SoccerWise - The Best of MLS from the Weekend with Big Time Concacaf and Open Cup Games on the Horizon

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Your favorite foursome is back together again as Tom Bogert, Matt Doyle, David Gass, and Andrew Wiebe talk about a big upcoming week for Major League Soccer with the Concacaf Champions Cup semifinals and U.S. Open Cup. The gang also takes a quick look back at the best of the weekend from MLS, with an eye on the West Coast.7:50 - Vancouver is flying, so ‘Save the Caps!’19:46 - What’s up with Sporting Kansas City?28:22 - Chicago on “Fire”. We have Hugo Cuypers!30:07 - Atlanta and Austin back in the winning column36:35 - Who are the top scorers in CF Montreal history?39:05 - Doyle has CCL fever - I believe in LAFC and Nashville.46:37 - Concacaf Champions Cup Semifinals Preview - Nashville takes on Tigers, LAFC battles Toluca59:25 - MLS Weekend Notes - Best in the West.1:07:00 - U.S. Open Cup Fever - We Love One Knox!1:13.28 - USMNT Nuggets - 16-year-old Mathis Albert, The statue of Cobi Jones

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Soccer Wise. My Riverside, literally glitching out right now because Tom was so close to the camera. I think it didn't understand that there was a fourth person in the shot and was trying to figure out what to do with itself. And that's how I always feel when I'm with Tom. But we got a full house, baby. Andrew Weeby, Matt Doyle, Tommy Scoops, all here. Weeps. It looks like you're sitting in a temple to the beautiful game. I am, absolutely. I'm still in shock. And a temple to fatherhood. Yeah, well, getting a, getting a, getting a temple. a close-up of Tom's pores just now. Yes, we finally completed the project.

I've been talking about it for literally six months. Everything I go on, I'm like, I promise something is going to happen behind me. It has been completed. I'm very proud of it, and I want to just, an anecdote for you. How proud I was. Who do you show? Who do you ask to come see your handiwork as a 40-year-old almost married man once you complete a house project? Your wife, I invited my wife down to see this once it was completed after she had complained

that my office looked like crap for six months. She poked her head in and goes, uh, and walked out. And it was the most soul-crushing moment of my life. I was so proud of it. I was so proud. Like the amount of pride swelling out of me,

I just needed validation. And she's like, oh, yeah, okay, cool. See ya. See you. So, you know, you started this story by saying you're almost married. No, I was almost 40. Tough sequence there.

Listen. I was like, because I was at the wedding. No, I heard it. I heard how he said it, and it took me a minute, but then I rearranged the words.

It did make sense. It was grammatically a little bit rough. Okay. But, you know, Wee. Doyle went to VAR there. No, VA, we went to VAR. No divorce. Send him to the monitor.

No divorce. We've got to check that one, for sure. I'm pretty clear. It's pretty clear that Mindy just wants you to be 1% better every day, right? That's why. That's 100% true. That's why all she gave you was a, okay.

Yeah. job done. But listen. Tomorrow, little bit better. After that, little bit better. I don't know what it is,

and I love my wife deeply. She's the most important person in my life, but she, like, little thing. She seems okay with you. Yes, for sure, for sure. But you're right about the 1%

because, you know, like, for instance, she says I should drink more water. I'll be sitting there chugging water. And it's not like, hey, good job. It's like, I told you you need to drink more, go get some more. It's just constant, like, be better,

be better, don't die early. And I'm trying. I'm doing my best, but I would like to report that the boys came down and were duly impressed. All right. So, you know, like, oh, sick, what's this? Like, oh, right.

And then, you know, I kicked them right out because they're going to ruin it. But did they try to grab that ball that you have? Oh, all the balls, yeah. We should throw that. Like, I should definitely, I should grab everything off this shelf. You know, like, the one thing I do have is I have a, I have a back to the future Lego set down here that we're going to build as a group.

So, you know, fatherhood, future fatherhood moments, Tom, you got a lot of good stuff coming. I thought you're going to say that one's for dad. I tried. I tried. It says up to two constructors on the box, which they immediately saw and were like, no, we can. Weeby, you got to walk the folks who are watching on YouTube through the Wichita Wing's shirt because a lot of people are going to be thinking, is this dude like a really big What a Burger fan? So explain the lore there.

So this is a 7980, like vintage Wichitawitchtow Wichita first ever. season jersey that they would have worn. I found it off Facebook marketplace off a guy who was the Philadelphia Kicks equipment manager and he had a equipment locker somewhere full of old vintage gear. It was still in the plastic that it came in. This is the actual shirt that they would have worn. And then I got it signed by the biggest guys in like the biggest figures in club history. The longtime coach and general manager, Kim Brumpfad, who was one of the best defenders in indoor history. Kevin Culey, who was the captain for a long time. Who else do I have on there?

Yeah. All right. We're going a little deeper now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But shout out to those guys for signing it for me. And, you know, we've ported a bunch of this stuff over. And Tom, just in our dad showdown here, I just want to let you know, this is a design and build job by WeeB LLC. So, yeah, I see what's behind you.

It's there. It's a decent star. Yeah, it's there. It's like early fatherhood. You should be really proud. You should be really proud. Yeah. You know.

And then the one thing I want to point out that I was very excited to find in all my stuff. When I was setting this up was my hello and welcome patch over here. So we keep it rolling. And we shout out to those who have potted before us at an extremely, extremely high level. I was going to say before Weeby took pot shots at Tom for no reason for everyone else out there. It was a big weekend for Tom as well because he got his son into his first valour sweatsuit, head to toe. And it is obviously, it is the bar mitzvah of someone from New Jersey. It is the one moment.

It is the pushing them out on the ice float. It's the real christening. Yeah. You are a man now. You're now a man. It was the first time Tom put his pinky and his pointer finger like this. And he looked and he said, yeah, good kid. Yeah, good kid.

So congratulations. Shkid kid. We have matching bucket hats too. We didn't put those on in the picture. We used them in front of it. We wore them for the last next game, which was a W. That's got. Could we get Emilian on this trend?

Could we go triple track suit? My wife is unlike me, a caveman. She is a smart, thoughtful, and balanced human being. And she is very supportive of the tracksuit. She thought it was cute, to be fair. She got it as a Christmas present, probably my favorite Christmas present from her. Before we knew whether we were having a boy or girl, by the way, because I would put a baby daughter.

Yeah, 100%. but she took a photo of us. You mean your daughter, Meadow? She was like, if you told me when I was 24 that, you know, track suits are going to be a big part of my life, I would have wouldn't have believed you and would have had a bad facial expression. So she's wrong with the bunches. Love it.

Okay, so we will talk about soccer at some point on this show. It is a huge week. We have Concaf, Champions League semifinal coming up to MLS versus League MX matchups. So Tuesday night and Wednesday night, and then we've got a full round of U.S. Open Cup, including our own Susanna Fuller's husband, Ian, going up against the Columbus crew who have been, historically pretty woeful in this competition over the last decade. So fingers crossed, we're hoping for one more woeful performance from them. Louisville.

We've got a Colorado Derby coming up as well. So we will talk about all of that. And then, of course, everything we saw this weekend, a little check-in with some USM&T. One programming note, we have. have an NWSL midweek this week. And with some travel, we're going to move that show to Thursday. So myself and Jordan are going to be in Florida together, baby, and we're going to record on Thursday morning for that one. And then we will finish up post-US Open Cup and Concaf and have a second show coming out. So it'll be a loaded Thursday and Friday for all of you on the schedule.

We've got everything else going on this week as well. I think Ian's going to be on the kickback committee to talk about his preparations, as well as smoking DC United. And everything that he's been through, he's played in open cup finals in the past. So that will be really, really fun. And I think Charlie Davies is joining Sue as well to talk about arsenals, ups and downs and then little ups and then downs again. And then everything else in between. So it should be a great episode.

And we've got first touch coming out Friday morning. I think we're talking about the state of the game in Mexico. So a pretty perfect topic to go into this weekend. I'm going to start with the best things I saw. and I'm going to start with Vancouver whooping that Colorado Rapids and putting together one of the best performances you'll see, which has become common for them on the field, but mainly off the field.

Let's save the fucking caps already. The fans marching through the city to show their support for the team. Stadium's been bumping for years now when this team is moderately competitive. I don't think it's fair to put together a crappy product and say, well, there's no fan base. I don't really think that's how things, work and obviously there are issues with the stadium and the hunt for ownership and everything else,

but you saw the support of the city, you saw the support of the fans, you see the engagement of the fans. And I've never been, so I can't speak in person to Vancouver, but from afar, it has always felt like a market that cares about this team. There are MLS teams that are irrelevant in their market. You cannot say that about Vancouver. And that was with a decade plus of no success. During COVID, we did the, you know, top four players in history, best moments of every club. And we were scraping the barrel when we did Vancouver. We're talking about Pedro Morales for six months is the greatest player of all time. It was three. Yeah, yeah. It was basically, did you help them make the playoffs in any one, any seed? Like, yeah, that was basically where we were.

Darren Maddox getting stuck in the elevators. The all-time greatest moment in the club's history before what they put together. So it was awesome to see the unity from the fan base. We're sort of echoing the same sentiment here. And for the team, I don't know what else you can do. Like, we had actual Schuster on the show last year. He's like, we're trying to do everything we can. But this should be a distraction for anyone.

They put up a 3.8 XG against the Colorado Rapids. Like some of that's game states, but not all of it. They flipped players, right? They've lost Pedro Vite. They've lost some other big pieces in this team. They continue to go out. Bruno Casado looks like a stud off the bench. Like, this team continues to roll out success over the last 18 months.

And it's awesome to see. And I think it was the biggest thing I saw all weekend. A-0-1 plus-20 goal differential for the caps. They are technically behind the quakes in the Supporter Shield race because the quakes have played one more game and thus won one more game. but they're actually ahead of the quakes now and have been all year in terms of the underlying numbers they you know they lost some pieces from last year ali Ahmed was awesome he was arguably their best player down the stretching into the playoffs second best player and he picked right up

where he left off in in the championship with norwich and like oh how are they going to replace him how are they going to replace jaden Nelson who's been you know a good player and like you said They just added strength upon strength upon strength. They have as many ways to beat you as anybody in the league. I was there 15 years ago when the, God, might be 15 years ago this month, when they played their first MLS home games. And it was at a temporary stadium. You were at Empire?

I was at Empire. Oh, my God. The building was so. When Doyle traveled. So jealous. When Doyle traveled. Oh, I'm so jealous. It was.

Those are the kind of Imlis history moments that I desperately, it's not like the, oh, MLS Cup this. It's like, hey, the erector set in Vancouver. Yeah, that's what I want. Honestly, it was an erector set, but it was really well put together. It was about 20,000 seats. I'm not going to say it's a perfect location, right? Because where BC place is, that is the heart of Vancouver. That is where you would want the stadium to be.

but there's no land there. So if they're going to build a new stadium, it's going to be out a little bit in this park. Empire Field was built in this park. There is mass transit there. There are sort of like major boulevards there, so bus routes and everything. And because Canada is a civilized country,

they have a more advanced view on mass transit than we do here in America. It would work. And I know that when talk started last year about selling the team and then, God forbid, moving the team. There was talk about like, oh, let's build a permanent home where we had Empire Field. And I'm telling you, if they can get that done, then this instantly becomes one of the very best venues, one of the very best atmospheres in all of North America.

Because I was there when it first started and the team sucked. I saw Mustafa Jarju play live. You never forget that sort of thing. They have slightly better players than that right now. Vancouver would go berserk for this. Barry Robson's not walking through that door. Thank God. The issue is always the issue with modern sports.

The owners are looking for a handout. The owners are looking for free real estate. They're looking for free infrastructure. And Vancouver as a municipality are not, you know, They're not being pushed around the way that a lot of American municipalities are being pushed around. I hope, God, I hope that doesn't mean the end of the caps as an MLS team. It would be, it would be really hard to, it would be unsurious of MLS as a soccer venture, period. There hasn't been official relocation in MLS since 2006 when San Jose was recloted.

relocated to Houston and they became the dynamo. Thankfully, two years later, San Jose was awarded an expansion club and regained the quakes history. There was obviously the fiasco in Columbus where they were going to be moved. Anthony Precourt was going to move the team to Austin. The fans stepped up and saved the day, as we all know, save the crew and that worked. And while new ownership, I forget what the finances were, it wasn't an official relocation even though Precourt got his team in Austin and I don't believe that they paid an expansion fee. I'm a little fuzzy on those details.

But the point is, there hasn't been. relocation in MLS since 2006. It should not be right now. Las Vegas is circling. I know that I feel like we missed the boat by a decade right now on Vegas, by the way. There's NFL there. There's going to be M-LB.

There's NHL is awesome. The forward-thinking tech savvy lead. On August 15th, people going to Vegas are they going to go watch Las Vegas FEC versus, you know, the Portland Timbers like in a 105-degree day?

The Blackfire against the San Francisco Giants. Did you see this? And the Blackfire, that's the name that they're going to... Apparently, job postings have gone up for what the team will be. And underneath the job posting on the job website, it says Blackfire baseball team or something like that. It's brutal. Anyway, that's a change. It shouldn't matter even if we were like, that would be a fun market, right?

Like, this club, this is one of the clubs with history that vastly predates MLS. Their first season was in 1974. Since then, there have only been two years in which this team wasn't playing. They've played in about eight different leagues, but the Vancouver White Caps have been a constant in North America since 1974. It's an awesome team. It's got a global star at the head of it right now. They do care.

They are trying. It's unfortunate. Like, it would be tragic for this team to move. And so they've produced the greatest player, I think. MLS has ever produced, right? Alfonso Davies at the peak. But on top of that, the Thomas Mueller thing is like, in bare bones facility and spending, they could pitch a guy who could go anywhere to come there. Like, it doesn't take that much. And so if they're able to find any sort of support financially from ownership to build its own building, maybe even have grass, imagine what they'd be capable of.

You got Thomas Frickin Mueller to play on turf and work out in a four seasons gym, whatever the hell the setup ends up being. And you could move from that on and you could do so off a clear sign of success, which is if you build it, they will come. The fans will come. One, and I still go back to when they played into Miami and Concaf semi-final, it was a packed building and no one was wearing pink. It was not come see Messi.

It was come see the Vancouver Whitecaps beat Messi. And that is not the case in every market. And then every time this team's been successful and had playoff games and everything else, the building has been filled. Listen, I was there last year for their biggest matches outside of that one. For the playoff games, for decision day, for the big one against LAAFC, that incredible dramatic. I mean, that 50,000 people there, the city was on fire. It was on fire. And outside of all of this, I want to just take us back one more time.

We started with the performance. how incredible is this group of players, Esper Sorensen and what this front office has put together? I talked to all of these guys last year. They found out that the team was sort of up for sale might move at Ryan Gould's wedding in the off season. When they were all together, it was like somebody gets a text, somebody looks at a headline and they're like, oh my God.

And they all just sort of looked at each other, this core of players, and said, you know, we're just going to just, we're just going to make it. happen. And I would argue that if you look at the last, I don't know, what is it now, to go back to 14 months, whatever it is, you know, outside of not getting the job done in the biggest games, which I understand is the biggest part, but it's not the only part, this has been, put it up against just about any 14 month run in history, just in terms of results, performance, and overall soccer playing, like ability that you put on paper. Like, this has been absurd,

the level of form and the level of just excellence that this group has put out there. And the city has rightfully responded. And yeah, I want to see the Vancouver White Cups in Vancouver forever. That's what I want to see. I mean, it is a foundational piece of our soccer culture. Like, we have to continue to appreciate that. It's like the movie Major League. It's almost like beat for beat like the movie Major League.

And in the end, they don't beat the Yankees and win the World Series. They beat the Yankees to go to the World Series. see what happens in the World Series in that movie. Reggie Miller can tell you what happens. You lose anyway. Yeah. By the time you get to that stage. Four straight Canadian championships as well.

Never been done before. A cornerstone piece of Canadian soccer. On top of what I said about Alfonso Davies and the other pieces they're now developing, we put together a little U-22 list we're going to put out from Gradient. And obviously, one of the players, not shockingly, is a Vancouver Whitecaps player. that's been one of the top U-22 performers so far this year. And it feels like there's a continued focus to do that for this club. So a huge sign from the fans there.

We had Soccer Rise, of course, fully behind everything you are doing and hopefully in some way can end up helping as we move forward. Let's do the next thing we saw this weekend. Tom, let's go to you. And let's talk about teams that are good and teams that suck. So the Chicago Fire absolutely dusted sporting Kansas City this week. weekend and a good tether to the Vancouver White Caps conversation. The white caps have a expected goal difference of plus 19 and a half over nine games in the start of the season.

Third place Nashville is plus 5.8 and we'll probably talk about Nashville later and talk about how very, very good they are. The white caps have quadrupled their expected goal difference over over the first nine games of the season. Well, as incredibly great that the white caps are, sporting Kansas City is equally as historically bad. Their expected goal difference is, is just under negative 19 right now. Austin FC is a full seven goals, seven and a half goals, better off an expected goal difference. Montreal is like 17 goals better than a goal difference.

This is a team that had wounds for years, particularly at the end of the Peter Vermease era. They did not evolve with the times. And because of it, when new front office takes over, not only do they have to try to fill a playing roster, there is not a single scout, and there is not a single person in, there is no analytics department.

Zero hires on either side. That is, even the cheapest teams in MLS are not that threadbare. That being said, they went in a preseason with 17 players under contract, the majority of which were young players, right? It was like, Dan Yovilich, Manu Garcia, two DPs, and then, like, Daniel Shallowey,

who ends up getting traded just as a season starting. So they had like two DPs and then like 15 kids. They made one key signing. Sounds like Kansas, baby. One key signing on the eve of opening day. That player was not able to debut for a few weeks. And then they signed two more key players in March. This is a team that I understand it's better to not just make a signing for the sake of making a sign.

Because like look at Atlanta United. If you make a rash of bad decisions, you dig a deeper hole. but this is a team that was like, okay, we're just going to wait for the summer. They have $6 million in game, so that's nice. They have a ton of flexibility, but it didn't need to be this bad. It is pretty bad. I completely agree with you. The only, like, and if you're desperately searching for some sort of light,

the only light that there is is this is like the one season where it's 14, 15 games before that window, where you might have a chance. But when I look at Kansas City right now and I think about it, the past with this group, they were never a team that was like, hey, top five talent in the league by far, you know, like top, top in talent. They had a core that some of those pieces always put them in that position. And now they don't have a core. Like they don't have the core that elevates the signings.

Like Capita comes in and it's like, okay, he's not going to be a miracle worker. Like he's just not, not at the price point, not at his past. Like he would need to be another cog in the machine and a good cog, but another cog. they don't have the group that elevates everybody else that sets the culture that feels the the like history that knows what it takes to succeed in MLS they're just kind of they're they're they don't have any of that stuff other than day on yeah and that's and then and then so you're going to see what happens like this is what happens what one of the things sorry what I was I was going to say is when Tom was saying they didn't evolve with the times um my head immediately went

to the types of signings that they were making. And I actually do think they tried to evolve with the times. And for a lot of teams in the back half of the 2010s and the first half of the 2020s, that meant ignoring the super draft, ignoring the signings from USL or NextPro. And unfortunately, for supporting KC, which they're actually less guilty of ignoring the Academy,

me pathway. They've actually done decent with that. But where they really didn't evolve with the times was filling out that front office. And that was Tom's point, right? Like no analytics department. They had, I think, reshoot there for like a year who was volunteering, essentially. They, you know, they didn't have the same scouting apparatus, which meant your scouting of these high-priced tam players who are bringing in is going to suck.

that's why you end up with Yohan Crozay as a borderline DP. Good shout. He was a D.P. He was a club record signing until- But listen, Yon-Quazet led a team in minutes that went to the playoffs, too. So, like, you might bag on Yon-Quaze. They, like, they wish we will. But he only did that.

But he only did that because Beasler was there and Miel was there. Right. And that's the thing. But that's the core. That's what I'm saying as well. Like, that elevates everyone. Yeah. If you think back to, you know, 18 years. ago when the quakes started to be the quakes, not the quakes,

when Sporting Casey started to be sporting case. They wish they were the quakes this year. Well, that's what I was trying to say is that they did what the quakes are doing this year. They had a team that was built through the super draft built of guys who came through college and really had to fight and claw their way into first team relevance. That was the core. It was Matt Beasler. It was Chance Myers, obviously Graham Zussi, Roger Espinoza, Dom Dwar.

fire, CJ Sapong. All these guys. They hit on the guy that didn't work exactly somewhere else, brought him in. He's a star. Seth Sinovich, who gave them a million games and left back. They stopped doing that. 10 years ago. They stopped doing that.

And they have to get back to that because you can still win with that. And that's how you build the core. And then you add pieces around it. Really quickly, Goss, they not only were they doing the right things and bringing in, that core, and again, it was different to everyone. They traded Dom Dwyer for what was a record allocation money selling at the time. A few years later, they traded Iqopara, and a few years later, they developed and sold Jean-Lucabuso.

That is how you keep good teams together. It was like they generated a ton of gam this off-season, but they didn't start the off-season with a ton of gam. And you look at this team, how do you not have more gam when this team stinks? Yeah. The one thing I was going to say, and let's then move on, was it hits me that. Weeby, I think we did one of our pre-stakes. season like we did all the coaches at draft or whatever it was and vermice was the one who told us

as someone who had been there for a while i don't know what year this was where he's like i think we just crossed the threshold from over 50 percent of our signings are agents approaching us to now we are scouting and going out which was an mLS shift of we have front offices now like we and we because we are a bit of a destination we get to choose rather than agents tell us who's willing to come here he was the one who told us that that. And so it's frustrating that coming out of that, he then was not able to build the apparatus. And I think some of that is on the club. And I think it's very much on the structure of just bottom-meeting stuff in one person. And Tom, you might have a better feel just for the

movings and shakings. I don't know that, listen, were they as filled out under Peter as they could have been? Maybe not. But this is a club that had Blissie, that had Megan Cameron before, that had, like, they did have some infrastructure behind it. And then when everything swapped, It kind of just turned into the, it was like burns and burns, you know, it was like, that's what, they kind of just got gutted and everything fell away. It wasn't like they had the number one, but they weren't number 30 in terms of personnel and infrastructure. They might have been because, yeah, they had Blissy.

Then Blissie was the sacrificial scapegoat. It was just, like I think Megan Cameron had already left. And then what, which I'm just saying the vision, there was, there was an element of vision there of like trying to do it. That's not an element of vision. That's one other person in the, office and then they hired Gavin Wilkinson that ended up a fan revolt and they fired him a week later and then the replacement was Mike Burns a guy who hadn't had a job in MLS since like 2016

was not looked fondly at his history at at New England Revolution and I can tell you he did not get one single other interview before Kansas City hired him that's not a vision okay I wasn't saying that part's a vision I'm saying there was a time when you were saying they were built they were trying to build towards something they had legitimate pieces in their front office but they didn't I don't think they built. Mike Jacobs left too, yeah. Yeah, they didn't build out the structure and the staff at a wide enough level for them to cover everything. Okay.

By the way, can I just get one little note here? The only player on this team, Daniel of Litch, that we would be like, any team of the league would like, yeah, would want that guy? Mike Burns signed. How crazy is this? Like, what are you talking about? Peter Vermece signed. Nice. Did he?

Before you left? What are you talking about? Peter was gone? Was he not? Would that happen? No. Oh, okay. That was Peter started the scene.

Your memory is better than my memory, Tom. I just, I bow down to you. I wanted to go on the other side real quick. Hugo Kuyper is six straight games with a goal, which sets a Chicago Fire all-time record in MLS. And I believe he has equal goals to games right now. So he's in that golden boot race firmly, which takes Tom to his scoop.

No, yeah, really quickly. To Chicago Fire, their pursuit of Robert Londowski has cooled for the moment. They push really hard earlier in the winter. And from what sources told myself in Paul Torio, it's not quite the same right now. Who knows where Londowski is going to go, maybe things change, maybe they come back to it.

It was always like you sign him if you can, but I'd tell you what, a lot of teams called Chicago about Hugo Kuyper is like when Lowndowski stuff became known and became real. And they could have tried to get him on a cut rate of like, well, you're going to have an issue if you sign Lewandowski, but it looks like the Chicago fire won't be. It's very unlikely at this moment,

though things may change, but they're not pushing him, pushing for him as hot as they were a few months ago. The Levantowski thing does not make sense to me. It does not. It never did. Because they have one of the best center forwards in the league under contract for the next couple of years who's in his prime. And you know what?

The people of Chicago want a winner. They want a team that wins. And they will have that if they keep at building this roster the way they've built it over the past three windows. That's why I spent the off season being like someone's about to hit the lotto when they get Hugo Kuyper's on a cash for because Chicago Fire have to get out of him. and he is one of the best center forwards in the league. Okay. By the way, Andre Franco coming back after the World Cup break, which should change even more

what the ceiling of this group has. Now that Weeby's already talking, why don't we go to Weeby's best thing before he had to happen here? Listen, you know, we're talking about outside of Kansas City, the good, and there has not been a lot of good for Atlanta and Austin. And then this weekend, they found something.

not, listen, it's not complete. It's not like you would sit there and say this is 90 minutes of excellence that you are going to just roll forward. But like talking to all the folks in Austin ahead of the Walmart Saturday Showdown, there was a feeling. Did anyone have any messages for me? Did anyone have anything to pass along? No, no, actually, no, they're good. They're good. Actually, I was the persona non grata for a long time in Austin because of the bonus game bit, which they still bring up constantly.

Wait, they bring up a thing that you reset 5,000 times. Correct. Yeah, you know, that's that's repetition, baby. You drive it into somebody's skull, and it just comes right back to you. What's the call-in number, Weeby? Yeah, I don't know. I can't remember. I can hear the jingle. I just can't get the number out. Anyway, talking to, like, Brad Stouver and talking to Nico Estevez and Ily Sanchez and all these guys, it was like, you could feel the weight. You could feel the weight of the last two months, of the last seven games, of a feeling of like, is this season slipping away before we could even really get our hands around it? And look, Austin has had injury issues, something I don't think Atlanta can really put their, put on their resume right now, like Owen Wolf, Pereira, obviously Brandon Vasquez, all those guys are close. Like, they had to have this game. They had to have it. And I felt in the first half, you saw a level of desperation in their performance that Houston couldn't match. And it wasn't necessarily all quality, though Jaden Nelson's goal was an exhibition of that. but it was a different level of

of intensity and desire and need that they had to put into this game and they got it. The second half was fine. I thought they got pushed a little bit and they didn't do what they said they want to do, which is control games with the ball when they're up, which has killed them late in games all season long, but the amount of relief you could feel in that stadium

through the players at the final whistle was immense. Like you had guys on their knees on the ground, laying on their backs. They had to exert themselves as they had to get it. If you want to control the game with the ball, do you think the CSO shit at some point sign a couple players who can pass the fucking ball? They sign Jane Nelson. The whole attack just hinges on his shoulders. And then they gave everyone else $30 million.

Listen, I hear you. I'm not going to come out here and defend all the signings. I will also say that like any team missing Ellen Wolf and Danny Pereira are going to have some issues in their midfield. I think we've seen that. I'm not saying they're good Doyle. What do you want me to do? It's been a bad team. I don't know why you're attacking me.

I'm just telling you they were desperate and they got to win. Here's my issue. On top of all the stuff Doyle's saying, there's all these structural issues, whatever. Obviously, I went to the Miami game. When they play desperate, they get performances. Why aren't they desperate every week? You are not good enough to not be desperate.

Sure. I think Austin fans know this, which is then you go into games that you should win or games against other types of opponents and you don't play desperate. And so that I think should be the main frustration right now because you can only change the roster so much between now and whatever.

And that should be like the main social frustration. And being, I would just say, sort of mentally weak late in games. Like that, like they just haven't. I think that all mixes together, right? Yeah, they've been scared late in games. They've been scared. Like there's just no,

if you look at those performances and the goals that they give up and the way that the game changes late, like they've been scared. Atlanta, I don't know what they've been. They've been inept, completely inept. Like, even Tata Martino's just like, yeah, I don't, this is as bad as it could possibly be. Like, I don't know. If I didn't have the reputation I did, I'd be fired here.

Like, that is a, that's a crazy thing to hear from a coach of his caliber in this league. And Doyle, I know you tweeted it, but when I was watching the game, that second goal, and then Moranchuck's goal, I was just like, okay, what? Where? Yeah. From where? From where does this come from? And I will say this.

I think Alexi Moranchuck is having watched them in person. he is the most talented DP that they have. Is he the most effective? Also maybe yes, because nobody's effective right now. But if I was going to say one of those three guys has to be on the field right now for Lain United, it would still be him because he's the only one that's going to make any magic for you. I guess. I would be, yeah, I would be aiming to just tear the whole thing down just about if I was,

if I was Atlanta at this point. By the way, Arthur Blank did an event last week. I don't know if it was the NWSLT. He said all buyouts are on the table. He said anything's on the table, financial sports there. He has not been super involved, I think, in the past, which was a positive to start. And now maybe has been less of a positive, but the money is there if they want to. There's not much.

Look, it was a very necessary three points. And Tata, after the game said, I kept telling the guys, we were going to have one of these games and was going to turn stuff around. this was the one. That feels like a really optimistic read on the situation for me because they were playing a Toronto team that was missing, I think, their top three centerbacks. And has Jonathan Osorio playing as a lone D-Mid and, you know, a lot of missing pieces elsewhere? But hey, you take the points where you can get them. I still don't see a team that's built in there in a way to function at a high level over the course of. of a full season.

Did anybody, no offense, does anybody, is anybody saying that? Like, there's no, like, these are just salves on a wound,

right? Like, the wound is still gaping. Well, the salve is Charlotte Open Cup on Tuesday, right? You're one of those clubs where you have to look at this competition

and say, can we do what Austin did last year? Can we trip our way and grind out a result or two and get to a semi-final and then anything's on the table? That has to be the goal. for this team. And I think if they do, people will show up for big games because that's been

the history and like that's been the case. Ultimate salvage off against Montreal next weekend. It's an ace off Atlanta, Montreal in MLS. But yeah, it does not feel great and has not been super much. Montreal's red hot, baby. What are you talking about? Back to back wins. Back to back wins. Can I do this for you before we lose Weeby here because I know he'll love this. Prince of Wusu, six all time in C.F Montreal. career MLS goals. Do you have the list of the other ones? I've got the list.

Weeby, do you want to guess first? Here's what I'm going to do for you, Weebbs. I think I'm going to give you 10 through 7 to get you start in, to get you into a mindset. Okay. You guys know the list or am I the only one that's ignorant? No, no one knows the list. Okay. Number 10 is Dominic Oduro.

Shout out to Bob's Jones. Number tied with him is Lassie Lopalinen and Anthony Jackson, him out. Wow. Wow. That's so sick. And then right above. empire field of trivia right here. And right above them is the captain, Patrice Brunier.

Shout out to Patrice. Nice. So Prince Ousu on 19 career MLS goals is six. Okay, so obviously Piotti. Piotti's number one on 66. Marco de Vio. Number two, 34. Yeah, drogba has to be in there if 19 is it.

So Dragba is four at 21. So you're missing two in there. Everyone's allowed to guess if they'd like. Um, just for, just for, yeah, Romo yeah, Romo Keanu. That's a good, yeah, it's a great shot. That's a great shot. I thought would be the one you guys might miss. He's actually tied with DeVio on 304. That sounds right. Um, I want Justin Map to be it, but it is not. It's not. Yeah. I wanted it to be that. Okay, so we're missing one. We're missing five. But you guys have done well. I'm pretty proud of you for this. Oh, I don't want to roll victories. I'll give you a clue. A vague clue, please. A vague clue.

Yeah, just not one that's obvious. Just so we can feel like we did it on our own. He played in the World Cup. Blarimli. No. That's a good shout, though. Tideyre. Yep.

Yes. God. Let's go. Yeah. Man, the good old days, baby. That's a glorious list right there. Jemile or Tideh, were as close as you could get to the same person.

Like flash in the pan European signings that were too good to be there. From Bologna for no money. Yeah. Okay. That's our little Montreal history there on back-to-back wins. So congratulations to them and NYCFC in a tough spot. Doyle, let's do yours. And then we'll move into some big headlines.

Yeah, I mean, I think you could all hear that I've been sick for the past week. I have this mystery virus. Nobody could figure out what it is. And then it hit me watching the games this weekend. I have CCL fever. I believe in Nashville FC and I believe in LAFC. David Martinez scored a banger. Just like really well-worked team goal.

What a flick from Timothy Tillman for the 1-0 against Minnesota United. LASC really needed that because they've been heavy-legged, struggling a little bit. But they also are getting Aaron Long back. They've got Stephen Eustachio back in central midfield. We've seen Drew Carey give them. them some real minutes. So suddenly they just look like they have more pieces than they did a couple of weeks ago. And because David Martinez is now consistently playing like this, they have the ability to brute force wins with three different players. Between him and Denny Boonga and Son,

they have three match winners. And that puts them in a really good situation going up against this mighty Toluca team who I think are still the favorites. Yugo Larisse, I should. is playing fantastic ball as well. And then for Nashville, for the first 25 minutes against Charlotte, they just blew Charlotte's doors off. There was incredible soccer. The level dropped after it was 2-0. Then Sam Surridge, who had missed the past couple games with a hamstring,

came off the bench for the second half, picked up right where he left off, scored himself a brace. He and the entire team looked like they were buzzing in a way that they hadn't been for a couple of weeks, maybe even for a month, because they had to grind their way through to this point in Cawka Calf Champions Cup. This was a different version of Nashville

that we saw in this game against Charlotte. This was a team where all the pieces were sort of clicking together. Serge in particular looked well-rested. Hani Mukhtar, I know he's not putting up the biggest numbers of his career, but he might be playing the best soccer of his MLS career. I think they're favorites against Tigris. I don't think LAAFC are going to get past Toluca. Toluca is just too good.

But I do think that Nashville are favorites against Tigris. And either way, I'm looking forward to these two games this week in a way that, well, I don't think I was a week ago, but my body was telling me, my body was so ill. It was warning you. It was telling me if CCL is coming. Yeah. Can I just ask who has heavy?

machinery working outside of their home. This is a Charlie Davies situation. At first, it sounded like a lift of some sort, and then going to my roots. I thought someone was blowing a chauffeur in the hotel. I got that type of sound. Yeah. It feels like it's happening inside my head.

You know, Nashville is a good example what we're talking about with like cores and how you build around them and then how signings that come in elevate themselves in a lot of ways. When you look at this, like the lineup they put out in Charlotte, you know, like Andy Nihara was sort of like floating around and now is arguably the right best right back in MLS you know like Daniel Lovitz has put in years and years of top level performances for this group and then and then you'll get all the different sightings that are just sort of sitting in there it's like oh yeah this is this is why this is why because you're putting

guys into a construct into like not just a system but a culture that that has expectations and forces them to to reach the same level as everyone else and then everybody levels up And credit to Mike Jacobs. Like, I don't think he gets enough credit for what's been built over many, many years in Nashville now. Probably the Gary Smith era got us all a little bit, put a little bit of a taste in our mouth. They want. I know. I'm just saying, there's just aesthetically it got stale after a while.

Yeah, but to the original SKC point, the core has been good for a really little time. And the floor has been high. And I think some of the frustration externally towards the end of that Gary Smith era was like, okay, the floor is high. let's take a home run swing. Let's try and raise the ceiling. And now they've finally done that. And like you just watch, I think, Doyle, to your point, like, look at the last Charlotte game for Nashville two weeks ago.

Look at this game. Completely different. They came out of a freaking cannon to open the first 20 minutes of this game. And it's like, oh, so there's one professional soccer team. And then there's this other thing on the field right now. And that's with, because of what they've built, rotation. Like, Daniel Lovitz is not starter on this team anymore. They used to be fully reliant.

32 games, Daniel Lovis. We don't have it wearing trouble. Matthew Corcoran starts this game at 20 years old. This is the point that I wanted to make, right? When I struggled to make it about sporting Kansas City, it's like they didn't go out Mike Jacobs and just automatically get a like-for-like replacement when he had to, you know, sort of fill in around or even four parts of the core. He went out and he got Reid Baker Whiting, who's a U-22 signing, who's just 20-year.

years old who is not a completely finished product and he gave him to b j callahan he said you have to make him into this thing that makes us better you know same thing with matthew corcoran same thing with pat yasbeck and eddie tag set guys who didn't come from within mLS but guys who came from overseas so it's understanding how pieces fit and understanding the need to have a coach who will make those pieces better and i think that's where mike jacobs and b jallahan have worked sort of hand in hand together to improve the entire thing while at the same time improving the not just the results but the aesthetics of it I want to watch a vet still now oh yeah and there are you know there are teams where when they lose their dax mccarty and they lose their walker zimmerman

and their daniel lovice drops i mean sporting kansas city is the ultimate example right when Matt Beasler stopped being Matt Beasler and Iko Parra left and Ilya Sanchez was no longer given the car keys. Like they just stopped being a relevant team. And it's the hardest thing in the world to go from one era to another. But Nashville have not only managed that. They've actually improved while doing it. And that improves their future as well because the guys that were lying upon now are 20, 22, 26 years old,

I mean, instead of all being in their early 30s. Well, Leggie could be one of the best centerbacks in this league for five, six years if he wants to be. I assume Yazbek will be gone pretty soon if he plays at a World Cup the way we expect, but you're absolutely right. Real quick, if you're listening via Sirius Radio,

we're going to go a little bit long here. So we're going to leave you at this point. You could search soccer-wise on-demand or anywhere you get your podcast to hear the full show. But we are already in, a little bit of CCL conversation. So I'm just going to have us talk about this year because I gave freedom of choice to you guys

and Doyle decided to freedom of choice. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart to say that I have to exit on Cocky Calf to go record instant replay. So in solidarity with the serious XM audience. Yes, yes. I will pick you guys up on my favorite podcasting at. My pickup soccer chat in Miami is reposting pictures of Iende being on side.

So go. I'll go. I'm going to go double check their work. I'll get to carry the truth for them. See you, boys. But we've got these big games coming up. And so let's just talk about them while we're doing this. Joel, you talk about the depth of these teams.

And you said you had more belief, I guess, in Nashville than what you have for LAAFC. So let's just start with Nashville on this side. They've obviously never been here before. This is the biggest game in the club's history. A little context for everyone. This is the 18th MLS versus League MX set of matchups in history, or these will be the 19th and 20th. So far, League MX sides are 14 and 4 all time in the semifinals. So the Nashville game is Tuesday at 7.30 p.m. Eastern time against Tigris, where if you haven't seen it, I'd say go online and look up Andre Pierre-Jignac at this point.

The fans giving him sort of like a send-off in the last home game of the League of MX season. he's clearly going to play at home again because of a second leg to this thing, but whatever. There was like aerial shots of full Mexico flags with it. There's a TIFO that they do. Over the last decade, he has put together, I'd argue, the best. I mean, he's the greatest signing in North American soccer history. And I think you could argue he's had the best career in North American soccer history. He was signed originally to win the Copa Libertadores, which is funny that we're back around to,

can we get Concaf teams back in that? and he was signed kind of like a one-off to do that and he absolutely fell in love with where he lived and what Tigris was and what Mexican culture was and now he's like Mexican hence the Tifos being Mexico flags and not French flags like he loves everything about being there and he is still a great ultimate killer he has killed many an MLS team in the past he has won everything that he's been in except that Coppilib but they just fell short against River which is like an insane thing to say still to this day and trust me me river fans don't even remember i unfortunately live around a bunch of them and they're like

mexican teams no they couldn't copolyb no never watch the game what do you want for me um but he this will be sort of his last run and nahoo at 40 years old you don't know how much longer it is for him but he's been outstanding so far i think outside of messy on hell kreya maybe is the best signing over the last two years in the region but uh one of you i think made the point for honey mouktar as well in that same time. 2020. Yeah. And Tom, this is a big moment

for this club in Nashville of like they have a real shot at this thing. Your preview of, I think Nashville are the favorites. I would agree with that. You always respect Tigraise. There are only really, really good teams left in the semifinals of this tournament. But again, with all respect to Tigraise,

I'd rather play them than Toluca. If I had to pick one of those two because of how great Toluca are, all of that being said, Nashville going down to beat Kloom America, They're ready, man. Like, they're built for this. They have the quality, the depth, and they have different ways to win in terms of,

they beat their best when they're in possession. But Honey Muktar made, made his, won his MVP being a one-man band in transition. Sam Surge is electric in space. So is Christian Espinoza. They can defend deep if they needed. Yes, they're going to try to play on the ball. But if they lose the battle to dictate how the game is played, they're not screwed. and I think that's going to be very important for this team.

They have a lot of youthful energy, but also a lot of veteran know-how and a lot of veteran experience within the quality. I think that they just have a lot of things that are really, really good. And this game could play out in a number of different ways and Nashville could still come out on top, whereas I think with LATFC, talk about the Tuluca game. If LFC are not scoring goals in transition,

if Tuluca get an early goal and LFC has to take the game to them, that is a really bad recipe. For Nashville, I think that they can do it in more ways. Yeah, I think I agree across the board with Tom. Like, it is conceivable to me, and maybe even just on the side of likely, that Nashville outplays Tegras. I think Seattle outplayed Tegras over the course of two legs.

And they just, they didn't have the firepower. They didn't have Hani Mukdar and Sam Surridge and Christian Espinoza to finish those plays off. And they drew on aggregate. And they were just like this close to getting through. I think Nashville can counterattack Tigris to death if they need to. I think they can outplay them. I think they can be very dangerous on set pieces, which we've seen from them this year.

I think they can high press them, which we've seen from Nashville at times this year. And I think they can also take the sting out of the game with the ball on their foot. I don't think LAAFC have developed all that. I think LAAFC maybe have more talent. maybe is being wishy-washy. I think LASC have more talent, but they don't have the variety of sort of game phases. They can bring that talent to bear in,

and I think that limits them against even mediocre teams, and Tuluca is the furthest thing from mediocre. So I think Tom is absolutely right that for LASC, it is a rear-guard action, and you hope that Sun gets hot finally, and he has something special, and Denny Buwanga has something special, and David Martinez has something special.

And that is a perfectly acceptable way to approach this. I just think in the long run, LAFC should be looking at what Nashville have done and become and saying that's what we need to be by August or September, and certainly by this next version of Concordshire Champions League next year. Even look at this weekend's game for LFC against Minnesota, like average right like particularly in the conversation comparing them to tuluka Minnesota are not near that level Minnesota dominated a really really nice goal by

Davin Martinez earning the game and then even if you didn't watch the game watch the highlights the next 15 highlights outside of I think one at the end where a Bobazi had a chance it was all Minnesota Minnesota's dictating if they play that way against Toluca they're going to lose so it's they have possibilities to win but And there was no son this weekend, to be fair. There's no Ryan Porchis, who I think is one of the best centerbacked in the league right now. He did come on. He did come on at half time.

Yeah. But so he played half the game. But still, like, Minnesota United is dictating that game with, like, Jang and your bow up top, Hommas Rodriguez on for 60 minutes. That's not the same caliber of players that Toluca are going to be thrown at them. Yeah, I think all that's fair. So my, I sang this tune going into the second leg in the last round against Club America. Every time in this competition, I think Nashville's left too much meat on the bone in the first leg at home.

And you can get away with it, but I don't think you get away with it at ElvoCon. So this is the time where for everything positive we said, they have to be up to goals coming out of this game. Like they didn't put it away against Inter-M Miami. They didn't put it away against Club America. They were good enough in those second legs to get over the top. The gap right now between Club America and Teagrass feels very large. the gap in these big continental games with the experience and sort of the atmosphere is like that feels very large and so that to me is the big question for Nashville is like can they put away

their chances can they maintain the momentum for the full 90 minutes even the charlotte game the drop off you let charlotte back in then you're able to finish it off but like all of this is leaving openings for other teams which you can't afford in the biggest games at the highest level The other thing to note in all of this, just before we move through it. So the final is a one game final, and it will be hosted. So it's hosted by the best team based off all of your performances from round of 16 quarterfinals and semi-finals. So right now, Toluca has the best record through those games. LAFC has the second best record.

And then Tigris and Nashville were both on six points through that stretch. and I believe Tigris took the home advantage in this series on goals scored because Nashville has scored two for games in that entire span and Tigris had scored eight so that was the difference even though they came down to the same goal differential but all of that point spread is tight enough that you assume whoever gets through maybe gets one maybe gets three points like any of these teams could end up hosting the final but it's one of those things where there is a there's like 2% of your energy looking at that saying yeah can we

get a draw and maybe get through, but if we can get the win at home, we can set ourselves up potentially to host a single game final. It's very math. It's very improbable that either Tigray's or Nashville hosts the final. Yeah. Yeah. The final is going to be at 8,500 feet into Luke at my man. Yeah.

That's where it's going to be. It would require LFC drawing two games and then Nashville making up, Nashville or Tegra's making up a three goal difference. Like, and for Nashville's case, like they don't have the goal scored. So they would have to win this tie by four goals to have to. Well, if Nashville won both games, they would, or Teegroch won both games, they'd surpass L-AFC there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the thing is it can be a tie and then a shootout.

So that's the opening that is there for you. Or you could lose and then win a second leg, but yeah. But that is like one thing to think about as we go through this. For LAFC, it's Toluca's first semifinal in this competition since 2014. All the success over the last year, they hadn't gotten into Concaf through it yet. And now they have the opportunity. We've talked about it before. Marcel Ruiz, Tours ACL and now is playing less than two months after, which is wild.

But outside of that, Paulineo is right now the best finisher in the region. Alexis Vega is one of the best chance creators in the region. And Doyle, you talked about it, the altitude, the atmosphere at that building that got rebuilt a few years ago. And we've seen it in every single Concordiaf game so far. It feels like it blows teams away when they get there. and I would say the galaxy was a weird performance, San Diego never found their feet in that second leg. No, I mean, and they never found their breath.

And that's the thing about playing at 8,500 feet, is like you have to deal with not only the quality of the opposition and the fans who are wild, but you also have to deal with the atmosphere and the altitude. And it's tough. It is a confluence of factors that, destroys most teams and I think both LAFC and Nashville make it there are really going to be up against it and it'll be legendary if they if they actually win. I do think that this is an argument

for going back to two-legged finals because one-legged finals are are a brand new thing, right? They're only what, three years old? Yeah. Just one game man, it's a final. But why? Tom, You build the entire competition on your home advantage versus my home advantage. And what do I do in this time versus what do you do in this time? So why in this competition do you have to switch from two to one? Final should be one game. Final should be one. That's as simple.

Because the players can't take off work two weeks in a row with their wages and they have to go back to the factory to be able to work post-pil. Just play the final in one game. It's better for fans. It just should. It just should. I get some of that point, but like there is clearly such a large gap in home field advantage. Then win your game early in the tournament.

Win your games early in the tournament. Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to complain about the win on the field argument because I think it's a fair one, but also it's the peak of the competition. I don't know why we can't have two great games and like two great atmospheres. I still, I like these five, like MLS Cup, like my favorite thing is that is hosted by the team. that played better in the regular season.

I could be talked to, I mean, gosh, I could be talked into a neutral field for this final just because it ends up being six games to determine who hosts that final. But it should just be one one like is one one one one final, one game. One world, one people. Tom is just all about unity. It is like, what do you want, best of three decks? Yeah, almost round one style. Probably.

What I would like actually is right as we get to the final, I'd like to take a three-month break for Leaks Cup. And I would like the winner of Leaks Cup for their opportunity, their building to host a neutral site as the final. So I would like to see Austin FC and Mazat-Lan host in a host Tigris as a neutral site in the final. So two huge games coming up. Two huge games coming up this week. We've got Open Cup as well.

But before we get there, a couple other big notes from the weekend. Jesus Ferreira goal against his old team. Then he misses the penalty kick. But Seattle are able to get the victory. One of the best teams right now in the league. It was a big weekend at the top of the Western Conference. Seattle get the win. Vancouver get the win.

San Jose get the win with Timo Verner, two goals and an assist. It's the best road start. Is it an MLS history? It is tied for the best road start in MLS history with, I believe, the 2022 Red Bulls. 5-0-0 and it is the best start overall through 10 games in MLS history. Quakes are 9-0-1 and this was one of the few, one of only two games really in which they weren't the better team. St. Louis could have scored four. This is St. Louis.

This has been the story all season. I'm DeMé Pilled. I'm like there. One, what's up, Columbus? Guy was in your building. Now he coaches a different team. And there's also a clear lack of finishing quality in some of this team. That's also partially on Yohan Demet.

Fine. Because every time Brandon McCarthy comes into the game, I'm not even sure if that's the guy's day. Mixorily? McSorley. Brandon McCarthy, the Phoenix Rising GM, former MLB pitcher. Thank you. I actually think there was a centerback in the game.

He's dangerous as hell. We all know that Mackay Joyner has been dangerous and scored goals any time he's gotten a chance with the first team, you know, from. the wingback position, which is not giving them the type of production that they need. So I really, I'm de Mae-pilled as well in terms of the overall tactical scheme, but his personnel choices have left me scratching my head. He could be working with Diego Rossi, Wessemabwe-Ali, Max Arnifton, instead he's working with

Sergio Cordova, Simon Becher, and Brennan McSorley. So you should like Simon Betcher. Simon Becher is the Jose Alvarado of MLS, man. We like Simon Betcher. I would say Preston Judd might be the Jose Alvarado. By the way, Preston. Preston Judd is actually productive. You don't get to be from St. Louis going to slew and compare yourself to Jose Alvarado.

Get out of here. He's the JJ Reddick of MLS. Oh, my God. Get out of here with that. On San Jose, Timo Verner, in 450 minutes has four goals and five assists. Nine goal contributions in 450 minutes right now. You think he'll make it in MLS? I think he might as well.

I picked up Preston Judd in my best ball league in my Austin league this week, so I was pretty excited about that. He might have closed. I did a thing for my column this week, for tactics free zone. I went into the numbers and I tried to break down why and how the quakes are so much better than last year because people, including people in the kickback committee, the WhatsApp group had been asking, I don't understand how the quakes are good.

Can someone please explain it to me? So I did. And there are good and valuable reasons to explain how the quakes are so much better this year. I think the biggest one that I've harped on all year, they defend from the front. They don't give you easy passes anywhere on the field. Or if they do, it's to their own purpose, right?

They want to give you an easy pass because they have sprung a mid-jured, they have laid a midfield trap to either force you sideways, you know, towards the touchline or to force a turnover. And when they do, then Judd and Werner and Assini Buddha, who what a reclamation project he has turned into for Bruce Arena, are all on the run. And then the other thing is they actually avoid the central channel, which is something that you don't see a lot from the very best teams. but the idea is to attack directly and quickly in the half spaces to create room for overlaps from both fullbacks. One of the few teams that uses both fullbacks to overlap now. When you do that, you gain access to essentially the end line. You hit pullbacks across the six.

Pullbacks lead to one-time shots. The quakes are, I think, second or third in the league in one-time shots. Preston Judd's box movement is excellent. And it also leads to goals on the back post. from guys like Team Alvernor Useni Buddha. So it all sort of fits together. And then the other thing is like, every player on this team, it seems like, is the positional archetype of the position that they're playing.

So they all have clarity within the system, but they all like completely understand their role because it's the role they were meant to play. Like there's no square pegs and round holes here. It all, it ends up working really, really well. but I do think what we saw in this is that the difference between the Quake's first 13 or so players and the next group is more significant than the difference between the Caps first 12 or 15 players and the Caps back or L-A-F-C. Like they do not, they have not been able to build up the depth behind that.

But they rotated because they do have an open cup game on Tuesday. I think they very clearly want to win that one. Don't expect Team O'Verner in that one, though, because he's started the past three games, and the last thing they want to do is run this guy into the ground. Tom, let me give you this, because we did last week, oh, this team's real, this team's real. So I want you to do it this way.

San Jose and Vancouver, the two best teams in the league right now. Nashville then is two points behind Vancouver. L.A.F.C. are right behind them. So three of the four best teams are in the Western Conference, Miami one point back, four of the top six. Give me the odds that the supporter shield winner is a Western conference team. Because the flip side is it might be a stronger conference and you might have tougher games. I would put it at like minus 150 right now just because it's still so early.

They have the edge rather than the east. But, you know, if Miami rips off however many wins in row, if Nashville get into the World Cup break when they won't have C.C. and they're still within striking distance and they're a legitimate shot but like i think vancc are going to be there i hope san jose are but the talent disparity or the top end talent disparity maybe won't keep them i think that they'll be very very good i don't know about shield so i would give the west a slight edge but um yeah maybe even like 140 can i give you a dark horse shield pick sure chicago fire i just don't think that we've seen the best of them yet and

they're right there behind that top group and they're starting to play better on both sides of the ball. They're on 17 points, already 10 points behind San Jose, but with a game in hand. And the fire have done it despite having a bunch of injuries and trying to figure out how to create chances. And you could see them week by week getting a little bit better at that and getting a little bit more dangerous and they have the ability you know that they're going to go hard in the summer's transfer window so the fire are a good dark course team but if i were to guess right now um man it those top four teams all look so good it the shield winner's probably coming from that group um Chicago has st louis in open cup uh midweek which is a cool deep cut nerd open cup series

chicago and st louis two of the great cities in open cup history the fire of course on four all-time victories if they won it this year, they would tie Bethlehem Steel and Maccabi, Los Angeles, as most all-time in U.S. Open Cup history. And then obviously St. Louis knew to this, but anyone who knows the history knows St. Louis owned this competition. I think 12 all-time wins from St. Louis-based teams. Missouri's like third all-time in states, and all of that is just St. Louis, although Weevee left us, so he could have told us the deep history of some BS.

We would have been going for another 45 minutes. Yeah. And you mentioned when Miami rips off a couple victories, three games on New Stadium, three ties. I don't know that that's going to happen anytime soon. This team loves a draw at home, and that is not a recipe for winning Supporters Shield. Okay, let's finish off here with a couple other big Open Cup games. We have 13 MLS teams left in the competition. Seven have never won this.

As I mentioned, Chicago, in Houston. the only ones to have won multiple times. Tuesday night, we get Charlotte versus Atlanta, and then Doyle mentioned it's San Jose against Minnesota. A big opportunity for San Jose in a year in which no trophies are guaranteed that you're playing well. Can you continue to push forward? Wednesday, though, is where things get tasty.

We've got Hudson River Derby and Harrison, New Jersey to start. You get Columbus hosting Knoxville. You get Chicago versus St. Louisville. As I mentioned, Houston host Louisville, and then the Colorado Derby. Rapids hosting Colorado Springs switched back so you have to reference to a city in England when you talk about things like that as historic and as big. Wad Knoxville already made their bank, 50K for being the last Division III team in the

competition. One of the other USL championship teams now that are left, whoever moves on the furthest will get that. If not, I think it goes down to like goal differential of how far you made it. But I would say all these upsets are possibilities. Houston have just been bad. That's like the only word to put it. And this is a Colorado team that for all the entertainment and fun, there's chances on the board, right?

Like for everything they do, there's going to be openings that they're going to give you. It's also a young team that's playing a lot of big games. Last week they hosted 73,000 fans against Miami. They traveled midweek to L.A.F.C. They went to Vancouver. And now they come back for this midweek. So, Doril, I would say all the upset cupsets are a possibility. Yeah, I don't know that there's, I think the one that actually jumps out is Minnesota

because they did rest and rotate some of their guys. Is that a cut set if they beat San Jose? Is that how big the gap is? I think so. Because we were just talking about how good San Jose are and Minnesota's on the road for this one, right? This one is in, yeah. So that one, which one do you have in mind? Well, I would just say if you're in the same league, I don't know that I call it a cup set.

All right, fair enough. But I'll take that as a game to watch. So it's one Knox versus... At Columbus. At Columbus. And then Louisville at Houston. Columbus, I don't love, but they're four one and one this month. And they, look, they are a mid-block and counter team.

They do have a match winner in Diego Rossi. Houston versus... Hosting Louisville. That one is spicy. All right, that's the one. That's the one. Glad we got there. And I just think it's one of those things. I mean, for all these teams, there's a reason you're at this point, you're in Open Cup because you didn't make the playoffs last year.

Winning trophies are big. But then you go into these years now where things got worse, like Columbus, and like, this is it, right? This is the competition. Like, this is what you're playing for. And so in terms of rotation and, like, thought process, this becomes the focus and the week. weekends become the thing that you take games off for where I think for specifically the lower division teams this now is the focus as like and you have to put everything in this so I think it's going to be really really tasty in this one do we have a team that we think has a run so we're going to get the rest of the bracket after this round on April 30th will be the draw a lower division team or just any at all anyone I'd like a winner for me Tom give me give me a more lines you're quick on the last one Chicago, I think that they have the combination of the high-end talent system, enough depth to get by, but also enough, I think, care of this tournament, particularly if they get past

St. Louis this weekend, this midweek, to your point got this, I think after this round is when the MLS teams will be like, okay, we're still alive. Yeah. Like, we rotate on the weekend for the midweek open cup game. Right. And a club that has a history of this. Chicago has said over and over again we value this competition

we want to win open cups they would tie the record but like that's because they've taken it really seriously in the past even past the Bob Bradley teams and the Dennis Hamlet teams and Frank Klopas every fifth time he manages this team and all of that they've like cared about this consistently so a huge round of games

Hudson River Derby fascinating one both teams suck right now so like an interesting time to go into a rivalry knockout game and any time they play an open cup it's been wild. I think there's red cards every single time they've played every time. I'm just mad this game isn't at Montclair State University. That'd be true football heritage.

Kane wasn't available to host? No. No, unfortunately not. The last time I played on that Montclair field, we won. Just beating and beating at top of the football team. Good to know. Yeah, for NYCFC, they were cruising 60 minutes through Cincinnati. They give up the goals late to tie and then they lose at Montreal. So a really bad week coming into this game and a must win, you'd have to say,

in this matchup where you're trying to create some level of dominance against the Red Bull team that starts Robert Voladere and Sean Neillis at centerback. Sorry, Dylan Nealus at centerback, which creates a couple openings for you. Okay. To close out here for us, a couple of notes on the USM&T side. We've got our bigger segment that will be coming up on Thursday. But shout out to Mati Albert making his debut for Berushia Dortmund 16 years old. Is that what we're calling him now? Is that how we say his name?

That's how I was told to call him when he played in the youth racks. Matty Albert? Well, his dad's French. Hence why he has the EU passport. So that was why he was able to leave at a young age. Is that what he calls himself? Is that what his friends call? I have zero idea.

But that is what the snooty PR people told me to call him when I covered one of his games. Totally fair. at the Galaxy Youth ranks. Tom, any anything you want to say on that side of things? Yeah, really talented kid. It's impressive that he's getting into the Dortmund first team. He'd been on the bench.

This was his third consecutive game. He gets his debut in the Bundesliga. It's a really nice one. He's been really, really good in terms of production for their youth teams, and he's been in first team training most of this season. To get his reward for that development, I think, is really cool. I saw a tweet that was somebody like from Europe that was like, How does Brucey Dortmund just get a random regent 16-year-old American Academy product in their first team every two years?

It's like Pulisic, Raina, Cole Campbell, Mattia Albert. Where does he fall on the Cole Campbell, Christian Pulisic spectrum? Better than Cole Campbell. It'd be unfair for a kid who just played three minutes in the first team to be like, yeah, on par with Pulisick Arena because of what they accomplished in the first team. but he's definitely a higher pedigree talent than Cole Campbell was when he's coming through. Cole Campbell is probably going to be a Bundesliga player, not a Dortmund level player. So let's see what Albert can do. He didn't have, he was fine at the U-17 World Cup.

The expectations were higher because of his pedigree. Like you've been saying to him that Burchemus outplayed him at that tournament. I think Burtramus is a very good player too. But particularly with young wingers, you never quite know what it's going to look like from. they could have a goal and a half a game for the U-19s. Do you ever make the get over the hump with the first team? I think that he has every possibility to do that, but I just want to be careful not to over a promise.

Yeah, I think. Just looking at the numbers here, Campbell's numbers at the same age, in the same level as Albert were a little bit better, just in terms of total goals and assists per minute. I would say it was within the same bracket. And of course, you know, Cole Campbell made his Bundesliga debut a little bit later. I think he was 17 when he made his debut.

Albert turned 17 next month. Yeah. What I would say from seeing the two of them at the youth ranks, Campbell, I think, more of a finisher. And the team builds for him where Albear is a chance creator and can do more on his own. As you said, Tom, it's really hard to see how that scales because, like, Okay, you've got the touch. Do you have the physicality? Do you have the speed to stay off, keep guys around? But I think he's a game breaker. Now, I think I saw him for the first time at the same tournament as Kevin Sullivan. He is not on Kevin Sullivan's level. He is still the best

prospect I've seen come through at, you know, in that age bracket from the youth ranks, which is not a knock on anyone. Talking about Christian Polisic, 16 games without a goal, now sets his professional record heading towards a World Cup that seems bad. It seems not very, Very good. Not ideal. It's not what you want. Maybe it's something we'll dig into a little bit more. He's well rested, though, from last summer.

It was the summer before? Nailed it, Tom. Absolutely nailed it. And let me finish on this one. USM&T and MLS legend Kobe Jones had a statue unveiled of him outside of Dignity Health Park in L.A. L.A. Galaxy original, a huge part of the U.S. men's national team. Doyle, I know I think we did during COVID, we did a bit of a retrospective talking about

some of his career. I'm not sure if you were on with me. I think we did it with Sean Francis, but I don't even remember now. But he is, I think he's an icon, both for the way he played, his look, his style, but also his personality. I've been fortunate enough to be around him as an adult, and it was always like a pinch me moment where you're like, that's freaking Kobe Jones. So pretty cool to see him honored in this way. Yeah, I mean, he's one of that class of 94 who came home and helped launch MLS. and he was one of the breakout stars in terms of, as you said, his style and the way he carried himself in public after that tournament.

And, you know, he actually followed it up by being a winning player, not just from 94, but into MLS and then into 2002 World Cup. I'll never forget that game against Mexico. The original dose, well, not the original, but the one that really solidified the dos a zero thing. for the final 10 minutes, Bruce brought on Kobe Jones specifically because he knew Mexico would try to kick the shit out of him. And they did.

And he drew a red card on Rafa Marquez in that one. And Kobe ate it up, man. Like he's like, this is my role on this team was to take a beating and to run the hard yards to close out games. True pro. As you said, you've been around them. So, you know, a guy who's easy.

to be around and well-deserved. I personally want every MLS team. I don't know if they need to be statues, but to have, like, what do the Yankees have with the plaques and everything? Like basically a team Hall of Fame somewhere in their stadium where you could, we as a league do not do as good a job of remembering and embracing our own history as we should. and if I go to that new Rev Stadium in two years,

I want to see a plaque of Steve Ralston somewhere. I want to see a plaque of Shalry Joseph somewhere. And the Galaxy, to their credit, are doing at least some of that with the statues that they've erected of, what, it's Beckham, Landon, and now Kobe. Are you going to be there for the Sienfuegas one? Because at some point, Cien deserves his statue as well.

Tyler in the chat says, Shawree Joseph statue, please, totally agreed. Also, can we get the Andy Dorman statue made? No. The statue would move at the same speed as Andy Dorman, which would make it a true, a true art experience. Yeah, Kobe, absolute legend, really cool story of like the pathway that existed at the time, AYSO, like he started playing soccer, played at UCLA because it was down the street and was as high a level as you could. And like, in talking to him about in the 94 World Cup, he didn't know being professional was an option. And like he is that first generation that got the opportunity because of what was built.

And then it feels like someone who didn't pull the ladder up behind him, came back, helped build up the galaxy, still is at the galaxy, still trying to spread the word about the sport, still trying to help support people coming into the game. So a really cool entity. The statue is very cool because he's got the iconic hair. And I think the way they did it in the statue is great. I would never want a statue of myself because it's just. like not a great material to make a human being in, and they all look bizarre,

but I think this one's probably the best one. I'm sure, dude. They've built so far. Tom, I don't want a statue. So when I passed tragically... Please put it in the newspaper that I don't want a statue. Megan knows my final wishes, so don't worry about it. She'll figure it out what it happens.

I tell her all the time. That's a great way to end the show. All right. And on that note, we'll be back on Thursday. We will recap everything we saw in Conckey Caff. Who knows? We're all day to day. We've got U.S. Open Cup as well.

NWSL, as I said, coming off a midweek. Well, of course, though, be on Blue Sky and in the Discord all week throughout the games. So feel free to hit us up there. Unless you're in Atlanta Hawks fan, then it's about to get real dark for you. So feel free to ignore us if you want as well. It's not your series. It's our series. It's if we show up or we don't.

So the questions fall on cat shoulders and maybe McHale Bridges, but I don't know that he actually has shoulders to hold anything like that. So thank you to all of you for listening. Thank you to all of you for being here. We'll talk to you again very, very soon.