Latest / Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football / A 2025 NWSL Championship Preview 🏆 Washington Spirit v Gotham FC

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A 2025 NWSL Championship Preview 🏆 Washington Spirit v Gotham FC · Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football

• 0:09
  OK, welcome to the first ever in person edition of Into the
• 0:15
  Channel. Let's fucking go.
• 0:18
  I'm your host, Dean of the Suspense and as always, I am
• 0:21
  joined by my Co host, Mr. Grant Angle.
• 0:24
  What's up man? I'm.
• 0:25
  Feeling fantastic buddy. It's good to be here in person
• 0:27
  with You Beautiful, sunny San Jose, CA.
• 0:31
  I think I'm ready to talk about the NWSL Championship.
• 0:34
  Cannot wait to get into it. So obviously it's been a week
• 0:37
  for your boy. I mean, I, I put myself, you
• 0:39
  know, through quite a grind. We had the NWSL awards, which
• 0:43
  were, that was quite an event lens day, media day Yesterday I
• 0:48
  put up some interviews that I had got to talk to some of the
• 0:50
  players. And then today we got to catch
• 0:52
  some of the practices, a couple of pressers, one with each team
• 0:56
  after the fact. I don't know.
• 0:58
  What were your biggest takeaways from today?
• 1:01
  I mean, I think the question is, I don't mean to do the live
• 1:04
  producing here. I think the question is where do
• 1:06
  I want to get started? Where do you want to get
• 1:08
  started? Excellent question.
• 1:09
  Let's. Start with some in person
• 1:11
  beverages. Let's go, man.
• 1:12
  Can you see I'm already I'm already off my game here.
• 1:15
  You know what? It's all right.
• 1:16
  You know, we're on a neutral site and I'm already making
• 1:19
  excuses as well. Cheers to you.
• 1:20
  Cheers to you. There we go in person.
• 1:23
  It's finally. Been done, cheers to you buddy.
• 1:27
  Yeah, for those at home, it's been years since Grant and I
• 1:30
  have hung out in person. But yeah, it should be a great
• 1:33
  weekend and definitely excited to get into it.
• 1:35
  The place where we get started because it's been the
• 1:38
  conversation of the week. Trinity Rodman, her health, will
• 1:42
  she play? How much will she play?
• 1:43
  How much will she be able to contribute?
• 1:45
  You got to see a snippet of her today in practice.
• 1:47
  What'd you see? All right, so during media
• 1:50
  availability, anybody who's roughly familiar with this, we
• 1:53
  got 15 minutes to watch them at the very beginning of training.
• 1:57
  I don't think it was a coincidence that we mostly saw
• 2:00
  stretching from Washington Spirit.
• 2:02
  So with that in mind, though, after seeing Trinity Rodman
• 2:06
  stretch with her teammates for 15 minutes, I am the world's
• 2:09
  foremost expert in Trinity Rodman's health.
• 2:12
  I can tell you the chatter was she was moving more gingerly
• 2:15
  than her teammates. She had one of those big kind of
• 2:19
  right knee braces. That's like somewhat sleeve,
• 2:22
  somewhat brace leaves the knee exposed.
• 2:25
  She was look, I mean, she's she's moving a little slower
• 2:28
  than her teammates. The stretches were a little more
• 2:31
  careful. I would say she was stretching
• 2:33
  with Terra Mickey own. There were some stretches where
• 2:36
  they would kind of like have the band around each of their legs,
• 2:38
  the same band around each leg and then they would kind of bump
• 2:42
  into each other. You could tell Tara, Mickey own
• 2:44
  was taking it real easy on that drill, easier compared to the
• 2:48
  other team mates. So it's an issue.
• 2:50
  It's it's an injury issue. She's coming back for the final.
• 2:53
  She's going to gut through it. This is why the the players
• 2:55
  play. I think it it bears watching.
• 2:59
  Definitely bears watching. I think we're going to see.
• 3:01
  I'm I'm very curious to see that Washington attack a who lines up
• 3:06
  one one of the biggest things that was the thing that blew me
• 3:09
  away this week talking to GIF Monday a little bit about the
• 3:12
  chemistry that her and Rose quasi have developed.
• 3:15
  Her first thing that she said is Rose and I can't communicate
• 3:18
  verbally. She she speaks French, I speak
• 3:20
  English. I, I tried to talk to Rose at
• 3:23
  media day. Can confirm.
• 3:25
  Rose is not talking to you, not not talking any English, which
• 3:28
  makes it all the more incredible what they've been able to do
• 3:32
  now. I think Rodman is a good enough
• 3:33
  player that, you know, can kind of kind of slot in, in and
• 3:37
  around anything that's going on and be additive.
• 3:40
  But do you think Washington needs a contribution from
• 3:44
  Rodman? So if Rodman doesn't play, do
• 3:46
  they have enough to get the job done?
• 3:49
  It's going to be close. I think anytime you have one of
• 3:53
  the 5 best wingers in the world, at worst you would really like,
• 3:59
  you would certainly really like a contribution from them in the
• 4:02
  biggest spot. Think of how Rodman played in
• 4:05
  the Olympics where she was the absolute game wrecker against
• 4:08
  great teams like Germany. So do they need it to win?
• 4:14
  I think I'm 60% there. They can win without a major
• 4:19
  contribution from her, but damn it would make things a hell of a
• 4:22
  lot easier if she does contribute.
• 4:23
  Yeah, no doubt. And I think I want to talk a
• 4:27
  little bit too about the vibes. You know, you got to see a
• 4:30
  little bit. I've been here a couple days.
• 4:32
  I'm obviously based here in the base, so I got a little bit of a
• 4:34
  head start. But I asked Kingsbury and Tara
• 4:38
  McEwen about it at the presser because the vibes at the
• 4:42
  Challenge Cup were icy, like icy.
• 4:45
  And I don't know if that was a UNR rod, this effect.
• 4:47
  And after they won, it was a little bit, you know, a little
• 4:50
  bit of, you know, the release valve got, you know, kind of
• 4:52
  like undone there. But I was a little shocked to
• 4:56
  show up this week and just see every single player in the
• 4:59
  absolute highest of spirits. And I don't know if it's a
• 5:03
  confidence thing or if it's a hey, this is the end of the
• 5:06
  season thing or, I don't know, a last dance kind of thing.
• 5:09
  But they seem incredibly confident.
• 5:15
  I don't want to say, you know, they don't they don't seem
• 5:16
  cocky. But on the flip side, got them.
• 5:20
  You know what, raise my antenna, Roosevelt, you asked her a great
• 5:24
  question at the presser, used the phrase icing on the cake.
• 5:28
  And I was like, I'm not sure if Gotham is really feeling like
• 5:34
  they're at at the same level. Obviously they feel like they
• 5:36
  can win. They they think they can win.
• 5:37
  They're going to show up to win. But I wonder if there's some
• 5:40
  resignation there. It's an interesting point.
• 5:43
  I was surprised that she used the term icing on the cake.
• 5:46
  I mean, basically the the context of my question was
• 5:49
  you're a World Cup winner. She has a goal in a World Cup
• 5:52
  final that her team won. You got Jess Carter, European
• 5:56
  champion, champion. We've talked about burgers, big
• 5:58
  game pedigree, Emily Sonnets in there.
• 6:00
  There's a World Cup winner. And you know, she it's not like
• 6:06
  Lavelle like dodged the question, but it was like, yeah,
• 6:08
  look, we get ready for the big games.
• 6:10
  And she really did hammer home the point that a final is the
• 6:14
  culmination of all the moments within that ecosystem of a
• 6:18
  single season, which I did think could make a made a lot of
• 6:20
  sense. But I do I, you know, and
• 6:24
  obviously when the press conference, I don't have the
• 6:25
  ability to ask the follow up right there.
• 6:28
  It would have been a goofy follow up to ask, but they
• 6:30
  finished eighth. They made it to the final.
• 6:36
  What's the cake if if winning the title is the icing is is
• 6:41
  just making it to the final the the actual cake that she's
• 6:44
  referring to? It's, I mean, I don't know if it
• 6:46
  was, I mean it from an outsider point of view, it's probably
• 6:50
  getting on track, you know, like, you know, since the title,
• 6:54
  it's been a soul. It's a whole been a whole
• 6:56
  rigmarole of like, you know, doing an undoing to get all the
• 6:59
  way back to this point feels like it's been a whole, you
• 7:02
  know, it's funny, like in literal 360 to get back to where
• 7:05
  they are. And obviously there's been so
• 7:06
  much turnover. You know, it's a great question.
• 7:11
  And I think the other thing I wanted to hit, I asked that Jade
• 7:15
  and Shaw that question a few moments before and she mentioned
• 7:20
  the first 5-10 minutes of the match, you know, and before we
• 7:24
  were having lunch earlier, you brought up Mitch Purse, who I
• 7:27
  think is another player to watch who probably would be putting it
• 7:31
  mildly. I'm going to be watching Mitch
• 7:32
  Purse very closely because that's a big game player.
• 7:35
  It's a big championship, you know, like level type, I'm going
• 7:38
  to perform type player. But Jaden Shaw used the phrasing
• 7:43
  the first 5-10 minutes of the match.
• 7:45
  And I think doing a temperature check on how the spirits looking
• 7:50
  and feeling and moving, you know, through the stadium and,
• 7:53
  and through everything that's going on, I wouldn't be
• 7:55
  surprised if Gotham has really keyed in on that first 5-10
• 7:59
  minutes. Midge Burse, Jaden Shaw, Rose,
• 8:03
  Lavelle, I'm not sure. Whoever, whoever ends up being
• 8:06
  Astaire, whoever ends up being like, however, whatever the
• 8:08
  setup ends up being, I think they've identified that first
• 8:11
  5-10 minutes as a potential turning point.
• 8:14
  And you have two super veteran teams.
• 8:17
  A1 NIL lead in a match like this.
• 8:19
  Massive. I think it's a great point.
• 8:21
  And it definitely raised the antenna when Shaw brought that
• 8:25
  up. Makes me think about, you know,
• 8:27
  the what, what are the first 5-10 minutes of the second-half
• 8:29
  look like, too? Like if you kind of, you know,
• 8:31
  segment the match like that and we talked about it.
• 8:35
  I mean, you know, with with Bernal, with Hirschfeld, with
• 8:39
  Morgan, you got to you got to create a little bit of magic to
• 8:44
  beat that defense, especially with Kingsbury back there.
• 8:46
  I mean, obviously you could say something similar about Gotham's
• 8:49
  defense with Sonic Carter and on Katrin Berger.
• 8:53
  But yeah, it might. It definitely felt like Shaw
• 8:57
  honed in on the idea of a quick start.
• 9:01
  But I will say when you do have Quasi playing the way she's
• 9:05
  playing Monday, Bethune, Rodman, Cantore, if you score in the 1st
• 9:11
  5 minutes, to borrow a phrase from two people we very much
• 9:14
  admire, specifically Raj Bennett from Men and Blazers, you might
• 9:17
  score too early. And then you might, you know,
• 9:20
  the other team might get back at it.
• 9:22
  Absolutely. I mean, you know, Gotham does.
• 9:26
  I, I would it, it's an interesting point because I
• 9:30
  would favor Gotham in a situation where they did score
• 9:34
  early and they could sit back and use some of that guile.
• 9:38
  You know, like if it's up and down and it's, you know, nil,
• 9:41
  nil and it's both teams trying to grab something.
• 9:44
  It's almost like 2 boxers and you're, you're, you're the one
• 9:46
  with less power and you're exchanging punches, right?
• 9:48
  Like it's not a situation you want to be in.
• 9:51
  So that could follow, you know, in terms of like Gotham's logic.
• 9:55
  Hey, let's let's score early because that is our road map for
• 9:58
  winning. We lock in defensively.
• 10:01
  I mean, try beating on Katrin Berger in a get in a big match.
• 10:04
  I mean, I think, you know, I, I just speak to our media day.
• 10:09
  I mean, you could see how it is that she's able to do what she's
• 10:13
  able to do. Like her level of, you know,
• 10:15
  locked in this. And I and I asked a few of the
• 10:17
  Gotham players this at media day because I was really curious.
• 10:22
  My question was, do you feel like this team has reached their
• 10:25
  potential or are you is there still another level to go with
• 10:31
  one game left and and is that going to work out?
• 10:34
  I'll say most of the players, most of the Gotham players
• 10:36
  didn't really engage with it on Katrin Berger was like, yeah,
• 10:38
  there's another level. You know, like life is about
• 10:41
  improvement and that's what I'm about.
• 10:42
  And it's like I should, I think she said specifically, I hope
• 10:45
  there's another level, which I thought was awesome.
• 10:48
  But I, I, I think that is probably the recipe for Gotham.
• 10:52
  I want to talk about Washington, though.
• 10:56
  Adrian Gonzalez, the depressor today used the term dangerous to
• 11:01
  describe Gotham's attack. That kind of, you know, got me
• 11:06
  thinking about how aggressive Washington might be.
• 11:10
  Will they be. We talked about Bernal and
• 11:12
  Mccune getting up field, getting up and back colossi, you know,
• 11:16
  as a as a full back. How aggressive do you think
• 11:18
  Washington's going to be? And then what do you think?
• 11:20
  What do you think they're thinking that that their recipe
• 11:22
  is for victory? Thinking about all of the mind
• 11:27
  games and the tactics and everything that goes into this.
• 11:31
  So if it is apparent early in the match that Gotham isn't
• 11:36
  going to go full attack, press hard, run forward, try to get a
• 11:41
  stare into some space. In that press conference, Tara
• 11:45
  Mickey own pointed out specifically in response to one
• 11:48
  of my questions was that a stare is great at winning the ball in
• 11:51
  the air, even though she, even if she is a little, you know,
• 11:54
  diminutive height wise. I thought that was interesting
• 11:57
  that she specifically called out a stare skill at winning aerial
• 12:01
  balls. If you're Washington, OK, if
• 12:05
  they're going to if Gotham's going to run at us, how quickly
• 12:08
  can we go from either Bernal or Mickey own up to Hirschfeld or
• 12:15
  up to Bethune and then try to unlock on the counter?
• 12:18
  And, you know, we know we have that.
• 12:20
  We know they have that in their game.
• 12:21
  You think about colossi and Monday too.
• 12:24
  Can you just get the ball forward?
• 12:25
  I mean, I feel like every time we talk about this, we just have
• 12:28
  to have to list every player. What if you get the ball to
• 12:30
  Cantoria, right? Like she could tell me.
• 12:33
  And then by the way, Trinity Rodman is one of the best in the
• 12:36
  world on the wing doing that. So I, you know, Geraldes and
• 12:42
  Amaros, they both skew maybe a wee bit conservative.
• 12:47
  Maybe Amaros more than a little bit conservative in in some of
• 12:50
  his game planning. So we we might be in for a no,
• 12:56
  no, you take the ball. No, no, no.
• 12:57
  You take the ball from both sides of the team as both sides
• 13:00
  kind of look for the counter. So that probably sets us up for,
• 13:06
  you know, it's tough to say because Washington does feel
• 13:11
  like a team with the upper hand. But in those matches where the
• 13:15
  chances are fewer and further between, little cagier, a little
• 13:18
  trickier. Does Gotham have, like, those
• 13:22
  special moment type players? I asked Jaden Shaw specifically
• 13:26
  about the free kick in Orlando. What's going through your mind?
• 13:28
  How do you do that? What was it?
• 13:29
  Yeah. I wanted to know as much as
• 13:30
  possible about that free kick. I don't think I'll ever forget
• 13:33
  it. It was just such a soul, soul
• 13:35
  question for your boy. But does Gotham have like, are
• 13:40
  they better equipped for a match that's nil, Nil in the 80s when
• 13:45
  you know, there's a chance every 10 minutes.
• 13:47
  You look at rows, you look at Jaden Shaw, you look at Astaire,
• 13:51
  who probably just needs, you know, we, we talked about that
• 13:53
  stat earlier this year, how efficient she is, how few box
• 13:57
  touches she needs to get goals and shots on target.
• 14:00
  I don't know, man, if if I'm watching that now all of a
• 14:03
  sudden, maybe I'm, I'm thinking maybe we crank up the
• 14:05
  aggressiveness to make sure that we're not in that position.
• 14:09
  I think it's a fairpoint. I mean, it's such a tough
• 14:12
  question. I mean, you know, any time you
• 14:14
  have two teams in a final like this, and I know like the
• 14:17
  regular season plays a huge part in the seeding and who even
• 14:21
  qualifies for like a cup like this.
• 14:25
  But these are, you know, these are two absolutely loaded teams.
• 14:30
  And as you try to do the calculus of who has more
• 14:34
  players, who can produce a super special moment, feels kind of
• 14:40
  like a push. I mean, it's really, really
• 14:42
  close without. Rodman's for sure.
• 14:44
  Yes, and I think, I think I still lean Washington spirit to
• 14:50
  answer your question. Yeah, I, I think I do as well
• 14:53
  just because I feel like they're going to be able to make it
• 14:56
  their kind of game versus a nil, nil game.
• 14:58
  But if it's nil, nil at halftime and you know, you look at the
• 15:02
  shot chart and 5 to 4 Gotham's probably high fiving in the
• 15:07
  dressing room if it's that kind of match up, because to your
• 15:10
  earlier point, who's getting the ball up field?
• 15:13
  I I keep thinking about that corner last week, Hirsch felt
• 15:18
  one action and Kiwasi's off and it's a two on two.
• 15:21
  And you know, you get the the Kiwasi GIF Monday connection,
• 15:25
  which I asked GIF Monday about. And in a in an amazing moment,
• 15:29
  she admitted to me that even though the chemistry she called
• 15:32
  the the chemistry had divine connection.
• 15:35
  I love it, which was beautiful. And then she also mentioned that
• 15:39
  they can't communicate verbally because Rose Quasi doesn't only
• 15:43
  speaks French, not English and GIF Money doesn't speak French.
• 15:45
  There you go and they don't need it.
• 15:47
  I mean, they speak the same. They speak a similar type of
• 15:50
  football to them. And I think Gonzalez has done a
• 15:53
  good job with that. I think the players kind of
• 15:54
  spoke to that like obviously Geraldus has like a part in
• 15:58
  that, right? Like instilling that culture.
• 15:59
  He gets hired, he brings Gonzalez with them, but they
• 16:03
  they have a connectivity in that team, which was, again, I'll
• 16:08
  mention it, everybody take a drink for how many times I've
• 16:10
  mentioned this match when they came out of the international
• 16:12
  break and they what I thought really took it to Portland
• 16:16
  Thorns. And I was just looking at at
• 16:18
  their their chemistry as a as a side.
• 16:23
  I was like, oh boy, they're going to get they're going to be
• 16:25
  really hard to beat. And here they are in the final.
• 16:28
  Yeah, no doubt. And then tomorrow game day,
• 16:31
  which for Gift Monday means it's Gold Day.
• 16:33
  Oh God. That's best quote everybody,
• 16:36
  please. I mean, I'm sure you already
• 16:38
  have, but if you have not had a chance yet, please watch the
• 16:41
  media day video that Dino put together from his great
• 16:43
  questions. Hit us with the Gift Monday
• 16:46
  quote please, to your recollection.
• 16:49
  So so yeah, I basically just asked her, you know, what is it
• 16:53
  like to be in that kind of zone? You know, like, how do you get
• 16:55
  prepared? And she was just like, you know,
• 16:57
  some, some game days I wake up and I'm not really fully feeling
• 17:01
  myself. And I kind of, you know, kind of
• 17:02
  paraphrasing, you've got to kind of shake it off.
• 17:04
  And then, you know, just reminds herself that, you know what,
• 17:06
  it's game. Game day is goal day basically.
• 17:08
  And I was just like, where can I, I, I want to put that in an
• 17:12
  ITCT shirt of some sort of just because I just want to, I want
• 17:15
  to live that. I mean, honestly, I want to go
• 17:17
  back. I'm going to do this next week
• 17:19
  because I'm in full like game analysis mode.
• 17:22
  But, and maybe it's because I'm an older guy at this point in my
• 17:24
  life, but I love asking about mindset, you know, like teasing
• 17:30
  out that wisdom, understanding, like the mentality and like, you
• 17:33
  know, just kind of like process and all that kind of stuff.
• 17:35
  And some of the things that I got just absolute brilliance
• 17:40
  from the like you mentioned gift Monday on Kutchenberger, Jess
• 17:43
  Carter, like you just get a window into like Lacey Santos,
• 17:48
  how they see and think about competing and reaching the
• 17:52
  pinnacle of their potential. And it's just so inspiring and
• 17:56
  so moving to hear, you know, these players talk about I'm
• 17:59
  getting I'm getting a little like, you know, moved recounting
• 18:02
  it. It's just a very, very cool
• 18:04
  opportunity for us to be out of here.
• 18:06
  But what I'm going to do is I'm going to go back, pull some of
• 18:09
  those quotes because I definitely want to share them on
• 18:11
  a future episode. Just awesome moments, things
• 18:13
  that I'm I'm not going to forget even though in the moment I've
• 18:15
  I've forgotten them. It's a whirlwind out here.
• 18:19
  Look, I mean, your boys are covering the the final first
• 18:21
  time in person. A little bit of slack.
• 18:24
  Well, yeah, we'll get the quotes up.
• 18:25
  They had a lot of great things to say.
• 18:26
  Oh yeah, All right, man. Should we get to predictions?
• 18:31
  I think. We're there.
• 18:31
  I'm. Going to kick it to you or
• 18:34
  unless you I can, I'm happy to go first.
• 18:35
  I feel pretty. I'm pretty, I feel pretty
• 18:38
  solidified and and where I'm at. Yeah, go ahead then, please,
• 18:42
  after you. OK.
• 18:43
  I talked about this quite a bit with regards to Kansas City
• 18:46
  current the year of the two NIL, you know, and I think the recipe
• 18:53
  that that Kansas City was using breakthrough at the end of the
• 18:56
  first half, at some point in the first half and then just choke
• 19:00
  the life out of the game. I feel like you look at those
• 19:03
  defenders on Washington, Bernal, Hirschfeld, McKeon, you know,
• 19:08
  even Wiesner had an unbelievable game last week.
• 19:11
  Hirschfeld back there supporting.
• 19:14
  I just feel like they have the ability to, you know, just choke
• 19:19
  the life out of the game if they can get the lead.
• 19:22
  The big question is can they get the lead?
• 19:24
  And I think that's basically where my prediction is hinged
• 19:27
  upon. You know, I I, you know, there's
• 19:30
  been talk about Trinity Rodman. How many minutes can she go?
• 19:34
  And I feel like if I'm Adrian Gonzalez, I'm probably being
• 19:37
  like I I'd like to start Trinity Rodman, please.
• 19:41
  And then you whenever she however, however many minutes we
• 19:44
  get or whenever we want to make the call, we make the call.
• 19:47
  But it could be that it could be a a goal in the 1st 10 minutes.
• 19:51
  And now all of a sudden the, the the the stack of chips that
• 19:55
  Gotham was staring at it just tripled in size.
• 19:57
  So I think my prediction give me two nil to the Washington Spirit
• 20:03
  Player of the match, Rose Kowosi.
• 20:05
  OK, love it. I, I think it works.
• 20:08
  Now there are only two of us, so it makes it less tricky.
• 20:11
  But we're going to do the thing. We're going to do the media
• 20:14
  thing where the graphic across the bottom is all the same team
• 20:17
  and everybody goes, oh, so you're all on this team, huh?
• 20:21
  But look, I mean. Everybody's picking the Cowboys.
• 20:23
  Exactly. So I, I got to do it.
• 20:26
  I mean, you know, I've been talking about how much I love
• 20:28
  the way the Washington Spirit plays football, maybe somewhat
• 20:32
  to their chagrin, after they beat Seattle Rain FC.
• 20:34
  And I kept asking their Play Rain players and Laura Harvey
• 20:38
  like man, Washington's really good Hon And.
• 20:40
  They're just like aha. Yeah, cool.
• 20:42
  Thanks for the questions. But.
• 20:45
  I am going to go with I'm going to go with one Nil Washington
• 20:50
  spirit and I'm going to say the goal comes from Kroy Bethune
• 20:54
  sometime between the 60th and the 70th, 75th minute.
• 20:58
  So that that second round of the second-half, so to speak, I
• 21:03
  think she produces a moment of magic.
• 21:06
  And I mean, as I've said on this program, I consider myself the
• 21:10
  world's foremost Croy Bethune stockholder.
• 21:13
  You can't give me this opportunity with her in the
• 21:15
  final, the NWS championship. Pardon me to to solidify that.
• 21:22
  I I had a great time talking to Hal Hirschfeld this week at
• 21:25
  media day. Can I tack on Hal Hirschfeld
• 21:29
  threw ball up the center of the park to set Kroy up to kind of
• 21:32
  like, you know, blow the top off the game.
• 21:34
  Game-winning assist to to great friend of the ball Hal
• 21:37
  Hirschfeld. That's what we were talking
• 21:39
  about. I mean, you know, if if Gotham
• 21:40
  is going to press, you know, maybe you have, you know, an
• 21:44
  attack where it's it's purse and it's a stare.
• 21:47
  It doesn't pan out. The ball gets to Hirschfeld.
• 21:50
  She plays it up through Bethune. We've seen, we've seen Bethune
• 21:53
  on the break in multiple different spots.
• 21:55
  We've seen her shoot from distance.
• 21:56
  I think it's on the board. You mentioned Mitch Purse, Shout
• 22:00
  out to Gretchen too. Great for the pot as well.
• 22:04
  Mitch Purse. I think if I had a 10th of a
• 22:08
  take chip to rewind back a couple years for us, I might put
• 22:12
  it on Mitch Purse making a big impact in this match because we
• 22:17
  talked about those first 5-10 minutes being like potential,
• 22:20
  you know, smash and grab territory.
• 22:22
  What a what a player like. I mean, Gotham kind of has a, a,
• 22:25
  a, a great setup between Perce and Jaden Shaw.
• 22:28
  You can you can see something like that flipping the game over
• 22:33
  after a a Washington spirit side has got maybe earned the first
• 22:36
  3-4 chances of the match. So I would definitely pay very
• 22:39
  close attention to Mitch Perce, very close attention to Jaden
• 22:42
  Shaw because I think it can definitely flip my prediction.
• 22:45
  And I just want to make sure you hit that before we got out here.
• 22:47
  I mean, that's the thing with these two teams is that, like,
• 22:50
  how many times have I keep going?
• 22:52
  Yeah, How many times have I talked about Rose Lavelle being
• 22:54
  one of my favorite footballers who's ever lived?
• 22:57
  And like, if we're sitting there in the 37th minute and Lavelle
• 23:01
  gets downhill and scores a goal, then I'm just going to be like,
• 23:04
  Oh yeah, sure, that like, of course that happened.
• 23:08
  Yeah, I was so glad you got a question into Rose, which
• 23:10
  excellent question by the way. Great answer.
• 23:12
  You're going to chop those up to get those onto the YouTube and
• 23:17
  to our various channels of. Course.
• 23:19
  Is there anything else, Mr. Grand Angle?
• 23:21
  Obviously we'll be at the final. We'll be at the Championship
• 23:24
  tomorrow. I'm not sure when we're going to
• 23:26
  pod. We'll figure, we'll figure
• 23:28
  figure that part out later, but we'll we'll definitely have a
• 23:30
  post game pod at some point before drive time on Monday
• 23:33
  morning. I like it.
• 23:35
  I think we can aspire to that, but is there anything else you
• 23:38
  want to hit in our official NWSL Championship preview before we
• 23:43
  call it an episode? I don't know if this, you know,
• 23:46
  we're going to make the decision is this video, is this is this
• 23:50
  audio only? It's video.
• 23:51
  OK, It's video, so non football related.
• 23:55
  I'm sitting in the in the lower chair.
• 23:58
  You're a son of a bitch for having me sit in the lower
• 24:00
  chair. You're already an inch and a
• 24:01
  half taller than me and now I'm sitting in the lower chair.
• 24:03
  Dino's not ten inches taller than me, just to be clear.
• 24:07
  He's. 6 foot three I'm six. 1 1/2 Don't forget my half.
• 24:11
  Confirm. I can confirm this.
• 24:12
  And so all right, it's fine. I think it's just the way the
• 24:15
  seating worked out. I just want to make sure for the
• 24:17
  record, as an old man who you know, may be a little sensitive
• 24:21
  about his height, 61 and a half, I look tiny compared to you in
• 24:24
  this, this seating. Setup.
• 24:26
  Well, you got me out here looking like JJ Redick with this
• 24:28
  tiny mic. We keep it moving.
• 24:31
  That's fair. You know what?
• 24:32
  It's a working progress First first live pod.
• 24:35
  Yeah. So just to be clear, nothing
• 24:36
  else you want to hit before we got here?
• 24:37
  No, I think that's it. Yeah, that that that about
• 24:39
  doesn't. All right, thank you for
• 24:41
  watching, listening, hanging out with your boys.
• 24:44
  If you want to support the show, patreon.com session to the
• 24:47
  channel, Great way to do that. ITC merch, great way to do that.
• 24:51
  Even better way to do that. Some might say, follow us on
• 24:53
  socials, subscribe to the channels.
• 24:56
  If you're out here in the Bay, if you're going to be at the
• 24:57
  final, I'll be in some ITC gear. I'm going to bring my ITC gear
• 25:01
  at tomorrow. I want to be easily, easily
• 25:02
  recognizable. You'll be able to Fact Check
• 25:05
  Grant's height tomorrow. If you're in the building and
• 25:08
  you run into your boys. Happy to see you, happy to say
• 25:10
  hello. But yeah, with that said, I
• 25:13
  think, I think we did it. I think we completed this
• 25:15
  preview, man. I appreciate you bro.
• 25:16
  I appreciate you. And yeah, if you want to Fact
• 25:19
  Check the height, you know, I guess I shouldn't be too
• 25:22
  sensitive about my height being taller than six, but don't try
• 25:25
  me out there. You don't want that.
• 25:28
  But yeah, if ready. Usually.
• 25:30
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for anybody who is out
• 25:34
  here, I think our pal Gretchen might be around Michael Cocaine,
• 25:37
  friend of the show. Oh.
• 25:38
  Let's go contentful please. I really hope the the ITC hoodie
• 25:42
  reached great friend of the pod. Let's go.
• 25:44
  So yeah, let us know. Hit us, you know, drop in the
• 25:47
  comments, hit us up in the DMS on Blue Sky, whatever you want
• 25:49
  to do. We'd love to say hello to any of
• 25:51
  our Internet bouts out there. You gonna see him next time?
• 25:55
  Oh shit, yeah, you did toss it up to me.
• 25:57
  See again, work in progress. So yeah, maybe for some of you,
• 26:00
  not only will we see you next time, we'll see you at the
• 26:02
  match. But thank you everybody for
• 26:03
  supporting the show and we will see you all.
• 26:06
  Next time.