SoccerWise - MLS Playoffs Get Loony In Minnesota, NYCFC Road Warriors + Chalk

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

Did we just witness the greatest playoff game in MLS history? With David off celebrating love Tom is joined by the second best bald man in his orbit Matt Doyle. They break down everything they saw to finally close out this round of MLS playoffs. Then look ahead to the USMNT.

What's going on, everybody, welcome back to soccer wise. Yes, when you know, you hear my voice first and not the sultry velvet voice of David Goss. You know that David Goss is not here. He was busy having his sister's wedding this weekend, so congratulations to her. Congratulations to the newlyweds. Congratulations to whatever company Goss uses to try to make his voice come back. I don't know what he does to soothe his throat. I know it's gone.

I don't need to talk to him to know that his voice is gone. You know David Goss is a life of party at a wedding. So don't worry, I have the David Goss stand in in all of his glory. Matt Doyle, aka Pipe Aguayin. Doyle, thank you very much for joining us. How is your Monday morning? How is your playoff weekend around Major League Soccer? The playoff weekend was busy.

still reeling from that Seattle Charlotte game, which is like really, it's going to go down in the annals is like one of the all-time MLS games. Like our guy Jeremy and O'Shawn is on Blue Sky right now putting out, um, yeah, obviously

he's a sounder's guy, so he's putting out sad facts and like one of them is that Minnesota scored more goals down a man in this game than they had in their prior 10 years of existence. It's just like hashtag this league. I mean, football bloody hell. I don't know which

one. So I'm still reeling from that. But apparently not as bad as David's voice. David went so hard. He lost his voice at the wedding. And let me tell you, I've been to four or five weddings now with Goss. He is one of the all-time party starters. Oh my God. Like one of the best I've ever seen. The last one we were at a couple of couple of months ago um you know rebecca was there too and uh yeah rebecca my wife and david both part of the tribe and rebecca was like uh this is such bar mitzva party starter energy i've never seen anything like it so mazzletov to to sam david's sister and and her new husband and uh uh wow i i wish i had been there to see that one because you know if goss has

lost his voice that he was throwing down I would like to take at least a little bit of credit for that. So Goss and I, shout out to everybody in Charlotte who came out and hung out. We had a lot of fun at Sycamore. David Goss, early, early flight that day. We crushed content all day long. I was there a little late because my flight issues. Then we do a podcast.

Then we do a live show. And then it's, I don't know, 11 p.m. And we're looking at each other. Like, we're going to get dominoes, right? And we're like, yeah. So that was a ton of fun. Thank you again to everybody who came. Yeah.

Everything closes at 9 p.m. in Charlotte. And by the time the show ended and the first couple of people, people that we were talking to, like at Sycamore, the food all looked incredible, and I was like, oh, I can't wait to get that. Like, I pointed to like a couple times. And then I walk up to the bar and I was like, you know, when you say like, hey, is the kitchen closed? And they look down to check a clock. It's like, I'm cooked. Like, I'm not going to order at 8.58 if it closes at 9 because I'm not an asshole. So that's how that doesn't happen. And Doyle, I'm going to derail us even before we get into the playoff action. I promise we will very, very soon. Have I, I can't wait for your

reaction. Have I told you about my NCAA 26 Dynasty, at least in passing, because you're going to learn either way. Is this a Rutgers team that is coached by Soprano? No, no, no, no. So I do, but that's my solo one. I'm in an online NCAA dynasty. Oh, that's the other one. With some people whose names you might recognize, MLS and CBS, his own, Chris Whittingham is in it, Dan Levitart show producer, Mike Ryan, you go on down the list, Josh Apple, there's a lot of names that you guys might recognize. And it's, it's, I can't tell you. the disappointment and regret when I'm laughing at my phone and my wife

asked me why and I'm like I'm just going to try to explain this when I say oh we call each other coach in the group chat and say things like just can't wait to get out and compete with our young student athletes so I'm East Carolina University I got to talk to my athletic director I did not see any ECU apparel

out in Charlotte I'm disappointed about that and I need to make that change but I just wanted your reaction on all of that. That tracks I've known you a long time I would actually be more surprised if you weren't doing something like that. What itch does this scratch for you? Like to, obviously we know that like I'm a big believer in group chats, right?

But like something about having one in particular where you're calling each other coach. Like there's something deep and maybe broken in your psyche that you're doing this. And I'm just curious if you've tried to tease that out a lot. little bit. I don't know, but we love it. We love it very much. As always, good luck, Emily. Yep. When I tell her something, she's just like trying to hide her disappointment and discuss and questioning all of her decisions that landed her here. But she should be proud East Carolina University. Made it to the semifinals last season. And the boy, our young men are just ready to go again. Are we losing viewers and listeners and everything? I'm sure. Let's get into

the play. This is the part of the podcast where I just go, 30 seconds for 30 seconds or anything. David Gossom's time is when you leave me to my own devices. Anyway, into the playoffs, Matt Doyle. I'm just going to go chronologically, if that works with you. Let's start a Friday night, Charlotte, the game that I was at, unfortunately, Gops wasn't, but I was there.

Charlotte FC, NYCFC, NICFC, wind 3-1. They eliminate Charlotte FC. What were your thoughts from this game in terms of NYCFC's performance? And I guess, I would start with that before we look forward. I don't think NYCFCFCF. were good. I thought this was easily their worst performance of

the three. I think they deserve a lot of credit for sort of like buckling down and surviving the onslaught from the first 20 minutes from Charlotte but this was like they weren't quite ready

to play with the same intensity that Charlotte brought but what was really good from them is that they had um the defenders in particular the centerbacks throwing themselves at everything in the box and just i think they had like seven or eight blocked shots i think matt freeze only had to make one save on the night um because like once they got into the 18 charlotte did that's when nycfc hit desperation mode but it was charlotte played on the front foot it was charlotte being the protagonist um and it was charlotte like dean smith said afterwards we were the better team

He was right. But also, like, that's the only time he's been right when he said that after six playoff games now in his head coaching career. That's interesting. So I was going to come at this by saying my biggest takeaway was I think that NYCFC are a strong and good team. But in this game in particular, I was most impressed and excited for their future in Nico Fernandez as a guy. That's what happens when you spend $8 million and you get it, right? I thought he was awesome. It wasn't, so you spend the money for the two goals,

and both of those are moments of brilliance. Even on the first one, as he, maybe he should have played it through to Alonzo Martinez. He should have played it through to Olaz. He should have played it through to Olaz. It wasn't, it was honestly,

decently pretty well defended by Nathan Byrne, that, like, show him to his right foot, try to block the easy pass across, try to do whatever you can, one on two, and he did that, got him to his right foot, Fernandez puts it in the top corner. Then he scores the icing goal

in Stoppage, it was from a tight angle, a little chip over the keeper. It wasn't just the goals, though. It felt like whenever they needed to be bailed out or like he's got a guy in his back, fired into his shin, he's going to bring it down, he's going to get out of trouble. I had the pleasure of watching the game mostly from field level, and a lot of times he was drifting in front of me and just like, it didn't matter how many people around him.

I was always trusting him to get out of any danger, and I think that's super important. Obviously, Lanzo Martinez is a match winner as well. He scored the goal. that dichotomy with Charlotte was I was very impressed that they took it to NYCFC I was glad if they were brave they were doing a lot of really good possession sequences that ended in the final third

the issue was in the final third it always ended at defeat of Gibraljiani and Brent Bronico and that was some of the tradeoffs of the way they played or the way that they had to line up with no pet BL. This game was not Wilfred Zaha's fault. That would be I opened my window for

Five minutes. In case anybody who knows, Tom's in New Jersey. There you go. That was an I-Roc. That was the same car. That was 100% in I-Roc. That was the same car that drove up

and I don't understand. People are clowns. Anyway, this game was not Wilfred Zaha's fault. But he didn't do anything. They didn't lose because of him. But you look on the other side of the field. They didn't win because of him.

Nico Fernandez winning the game for NYCFC is my entire point. He's Nico Fernandez, dude. Yeah, exactly. So that was my initial big picture read being at the game. Yeah. It's cliche, but a lot of these games come down to intensity and special moments. And NYCFC's whole model is to not have it be that, is to actually play and have the soccer dictate who's the team that comes out on top. In this game, they weren't able to do that.

In this game, it was just like, oh, God, we have. to meet their intensity and we're not quite there but oh we're we're making these special plays defensively in the box and then you get a guy like nico fernandez to make a special play on the break and uh then alonzo and then uh fernandez again and it was like it was complete opposite of the script um baked into this uh charlotte has six guys in their start well five field players and the goalkeeper in their starting lineup who are just like 30 somethings from from europe and well tim ream played most of his career in europe and like a lot of these guys are still really good players um it's too many it's too many you wear down over the course of the

season and once you hit your 30s almost every player goes through it you lose speed and all three of these goals that n ycFC scored ream and burn left in the dust in the first one burn left in the dust on the second one zaha left on the in the dust on the third one and it's not it wasn't always a case of straight speed but it was like they were desperate and i think that desperation was at least partially born of like i'm running out of gas i don't think i could win this footwork race all three goals scored on charlotte set pieces like did you realize that yeah all three goals were attacking set pieces for charlotte that n y c fc just went the other way. It was all almost opposite of the script, if you had asked me how this was going to play

out. And again, I do think that Charlotte was the better team on the day. I thought NYCFC were the deserve winners of the series. They're just a better soccer team. They have a more resilient game model, and their special players made special plays. Exactly. And to your point about the ages, five of the six players who played the most minutes for Charlotte this season was 30 older. Granted, one of them is Brantico, and that doesn't fit that narrative because I think that that guy could run literally forever. But is he 30?

Yeah, yeah, he's 30. Oh, wow. I thought it was like 26 or 27. All right. I agree. But, yeah, so, and I thought this was a game where, again, Toklamati scored, which was good. But over this, over this series, Tiago Martins dominated Toklamati.

I thought Tiago Martins was very good. I thought the backline, every, particularly. in this game, at least. Maybe I shouldn't extrapolate it. Maybe it's recency bias, but Toklamati didn't have a chance any time that there was a duel. Like Martins was winning it every time. He would try to peel off to hack. Hack, I thought, did good defensively. I think NYCFC are just straight

up a good team. They're going to have issues in the next round that we can talk about later. Obviously, Andres Pereira, just a brutal gruesome injury. I saw him in the bowels of the stadium. Maxi Morales was wheeling him around on a wheelchair, which I thought was just a nice little touch. And now Aiden O'Neill is suspended. and suspended for a dumb yellow card, a yell card that you can't have one.

Yeah. I respect his commitment to shit housing, but like you can't, you can't put your team in that situation. And then it compounded just minutes later with the Perea injury. And now they're down to, really,

their fourth and fifth string central midfield. Like you said, we'll talk about that more in the, I'm surprised to hear that take on Toklamati versus Martins. I thought Toklamadi, did a good job of finding moments to be impactful. Like, he's the one who set up Bronico for that miss.

I agree, but watching that live, maybe I should go back and watch more replays, but my initial takeaway was he did really well to create space, and he was just like half second too slow to get his feet right to shoot, because when he took that touch, it opened up, and it's okay, Tokomani. Bronico, absolutely, but it was... No, no, I'm saying Toklamati. It's before he wrote... There was good scrambling defense by and,

my CFC. But when Toclamati, from the angle I was at, when Toclamani took the first touch, if he was able to be a little bit quicker, it's him shooting. And when it's, that's your nine, that's what you want. Granted, you know, maybe it's Pett B.L. on a different day that he's rolling the ball to, and this is all moot, and we're talking about what a great assist. But for me, and again, maybe that's just looking at the final result and looking at the people around, the context around you, it was a good pass. But I guess the next step for a nine like that is being able to sort your features, just a half step quicker and create that space to shoot yourself. I had no idea you were such a perfectionist. Okay. Wow. All right. Easy. CMO David Goss has really

elevated your game. Toclamati is an awesome player. He's going to be sold for $15 million at some point. I'm expecting him to be here next season. His run from the summer through the playoffs. I thought it was awesome. It was super hot during the winning streak. You and I think are both in agreement that that wasn't just a hot runner for him. Like that is underlying. It's a really good player. Yeah, I think any center forward who has reasonable athletic gifts and his are more than just reasonable and who understands space to the point that the vast majority of his goals are one touch finishes, that just translates, that scales up and up and up. And it's why he's been a consistent goal score at every single level. and it's why, you know, if and when he is sold, it'll probably work for whoever buys him. The thing, though, is goal scorer like that depend on context.

He isn't going to make his own goals out of nothing. He's not that level of talent. MLS teams rarely get that level of talent. And the context kind of disappeared over the past month or so for Charlotte. They weren't able to consistently create the types of chances. I don't really think that's Toclomani's fault.

It's something that like, okay, next year when it's Pep B.L. playing as number 10 and Zaha with another year under his belt and more comfortable and maybe a different game model. And I think part of this has to be Dean Smith examining the game model and saying like, am I, you know, artificially limiting the ceiling

because I'm so concerned about raising the floor? It's fair questions. I think we'll touch again on Charlotte and the other teams that got eliminated. At the end of this, so let's move on to the next game. Minnesota United 3-3 win after 10 rounds of a penalty shootout. It's Minnesota United going through. They did not win any of the three games in regulation. They won two penalty shootouts.

I don't even know where to start at this game. Seattle goes up early. Seattle are dominant. Minnesota did pull one back early. Then Joseph Rosales gets a red card, and it feels like it should be over. And then it wasn't. I have no words to describe the chaos that we saw in Minnesota this weekend. Yeah, and just an all-timer time capsule MLS, this league is unlike anything else type of game.

And also, like, just a really strong argument for there being playoffs. Like, I love the playoffs. And this game is going to be one of the first I will ever mention. It looked like, like Eric Ramsey made some choices, man. like benching nico romero for for morris dougan that looked real that looked really bad um at the start uh kelvin yeboa was ineffective he has two actual soccer players on the bench and julian gressel and the the austrian guy um fits fits um and neither guy whatever i knew something like that like neither guy it gets on it like it's really like they really committed to the big

and they stayed committed to it even after going down two goals, even after going down a man. As I said at the top of the show, this is like they scored more goals, 10-man goals in this game than they have in their past 10 years of existence. They hadn't come back from two goals down in something like five years. It was just, it was absurd. And afterwards, Brian Schmetzer was like,

this is the toughest loss I've ever had as a coach. And this is the guy who's lost two MLS cups. Yeah, and he got beat at home by Portland like a million times in a row from 2018 to 2024. Like he's had some bad losses and he's like, this is 100% the worst loss and we did it to ourselves. And he's right. Minnesota deserves a ton of credit, but like this was Seattle going up 2-0 and taking their foot off the gas and falling the fuck apart, ending their season because of it. I rarely like to use the word choke because it's too easy, and we apply it to too many cons.

This was shadow choked. Okay, they're up to nothing after 10 minutes. I was texting with a source across the league. Like I said, you know, if you give Minnesota another 200 minutes, they will not score two goals against this team. Yeah. Like, an hour later, I get a text back. Oh, I guess I was wrong about that.

But you go back to game two, and they did the same thing. Seattle did. They blitz out to a lead. They look like the best team in the league. Everything they're doing, they're dominant. You think Minnesota, in 100 years, don't have a chance to come back. Two bad Seattle mistakes in game two, let Minnesota back into it, and it's an unnecessarily tight and difficult final 45 or whatever was left in that game

that Seattle ended up winning. They're up 2-0 here. They concede on a set piece. Joaquin Pereira, it's difficult to juxtapose how I feel about his performance because he just doesn't do anything in open play. And this is a team that needs it Like in this series This is a team that desperately needs him to

Minnesota end up scoring all three goals in set pieces Which Seattle were obviously well aware of But they're up 2-0 Then it makes a 2-1 Rosales with an extremely dumb red card You go into halftime It's 2-0 They're dominating

In the second half before Minnesota gets their second goal The time goal How many chances in Seattle? The first 15 minutes The Rusnack one that like The Raldon one that was blocked 80% of the time

That's crazy And so they took their foot off the gas, they started lapsing, and they concede nonsensical goals on set pieces. Like Diaz was also a set piece, recycled. Mark Kanich, the one that put Minnesota up 3-2. How many times is he going to score at the back post? I believe that was Rusnak, who just watched him run away, and then he has a tap into the back post. It's just these are just inextusable things that wouldn't happen if they just killed the game off. And this is a team that I would have been extremely confident if it's a team.

not for game two that if they have a multi-goal lead, how many other teams in the league are as well clipped as this Seattle Sounders group in terms of quality, style, and experience to kill a game off against a team like Minnesota who do not create anything in their own? They rely on transition and set piece, which are really good at. That's much easier when you're up to know than when you're down to them. Yeah, I mean, it was, so around the 55th minute, I think right after Roosnack hit the post. I tweeted, I put it on Blue Sky. If Seattle gets the third goal here, this game is over.

If they don't get the third goal, a Minnesota equalizer is inevitable, and they will go on to win in penalties. So I feel pretty good about that. Sorry, Sounders fans. But also, like, I, it's so hard to win two trophies in one year. It is so hard to do that. And I think that the sounders that we saw from the start of the Club World Cup to the Leagues Cup final is the best team that I saw in it. Maybe second best with Vancouver in MLS this year.

And the level that they played at, the emotion that they met every moment with and the way they emptied their tanks, like the soccer's been good since. then the level hasn't been the same right like the the sounder's team that we saw playing in june july august they don't win you know they don't take a two one lead to half time they take a four one lead to half time you know the sounder team that we saw absolutely cement cruz azou like they like there's no chance dain st clair is indulging in any theatrics at the end of that game like so it's just and it was something that I wrote in my in my preview of the playoffs it's like on the balance the merit of their soccer Seattle's one of the best teams in this league but it you like there has to be more than just are we playing good soccer

it's and I'm devolving into cliches again like coach Tom you for saying that that there's more that there's more than playing good soccer because I don't know how many times I feel like I've argued with you, and you're like, oh, like, it's like the Happy Gilmore quote. Oh, yeah, nice drive. Where did he finish? Well, you're asking me. No, you're asking me to admit that my whole life and my whole job has been a lie. So it's a little tough, Tom.

Somewhere in the middle is my entire point. I don't know, for those of you who haven't seen Minnesota United put on social media, like they had the speech that Eric Ramsey gave after the game. It was awesome. Like, he borderline did note to say, but he composed us up well. He was just like, that was the craziest game. I think of my coaching career. more or less like you guys sucked but the fight you showed the resiliency goes like he's like you know

I'm so proud of you and everything and he's like this is going to be good for us because we will never play that effing bad again like he was like you're going to remember this and you're going to remember like it was it was really funny how he didn't just kind of let off on like okay well we got it I thought he bounced it really well and it was a really cool look inside that locker room and and you can really easily see why that team plays the way they did he do and how hard they do because defending deep and playing for set pieces Doyle it ain't fun It takes the group being connected, led, and bought in by the head coach because you think of Gary Smith with Nashville, when he kind of lost it, the locker room, when it was, everything got stale, he was out of there pretty quickly because the game model does not work unless everybody is 100% bought in. And I think Eric Ramsey deserves credit for that.

Yeah, though, I mean, you know, they had a habit of giving up late equalizers or late losing goals all year long, and they did it again in this one. and I don't think they can do this again against San Diego. I'm just going to keep picking against them the whole way through. I do not think they deserve to win this series. They gave up seven goals in three games on more than seven expected goals. I was going to say a lot of expecting goals. Dane St. Clair is getting a lot of, a lot of, um, dapp for his his performance in the PK shootout.

He saved two of 15 shots he faced. It was the woodwork who was the DP. for in goal for for Minnesota United just absurd across the board but that's that's a playoffs man and that's this league and I feel privileged to have to have witnessed that one and to have been able to torment Anders in the group chat throughout that was that was a real good moment for me you sent every single Emma has read it meme Monday I woke up just before me I woke up first thing I was like how can they make Anders miserable to the Mariners as well So before we got out of the next game,

just talking about the shootout really quickly. Dave St. Clairgan, legendary trash talker. He came off his line. He ended up, like, the referee was just like, I don't want to book you. I have to book you with. I can only tell you so many times that you can't do this. And I think my favorite one was Minnesota, go ahead.

And this was like one of those words. It was clearly at the sudden death stage of the shootout. I forget who the shooter was. And he was just like, no, no, no. I'm just guessing the question for the rules. if he misses, it's over, right? And he said it like five times. He goes, no, no, no, I just want to make sure I'm not wasting time.

I just don't know the rules. If he misses, it's over, right? Like, and I just watching him, like, do all of that. I do, I really wish that some of the Seattle players kind of barked back a little bit. Like, there was one, Jackson Reagan, like, Dan St. Clair goes over to the corner. He was the only one. Yeah. He points in the corner and starts, like, clapping, like, over here, right?

You're going to shoot over here. And then St. Clair dives the other way. And Reagan pinged it. exactly at the spot that Dane Stakesl I pointed to. I just wished that he was just like, point me. I don't know, I did put it right there. You want to go get, like, I would have loved some more back and forth there. Probably wouldn't have been wise on Seattle's part, to be fair.

Maybe you don't need to keep Dane going, but I was hoping for a little bit more fireworks. I mean, he's Dane Sinclair. It's not Michael Jordan. You could trash talk back to him. That would have been fine. And I thought Jackson Reagan did a little bit. It was Alex Roldon, who made his, who didn't. Oh, maybe there was that one.

Yeah, who didn't take the moment. Yeah, who didn't take the moment. to that maybe that was it but like he put it like right in the spot like the oh yeah he he he really nailed it but it was i mean it was wild man credit credit to minnesota they're through and the sounder season is done and now the u.s national team's best player christian ruled on could move on to more important things you know it's a international break uh this weekend united states playing paraguay in uruguay first game is in philadelphia i will be there i'm sure I'll have some more to talk about it on Thursday or Thursday show about the national team.

Let's move on to the next game. Cincinnati, Columbus. I thought this game was really, really good, Doyle. I was very impressed by Columbus, how they played. They get the go-ahead goal in the second half, and you start to worry, like, or you think on the Cincinnati side, oh, they're at home, like, it's Columbus again. And the way that they rallied from that point on, two good goals from Brenner, really, really fun atmosphere.

I thought Cincinnati responded really. I thought they played fine in the first half, but it was more. like Columbus was like, oh man, like this is what we thought Columbus was going to look like even without West Sam Abu Ali and even with Daniel Gazzuck on the bench. So since he to fight back in that moment and get a win was very, very impressive to me again.

Brenner two goals to win to one. Extremely impressive. What a signing, I believe his feet, like he took less money to come back to Cincinnati. I want to reiterate that point. Once Cincinnati gets into your blood, man, like you just can't can't leave that place. There's Brazilian

clubs calling about him all of the time. Like when he's not playing at Udanesi, there are teams lining up to loan, just like there were teams lining up to loan him back from Cincinnati after the first year. He didn't need to lose money. He could have went to Brazil and made his money. He could have stayed in Udanesi and said,

I want to say, right? Like, he chose, he wanted to come back to Cincinnati, and I just think this was a really, really cool moment for Brenner personally. That is a testament to the work that Pat Newton and Chris Albright have done since they took over four years ago now, is it? and making it the type of culture where people actually want to be there. I mean, I wish for their sake

it worked for Alvaro Bariol as well because he was watching that guy play. Me too. But it's, you know, they have been able to build that while also holding people like Lucho Acosta accountable. And when your best players are held accountable and then you go out and you sign a better player,

like, okay, that's a club with ambition and there's a club with a vision. And it's not like everything works out every time. And I certainly have my gripes with certain aspects of how Cincinnati plays. And I wish that Noonan developed young players a little bit more often. But like it's just overall such a rock solid, beyond rock solid organization. And that's why you can have someone who's as combustible as Brenner was, come back and want to be a part of it and become a part of it in a really productive way,

not just box score productive, but continuing to build the culture product. So, and sorry to belabor the point here, but we'll talk about the entire game. But, like, one more on Brenner. You talk about the culture and everything else. Brenner and Albright hated each other. I don't think that I'm misstepping by talking on this. Like, that was a widely known fact with the club. Like, I think both parties deserve credit, including Brenner's representation,

including the other front office members, including the coaching staff. Like, it was this time, in the winter, there was a couple flirtations from, you know, I believe Brenner's side or maybe it was somebody at Cincy of like, hey, maybe, you know, I don't know. There was no chance. And this is even after like Brenner called Albright to a pot. Like, hey, man, like, I was immature. I'm sorry. Like, and that was the first step of both them being, you know, hey, like I handle things wrong too.

That it's, it is a sign of really strong culture. And again, for it to be this person, not somebody who left on great terms. Very, very impressive. It's really, really cool for him to get this moment. Cincinnati. I hope that they're able to be healthier if Miazga, like they desperately were missing that Miasga, and that is going to be such a game changer against Miami

if he's indeed ready to play. I'm not sure. I'm not sure it is. I don't think so. I don't think he's. Would you rather messy running at Alvis Powell? I mean, I haven't rather either of them, but I think it's inevitable. I just don't think Miazga's looked like the same guy

since the injury in the middle of the last year. And it's unfortunate because he was playing at a defender of the year caliber, you know again and again and again but it's just you know maybe by next season but at this point in time when's the last time he played it's been a while are you gonna put him in?

He's back on the training ground I forget if it was light team training or individual training and Laurel Faylor has been providing updates so check out what she's posting so I'm assuming based on that timeline that he should be could be ready to go but that like that's reckless speculation

yeah that's fine it's the best kind um like i i just don't know if you're going to drop that guy in for 90 against messy and and that team but back to the game um this was i think the definitive 90 minute time capsule of who these two teams are and for columbus it was as you said they played beautiful soccer they like this was them not at their absolute best but it was like really really close and um using it to get into high leverage spots and then as was the story basically throughout the year except for like the three weeks was um abu ali was healthy they just lacked the the quality in the box to turn that into um box score advantage to turn that into goals and assists like the the fundamentals of who they are as a team is still there and i'm still a huge

believer in them. But you need to marry that with top end quality. And they did that the past two years with Cucho. And they won MLS Cup and they won the Leagues Cup because of it. And they just never were able to replace that to any, you know, with any consistency in 2025. And it's why their season is over. And the flip side, I don't think, I don't think Cincinnati was bad in any way, But they really rely more than any other team in the league, including Miami, on having their match winners win matches for them. Whether it's Roman Solentano in goal or Miles Robinson snuffing out a counterattack or Evander, Kevin Danke, or Brenner, creating special moments, usually off of mistakes that the other team has made. combined with that is that the you know one of the Achilles heels for for Columbus all years like they're just not great defending in their box they just have not been great at that they give you space you can manhandle them a little bit and you look at that second breeder goal look at the way the defense gets manhandled by the big french striker and it's like oh okay like all of this came together if Cincinnati were going to win this it was going to be almost this exact same way in the way it played out another one goal win for a team team that has built a 65 point season on that exactly i was i'm a little bit all season at luca orjano has

been not what we saw last season yeah disappointing yeah um he comes the the goal for columbus is orzano subs on the broadcast as they like it's it's a big moment like he's a potential match-changing player comes in for lucas angle at wing back okay since he's going for it now the camera shifts off of watching orzano run on the field in the comments he was talking to it to columbus play a long ball in behind the space behind him, and they scored. It was a tough, unfortunate moment there. And then again, Brenner was able to rescue that. I thought it was a really good finish by Jason Russell Row. It speaks volumes of how Wilfer Nancy sees this team. He made one sub until the last five minutes. That was taking off to Haha Bruin in the first half for Jason

Russell Row to try to counter since he played high and get in behind. That's exactly what happened on that goal. Russell Row scores. And then they kind of just tried to hold on from it didn't last long. Obviously, it was four minutes later that Brenner scored, but it's 1-1 in the 70th minute. You have a DP on the bench. You have a summer signing on the bench. You have a couple other guys who are viewed to be key players to the team on the bench. And God's dog, Ali, and Chabarico don't come in until there's a minute left. Lassilopalianin comes in with whatever five minutes left. And yeah, there's a, well, we'll talk about Columbus and the offseason big questions. But first, going to Nagby's final game, we gave him all of his

flowers as he's goddamn well-deserved. But just one more time, what a winner, what a legend, what a unique, incredible player in person. Congratulations to him on an insane career. He's not, obviously, like, 2023, I think was his last, like, oh, my God, he's, like, one of the best players in the league year. If he wanted to play three more years, he'd be a starter in this league, you know? Yeah. I thought he was really good last year. I mean, honestly, I thought he was.

I meant, like, the 2023 was the culmination of. Yeah, that second half of the season that he had in 2020, once they got rid of Zelaya on, like, that was. was that was him hitting his apex form um i'll tell you i got a little emotional and i was never the the hugest nagby fan because um i was always frustrated by the stuff that i thought he should be doing um given how gifted he was and it was only really the last three four years where i was like able to accept and appreciate the stuff that he was actually doing that nobody else could really replicate. And like I got a little emotional, you know, a little bit of tears in my eyes at the

final whistle, paying tribute to him online a little bit for what he represented. And just personally, he came into the league in 2011, which was the year that I started at MLS full time. And it's like, wow, like, you know, marking the passage of time kind of. thing i didn't expect it to to hit me um quite like it did uh but he he's gotten a lot of praise around the league um and he has obviously earned every single bit of that um and more like just watching the way Cincinnati players were celebrating him at the final whistle oh my god man you don't see a lot of that you just don't and i think it speaks to who he was as a player and who he is

as a human being. And Darlington has been the heart and soul of Columbus Cincy rivalry over the last four or five years or whatever, right? He's the captain. He's the most annoying player to try to take the ball off because you just can't take the ball off him. He's at the middle of every single thing. It's easy to hate your eternal rivals, probably maybe not best player because the Cucho

stuff, right, like one of the best players, but also, but the guy who typifies the game model, you should, like, for them to all recognize immediately after that's a great point. have to the final whistle. Even the team's eternal rivals, who has blocked Cincinnati from winning MLS Cup in the past, everyone's like, not dude, like this guy's a legend. Yeah. Now they've got to go out and get a Mecca and Nelly. It's the only

answer. I love you talking that into this. That would be a lot of fun. We'll talk about Columbus's offseason in a bit. Cincinnati, move on to face into Miami in their game three. This was Saturday night, so we got the Minnesota game first. Bell to S. We got the Minnesota Seattle game first.

To S. Sincy Columbus, was really, really strong. I was, like, thinking, my man, like, I got Miami Nashville. This could be an all-time MLS playoff day. I still think it was. Yeah, but Miami Nashville was not quite the same as those first two games. Belta has to Doyle so eloquently put it, 4-0 into Miami. Messi two goals to assist.

Miami scored eight goals over three games against Nashville. Messi had scored or assisted on all eight. That's just the story of the series. Sometimes I wish that it was deeper, and we can go into the tactical nuances. we can go into other performances and a lot of other ways to look at it. But the big picture here is, man, like, Lino Messi's pretty good. And it doesn't matter if you press, it doesn't matter if you sit in. There are sometimes when you put your hands up and say,

well, if we don't score on most of our shots, they're going to score more than us. And Miami, I thought it was very good performance, but it all starts with Lino Messi. Miami was really organized and prepared throughout this series. And, like, granted, Nashville outplayed them and completely. deserved that win in game two um but that was not because Miami was bad it was because my is because Nashville put everything they had into that game um and did a really good job BJ Callahan did um this one you know Javier Mascherano is I think um wildly under appreciated as a head coach because he has um adjusted personnel and formation and longs

confrontation and pressing triggers all year long to try to like we know any team that has messy is going to have a really high ceiling his job has been to raise the floor it's like the opposite of dean smith in charlotte like he has like he has had to work really hard to bring that up and the way he's done that and what we saw in this game um was actually dropping bousquet's a little bit deeper not necessarily splitting the center backs but like having him just be the the shield and then the, you know, orchestrator from deep while letting DePaul, who really struggle his first couple of years, or his first couple months, rather, be like more of a true number eight in front of the six.

It's not necessarily a side-by-side partnership. And then the other thing is just like releasing the wide midfielders to press any time they're going against a full back or even another wide midfielder. with their back to goal. It's just like, it's a very simple thing, but they have clarity on it now that they didn't have, I don't think, last year or even earlier this year.

And you add that to Messi and you get turnovers and you better call the ambulance because they're coming for you because you're down 1-0 in a way that only Messi can put you down 1-0. Yeah, it was Messi picking up a deflected loose pass just ahead of midfield, solo run, incredible goal. after that it's sovetti running in behind and squaring to messy to make it two-nows really good played by sovetti let me get it out of the way now they looked better in this attacking fluidity and runners around messy messy messy play false nine

yende and sovetti will play technically as wingers but more like inside forwards so there's always uh alba coming up on the left flank and runners in behind messy and beyond messy and then runners helping press when messy is is not running rather than having two players up top we're not going to be doing a ton of work against the ball. For me, with Louis Soros suspended, I don't know I would be surprised if Javier Maserano and the leadership council, let's just say, would give Javier Maserano free reign to keep this starting lineup. But I got to tell you, dude, they look better in attack fluid, fluidity-wise, and more structured defensively with this rather than Suarez playing up top. Sparaz has 17 goals and 17 assists this year. are you sure this is not a prisoner of the moment take I've been trying to push back against it in my own mind

because there was when I broke the news that he was suspended there was a lot of like oh well like they're doing Miami a favor again like those stupid jokes and I was like that's just so disrespectful for like you said he's got the numbers but I think that the impact that has against the ball and the knock on effects around the team and particularly how good Silvetti has been since he arrived And it's been a pleasant surprise because anybody of, on the U-22 initial coming mid-season, I'm just generally not expecting much from them early on.

And he is legit and he was really lively. And so you have to sacrifice him for Suarez. And again, it's just a completely different game model. And you're right. I'm glad that you pushed back in terms of maybe that's present a moment. I'm glad you're glad. I'm glad you're glad, Tom. But I don't know, man.

Like watching the way that they played, I don't know. I just, I would want that type of flexibility around Lino Messey. There's no chance, there's just no chance that's going to happen. Right, like all this is probably moot. Yeah, like next game could be the final game of Sergio Biscrette and Jordi Alba's career and Luis Suarez is available. You think he's not going 90 minutes? The dude's played 4,200 minutes this year.

It's food for thought. Yeah, like, it's going to be the version of Miami that we saw down the stretch. Basically from that Chicago game onwards, I think that version of my, like, I'm still picking them to win MLS Cup. I honestly think they're going to trounce Cincinnati, and I know that might be a stupid, I know that might be a stupid thing to say, because Cincinnati actually trounce them the last time that they were playing in TQL. But like, Tato obviously started that game, Oscar Rusari, Ben Kramashi, I think was starting as the eight. very different kind of lineup and look man since they're emergency defenses i know we're getting ahead of ourselves we're going to do a long preview of this game eventually but like since these defense even when they're playing well um they give you chances and uh Columbus did not have

the attackers to punish those chances I kind of think Miami does I think they might have the an A plus ultra version of that in the history of the fucking game. Sure. They won, CINC won 3-0 in this picture. I think it's really important that is at TQL and not in Miami, which is why I'm giving the edge to CINC. I think either team,

would you go as far to say the winner, like you already think Miami are going to win the cup? I think the winner of this game is the clear, clear favor for MLS Cup. Maybe not clear or clear. That's too strong because it's the MLS playoffs. But that's how I'm viewing this game. Like, I think that it's, I think we'll look back on it and be unfortunate that it's a

I don't think I would, yeah, I don't think I would pick Cincinnati to win at Philadelphia. I don't think I would pick Cincinnati to win MLS Cup against LASC or Vancouver. I'm still higher on that team than you are. So we'll agree to disagree. Oh, on Alba and Buscats, they've announced their retirements. They will retire when the season's over. And there was a possibility that that was going to be Saturday. Obviously, very quickly turned out to not be the case.

But after the game, Maserano was asked about. that, and he gave a really thoughtful answer, so I kind of want to read the quote here. Mascheron goes, quote, it's about Alba, like, hey, like, if you lost, their careers are over. Maserana goes, quote, it's clear that we know, I think subconsciously. Nobody says it. Nobody comments on it. But we now know, like, we know that we've entered the playoffs. The flame is beginning to extinguish, no?

Look, if there's something that I have to say about these last few weeks, it's the joy we are living day to day. The thing that fills me with the most pride about this team is how we've arrived at this stretch of the season. in training. I see the players having fun. I see a lot of smiles. I see a very good atmosphere. And I think that is the best way to face things. Watching Jordi Alba in particular play, like we're just talking about Nagby, I think he'd still be a difference maker in this league if he wanted to go a couple of four years. But those two, it's easy for us to kind of forget or overlook it or make the Miami-Barscelona jokes.

These are literally two of the generational talents of the last two decades. And their careers just got extended by at least one game, maximum of three games. Yeah. And that, I mean, to bring it back to the start of, of your analysis of this game within the context of the wild Saturday night that we had. That's what makes this a special moment and a special game because we're getting to see these two guys at the very end

and we got to see another messy master class. And like, we just cannot, we're bad soccer fans if we take any of that for granted, right? This is why we watch sports to see genius like these guys, and including Darlington Nagby in that, you know, to see them play at this level and empty it all out. And like, I'm sorry for Nashville, who had a great year, by the way, and who was going to be a very interesting team to watch in this offseason. I'm personally glad that I get to see 90 more minutes at least of Bousquet's and Ella. Cincinnati, Miami.

That's going to be a great game next round. Did you ever think for a second that Nashville had a chance in this game? I thought they had a chance. I didn't think that it was likely because I thought that first game, it's really, really difficult, obviously, to go to South Florida, beat his Miami team, and Miami getting the first goal. When it was the second one, it was like, you know, you want to talk yourself into like, oh, what if they get the next one?

And it felt pretty clear. I'd imagine that's how you felt. Yeah, I never, even if the surge goal had stood, and I thought it should have. I just don't think that they were ever coming back into this one. I didn't think that from before the whistle. I thought, like, they did a really good job in game two to get that win and to send, like, that's national fans.

That's their final memory of 2025, their final, you know, in-person experience with that team getting to see those guys. And that's great. And it feels like they have a chance to build something you know they're 55 point team and a trophy this year like it's hard to go up from there but they actually are in position to do that next year it is a wildly successful season even though yeah they had no chance going into this game at all there was never a moment there was never a moment where I thought they were going to take this one that's more about Miami than it is Nashville to be to be

clear again it was going to take something special and it was going to take a bad performance for Miami. And again, that's no disrespect for Nashville. What a season. They win their first trophy in the U.S. Open Cup. Touch on them in a minute, but we got one more game to get to. I don't know how much that there is really going to be to dissect onto this one. San Diego 4-0 over the Portland Timbers.

And you talk about games being over early. San Diego are up 2-0 in the 17th minute, and every single time they touched the ball, it looked like they were going to score. Portland went to a mostly man-marking system that we haven't seen since Matthias Almeda's San Diego. is there earthquakes and even that Matias Al-Meda might tell Phil Neville

whoa dude like you're being a little risk like I don't know about this like what Matias Al-Meda system would do is would leave a centerback and a goalkeeper so that they always had plus one because inevitably if you have 50-50 duels all over the pitch you're going to lose some so they try to have a man up I'm watching

Velda just cover man mark a centerback and if the ball goes to a goalkeeper he leaves a center back and goes to and it's like oh that's the extra man the extra man is supposed to be a defense they played with fire and sometimes you play with fire you get burned

and other times you play with fire you get scorched for 90 street minutes yeah I this is another one I never really thought that Portland had a chance yeah I was wrong did you pick Portland to win this game

I didn't pick Portland to win but I was saying I don't know because Goss was saying what you were like dude there is no chance it's like and I don't know man I think they're a lot dog I think San Diego

I think San Diego was actually offended at how Portland played them in that second game because it was it was like they took it personally and I think Mike Uvaris probably had to come to Jesus moment after that one because he got rattled he actually

made defensive subs down the stretch in that second game after Miami were, after San Diego were up to one and he never does that and that put them up against it for the final 25

minutes up in Portland and the Timbers got a completely deserved goal for the equalizer that they then won in the shootout. And I think that pissed Mikey Varas off probably at himself more than anyone else for actually giving into chaos ball and not doing what San Diego had done all year long is using another team's chaos against them. And as soon as I saw that Phil Neville had switched the formation because it was more of a three, four, two, one. than the 433 that he's usually played. And as soon as I saw, he had mostly kept the wild-eyed men marking

all over the field, though he, I think it was dialed back a little bit in this one, though I'm not sure that was by design. Had much. Yeah, I was like, as like, ooh, this is, like San Diego's getting at least three. At least three. And to Portland's credit,

there were a couple of times, right? Where I think Cincinnati- A couple. Yeah, Cisniaga, like right up the gut, like almost gave it away, a few others inside the first 20 minutes. But by that point, it was already two nothing. So it was like, all right, yeah. This is cooked. Yeah, so they did create chances.

They were able to get some balls overturned in the attacking half and sometimes in the attacking third. San Diego would take that trade off for, okay, like they had really smart. I thought Oni Volakari, the way he moved, was really smart. Corey Baird did too. It was going to conjunct. Like, obviously, they were clear, like you said. I think that they were a little bit annoyed. Like, you're going to play us, like,

Matthias Almeida slash, like, college soccer, high school. It's like, when Matthias Almeida is doing it in MLS, it's like, I have not seen this since being on a crappy grass soccer field in high school or college. That shit is still working. He did that with Sevilla against Barcelona last month. And Barcelona looked like they got hit by a truck. It was ridiculous. It's just unbelievable because he was such a joke in MLS when he was here.

And they were kind of like, you're going to play that, like, school boy crap against us. So I'm assuming that this is down to the coaching staff as well as the challenge of the players who have to put it into practice and it's difficult when you got a guy on you at all times. But it'd be Corey Baird would be standing with a centerback, Finn Sermon usually, and just sprint 30 yards close to goal. And Sermon's like, okay, I got to follow him.

And then only Valcari or Svariskov is making a deep run from midfield behind whoever's marketing that. And getting into that. It's not even a half space at this point. It's a full goddamn. space. And sometimes they missed the pass. It was not often that like, oh, great defensive play there by Portland. It was, that was weird. It was like, even when it was two nothing, I was like, this could be eight nothing at some point. Like, honors dryer coming alive immediately when the

ball is turned over, when the goalkeeper has the ball, just darting in any different direction to put pressure on this Portland backline and manmarking system. Diego Charo, the ground, he's still able to cover. He put out a couple fires by having to ditches out. The first thing that happened in this game was like Diego Charra having to run in that right channel and like run down at semi breakaway and block across right on the like the from the primary assist zone with like three separate San Diego runners in the box and I was like oh they're in trouble because like he's 40 he's 40 and there's no defenders there to help him but he's the man what a legend um two points on san diegos again we're going to get to the eliminated teams next I'm sure we'll have plenty to say

about Portland, we'll start with them when we get there. But San Diego, Anders Dreyer, just start, step up in the big moments. Bruce Arena always said this when he would joke about, you know, don't get too deep tactically. Like, you know, hey, like your best players have to be your best players in the playoffs. Honors Dreyer, three goals to assist in those three games. And Chuky Lozano was expecting him to start this game. He didn't. I hope that we see that in the next phase, though.

Corey Barrett has been good. He took a beating. He took a beating Chuky Lozano did. It was all right. but the other part of that front three is Amal Pellegrino he was a deadline day signing he comes from San Jose he costs nothing and San Diego are only paying the minimum veteran salary and he has six goals and three assists in his last five matches

granted four of those matches were against Portland which somebody comments had pointed out to me because I already forgot about decision day that might inflate numbers a little bit but that's still nine goal contributions in five games yeah I mean he's he's been great he's fit right in i think they're paying about a dollar 95 worth of his salary as well so like well done i mean tyler heaps um has thrown uh not quite a no hitter but he's he's had the best

first season of a c so incredible that it may be maybe maybe in league history right like the only mistake he made was not retaining milaniloski um but but but that like i agree with you and i've had my own criticisms i i want to be fair to them a more palpit i'm all pal is playing cori beds played like it it has worked fine for them i guess through this eventually eventually right i think if they had retained milan eloski then they would have won the shield actually again that because they because they went two months without scoring more than two goals three months without scoring more than two goals and like they eventually clicked down the stretch thank you phil neville for figuring that out for them um but like it was you know it anyway my point is that tyler heaps has done

a brilliant job in getting Pellegrino has worked out perfectly. San Diego will know exactly how they are and exactly how they're going to play and they're going to do the exact same thing two weeks from now against Minnesota United. Well, I don't think it'll be the exact same just because things will be a little bit different defensively. But I digress. We're going to dive into these matchups. We've got two weeks until the next playoff game because of the international break. So we're going to do full deep dives into these games. I'm sure next week, whether you're here or not. I don't know. It'll be me and gosh. Maybe it'll be you. I don't know. We'll aside if you've heard another call up. Let's talk about the five teams that we lost this

round. Let's start with Portland because we're just talking about Portland. What you said about Nashville was great foundation, all these positive things. There are ways where you could lose and even lose in the first round, even if you had expectations and still feel really good. There are reasons to feel good about Portland, but not as many. That's like Portland fans probably don't feel great today after that loss and the way that they lost and the way that they lost and the way that the team is at and the crossroads that they are at it's two years under Phil Neville

and they lost 5-0 in the playoff game last year in the wild card Evander immediately criticizes the club and leaves and now this year it's a 4-0 loss in game three to San Diego and in a series in which they were played off the pitch.

Yeah. You know, David de Costa I think that it's reasonable to expect him to be a better player next year it's not reasonable to expect him to be as good as Evander. Kevin Kelsey was assigning that I questioned from the jump because as toolsy as he is, and he's big and he's strong

and he's got a rocket of a left foot. He's good quickness, good balance. He does not know where goals come from, right? He does not get those one-touch finishes that we were talking about it on Toklamati before. So his goal scoring doesn't really scale. he needs to learn how to play the game still it's why he's not in Cincinnati anymore

so like questionable sightings there Velda had a tough time integrating even more worrisome are Juan David Musgra and Davida Ayala are they as good as they were two years ago are they as they as good as they should be if it's not 40 year old Diego Chara running into the channel to stop a break

away inside of two minutes is there anybody else you trust on that roster to do it maybe fin sermon like he he's good especially like in emergency defense i would have liked to have seen him playing something other than emergency defense at some point this year um by the underlying numbers they were actually a worst team than last season the one thing that i will say i think they have started to maybe put more stock into um in league experience getting mattie rojas getting Felipe Caballo like those are guys you know trading for um Fernandez yeah like these are you know getting contributions out of Ariel Lasseter like these are the types of guys that timbers in the past have overlooked and hopefully um they will continue

to get players like that as well as to develop and trust players from NextPro like Gage Garra. And what we've seen over the past few years is that Next Pro success tends to really translate to MLS success. Like if you're a good player in NextPro,

you're probably going to be a pretty good player in MLS. They have to adjust that or accept that part of it and be more willing to put those players into bigger roles because you're not always going to have MVP caliber DP production. And if you don't, you know,

if you're a negative on both of those parts of the equation, you're not going to stick around in the playoffs for very long at all. Exactly. And this team, looking forward, Zupar, is out of contract, probably not going to stay. He's put in a transfer or trade request, I think, two years ago. Felipe Mora has a contract out for 26. I believe C.L. Merlo has already reported.

that there were teams lining up in Chile and also in South America that would want him if he becomes a free agent. Those are two ways that they could create space. Diego Charter has an option for 26. I think...

They have to retain him. Whether he's deciding to retire. Like, that is not about that. Jonathan Rodriguez will be back in 26. Felipe Carbio will come off the TEP spot so they'd have three and three. Finn Sermon is obviously a building block for this team. I think Christopher Velday showed that he's a building block.

David DeCosta, I am worried about... I think he's a good player. I agree with you. I am for sure want to give him the benefit of the doubt for 26 because he had a lot of moments particularly early this season. He hasn't had an offseason in a while and he was not a regular player all of the time for Lons before he came here. There's a possibility he just ran out of steam by the end of the season.

So I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt there. So you could have a DP's roster that looks good. Antony, who knows what happens with him? I know that there was offers for him this summer. Cray Poe walks, right? So they'll have some, like, not any flexibility with the DPs but they will have some flexibility and there are good pieces within this team is Phil Neville's job safe no okay I guess that's that's the number one thing

to keep an eye on then that's not to indicate that I've heard anything that that is suggesting that it's that he's going to that they're going to change managers or whatever like I I will say with like if you say it's it 100% safe absolutely not and nor can it be after that Playoff loss and things again. I know that there were some bad hands that Neville and the coaching staff were dealt, but they did not. They did not maximize here. So that'll be something to watch in the off season.

Who knows? We'll move forward. Nashville is speaking the opposite there in terms of big time questions. The team wins their first ever trophy the U.S. Open Cup. Speaking to a couple players in the lead up to this game, and they kind of joke that, like, dude, like we left Austin and immediately were flying to Montreal for a regular season game like 72 hours later. Like we had a little bit of a parade like.

that the next weekend or whatever, they were like, you know, it hasn't really felt like it's landed that this special, special moment we have. They win that trophy. They play really, really well throughout the season. Surge and Honey Mukhtar looked like one of the best duos in the league. There's a lot of things alike in the midfield. Moving forward, the biggest question is, Walker Zimmerman's out of contract.

I think it's easy to say you can't make him a DP again, but this is such a foundational player to Nashville's history. And all it takes is, one other team in the league to say I would give him a DP contract, right? And we always joke about you know, whether you or I would do it is moot because

all it takes is one and we'll see what happens. I would be very disappointed to see Walker's Zimmer and leave Nashville but the he'll follow right. Like if the money is crazy different like any other human being and the front office has shown, you know, Sean Davis is somebody

who they hold near and dear to their heart. He's gone. There are other players throughout this team's history that I felt might be untouchable and they haven't always done that so yeah if they um do not bring him back as a dp the question is do they go to the three and three model or do they go to the u22 model where it's only two because like their their other two dps obviously sam surge and honey mukhtar are locked in on big numbers um as they should be and the other thing is like if it was gary smiths still coaching. There's no way you could have for you 22. There's just like you couldn't have

four 22 year old players on the entire roster. Whereas with, with, you know, BJ Callahan has already shown, you know, not to the Mikey Veris level, but like he is more than willing to trust young players. And look, Matthew Carcran made a mistake on the first goal. But I don't think it's because he was young. I think that was just because Miami were pressing and they had blood in their eyes and they smell blood in the water and you get better you know and here's takito saying hi say hi buddy yeah um but yeah so do we think it'll be a three and three or do we think it'll be a two four two that's a really good question i'm not entirely sure i do think that it depends on zirman's future because his pedigree like obviously he'll be a significant damn deal i think

would be the way that he could come in again i have this is all speculated i've not asked anybody any relevant party about this. Nobody wanted to talk about it until the season eventually ends. And they're going to have these conversations because, again, I would expect, if he stays, it's going to be on a significant Tam deal. So then what makes the most sense

in terms of moving the chess pieces around on the salary cap? Like, do we need the game? And hey, is there a U-22 guy? We like a lot that those cost money in terms of transfer fees, what his ownership, right? I would like to see another designated player just because I think that they've done well

on the U-22 initiative and they have some younger players. this is a team that wants to win, wants to win trophies, and you can do that two for two, but it's easier when you have three designated players if you hit all three. Let me make a suggestion. Nico Shakiris,

play him as a number 10 underneath Honey and Surridge. And you have either Ahmed Qasem or Johnny Perez on the right side. You have Schaffelberg or Alex Muell just grinding people down on the left side. it's like if Shakira's is not going to be the guy for San Jose man he makes a lot of sense

as a string puller underneath that forward pairing in in Nashville and he's he would be a U-22 it would be the same gambit that we saw Houston take with Jack McLinn like the exact same thing and I know Houston didn't have a great year but McClint did like imagine putting him

underneath Honey and Sam Surge So that's free advice, Mike Jacobs. Here you go. Go Celtics. So that's Nashville. The next team to talk about Columbus. I think the biggest questions here are the rumors that are flying around about Wolfrennanzi and Celtic. I was talking to Aiden Morris for a feature I wrote on Aiden Morris and I asked something about Nassie.

He goes like, this is probably going to sound dumb. But like he's like, I think he's one of the best coaches in the world. So suffice to say, I don't think that he'll have any issue. And he goes, I hope to work with him again in the few. you're like you talk to the people who've played for will for nonci in columbus it matches everything that we see from the outside so we're always operating as if it's a matter of time so you even i don't know if there's any validity to the the celtic nancy rumors um i checked on it like three weeks ago when it first came out when it was at the air quote interest stage and at that point i hadn't heard

anything that celtic in columbus or celtic and nancy's camp had any official contact but that can very much have changed over the last three or four weeks particularly that there was a report in Scotland that their top target isn't available until December and you know Columbus we're planning

to be at MLS Cup in December 5th so my bigger point here is whether it's Celtic there's always going to be a team that fires their manager

in Europe and we're going to say is Wilfred Nancy is he's going to get connected to jobs so that's the biggest question is

does Nancy stay with this team or not and the next question is does Daniel Gossot get your two because before the playoffs I felt

pretty certain he was going to and then being a borderline DNP over this series makes me question that. Yeah, I think that's exactly it. And I will say for Nancy in particular, I love that man so much. I will actually become a fan of whatever team he becomes a coach. I will even, I will debase myself.

I will debase myself by watching the Scottish Premier League. That's how high I am on Wilfred. I thought you were already going to be watching Aberdeen. And, uh, their new 40s like, yeah. Uh, but no, the, the Gadsdag thing, like, I actually picked Columbus to win that series and I just thought it was going to be like a pure MLS thing where Gazdak comes and he's shit for the entire regular season and he just turns it on in the playoffs and becomes a playoff hero.

It obviously didn't work out that way. You can't bring him back. Like you, it just did, it did not work. So I agree with that sentiment. I agree with that thought process but this is in Atlanta where like yeah nobody's paying Moranchuk

what his salary is or anything near the fee that Atlanta paid I believe that Atlanta would just be like I don't care I'm just going to eat all the money will Columbus do that they just sign them to a new contract and you can guarantee at this point you're going to have to buy some of that out

no matter where he goes are they willing to do that and what is the transfer fee for Danielle like if you spend $4 million on him or whatever number it was on the top of my head so I agree with the other like the the thought process but it's not so easy to just get out of a bad DP deal if that's how it's viewed around league or around Europe yeah I'm trying to think where he would fit well that's for another show

philly not anymore um yeah then they're you 20 so uh alieu has a contract option for next year hugo pshar just got here I think he's shown good moments I would like to see... He runs a lot. It does run a lot. Any U-22 an integer player give them time to adapt it. And to be fair,

I would like to see him with Diego Rossi and Wesson Abil Ali. We did not see enough of that preferred attack. There's a possibility that Valbo-Ali is playing. Like, they get through. This was obviously a super tech series

and Abil Ali was really good. Before he got hurt, he adapted very well. I still think things are looking up for Columbus, and I think we both... I think Habrune is a much better prospect than Picard. Yeah?

And I think, like, I thought he was impressive. If Nancy is back next year, ideally, it's that front three is Rossi, Habroun, and Wesum, Bula, Ali, and, you know, sort of interchanging and going all over the place and disorganizing opponents with the ball. If they're able to, or if they decide, sorry, to not pick up Ebrim Al-U's contract option, they'll have two U-22 initiative slots to use. Their DPs can't be bought down. Obviously, we just had the Daniel Goslock discussion. that would be to be determined. But at the bare minimum, they've got two U-22. could have two U-22 initial slots, Steve.

And I was not joking about going out and buying Emeka Anelli. Like, he's the closest thing in terms of ball security that there is in MLS to what Darling Nagby was. And he's a Columbus Academy product, which is amazing that they let him get away. Massive mistake on that one. And for whatever reason, he was kind of in and out of the lineup with RSL this year.

So I think, like, honestly, if I was east at all, my first phone call, you know, tomorrow, I can assume he took today off. But like, my first phone call would be to RSL, to be like, okay, what can we do to get this done in a way that suits both teams? And RSL, like, look, man, if he's not a starter 100%, you got to listen. I would agree. And, yeah, if there is a hint that a mechanic and Lally could be had, there should be. a bidding war. Let me ask you one more thing. If Wilfred Nancy leaves, is this a possible

Jim Curtin team? I don't think so immediately, just based on what I've heard that I'm not expecting him to take anything. Again, there was a call from Atlanta before they had, like, you know, Ronnie, you know, it was always going to be Tata when they landed there. But they tried them last summer. They tried them last winter and they tried them this winter. And if you're not taking that particularly last year. I think that reinforces all the things that I've heard. So, yeah, I don't know. But that would obviously be the biggest decision

that Columbus would have to do if Wolfrennese leaves. For our selfish stake, I hope that he doesn't. And we'll see what is real and what's not, I hoping, over the next few weeks in terms of potential openings abroad, Celtic, or others. Two more teams to get to Seattle Sounders. Really good season, even if it's really disappointing right now,

how that they weren't able to take care of business against Minnesota for how well it's. they played. Moving forward for this team, they've got pretty much all of those pieces in place save for the expected Obid Vargas sale. I was expecting Obit Vargas to be sold in the summer. I thought that there was going to be a 10 million offer there. That just never did arrive. The teams that really, really like them, was in the area of VCA, and they don't typically spend that much money on an MLS player. So I'm still expecting there to be a sale for Obid Vargas this winter, sorry, because he's so very good, or at least by next summer. But other than that, you would expect most of

these guys to be back next season stephen fry i don't believe that there's been any announcements i don't know for sure but at his age there's always going to be questions about whether he stays or not um but for the most part this court's coming back i will guarantee that andrew thomas is the day one starter next year for seattle i think that what's going to happen is just a reversal of the roles where um stephen fry will get leagues cup and uh andrew thomas will get everything else excuse me the the the glare directly in my face as the clouds finally part um the the other thing they have jordan morris who i think is probably still the starting number nine going into next year he's on a dp deal they're not going to be able to move them um they have they want to move him i don't think it's out

of the question um how do they want to move him he's in his 30s he's not always that healthy he's a DP, but heartless. They also have Danny Musovsky, who just had a career year, and they have Assase De Rosario, who has proved, I think, that he can be, at the very least, a quality backup.

They also have shown that they have a pipeline that puts quality players into the first team. Do you listen to offers on Mussovsky or Dero?

Because, like, it seems like, especially with Musovsky, it's a sell-high moment, right? Mosovsky has a contract option, for 26, I guess, but I like the, you talked about the worries about Jordan Morris and fitness and everything. Yep. I think you just run back with those three guys. And, and again, maybe somebody makes you a big offer, but you look at, like, Seattle had a lot of injuries this season. Mm-hmm. They were able to keep rolling because of their depth. The depth, yeah.

They played, I think, 53 games, I think it was. Yeah. It's a lot. You know, Pedro de la Vega wasn't, he had about a month where it's like, oh, my God, this is the $7 million player before he got injured. Obviously, Morris missed a lot of time. Rusnack missed some time during the season. Those are the 3D piece.

Reed Baker Whiting is their only U-22 initiative. He wasn't, he's not a starter at this point. So they did all of this, essentially, with TAM players, and Roosnack was the most healthy out of the, or the most healthy slash productive out of the three DPs. So I don't know. I think that you just don't mess with that formula too too much. They'll get a lot of international slots back. They only use four this year.

They funded the Hazius Frere trade with international slots. So I'm curious to see what they're doing. They have a lot of gam left over from 25 and I hope ownership gives some money. If like a couple of U22 initiative players wouldn't hurt. I know that's all depth and they have a lot of good depth. Ryan Kent has a contract option for next year. He's a TAM player. So that could free up more spots, more space.

sorry but you know that there's they have some flexibility but I think for me it's more about run it back with the core and see what you can do around the edges and and again particularly if obed does go big big question central midfield yeah I agree with all that I would expect Steiner Brunel to be part of the answer in central midfield if obit does go I think Stuart Hawkins will get over a thousand minutes next year like he I'm pretty sure they think he's ready but in all like yeah i it would be crazy i think to do anything but run 95% of this back and i'm assuming that they're good enough because they value continuity and it's been very very successful for them over the years lastly charlotte fc so they lose i still think that they

had a really good year um they finished fourth in in the east that was really really packed they again who knows what everybody has injuries so this isn't just a charlieb thing but you wonder what might have happened if you had pep yeah on the field Pepio will be back next year as a designated player alongside Wilfr Zaha and Lee Al-Bada. They're going to have a little bit of juggling to do.

Leo Obada, I would, you just can't bring him. You just can't bring him back. You have to, there has to be, have to find a solution there. He,

in this series, and particularly being able to watch it, pitch-eyed, he was matched up against Hanna's Wolf, who does a shift defensively. He's not a lockdown fullback, centerback, right?

They kept on giving the ball, and he had no interest in trying to take him one-on-one. And that's a guy that they spent $6 million on for. You're not going to hit every single signing. You need to open that up. And whether that you stay with two DPs and Zaha and BL and four U-22 initiatives, I think Nikolaekevich, that experiment has to be over. I was really excited when they signed him. He just hasn't broken through into the first team.

That's the U-22 slot. So that would give them flexibility to go for a third DP or another U-22 initiative. And that's talking about two departures. Is Andrew Privet just penciled into the starting lineup for, Adelson, Melanda? I think you can, but you need to sign a serious centerback to compete and have cover and rotation for him and Tim Ream because we don't know exactly what that partnership might look like

without Malanda being one of the fulcrums. And Ream is obviously over, right? And you try to have as many good players as possible is the most obviously stupid thing to say. But Malanda was on a Tam deal. He, like you're going to get Gam or first transfer or whatever it'll end up being. But he was a tamp like that will free up a slug. lot um eric williamson's the tan player didn't really ever play don't think he's going to be back

um to briljiani there's an option for him i thought that there's good moments and and some bad bill to leoma is an option for 26 as well so they will have a lot of flexibility like if they want to add a max tams that are back they can do you get the sense that the addition of all these 30-somethings right like building the team around westwood he's 36 now uh using making zaha the the face of your team he's 32, going out last year and getting Nathan Byrne on one side, going out this year and getting Harry Toffalo on the other side, bringing Tim Riem in, like, these are all guys who fit a certain mold in terms of age and experience. Is that from Dean Smith, or is that from Zoran Kreneta? Collaborative. I guess that's a good question. I think they have a robust front office as well.

against Zoron and Dean are of the pivotal parts of these decisions. My immediate question would be, would you say any of those signings didn't work out? I don't, yeah, I don't think any of them worked out in the way that they had hoped, right? Westwood has been really good for multiple. Other than Westwood, yeah. Other than Westwood, I think Tim Riem has been. I think, second team.

He's been pretty good. He also, like, got annihilated in a playoff game, a decisive playoff game. They've scored two goals in six. playoff games over the last two years having these types of profiles on the field on every line um yeah i think it limits what you can do as as a team from a tactical tactical perspective i think defaulting towards guys whose primary um career experience is in england um means you're going to play a certain type of way to stay anti-British, just so casually.

Yeah, I think they play terrible soccer there. Yes, correct. Again, I'd push back on a lot of that because, again, if you go individual case-by-case, I don't think Tuffalo was super good at the end of the season, but the Goss theorem, everything else, like, he was definitely carrying an injury. I know of that. Again, maybe he's not good, right? Like maybe, but I'm still giving benefit of the doubt there.

I think Tim Riem over 18 months has been, I wouldn't say. that he's like, oh, yeah, like, I think, and, yeah, he, he made a bad decision and, and didn't go to the, like, the transition moment. Yeah, that was huge. I mean, show me a centerback who hasn't had that moment, right? Like, I, like, I think that distilling it down to that is unfair. Yeah, Zaha, I wish that we saw more from him, particularly in this series, but, like, Zaha, PEPL, Toclamadi is a starting point for your attack next season. Bayecule, Bali, got his feet wet with the second team, comes the first team. That was a several million dollar signing in the U-22 initiative. Toklamati, obviously, U-22 initiative.

Corona Vargas, U-22 initiative. It's not just, like, players that are 30 and over from the UK that are making up this team, and maybe they do need to fine-tune the balance a little bit more. Again, if there's a third DP that comes, I would like to see it be an in-prime type of player, and they've chased those kind of guys. Calvin Stanks, like, that was a deal that they had,

but he has a hole in his name. And the doctors couldn't sign off on it. And, by the way, he hasn't played all that much since that happened. They tried for Dharamachi's back in the day. He was an in-prime DP who's a grown beak who ended up going to Wrenz in France. That was like a 23-year-old. Like they've, they're very capable of doing that, and I hope that they do. But I don't think the balance is off that much, is kind of my point.

No, I think the balance is off a lot. Come on. They started six, seven, 30-year-olds in a playoff game. Like, that's an imbalance in those. way you have built your roster and six of those guys are are imports or you know however you want to call it from from england and they like after two years of this and you've scored you know two goals and six games you have to you have to look with a critical eye you have to say okay there's something between the game model and the roster built there's something that that is

a little bit off right here especially when you just gave up three goals that were down to like we got outrun we just we our our old guys could not keep up with guys in their prime in the open field I guess um there is improvement necessary absolutely I just don't think that's a whole

and they're at the they're at the part of their age curve where they're not going to get better I I get that I just listed off for you 20 initiative players or younger players that again at Dilsa Malanda was was a younger player in this team I know he's 24 now like getting

towards more so in prime before he's leaving for Borough this winter. But again, I just don't think that it was that far off. I agree that getting younger or more in a couple more in-prime players will be very beneficial, particularly if it is a DEP because that is the highest leverage that they can use. But I don't know, I think Ashley Westwood should be the starter and a captain next year.

And again, we can talk about it again if it's June and he looks like he really did lose a step. Same thing with Zaha. Same thing with Ream. What's a successful year for this team next year? Got to win a playoff series and it's kind of submit yourself as... Again, I would like to say tough. Nick's fan stuff coming through here.

If you win a playoff series, you hang a banner. That's the way it goes. Got it. All right. So you're of the opinion that every single year, if you don't win a championship, it's a... Celtics pride, baby. Celtics pride.

Except for now that you were trying to cope and pretend like... Oh, I'm so... I'm so pissed that we keep, I'm so pissed we keep winning games, man. I want to, we're four and five, four and six. This is such an unbelievable. I need, I need a 25 game losing streak. That you put in front of yourself because you're worried about how the season is going to go. So you're just going to take.

It's AJ DeBance to season, my friend. You're just going to be a coward and I remember in the playoff run. There was a game with an Xrup pig and you're like, I'm not even watching. I turned it off. And then talk shit when they came back. You can't have both Coward Bing Bong

Next are going to win the title this year I will see you there When it's June We play June basketball That is the heritage of this team On that note That's it for soccer wise today Thank you all for hanging out

For the people who have been here Thank you all for the people Who are listening live Thank you to Matt Doyle Always always always read his stuff Subscribe to a substack You will be smarter about MLS teams And you will be entertained

While you're doing it So please do Read that Doyle Thank you for joining Always a nice day Always a pleasure to talk to you, Tom. Always good to see the fine fans of Soccerwise. Thank you again to everybody who came out in Charlotte.

It was a lot of fun. We love doing that stuff. So hopefully we'll be able to do that again in the future in your home city, whoever you are listening to this. We love it. We have a lot of fun. And we'll be back very, very soon. You know,