SoccerWise - NWSL Edition: Girma Breaking Records + New Age Free Agency w/ Taylor Vincent (Spotrac)

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Are heads are spinning with the rate of transfers and signings in NWSL. So David turns to an expert in Taylor Vincent (Spotrac) to help bring some sense to all that has happened. First they break down what the Naomi Girma record transfer means to the sport. Then Taylor explains what has to happen next for San Diego off the back of the moves of Girma & Jaedyn Shaw. Then the two dig into a few teams off-seasons they like so far from North Carolina to Utah. And finally they discuss the changing landscape of the offseason under the new CBA with no college draft, and the new free agency setup.1:50 Naomi Girma’s Record Transfer7:20 Explaining San Diego’s Cap Situation Now10:10 North Carolina Retooling14:46 ACFC Rebuild18:29 Utah Royals Update22:08 College Players Signing Without The Draft Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Hey everybody, welcome back. Of course, I want it only Jordan Angeli still learning the Haka down in New Zealand, going through what is an incredible adventure. So we are going to talk NWSL free agency. I said last week when we had Casey Stoney on that I was excited about the Canadian Women's National Team. I wanted to cover that, wanted to talk about that. But the NWSL free agency, the offseason, the transfer window has been absolutely insane. And it continued to amp up.

So no one better to talk about it than the person who at Spotrack keeps us on our toes, keeps everything organized. You know her as Taylor Vincent. You can follow her on Blue Sky at TayVincent6. And of course, following all her work at Spotrack where she's updating rosters, updating transfer amounts, all of the good info that we all survive on and taylor it is a hectic time of year it really is um and the fun part is is that with uh part of the new cba is that there's no trade windows anymore so chaos can continue all year long no down times let's go it uh yeah i think that's the key part no down times right we always want to be at full max, full energy at all times. And that's what we are on the way to. It has been, of course, a year of change with the CBA shifting, with free and sort of get your point of view on and bring some context to. But it would be tough for us to start a show about transfers and movement and talk about

anything besides what we believe is a record transfer fee that is coming in for, of course, the U.S.'s own center back Naomi Gurma. The reports today are that Naomi Garma has been sold from San Diego to Chelsea for $1.1 million in a transfer fee. It will be the largest transfer fee ever paid for an international soccer player. And she will be heading to England to continue her career for the first time outside of the United States. Let's start here on just reaction. When you hear that number, when you hear that destination we already it felt like we knew Naomi Gurma wouldn't continue and end up by a sell after this off season but I don't know that setting a transfer record to Chelsea was exactly what I expected to

happen how did you sort of take in this news I mean if there was any player who deserved to kind of break that I think Naomi Gurmaa is it uh i mean she's the probably the best defender the u.s women's national team has if not maybe one of the best players in the team period um just right rookie year was rookie of the year defensive player of the year mvp like just absolutely kills it every time so right i mean if you're going to take Naomi Kerma, you better be ready to pay. Yeah. We we also see, I think, and we talked about it a lot, of course, the closeout 2024 Michelle Kang effect of Leon was in the conversation. They were willing to push that number to the million dollar mark. And if Chelsea wanted to make this move, they had to set the record.

Right. They had to push this number even higher to secure this signing. It is interesting that it will be England because I think for a lot of people, Naomi Germo was underrated over the last year to two years in international conversations. We talked about being left off the ball and door list and not winning some of the FIFA awards and all those other things. And this is going to throw her straight into the spotlight. Like everyone on the planet is going to know how good she is after she's able to perform in Champions League and in England in some of the biggest competitions. And so it feels like a heavy shift there of like, you don't have to maybe keep yelling

her name into the sky for everyone, because hopefully people will notice her on her own at this point. Let's talk a little bit about how this move comes about now. $1.1 million going in the direction of San Diego. It comes off the back then of them trading away Jaden Shaw to the North Carolina Courage for what is also a record fee inside the league. This a lot of money coming to san diego it's also a huge exit exodus of players let's talk about it from a player point of view first how does san diego recover from this like these are two of the best young players in the history of the game leaving your club at the exact same time it's the thing most clubs try and build themselves on. And San Diego's basically stepping away from it.

And I think it's, it's even a little bit worse, right? Cause you had Alex Morgan also retire this past year. And right. So you lost basically the three franchise slash faces of your team. And so right. San Diego's kind of,

it's weirdly in a rebuild stage. I think with right. You've got a new head coach at the helm, right? They, coming into a couple weeks ago, they had the fewest signed players heading into preseason, right? They got three new signings this week already. But, right, I think it's a really hard one because, right, you want to kind of, if people aren't happy, right? And I think last year was a rough year, right? You had Stoney's exit in the middle of the year you had an interim coach who was an assistant coach and then you had another interim coach and right the year just it was not a fun one for the wave it was not a fun one for

the wave fans or the players and so to a certain extent it's not super duper surprising to see people be like well if I have options to go other elsewhere like I kind of want something else so from the player side I think it's going to be kind of a really interesting but probably a hard year for Jonas because right you've got a lot of youth in that team especially in the new signings and you're just right normally as a head coach right you come in you're like oh this is the team i have and it just seems like the team he has keeps kind of yeah shifting shifting and right i think the team's trying to do right and right these players are question traits right i you that's one thing that they're doing right is they're right they're trying to do right by the

players but it's got to be really hard to be a San Diego Wave fan right now. It's just tough because when you talk about a team in a rebuild, you talk about investing in, and not just in money, but in minutes and opportunity, young players who could be the face of your team in the future. And we've heard the reports now over the last 48 hours of the expectation that they're going to sign a number of young centerbacks to replace Naomi Gurma. Naomi Gurma is a young center back. Jaden Shaw is a young player. Like those are the players you want to be the centerpiece of a rebuild.

You want to turn to a Jaden Shaw and say, you know, you've had injuries. It hasn't been the cleanest two years for you. It hasn't been easy. Like we're going to give you as many minutes as you want. We're going to play you in the position you want, which I think is still a conversation out there of, of where her best spot is. And then if you're selling, like we're going to slowly build this around you, but like you talked about with the year that happened,

that's not a place she wants to be. And that's not a place Naomi Germa wants to be. And so this is a team now that has to recover. Let's talk about the numbers, both records, massive numbers coming into the club how does san diego now have to use these funds and what should fans be expecting coming now over the next few days or or weeks yeah so as the league kind of is trying to get away from

allocation money which um if you've tried to follow the NWSL, it's basically Monopoly money. They kind of introduced something called the interleague transfer fees, and there's intra and there's inter, but basically the team has to be either $500,000 in or out, somewhere between plus $500,000 or minus $500,000. So this giant amount of funds coming in between Shaw and Gurma means that San Diego has to pay it, right? They have to be spending the money on transfer fees. And the caveat is if they don't, if they don't hit that $500,000 mark, then basically they start taking hips against their salary cap. and right that then makes it very very easy for you to be get in a situation where hey i've now

overspent my salary cap because i paid salaries to get to this cap and oh shoot now it's been deducted and so right again this is hard because none of the basically transfer fees that are outside the league are ever reported on so again you just kind of have to like okay maybe that much okay wait is that a free transfer is that a free agency signing and kind of have to like okay maybe that much okay wait is that a free transfer is that a free agency signing and kind of in your mind ballpark it yeah how much do we have left to spend you also know i think we all know in the world of soccer that things when they're not out in the open sometimes can shift of is naomi grandma 1.1 million but it's 500 000 now six times a000 later based off some performance

and things that are very simple to hit basically can Chelsea help San Diego maybe avoid some of that by slow playing it out either way we're in a situation where San Diego needs to spend is what you're explaining to us and so everyone you'd assume around the world but definitely around NWSL knows that it probably pushes some of the fees a little bit higher but it also makes sense the idea that it's not going to be one player that comes in to replace it's going to be multiple young pieces now that you have to sign hoping that then over the next three years they're able to be worth what it should have been at 1.6 million overall or 1 million used out of all of this transfer money.

It is going to be interesting to watch. As you said, it's got to be tough to be a San Diego fan right now. Let's talk about the other side of this inside of NWSL. Let's talk about North Carolina. They bring Jaden Shaw in. Of course, it comes right around the news that Caroline would not be returning to the club club they said their thank yous and said that caroline would be going off into free agency jayden shaw comes into the team they sign hannah betford as a free agent coming over from utah they just made the announcement that they've uh signed shinomi koyoma the japanese u20 international

captain for 225 000 which is a record from her Swedish club. And then Carolina, as I said, going the other way, we already talked about Narumi going to the Washington Spirit from this club as well. It's a lot of movement. And yet I think where we sit right now, it's a net positive for this North Carolina team from where they were last year. So what do you make of this group? I mean, I think if you look this North Carolina team from where they were last year. So what do you make of this group? I mean, I think if you look at North Carolina, right, I did a piece a couple weeks ago that kind of looked at right 2024 performance that was returning to teams and North Carolina has the most starting minutes and just minutes played coming back. Right. I think

it's something like 92 percent. Right? So they have the core of the team returning, right? They had a heck of a year last year, right? And Caroline didn't even return to play until after the Olympics, right? So I think with the addition of Shaw and, right, you've got a couple other pieces there, right? I think they're going to hit the ground running. It's exciting, I think, when you look at this team. Built on the strength of the back line last year. You have the central midfield in O'Sullivan and Sanchez coming back. Even having to replace Narumi, which I think is a huge factor in all of this.

But last year, as you said, you didn't really get anything from Caroline. So the replacement with Jaden Shaw is not a replacement. It's all bonus that you're going to get from that position in Shaw. Gomez barely played last year, came on and got the start in the playoffs as well, which is huge. And then in Betfort, you bring in a player who I think you feel comfortable with holding the

center forward position. If necessary, it still opens the door for Matsukobu to hold that position if you want. Or it could be Jaden Shaw. Am I the only one who's still considering that the position is a question mark? Is it clear now that it's right wing for Shaw?

I mean, I think it'll be really interesting, right? Because, right, part of the trades is you don't know what conversations the players had with coaches in terms of their positioning right if we look back at last year right one of the things that Crystal Dunn was looking for was that she didn't want to play a defender yeah and that's valid right if there's a position that you like playing more that could be one of the cornerstones of hey if I'm going to get traded, it needs to be to do this. So, right. I don't know what the plan is for Shaw. If only we knew, man.

Yeah. If only we were inside those combos. But now with the new CBA and the rules around transfers and trades, you know that whatever promise was made or conversation happened between at least Shaw Nehas and Jaden Shaw's camp would have been acceptable to Shaw to take this move. Yeah, well, technically speaking, the new CBA, the trade parts about it only went into effect on January 12th. But technically, I think most teams have been following the player needs approval of trade since the new CBA was signed.

It also is interesting in a world in which maybe about seven months ago, it felt like part of NWSL was bypassing North Carolina with Washington the way they've spent Orlando building up. And we've heard obviously rumors around ownership changes for North Carolina. They parted ways with their CSO of long 10, 15 years. And so it was unclear maybe where this North Carolina club stood in the new hierarchy of NWSL. And this feels like a really big sign that Jaden Shaw sort of signed off and said, yeah, I'm happy to go there. I want to be a part of this project. And I think it should be exciting because Taylor, we talked about it before we got on. When they're on, this is the must watch team in NWSL. Yeah yeah i think the big thing for the courage is going to be what does the away courage look like this year right the home courage lights out every game but right the away courage kind of sowed some inconsistencies match over match and so right i think if they can figure out how to duplicate whatever magic it is they have at home

on the road it'll be a really fun team to watch yeah hopefully some of that goal scoring comes to fruition and hopefully it comes through jayden shaw who we'd love to see get back to the level that we've seen her at at her best both for the national team and in nwsl let's head out west here let's talk about two more clubs that we were both interested in and then we're sort of going to dig into some of the other storylines in this offseason especially coming out of cba with no draft as well as this new setup of free agency let's start with angel city they officially hire mark parsons now as their general manager so they finally have a clear vision from a soccer point of view for the first time since angela huclas left and on the back of that they announced the signing of Alana Kennedy

as their new starting center back for this team. One of the things Angel City doesn't love to do is be ready to go at the beginning of a season that we've seen in the short time they've existed. And Taylor, it feels like they are in their bag right now and on trend once again. Yeah, I mean, Angel City still doesn't have a head coach, which is always a hard place to be when you've already started preseason. I will say they've now moved into their new training facility, which is the Rams' old training, right, they definitely probably needed to bring in some more talent in the midfield.

Right. We got Zellum in the secondary window last year. They've had one signing of a college kid so far in this. But really, I think that's kind of where they need to be looking. Right. As we kind of get towards season starting. And it feels like Mark Parsons coming in and the conversations they've had are again as we've heard year after year from angel city of saying they're going to shoot high but they want to be competitive they want to be in playoff conversations they want to be towards the top of the way of sorry the western comics the top of the league i've been doing a lot of

shows today i know my brain's all over the place right now they've they've made all those statements and yet it's the danger of going into another year in which are you going to try and build on the fly? Are you going to try and build in the summer? And with as late as Mark Parsons came in, if he's going to be a major part of the coaching hire, the process would have just started that, which is a dangerous place to be in. And it's a dangerous spot right now for an NWSL club if they want to have the options to talk with some of the biggest names in the world. Right. The European season, as we all know, kind of goes from fall into end of June, best case. Right. And so the January window is kind of the time for movement. It's when the other European leagues have a larger downtime and if they wanted to target a coach who was at a team

in basically not our schedule this would have been the month to do it and we're kind of getting at the very end right now I think the other thing to think about you talked about the mid-summer additions is that Angel City has Vanessa Gille

coming back potentially she's extended that loan out a couple of times. But technically speaking, Gilles should be returning. And so you're going to have a center back grouping that has a lot of depth between Gordon and Reed and Kennedy and Gilles. That'll be fun. Yeah, it is going to be a huge strength for this team. You also have the ability to move Gordon around the field. and we've seen how comfortable she can be in multiple positions if you need to. The interesting thing with Amar Parsons,

who's been around the game as long as he is across the world, you have to assume he's got people that he has similar soccer brain to that he can tap into. We just don't know. Is it someone from a Portland staff? Is it someone from the Netherlands? Is it someone from his background in England? You'd assume there are a number of names around there and it'll probably land on someone he's got familiarity with because they are building this on the fly.

And he probably doesn't want to have to learn a whole new soccer ideology while trying to put this roster together. And he's going to have to do some work before that coach is in place let's talk a little bit about utah as well um i asked you who interests you and what storylines you want to talk about and you came straight to the soccer wise special spot we love to talk about this utah team jordan angeli was enamored throughout the year i was alongside her we absolutely loved the summer moves they made the way they changed their midfield I thought was one of the most fun to watch for the close of the year and felt like they finished the season on a high and seems like you're kind of in agreement on where they stand coming into 2025.

Yeah honestly I'm really excited to watch Utah I think kind of the expansion teams last year came into a disadvantage compared to the last grouping we had because the last grouping had Challenge Cup games. They had four matches to kind of flush everything out and figure out, okay, what is our vibe? How do we do this? Okay, we need to fix this. Whereas the Royals and Bay just had to hit the ground running. They're like, regular season, welcome come it just smacked you in the face let's go um and i think right the the moves that um utah made in the secondary window like they were they were picking the right pieces to fit the puzzle that they knew that they weren't right the puzzle shifted kind of mid-season but once they kind of knew okay this is the image that we're trying to build they kind of were picking the right puzzle pieces and they were all fitting in seamlessly. So I'm really excited with their off-season moves, right? They haven't been doing a crazy lot, but I don't think they need to, right?

They have an idea of who they are and they're just kind of tweaking and like adding in a couple of pieces to kind of get that final cohesion. Yeah, it feels like a team that starts the year with a Zornosa, Tejada in the spine of this team. Obviously we saw what Delfavo was capable of last year like that alone is a platform and a strength they just didn't start the year last with and last year with

and then you get into goal scoring which i think chloe lacoste settling in and being comfortable and the different options they have and obviously tanaka as well like the goals i think there's enough there but it's that defensive strength and that ability and possession. It feels like in midfield that can be what the calling card is for this Utah team. And a year ago at this moment, we didn't know what the calling card would be. And a few months after that, they just didn't have one for a little while. So all of that, Taylor feels very, very positive. Yeah. And I think, right, the additions that they do, right,

they added Tatum Malazzo, who's got a lot of experience coming over from Chicago. They had the trade for Alex Loera, add more depth in the midfield. They signed a 16-year-old KK Ream, who recently got a call up to the U16s. So they decided to join the U18 train. They keep getting younger and younger. Sometimes you see the data burst and you're like, oh, like oh god you're like i remember songs from that year i really wish that wasn't the way my mind had to work now yeah and then right they've got some international signings that they brought into so right i think i'm really excited and i think this team is gonna come out and just

hit the ground running i know i said that twice today. It's in Utah. There's mountains. Everything's running. You got to hit the ground hard. So it's okay. It's a good place to talk about it. Exciting team. And of course, one of the things from last year that we won't have this year is as much

international competition, including while it was great to see Allie Centner go to the U20s and have a huge hand in that team, she'll be around for the full year and she'll be settled in in her second year in the professional ranks. It feels like a really, really good situation for them. You mentioned young players and young signings. So let's go into college players. There is no draft this year and there was a lot of consternation. I will say a lot of feedback we got from fans.

As the CBA was announced, the lack of a draft, moving on from that, in our Discord, in our comments, was the worry that all of the players were going to be pooled in the same two or three team. That the big markets were not just going to sign big-name players, but they were going to sign all the best college players. And the reason you had a draft was to distribute those players fairly and give smaller teams that maybe had struggled opportunity to go bring in those players. What do you make of what you've seen so far with this first class of players coming out of college? I mean, I think, right, we've got, I think 26 signings, all 14 teams have gotten at least one. I think Gotham is the most with four so far um I think one of the things that's interesting right if you look at last year's right of the four rounds basically only three quarters of the players even got signed to contracts and not all

of those were even guaranteed contracts um so I think that with guaranteed contracts it's gonna be a little bit interesting to see kind of how many college rookies we end up having this year, especially as teams go harder and harder into the U18 space. Right. And those are players that previously before U18 existed would have had to wait to get out of college and then would have been through the college draft. So I think it's I think it's really interesting, right? I don't think there's been any one team that's kind of gotten them all, but I think teams are kind of trying to pick and choose exactly what they want.

I think Gotham is very interesting that they chose for because last year they had one. Yeah. And then they didn't even have the one by the time the season ended. Yeah. So them, them going the hardest in that space. I mean,

I just think it's a very interesting kind of change in kind of their mindset and where they're going. But I mean, other than that, you got to think if you look at the trends, some of those earlier contracts were the more longer ones. And we're kind of seeing kind of shorter, like two years if the goalkeepers aren't getting as long ones. But that is kind of normal for goalkeepers to not get giant long contracts. But all in all, I don't think there's been anything that's super surprising. I think that we'll see a few more college signings coming out of the NRIs just because, right, there's going to be more NRIs now. Whereas last year, right, you weren't an NRI if you had been drafted

because, right, you were technically already assigned to them. So then it was the people who weren't an nri if you had been drafted because right you were technically already assigned to them so then it was the people who weren't drafted who showed up as nris but now it's it's a larger class um so i think we'll see a trend of more nri signings right they're technically still college but um yeah just right without a draft day or a combine, right, the chances are more coaches should be either watching film or, right, getting that kind of hands-on, like, oh, this is how they look like during the drill, this is up, it didn't go their way, let me see their body language and practice, right, that kind of stuff that you're only really going to get if someone is at your camp. Yeah, it feels like the process can be a bit more personal.

I think one of the things that fascinated me, and as you said, there's not like one clear trend. Seattle has brought in high-level players. San Diego has, Angel City. It has been spread out. And Houston now making a signing out of Duke. It has been really spread out, which I think is positive. That sort of takes away some of the fear.

One of the fascinating things to me, was and this is just what do I know but felt like well North Carolina has how many teams in a college cup they have an NWSL team right there but out on the west coast you've got dominant programs like a USC so to see the players leave schools and swap coasts I think was unexpected for me. North Carolina Courage bringing in a big time center back from USC and then UNC's two best players going out west to sign with teams. You have players from Rutgers going to Seattle. So I think for year one, it feels like similar to the draft, which is talent is finding ways into markets and teams that make sense for them, make them comfortable, and there's potential, I think, for playing opportunity going forward.

Gotham being a big one in which they have lost a lot of that depth that they were built on last year. And the amount of games they played where they were missing six or seven starters and were still able to be competitive has shifted now as a lot of those players have left. And now they're getting the opportunity to give those minutes potentially to rookies as they come in at a lower cap hit than what they had around them. I think it's positive for a lot of people to see so far the way this has worked out. And hopefully it works out better for players where they land the first time out of college in a better spot and maybe don't have to move around as much.

The other thing that will be interesting to see, right, I think the end of the draft was probably not expected when teams first started the 2024 season. So if you look at Orlando and North Carolina, they had most of their team already locked down for 2025, right? So they may have had a great Florida States right there, right? They have a bunch of college, really good top level colleges around them. But by the time the draft was abolished they already got their team basically set up and like well shit yeah yeah it's tough to outbid another team for a player if you have already allocated a lot of that contract uh one of the specific moves you want to talk about was a move that louisvilleville just made to bring in a college

player themselves. Yeah. So Louisville, I think, right, is one of the teams that has or clubs that has like a full academy, right? They've got the academy. They have a W they have a USLW league, right, which is a semi pro team. And then they've got the full team. And so Louisville's new signing Allie George actually spent time playing on the USLW League team and is now joining the full league team, which is just such a really quick. They're making this investment clearly to kind of have their pipeline and develop it. And the fact that it's paying off is just, I think, a great example of showing other teams, hey, look what we have. You should do it, too. And I think the more teams that get academies and the semi-pro teams,

it only helps. And I think it's the coolest thing for a fan base to feel like one of their own has gone out there. You see in the Louisville release about this signing that they talked about George wanting to play for the city, wanting to represent the club, wanting to represent everything, and especially for a club like Louisville, which maybe hasn't always felt that about players that have come in and then gone back out throughout their time in the league. That's got to be really exciting. I want to close you out on one last storyline, which is under the new CBA, which we still do not have the full language of at this point.

I cannot imagine that frustrates you on any level. So I thought I'd bring it up first, just in case you needed someone else to say it. Five months. So it's been a little bit of time since it was announced. And we obviously got the headlines. A lot of the specific language they kept saying is still being worked out,

is still being put together with the overall headlines agreed to. And as you mentioned, some of the rules didn't even go into effect and they were already being followed by teams or players or agents in the league. But the new free agency setup is the biggest part of the, one of the biggest parts of the new CBA and was one of the things we were most excited about. I'm curious as someone who, you know, puts in a lot of work to follow contract status and player status throughout the league. Have you seen any huge shifts in the types of contracts being signed or the way players or clubs are going about operating in this new free agency? So I think, yeah, the big thing about the

change in free agency that it's impacting contracts is the fact that semi-guaranteed contracts aren't a thing. And so semi-guaranteed contracts were basically like a, you're going to be on the team this year as long as we want you. And then we can waive you at any time up until the roster freeze. And that'll just be it. You won't have a job, which is a very understandable why the new cba was like we want to get rid of that um so right any new contracts they're not allowed to be semi-guaranteed they have to be guaranteed which means that um and then this is again the old competition rules that i'm going to reference um a team is only allowed to buy them out once one person is allowed to get bought out

of a semi or of a fully guaranteed contract a year, and then anyone after that, it will cost them money. Now, mutual terminations, there's no money there because you're not buying them out. But things like, we'll give the example from last year, C.C. Kaiser. If that was Houston's first contract that they're buying out, that doesn't hit their cap. It's just there's that one freebie. But if they had already kind of waived,

if they already bought someone out of their contract, then that's hitting. So the big shift that we're kind of seeing from this lack of semi guaranteed is we're seeing a more prevalence of short-term contracts, which granted they did exist last year. But what we're seeing now with them is that instead of just a, oh, we signed this person to a short-term contract with no end date, question mark, we are actually getting end dates, which is really nice for people who have to track them. The second thing we're seeing is that there are people who are getting contracts with multiple optioneers. right and so some of the thing right there's been kind of half and half some of them have been like multiple option years where it's mutual and some of them have been club options right which again with those options the team basically has until the end of season roster decisions which again is in december to say yes i'm going to keep that And right at that point in time, that can become permanent or not.

But, right, we're kind of seeing that so that teams kind of have a way of saying, oh, no, just kidding. We don't want. Right. We don't want to keep this player for three years and pay them out that many years in case something doesn't go well. On the short-term contracts, give us an idea of what the lengths of these normally are. They've been, like, there was some on North Carolina that were six months last year, I think, by the time they expired, right? They're not really, they're not the whole season. One of the ones this year is signed for Chicago through like March,

I think it's March 15th, which is right before season starts. There's, I think Jessica Silva's on a short-term contract that ends either in, I think June. Right. Right. So it's just a way to kind of have a shorter contract that kind of doesn't tie them down for the whole year. And it allows teams that out. Yeah. Okay.

We're going to continue to see this progress. It's going to continue to be interesting. And the only place to follow it is at Spochack. It is the best resource here at SoccerWise. We have the depth charts that I build out, and I am scrambling to keep up to date right now as players move in and out and try and figure out where pieces are going to go and how they fit into teams. And you add in coaching changes and not knowing systems and styles, and it is really fun to play with right now.

And it is a resource for all of you, but it is built off the back uh in many ways of taylor what you do so we appreciate all your work thank you for taking the time to come chat you'll have to come back soon for us to do it again and um make sure that everyone follows um make sure everyone you follow taylor on blue sky uh as i said at the beginning uh tay vincent six uh there and go to spotrack and look at all of the rosters and all of the news that's coming out, as well as the articles, which are fantastic to read,

including one about predicting what's going to go on in 2025 based off the rosters we saw in 2024. Taylor, any final words for us before we let you go? No, I think you pretty much sounded up well, right? Spotrack is basically here so that the public can use it and make things a little bit more accessible.

So thank you guys all for helping me do this and supporting me by going to the website. Great. Well, everyone, keep going there. Thank you once again for taking the time to join us.

And we'll talk to you all again very, very soon