the convo for this U.S. team. So I would go a step further. I think he should be on the U.S. World Cup roster.

Paul Tenorio, to give him credit, has been banging his drunk for a few weeks. And he wrote a really good call. Go ahead on the athletic about Gozo should be on the World Cup roster. And Paul gave a lot of good context. So, yes, it's a risk when to, like, he hasn't been called up to a seat. He's a high-level regular U.S. youth national teamer.

He's not an unknown commodity, but he has not been in a senior camp. By the way, a quick tangent, of all years to not have a January camp. I said this. I thank you. I said this, come on. I said this 15 times when it happened, and it's like, oh, well, they're focusing on other things. If you need resources, just focus on all of the things. It would, um, listen, I didn't think it was going to be as, I thought it was silly, but I was

like, all right, this probably won't be a big deal. would be really nice right now when you're making these roster decisions. Yeah. Knowing what it's like to have these guys in training, even if it's without the Kiki play. Well, so that's the thing is you could convince me, hey, we don't want to burn our guys out. So we don't even want the contributors. And the January camp could have been a U-23 camp. And you could have just had Potch there, not even running it, and just been a part of it,

meeting the guys being around it while he sits and watches tape of guys in Europe and he goes and meets with MLS players, whatever it is. You could have had a Zeus-Berez there, right? But this staff that cares so much about their experience around guys and blah, blah, why would you not put guys together? Like, come on, what are we doing? And so, like, that's the risk. And listen, I would put, like, throw my name behind, like, from what I've heard and what I know of Julian Hall. Don't have to worry about it.

What I've heard and what I know about Zavir Gozo. Don't have to worry about it. I agree with Mattie, who, like, a couple of these guys, right? Don't have to worry about them having a Giorana incident like at the last World Cup. right but you don't exactly know you don't exactly know how they're going to interact with other people you don't exactly know what they're what they're going to do in training again you could talk to people there's a base of knowledge again i get it but i think with these kids you have enough knowledge so for zabier gozo physically he's ready he can play a couple different positions he'd be third

choice at that right wing back where he fits the role perfectly right and and and with alks freeman excelling in the right center back right back role which again i would have had a mere mark for the wingback but because he can do both i think that there's really a real thing that there's room for Gozo and Gozo should be there. Some more context. He's no caps. He's 19 years old. No senior caps. At the 2022, this is from Paul's column. I'm just going to start reading because he did some really good research for this.

At the 2022 World Cup, 10 players made appearances age 20 or younger with two or fewer pre-World Cup caps. That includes Javi Siemens, Simon's, who made his debut at the knockout stage for the Netherlands against the U.S. when he was 19. Trent Alexander Arnold had one cap when he made his World Cup debut in 2018. Thomas Mueller had two caps when he made his World Cup. Cup debut in 2010 at age 20. He went on to win the Golden Boot at that tournament.

Christian Erickson had three caps when he made his World Cup debut in 2010 at 18. This is not uniquely American situation. It's not a unique Zabior Gozo situation. This happens in world soccer. And if you're playing well enough, and I do think that Marisha Pocito and his staff, if they deem that, that they will bring him up. And I think that they should deem that. I get all the arguments.

I find the numbers tough. in just you are then making Alex Freeman a go-to center-back option, even if he's not a starter, like he is the fourth or fifth in a three-man center-back pairing, which that's the question. And the issue with part of that is, well, who are the other people? Because if D. Dream is one of the guys who's coming, you're basically acknowledging Alex Freeman starting a World Cup game at centerback. You are- There's a week between games.

I get that, but like, they're also high-level games. It's not exactly a week. They're really high-level games. It's going to be a thousand degrees. So there will be some rotation and all this. Also, you're leaving the reality, which is guys will get hurt. So that's my only issue in all this. But one of the things I said, as me and Doyle talked a little bit about this on the show that came out, is Destin Way are both legitimate left-back options.

I think the battle there might be between Gozo and Arston. because I think it might be one of them is a wingback option and we don't really care about sides with most of these because almost all of them can play on both sides. I just say that in saying I just interesting I find it hard to believe you're going to bring four true centerbacks in a three centerback system to the World Cup and Freeman's your fifth. But I don't hate it because he's been good there and he's played there, but he doesn't play there with his club. He hasn't played there before. and it's like, are you going to take the three national team games you've seen him at and trust it? So I think that's the huge debate for him, unless an attacking piece gets hurt. And then you can convince me, him and Wea can be one of the backups to McKinney and Pulisic and all of that.

And then I would totally agree that I would push him in there as the next guy behind Zendejas. Who's my boy? And I'm like, fully Zendayaas high at this point. But a huge performance from him. Another big win for RSL. Let's talk Seattle and San Jose. This is one of the ones we had earmarked is one of the big games. San Jose has no one.

Let's talk the game first and then we'll talk about Nico Securus. A ton of injuries. San Jose comes out. They press Seattle into a mistake. They score the opening goal. They go down to one. They bring Preston Jud off the bench. He scores an equalizer.

It looked like San Jose was going to win it. Honestly. Harks had a chance. Preston Jud had a chance. And then Osase de Rosario shuts the door. but I think overall a good night for San Jose and like showing they can go toe to tell. This was a bit of a rotation from San Jose earthquakes. This was the attacking for.

Paul Marie Fernandez, Scan, Adam Mbua, who I should know how to pronounce his name by now. That's apologies on me, not on him. That is a team that was challenging and looks like they were going to get a result at Seattle, where Seattle had a mostly first choice lineup. Bruce Arena is a wizard bro Bruce Arena with the Band-Aid on the ear just screaming at fourth officials

Dude the camera being And they well like we make jokes about Production decisions Well done by the producers While Bruce Arena was screaming at the officials Just saying you're right there Yeah right four times a row And they didn't cut away from it

And the announcers didn't talk over it Because it was it was I think it was Max on that game Because they're pros That was I just want to highlight that. That was so well done by everybody involved in that situation. And then you see Serekin kind of go forward,

and then he's out of the picture because he's going closer to the fore of the show. And it's like, oh, somebody got a red card. I think that was Serekin. Yeah. Also, the best part then was when they showed the replay. From replay, it's not clear. I couldn't tell. Listen, but the way everybody reacted.

Was that it hard to believe. Yeah. You're right there. You're right there. All right, gosh. I gotz, before we get into serious analysis, of this game. I have a quiz of you.

It's called two truths and a lie. Players on the San Jose Earthquakes match state roster. Okay. Chris Mannhirts, Nate Crockford, Jack Jizinski. Holy crap. Well, I know Jusinski's a real guy. The other two, I honestly do not know. So I'm going to say Nate Crockford is the real player.

Ah, you're right. That was the goalkeeper on the bench. Chris Mannertz is the New York Football Giants third string tight end. Nice. He's actually on LeBron James's list. He's actually a big fan. of him. He's one of his favorite tight ends in the league. That's a that's a great bit. And it is it does show where where this San Jose group lies right now. Like they are already what we thought was

the thin roster of guys we didn't know. And then they are dealing with injuries and trying to overcome all that. And they lost this game three too. Like they lost that for a team with the success they've had so far this season. I think they would tell you it was unacceptable. I will tell you from the outside of a neutral. They played Seattle toe to toe to toe. throughout this game without all the players they were missing coming off a weekend against Vancouver so like a high level game there as well um but they're going to have to neco securis we're hearing now is three to four months with the knee surgery that he got we still don't know timo verner i'd be shocked if he played before the world cup at this point yeah and the hope is

he's able to get there they've got this open cup quarter final coming up as well it just show you though i think what's going on inside this team which is more cultural than just a a few specific players that this is built around. Yeah, and I talked to Bruce in preseason about this, and he, he was kind of like, yeah, listen, I knew that there was going to need to be a cultural shift around here. He goes, I didn't think I realized, you know, just how big of a change that needed to be made just in terms of mentality and, like, winning habits. And he was really confident.

This was, I think it was as preseason was starting. So he didn't have a lot of data for the new season. He was pretty confident. He's like, talking about like the face. He's like, first, we will be better defensively. And this was, again, before preseason. And then he was talking about the mentality, and he seemed confident in the group. Obviously, I don't even think he'd say, actually, no, I know because I said, you know, in your second season, you've won the Sporter Shield three in three.

All three of your club jobs that you've gotten a second season, you've won the Shield. And he's like, I don't think we're going to be in the Shield race, okay? So even he'd tell you that this is a head of- Jacob Italiano over here. But it was right there. that but so he was confident but it's not as if anybody saw this coming it's just one of the most fun stories in the league this season and just feel a little silly that we're continuing to heat praise on the team that lost last night but just again san jose for how bad they've been over the last

since what 2012 2014 kind of era paypal parked open in 2015 has not hosted a single playoff game in a league where everybody makes a playoffs and now everybody hosts a playoff game um like it's truly an undertaking that he has done. And outside of the Timo Verner edition, not a lot of investment from ownership, but an ownership group that I believe the team's up for sale or at least open to sell, whatever it is. He's not doing it with a ton of money.

On the Seattle side, these are big wins for them. I think disappointed with the drag in San Diego on the weekend in that because of the World Cup stuff, they went away for a really long time. Now they come back with this stretch before the World Cup. They want to stack points because they are a legitimate shield contenders. I know they say they don't care and I know they don't ever win it and all that type of

stuff unless Siggy Schmidt's there. But they're legitimately in this conversation. And so to get the three points late and I think one of the things this team leans on is, I mean, look at the five guys they brought off the bench. Like you look at the gap between what they can start and then bring a Jordan Morris, bring a Paul Ariel off the bench, Hassani Dodson, Peter Kingston's been good. And then of course, Osage de Rosario, who comes in and his movement's good, his size is a factor at the center forward position. And then you've got other games where Musovsky comes off the bench and you go two forwards and latent games you can sort of whip crosses in.

You can be more dangerous on set pieces. I was floating around Seattle with the Aaron Herrera convo because they like an MLS veteran and Alex Roldon starting at centerback. They are slightly thin. The only issue is, well, the only issue is I don't know that you go out to spend $900,000 on Aaron Herrera for the rest of the year to play him at centerback. And I don't think Seattle feels like the issue is right back. Like, no.

I think they're fine with Ranzi there. And if, if Yimar is healthy, they're happy with Alex there. So they don't make sense to me as a team to come in here unless it's just a pure depth play. Because if I'm them, I'm targeting a centerback to come in and be a part of this pool. That's my issue. I would agree. Not just another defender to figure it out. No, I agree.

And I think that there's a long-term idea that Paul Ariola could be an option at right-back. So. Yeah. Which none of that. is the issue. The issue for them is centerback and being able to fill in there. But a big win for Seattle. So for Seattle, by the way, the close to this portion of the season, they host the Galaxy this weekend. Then they go to L-AFC. So this is big for them to establish themselves in that shield race. They have been sitting right there in third place. They're going to

have games in hand when the World Cup hits because they missed a game that one week for Champions League or because they didn't have their stadium, whatever it is. So for Seattle, if they can be within six points of the shield, I think going into the break, that will be enough for them. And to go up against LAAFC in your last game is a big one to sort of establish yourself above them. So a huge victory for them. But as we said, I think a bit of a moral victory for this San Jose team sucks for it, Securus, like playing incredible. Again, would have been in that first camp for us for sure, if not in the conversation to get on that team. And also just has waited a while for this, like has waited to be the centerpiece and shown that he was capable of it.

I thought Rodriguez was okay. I thought Jonathan Gonzalez looked pretty good in this game. No buck. Yeah. And Jamar Ricketts is awesome. He's really good, man. Like from a standing position, he beats the guy to wherever he wants and has really good ideas of what he wants to do with the ball after.

But this group's going to need more reinforcements. And hopefully Bruce now has the ammo to go into ownership and say, come on, look how close we are. Like, let's use this summer to get better. and to get a little bit deeper. Let's go to the bottom of the state. Speaking of the Galaxy. Sporting Kansas City and St. Louis,

both get victories midweek against L.A. teams. So SK.C. beat the L.A. Galaxy. Sporting Kansas City has two wins this season. Both of them against the L.A. Galaxy. The sporting Kansas City this year versus the L.A. Galaxy, two games played six points plus three goal difference. Sporting Kansas City versus literally everybody else. 10 games played, zero wins, two draws, eight,

eight losses, negative 25 goal difference. And this doesn't include the zero to three open cup loss to the switchbacks. Who do you want to talk about more on this one? I'll let you go. I mean, for the galaxy, it's bad. And it's the things they were built on with Ricky, the high possession, the dominating the games will be exposed, but our identity will sort of, our DNA will outlast you in the end.

None of that is there anymore. And Zhao Klaus was just put on injury reserve list. So he'll be. So he'll be unavailable. So is pain still going to continue to play at that center forward position? They're not getting production from any position now with all of these guys set up where they are. And it feels like there is a lack of, like, effort in this group.

It feels like when they lose the ball, it's not just that they're easy to play against it's that guys turn off uh Greg Fannie was asked about Edwin's Surreal post game and he was like he's been bad he's been bad for games now which is a tough one to throw out there and say out loud hack hasn't worked out um i would say Emilio garcess has looked lost since emil has got pretty much and i think the hope was glesnes would be the partner that would help him find his feet similar to what he did from macaa and that hasn't been the case uh there is very little guarantees with this group.

And it's a pretty expensive group to not be competitive. And it's pretty worrying that now it's going to be two years in a row. Yeah, I mean, I honestly don't have a ton of analysis beyond that. I will say, like, the worries about Justin Hack was that he's fine as a centerback and back four. He's fine as a defensive midfielder in a four three. He's elite as a third centerback in a back three. And they just don't play that.

Greg Vanny has played that with those Toronto teams in the past. That was a club that he would take out of his bag semi-often in the Giovinko Bradley-Jose era. And I thought we might see a little bit more of that. And I don't know if that's another disconnect between the front office and the coaching staff, which there has been a few of in the past, looking at just some of the signings that maybe don't play. And look, man, a very, very small one, but I think it highlights this. This player called Aaron Bebo, who was in the second team,

scored for Ventura County in Open Cup looked really good didn't was not brought to preseason he's just like we're not going to put him on the we're not going to play him I'm not going to bring him to preseason the front office from what I understand at least was hey let's give this kid a chance

he's talented yes we know he would cost international slot if he's good enough if he can play we can figure it out well wouldn't even get brought to preseason he goes to I think the Swedish second tier in after eight games there was a bidding war from multiple Belgians before I forget I forget which Belgian team he signed for me, whether it was Ghent or Gank.

And this is a player that last year, they're playing with false nines. They're struggling mightily at the position. Oh, you know it would have been nice? The kid who just got sold for $4 million to gank from eight games in the Swedish second tier. I love that Aaron Bebar conversation. I feel like we don't have that enough. So I appreciate you bringing that into the show. I mean, I so like a weird way to take it admittedly fair.

But like, I think you, I think that highlights, I highlights the disconnect in the club. It's a disconnect on the field. It feels like a disconnect between talent, skill set, and philosophy. It feels like a disconnect in conversation across the entire club. And as I said, it feels like a second loss season. For Dejan Yovalich, he likes him some LA Galaxy. I used to get personally happy. Three goals and four games against them for what has been the worst team in the league for the last two years that he's been.

on. If you're the, if you're SKC's coaching staff, like, you got to find a way to sneak the Galaxy's logo into pre-match preparation for other teams and be like, yeah, Dayon, we're playing, especially L.A. F.C. You got to be like, yeah, we're playing L.A. this weekend. Like, only

say that until he's on the field and see if you could trick him for long enough that he'll score a goal. Oh, he's the man. The goal in this one, though, for him, incredible finish. But shocking defending and shocking defending, like, I mean, I guess Garza slips, whatever it is, but like the turnovers, the reaction to it, all of this stuff.

But shout out to SKT. They got two victories now. So congratulations. They are not on the points per game pace to be the worst team in the league. Shift it to Philly. And then St. Louis. They won back-to-back games for the first time in 231 days in beating LAAFC after beating the Rapids. It is the third time in over 900 days.

I got this from someone on Blue Sky, so thank you to them. I didn't write their name down, so I apologize. And I stole it from Hootsky in the Discord. So a lot of theft from me on this one, not a strong performance to close out on. St. Louis gets the win, though, and their back-to-back victory, they are still rooted towards the bottom of the Western Conference and second-the-last place. But good on them to take advantage of an LASC team that's been stretched a little thin over the last week, and you knew they'd be susceptible. Yeah, but that doesn't always equal points. and well done for St. Louis starting to get it.

We're starting to get a little bit more of the vision and everything that is coming from Yon DeMay. I don't have a ton new to add other than the same variation of the conversations we've had all season about this team. The basics are we like this coach, we like the way they play, we don't love maybe the players in the fits

and maybe question the decisions that Yon DeMay has made. But this feels a lot better when you're getting points and particularly after just talking about Kansas City, you need to not be embarrassingly bad, then people won't pay attention. you as you're going through your your difficult growing pains and building something as long as we can see something that's being built and i think we can in st louis the points the points are nice this is this is a team that i don't expect to make the playoffs um even before the season but particularly

now and that's fine as long as you're showing progress and this team is showing progress we'll do this before the world cup starts we're going to talk about we'll do a segment about summer transfer window and i think we'll talk about what we think could happen but like who we're most watching, St. Louis is high on that list of, okay, they've got six months under a new group trying to figure out who they are. I'm not saying they're going to go spend $35 million. What I'm saying is like, this is the team, though, where I think every move will be very clear to us of like, where do they see deficiencies, where can they improve? I mean, in the bringing Aaron Herrera back up of like, if you fit into the team, you know exactly what you're going to get

because they've created a defined style. They have defined deficiencies. The gap in their performances with lovin on the field and not just shows like it's all going in the right direction the talent is not there and so for them there is very simple high level step-ups that can get them into a top eight in the western conference conversation that to me is more interesting than a team's gonna another team's going to throw 15 million dollars at the board and hope that whatever trickles off that ends up being tasting good that's not what this is going to be and I think St. Louis has an opportunity to be one of the better teams coming out of it. On the weekend, I mentioned a couple of these, but there's a little bit of rivalry action.

We've got Hudson River Derby coming up. So that will be the second one this year because we had the Open Cup one already. But that's a nice game, 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday night, we've got Rocky Mountain Cup, R.S.L. against Colorado as well. So those are two of the big ones to look out for. The Thomas Chonkollai Revenge game in Revs, Minnesota, or the John. Jordan Ida Bios Smith Revenge game, whichever one. Good shout.

You know, that's like a huge debate and rivalry point I know amongst the fan bases. So whichever way, whichever way you fall on that side. And then Quakes FC Dallas, the close out the night, I think is going to be a really fun one. Dallas, Vancouver was worth the watch on Wednesday night. I was told it was. The cameras will shift now from Dallas post World Cup because the construction will be done there. But I'm told they will shift now back into construction on the other side. unclear to me fully was happening.

And then Sunday, we've got Miami, Portland, and we close out with Nashville against LAAFC. So the two Concaf semi-finals facing off against each other, Nashville will host that game. No midweek next week, but there is Open Cup. So we will have all of your coverage here. Very, very excited about that. And then we go into the final weekend of the MLS pre-World Cup season. That's how close we are. We're a week and a half away from the break starting.

We'll have some MLS coverage for you coming out of that, but then, you know, we are shifting into World Cup territory. Speaking of that, congrats, as I said to Michael Boxall and Finn Sermon for getting called up to the New Zealand team. A lot of preliminary groups have come out. Those are like 45 to 55 players, so we're not going to shout out everyone who made one. But one of the ones that's wild is Herman Johansson started the World Cup playoff for Sweden, 90 minutes against Ukraine in one of the two must-win games, 27th player on the 26th. man roster. So my guess is he's coming. Part of that is because he like lives here already and it's kind of a new. Oh yeah. So because he is literally the 27th player named and he is going to come to pre-worlds cup camp, train with the team. He would probably be the first one in if someone got hurt or

something like that happened. And I don't know if he literally is the 27th guy or if it made the most, but I'm saying, or if it made the most sense for him to be that player, they want another guy in the camp. And then it works out. Either way, tough for him, brutal news. One other piece of news before we go into the MLS player

salary dump is it sounds like McDonald's is going to be the sponsor of the new stadium at the Chicago Fire building. The other piece of news is I think official that it will open in 2028. Yeah.

It's pretty exciting. McDonald's Park, the home of the Chicago Fire. I don't ironically love this. I love, I ironically love this. Yeah. You would though, like you.

It's a man of the people? Where does McDonald's, what do you want to know? You live in Miami now, so do you want a crypto sponsor? You doork? Yeah, I'd love, I'd actually, so one of the keys for me in naming stadiums is to make it unclear if it's a name or not. So things like new stadium or building stadium.

I like things like that. Or dot coms, like preferably if it's Scotsgrowfield.com stadium, that would be ideal for me so that I know the website that I can get to. Where does McDonald's rank for you? That's pretty high in terms of names and just like the mean potential. sides like when Chicago wins for and when Chicago loses like there's going to be a lot of good TIFOs I think here um and again like it is a you got to have the rana macdonald from the Reds game sing the uh national anthem for the opening game it's a giant it's a gigantic brand too

like it's again uh there's like football heritage was like Liverpool at carlsberg as a sponsor now it's a bank it's like all the things that were like McDonald's like that's fun like these things oh two for arsenal like some of these things now it's all just banking institutions and crypto place and gambling in England. Or travel options for random countries that are really funneling money behind the scenes like Rwanda and Dubai. No, I meant food because I'm not a fast food person.

I'll be the first one to say it. You look like you're not, yeah. My wife is passionate about fast food power rankings. She talks about them all the time. So where does McDonald's rank for you? Oh, man, well, it depends. So, like, people are now called, would you call Jopold life fast food?

or no? No, not really, but yeah. Yeah, but that's it. So, McDon't, then taking away Chabotelah, I think McDonald's is the top of my list. Again, I've tried, I don't get it a ton. But like the Big Mac is the best. Big Mac is elite. That is the number one draft pick on that board.

Including fries, the number one on your fries list. Yeah, they're number one on fries as well. Does Nathan's count? Is it up there on the power rank? What's up? Does Nathan's count or is there not enough of them to be in this conversation? Because I love a crinkle cut fried. Do you think that they would be in this conversation?

I love a crinkle cut fry. I love a little bit of a burn in my fries. Yeah. I'm more of a fry person. That's where I go number one. Taco Bell's pretty high, but I don't eat it very often. If Subway counts, Subway's my number one. I love a Subway sandwich.

And when they're like, oh, by the way, the bread's not even really bread or the tuna's not even really fish, I'm like, give me more. I don't even care. Pour the sugar in, baby. And hand it over to you. I know what I'm going for when I do this. I'm not going here to eat it. Exactly. I was not looking for something that would be good for my body in this scenario. But throw a little sweet terriaki on top and I'm good.

Let's suck MLSP salary dump here. So we get these three times a year, twice a year. And this was the first one coming out of the most recent window being closed where we get somewhat clear indication of what players are making, especially the DP threshold stuff where it's not really part of their salary. but there's a lot of big news across a lot of it, Tom, and I know you dug in. Yeah, so let me just my biannual PSA. This is a valuable slice of information, and I incredibly appreciate the transparent, financial transparency from LSP. The only danger is taking this as a be-all end-all.

This does not include transfer fees. This does not include staff salaries, infrastructure, training ground, academy. You're saying for team investment. And so like you calling Philly the cheapest team already isn't totally true because doesn't include the $25 million they spend on their academy, which is more than the $1 million that Nashville spends. Or the transfer fees. Like Orlando City, they are third or fourth bottom, which they will not be. But after the summer release and agreements here. But like a couple years ago, they signed when they signed Foucundo Torres and a couple other like decent decently sized fees like Cesar Arojo, I believe was the same at time.

They were like the second lowest spending team, allegedly, right? Like, because that was what it was on salary. Yeah. But they had spent like $18 million in transfer fees. And like, so it didn't feel right to call them that. So anyway, I'm just saying this is very valuable, but it is not a B. all end all. And in a salary cap league, the way you spend more than your, than your competition is D.P. salary.

So a lot of this comes down to who spends the most on D.P. salary. So Miami are first. Like, little messy. Last year's guaranteed compensation was listed at. 20 million. This year it's 28.3 million. This does not include his ownership stake, the value of that. This does not include whatever percentages he's getting from

Apple TV subscriptions and jersey sales. 28.3 million is more than literally every other team in the league, but LAFC on his own. So to think about that, Rodriguez, I'm not a designated player, DePaul. 9.7 million. Probably a tough negotiation going from 1 million to 9.7.

Same thing with Thomas Mueller going from 1 million to 5 and change. But that's all bending the rules. I wouldn't call it not necessarily illegal, but you see why some fans weren't thrilled last year. The top 10 players in Guarantine Compensation, I'm not going to read them all off

like I'm freaking rain man, but I will say two of the top 10 are not playing for this year, one of which Ricky Pooch, one of which Chuky Lozano. The top five has Chukesano and Miguel Al-Maron in it. Not ideal.

And then you look at the teams and the bottom 20 are separated by $10 million the middle 26. So fifth to like 25th is within a $10 million frame. So it's all close. It's all parity in this league. A couple of the interesting new contracts or new signings, Josh Sargent just outside the top 10, 5.2 million. Deni Bwanga got a big raise from, he went from 3.7 million to just under 5 million after Interpammy made a bid. Fluminense tried pretty hard to sign him. Timo Verner, 4.3 million. That's a serious signing for

the San Josei earthquakes. If you're the New York Red Bulls, do you wish that you did that? Yes. Yes, you do. I should have checked what Ruval Cabo was on. So, DP now, but he won't be the future. Miles Robinson, highest paid centerback. He went from $1.5 million to $4 million on a new contract. We talk about the free agent stuff. He signed a very short-term deal. And now he's getting a really big race. I'm going to assume that you're going to see some of that with Dane St. Clair. You're going to see some of that with with Justin Hack, some of the premier free agents who signed like one plus ones.

Yeah. This is how it goes with the restraints. Goss, I'm going to read off my all budget, Aleph. I just, real quick. So Buong is on $5 million, and we know that Inter Miami came in. I would love to know what the offer was. Like, I would love to know. Yeah.

Yeah. Like what the salary jump could be that they would be, that they would have been willing to give him. that has nothing to do with reality. I'm just fascinated. No, it is very interesting. And even I think about that, I wonder what Flumenense was offering them,

a club that I don't know if they're going to pay the money that they put on paper. So I think all as well that ends well there. For my all budget team, listen, I could do 11 players that are just homegrowns. And I don't think that's super fun. So I limited myself to two homegrowns and two super draft picks on their first contracts.

Because when you hit one of those, that's the gold mine. So we'll start in goal, Brian Schwachie, 167,000. Excellent signing. A really good goal. He's getting a race. A centerback trio, Reed Roberts,

Super draft selection, 88,000. Lucas Harrington, 235,000, Colorado Rapids, Morrisonajumang, Charlotte FC, 262,000. I like those. And Harrington's U-22 initiative, so there's the cap on what he can make for salary. But the cap is like 800,000.

Is the cap that high now? Yeah. I thought the cap on salary was like 250. It hits your budget at. It hits the salary cap. Okay. Wow. Lucas Harrison, by the way, we did our Australia conversation in the USM&T show.

Go listen to that like we did with Paraguay, and I dug into it. I mean, he's going to be on the roster. I think there's a pretty good chance. I think he's going to start. I think he's a pretty good chance he starts. Which is awesome. And also, this is why Colorado rushed to get him in the building so that they could get him there. They could connect with him.

They could make sure he was on the salary or on the contract. and then they will be the ones to sell him when they choose to do so. I played this out as a 352 so the wingbacks and central midfielder's my first homegrown Zabirgozo I figured poster boy for this $126,000

he's going to be sold for eight figures probably this summer but if not not very long after that. Here's my pitch. Homegrown spending should be similar to U22 initiative covered like bird rights should exist. So I go-go-show should be eligible

to make between 100 and 700K in salary, that only hits the cap at 150. Well, that's U-22 initiative. That's what it should be, though, for any homegrown. There should be no limit for homegrown. If you want to build youth development, if you want to push teams to do it. I like that.

That's the way that you should do it. I like that. Central Midfield trio, Bolaroo, Sebastian Burralter, Annabal Godoy. Anabal Goddoy, 358,000. Yeah, just playing out the retirement stretch. Seb Burrhalter under 500,000. He's the most expensive player on this list.

He's best 11 and one of the best players in the league, honestly at this point, one of the best midfielders in this league. So getting that for less than 500,000 is awesome. His finish last night was so good, by the way, of like, sorry, his finish last night was so good. His finish against San Jose, the, like, instinct on the toe poke one, and then on pure ball striking form, I know what Doyle had a whole thing about,

I cannot remember now, best. Oh, Jack McGlynn, best left-footed ball striker in USM&T history or U.S. pool history, whatever. Seb Baraltar is going to be in that conversation. I need a little bit less of the Rinaldo standing over free kicks with the like two legs apart, breath lifting yourself. Yeah. Don't need that as much, but like, oh, man, can he rip one? Bo Leroux, $250,000? I don't know if his new contract kicked in.

If it is, then that's even better. But like, I know he signed a new deal after being a draft pick or maybe two, wherever. it is, that's this deal. At left wing back, I just did Maddie Dos Santos for the Red Bulls because we talk a ton about Audrey Mehdi and Julian Hall, as we did in the opening segment of this show. So it'd be nice to highlight him there. Obviously, Audrey Mametti or Julian Hall would be on this list. But I think it'd just be boring to just do homegrowns or just do draft picks.

So Maddie Dos Santos is there for himself, but also a representative of all three of those Red Bulls. Center forwards. Sergei Solanz, the second draft pick that I used, 88,000. Incredible. Prest and Judd. just under 300,000. Okay.

I could have filled this whole team with San Jose earthquakes, Real Salt Lake and Vancouver White Cups. I didn't look up my guy, I'm just checking out. Logan Farrington, he's on 350 base,

417. Not a bad deal as well. It's a good deal, but it's not the all bunch of 11th. Yeah, for sure. It's not Preston Judd who is going to the World Cup. So, yeah, totally. Okay, so all of that stuff's in our depth charts now.

You can go grab that. You can subscribe to our Patreon. I get you access to it. if you do not already. It gets you access to our Discord as well, where we are all sitting around cooking on match nights as well as getting a bunch of feedback on all the things we say incorrectly on this show

throughout the week and being reminded for our takes from the past, including me challenging Doyle for Collodi when Collodi makes a huge mistake on Wednesday night in MLS in the middle of it. So thank you to all of you for listening. Always thank you to you, Tom, for being here. We'll talk to you all again very soon.