SoccerWise - MLS/USMNT Edition: Luna's Big WINS, MLS Mailbag & Goodbye To An Old Friend

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Big show at Soccerwise during an emotional week for two ETR veterans Tom & David sit down to chat through it all. They breakdown what they saw from the USMNT coming out of January camp on the back of Diego Luna's grit, and they dig into the mailbag coming from Patreon subscribers questions. Of course the "Ice Cream Shop" is open with all of Tommy's latest scoops.1:00 Goodbye to ETR17:30 USMNT Recap20:30 Diego Luna’s BIG CHARACTER37:30 Mailbag On Red Bulls Retooling49:00 Mailbag Elite MLS Storyline Season?59:20 Mailbag Fake Tajon Buchanan MLS Spots1:03:55 Ice Cream shop Swiderski To Greece1:08:30 FCD & LAFC Update Post Tafari Trade Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Welcome everybody to SoccerWise, David Goss and Tommy Scoops with you for another show breaking down all things Major League Soccer, USMNT as well. It's going to be a big one. We are going to dig into the mailbag. All of those questions coming from our Patreon subscribers inside of our Discord, which has just been electric and on fire all week, talking about games, talking about moves, talking about life, talking about everything else going on. It's been a big week in the MLS world for many of you, you will know.

Two ETR alumni here hosting this show. So it's been a little bit emotional. So we're going to talk about it in a little bit. We've gotten a lot of messages from people. We appreciate all the thoughts. We appreciate everyone who sent us their experiences and their feelings around extra time ending. And as I said, we're going to break down what we saw with the USMNT. Diego Luna helping this team to two big wins because he's got the big ones with him. And the trades continue in Major League Soccer as we go along. So welcome everybody into SoccerWise.

If you're watching live on YouTube or later on YouTube, welcome. If you're listening to the podcast, we love having you there as well. Tom, I was on Extra Time earlier this week for the final time with Andrew Wiebe and Matt Doyle, and of course, producing Anders behind the scenes for a show that I have worked on or around for over a decade of my life. We talked a bit about it. And Tom, it's where we met. Me and you had never done anything together. I don't know that we'd ever met in person until we started doing some extra time shows together. And now we've created Soc wise together as well so it feels like a real full

circle moment to come back onto this show now i think after the final episode of extra time i totally agree and yeah we didn't like i knew who you were just from knowing and following like weeby and doyle's writing because i came from the written side of things and you didn't you came from the broadcasting side of things like i knew who you were um you seemed fun as hell on the show i was obviously a big fan of the show the way that they loved you um again i i wasn't close with we being doyle yet but um i'm a big believer in look if the people i love love somebody that's that's enough for me and so just like i could get the vibe that like all right right, like this, this is an awesome guy. But like as as your person, a part of the shows, are you guys going back and forth? Are you being you being have to be argumentative with Doyle or we being then I'd be like, all right, like what?

What if he doesn't like me? And then just is like an a-hole to me, too, or not to. But just like without the foundation of love with your chest or don't say it. Or of you being like, who the hell is this guy? And obviously that wasn't the case. You were extremely inclusive and kind and fun. But, like, that was what it was. It was, I knew more about Weeby and Doyle than I did you.

So that, like, I was like, all right, like, I feel pretty good. I have a better idea of, like, Weeby and Doyle. And I was like, what if Goss hates me? And then, like, Kalen Carr was a little bit too am I close enough with him to start making some of the jokes that they are or is he going to be like who the fuck is this guy I still feel that way with Kalen sometimes

I'm like do I have license to say this I'm not really sure but you just take the risk and you deal with the memes that he creates about you after sort of the the operation I've come by um yeah it was a fun time i think it's been really cool the last few days um to have people sort of reach out and say what the show meant to them and and the connections they had and the jokes that they picked up on or

the things about you that you pick up on someone uh texted who uh works in the industry and hosted a sports radio talk show for a number of years and said like people would stop me on the street and two minutes into the conversation be like oh you don't know who i am but i know a lot about you and that's an experience we have often when we go to soccer events and all that stuff and it is the coolest experience in the world i always introduce myself and people always blow right through it. Like, Oh, I know who you are. And it's like, that's sort of the door to open to then figure out who you are. Cause I don't really a hundred percent always know or remember. Uh, but it's like always astounding to me that it matters to anyone that, that anyone connects with it. And so I think this week it was, it was

definitely emotional, but it was definitely a pick me up-up for me to hear from people who said how much it meant to them. I mean, the messages from people who said, I listened to the show one time thinking I only cared about my club, and now I love the league, or only cared about the sport in this way, and now I love so much more of it. I think that was really special for me because that was my experience. Like, I was a college kid in boston um i was a college ambassador for the new england revolution which was a failing job because i'm supposed to get kids to drive themselves out to gillette stadium and go watch sire send pouring goals uh which didn't work as well as i'd like to so i apologize to the person who was my boss at the time for that uh which was like a part-time

job that i don't even know if I got paid for. And I had MLS direct kick that I made a local Irish pub order and I would go and watch games. And then I'd go, you know, I'd end up in bed at 2.45 in the morning streaming MLS games, like on the backside of whatever I'd been doing. That's part of why I love the Whitecaps so much

because I love those atmospheres late night. And then I would listen to Simon and Greg and Nick and Andrew talk about it on the weeks, twice a week. And I learned about the league and I learned about different clubs and different supporters and different storylines and rivalries and history and all that type of stuff. So I'm glad that I was able to be a part of that for other people, because I think both of us are passionate about the growth of the sport in this region. And we think this is one of the big ways for it to happen. And you said it when we started the show of like, we want to cover this league the right way, but we want to expand it too. And so it was really heartening, I think,

for me to hear those stories from people over the week. Yeah, let me just say that it's extremely touching for the people who have said, hey, soccer-wise is like the legacy of ETR living on. I will say that we need to earn that. We don't have anywhere near the longevity yet. I know that we have a lot of similar components, like literally being me and you as some of the components. But again, like I didn't make that show.

I was just happy and lucky to be brought into that show by you guys. So again, I make that show. I was just happy and lucky to be brought into that show by you guys. So I, again, I appreciate that comment. That is what I strive for, for this show to get compliments like that. But genuinely we have to earn it and we have to earn it over time. But that is,

that is the highest form of compliment that anybody can say to us right now of, of you guys or the legacy of, of extra time. So for me, like the, the farewell episode, and again,

I know that there's a lot of overlap in our audience and ETR's audience, and there was space for both of us. I'm just going to say that without trying to get upset or angry, but I want to say the, for those of you who have listened to the farewell episode, or those of you who haven't yet, Goss, Weeby, Doyle, what you guys did was beautiful. I loved it. I was feeling a little emotional, but I was laughing a lot. Um, it was funny. Like I would like laughing out loud at like a lot um it was funny like i i would like laughing

out loud at like a lot of the memories and like my wife would come by and be like what are you laughing at and i just don't even worry about it like it's just too much to try to explain here and um that was great and you and i have known for better part of a month that this was either going to happen or confirmed happening and i will say i think that you guys would have all cried i'm just saying that right now if you got if you did that show a week later um or maybe there would be other emotions but the time that has gone from receiving the news that etr was going to be no more and being able to process it being able to eulogize it in the group chat and talk about it and really let it sit to getting to this farewell episode about a month after that kind of came down i think served it well because

it really was a celebration of life rather than a funeral yeah um i i was glad we were able to do that because i'd already gotten the last year the text of like thanks for making me cry in my car and like real cool so i didn't need to do that to everyone again making them cry on a soccer podcast so i was hoping to avoid that and i think i was really proud of what we did as well i can't believe we didn't cry i i i can't believe it i'm that is the biggest shock in the world if you look at my notes that i had going into it i had a couple circles for where i thought I'd have to pause for Weeby Cries and I was actually pretty let down that I couldn't get him there. But apparently, you all did

because anyone who's listening, who listens to both and who commented, he's been sending screenshots of comments he got, emails he got. Our Discord has been an incredible place for people who, as we say, we know there's a ton of crossover between the two of people sort of celebrating it and giving their thoughts.

And Weeby has screenshotted all of them. He's gone back and listened to old episodes that people have mentioned and moments and all that type of stuff. So there's been a lot of that going on and that got him there, which is great because he needs that. We all know he needs that. And I appreciate that from everyone as well. Tom, anything else yeah look i said this on twitter but i do want to reiterate it like this fills me with immense sadness this is um a show that is that is part of the fabric of this community this community of sickos it was a show that cared deeply about the league for a long time and the people driving it were the

special sauce and that starts with simon borg and greg lawless and and nick and the producers behind the scenes that you don't know like um it was an entry point for fans to become fans and fans then to become sickos and again we use that as a lovable term because that's what we all are and it just makes me sad but i need to again the people that I'm going to talk very nice about have no interest in me doing this, and they'd prefer if I didn't. But I'm going to start with Simon Borg. That was a name you guys talked about a lot. I am so sad that I wasn't an active listener of ETR when Simon Borg was on the show

because every goddamn story is funnier than the last that you guys tell. And the love and reverence I have for Simon Borg, he was the one who brought me to MLSHockey.com. He was the one who gave me my chance to become wherever I am today. And I remind him of that several times a year, because I think that's important, because he's somebody who means so much to me. And he always says, I didn't do anything.

I opened the door, you ran through all this stuff. Simon Borg was the one who pushed me to become a newsbreaker against my will I told him this is a bad idea I don't like I was scared you're only as good as your sources what if my sources aren't any good I like to think that my opinions on watching a games are super great that oh I could be I could do what Doyle does I'm not as good as Doyle at that I'm not as good as you at that I'm not as good as Bill Barnwell at ESPN or Mita Kimes at ESPN or Zach Lowe, like all of the like big analysts that like I love. And I'd be like, no, it's ego too. What I have an opinion, it's supposed to matter a lot too. Simon was like, just trust me. If you don't like it in three or six months, we'll change it. Don't worry.

So not only did he have the vision for me to do this, he pushed me against my will. And like, I'm forever grateful. And I know that you guys feel the same about simon too but like i i want to make sure that that his name isn't his name should still be at the front of people's minds on covering mls the other person i want to talk about is honors producer honors and you guys did a good job of it on the show i'm gonna make fun of him for not coming on the mic during the show. He should have been talking because they're like, Anders is extra time, man. Like he embodies that spirit, the passion, knowledge, humor, and camaraderie. He is all of that. I wish that everybody listening would be able to know the Anders that we know, because that dude is a legend. And again, he is extra time. There was so much stuff that he does behind

the scenes at MLS that he doesn't and will never get the credit for. So those are two people that I really want to throw to. And again, support your local outlets. Obviously, we want you to support us. We want you to be in our community. But this isn't just a self-serving thing. The local blogs, the local podcasts, whatever, your favorite local team, it is so important because if that stuff continues to get sanded away, then this league loses more heart this league loses more culture and the culture is the fans of culture or the people listening to this the culture is that the people listening to me go on like with a stupid oscar acceptance speech right now it's like looking at goss's eyes he's trying to play the music to get me to shut the hell up no not at all these

are it is just so important and i don't mean to like uh make this a bigger thing than it was because i truly believe the grandiose words and everything i'm saying right now i truly believe all of this fits all this is perfect and and if anything i'm not going strong enough over the top because i'm not crying and i haven't made you cry you you got me close. I was there. I think one, I hope we did under service and what we talked about. He promised that he would talk on this show, which we are still waiting for. I mentioned the stories of going to Seattle for a CCL final. At the time, we hosted this hangout with people, and so many people showed up, which was overwhelming. The amount of them that were like, well, where's Anders?

Like, I want to meet Anders. And obviously, they're Seattle fans. I think they knew they had someone in their corner. He was already in the back of the bar with the other supporters. He was like, they were like, oh, you didn't wear your Roger Levesque jersey? He's got, like, Lamar Nagel signed jerseys on and stuff. Like, everyone was locked in. But for anyone out there who's always like oh was

my team cover enough and push for them anders was pushing for everyone behind the scenes and he was talking about the stories that mattered and he was talking about the stories we cared about and pushing us to talk about them giving us the energy i mean sometimes you get on and you don't know what you have and he knew how to poke you so that you came on you're like oh let me rip right now start the show we be i'm to scream at you because of this thing Anders made me get mad about. And he was great at that. And so I appreciate everything he's done.

And you said he's a legend. He's also a superstar. He's going to be running all this stuff one day, and I can't wait to work for him when he is commissioner of whatever he decides he wants to be a part of full time after that. And that's why we also have to be so nice. It's not just that we love them. It's that we're looking out for our own future.

So that, that honor becomes the czar of something that we're not going to be cut. We are on the record. Uh, let me throw out one more thing about Simon. And we've got a couple of legends in the chat right now, including Sean Francis. I just saw Sean Francis's name.

And Nick Murray. Sean is a busy man. He's in the chat right now. And Nick Murray, who Nick Murray crushing USL has always been such a huge help. Um, but one of the things about Simon and one of the things he doesn't believe about himself is that he,

he put the ladder down behind him. Like he brought us in, he gave us belief. He pushed us. Um, he thinks he didn't cause he's a hard out. And that just cause you challenge people and push people. It doesn't mean that's true.

I don't know that we say it enough, so I'm going to try and say it more often, but we would like to do the same, and we don't have maybe as many resources as we possibly can, but I'm always here to talk to people who are interested in being in this industry or covering this league or being around this league in any other way. I'm on Blue Sky. You can follow me and shoot me a message there uh if you're in our discord feel free to shoot me a message as well

i am terrible at responding to messages so when i respond three months later even yours that's not because i didn't care it's because that's just how my brain functions and i apologize um but i hope that we can help be a source of bringing more people in because you said it following local coverage like this league needs more coverage. It needs to be stronger. We need to have people who are holding people to account in all the markets and we need to have people who are passionate, who are educating in all the markets or who are just making people excited. And I know a lot of people come here for that and we try and do everything we can. There are 30 teams in this league at this point.

Like we just can't do it every, every club, every single day. And we want to, and that's the way you do it. So, um, I, I would like to help as much as I can with anyone and just feel free to reach out through any of the soccer wise channels or through my personal ones. Um, and I'll always be there as morgan says gets a text from goss three days later about a question she just asked um i did mention this on extra time so i'll mention it here but we're officially going to host the golden boot draft for 2025 so we're going to have we being doyle on for that at a minimum and more we're going to have kayla on as much as he'll

allow us to we're going to make anders come on and draft his team in person with his voice and be held account by it. And then Morgan will probably win the whole thing with all of the people that none of us end up taking because that's what ends up happening for anyone here. Who's new listening for the first time, because you stumbled across this because of the conversations that have been happening over the last week,

or you're just new in general, know the vibes baby it is play your kids it's free spaces disappointment it's 48 minutes on rapids high pressing and three minutes on inter miami and of course we're here for oji gang oji god doing it once again that's what we do here at soccer wise thank you for joining us if you're new. If you've been around for a little while now, thank you for being here. Thank you for your support. Let's stop talking about this stuff and let's dig into the game. Once again, the legend Patrick Ajaman graces the United States men's national team with his presence. He allows them the right to put him on the field and scores from no angle. Perfection with the left foot because he can do it all.

That's who he is. It was another great showing from him. And a lot of, I wouldn't, I don't know if we can call them friends of the show yet. Maybe we just call them totems of the show. And we start with Diego Luna, who I have watched play since he was in the San Jose Earthquakes Academy at GA Cup, ripping it up for like 12 minute segments at a time on the fields in Frisco before he really got himself into full time playing shape. He came out, Tom, and he had a full Tom Bogert performance in that first half. Dude, I love Diego Luna, man.

Like what a performance this was. So he catches a stray elbow, and he's like, you see him go to his nose, and then the camera cuts to him, and blood is gushing out of his nose. And the trainer is doing like, you know, blow your nose, try to get everything out. And Mauricio Pochettino is talking about it after the game

with the commentary team on the desk with our guy Brian Dunstiff and everyone else and he goes he they really asked him about it and he goes yeah i i didn't want to say anything to diego his nose was broken but i didn't want him to know that it was broken like like you do to a child like oh you're not hurt you're not hurt like so that they don't yeah he's a kid right like like that dude i think if anybody could uh take care of a broken nose and be okay with it diego luna but anyways, Pach was laughing about that. And then he goes, you know, how do you feel? And he goes, please let me play.

Please let me play. And Pach says he turns to the doctor, and the doctor says, yeah, he's good. And he goes, okay, you go back in. The first play, he has a delightful assist to Brian White. Shout out, New Jersey. Mario Gomez. Very nice finish. And as Mauricio Pochettino put it to the broadcast i can't do any

better he goes big balls and then they all start laughing he goes oh oh i met i met big character yeah diego luna big balls it's gonna follow him for the rest of his life and he's gonna be fine with it is it real that rsl changed his yes picture on the website. 100% true. On Instagram and Twitter and everything. Beautiful. Chef's kiss. Shout out Team Social, Real Assault Lake. You guys kill it all the time. Yeah. RSL is always first on a lot of this stuff. They're awesome. They know

they've got a special player. We've got comments in the chat, similar to what we had in the Discord last night about the Olympics nub still with Diego Luna and just the fact that what about brian gutierrez by the way guti gets two starts in this camp for not the a team but a full national team but isn't on the olympic roster as well i think a lot of that is frustrating for people and there is some grace for me in that youth development at that age is not linear

and so there are ups and downs but diego luna was in a place to be a game changer at that age is not linear and so there are ups and downs but Diego Luna was in a place to be a game changer at that stage and he showed it this week which is awesome he came off the bench in the first game I think that's fine right him and Jack McGlynn probably shouldn't be playing 180 minutes of friendlies against the you know in these conditions and all that type of stuff so I'm okay with that he stepped in he showed what he's capable of at a really high level. He showed that he's capable of being the center of a team like this, which is huge for RSL. We all think he can do it. We haven't seen him do it full time at a team that's a top four or five team in the Western Conference. I think RSL sees themselves that way.

And he's going to have to be that player with the way the roster construction has come along i think he showed he's capable of it in this match so i was talking to sources at the club um around the chicho rongo deal and stuff like that and they were like this is diego's team simple as that like that that's how they feel about this player and that's why like again like they'll they'll need a number. I know that they're working on it. And with where the transfer windows are this year, if they don't get it now, that could derail the season. But I don't think that it will because Diego Luna can be the guy. And then you have Gonsalves and Marzuk of, like,

those three underneath the center forward, that is as strong as it gets, like, realistically. Maybe not the strongest, but that's really fire out there and like why i'm still um optimistic about real salt lake has a lot to do with diego luna yeah um i love marchuk as well and i think the things you see from luna are like he can make the game easier for other players his gravity his vision i mean there's one ball he hit where like a pass got deflected up near him and he hit like a side volley but it had the right spin and curve on it and you're like this was the player by the way when he was 15 years old that you saw at ga cup and it was like if he could put it all

together the closest comp i would say that i've ever seen well paxton pomichael was up there um cavin of course is up there. But the way they play, Efra Alvarez was the other one, where it's like you have this reality of like if you can just get the ball to their feet, it's good. Can they get the ball to their feet enough times? Luna's expanded his game since then, though. He's expanded his fitness. He's expanded his ability to beat guys 1v1.

That allows him to be a true winger if he has to be, or come inside and be a playmaker. So again, he showed this at El Paso. And when I kind of had questions about, yeah, look, we were burned by Efra Alvarez. We were burned by Alex Mendes or Uli Lainez, or I feel like I'm only naming Galaxy players, but you know how it is, right? Like the standout, technically great youth player that you root like hell for and you hope for but it's like all right i'm gonna stop getting too far carried away unless that i know

that this player can affect the game at the highest level physically and luna i have no more questions about that no more because of what he did at the olympics what he did you know from el paso real so like i truly believe pablo massarini is one of the best things to happen for Diego Luna's career. And not to take credit away from Diego himself because, like, he needs to buy into that. He could have just been like, screw you, I've been the best player on the field my whole life, why would I change anything? And what he's added to his game, that is very clearly infused from Pablo Maserini, or at least accentuated by Pablo Maserini and now Riel Salt Lake staff, is brilliant, is excellent. I have a couple more thoughts before I kind of throw it back to you here. One, I feel it's only fair that I slaughtered Matko Milhevic before the camp.

I still think all of that stands. But while he was awful in the first 30 minutes against Venezuela, he was really good in the next, what was was it probably a total of 75 minutes between that game and this one yeah um again i i still stand by everything i said but uh fair is fair like i thought that he was was really good particularly starting some transition moments um after again like not even just in his penalty in the first 30 minutes like he was turning the ball over like he was occupying the wrong spaces but like once he got his kind of footing under him i thought he was very good this is like a deep cut conversation but where else are we gonna have it

if we're gonna have it there's something that i get a lot from people who are from previous generations of for the most part american but sometimes canadian players who feel like there's a difference between themselves and the top youth talents that are coming through. And I think a big one is like this level of grit and where it comes from and how you develop it. And for a lot of players, they feel like they're forced to have to find their own career paths was a big part of it, as well as the setups that they were in which are different than academy setups and you know there'll be i promise you go to any space with professional soccer players or former professional soccer players and they'll tell you about how much harder they tried in every game for their club team than players in the academies try right now because it meant so much more to them and they played for

their town and it was the world cup final to be at the dallas cup which still goes on and still matters and all those types of things for their team and you also get people who say like the jay demerits of the world and the heath pierce of the world and charlie davies and all of them who were out on their own sort of taking these risks at young ages and finding their own careers because they had to when there wasn't a pipeline created some level of grit and created some level of like personality and culture that the u.s specifically men's national team like relied on and i think some of that is true i think there are elements of truth in that i think we're better off for youth development with the way we're at right now but you look at a player like

diego luna who did leave the san jose academy because it wasn't going to happen for him and went and found el paso on his own you talk about what Charleston has done with a couple of the young players I think for some people it's the right move of like I had to take my own make my own decisions some players are on a path and a club can guide them along or an agent can guide them along some players have to figure it out themselves and i think we see with diego luna maybe that life experience has helped him grow up quicker and be quick and be quicker to accept changes like you talked about with pablo mascherini than other players would where they'd be like no no this is who i am i'm a 10 i don't need to tackle i don't need to get in stuck in there like bring

the game to me and i promise you i'll be able to create from there i'm not saying it's better for everyone and you named a couple players who have tried stuff like that where it didn't work out bring the game to me and I promise you I'll be able to create from there. I'm not saying it's better for everyone. And you named a couple of players who have tried stuff like that where it didn't work out because not every club's invested in you then. And there's just different paths to it. I love the amount of clubs that exist in this region now to give opportunity for players like that. We interviewed the president of Orange County, of course,

in the holiday season, they've been super active about finding players that fit in that. So I just think it's an interesting idea as we talk about youth development. And you move on to Patrick Ojemong. His experience is just completely different from Ricardo Pepe's. And that doesn't mean it's better or worse. And that doesn't mean he's going to be better or worse because of it. But like the cliche tweets start flying around when he does something like

this guy played d3 as we talked about on the last show and we got confirmation on this player what was his name oh my goodness um now i'm gonna lose it i send it in the chat um in case anybody wanted more of kane university d3 was it sheryl palmer sheldon sheldon yeah yeah shout out to like if you told me it was palmer sheldon i would have believed it juston Palmer Yeah Shout out to If you told me it was Palmer Sheldon I would have believed it Shout out to Buzz Carrick Who wrote it up By the way

Originally And is number one Covering FC Dallas I want to Sorry to keep our going on a tangent But so Again there was an ESPN story About the ineligible player

From my D3 team I remember reading this story And little did I know Buzz Carrick would become a friend And become somebody That was going to be in my life in a few years later. So things come full circle. As I'm walking around the Kean University campus with the boys being like,

dude, he played for FC Dallas. And now Buzz Carrick's the number one. And if you like FC Dallas or you're following some of the insanity that's going on there, you should follow him. But yeah, so Patrick Ajumang does it once again. It is encouraging right now that it feels like there's a path for him to be a starter at Charlotte. It feels like there's an acknowledgment from Mauricio Pochettino about what he's capable of. That is the plan from Charlotte FC.

They want to give Pat Ajumang a chance. Sorry, guys. No, that gets me hyped i literally kicked my desk in excitement let's go dino get locked in that's what you have to do uh once again my golden touch continues i shout out jack mcglynn and patrick ajumang before last game they scored then i shout out kate and clark after last game that's a finish that's a goal awesome with that finish left foot volley from the top of the box with the speed the ball's getting away from him.

Like, in the corner. Let's go. I love that. I love that. It was a good moment for him. In general, my biggest disappointment is that Venezuela and Costa Rica, MLS clubs have not done a good enough job at getting some of their best players from MLS.

Because you look in recent years, like, didn't they play Columbia last? Was that last year or the year prior? Whatever it was. You looked at that team, and it was like, there's seven MLS Colombian players. And I was juiced. And then this year, Venezuela, you had Danny Pereira. And they had Braun for Costa Rica. That was just about it, right?

It's disappointing. I was sad to see it. Just a random one. No, I think you're right. And I think it's one of those ecosystem things of, even with the players on Colombia last year, you used to look At MLS and be like, oh, all of the top clubs

Are signing players from Colombia, and then two years Later, it was Ecuador, because it was cheaper Than signing players from Colombia, and then Three years later, it was Venezuela, because it was Cheaper than signing players from Ecuador And I think Costa Rica's at the top Of the pipeline when it comes to North America, and like I think if this same game Happens of the pipeline when it comes to North America.

And like, I think if this same game happens against Honduras, you probably have more MLS players involved. El Salvador has tried to pull a lot of obviously the dual nationals in that situation. But there's so much talent still in Costa Rica. There's so much talent in Venezuela, which we know MLS teams are trying to get involved in. And I would love to see these players. The thing about it in Costa Rica is you have to be more aggressive younger now. Like I told the story about Brian Ruiz and Ziggy Schmidt the other day, and obviously that was like an outlier guy. But at 20, if you are an elite player in Costa Rica, you are now getting bought to go

to England or Spain or to Belgium. Like MLS teams, if they want these players, you have to be before they've proven that they're a hundred percent a known commodity. So you have to trust your scouting system and you have to be aggressive about getting these players into your camps and giving them opportunities. Overall, a good week, a good month for this team. It was cool to hear Mauricio Pochettino after the game, besides the Diego Luna comment, talk about how much work they were able to do how much he was able to see these players um there were guys that maybe played in positions we didn't expect which i thought was surprising after a month of training i still think ben hakramaski it's just a tough one for him i think he's always going to struggle formation wise and a lot of these teams because i think he's always going to struggle formation wise. And a lot of these teams, cause I think he's a super unique soccer player. Like he's the American Thomas Mueller.

This guy is a goal scorer. Who's not a center forward. He's not an elite looking finisher, but he's going to put everything in the net and he's always going to be in dangerous situations, but he's not going to run the game from central midfield. So like, he's going to be a guy who's going to be matchup specific. He's going to have to find the right club to fit in when he does leave inter miami like all those types of things uh but it's cool to see him out on the field and getting those opportunities uh i thought gutierrez was good overall he still needs to take that step but like his life should be easier day in and day out with chicago fire now with bomba in the fold and yeah greg wereholz are creating some systems so overall i come out of this thing pretty excited.

And I love the comments I'm hearing of like, these guys have a chance to fight for the spots. And it feels like there's a cohesive style coming through. Let me throw one question here before we move on. Do you... This could be our first mailbag question. Tom from New Jersey. Oh, first time, long time, what's up?

Do you have one or two players That you think have Take away Reem and Robinson And Stephan I guess Is there one or two players that you expect To be on the March roster Or too presumptuous And probably still too soon I don't know because I don't know how he's going to

Treat some of these camps Just not having qualifiers I don't know because i don't know how he's going to treat some of these camps just not having qualifiers like i don't know where you're getting a a plus a minus b plus i stand by what i said on the last show which is i think i think jack mcglenn and ajman have two of the highest ceilings here or like i wouldn't be surprised to see them into the first team i think mcgllynn very specifically. So those would be the two I'd probably lean highest on because I was not impressed by Shaq more. So I don't know that he fits into that, that spot.

And then you get Arfstein and DeJuan Jones swapping in at that left back spot. I don't know that either of them won that role and, or won the opportunity to get another shot at it and those are the places where i think we're gonna see you'd see someone come out of a january camp and have the chance to to get into the the full team and like i don't know that anelli or arfston did enough to be there yeah and thank you for saying that too um i thought anelli was very good look like i was texting some friends that aren't huge mos guys

and the like one was like yeah like he's been really good and clean it's just he's lucas leva sideways passing and i was like that's a fair criticism or note but like for if i was like for those of you who don't know him i was like his best quality is defensive transition and winning duels and stuff like that so he i don't want want him to be paying or trying to ping these long balls like that is not his game, but I understand why that limits his ceiling, particularly with the national team. But so I'm kind of with you there.

I honest to God, like Patrick, I think has a chance in March. Like if well, and well, and truly he starts the first four or five Charlotte FC games. If he looks like he did in this camp. Yeah.

I think you kind of have to bring him in and say what does he look like with in training with pulisic and and mckinney and everybody else um and again that's not like it is difficult right like you look at brandon vasquez if his transfer to austin fc was earlier he would have been in this game right um and that's just another guy who's kind of on the fringes of that center forward chart. And then you have, obviously, Balogun and Pepe and Sargent and Wright and insert, you know, whoever else. So it is difficult, but just because of how still wide open kind of that position is and the injury concerns that, you know, Josh Sargent has had and Balogun got hurt again this year too,

or not again, but Balogun got hurt this year. If there's a way to sneak him on as the fourth forward, I think they should do that. Yeah. Yeah, again, and sorry, if he continues this form of Charlotte over the first, like there's a couple ifs in here to be fair, but like if that is the case, then I think he's got to be there. If that caveat is able to trickle down into that caveat

and then be sidebarred by another caveat, and don't forget to check the footnote, which is a caveat in there, then the potential for the rock rock king that is tom booger to be right on this one could live there uh let me throw out not for national team i i just like the way indy vasilev plays soccer if i was a st louis fan i'd be stoked he is not a national team future i I don't think, but he's just like a really clean, good soccer player who throws himself around and is reliable in possession and wants to connect and be a part of the game. And so I'm stoked to see his career continue in Major League Soccer.

So your question, Tom from New Jersey, the first of, we're going to do a little mailbag here. If you are new, as we have said You can subscribe to our Patreon If you do so at a paid level You get access to our Discord Which has been so much fun to be in We've got channels for Canadian Women's National Team

For USL, for NWSL For MLS, for USMNT We've got a mailbag channel in there as well We haven't been great about doing our mailbag episodes As we had all of the playoffs and championships coming up and then into the holidays, but we're going to resume them. We'll pull some into the shows that they fit in and then I'll be doing mailbag

only episodes as well. Maybe with special guests, maybe with you, maybe with Jordan as well. So you can send your questions there. That's the only way to get us your questions. You also get access to our depth charts, which remain updated and gives you salary cap tables for all MLS teams and then depth charts for MLS and NWSL teams with some notes from us as well. And we are working very hard to improve them. So they're going to be brand new coming out in a little bit as we head into this season with like bells and whistles and technology and all that type of stuff going on as well but we wanted to dig into the mailbag here and give you all a chance to ask your questions so we start with owl on the pitch i don't know if this is a soccer wise reference that's why the name's owl we do have someone in the youtube chat right now saying that

soccer wise fans should be called wise asses which which is like probably going to get us canceled, but it's not bad at all. So there's a chance that lives on. And the question here is Goss and Tom possibility for a future show. Here you go. I think people are sleeping a bit on how far Red Bulls are going with their offseason reboot. They started the offseason with a healthy amount of gam in the Andres Reyes and John Tolkien transfers brought in millions more. Dante Van Zier is close to being sold and longtime backup keeper Ryan Mirror just announced his retirement today. So in addition to the dry powder, they now look to have several open senior roster slots. Everyone knows what this team needs, but it isn't clear what they're up to.

Does Tommy Scoops have any insight? Boy, does he. Tom, you want to shoot yeah let's start dante vanzier vanzier has left a training camp with the new york red bulls he's traveling to belgium tonight to complete his move to ghent that would open a dp spot now the machinations of how they're going to fill these still remains to be seen because this is a team that could do 242 in terms of two dps for you 22s and two million gam because this is a team at its heart wants to do youth development and having another u22 initiative slot to kind of throw out there would make sense but this also opens a possibility of look there were timo verner uh rumors last year those are real i was told like

absolutely so i would love something like that i think that'd be awesome they've already brought in eric maxim chuaang. He's a DP. And if you're looking at the depth chart, I'm torn between if this is going to be a 4-2-2, where it's two defensive midfielders, two attacking midfielders, two center forwards, or if this is going to be what the playoff run was, the 3-4-2-1 or whatever,

where it gives Emil Forsberg more flexibility and freedom and then Lewis Morgan to run on beyond of a center forward of that. Chua Pumoteng will take kind of the creative burden that Van Zier was doing very good with in the playoffs, but it makes a ton of sense for everybody, for him to lead. So now Chua Pumoteng in that role, Morgan is still here, and then hopefully you get more minutes from Emil Forsberg next season. So if it's that, it's super interesting.

They could, again, they could do the 4-3-2. And then Lewis Morgan can become your right attacking midfielder and go sign a DP forward. So their center forward depth chart is Chua-Po-Mo-Teng and Morgan in the pair. Victor Bogosz, the Polish youth international that's here. AKA Polish Tom Bogert. You have Julian Hall, Tanner Rossborough, and Serge Ngoma. Honestly, between those three, I think that they have it covered for a fourth center forward.

And the question is, what is Bogart going to look like? Because we've been here before with not just the Red Bulls, but other teams that in unproven U22, sometimes they just don't hit. So maybe they need another center forward there, but I love Hall, Rossborough, and Ngoma. I'm praying like hell that Ngoma just has a full, healthy season because that kid is so talented. So all of that meandering to say, I like where this team sits.

The East is going to be a bloodbath, dude. So they need Forsberg and Choupo-Moting to give them 25 starts. Maybe not need, but they... I don't know if they're going to be able to withstand if both of them get injured. If both of them start less than half the games, that'll be a struggle. But this team, I think, is going to be very good.

The defensive spine is real. That's all there. They do need to find another left back to replace Tolkien. I haven't gotten updates on that chelene international morales that they seem close to being signed um which is obviously bad news so they're going to bring in another left back but they do have omar valencia a kid from the second team that they liked a lot and all this to say yes i think that they're going to be really solid and good we'll see what the next moves are if we're going gonna be like okay can they crash the top five

in the east and the way i'm looking at the east right now is miami columbus cincy um charlotte and who am i forgetting here miami did you say miami miami cincy columbus got it charlotte and there's a fourth that i'm blanking on right now but can can the Red Bulls... Orlando? Can the Red Bulls kind of crash that? Yeah, probably Orlando. Oh, Atlanta, sorry. Assuming that Atlanta completes these Al Merlion and Lattelatt deals, that's a top five right there. The Atlanta fans are in the chat fast to help fix that problem.

So that's, I think, five teams that are really going to be pushing it. The Red Bulls, Orlando, NYCFC, that's eight right there. One of those eight teams is in the wild card game. Or one of those eight teams is a huge disappointment and just completely bottoms out. Yes, I think the Red Bulls are going to be very good, but I'm being careful with there's going to be a lot of really good teams in the East. And I think the Red Bulls are one of them.

The Van Zier stuff is you could probably replace his production with a U-22 and not drop off because his production wasn't dp level he found a way to affect the team enough in the playoffs for them to go on that run as a creator but that's not his natural skill set it's not what he was paid to do and he was so poor as a goal scorer that it didn't counteract that on the salary structure of an MLS roster where a DP has to give you X production. So if they go out and get another U22, this is a spot where I wouldn't be shocked if like the production you get out of those spots isn't that far off from what you got from Van Zier and the club's better off for it, or you leave the spot open for a real DP who can change the game. I

think one of the things with this team is it feels like the expectation is that Hack is going to bring them up a level at the center back position, his passing and his stability that at one maybe makes life easier for whatever left back to sort of copy some of John Tolkien's offensive production without maybe being as good because that's going to be a huge drop and makes the spine even better. The other thing to remember is Cornell only played like Cornell at the end of the season and in the playoffs. If he gives you a full season, what we saw two years ago and three years ago, they are probably improved already without bringing in another big addition. And so I think those are all positives for this team. You mentioned Julian Hall and Serge Goma, like Sandro Swartz said Julian Hall before he was legally allowed to was like, this guy's a first team player.

So they're not going to want to cover those guys. And I think you're right in saying like putting all of that together gives you the depth at those positions. You can't guarantee it'll be Hall or Goma, whatever, but you know combined you're going to get enough production out of those spots. Don't even get me started on Tanner Ross, bro. Let's talk about a great GA Cup team, the ones that he was a part of. So I think if you're a Red Bull fan, it's a lot of change, but not to the DNA of this team. I don't think the identity of this team has really shifted in that. I think the staple pieces from the MLS Cup run are coming back, right? Carlos Cornell, Sean Nealist, Daniel

Edelman, like Tolkien, a huge part of it. I think he's the big miss, but the team that steps on the field, I think is going to feel very similar. And your hope is development under sandro schwartz in year two plus some of these half changes probably get them into a competitive spot one of the things everyone always says about red bulls is like they try harder for most mls regular season games than a lot of those teams you talked about will game in and game out and that will continue to push them up the standings and keep them competitive and that's why they had the playoff streak for all of the frustrations of not winning that final thing and not winning mls cup or other cups like they've had those playoff streaks because they put it all on the line every single week and i don't think there's

any reason to believe that this will be any different and i think chapu motang is going to give you more than what vanizer gave you last year from like an overall stats and quality point of view and then you still have the ability to get better but it's a great question because i do think it's one of those it's gone a little under the radar and that i think for red bull fans this is more change than they're used to this team is normally more consistent year into year out and i don't know that this this group is operating in the same way which i think is really really interesting. And sorry. Just one more point. Chicago Fire is another team that I think are going to be good this year. I don't know on what sliding scale.

But I just named nine teams there. So it's going to be really tight. And with the Red Bulls on your last point. They're not just signing more people than usual. They're signing adults. Veterans. Like Alexander Hack. Eric Maxim Chobomote.

Whatever else kind of comes. They hadn't done this. They're making up by signing AARP players. like alexander hack eric maxim chua pomote whatever else kind of comes they never they hadn't done this and they're making up by it by signing aarp players on the extreme other end 31 and 35 yeah um i love they're like our median age is still right there we signed two 17 year olds and a 35 year old and and that's why like again i'd prefer if they go three dps u22s but like i won't criticize them if they go two and four, because they're, they're actually built like building a more diversified team in terms of age profiles.

You win in, in global soccer, you win with prime age players more often than not. So I think that that is another good development for the Red Bulls. We had this on our rundown anyway, and then it was part of this question a little bit, but shout out to ryan mira by the way to be a backup goalkeeper in this league for 12 years with the same club he's a

local he's from the westchester area he went to fordham he played then for the red bulls i obviously called a ton of his games on red bulls too um he called me an og after mls cup which i feel good and bad about and that's a private thing between me and Ryan that I'm gonna get over because I like to think of myself as young but he is a legend in Major League Soccer um shout out to Fordham and the Rams that one's for our boy EG who is a deep deep deep to the heart Rams and uh Red Bull fan and uh congrats to him. It probably wasn't the career we expected. Like,

I don't know if people remember there was five years in a row where everyone thought he was either going to get taken in the expansion draft to be the next starting goalkeeper or traded for, he did have the one loan to NYC FC, which is funny as well. But I forgot about that, dude. Wow.

I know it's really funny. It was kind of like at a time where we were like, how are these two clubs going to interact with each other? But he accepted his role the way it was, and I think he's helped a lot of good young players come along, and I think he helped Carlos Cornell settle in and be one of the best goalkeepers in the league. Everybody you talk to at the New York Red Bulls about Ryan Mara loves him.

Loves him, loves him. Could not say a bad word. Look, Luis Robles, absolute legend for this club. Ryan Mara was the starter before Robles got there and Robles took the job and literally never got injured and was always great. So he started, let me like, well, whatever I say, it doesn't matter. Let me take from Dax McCarty, another absolute legend. Dax tweeted, I know we can play the if game with a lot of different things in life, but

I genuinely believe if he doesn't get hurt during his first season in 2012, he goes on to win rookie of the year and be the starting goalkeeper at the Red Bulls for more than a decade, maybe longer. He was that good. Again, that's high praise from Dax McCarty. And that's a dude who's been around and everything he says should be gold. He, I mean, he absolutely had these like what if moments, uh, but to continue to stick with stuff like is really, really cool. And he's, he's one of the great stories in Major League Soccer, I think. And shout out to Nick Murray, who of course is going to throw out the 2016 USL Championship New York Red Bull 2 squad, which was loaded. You had Derek Etienne, Tyler Adams, Adams Aaron Long Ryan Mira in that group like it

was a squad and of course Brandon Allen who's a legend so uh that's one of my favorite teams of all time and I am hyped that we were able to bring it up let's move on to our next question we're going to Minnesota from Up the Loons who says is this MLS season gearing up to be one of the most interesting in terms of storylines, or is that just recency bias? Then rattles off a list of things that this person thinks are interesting storylines. Do you want some of that or do you want to rip your own first? No, you hit it. You hit it.

So some of the ones on this list were new managers, messy and friends. Can they make an MLS Cup run? New rules could lead to first kind of transfers of big names and players within MLS. Columbus appears to be running it back after a disappointing end to 2024 and Nance and Cucho trying to continue. Seattle's USMNT B squad, which is a great line. Triple G at the helm in chicago bruce arena in san jose with big ideas a new expansion team in san diego and then talks to change uh in a lot of the formats leagues cup and open cup and all of that as well as some exciting young players does it sell you it does man and it really does and look the goal is for a league that's growing is every year we have this conversation is this the most interesting uh season ever um and for me it'll be recency buys you're better at the historian stuff from like uh further back in ms than i am but it's really hard to say no to this case and like

this up the loons didn't include a new club record a league record transfer in kevin danke that is only going to stand for two months because atlanta united likely even if it's not latte laugh i think that they're going to break the league record transfer yeah right and for the atlanta fans um in the chat like they're optimistic on both him and almarone there's still hurdles with latte laugh but again i reported like a week ago now that they had agreed in principle with burrow so things are close there but things are not done but there's a pretty good chance, if not a very likely chance, that clubs twice this offseason set a new league record transfer fee. So that is just in addition to what was said.

And first and foremost, Lionel Messi, right? Like we joke about there's too much focus on Lionel Messi. Like, dude, he's Lionel Messi, right? Like this has to lead the conversation. And everything else here, I'd say yes. The average MLS player continues to get better and better. The average homegrown signing continues to get better and better. And there's,

this league is, is very deep right now is very talented. And I think that there's a lot of interest to go around and that's why this is good for our podcast. There's a, I feel like every time we come on twice a week, it's like, Oh my God,

there's so much stuff we need to get that we need to talk about. Want to talk about, which, you know, it'd be nice if there was extra time was there to talk about the things that we don't cover. But, yeah, for me, like, it's easy for me to just say yes without stacking up case by case for like 2019 or 2022 or whatever. But, gosh, for me, I think this has to be a yes. I'm pretty convinced on this one one of the big reasons i'm convinced on this is i think a lot of managerial change creates like a ton of interest and you add in the names in some of these ronnie dyla coming back to the league to coach atlanta what does that look like bruce arena duh in san jose like what are we even talking about right now i don't think any of us know how to contextualize it triple g taking over chicago fire so i think one of the things is

when you have this much coaching and i think it was like 2018 right when like viera took over nyc geo took over portland where it was like whoa there are a lot of coaching changes they're big names they're big clubs or big stories i think think with this year, you have a lot of the established groups or maybe some of the clubs that you wouldn't say are the biggest names or the biggest markets, right? A Cincinnati, a Columbus, Seattle, even like putting it all together. Once again, you add to those storylines, the fact that a lot of other clubs have decided to enter the conversation of spending big to set the record Cincinnati to set the record for Charlotte to bring Zaha in, like to have

potentially Orlando bringing in a Croatian international as the next DP Austin entering the fray now setting their transfer record twice in one year. So you I think the thing that convinces me here is you have a larger critical mass of interesting storylines and huge could be great could be terrible teams and the coaching stuff and a lot of this talent and i do think the internal transfer market will end up being like the cherry on top in this off season of like you're gonna have two clubs or two fan bases that don't like each other because if let's just say and i'm going making stuff up if a vander goes somewhere that fan base is gonna i think the the timbers fans are gonna be like well we're not rooting for that team and we're not rooting for him to do well there and then that face fan base

is gonna be like well you guys didn't treat him right like we're the real for him to do well there. And then that fan base is going to be like, well, you guys didn't treat him right. Like, we're the real ones. This is our player. And Lucho might end up the same. So you might all of a sudden have these, like, four storylines that are all ramming into each other at the same time on top of a lot of else, what else that's going on. Even when you look at the way the league is set up now, like, 10 years ago, Bruce leaves, everything happens. The Rebs kind of would just quietly, I think, go off into the corner and be like, oh, we'll be competitive. Even if it goes poorly, like they're taking shots right now

and they're trying to put together an interesting story and they're going to be worth following whether it goes well or not. You still haven't seen Jay and Bernadette in Toronto. Like that's its own experience. Like there's just, there is a lot of different stuff going on. And then you add on at the top to have Columbus coming back in, to have Miami being who they are once again,

to have Ricky Pooj out for, we don't know how long with the LA galaxy, finally getting back to the mountaintop. Like that's its own storyline. That would be big enough. I do think that obviously adding more teams is like always going to do that. But I do think this is a good question. I do think there's a ton of legitimacy to this one.

And you have been rattling off the teams like, yeah, we could be midway through the season and say in both conferences, like there are 12 teams that could contend or there are, you know, X amount of teams that could beat anyone on any given day. I say that and then sometimes we get into it. And it's like, well, actually, these nine teams are garbage and cannot contend. Hopefully, it's not one of those years. And that doesn't end up happening. And hopefully, Triple G fixing Chicago is a big part of that, as well. Rapids Bray asks a question about the cash market now. Does this devalue GAM? Nope, nope, not at all.

So the cash trade market is, the rule is mostly for Evander and Lucho Costa, guys of that pedigree. And GAM, the best way to use GAM has always been, or diversify more so in this way than acquiring players, is extending your salary cap. Out GAM extends your salary cap out gam extends your salary cap the more gam you can acquire the more tam level players that you can

keep on your roster so gam will still be very important again hopefully that there's one day where it's just like hey salary cap 20 million plus two dps that's it just figure it out from there and you know x amount of international roster slots we're not there yet right now gam is still extremely valuable in this league as a currency that extends your salary cap. Look at the LA Galaxy. They had to trade Mark Delgado, Gaston Bruggeman. We were like, are they going to buy somebody out? Because you need to regenerate your

allocation money. You have to regenerate your allocation money every year for expensive teams like this. That's why Atlanta United are in such a great position because they have several, like, maxed hand level players now sabalob janice bartoszli stion gregerson those are three expensive players to have as non-dps they can afford it because of the caleb wiley sale because of tiago amato the game that came back for that and

everything else that they've done so allocation money is still very valuable in this league and that's not going to change with this rule though though it is a fair question to ask. Yeah, it'll be interesting when we see it happen this first year of going forward. Chicho Arango is clearly a player that's traded still in MLS for what the move he made. Lucho and Evander, it sounds like if they move inside of MLS, won't be. It'll be interesting just to see where that line falls of pure allocation money trades versus the cash transfers and like who

is in that gap and then how it affects teams and what they want to use and how they can use it going forward next question here from nick says evil tom has a goatee and no mustache is that the question yeah so i i put that in there i said that like it's not a question but i think we should discuss our evil evil personas because i think that is a that is perfect for me um for you i think you have like you you put wax on your head or whatever makes your head shiny you do that and you're in like this like alarmingly nice suit where it's just like this guy might be saying like smiling but there's just nothing behind his eyes and he's just an absolute killer i'd be like the guy who walks in with nothing in there yeah i walk into the stock market at the beginning of the day

in the like um spike lee movie where they rob the stock market or something and i'm the like face of the whole thing but it's like am i a criminal am i a businessman i don't really know that's definitely one of them when i go uh goatee it's bad my goatee pops way too hard so everything right now when you go goatee do you do this often have you done this often while i'm shaving so if my beard grows really long even once i trim it down while i'm doing it you'll see it at times and i'm like oh i hate that person so much my new off-season goal is we need to figure out something that we can bet on where if I win, you have to have a goatee for, like, a show.

And if I win, what happens? Figure it out. I don't know. Think about it. We'll agree to terms. We'll talk offline. My assistant GM will call your assistant GM, and then when we get closer, me and you will finally talk.

Because there's only one thing I'm going to want, and it's shave that mustache and i don't know if you can step to that line i don't know if you believe in yourself enough that would be well we haven't even had anything to bet on yet we're talking about payoffs versus before but like i that might be something that's that's because i was gonna say no like that's not fair because it would like you would have to regenerate your beard too so I think how long do you think it takes for that thing to grow in? this?

or is it just the moment you smell Taylor Ham that just pops up? pork roll I've never been to New Jersey actually I'd love to go one day I hear it's great speaking of that by the way we have a final question I'd love to go one day. I hear it's great. Speaking of that, by the way, we have a final question here from an account

named Empire Goss from Brampton, Ontario. It says, there are rumors out of some reporter from the States that Tayshaun Buchanan could be headed to PSV on loan while he

recovers from his injury and works his way back to Inter Milan. Could you see an MLS team bring him in on loan as a DP for the rest of the European season instead? And who would you put him on? Did you purposely write PSV instead of Ajax? No, I didn't. I didn't. That was an actual mistake.

So, I reported that Ajax are working hard to try to get Tejan Buchanan on loan from Inter Milan. And Empire Goss from Brampton is asking, could he come to MLS? I want to do more yes ands rather than just being the rain on the

parade. There's no chance that this happens. There's no chance that he comes to MLS, but it's fun to talk about so let's talk about it if he would come on loan to an mls club cincinnati top of my list new england return would be a lot of fun and toronto just you know if you can get out of insignia you just put uh tajan on the left wing federico bernadeschi in the right wing and your whole game model is be hard to defend against and then just give those two players the ball in open space and just let them cook. Cincinnati I think would be my

favorite because you could play him as a wingback like he does for Canada and then he just plays that role like Alvaro Barriola did and I think he would just do it better. I think Cincinnati is my final answer, but what about you? First of all, I'd like to apologize if it's pronounced Empire Gas and not Goss.

I'm not really sure. I would like to say this is beautifully written. And I think the person who wrote this clearly has a firm grasp of the English language and is an elite, maybe top level writer and should think about going into that space as well. I like some of the names you said. To me, the thought process here and like what got me excited is I love these little like, OK, who's in the weird situation? I think the weird situation to me here is who needs to fill a DP spot without permanently filling a DP spot right now. And so who has it open? And in a Cincy and teams like that, I think it's like, well, we might get stuck at the back end of this window where we don't want to rush the next signing

but we still need to be talented enough to get through june and july and get to the summer window hence i okay tajan come here play through the end of this then you spend your summer with canada then you go into pre-season with inter milan and then you go from there like we don't expect to sign you full-time and that's where cincinnati if the lucho thing doesn't go right whether it's wing back or we've seen so much flexibility from origiano you could just play the two somewhere around denke in an attack and figure it out from there the other teams that fit this model is in orlando if some of these conversations fall through last minute and they're looking for a winger and atlanta as well let's just say the miggy thing doesn't work out and they're like well let's get ourselves into the summer and then we'll redo a deal there and figure it out um i think rsl could be one like that can we make sure we

get the right guy after losing chicho do we slide some people around in our attack or is tajan just better than marchuk or Gonzalez at this point? And you let him cook for a little bit. And then the other one is FC Dallas. If you're not in a rush to find the next guy to replace Velasco and you're talking about being somewhat competitive, you don't have to put money down on this. You don't have to buy him. Like if you're FC Dallas, do not say hey come here find your feet again be the player we know you can be for five six months and then you can go back and do your thing

when we in the summer go and sign the next Alan Velasco I like those I like those I think I was taking it that you would just get him on loan for the season so I understand your thought process for those so yeah I think that's a fun conversation and it'll just never happen I also wrote down Montreal because they have DP spots open and then i chuckled to myself and then i continued on but it would be really cool uh as well all right that's our last question there in the mailbag as i said you can subscribe to our patreon it gets you access to our discord which is where we pull our mailbag from it also gets you access to a ton of other stuff uh our depth charts in there you can hang out and chat with us.

And we've got some more stuff coming. We're working on live events, merchandise, all this type of stuff that we're going to be doing this year that our patrons are going to have first dibs at as things go along. Let's dig into the ice cream shop here to finish things off. And let's start in Charlotte. Tom, we've talked about this club a lot, but still the continuation of things as it moves towards Patrick Ajamong's club. Yes. Karol Swiderski is departing the club. He's going to sign for Panathinaikos in Greece, or they are finalizing a deal as long as everything goes smoothly.

He has left camp as well. He is going to Europe to likely join Panathinaikos. Everything's agreed. Just need to do those final details, medical, all that stuff. It'll be around 2 million is what I was told for a player who's in the last year of his contract.

That's not so bad. Do you feel like it's a fair ending to all of this? Yeah. Yeah, I think so for everybody. I mean, you could kind of, you could talk yourself into like looking at the numbers

and being like, Karol Swierczki actually is a very good player and and like but i would talk you into that i just strongly disagree because i look i think it is as dumb to only consider the like advanced metrics and zero watching the game as it is to 100 watch the game and go games i played on a spreadsheet mate right the truth is always in the middle though those numbers paint a much different picture than what carol serrerski is and even you go ahead and think back to when they were really good he's he's not he's not a proper center forward he's not and that sounds like games i played in a spreadsheet mate they they bought Enzo Capetti because they were like,

he doesn't have it in him. He doesn't have the edge to him to be a guy that gets on the end of service, that battle center backs in a box. He wants to come underneath and we need somebody to occupy center backs. Enzo Capetti had the dog in him. He didn't have the goals in him.

Nailed that signing. Patrick Ajman has has both but the whole point is is that like you're talking about him a goal scorer he's that's not his that's not his game so i like he's sure he scored a couple penalties or he had a couple opportunistic goals he's not a dp in his league he's not put him in front of diego luna diego gonzalez and marchuk and let them create for a full season for them, he would score 14 plus goals. He is not, he's not in the

he's not in a Chicho. He's not even, we're not even like going to bring up Cucho in these situations. But he's Jovalich in this league. Jovalich is in the DP. Fine. But Jovalich in a good attack scored goals. Charlotte has never had a good attack around him

that's fair so we have not seen the best of him at in saying that patrick ojawan should be the starter move on let's go and so i think this should be exciting zaha has officially arrived as well the loan details we finally got uh run through january 2026 i gave them to you already they made them official you run through january with the option to extend through June of 2026, which is, I believe, the end of the contract. So that's the opportunity on the table for them. Tom, give some promising news to Sporting Kansas City fans because they have not had much to talk about.

Did I? I believe the player's name is... You wrote it down. Yeah. But I meant to check it. He plays for iris in in greece this is a player that i'm shocked to find out he has one cap for spain shocked to find out that he doesn't he didn't play for barcelona b because that's usually where they go um jokes aside this looks very strongly to be a dp10 if they get it done i was told

nearing a deal that things are close, but things are not there yet. This player, I believe that the bid or fee would be something like $4 million or in that neighborhood. This would be the type of player that this team has been crying out for for even the last season that Gaudi Kenda was here because Gaudi Kenda missed a lot of time. This is the kind of profile that they are looking for,

and I did confirm it is. Manu Garcia is his name, 47 years old. He had four goals, two assists so far in the league this season as a center attacking mid-forest, and this is the kind of player that Sporting Kansas City want and have been targeting all offseason. It has been quiet for Sporting KC. Obviously, they got off Pulido.

That was huge for them. It's been quiet, though, filling things back in. No Johnny Russell coming back next year. No Pulido. They're just, right now, there isn't really people to take on a ton of these roles in a minute. And there's some exciting young players, Jake Davis, Afrifa, guys like that. But you need a core for them to play around and be a part of. And still quiet on a lot of these fronts for Sporting Kansas City.

Let's go into the deal this week that you reported that most confused me as well as angered me in many ways. And let's talk about my guy Nkosi Tafara. Yes, LAFC are acquiring Nkosi Tafara from FC Dallas for $300,000 allocation money plus an international slot. He joins an LAFC team that... He's cheaper than Mark Delgado? Yeah. All right. Respect Mark Delgado. Fine.

Mark Delgado was in the last year of his contract. So these two are connected because of the teams. LAFC have acquired Mark Delgado from the LA Galaxy. I feel very confident that there is a new contract attached to that for Mark Delgado, but nothing has been announced. He was again entering the final year of his deal, and now FC Dallas is down to currently two senior centerbacks on the roster. Obviously, that's going to change before opening day,

but it's Larsa Boubacar and Sebastian Ibiaga. And now Nkosi Tafari is with LAFC. Tafari has an option year left after this year, day but it's lisa bubucar and sebastian ibiaga and now in kosey tafar is with lafc tafar i has two option year uh an option year left after this year so he has one more year after this is what our salary cap table says he's on 345 000 obviously coming out of the draft a bit of an unknown player now 27 years old i think there's a few ways to look at this. I've seen Dallas fans have this conversation right now. One, what are we doing? This is our best center back. This was the best defender, pure defender in the group. This is not a huge return for him. And the other side, which is he's

had struggles. He's lost his starting spot at times. And so like, if we can get something, why should we care? I think the struggles have been related to the lack of quality around him at Dallas. Like he was a starting center back at times on this team where there was not another starting level center back on this roster. And so he may not be ready to be Walker Zimmerman or Miles Robinson tomorrow. That doesn't mean that he's not Sean Nealis or Andres Reyes, like the two guys you just saw supposed to start in an MLS Cup final. I think he's in a conversation with players like that. He's a different type of player, but I think he can be.

And so like, I think Dallas sort of did themselves a disservice by not giving the platform for him to play out at a high level in saying that i think this is a crazy deal for lafc this guy is such a good soccer player you put him alongside aaron long for 25 games like this is an opportunity for both of them to shine so on the side of things i'm assuming this means and there are other dealings in central midfield, I'm assuming this means that their primary look is going to be that back three again, the 5-2-3. And if that's the case, I love it even more. Because like you said, the deficiencies from Nkosi Defaray are his just being

a big, nasty center back that kicks the crap out of you and everything else. You know what he's great at? His passing. And I'm not saying that he's bad at the defending side of the center back. But you put him in the middle with Aaron Long to your left and either Marlon, Maxime Cheneau, Eddie Segura to your right, like he's going to be better defending because he has better players around him. And then he gets to be the one deep line playmaker type.

Like he's the one progressing the ball into the midfield, into the forwards. And I really love this fit. type like he's the one progressing the ball into the midfield into the forwards and i like i really love this fit and i will say too with lefc is they've the basis of their 2022 ms cup run was acquiring seven players that have deep mls experience and they all hit so i'm just trusting john thornton and neil mcginnis that they've identified a player that we both think is good but so confirmation bias here i'm assuming that they are getting the benefit of the doubt in me in this trade because of how often they've gone within MLS to sign somebody and been like damn that was a great sign and it goes in line with they've gotten way more athletic so if they're

going to move somewhat against the ball or play transition soccer I think it fits their talent pool even more I do think Tafari and I've talked to him off the field, he's a fascinating human being. I think he's one who will elevate under the bright lights. I think the pressure will be like, oh, I'm going to come and perform. I want to put on shows for this. I think what's what everyone, someone in the chat is talking about, the games versus Miami, like the great Leagues Cup game,

all those performances from him, I think that's what you're going to see. And so for them who had to replace Jesus Murillo at a minimum, and I think we've reached the end of the road of like Eddie Segura being an every game difference maker in major league soccer, the way he was, this is a huge ad for them. Whatever years they get with him. Eddie Segura is like the fifth center back right now.

And again, I didn't mention Lorenzo Delevae. He came to the LAFC second team 18 months ago, and he's a first-team player, and he tore his ACL in preseason. This is a kid that captained and started every game for Italy's U21s. Yeah, he was Juve Academy. They won the U21 Euros. He was the captain't he wasn't just on the bench right like so i'm super excited to see what this kid looks like and so he's like the sixth center back right now so the way that they've regenerated this depth and also i'm reporting they've signed y'all yaboa that was another reason i was like

all right they're probably playing with a back right because he's the wing back and then hollings head can play either side, Sergi Palencia. And then the midfield with Mark Delgado, Timothy Tillman, Igor Jesus, Odin Tiago Holm. That's super interesting as well. And one more LAFC update that I've been getting questions of in the chat, and there's been some rumors going around Mexico. Is this deal for Matty Boguch to Cruz Azul? Is this in peril because Cruz Azul are losing their head coach?

I'm told while nothing is like documents completed, several sources are telling me it's still on, right? Like, so I'm trying to be careful and hedge myself here that like, technically something can change, but I've talked to several sources here and, and they're really all expecting this deal to get done. So that's where that stands. And unless that I hear differently,

I'm assuming that Matty Boguch is going to be a cruises old player that's a good chunk on lafc let's talk dallas before we leave here which is they've re-signed logan farrington to a new contract one of the best draft picks we've seen in a while contract runs through 27 now with an option for 28 and 29 like this feels like it's going to be worth its weight in gold pretty quickly with the production that got from him last year. And I think the ability for him to scale into the team, whether it's around Petar Musa or if it has to be instead of like, it's not an ideal situation, but I think he's that good that he could carry the role for you for a little

bit. I got to tell you, we had the argument of FC Dallas and, you know, kind of resetting completely and moving on like since we had that conversation they traded Kosey Tafari too so maybe maybe you're gonna end up being more right than I am in terms of the Peter Musa but yeah like this is just super positive to get a new deal for Farrington it keeps him happy you see how contentious things

got kind of with Duncan McGuire in Orlando City after the move to Blackburn fell through and they still were struggling to find a new contract. This didn't get ugly with Dallas and Farrington. And I think that's good. There is a world that you could sell me. And I don't know if it's even going to happen that Dallas chooses to go big allocation money, like two stud center backs. And like, they're going to be the team that's finally going to win in MLS by spending their money in that position. And there's enough in the attack for them to get by. You could sell me that version of FC Dallas this year. I don't know if they're going to choose to lean into it, but that's the one opening that I see with this team where it's like a low-end DP

and a big-time Tam signing at the center-back positions, and all of a sudden Moose is getting goals from, I think there's enough wing production there. Shaq Moore stays high in the attack, like all those types of things, and in front of Martin Paz, it's enough to be a top-four team in the Western Conference or a top five team in the Western Conference. I could see that.

I don't know if they see it that way. And for the most part, most MLS teams outside of like Nashville have never really seen it that way. But I do think there's a pathway forward to being competitive in MLS with that setup. Yeah, I totally see that too. I don't know which direction to go. I assume that I know that they want a DP 10.

I'll say that. But they have Jesus Frere as DP spot to fill as well. So they could add two more or they could go to the 2-4-2 model. So we'll see what they do. But they're going to be one of the teams that I'm watching closest over the next month. Two that you've already reported for us. So we've discussed both on the show but have gone official. San Diego have officially signed Anders Dreyer as their next designated player.

We had a question from Matt Shaw in the chat about Dreyer. We talked about this for a while on the last show. What I have seen from him, both underlying numbers and watching him play over the last week or so, is like this is a goal scoring winger. He is less going to be involved in buildup and come inside to create and more be an option whether it's on through balls or whether it's finishing off the other wing. Super clean technically with both feet, can strike it from outside the box,

can set his defenders up to get shots away as well. And I think it's a need for this club. I think that's, to me, the big spot of like chuki and luca del attore are going to be your creative hubs at this point you've got some experience at center forward but not mls experience and probably not high level golden boot contending and so you needed goals and finishing in that front line and it feels like dryer is going to be capable of bringing that and the other one is kevin kelsey finally signing as a U22 addition for Portland, Tom, which was one that you've been on for a while.

Yeah. Again, a difficult deal to get done at the end, but they did. Kevin Kelsey comes in for just under $6 million. I love this upside play. I think that me and you just have a fundamental disagreement on how we rate this player. And I think that he has a ton of potential to grow into and in this attack i think he's going to get the chances and we already have done the conversation

on portland about like what you got from mora last year i think that's a high watermark i it would be silly to expect him to not just the goals but the minutes played it's always been more about injuries or fitness uh it's not fitness like it's not like he's unprofessional and showing up. It's injuries, right? So I think it'd be really, really silly to expect this player to start 28 games next year and now you have Kevin Kelsey. The same way with Mora,

it'd be silly to lean on him for that many starts. It'd be silly to bring in Kevin Kelsey and be like, hey, buddy, we need you to be a consistent goal scorer in MLS right now for 28 starts this season. So between the two of them,

I think that they're going to get something close to elite center forward play and maybe elite is a little bit too optimistic, but I really love this season. So between the two of them, I think that they're going to get something close to elite center forward play and maybe elite is a little bit too optimistic, but I really love this signing. Two big ones here around DPs. Let's start Cincinnati because it has been an experience for them and Lucho has finally arrived to preseason. Yes, he has. Maybe he got tired of being fined every day for his daily wage for not showing up but Lucho Costa what was that yesterday um was in route to Cincy goes to Cincy to do his preseason medical and then he gets to join up with the team in Florida I want to say and I've said this in the discord so once again if if you want kind of up to the minute being able to ask questions and

I'm being probably too active in there I'm talking a lot but um I was responding to some things in there where so does this mean the saga's over he's staying he's done that is not what this means this is very literally he showed up and this in no way precludes him from leaving the club either within MLS or outside of MLS and once again I still feel as strongly as I did a week ago and saying I he's played his last game for the club again nothing is definitive we'll see what happens but But my stance has not changed in any way just because he literally showed up. I think this has more to do with I don't want to get fined anymore. Marshawn Lynch showing up to FC Cincinnati preseason. And you've got one breaking right now here on San Jose.

Yeah, widespread reports in Ecuador. I feel pretty strong that I can do some Instagram reporting to confirm this, that Carlos Grazo is leaving San Jose Earthquakes. And source, go look at his social media. He is, Twitter, that he had not been active on until like a week ago, Instagram, he's on a plane telling everybody that he's leaving.

He's on his way to Ecuador. I believe he's signing with Quito, LDU Quito, and that solves San Jose's problem about having four dps for three slots interesting i'm surprised that's where he's going i would assume this is probably a move just to get out and then figure out the next move and go from there um but as we talked about san jose too many dps had to figure something out it didn't really seem like on his contract, an MLS team was

going to come get him. And so finding a way outside the league made the most sense with all that. Let's finish up with two just Goss nerd ones. Let's start with the Galaxy signing Elijah Widener, brother of Josh Widener, stud D mid for Louisville. If you don't somehow follow or read John Morrissey, USL tactics, whether at back yield, or his substack or email newsletter, I think I follow him like eight different ways and read everything he writes. It is the best way to follow USL in my opinion. He's a huge fan of Widener's game. And it goes to what we talked about with the Mark Delgado trade, which is like, you probably have more minutes in midfield right now between surreal and Sean Davis than you had last year because of their health and their

consistency. What's going to be the fill in. And Widener is like a ball winner, physical specimen, young player, fantastic in the air, wins a ton of stuff can probably swap into the center back positions as well.

This is, I think a cool the center back positions as well. This is, I think, a cool signing and love moves like this. It makes sense in the, we are trying to remain competitive and cut costs to take a little risk here, but at a cheaper level and got you allocation money in the door than keeping Mark Delgado or keeping a Jalen Neal on your books. And then the second one is Robert Turd turdian has signed at turdine sorry has signed as the uh the record homegrown signing second second behind cap behind cap and sold right in chicago's history was what i was gonna say well it's more it's stronger to say the second in league history oh are you editing me live on air right now it's stronger it feels

weaker to be edited live and then have to go through this conversation. Did you read the press release? Did you read my tweets? Don't blame me. I don't follow you, Tom. I don't even know where to follow you. Are you on LinkedIn? Are you sending me LinkedIn messages?

It's the only social media platform that I use. Yo, you know that every day is actually three days if you look at it that way in eight-hour increments. And if you want to expand your productivity, you can look at the 75-tweet thread on LinkedIn. I wake up. I work from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. I've already finished my work day when you wake up. Then I work a second

day. Then I buy an Uber and that's how I'm making money now. And it just prints itself. I don't have to do anything to get there. It's exciting. I've talked about it a few times on the show over the last few weeks. Like Chicago's committed to mining Chicago talent the way they should be. It's the way they've rebuilt their academy to not have as many residency pieces coming from out of market because the market's so good, as well as to show a commitment to players

in the market who have left them, including a player that they drafted this year because they had to go out and draft because he was at Soccers and didn't choose to come into the Chicago Fire Academy with the way it was set up. And so this is a good start. Anyone you talk to in the youth ranks after Cavin, this is the player they talk about and compare him to all the names, whether it's a Paxton Pomichal or Gio Reyna or Jesus for like all the names we've seen at this stage. He gets compared to all of them, has played center forward, comes off the front line creative,

good with his feet. I don't know what it all means at the next level, but I think exciting for Chicago to get something like this done at a time coming off the back of like, Andrew Gutman finished his college career and was like, no chance I sign here. I'm going to Scotland to get out of this, to now come back around and be like the brightest young prospects want to be a part of this club, I think is pretty cool. Yeah. Robert Sedin, I've, again, you are much more in the scene with GA Cup and everything else than I am. But like, I'll tell you the people I talked to at US Soccer,

people I talked to in Chicago and people who know the game at that level, like you do, like, like you said, that's a name. And, you know, San Jose signed KK Spivey? You tell me how to pronounce that. That was like the next guy. Like San Jose got signing elite talent. And again, Chicago's Robert Judain. He turned 15 this month.

That's crazy. Unbelievable. And this isn't a deal that starts an mls next pro really really cool um and again the at lengths that that chicago went to say this is the second largest contract only case you all that like it really shows you like no no like this kid is different like this kid is gonna be special yeah it's exciting for the club and finally turning things around i tried to work the n at the end of his name into a bunch of nicknames with Neymar and I wasn't getting there.

Turned in Neymar and I tried other ones and I couldn't get there as well. Jonathan Bamba, congratulations. Learn how to say this name because this is your new teammate and you're going to get to tear it up in Chicago. This is a light show. We didn't

have as much huge breaking news to talk about. We pulled in the mailbag. It's a new mess. 17. And we've gone over an hour and 25 minutes in this one. This is what we do here at soccer. So anyone who's new, thank you for joining us.

Please come back. We've got some big interviews coming up. We're going to put out a show tomorrow with two pro referees that we had a lot of fun with next week. We'll be back with all of your live shows that we do. Jordan Angeli is on the way returning at some point, covering NWSL as well, covering all of the national teams, had the interview with Casey Stoney last week,

broke down a lot of the Naomi Gurman news and free agency stuff on that end, and myself and Tom, of course, coming back, talking all things Major League Soccer. We will talk about everything else going on in the region as well when it hits us and when we have the time and we have the space. And if you haven't already, go join us in the Discord. So subscribe to our Patreon. It gets you access there, and you can hang out and chat with us all the time.

You don't have to wait for the show to come on. So thank you once again to all of you for listening. Thank you to you, Tom, for joining me here and spending the time. You don't have to wait for the show to come on. So thank you once again to all of you for listening. Thank you to you, Tom, for joining me here and spending the time and threatening to find a way to shave a goatee onto my face. And we will talk to you all again very, very soon. Thank you.